III. Scotus’ own Opinion as to the First Question

309. To the first question, then [n.262] I lay down the following statements: the necessity of things for the end is taken from the end; the end of a sacrament, according to all who speak about sacraments, is grace or some invisible effect of God disposing man for salvation; this end, in the way it is reached through the sacraments, could be reached sufficiently without saying that a sacrament has some proper action either in respect of grace (which it cannot attain since a sacrament is created), or in respect of a preceding supernatural disposition (because it would be created). From these statements it follows that such action is not to be posited, since these several things are not necessary, nor is it manifestly possible to posit them.

310. But how, along with this conclusion, may one save the fact that the sacraments are not just per accidens cause of grace and that grace is got through the sacraments in the way the saints speak of them [n.276]?

311. I say, in brief, that every disposition that necessitates a form (and is not the idea of being receptive of the form) can in some way be called an active or an instrumental cause with respect to that form.a But a sacrament itself, or the receiving of a sacrament, is such an immediate disposition, which does not cause any other intermediary between itself and grace. Therefore it can be said to be in some way an active or instrumental cause with respect to grace.

a.a [Note added by Scotus] Proof of the major: this proposition, that is, ‘every disposition that necessitates a form...’, is admitted when the disposition necessitates the form - whether by its own nature or by something intrinsic or by the natural order of some superior agent. It does not necessitate in these ways here, but only by the ordering of the acting will of God.

     On the contrary: how else is a character a necessitating disposition for a form?

     Again, in any order of causes a second thing acts in virtue of a first. So, therefore, when the first is clearly known to be acting as if acting naturally, and yet it is only by the will of a superior that the second is necessitated to causing (because the second is determined by the first that, as it acts, thus determines it) - then a disposition that necessitates by a superior will has a nature like that of an instrument, just as in other cases where its necessitation is by a superior natural agent. For never does it necessitate so as to determine the superior, because then the superior would not be superior. But it is said to be necessitating because the effect is necessarily produced by the superior through the medium of an instrument. Thus does the will, with clearly known necessity, produce the effect through the intermediary of an instrument.

     Again, whatever thing is posited as thus being between God and grace is an agent or disposer for grace, either through its proper form (and then it acts by natural necessity, because neither the water [sc. of baptism], nor the virtue in it, nor the character is a free form) - or not through its proper form but only by divine ordination.

     If in the first way, my will then will not be able to prevent the grace from being caused, because my will cannot prevent the acting of a natural agent on the subject it acts on, nor indispose that subject to being acted on.

     If in the second way, then the reply is no reply.

     I respond: it acts by its proper form, but in this sort of order, namely as the second thing and so only along with the first. The first does not act when my will is indisposed; therefore neither does the second - not that it would not act of itself if the action of the first were lacking.

312. The major [n.311] is proved by examples and by reason:

The first example is that there is absolute agreement that merits are an instrumental cause with respect to reward, and that a reward is acquired through merits. And yet merit does not in itself actively cause the reward, nor does it cause an intermediate disposition; it is only a disposition preceding reward, as the idea of being receptive of reward.

313. Another example: motion is in some way posited as a cause with respect to the term of the motion, and the fact that the term is attained through the motion is agreed to truly and properly. Yet the motion does not possess any action for causing the term, nor even for causing an intermediate disposition; but it is a disposition proximate to the term and not the idea of being receptive of it.

314. Again, the same major [n.311] is proved by reason as follows: what is cause of something prior is not, for this reason, a cause of something posterior unless the thing in between [sc. the prior, between the cause and the posterior] is cause of the third [sc. the posterior], and is so in some way in the same order of cause. An agent that causes a disposition proximate to a form (according to them [nn.278-280]) is admitted to be in some way a cause as regard the form. So the disposition proximate to the form must be reduced to the genus of efficient cause as regard the form.

315. The manner of it, then, is as follows: the receiving of a sacrament is a disposition necessitating the effect signified by the sacrament - not indeed by any intrinsic form through which it may necessarily cause the form, or cause some disposition previous to it, but only through God’s assistance causing the effect. God does not necessarily cause the effect absolutely but with a necessity relative to his ordained power. For God has universally disposed, and has so assured the Church, that he will confer the signified effect on someone who receives the sacrament.

316. Nor does it matter that the receiving of the sacrament is something to do with the body of the receiver but the grace is something caused in the soul. For the fact that the disposition and the form are in the same subject is enough and, above all, when the disposition is not a disposition on the part of the thing, but is a disposition in an ordering to a voluntary extrinsic agent that does cause the term.

317. To understand this, one needs to note that an instrument, in the most commonly accepted use of the term, is sometimes extended to include a second cause, as was touched on in the first question [n.120], though it is properly distinguished from a second cause, and sometimes it is taken for a part through which the whole acts - and in this way does the Philosopher speak, On the Soul 2.1-2.412a27-13a10, when he calls the organs of the senses and of other powers instruments, or parts, through which the whole performs such operations. In a second way an instrument is said to be an active cause for a preceding disposition. In a third way it is spoken of as an instrument of art, and from this is the word first derived.

318. But there is a doubt whether an instrument of art is properly active.

And it seems more probable that it is not. For a saw has in itself only quantity, figure, and local motion, about all which it is plain that they are not active forms. And the proof is that otherwise the mathematician, when he considers the ‘how much’ of figures, would not abstract from motion.

319. But if it is supposed that hardness is an active quality, this is nothing, because if God, by his absolute power, preserved something soft in the same quantity and figure, he would, by moving it locally, divide a body just as the hard instrument now divides it. So hardness, which is a quality, is not the formal principle of acting. But it does appear to be so, to the extent that it is a certain resistance to being affected by a corrupting force; and if it is moved locally while the quantity and figure of the body remain and nothing else is changed or corrupted, it must remove some matter proportioned to its quantity and figure, which would not be the case if its quantity did not remain but gave way, as is the case with something soft.

320. A proof of the claim is also that wherever there is a formal incompossiblity in a creature, one of the incompossible things does not actively expel the other but only formally; but an agent that introduces one of them does effectively expel the other. Now bodies seem to have incompossiblity with respect to the same ‘where’, just as contrary qualities do in respect of the same subject. So just as the same agent introduces heat effectively, so does it also expel cold. The heat, however, does not expel the cold effectively but only formally; so too in the claim about the expulsion of a body from where it is by another body. But the dividing of wood by a saw or an axe is only the expulsion of parts from where they are to where the axe moves them by the artisan’s cutting it.

321. In maintaining, then, that artificial instruments are not formally active but only receptive of some prior effect ordered to the ultimate effect, the claim is made clearer about how a sacrament can be called an instrument, although it does not have an active power properly with respect to the term, but is a certain prior effect ordered toward grace.

322. And if it be said that the cases are not alike, because the sacrament does not receive the superior effect the way an axe receives motion - this is not a problem, because just as the whole (which receives the prior effect) can be called an instrument, so too can the effect received be in some way said to be an instrument; for it can truly be said that the wood is divided by the motion of the saw; but a sacrament, or the receiving of the sacrament, is the prior effect in the matter at issue;     therefore etc     .