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