B. The Inefficacy of the Aforesaid Reasons

27. But these reasons do not seem to be necessarily conclusive.

1. About the First Reason

28. The first [nn.17-24] does not for it consists principally in these two propositions: ‘being simply is the effect of God’, and ‘being simply is the proper term of creation’.

29. The first proposition seems false, because any efficient cause that generates a composite is also efficient cause of the being of the composite. But some composites are generated by created causes, unless the whole action of created things is to be taken away;     therefore etc     .

30. Proof of the major:

First because, according to the Philosopher in Physics 5.1.225a15-16, generation is generation to being.

31. Second by reason, because it is by the action of whatever generates a composite that the form of the composite exists in matter. But a form’s being in matter is the composite’s possession of being. Otherwise its being will either naturally follow or naturally precede the composite that is the term of the generation. If it precedes then the being of the composite exists before the composite itself does, which is not intelligible. If it follows, then a composite could, without contradiction, be produced by an agent without God giving being to that composite; indeed God could simply not give being, since he acts only contingently outside himself.

32. Nor does it help to imagine that being does not come from what generates the composite but yet necessarily accompanies the composite, for according to you [n.18] it does not accompany it as the term of the action of the generator itself. So, if being accompanies the composite as term of the first agent and does not precede it (as is plain), then it follows the composite, and so it can, without contradiction, not follow it.

33. The proofs too of this now disproved proposition [n.28, ‘being simply is the proper effect of God’] are not valid:

For the reason adduced for the purpose [n.17] fails in that it is equivocal, or that one or other premise is false. For ‘more universal cause’ can be understood in two ways, namely as to virtue or perfection, or as to predication. Likewise too an effect can be said to be ‘more universal’ in two ways, namely in predication or in virtue or perfection. And that is said to be ‘more universal in predication’ whose idea is predicated of more things; and that is said to be ‘more universal in perfection’ whose perfection is greater in itself and contains more perfections.

34. If then in the major premise [‘It is necessary to reduce effects more universal to causes more universal’] ‘more universal’ is taken in the same way for both cause and effect, I concede the major. For a more common effect can be reduced to a more common cause, and a more perfect effect requires a more perfect cause (if there can be a more perfect cause).

35. But if in the major ‘more universal’ is taken as ‘more universal in perfection’ for both cause and effect, there is equivocation, or the minor [‘the most universal of all effects is being itself’] is false. For the minor is only true of universality in predication (as is evident), for being is not the most perfect effect, for what is included in many things cannot be more perfect than any of the things in which it is included.a So the conclusion that follows is that the effect is reduced to a cause more universal in predication.

a.a [Interpolation] but being is included in any effect, however imperfect;     therefore etc     . But if in the major and minor ‘more universal’ is taken as ‘more universal’ in predication, then both are true and the conclusion is...

36. But then further ‘God is of this sort’ [sc. ‘God is the most universal cause’— added in the argument by Thomas but left implied above by Scotus], the minor is false. Indeed, God is the most universal cause in perfection, but being is the most universal cause in predication. And then the conclusion can only be that being can only be the effect of being, which I concede.a

a.a [Interpolation] But if ‘more universal’ in both premises is taken for ‘more universal in perfection’, then the major is true and the minor is false, as is plain from what has been said; indeed, the effect most universal in perfection is the noblest of creatable things.

37. But if in the major ‘more universal’ is taken in different senses, namely different on the side of the cause and effect (as that on the side of the effect it is taken for ‘more universal in predication’ and on the side of the cause for ‘more universal in perfection’), the major is false. For an effect more universal in predication can be from an imperfect cause, since being is found in several imperfect effects.

38. The other proof [n.17], taken from the author of On Causes, establishes the opposite. For it does not absolutely deny that being is given by the intelligence to something; rather it affirms it the more, because it says that to give being only belongs to the intelligence insofar as the intelligence operates through divine operation.

39. Even if addition to the proposition from On Causes be made through proposition 4, ‘The first of created things is being’, the conclusion, that being is precisely the term of creation, does not follow. For according to some people, ‘being’ there is taken for the first intelligence next to God, and ‘creation’ is taken there in extended sense for the first production of things in their idea, and firstness of being is taken according to distinction of formal ideas in effect and in origin, and not in perfection, so that the sense is: in the way that ‘being’ in the effect is distinguished from essential perfections, being is the term of the first production of things in their idea.

40. It is said here [n.33], in confirmation of the argument about more universal cause and effect, that it must be understood of an effect more universal in predication, and insofar as it is thus more universal. For (it is said) an effect more universal in predication, insofar as it is such, can only come from a cause more universal in perfection. For although a man can come from a man, yet man insofar as he is ‘man’ cannot come to be save from a cause more perfect than the whole species of man. Therefore, by similarity, ‘being’ insofar as it is such cannot come to be save from a cause more universal in perfection than the whole of creatable being. But being, insofar as it is such, is the term of creation. Hence too is it then first said that being, not as this or that sort of being but simply, is the term of creation [n.17].

41. This confirmation does not work. For it is a response [n.40] posited by the doctor (whose it is) in his question ‘whether it belongs only to God to create’ [n.17]. I presume that he does not mean to ask ‘whether it belongs only to God to create everything creatable’, because this question would then include ‘whether anything else other than God could create itself’, about which no one could ever have doubted, according to Augustine On the Trinity I.1 n.1. Therefore, he means to ask some other doubtful question or conclusion, namely ‘whether anything other than God could create at least something lower than itself’. And about the question or conclusion thus understood he holds, for the reason posited [n.17], the negative side.

42. Let the major then be taken according to this exposition: ‘an effect more universal in predication, insofar as it is such, is from a cause more universal in perfection’; being is of this sort; the conclusion follows: ‘therefore being, insofar as it is such’ or (to give him more for his purpose) ‘therefore creatable being, insofar as it is such, can only be from a cause more universal in perfection than the whole of creatable being.’ From this it does not follow that ‘therefore the being of this creatable thing can only be from such a cause’. For it is plain that in this inference there is a fallacy of the consequent.Sc. The argument proceeds invalidly from a premise about being simply to a conclusion about this or that sort of being in particular. ¹ Therefore, according to this exposition of the first reason, the question is either nothing or, if it raises a doubt and the negative side is held for the reason stated (as thus understood), there is a fallacy of the consequent.

43. But if you say, ‘in any produced thing one is to consider being as it is of this sort and being simply, and in the second way being is the effect of the most universal cause (as the reason proves), but in the first way it is the effect of a particular cause’ -this is not a solution, because the ‘being simply’ in this thing and the ‘being of this sort’ are not so distinguished from each other that the ‘being of this sort’ could be from some cause without the ‘being simply’ in this thing being from the same cause. For whether there is a distinction of reason in the intellect or in any other way, what gives the thing ‘being of this sort’ gives it the ‘being simply’ that is in it.

44. As to what is added also about the instrument [n.18], I say that the major can be understood well or badly.

For when in the major is taken, not that the instrument has its proper action, but that it acts through something proper to itself (and Thomas brings in his proofs for this, which can be conceded), and that yet it does not act through what is proper to it save in virtue of the principal agent (for in any action it may have that is not by virtue of the principal agent, it would not be an instrument in this action but the principal agent) - then it is clear he is taking the instrument to be acting dispositively.

45. But if what is taken in the major is understood universally, it is false, for it is possible (according to him elsewhere [ST IIIa q.62 a.1 ad 2]) that the instrument reach up to the effect of the principal agent. And this is plain in many acts of art, where the artisan sometimes induces through the instrument the term principally intended (as a coin maker stamps the form on the coin through an instrument, and as the seal maker stamps the seal on the wax). Nor is an instrument ever necessary to dispose something for the principal effect, unless it is an instrument in the action that does the disposing for the effect -which is not universally necessary but only when there are several ordered actions, one of which disposes to the other. Absolutely, however, there can be an instrument that is an instrument in the principal action and yet does not concur in any other preceding action.

46. His major then [n.18] cannot be true unless the understanding of it is that an instrument causes, through something proper to itself, a disposition for the principal term - that is, when reaching the principal term is not possible by virtue of the principal agent itself.

47. And then one must suppose in the minor [n.18] that the creature cannot reach the term of creation in virtue of God, and this minor is not proved save by the prior reason about being [n.18], and this reason, as already seen, does not work [nn.38-39, 4243].

48. Nor does the example about the axe [n.18] or the other proofs (that are brought in to show that an instrument has something proper to it through which it acts [n.45]) prove universally that an instrument acts dispositively. An axe acts dispositively for the bench, because the instrument is used in cutting the wood prior to the introducing of the form of the bench. But if the artisan were to use an axe or some other instrument in performing the principal act, it would not be necessary that the instrument (as an instrument for the form of the bench) have some dispositive action.

49. From these examples, then, where he assumes that the instrument disposes something for the principal term, one cannot make this inference about instruments universally without committing a fallacy of the consequent. But if it is not taken universally the idea of creation cannot be removed from the creature, for ‘from a particular major in the second figure nothing follows’, save by a fallacy of the consequent.The argument in n.18 is: (major premise) instruments are things that work dispositively for the principal effect; (minor premise) nothing at work in creation is a thing that works dispositively for the principal effect; (conclusion) therefore nothing at work in creation is an instrument. This syllogism is in the second figure and is only valid if the major premise is universal. But the major premise is false as a universal and only true as a particular. ²

2. About the Second Reason

50. The second principal reason [nn.19-24] does not seem valid, for when the extreme terms are immediate the distance between them is precisely as great as the one extreme is greater than the other.

51. The point is plain in a similar case, for the distance of God from creatures (even from the highest creature that can come to be) is as great as the greatness of God; and therefore, if the highest possible creature were posited, God would still be infinitely distant from it, because God is infinite.

52. It is plain too from an example to the opposite. Distance in quantities arises because of some intervening medium, and so the amount of the distance arises because of the amount of the intervening space. Therefore, by opposition, where there is no intervening medium, the amount of the distance will accord only with the amount of one extreme.

53. This is also plain by reason, for ‘distance’ here [sc. between God and creatures] is nothing but the excess of one extreme over the other. But when the exceeding extreme is immediate to the exceeded extreme, the quantity of the excess is the quantity of the exceeding extreme.

54. On the supposition of this major then [n.50], it is plain that, since some affirmation of creatable being is finite, the distance of this affirmation from the negation will be finite. For it is plain that the distance is immediate, since according to the Philosopher, Posterior Analytics I.2.72a12-13, “contradiction is the opposition of what has no per se middle.”

55. But if you imagine infinity on the part of nothing, this is nothing; because ‘nothing’ is not distant from anything save by deficiency, and the difference of ‘nothing’ from being is no greater than the greatness of the being it is different from.

56. This point too is plain, because there is no distance when one compares nothing with nothing.

57. So therefore the minor of the second reason is false [“between the terms ‘from which’ and ‘to which’ of creation, namely between nothing and being, there is an infinite distance,” n.19], if we understand infinite distance positively, that is, as infinitely exceeding every finite distance.

58. And thus must one understand ‘infinite distance’ in the major [i.e. “only an infinite power can extend over an infinite distance”, n.19] in order for the major to be true. For the infinity of the virtue of the agent that has power for that distance cannot otherwise be proved.

59. The minor [n.19] is disproved also in this way:

For in some contradictions there is a greater distance than in others, because God is distant from non-God more than the soul is distant from non-soul. And no virtue at all can make God from non-God or vice versa. But some virtue can make soul from nonsoul. Now if all contradictions were infinite, no contradiction could be greater than another, since the infinite cannot be exceeded.

60. Again, the virtue that has power for the whole ‘term to which’ has power for the distance between; for, once the ‘term to which’ is in place, the ‘term from which’ is destroyed by the ‘term to which’ that succeeds. But the term is finite, and so one cannot conclude therefrom other than that a finite virtue has power for it; therefore it also has power for the distance between.

61. Again, some natural generation is between form and privation, from Physics 5.1.225a12-16; but privation incudes contradiction (though contradiction in a subject), and so when there is passage from privation to form, there is a passage from negation to affirmation. But it is plain that this natural generation is done by created virtue. Therefore the distance is no problem.

62. How then will the common dictum be preserved that says, ‘between contradictories there is an infinite distance’ [nn. 19-24, 50]?

I reply: this dictum is simply false, taking ‘infinite’ for what infinitely exceeds simply any finite distance whatever. But in another way ‘infinite’ can be taken for ‘indeterminate’, and thus the dictum is true. For no distance is so small that it is not sufficient for contradiction. For however little one draws away from one of the contradictories, one is immediately under the other contradictory. Nor is there any distance so great (even were it possible to be infinitely greater than the greatest) that contradiction does not extend itself to it and to its extremes. And when taking ‘infinite’ in this way in the major [n.19], the major is false.

63. To the proofs, then, for the minor:

As to the first [n.21], when it is said that it is not possible to understand a greater distance than the one cited [sc. a greater than that between nothing and being], I say this is false positively and true permissively. That is to say that some distance does separate things more than some other one does, and that some contradiction does separate things more than some other one does. But the distance in question [between nothing and being] does permit any greatest distance, for it remains true in the greatest distance. An example: the term ‘ass’ indicates greater intensive perfection than the term ‘animal’, yet ‘animal’ permits, or can remain true, in something more perfect than ‘ass’, because it does so in ‘man’. And what is greatest in this way, namely permissively, is not the greatest formally.

64. As to the other proof [n.22], about certain kinds of contradictories, I say that although all contradictories whatever are equally incompossible with each other, yet they are not equally distant. For God is more distant from not-God than white from not-white (the way the first proof [n.21] proceeded), because the positive extreme is greater in comparison to the negation [sc. God is greater than white, though not-God and not-white are equally negations].

65. The same point makes plain the answer to the next proof [n.23]. For the totality of created being exceeds ‘nothing’ more than the soul exceeds not-soul, just as the whole of creatable being is more perfect than the soul. Yet ‘soul combined with not-soul’ is as equally incompossible as ‘nothing combined with the totality of being’. This argument, however, does not support the proposed thesis.

66. As to the reason made next [n.24], about the lack of proportion between nopower and some power, I concede that the distance between no-power and act does not have any proportion to the distance between some power and act. But this is because the latter is a positive distance (because it is between positive extremes) and the former is not a positive distance (because its other extreme is nothing), and there is no proportion of positive to not-positive, just as neither of being to nothing. But from this lack of proportion does not follow that a virtue that can cover one is not proportionate to the virtue that can cover the other. For one positive only lacks proportion with another positive because of infinity in one of the positives. But in the case of the distances in question, the lack of proportion was not because of infinity in one extreme, but because the other extreme did not have any quantity whereby to proportion it. An example: a point lacks proportion with a line because a point has no quantity. To say, then, ‘therefore the virtue that can do this lacks proportion with the virtue that can do that’ is a non sequitur. For a virtue and a virtue are of a nature to have some quantity of the virtue, and consequently to have likewise a proportion between them, unless one of them is infinite. But in the case here [n.24] the lack of proportion is because of a lack of quantity in the other extreme.

3. About the Third Reason

67. The third initial reason [n.25] does not conclude. For either it assumes in the major that the secondary agent presupposes the effect of the first agent as the matter on which it acts, and then it begs the question, namely that every agent other than God acts on some presupposed passive thing. Or it understands the major absolutely, namely that a secondary agent does absolutely presuppose an effect of the first agent, which I concede, because of course it presupposes itself, just as acting presupposes being, and being is the effect of the first agent.

68. As to the induction [n.25], which seems to prove the minor according to the first way of taking the major [n.67], I say that if art has power for some form yet it only has power for some merely accidental form. But an accident necessarily requires a substance for its actual subject. So what follows is not that an artisan (by the fact he is an agent subordinate to nature) requires or presupposes an effect of nature as his own passive subject, but rather that he acts for the sort of term that requires a substance, and art has no power to produce a substance. But it is very plain that this is not because of an order of agents, for nature presupposes in its action an effect of nature as its passive subject, just as in the case of alteration it presupposes a substance. Therefore, there is a common cause on the part of nature and on the part of art in presupposing a substance, namely when they act to produce an accident that can only be produced in a substance.

69. But if some corporeal substance were immediately produced by God without any action of nature, art could nevertheless act on the passivity of it, provided the corporeal substance were capable of the term of the art and provided the effect of nature had preceded in it.

70. It is likewise plain that the argument from the order of agents [n.25], by distinguishing several orders of agents, is not valid. For in the order of natural agent one can find a material agent that is lower and an immaterial agent that is higher. But it does not follow that the material agent presupposes the effect of a created immaterial agent; nor does it follow that, if the material agent presupposes an effect of God immediately on which it acts, therefore the immaterial agent, which is higher, presupposes nothing.

4. About the Fourth Reason

71. The fourth reason [n.26] does not conclude, because the potentiality that is common to creatures (whether it is understood as the creature’s objective potentiality for existence, or whether it is understood as its potentiality as a subject for potentially receiving something or for potentially inhering in a subject, like form or act) is not sufficient for inferring that its action is with motion or change. Rather what follows is that its action, if it is immanent, has the aforesaid potentiality, or that if its action also transitions to another, in the way it does in that which does transition or is in the term of the action, then it has either or both potentialities. But not for this reason does it follow that its act is one that flows or transitions quickly like motion or change.