Sixth Distinction. Third Part. About the Intention of the Minister

90. About the third main point [n.9] I ask two questions: first whether due intention for baptizing is required in the minister who baptizes; second what sort of intention.

Question One. Whether in the Minister who Baptizes there is Required the Due Intention to Baptize

91. As to the first [n.90] argument is made that it is not required:

For an instrument does not have an intention (as is plain about an axe); the baptizer does not cleanse save as an instrument;     therefore etc     .

92. Again, the word and the element [sc. water] alone belong to the essence of baptism;     therefore etc     .These first two arguments were added in the margin, probably by Scotus. They are not answered in the replies to arguments at the end [n.133]. In fact, however, they are basically the same as the objections in nn.113-114, which are answered there in nn.115-132. ⁴²

93. Again, an infidel can baptize (it is plain in Gratian, Decretum part 3, On Consecration, d.4 ch.23), and yet an infidel does not intend it, as it seems, because no one wishes that to be done which he does not believe can be done;     therefore etc     .

94. Again, a drunkard can baptize, according to Augustine, On John tr.5 n.18 (and it is in Lombard’s text);“Those whom a drunkard has baptized, Christ has baptized. I do not fear a drunkard, because I pay attention to the dove, through which is said to me, ‘This is he who baptizes...’” [John 1.33]. ⁴³ but someone like that is not using reason; therefore, he does not have intention

95. To the contrary is the Master in the text [Sent. IV d.6 ch.5 n.1], “As in this sacrament, just as in the others, the form must be kept, so the intention to celebrate it must be kept.”

I. To the Question

96. One must say that intention is necessarily required, because otherwise it would not be a human act.

97. But what kind [of human act]?

It is sufficient that the baptizer intend to do what the Church intends, even though he believe this avails nothing.

98. And Christ established this because of the necessity of baptism, lest the infidelity of the ministers harm those who are to be baptized.

A. The Common Opinion and Assessment of It

99. As to this question, the common position is that intention is required.

100. And for this the following sort of congruence is set down [Richard of Middleton Sent. IV d.6 princ.1 q.2, Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.6 q.1 a.2]: when from two things a third is made, it is necessary that this be done through some third thing that joins them; word and element come together for baptism; therefore, a third thing conjoining them is required. But this thing that does the conjoining cannot be the recipient, because the recipient has the idea of matter and susceptive subject; therefore it must be something in the minister; but such seems only to be intention, because he himself when ministering through his exterior powers (namely the motive power whereby he washes and the expressive power whereby he speaks the words) causes those things as they are distinct.

101. To the contrary: this reasoning does not seem very efficacious, because in a sign that is instituted at will many things come thus together in idea of single sign because of the institutor’s act, though there be nothing else because of which the sign have unity. The thing is plain about circles intersecting each other, adorned with green leaves and many other things, to signify vintage [cf. d.1 n.214].

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

102. I answer therefore by drawing a different distinction about intention as concerns the object with respect to which it is called intention; for a minister can be said to intend either the act that he exercises or the end for which the act is to be exercised.

103. Intention is more properly spoken of in the second way, because it more properly regards the end on account of which the intention is (it is plain in Ord. II d.38 nn.11-12).

104. However it is sometimes taken in the first way, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity IX ch.12 n.18 and frequently elsewhere [XI ch.5 n.9, ch.9 n.16], where he maintains that intention unites intelligence with parent [cf. Ord. I d.3 n.413]. In this way too is intention taken in Physics 2.5.196b15-22, where an agent by intention is distinguished from a natural agent; an agent by intention is said to be acting ‘on purpose’.

1. About Intention as Regard the Act

105. I say, therefore, that the minister must have intention in the first way, namely with respect to the act that he exercises.

106. And the reason for this is because that intention is required in any man who does something non-fortuitously, or who carries something out in accord with human act, in the proper way of speaking of human act, namely an act which is caused by a man through intellect and will.

107. Now this act which the minister ought to exercise must be a human act and not fortuitous; for it is an act to which God has obligated the minister on the minister’s part, and obligated the receiver on the receiver’s part.

108. The act to which someone is obligated is said to be a human act in him, and not casual or fortuitous, because obligation does not fall on things fortuitous. There is obligation also that a man intend what he is obligated to.

2. About Intention as Regard the End

109. But if we speak about intention in the other way, namely because of what end such an act is to be exercised [n.102], I say that the end is double: one is principal and remote, namely that the one baptized become a son of the Kingdom and receive the grace by which he is worthy of eternal life; the other is the proximate and less principal end, namely that the one baptized become a Christian and member of the Church militant; and someone can intend each end either in universal or in particular.

a. Exposition

110. I say therefore that the intention with respect to the ultimate end is in no way required in the one baptizing, because a pagan in no way intends to order to eternal life him whom he baptizes. However, intention with respect to the proximate end is required, and this either in universal or in particular: in particular, namely if he distinctly intend that the one baptized enter into keeping the Christian law; but in general, if he intend to do as regard him what Christians intend or are accustomed to do as regard their own.

111. Now the reason why this intention is required (and not the one in agreement with the ultimate end) is as follows, namely that God wanted this act exercised by the minister to be in him a human act, and not only so that it would be such in nature (because in this it would not be distinguished from any other bathing using other words). But insofar as it is such a human act, it belongs to him as minister carrying out a sign of God. Now he who has a human act intends the end of the act as it is for him a human act; therefore, the minister intends the proximate end of the act the way the act is imposed on him. But the other end, namely to order the one baptized to eternal life, is not the end of this act, as it is a human act, to which end he should be ordering the act in order for it to be for him a human act.

112. Now this is reasonable universally in the use of a practical sign. For if some legislator were to institute in his polity the touching of hands as a practical sign of friendship [cf. d.1 n.237], he would not intend that users of this sign would have a human act precisely about it insofar as it is of the sort it is naturally, but about it insofar as it is such an instituted sign. And if he had made disposition to bring together and make to be observed every such sign, he would not be making this to be kept unless a man carried this act out as it is instituted toward such end.

b. Objections

113. An objection is raised against this as follows:

An instrument should not have a proper action because in a proper action it would not be an instrument but the principal agent; and much more should an instrument not have an intention with respect to an end, but it is enough that it be directed by the principal agent, which does intend the end; now the minister is an instrument of God;     therefore etc     .

114. Again, for a sacrament nothing is per se required save as it is a part or the thing of the sacrament; intention is not a part of the sacrament nor anything of it, because it is not anything sensible; nor is it the thing of the sacrament, because the thing of the sacrament is in him who receives the sacrament.

c. Response to the First Objection

115. To the first [n.113] I say that it is one thing to speak of a second cause and another of an instrument properly speaking.

116. For a second cause has in its being at rest a proper form that is for it the reason for acting in its own order, and this in respect of the same effect in respect of which the first cause acts in its order, so that universally a second cause properly taken attains the effect of the principal cause through its own proper form, though in virtue of the prior cause, because it is subordinated to that cause [supra d.1 nn.167-171].

117. But an instrument, if it be properly posited as active, either does not attain the effect of the principal agent but only some disposition previous to it - and in this way the quality that does the altering is called instrument of the substance for generating substance; but this is not because in its action of altering it is instrument; rather is it a perfect principle of alteration insofar as it could alter substance per se if it existed per se; but for this reason alone is it called an instrument with respect to substance, because it is an agent for a certain form that is disposition for substance; hence it would more properly be said to be a disposing agent in contrast to a perfecting agent than something instrumental in contrast to what is principal.

118. Or if the instrument be posited to be active and yet one that attains the term of the principal agent, nevertheless it is in this distinguished from a second cause, namely that it does not in its being at rest have a form that is a principle of acting in its own order, but it only receives form in actual motion and retains it while actually moving.

119. About each of these three, namely a second cause properly stated [n.116], and an instrumental cause that is dispositive [n.117], and an instrumental cause that is active through a form received in actual motion [n.118], it is false that it does not have a proper intention in the way that a natural agent has a natural intention; because each of these three has a proper form which is for it a principle of acting in its own order, and consequently it has a proper intention, because an intention is consequent to a natural active form in this way.

120. In a fourth way a properly active instrument could be posited, just as it is posited in respect of the whole (when being a principle of operation belongs first to a part and only to the whole through the part). And in this way does the Philosopher call ‘organs’ the parts in accordance with which operation belongs to the whole [cf. d.1 n.317].

121. And this instrument in a way has a proper intention, and in a way does not. For the active form of it is also form of the whole, but it is form of the instrument first; it is form of the whole through the part and not first. For the active form of the whole is form of the whole, but it is form of the whole per se and first and form of the part per se and not first.

122. And in the same way about intention. For there is not here the order of virtue to virtue in its being at rest (as in the first member [n.116]), nor the order of effect to effect (as in the second member [n.117]), nor the order of virtue in its coming to be to virtue in its being at rest (as in the third member [n.118]); rather it is the same virtue, but participated diversely in whole and in part. And about this [fourth] member it could be conceded that the instrument does not have an intention different from the principal agent. Yet neither does the part properly have an action different from what the whole agent has through the part, but it has it in a different way, though it has the same action.

123. An example of the first: the sun and a father with respect to the generation of a son. An example of the second: fire and the heat of it that makes disposition for the generation of another fire. An example of the third: illuminated color and the species of color in the air in respect of altering the eye toward the species or the seeing of color. An example of the fourth: the organ of the nutritive power and the whole animal in respect of the act of nutrition.

124. Beside these four, the name ‘instrument’ is more commonly wont to be said of certain other things, as of the instruments of artisans, from which the name of instrument is first drawn, as of an axe and a saw and the like, examples of which are frequently set down [supra d.1 nn.18, 48, 318, 320, 328; Aquinas Sent. IV d.1 q.1 a.4, q.2 ad 2, ST IIIa q.62 a.1; also Richard of Middleton Sent. IV d.1 princ. 4 q.3]. But these, as was said above [nn.117-118], are not properly active with regard to the effect, not even the principal effect, if the agent reaches the principal effect through such instruments (as a coin minter reaches the figure to be stamped on the coin, which is his principal term, through some instrument). Nor are they properly active with regard to the disposing form, as if the agent act through such instruments for a preliminary disposition (as he acts with an axe for the cutting of wood preliminary to the form of a chest).

125. But yet an instrument in this way, different from the aforesaid four ways, is a motion, susceptive of a prior effect ordered to a later effect, such that what is received in it has an order to the principal term, just like a nearer effect of a cause to a remoter effect; but it does not have any order of causality properly stated.

126. And about such an instrument [nn.124-125] it could be conceded that an instrument does not have a proper action with respect to the effect, because neither does it have any proper active virtue (neither in its being at rest nor in its coming to be); and therefore it is simply not active, nor consequently does it have intention the way intention belongs to an agent.

127. It is plain, then, how the major premise [of the objection, n.113: “an instrument should not have a proper action”] must be understood of an instrument, because it should be understood in the fifth way [nn.124-125], namely that it is not active but receptive of a prior effect, or in the fourth way, about a part in respect of a whole operating through the part.

128. And the minor [n.113, “the minister is an instrument of God”] is false. This is plain as to the way of whole and part [the fourth way, n.120]. But neither is it true of an instrument in the fifth way stated [nn.124-125]. Rather the minister is a second cause with respect to washing, not however as it is washing but as it is sacramental; and therefore, since the minister is an agent and not a natural one, he has a proper intention, the intention that pertains to a knowing agent.

129. But in respect of the principal effect of baptism, namely grace, the minister can be called an instrument with respect to God, in the way in which a dispositive agent is called an instrument of the perfecting agent (in the second way [n.117]). And such an agent does not have a proper intention in respect of the term of the principal agent, but in respect of his own proper term. And so I concede that the baptizer does not need to have an intention in respect of the ultimate effect of baptism, but he does in respect of baptism.

d. Response to the Second Objection

130. As to the second [n.114], one must say that to baptism belong some things as extrinsic, some things as intrinsic; and I concede that nothing belongs to it intrinsically or to its foundation save what is sensible.

131. However, just as an efficient cause is necessarily required for it as extrinsic cause, so there is necessarily required for it what serves as the principle of acting for such efficient cause. Now the ultimate principle determining an intellectual agent to act is intention, because such an agent is cause by command of will of the acts of the other powers that are subject to command of will.

132. When therefore it is said that nothing belongs to the sacrament unless it be something of the sacrament or the thing of it [n.114], this is true of that which is intrinsic either to the sacrament itself or to what is signified by the sacrament. But intention is intrinsic in neither way; it is, however, required on the part of the agent.

II. To the Initial Arguments

133. To the initial arguments:

To the first [n.93] I say that he who does not have faith about the ultimate end does not intend to order him [sc. the one he baptizes] to the ultimate end through baptism; yet as he believes that he [the one baptized] can be ascribed to the sect of the Christians, whether he believes the sect has value or not, he can intend to ascribe him to that sect, or he can more generally intend to do through that act what Christians intend to do about them [those baptized].

134. There is an example of this: for I could, believing that Jews are distinguished from others by circumcision, intend to ascribe the child to the sect or the rite of the Jews, and I could intend that I was doing in his regard [sc. by circumcising him] what Jews intend to do in regard to their own when circumcising them, even though I would not be believing that the circumcision availed him for salvation. In this way too, could certain words of invocation, which male or female magi use, be spoken by someone of good faith over the material that others use them over, intending generally to speak them relative to the end for which they speak them.

135. To the second [94] I say that a drunkard is someone accustomed to drunkenness, and he is not always drunk, nor is he always impeded from the use of reason. Therefore, Augustine states the truth, “I do not fear a drunkard,” a drunkard insofar as accustomed generally to drunkenness (for he is, for this reason, not always drunk), because his bad custom does not prevent the baptism conferred by him from being good. However not when he is drunk, and I mean by this perfectly drunk, so that his reason is totally impeded, but otherwise, when he is not impeded, able to use reason.

Question Two. What Sort of Intention is Required in the Minister who Baptizes

136. To the second proceeding thus - and argument is made that actual intention is required in the one who baptizes.

Because an effect does not proceed from a first act save by means of a second act; habitual intention is as it were a first act; therefore, an act does not proceed from it without actual intention, which holds the place of a second act.

137. On the contrary:

Intention in a minister is no less sufficient for earning merit than for conferring the sacrament; but actual intention is not required for merit; therefore not here either. The proof of the major is that merit does not have an effect save because of the proper effort of the will of him who merits; but the sacrament does not have effect through the motion of anyone’s will but only if no obstacle is put in the way. The proof of the minor is that if actual intention were always required for earning merit, someone distracted in a work he has begun, however perfect the work and with however much perfection begun, would not earn merit because he would not have actual intention.

I. To the Question

138. Here a distinction is commonly drawn between actual and habitual intention, as if these sufficiently divide intention.

139. But it seems that a third member could rationally be added on, and it can be called virtual intention; for he is said to intend actually who has an elicited act with respect to what he intends; he is said to intend habitually who has a habit inclining him to such an act; but there is someone less perfectly intending than in the first way, and more perfectly intending than in the second way; so there is a middle between those members.

140. The proof of the assumption is that, if someone who is intending at the beginning to celebrate mass is afterwards distracted, he does not have actual intention when he is distracted (which is plain because he does not then intend it in act, therefore neither does he will it in act); nor does he have only habitual intention, because someone asleep has such intention; therefore he is disposed in a middle way.

141. And I call this disposition of his ‘virtual intention’, namely because in virtue of some possessed intention he does actually all that he does thereby as by its root, such that this actual intention was the principle directed to all those acts, and he had in himself in virtue the intention proper to each of those acts (as the intention of the end has in itself virtually the intention proper to each thing ordered to the end); and to this extent, while the intention of each thing for the end remains and does not depart from that intention [sc. the intention for the end], the first actual intention remains in all of them virtually.

142. In this way, he who intends to go to SantiagoOr St. James, which is likely a reference to Santiago de Compostela in North West Spain, which was one of the best-known pilgrimage destinations in Medieval Europe. Those who started on this pilgrimage from Paris (where Scotus lectured on and wrote some of what became the Ordinatio) would have to prepare many things for so long a journey on foot. They would typically start from the church of St James, or St-Jacques, in the Latin Quarter of Paris. ⁴⁴ orders, on the basis of this intention, the many things necessary for that end; but while he is carrying out these ordered things he is not always thinking of St James, or of reverence for him. Yet I say he is always meriting because he has always that first intention virtually, wherein the reason for merit principally was; because either he has an intention for things which are for the end that the first intention is for, or he has some acts following from those intentions, even though accompanying those acts are some acts distracting him both from that first intention and from the intentions proper to the things which are for that end.

143. This was made clear in Ord. II dd.4-5 nn.19-20 and in Ord. III d.15 n.62, where it was said that perhaps the martyrs in their acts of undergoing martyrdom had only the virtual intention, because the enormity of the pains perhaps absorbed their use of reason; but the suffering of pains was a certain effect derived from the intention of keeping the faith of God, and therefore, while the suffering thus lasted, the intention always lasted virtually, as in its effect.

144. As to the issue at hand, I say that habitual intention alone in the baptizer is not sufficient, because his act is not called a human act on account of it, even though there be a human act conformed to that habit. For if someone have a habit inclining him to desire of health, if he were to go running in no way intending health but play, he is not said to be pursuing health through any human act but incidentally or fortuitously, no more than if he had had no intention for health; therefore habitual intention alone does not suffice with respect to the end of a human act as human.

145. Nor is actual intention always required in the baptizer, because God has not obligated man to what is impossible or too difficult, of which sort is not being distracted, because Augustine On Free Choice III ch.25 n.255 [cf. n.78], “It is not in our power what things when seen we are touched by.” Nor even has God obligated the minister more in that act than in the carrying out of the acts of the other sacraments. But in confecting the Eucharist, which is the most excellent sacrament, he did not obligate man not to be distracted but that he who before is intending to celebrate it (though in speaking the words of the sacrament he is distracted) has nevertheless truly confected it.

146. From these things I conclude that virtual intention is sufficient in the baptizer, that is, that he sometime had actual intention from which comes the act now of baptizing, whether he have or not have in this act some actual intention or other that comes from the former one. But I mean that this act will have come from the former without any contrary motion of will intervening - just as if someone, while dressing for mass, intend to celebrate according to the use of the Roman Church and he therefrom proceed continuously with great distraction, perhaps in accord with some habit left behind in his imagination, he truly does what is necessary for the sacramental act, which is to confect.

147. If it be asked how some effect that now is can be reduced to that first intention as to its cause, if that intention now is not, nor any other intention commanding that act - the answer is it is through a certain virtue impressed on a virtue that moves through an actually intending will; and as long as that impressed virtue remains, the moving virtue moves. The result is that if someone were to intend to go to the place and afterwards on the way think of other things, in the actual volition some actual impression on the motive power was coming to be; and as long as that impression moves toward the willed-for term and the man continues, little by little the impression lessens and at length fails and the man cease from motion. Then it is said that the man does not have the virtual intention save while he has the effect impressed by the actually intending will on the inferior power.

148. But it seems marvelous how the will could be a factive virtue, causing such a form in this organic power; it is also marvelous if it were caused in the place from which it was little by little departing.

149. If can therefore be said that in the sense appetite, or in the imagination, there is some disposition according to which it moves when the act of will commanding them ceases.

150. Or differently to the issue at hand: because whether the will, while actually intending, leaves something behind in the lower powers or not, yet it possesses in orderly way its volitions with respect to the end and with respect to the things that are for the end. And when it will have reached one of them and commanded an act of the corresponding inferior power, that commanded inferior act can remain although neither the first nor the second intention remain; and while the act remains, however much the will is distracted, the virtual intention is said to remain.

II. To the Initial Arguments

151. As to the first argument [n.136], I concede that some act is required for the effect to be, and that that act can be said to be what the external effect is produced by.

152. But if you are looking for some act according to which the operation is that is immanent to the agent, there is no need to grant that there is such an act then remaining when the exterior act is elicited - just as it is manifest that many effects are caused when actual motion of a cause acting through intellect (by which those effects are produced) does not remain.

153. And an example can be posited in natural things, because when a pebble is thrown into water, the first ring is cause of the second ring, and so on; but the first does not always remain as long as the second does, nor the second as long as the third does; so too universally in the motion of things that are thrown, the first part, and the one locally closer to the mover, is moved before a remote part is.