IV. Scotus’ Opinion as to the Second Question

323. To the second question [n.269] the answer is plain from the same point [nn.321-322], that it is not manifestly possible, nor in any way necessary, to posit the virtue that is a real form in the sacrament. For to what purpose would this form be so many times generated and so many times corrupted? Nor, if it were posited, would anything be caused by it in the soul; nor would it even be caused regularly save by divine pact or agreement with the Church. And thus, without so many superfluous intermediaries in the water and the soul, the claim can be saved that the divine pact is immediate in regard to conferring the effect on the recipient of the sacrament.

324. But if, because of the authorities [nn.270, 276], a dispute is raised about the word ‘virtue’, one can say that a virtue is in one way ‘the ultimate in power’, from On the Heavens 1.11.281a10-12. But the ultimate in power of a practical sign is that it be effective in signifying, that is, signify beforehand and with certitude; for no greater power could belong to a sign insofar as it is a practical sign.

325. However, such virtue can be admitted to exist in the sacrament. But this virtue is not some absolute form but only a relation of conformity with the thing signified. And whether it belongs to the essence of the sacrament - (and then the sacrament would have to include, not only the idea of a sign along with its differences, but also some idea of conformity with the thing signified, which is called the truth in the sign [n.192]; and it is plain that one of these relations is an accident of the other, and the posterior is as it were founded on the other prior one; for the conformity is founded on the sign and there could be a sign without it) - or whether it does not belong to the idea of the sacrament but is an accident concomitant with it for the most part, yet at any rate this idea is the ultimate in power of a practical sign, and thus is it a virtue.