Question One. Whether the Body of Christ is Confected only by Divine Act

6. As to the first question, argument for a negative answer is given as follows:

In the book Six Principles 2.20 it is said, “All action is completed in motion;” but divine action is not completed in motion; therefore God does not cause anything by his action; therefore not in the Eucharist either.

7. Again ibid., “It is proper to action of itself that it effects something in what is subject to the action;” but nothing is effected here; so there is no action here either. The proof of the minor is that the effect would happen in an instant of change, just like the action; now in that instant the bread does not remain; so there is no effect brought about in the bread; but neither is there then any effect brought about in the body of Christ, because the body of Christ is not changed by the action.

8. Again, that the effect is not caused by divine action alone is proved as follows:

First thus: a natural agent can change a whole into a whole, for it is said in De Generatione 1.2.317a20-22 that generation is the change of a whole to a whole; therefore a natural agent has power for the totality of the change, for this change only appears impossible because it is change of whole to whole.

9. Again, nature was able to form the body of Christ in natural being; therefore it is able to form it in, or according to, the being it has in the Eucharist. The proof of the antecedent is that nature formed the body of Christ in the womb of the Virgin from her blood. The proof of the consequence is that the body of Christ has the same being in the womb of the Virgin as in the Eucharist; but the same power is able to act on the same being as its term.

10. And if you say that the body has the same being in different ways and that nature has power for the first way but not for the second - on the contrary: the being and not the mode was the term of the action; so, as long as the same per se being remains, the same term remains, and consequently the same power would be able to do it.

11. Nor can it be said that nature can be prevented because of the mode; for a mode is not repugnant to that of which it is the mode; therefore this mode is not repugnant to this being; therefore what has in itself power for this being is not impeded by any mode of the being such as not to have power for it.

12. And there is confirmation, that to have power for being is more than to have power for any mode of it.

13. Again, a priest performs some action with respect to consecration;     therefore the Eucharist is not confected by divine power alone. Proof of the antecedent: for no intention is required in anyone with respect to any effect for which he is in no way the agent cause; but the intention of the priest is required for consecration; therefore etc     .

14. On the contrary:

In Sentences d.1 q.1 ‘Within the Catholic...’ (and it is taken from Augustine’s book i), “The mystery of the body and blood of the Lord is perfected by the power of the Holy Spirit;” and there follows, “Just as Christ is he who baptizes, so too it is he who, through the Holy Spirit, effects this flesh of his and transfers wine into blood.”

15. Again, Gregory d.1 q.1 ‘Many seculars’, “One and the same Holy Spirit, namely in the whole Church, invisibly sanctifies the mystery of the body of Christ and, by sanctifying, blesses it.”

16. And these two authorities are in the text.

I. To the Question

17. For the solution of this question three things need to be considered: first, whether this sacrament, namely the Eucharist, can be confected by divine action - and the two first arguments touch on this point; second, whether it can be confected by the action of a second, created agent, and that as principal agent - and the following arguments touch on this point; third, whether it can be confected by the action of some created thing as instrumental agent - and the last argument touches on this point.

A. Whether the Eucharist can be Confected by Divine Action

18. The first point seems manifestly the case, speaking of action in general, the way God is said to act in respect of creatures when he makes something new in them -save that it is not as easy to see how there is a positive action here as there is with creation, because there is no positive absolute here that simply receives being. But this was touched on in d.11 nn.333-339.

19. So more properly, therefore, and limiting action in its contrast to relation, this article does pose a difficulty.

1. The Opinion of Others

20. It is said, then, that taking action in this way, the Eucharistic conversion can be done, and is done, by divine action.

21. The proof is as follows: to convert something into what preexists seems to require no less virtue and action than to change something into what does not preexist; but if bread is converted by God into what does not preexist, there would be there a divine action simply whereby what does not preexist would be produced, because it could not be produced save by some action; so there is also action now.

22. Again, creation is true action; but the term of the action of conversion can no less receive being than the term of creation, namely if this conversion were to be into something not preexisting, for it would totally begin to be through this conversion;     therefore etc     . - The major, though it seems plain, may nevertheless by proved by taking action strictly, as was said [n.19], because if creation were relation, then ‘to create’ would only be ‘to be related’; but since ‘to create’ is ‘God wills the thing to be’, then the divine will would be only relation, which seems unacceptable.

23. Again, God has an action properly speaking that is intrinsic; therefore he can equally, or more, have an action properly speaking that is extrinsic; and so it is in the issue at hand. - Proof of the antecedent: because if generation, as distinguished from relation, were not an action properly speaking, the consequence would be that generation was only a relation, and so ‘to generate’ and ‘to speak’ would only be ‘to be related’, which is unacceptable.

24. Again, on the same matter of an action properly speaking that is intrinsic, there is an argument as follows: a relative is not the cause of its correlative, for the two naturally exist together at once; but a producer is cause or principle of the thing produced, and clearly is so by production formally; therefore the production is not just a relation to the thing produced, for then it would be wholly together with it at once and not prior to it nor be the idea of cause.

25. There is a final argument, and the reasoning is common to action extrinsically (which the first two arguments were about, nn.21-22) and action intrinsically (which the other two were about, nn.23-24). The argument is as follows: in Metaphysics 5.15.1020b28-30, 21a14-19, the chapter on relation, relations of the second kind are founded on action and passion; but a relation is not founded on a relation; therefore action is not just relation.

26. If argument is made against this opinion that, according to Boethius On the Trinity chs.4, 6 (and it seems to be accepted by Augustine On the Trinity 5.6 n.7 [cf. Scotus Ord. 1 d.8 n.130] and by the doctors generally), there are only two categories in divine reality, namely substance and relation, and so not the category of action as distinct from relation - the response would be that action properly speaking is included under relation, for action states a certain respect but does not properly state a relation [cf. Scotus Quodlibet q.4 nn.30-32]. And this seems it can properly be confirmed from Augustine On the Trinity 2.3 n.3, where Augustine excludes from God the individual categories and seems to allow that God is properly a maker as to the category of action, but that he is so without change.

2. Scotus’ own Opinion

a. Action is not anything Absolute

27. To understand this difficulty about whether action, in the way it is distinguished from relation, belongs to God intrinsically or extrinsically in general, and thereby whether it belongs specifically in the matter at issue, there is need to consider the idea of ‘action’ as it is set down to be distinct from ‘relation’. For ‘action’ cannot be set down as something absolute, in the way it is one of the distinct categories among the ten categories. The proof is that it would be something new, and then two unacceptable consequences would follow.

28. One is general, that there would an action for action, and so ad infinitum; the reason is that of the Philosopher in Physics 5.2.225b13-14, whereby he proves that there cannot be a motion for action. And how this result holds is plain, because every new form can have an action for it, since the form is not from itself or from nothing, therefore it is from an agent.

29. The second unacceptable consequence is particular, namely by division, for in what category would the action be put? If it is in the agent then every agent would be changed in its absolute form before the thing acted on was changed by it, for the thing acted on is not changed save by an agent already possessing action - but for the agent to possess the action, since the action is a new absolute form, it would have to change so as to possess it.

30. The response is made that it would change, because change is an act of what is in passive potency, while an active thing is, before it acts, in active potency; and so its passing from this potency into act is not motion or change.

31. On the contrary: if action is an absolute and new form in an agent, the agent must have some receptivity for that form, because the new form is not self-subsistent (for then nothing would be formally an agent by the new form, just as neither is something said to be formally a quantum by a quantity separate from it); but something receptive has some receptive or passive potency with respect to what it is receptive of; therefore the active thing will, before the action, be in passive potency to action. And because it has this passive potency sometimes without the form and sometimes with the form, it is properly changed; so the conclusion intended follows, that an agent properly undergoes a change.

32. As for the addition that action is the act of an active potency [n.30], this indeed is true simply, but it is difficult to save this fact on the hypothesis, namely on the supposition that action is something absolute in the agent. For it cannot belong to the active power as receptive, for this is contrary to the idea of a receptive or passive power. Nor can it belong to the active power as elicitive; the proof is that it does not come from it because it belongs to its being as it is active, for then the active thing would actively change itself for this action by a prior absolute form, and then there would be a further question as to what changes it for this prior action, and so on ad infinitum.

33. But if one does hold this hypothesis one must say that action, although it belongs in some way to active potency, is yet the act of some passive potency, for this is universally true of every form that is not separate from the receptive thing.

34. If it also be said, against this hypothesis, that action is in the thing acted on, then something unacceptable follows, namely that nothing acted on can be acted on according to a form in the category of quantity or quality without being acted on at the same time, or perhaps acted on prior in nature, according to a form in another category, namely according to the action that is posited in it as another and absolute form, a form different from quantity and quality. This consequent seems unacceptable, especially about prior and posterior forms, because the subject cannot be acted according to an absolute prior form unless it is acted on according to a posterior form that will not be a proper being acted on by the prior form (the thing is plain, because whiteness can remain in a subject after the action that makes it so is over).

35. So the negative proposition is therefore proved, that ‘action as it is posited to be a new category distinct from other categories is not a new absolute form [n.27], either in the agent or the patient’.

b. Action cannot be posited to be an Absolute Form contemporaneous with that in which it is

36. Action cannot be an absolute from, though a new form, or rather a form contemporaneous with that in which it is, for the two reasons given above [nn.28-29].The first is universal, that then it would be action and not action about anything that is acted on - which seems unacceptable and against the idea of ‘action’, for, according to the author of Six Principles ch.2 n.16, ‘action requires not what it may do but what it may act upon’.

37. The point seems also to be proved by reason, that action does not seem to be of the same single form when nothing is acted on and when something is acted on; for if, when nothing is acted on, the agent acts just as much as when it acts on nothing, then there is no greater reason why the action is done later rather than now; for something is not done unless an agent acts, and, according to you, it is acting now just as much as it is later when the thing is receiving being.

38. Hence, in brief, one does not seem to be understanding the idea of action when one posits it as thus absolute, because then it simply has no respect to a thing acted on or produced; indeed, there is not even action in divine reality without someone or something always receiving being through the action; nor does God always act by extrinsic action as much before the creation of the world as in the creation of the world.

39. Secondly, an argument is made by drawing a division as before [n.29], that if action is posited as being an absolute that is not contemporaneous with that in which it is, and therewith in the agent, it follows that no action ever begins to be or ceases to be save because the form that acts for the action begins to be or ceases to be; and then, as long as a hot thing is hot, the heating remains, and so, when a hot thing is impeded by a contrary, there is as much acting as when the hot thing is not impeded - and after the term of the action has been introduced into the thing acted upon, the action remains afterwards as much as before when it was introducing the term.

40. But to posit that action is an absolute form and contemporaneous with itself in the thing acted upon is altogether irrational, because the same action would still remain in the thing acted upon after the agent has been destroyed; also the same thing would undergo contrary actions if it can be acted on by contrary agents successively.

c. Action is an Extrinsic Respect added to a Thing

41. From these points the result is that, if action is a distinct category, then it per se states as such only a respect or relation. Further, if all respects o relations have one quidditative idea common to relations, then only one category of relation would be posited, and so there are only four categories.The first four of the ten categories are substance, quantity, quality, and relation. The remaining six, namely when, where, action, passion, position, being clad, all involve relation or reference to something, so that if everything involving relation belongs to the category of relation, these six categories would not be distinct categories after all but members of the category of relation. ⁵⁸

42. Therefore if this famous division of categories is to be saved (for, according to Avicenna Metaphysics 3.1, 1.4, we are compelled to hold to the division whereby there are said to be ten most general categories - compelled, I say, because of the ancient authority of the philosophers, which it should not be easy to contradict), one must say that respect or relation does have enough formal ideas, enough, I say, for distinction of categories.

43. But this difference sufficient for this purpose, which is collected with more probability from the words of the authors, is an intrinsic and external respect coming to a thing, so that that is called ‘an internal respect coming to a thing’ which necessarily follows both extremes posited as actual, or which (and this is the same) necessarily follows its foundation, the term being included or not excluded; and so that that is called ‘an extrinsic respect’ which does not necessarily follow the extremes, even when both are posited as actual. And then the six principles, which the author of Six Principles is dealing with, are not, to this extent, species of relation, because relation states a respect coming intrinsically to a thing, but the six principles are called respects that come extrinsically to a thing. Action then will be an extrinsic respect coming to a thing.

45. But to what thing?

To the thing acted on, it seems, according to the Philosopher, in Physics 3.2.113b-114a, when he maintains that action and passion are founded on motion, but motion in the thing acted upon, and motion is not distinct formally save as to being ‘from this’ and ‘in this’.

46. But the contrary seems to be the case. Because the respect and the foundation will be in the same thing, and the idea of foundation seems to make the fact clear; but active power is in the agent, and is the foundation of the respect.

47. Again, opposite respects do not exist in the same thing, at any rate not qua the same, nor are they universally necessarily simultaneous; passion or the respect of passion is universally in the thing acted upon; therefore the opposite respect is not necessarily in the same thing.

48. Again, whatever thing some form is in, that thing is simply of the sort that accords with the form; for it seems altogether irrational that a form should be in something and not make that thing to be informed by the form; therefore, if action is formally in the thing acted upon, the thing acted upon is formally the agent.

49. It will be said, then, that action is an extrinsic respect coming to a thing, and that it is in the agent as in the supposit or subject, and in the form, which is called ‘active power’, as in the proximate foundation. And passion states the opposite respect, corresponding to the former, and it is in the thing acted upon as in a subject, and it is in the passive power as in the proximate foundation.

50. Further, in particular, a created agent has a respect to the first or total term, which is called the product, and a respect to the term that is called the produced or introduced form, and a respect to the subject of that form, which is the thing acted upon or changed.

51. Now, that these respects are different is proved by the fact they are to different terms.

52. It is also proved by something else, because the corresponding converse respects are altogether different; for the respect of product to producer is as that of dependent on that on which it depends, and this simply according to its being, as ‘being’ is taken simply. But the respect of changeable to changer is not a respect of something dependent simply as to being, for the changeable, in its being simply, goes along with the agent as co-cause, and it does not receive from the agent its being simply but only its being according to the form introduced. The respects too of product and form introduced are plainly different, although both are respects of dependent to producer, because that depends first which receives being first, and this is the product, but that depends secondarily and per accidens which receives being secondarily, and this is the form educed or introduced.

53. Of these three respects on the part of the agent, the first two are not extrinsic respects coming to the agent, for either the agent does not have a real relation to the thing produced or introduced (as is true of God when he produces creatures or produces something in creatures), or, if the agent does have a real relation, yet the relation necessarily follows the foundation once the term has been posited. But this is more manifest of the respect that follows in the thing produced or educed, which namely is not an extrinsic respect coming to it, because it necessarily follows the foundation once the term has been posited.

54. But the respect that is a respect to the thing acted upon is an extrinsic respect coming to the agent, since it is very well possible for the active and passive thing to be next to each other and yet not to have this respect, because the agent may not be that by which the passive thing is changed, and the passive thing may not be changed by it, if for instance there is something preventing the action. Therefore action, since it is an extrinsic respect coming to it as it has been drawn out, will be a relation of the agent to the changed passive thing.

55. And there is confirmation of this from the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.12.1019a15-16, 20a4-6, who defines active power to be ‘a principle of changing another insofar as it is other’; but just as active power is a principle, so action - which is the act of an active power - will be the changing of another, that is of the passive thing, insofar as it is other. But the two other respects, namely of production and introduction, or eduction, and that whether they are active or passive, will belong to the category of relation properly speaking, because they are intrinsic respects coming to a thing.

d. Five Meanings of ‘Action’

56. From what has been said it is plain there is a multiple ambiguity in the term ‘action’. For in one way the word is said of ‘operation’, as intellection or volition are called operation, and yet in the truth of the matter it is a quality, as is plain in Ord. 1 d.3 n.601.

57. In another way ‘action’ states per se a relation or respect. And sometimes the word ‘action’ is taken for the respect of producer to product, the way a father is said to be agent cause of a son.

58. Sometimes ‘action’ is taken for the respect of introducer or educer to thing educed, as a hot thing is said to be agent cause of heat in a piece of wood.

59. Sometimes it is taken for the thing done, though including the respect that is expressed by the phrase ‘from another’, as in Physics 3 [n.45].

60. Sometimes too it is taken for the respect of transformer to thing transformed, as in the description of Six Principles 2.16, “Action is that according to which we are said to act on what is subject to us.”

α. On the first four Meanings of ‘Action’

61. Action in the first sense [n.56] is an absolute form and is in the category of quality, as was said.

62. In the second and third sense [nn.57-58] it is an intrinsic respect coming to a thing, and in this way it is properly in the category of relation.

63. In the fourth sense [n.59] it is precisely a distinct category, as was proved by the Philosopher in Metaphysics 5 (above n.55), and distinct because of the distinction of ‘respects that do not belong to the genus of relation’ from relations properly speaking that are in the category of relation, as is plain from the description added [n.54].

β. On the fifth Meaning

64. In the fifth sense [n.60] (if however it is a sense of this term, as the Philosopher is here generally expounded [e.g. Thomas, on Physics 3 lectio 5]) 12 ‘action’, as to the thing connoted, pertains to some absolute category in respect of which the thing acted on is changed (as quantity, quality, and the like); and so the Philosopher says there about action that it is the work or the end of the active thing (Physics 3.3.202a24); now the work or end is an absolute form in the thing acted on, although as something flowing - speaking of an agent acting by motion. Hence the Philosopher first says there that ‘motion is the act of the active and passive thing’, the active thing being that from which and the passive that in which. But the motion, according to the Commentator (Physics 3 com.19, 5 com.9), is really the flowing form. So ‘action’ is said to be the very act or work or end of the agent insofar as it is from the agent. And because these two, namely the thing done and the ‘being from’, do not constitute any per se single thing, then, if the term ‘action’ in this fifth sense signifies a per se single concept, it will not signify both but one of them. And it is reasonable that principally it signify more formally and connote that which is material, as is in the case of other terms that import such diverse elements; and then there is no need to ask to what category it belongs by reason of what is connoted, because it can belong to as many categories as the form belongs to that is caused in the thing acted on by the agent.

65. But this respect ‘from another’, which is formally imported by the term ‘action’ in this fifth sense, still seems to be equivocally understood; namely whether the ‘from’ or is as from the producer and introducer or as from the transmuter. Taken in the first way it belongs to the category of ‘relation’, as does also the passive production or induction, as was said above [n.55]; taken in the latter way it belongs to the category of ‘passion’, as does also passive change.

66. If you object that this is contrary to Aristotle in Physics 3 [nn.59, 64], who maintains that what is formal in action, as action is distinct from passion, states ‘being from another’, so it does not state a respect of the category of passion - I reply that Aristotle is not speaking there of action as it is a distinct category from passion but according to another sense of the term, namely the sense ‘act’, and not as product but as induced; for after he had prefaced there, about the act of the active thing and the act of the passive thing, “for this is action (namely the act of the active thing), but that is passion (namely the act of the passive thing),” he first adds by way of proof, “but work and end are the act of the former, and passion the act of the latter” [n.64]; so he is taking ‘action’ there for the work and end of the agent; but this is the form brought about in the passive thing, which, as flowing, is motion.

67. From this is apparent the solution to a certain objection made before from the text [n.48]; for when the Philosopher concedes that action is in the thing acted on and not in the agent, because then the agent would be moved, he is speaking of action in this fifth sense [n.60] and not as action is a distinct category from passion; for, when taking action in this way, something is an agent formally by action as a related thing is by relation; and then it is necessary that the ‘from which’ be intrinsic to what is said to be such by it (as being a likeness is in the thing that is like).

68. One can also say that the ‘from this’ can be taken as equivocal: In one way as it is a relation opposed to that which is ‘other by it’, and then something prior must be understood which is specified by the ‘from this’, as the ‘who by this’ or the ‘what by this’; and in this way the ‘from this’ does not belong to the category of action but is rather the opposite respect, namely the ‘by which it is other’. In another way the ‘from this’ is not taken as it determines something prior, and then it is the same as the respect ‘by which’; and in this way one can concede it belongs to the genus of action. But in this way it is not the motion that is in the thing acted on, save only as to the term of the action. And this is enough to save the words of Aristotle there [n.45]; for he means that action and passion are the same motion, just as “the way from Athens to Thebes” and the reverse is the same.

69. But I do not mean that here ‘way’ is taken for the space over which the motion goes but for the motion ‘from here to there’ and the reverse - as is plain from the other example Aristotle sets down about the distance ‘from here to there’ and ‘from there to here’ over the same space, where he means that they are the same materially, because of the identity of the space, but different formally. So here, motion is that by which the agent is said to be agent by the respect ‘from this’, meaning by the ‘from this’ the respect ‘by which’; and conversely in the movable is founded a respect to the agent. And these two respects have something materially the same, namely the motion, but formally they are different and in different subjects; for he said first there, at the beginning of the section on action, that “the act must be in both (namely in the mover and the movable), for the movable is in the ‘being able’ and the mover in the ‘operating’”; so he means that the act of the mover, which he sets down as ‘operating’, is in the mover itself.

70. And if you object that at the end of the chapter he says, “what these (namely, action and passion) are in is motion,” one can say that another text has, “motion is present to what...” Or the text can be expounded thus: not as ‘what these are in as in their subject and foundation’, because passion in the category ‘passion’ is not in motion as in its subject, for the respect to an agent, the respect founded in motion, is an intrinsic relation coming to passion, since motion is the form induced or educed; but it must be expounded as ‘what these are in, the one as term (namely action) and the other as quasi subject’, for they are together in the same subject as acted on.

71. Because, however, Aristotle seems to speak in varying ways there about action and passion, his intention cannot easily be grasped with certainty save by expounding the whole chapter in order. So look there, because it would be too long to insert here.

e. What must be said if the Category of Action is transferred to Divine Reality

72. To the matter at issue in particular I say that if any categories are to be transferred to divine reality (as expounded in Ord. 1 d.8 nn.95-115), yet no action of the category of action is transferred, that is, internal action; so that, as to all things intrinsic to divine reality, this proposition is simply true, namely, that there are only two categories there, substance and relation. Nor, further, does there belong to God any action of the category of action with respect to anything that is produced as a totality, that is, when no potential part comes first.

73. The proof, common both to intrinsic production and to total extrinsic production (as creation), is as follows: where there is a total production that is not from any passive or potential thing, there that which is required for action properly speaking is lacking, because action properly speaking is always in the thing acted on, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.12.1019a15-20 and the author of Six Principles. But neither does the Father produce the Son from anything potential or quasi-potential (as was said in Ord. 1 d.5 nn.93-97); nor does he create from any passive thing that is transformed.

74. The other common proof is that to action corresponds passion properly speaking, namely passion that is an extrinsic respect coming to it, as does also action itself. But in divine reality intrinsically there can be no extrinsic respect coming to it, because any respect arises, with absolute necessity, from the nature of the foundation; nor can there be in divine reality or in creation an extrinsic passion that comes to it, because the product, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, is referred, with absolute necessity, to the producer.

75. There is no doubt on this point as to intrinsic product. But as to creatures I prove it because it is impossible for any relation to be more intrinsic to a creature than the relation that is to the Creator, insofar as the relation to the Creator is really the same as the foundation, as was shown in Ord. 2 d.1 nn.261 -271.

76. There is however some divine action, both intrinsic and extrinsic, in a total production when understanding action not for anything in the category of action but for something corresponding to action in the category of action - just as there is, in a product, no passion of the category of passion but a passion stated equivocally corresponding to action in the category of action, and this is an equivocation in the term ‘action’, as was said before [nn.67-68], to which something similar can correspond in the term ‘passion’.

77. Hence active production or action in divine reality is merely action, but it is a real relation; and likewise with production as passion. Extrinsic production as action however is a relation of reason, while passive production, by contrast, is a real relation, as was said in Ord. 1 d.30 nn.41, 49-51.

f. What sort of Action is to be posited in God in the case of Transubstantiation

78. But as to conversion in the case of the Eucharist, is any divine action to be posited here?

I say that there is, when one takes action as a relation of reason.

79. But as to action corresponding to action in the category of action there is more doubt. If substance is converted only into substance, so that nothing is transmuted, then passion properly speaking cannot be saved in this case, and consequently not action either.

80. But if, according to the second way, what I posited above is set down [d.11 nn.166-167], that this conversion is of the substance of bread as here into the body of Christ as here, and if the body of Christ as here be passive receptive of a new presence -then one can say that there is passion properly here in the body, and thus action here corresponding proportionally to action in the category of action.81. Nor is this repugnant to God; for God can transmute any passive thing just as nature can, and the passive transmuting is properly passion, and the active transmuting is action corresponding to the category of action, and is not just relation. And then one should say that the category of action can, according to proportional predication, in some way be transferred to God, but not intrinsic action.

82. Of these two opinions the first seems more difficult; indeed it seems barely intelligible how a new action without a term, a real action, may exist without there at least being some new relation without an absolute form in a term; but here, apart from destruction of the bread (whose term ‘to which’ is the nonbeing of bread), the action does not have, insofar as it is some positive change, an absolute form in the body of Christ as term, as all agree; so one must at least posit a new real relation there, and a relation to the agent; nor does it appear that the action could be new unless there is something in the body really new whereby a real action of God may be said to have a term more now than before.

3. To the Arguments for the Opinion of others

a. To the first Argument

83. To the first argument against this article, when it is said that ‘by relation nothing is produced, by production something is produced’ [nn.19-21]; this reasoning should not move anyone with intelligence; for divine production, by which something external is produced, is not anything absolute in God (as all agree), because God does not relate to creatures according to anything absolute in himself; therefore everyone must say that the production whereby God is said to produce is a respect. But how is it more unacceptable to say that he produces by relation than that he produces by respect? For whatever seems contrary to ‘he produces by relation’ would have to be taken from a middle term common to every respect - just as an absolute form in a category can be related to production in the way that no respect can be.

84. Second, it is manifest that a product is more formally produced by the passive production of it than by the active production of the agent; but the passive production of a product is not a passion in the category of passion, because it is not anything extrinsic coming to it but rather something intrinsic, because it arises from its foundation; so it is a relation properly speaking. Therefore a creature is produced by a production that is formally a relation properly speaking.

85. I respond therefore to the argument that both premises are amphibolies; for the ablative can be taken by reason of formal proximate or remote principle; and this multiplicity universally happens when something abstract is construed in the ablative along with some concrete denominating respect. For this proposition is true, ‘the like is like by likeness’, namely when understanding the ablative to be taken in idea of proximately denominating form; and this proposition is true, ‘the like is like by quality’, when understanding the ablative to be taken in idea of remote formal principle; likewise this proposition is true, ‘the hot heats by heat’, and this proposition, ‘the hot heats by heating’, but each in a different sense.

86. As concerns the issue at hand, if the ablative is taken in both premises by reason of proximately denominating form, the minor premise is true [sc. ‘by production something is produced’] and the major false [‘by relation nothing is produced’], because the production, whereby it is formally produced, is relation. And so the syllogism is formed from opposites, like this one: ‘no man is running, Socrates runs, therefore Socrates is not a man’; and no wonder that an impossible conclusion is inferred, nay an incompossible conclusion according to Prior Analytics 2.2.55a10-19.

87. But when taking the major negative premise [sc. ‘by relation nothing is produced’] as the ablative is taken in idea of remote formal principle, and the affirmative minor [sc. ‘by production something is produced’] is taken as the ablative is taken in idea of proximately denominating form, then both are true; but then to infer that production is not relation is the fallacy of figure of speech, by change of idea of proximate formal principle into idea of remote formal principle, or conversely; or, to speak logically, by change of absolute to relational, for the remote principle of anything denominated by relation is absolute, but the proximate principle is a respect.

88. And perhaps ‘the figure of speech’ could here be posited according to the first mode, by likeness of termination; nor is this ever as evident elsewhere than in such paralogisms; for this is because of the causal termination, which shows a like construction of cases. And here the argument is deceptive by amphiboly as to the premises, and it is plain that the inference could be made as if similar terminations in the same case signified the same sentence in the premises.

b. To the Second Argument

89. As to the second argument [n.58], to concede that God’s creation is a relation of reason is not acceptable, since one must say that the creation of creatures is not a passion in the category of passion but a relation properly speaking.

90. And when you infer, ‘therefore God’s willing creatures to be is for God to be related’, the conclusion does not follow; for ‘to create’ principally signifies the relation of passion, and it connotes an essential divine intrinsic act, not only absolutely, but as it passes over to an external object; now the sentence ‘God wills creatures to be’ principally states a divine act, though it connotes its passing over to the object. But the following inference does not hold, ‘what principally states relation is relation, therefore what fundamentally connotes relation is relation’. So in the form of the argument the ‘as to another’ is changed into ‘as to itself’; just as the inference would not be valid if one were to argue, ‘to be like is to be related; but to be white is to be like; therefore to be white is to be related’.

c. To the Third Argument

91. As to the third argument [n.23], if the proposition ‘generation is relation’ is true (as was shown in Ord. 1 d.27), and if the inference from abstracts to concretes universally holds of necessity, though sometimes not conversely, there will be nothing unacceptable, rather it will be necessary, that ‘to generate’ is ‘to be related’. But if the force of the words is stressed and it is held to be unacceptable that ‘to generate’ or ‘to speak’ be precisely ‘to be referred’, I say that a subordinate term is not precisely the superordinate one, for the subordinate is the superordinate with some difference added -as ‘man’ is not just ‘animal’ but ‘rational animal’.

92. So I say that ‘to generate’ states a relation, but a relation of a certain sort, namely a relation productive by way of nature, and ‘to speak’ is a relation productive by way of intellect; and therefore ‘to generate’ is not just ‘to be referred’ but ‘to be referred by a relation of origin founded on fertile nature’, and ‘to speak’ is ‘to be referred by a relation of origin founded on fertile intellect’.

d. To the Fourth Argument

93. As to the fourth argument, when it is said that ‘the relative is not cause of its correlative’ [n.24], this is against the common opinion, unless perhaps one posits the persons to be absolutes; for if all Catholics concede origin in divine reality, they also concede that there person is principle to person. Or one must say that the relative is principle of its correlative. Or one must say that the person that is a principle is an absolute by relation to a second person.

94. The response then is, as I said in Ord. 1 d.28 n.24, that although relatives are simultaneous in nature, to the extent that ‘simultaneity’ states ‘not being able to be without each other’, yet priority or origin stands along with this, and priority of origin states nothing other than ‘from which’ another is.

95. On the contrary:

Things can have an order in the intellect that yet can have no order outside the intellect;     therefore things that can have no order in the intellect can have no order at all. But relatives are simultaneous in nature; therefore etc     .

96. Again, what is simultaneous is, as simultaneous, not prior; but what is prior in origin, as it is prior in origin, is simultaneous with the posterior as it is posterior, because thus they are per se correlatives; therefore ‘prior in origin’ is not prior (and the same argument could be made about prior and posterior in nature).

97. To the first [n.95] I say that ‘being simultaneous in the intellect’ can be understood in two ways: either that the simultaneity determines the act of understanding as it considers the objects, or that it determines the objects themselves that are understood; or in another way (and it amounts to the same) simultaneity can state the mode of the objects as they are understood or compared to the act of understanding, or it can state the mode of the objects in themselves. In the first way the major is false, namely ‘things that are simultaneous in the intellect can have no order [sc. outside the intellect]’, because however much they have to be understood together, yet not for this reason is anything taken from them that belongs to them in themselves - and only in this way is the minor true.

98. On the contrary: relatives, in the way they are understood in their proper ideas, have complete simultaneity in the intellect; therefore they have no order.

99. I reply: their ideas do properly have a certain order, and yet they have simultaneity too as they have order, namely simultaneity in reference to the act of understanding.

100. To the second [n.96]: the major proposition, ‘things that are simultaneous do not, as simultaneous, have an order,’ is true if the ‘as’ states simultaneity and states it in the mode of simultaneity and, together with this, states it in the mode of order and in the mode of inherence of simultaneity and order. I understand it thus, that just as the mode of simultaneity is taken according to nature and according to order, so, proportionally, is the same mode of priority and posteriority taken; along with this too, that as simultaneity is predicated of them so order is denied of them, namely, that if ‘simultaneity’ is there taken as inhering in them denominatively, and if thereby order is not denied to be in them per se, in the first mode of per se, but is denied to be present in them denominatively, then the minor premise is only true of the mode ‘simultaneous in nature’ and of the mode of accidental or denominative inherence. And I conclude uniformly that they are not ordered by such order, and that as denominated by such order. But it does not follow from this that they are not ordered per se in the first mode. So this proposition is true, ‘the prior, as prior, is prior to the posterior’, understanding it of predication per se in the first mode; and this proposition is true, ‘the prior as prior is simultaneous with the posterior’, understanding this of predication per se in the second mode.

101. Nor is it unacceptable that in such general intentions one opposite is predicated essentially of the other, and that the other opposite is predicated of the same denominatively, understanding by ‘opposite’ what is opposite in idea of concept; but not every idea of opposition, as it is a mode of predication in different form, is preserved. -An example: power is power per se in the first mode, and power is in act by the actuality corresponding to it, because power, when outside its cause, is not in potency to its being. The thing is more apparent in intentions, because this proposition is true, ‘a singular is singular per se in the first mode’, and this one is true, ‘a singular is universal by denominative predication’; and in grammatical intentions the proposition, ‘masculine is masculine’, is true per se in the first mode - but this proposition ‘masculine is neuter’ [sc. the word ‘masculine’ is neuter in grammatical gender] is true denominatively or by denominative predication.

e. To the Fifth Argument

102. To the fifth main argument [n.25] from Metaphysics 5, one can, in one way, say that no relation of the second mode is founded on action and passion but only on active and passive power, as was said in Rep. IA d.27 nn.51-52, because the relations that seem founded on action and passion are not present when action and passion are present, and are present when action and passion are not present.

103. The point is plain: for when someone among creatures is generating he is not a father; but afterwards, when the offspring has already been formed, he who has generated begins to be father just as the offspring begins to be son; yet there is no action then, for the father could then not exist, or not then be acting with any new action at all besides the first one. But a relation cannot exist save when its foundation does; and if its foundation is complete, and that on both sides, the relation will also be there at the same time. So actions can be a condition for relations only as being dispositions previous to such relations.

104. So the statement of the Philosopher there [n.25] is saved, that relations of the second mode are said ‘according to active and passive power’ as according to foundations, and are said ‘according to actions of powers’ as according to dispositions previous to those relations.

105. It can in another way be said that the Philosopher is speaking of action according to the signification of the name, as it imports relation of producer to produced [n.57]; and action in this signification states per se something in the category of relation, as was said above [n.62]; and then the remark ‘according to active and passive power’ must be expounded as before [n.104], namely as according to foundation. But the following remark, ‘according to actions of powers’ [n.104] must be understood of actions formally, the way that the like is said according to likeness; and there is something in the text that clearly corresponds to this, for the Philosopher says, “a father is father of a son, for the former made and the latter is what was made”: ‘made’, that is, produced, ‘what was made’, that is, what was produced.

106. And if you object that the Philosopher gives an example of heater to heatable and again of heating to what becomes hot and of cutting to what is cut, as if he is talking of acting things [Metaphysics 5.15.1021a14-19, 21-23] - I reply that he is expounding how he understands the words, saying immediately afterwards, “The terms are said to be ‘to another’ according to time, as what did make to what is made, and what will make to what must be made.” Now here the thing producing is ‘always acting’, and the thing done is the thing produced; and so one should understand ‘heat-making’ as taken for what is productive of the whole hot thing, the way he says in Metaphysics 7.8.1033b8-18 [d.12 n.324], that the whole composite is generated, namely in the case of generations per accidens, as in the generation of substance. And he takes ‘heatable’ for the whole that is able to be produced and not for the passive thing as it is able to undergo change; and so he takes ‘heater’ for the producer of the whole hot thing, and ‘what becomes hot’ for the whole composite that terminates the production, and not for the subject transformed to heat; and so too of the relation of what is cut to what cuts.

107. It can be said in a third way that the Philosopher is not only setting down the kinds of relation there but also the modes in which each of them is said to be ‘to another’, just as also in the chapter on quality [Metaphysics 5.14.1020a33] he sets down not only the kinds of quality but the modes; hence he says, “‘What sort of’ or ‘quality’ is in one way said to be the difference of a substance,” although substantial difference does not belong to the category of quality. So here relatives in the second mode of relatives are possibly being set down according to what is said to be ‘to another’, and not as according to relation formally but as according to some extrinsic respect coming to a thing and having a likeness to the mode.

108. And then the text may be expounded as follows: “active and passive things according to active and passive power” [n.104] are said to be ‘to something’ as the foundations of relations properly speaking. What follows, “according to actions of powers” may be expounded of actions in the category of action, because it is according to actions that things are formally called actives to passives and conversely; they are not so called according to relations properly in the category of relation, but according to certain respects pertaining to the second mode of relatives and not pertaining to the category of relation, though they do have a mode similar to certain species of relation - and in this way they belong to one mode of relatives but not to any kind of relation.

4. To Statements made about God’s Extrinsic and Intrinsic Action

109. I argue against statements made about God’s intrinsic action and his whole extrinsic action: First: “Action belongs to what power belongs to,” On Sleep and Dreams1.454a8; but in God there is truly active power; therefore acting truly belongs to him.

110. Again, as long as creatures exist, they are always referred to God as his creatures; but they are not always referred to God by creation as undergone, because creation as undergone exists only in the first instant when things are created, just as creation as God’s action only exists then; therefore creatures are referred to God by some relation other than passive creation. Therefore, although this something other, by which creatures are thus referred to God, is not of the category of passion, yet creation as undergone can belong to the category of passion, because it is not present in creatures after the first instant.

111. Again, creation seems to be God’s real production of creatures; but there is no real relation of God to creatures; therefore creation is not a relation.

112. To the first [n.109] I say that just as the term ‘action’ is equivocal (as was said above, nn.56-60), so the term ‘active power’ is equivocal, for it is said not only of transforming power but also of productive power. And indeed God does have active power in both ways, and so action can belong to him in both ways; but then one action will not be the other.

113. To the second [n.110]: this argument seems capable of being reduced to the opposite, for if creation as undergone does not always remain, nevertheless the disposition that creatures have to God as to efficient cause always remains while the creature remains; therefore this disposition is not an undergoing of creation in the category of passion.

But I say that the disposition of creatures to God as to efficient cause is only a single relation and a relation coeval with the foundation, nay it is the same as the foundation, as is plain from Ord. 2 d.1 nn.260-271, and it can be called passive creation; or if the term ‘creation’ imports a newness or order to preceding non-being, then one should use a term that does not import newness, because the newness is not coeval with the relation to God nor with the foundation; and this point is discussed there [ibid. nn.281-285, 295].

114. To the third [n.111] the response is in Ord. 1 d.30 nn.44-55, 73, about how God is really ‘Lord’ but not by a real relation of lordship.

B. Whether the Eucharist can be confected by the Action of a Created Agent as the Principal Agent

1. A Possible Opinion

115. As to the second article [n.17] it would seem that this conversion could belong to some creature as principal agent.

116. The reason is that an action belonging to God through a principle of acting that is not formally infinite can belong to a creature. For an action whose sufficient principle is something finite, or non-infinite, is not repugnant to a creature; but God produces creatures through a will that is not formally infinite;     therefore etc     . The proof of the minor is that if the will of God were formally infinite, it would include every perfection intrinsic to God (for no addition can be made to something infinite), and then the will would be ‘a sea of infinite substance’ - which is not true because this is proper to the essence itself, according to Damascene ch.9, “‘He who is has sent me     etc .’, for since he comprehends the whole within himself, he has being like an infinite and unending sea;” and so Damascene says there that the name ‘He who is’ seems the more principal of the names that are said of God. A confirmation is that the will does not formally include relations in itself; but without these the total intrinsic divine perfection is not present; therefore      infinity is not present either.

117. Again, a natural agent can alter the species in question [sc. of bread and wine] and eventually generate a substance from them, as is plain in the case of mixing a lot of water with the species of wine and in nutrition and in other generations that arise from those species; therefore created power can totally convert them into a preexisting substance [sc. changing bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood], for no greater power is required in the latter case than in the former.

2. Scotus’ own Opinion

118. I say, however, that no creature has power as principal agent for this conversion.

119. The reason is that only that agent has power for it to whose active power the being and non-being of both extremes is totally subject (the point is clear from the solution to the first and second questions of distinction 11 [nn.28- 29, 59-61]); but no creature is of this sort, for any creature presupposes in itself some part of the term ‘from which’ and ‘to which’, as has been shown (Ord. 4 q.1 nn.119-123, 138-145).

3. To the Argument for the Possible Opinion

120. As to what was said about the will [n.116], I say that the major seems probable, namely that ‘a principle of acting that is finite, or non-infinite, is not repugnant to a creature’, and so neither is the action repugnant for which such a principle is per se sufficient. And the consequence of this concession is that the will, as it is the principle of creatures, is formally infinite. So I deny the minor, namely that it is not infinite; and the reason for this denial was touched on in Ord. 1 d.10 n.9.

121. Briefly, then, it is plain that God is simply blessed in the operations of his intellect and will; for he is not simply blessed in his essence as it is infinite if he does not comprehend the essence; and just as the intellect comprehends the essence by seeing it, so the will in its own way, if God is to be perfectly blessed, must comprehend the essence by loving it. And so both powers and both acts of both powers about the divine essence will be infinite if God is to be perfectly blessed.

122. To the proof then of the minor [n.116] I say that in divine reality a quasi extensive infinity can be understood, as it is if it be understood to be a quasi infinite multitude of perfections; in another way there is an intensive infinity of any perfection simply, such that the perfection, in its idea, is without limit and end. And in this second way something can have an infinity that is not only formal but also fundamental, and something can have a formal intensive infinity though not a fundamental one.

123. I say therefore that nothing of one formal idea is infinite in the first way; indeed even in God there is perhaps no such infinity absolutely; for perhaps, just as the persons are finite, speaking of this sort of infinity, so too the perfections are finite in number or in multitude, and the notions and relations too, and the former and latter when conjoined; but intensive formal and fundamental infinity are present together there in the divine essence as it is essence, and to this extent it is called by Damascene ‘a sea’ [n.116]. But formal infinity only, not fundamental, is in any perfection simply; for any perfection has its formal perfection from the infinity of the essence as from its root and foundation. But an infinity neither formal nor fundamental is in the relations in divine reality, as was shown in Ord. 1 d.13 nn.71-72, because it is better for the Father not to have filiation than to have filiation; ‘perfection simply is that which it is better for anything to have than not to have’ [Anselm, Monologion ch.15].

124. The response is now plain, that although the will is formally infinite yet it does not include in itself formally all the intrinsic perfections, because neither the essence nor anything else includes them in this way; but neither does the will include all perfections fundamentally, but only the essence, which is the ‘sea’, does so in this way; but it does include by identity both any perfection simply and any relation.

125. The confirmation about relations [n.116] is of little value, because however much relations are not included the idea of infinity can still be preserved, understanding the relations in the way that they add nothing because of which there is infinity; for then, when they are set aside, infinity is not had in anything, and when they are added they are not formally infinite, and a finite or non-finite added to something finite does not make it infinite; therefore the intended conclusion follows. I reply therefore that although the will does not include the relations formally, it can nevertheless be formally infinite.

126. And if you object ‘the will does not include divine perfection totally’, I say that although it does not include it extensively it does include it intensively as to one perfection formally; but as to all the other perfections and relations it includes them by identity and not formally. And these matters were discussed in Ord. 1 d.8 nn.191-209, 213-217.

127. To the second argument [n.117] one can give reply from the preceding distinction 12 [nn.224-229, 386-417, 432-439, 490-502], from the four last questions -from the first of these it is plain how acting belongs to the species, and from the other three how undergoing and being corrupted belong to them.

128. Briefly then one must deny that they can be changed by a created agent into any totally new substance, either in the case of mixture or nutrition or any corruption of the species, as is plain there. But sometimes a new substance succeeds to them when they are corrupted, if not by the action of a created agent but of God immediately producing it.

C. Whether the Eucharist can be Confected by the Action of a Creature as Instrumental Agent

1. First Principal Objection, or the Opinion of Thomas against this Third Article

a. Exposition of the Objection

129. As to the third article [n.17] it seems that this conversion could belong to some creature as to an agent acting instrumentally.

130. First, because an accident can be an agent instrumentally for the generation of substance; therefore by likeness also in the issue at hand.

131. The proof of the antecedent is first as follows: when things are essentially ordered, the third is more distant from the first than the second; but increatures essence, being, and power are essentially ordered; therefore power is more distant from essence than being. But being really differs from essence; therefore so does power; and consequently no substantial form can be the immediate principle of acting.

132. The same antecedent is proved in another way thus: whenever there are two acts neither of which includes the other, then they are not reduced to the same principle, as is plain in On the Soul 2.4.415a16-20 where the Philosopher holds that powers are distinguished by acts as acts are by objects; but ‘perfecting matter’ and ‘abstracting from matter’ are two acts in the soul that do not include each other. The proof is that each can be without the other: the first without the second (as in a child and someone asleep), and the second without the first (in the separated soul); but the prior act, namely ‘giving being to matter’, belongs to the essence as to proximate formal principle; therefore the other act [‘abstracting from matter’] does not belong to the essence; and then, by likeness, not to other substantial forms with respect to actions that seem to belong to them.

133. If it be objected against this that, first, anything absolute can be separated from anything absolute (for there seems to be no contradiction here), then, if the intellect is something absolute different from the soul, it can be separated from the soul and can, as so separate, understand and be beatified (which seems unacceptable); second that because substance or the quiddity of substance is the object that moves the intellect, therefore it is the immediate principle of operating on the intellect - to the first of these they reply by denying the first proposition, setting down an example about subject and property; to the second they say that the action is intentional, not real.

b. Objections or Rejection of the Opinion

α. Against the Responses to the Objections

134. Response against the first [n.133]: because then the intended conclusion is obtained, that if the subject cannot be separated from the property, this is because of some necessity in the subject with respect to the property; but this necessity will be reduced to some causality - and not to the causality of material cause, because matter is capable of contradictory predicates;     therefore to that of efficient cause, and then substance will be the efficient cause of some property (unless one goes on infinitely putting property before property).

135. The intended conclusion is got in a second way [n.133], because the objection posed against the major confirms it, for God can supply every causality of an extrinsic cause; the causality of subject with respect to property (which is the reason there is necessity there) is the causality of an extrinsic cause; therefore etc     .

136. The confirmation they give for this response, that the subject falls into the definition of the property [n.133], is of no validity, because then no accident could be separated from its subject, for according to the Philosopher the idea of the substance must fall into the idea of any accident.

137. This objection about subject and accident can also be rejected in another way, for it would follow that the substance of bread could not be without quantity and vice versa; for whatever is per se and first present in a superior is per se, though not first, present in the inferior (an example about triangle and isosceles triangle and having angles equal to two right angles); but being continuous is per se and first present in corporeal substance; therefore it is per se, though not first, present in bread, and consequently the bread cannot remain without the same continuity nor the same continuity without the bread, for an accident does not pass over from subject to subject. And then neither the quantity nor the Eucharist could remain without the substance of bead - which they and the general school deny.

β. Against the Objection’s and the Opinion’s Conclusion

138. Against the conclusion of this opinion, namely that a substantial form, according to them, cannot be the immediate principle of acting, argument was given above in d.12 nn.188-193, and let it suffice briefly to repeat it now:

139. Because the principle of acting is that wherein the producer assimilates the produced to itself; but the form of the producer does not assimilate the produced to itself in a more perfect form; rather it assimilates the produced to itself in the substantial form;     therefore etc     .

140. Secondly as follows: an instrument, according to them, only acts as a moved mover; therefore in order for it to move, it is moved immediately by the principal agent; and so, in order for it to move as instrument of a substance, it will be moved immediately by the substance. But this is not valid according to what seems to me to be true about the order of causes; for I do not believe that the second cause, which is sometimes called the instrument, receives a special motion from the first cause but only has some subordination of its active form to the active form of the other, by some subordination: for when the prior cause actually is in existence and in its order of causing, the second cause is of a nature to proceed to act in its order of causing; and thus is the second cause called a ‘moved mover’, not because it receives a motion from the first by which it may move, but because it depends in its moving on the other first naturally moving.

141. The response to the second objection [n.133], namely about quiddity moving the intellect, is that it is not valid; for although substance has intentional being there, yet understanding itself is a real form; therefore one must with respect to it give some real active principle and give it as real. Nor is it valid to have recourse to phantasms, because according to them [Ord. 2 d.3 nn.263-65] the essence of an angel moves the intellect of the angel to an angel’s proper understanding, and one cannot imagine any phantasm there.

γ. To the Arguments for the Objection

142. To the arguments for the objection (or opinion [n.131]), which is about the instrumental causality of an accident with respect to substance: To the first, about the order of essence, being, and power, I say that it is simply false that being is other than essence. And this is proved by their own statements [n.141], for it is impossible for the generated as generated to have being per se, but the generated as generated or as first term of generation is per se one. Let it also be the case that there is the sort of order of being and power that they imagine - I say that power would precede being, for in whatever instant of nature or duration the essence is perfect, in that same instant the principle for performing the operations proper to the power is perfect, and so the power is perfect - and then, if being is other than essence, power precedes being.

143. To the second [n.132] I say that the major proposition is universally false of first and second act, because thus one would prove that nothing is an active principle in creatures; for form must give act to the thing it forms, and if the thing is active it must have reference to that in which it causes second act; but these are distinct, because one of them can be separated from the other without contradiction.

144. I reply therefore that the major is not true of ordered first and second acts but is universally false, for a form that gives second act gives also first act and vice versa, and in this way does it apply to ‘making alive’ and ‘understanding’; and therefore the major is of no validity for the intended conclusion.

145. But if the major is true of disparate second acts and of a finite active principle, in the way the place adduced from the Philosopher should be understood On the Soul 2.4.415a16-20 [n.132] - this is nothing to the purpose, because ‘to make alive’ and ‘to understand’ are not two such acts.

2. Second Principal Objection of Thomas to the Third Article and its Rejection

146. Another principal objection to this third article is as follows: it is possible for a created cause to cause, in virtue of God, some proper knowledge of God; therefore it is much more possible for an accident, in virtue of substance, to cause a substance. The proof of the antecedent is that it is possible to have some proper knowledge of God and to have it only through creatures, for nothing else moves the intellect of the wayfarer.

147. The response is twofold:

First, because knowledge of God is an accident and consequently does not go beyond the total genus of accidents that move the intellect (the same holds if we speak of knowledge of created substance and of accident); it is therefore possible for an accident to cause knowledge of created or uncreated substance without its causing simply anything more noble than its proper perfection. But such would not be the case if it were to cause a substance, for any substance is simply more perfect than any accident.

148. The other response returns to the same point, for an object in cognition has diminished being and so substance as known - or God as known - has diminished being in the knower; but substance as it is in itself has a being simply perfect. Therefore, although an accident can be the principle of producing substance in diminished being, that is, in known being, or although a creature can be the principle of producing God in such diminished being, then, by like argument, it does not follow that an accident can in any way be a principle (whether as instrument or as principal agent) of producing substance in being simply.

3. Scotus’ own Opinion

149. As concerns this article, then, ‘instrument’ can be understood in several ways (as was said above [d.12 n.192]), but, relative to the issue at hand, a disposing agent can be called an instrument. And in this way is a minister an instrument of God in the case of this conversion [sc. of the Eucharist] - a minister, that is, who has a proper human action preceding the divine action as necessary disposition for it (not simply so, but by the ordaining of God, who makes a pact with the Church that he will do such and such an act proper to himself when the minister does such and such an act).

150. And this response is universal to all the sacraments in which a minister is required, because the minister is a sort of disposing agent; but his action is an instrumental action with respect to the principal agent somewhat in the way that cutting is to the form of a bench, because the form of the bench, by the ordaining of the principal agent, follows upon the cutting. So it is in the matter at hand: the pronouncing of the words can be called an instrumental action with respect to the conversion or confecting of the body of Christ, for this conversion or confecting follows regularly on the pronouncing.

151. And thus the body of Christ is confected by the action of a creature as instrumental agent - not indeed as an instrumental agent that attains to the end in the way certain instruments do that have an instrumental action attaining to the end (as was said above [d.12 n.194]), but in the way a preceding agent is said to act instrumentally for the principal form, which however it does not attain to; and its action is said to be instrumental because disposing and preceding it [d.12 n.195].

II. To the Initial Arguments

152. To the principal arguments.

I concede the first two [nn.6-7], for they prove that in this divine conversion there is no action of the category of action, unless the opinion stated above be held [d.11 nn.333-339], that no body succeeds to the bread save the body of Christ as it is here. And if this opinion is held the arguments must be replied to:

153. As to the first [n.6] the reply is that when it is said ‘action is founded on motion’ the term ‘motion’ is taken there indifferently for motion properly speaking and for change, and indifferently for motion subjectively or foundationally or concomitantly. And I concede here that this action is founded on a change of Christ’s body as it succeeds to its not being here.

154. As to the second [n.7] I concede that there is passive undergoing here when holding the above opinion [d.11 nn.333-339]; but this passive undergoing is in the body in that it becomes present here from not being present here.

155. As to the third [n.8], it is plain from d.11 n.164 in what way ‘generation’ is conversion of whole to whole; but the conversion [sc. of the Eucharist] is not a total one in the way generation is.

156. As to the fourth [n.9], the inference ‘nature can be the principle of being in one way that is fitting, therefore it can be a principle of being in a way that is not fitting’ does not hold; on the contrary the way is repugnant to it as far as concerns itself.

157. And when you argue [n.10] that because the being is the same therefore it follows that the same thing can be the principle of this being - I concede it; but from this does not follow that therefore ‘what is the principle of this being in that way can be the principle of it in this way’.

158. And when the point is pressed [n.11] that the mode of the being is not there repugnant to the being, I say that it is repugnant to it in comparison to the sort of cause in question, namely such that the cause cannot cause this being in this mode although it can cause it absolutely or in another mode.

159. And when it is added finally [n.12] that the mode does not exceed in perfection that of which it is the mode, I say that something imperfect with the imperfection left to it can fail to be subject to the causality of that to which something more perfect in another fitting mode is subject.

160. To the final argument [n.13] I say that the action of an instrumental agent, taking ‘instrumental agent’ to mean disposing agent, does indeed require a proper intention in that agent - whether it be a natural agent (as in the case of heat when it causes alteration, where there is indeed a proper intention, although it is an instrumental agent, that is, a disposing agent, with respect to generating fire); or whether it be an agent acting through intellect, because then the instrument requires a determinate human action that is ordered to the action of the principal agent; and such universally is the action of a minister in the dispensing of the sacraments.