3. Objections and their Solution

66. If you argue that every manner of simultaneity is incompossible, because then God would will opposites at the same time and for the same time, therefore some succession, and so a change, is necessarily there required - I reply: succession of an act to an act is not required, nor succession of an act as it extends over an object to an act is it extends over another object, because in eternity it extends over both. But neither is a succession of one object to another in external reality required, because the existence of an external reality is not required for that volition, just as neither is the temporal required for the eternal; but there is required some succession there of things that are objects in objective existence.

67. Nor is ‘to have an order thus [sc. as objects in objective existence]’ the same as ‘to have order in being an object’, for a prior as prior and a posterior as posterior can be understood simultaneously, such that they do not have an order in being an object for the intellect; and yet there is an order to them as they are objects, namely in their objective being. And from this order of objects in objective being no change follows, because an opposite does not succeed to an opposite either in being known or in being [opposite].

68. If you argue against this that there still stands a difficulty in the reasoning, because first one part of the contradiction is true, namely ‘this person is ordained to a penalty’, and second the other part is true, namely ‘this person is not ordained to a penalty’; but there is no passage from contradictory to contradictory without a change;     therefore etc     . - I reply:

In eternity this proposition is true, ‘this person is for time a ordained to a penalty’, and this one is true, ‘this person is for time b not ordained to a penalty’. And there contradictories are not true at the same time, nor do they succeed each other in truth; but the things for which the affirmation and negation are designated as holding are apprehended as succeeding each other really or possibly.

Or in another way: that ‘this person is now ordained to a penalty’ is nothing other than ‘this person is willed for a penalty at time a, if at that time he is going to be judged’, and ‘this person is later not ordained to a penalty, that is, this person is not willed for a penalty at time b, if at that time he is going to be judged’ - and these are not contradictory.

But that each volition, pertaining to retention and remission of guilt, is only a conditioned volition is plain, because if God wanted absolutely to punish the sinner immediately he had sinned he would immediately punish him.

69. Against this whole process about diverse ‘nows’ for which there is offense and remission: because to an angel existing in the aevumThe ‘aevum’ or ‘aeviternity’ is the scholastic term for the duration of angels who, unlike God, are not eternal and, unlike men, are not measured by time. ⁴³ who sins God could remit the offense outside all time; and then there would be no possibility of granting such diverse ‘nows’ for which there would be fault and remission, especially if the aevum is posited as indivisible. If it be said that then there would be a different aevum for the fault, and that it would then cease to be when remission arrives - on the contrary: one or other of these two, either the fault or the remission, is a privation only, and so does not have its own aevum. Also, in reference to the aevum when an angel is first abiding in fault and afterwards in remission, these two opposites would be existing in the same aevum and for the same aevum.

70. Let the response to this be looked for in Ordo II d.2 nn.48-79, about ‘Succession in the Aevum’.

71. But suppose God does remit guilt in this way after the offense, without any change in the act or in the object as it is object or in the object as it exists outside - ix there not to this act of remission in Peter (to whom remission is made) some change of reason outside that corresponds?

72. It seems that there is, otherwise Peter is no more absolved or reconciled after remission than before. But if there is something that corresponds, a question about it will arise, whether it is the same as the giving of grace or something other.

73. It can be said that when an act, wherein the object has being of reason, can be the term of a real change, the object can there change with a change of reason (just as a stone can become understood by me from being non-understood, because there could be a new intellection of it). But when the act is in no way the term of a real change, the object in the act there cannot change with a change of reason. Of this sort is divine willing, and consequently Peter, as he is the object of this act because having, as outside, new being, does not have the idea of being recently an object but of being so uniformly in eternity. And so change, whether of thing or of reason, does not seem it needs to be posited in Peter when his fault is said to have been remitted to him.

74. Concomitant there, however, with this remission, active from God and passive in Peter, is a certain real change - and this always of God’s ordained power, which is for the giving of grace to Peter, because God does not, of his ordained power, God give remission to anyone for time a without for that time giving him grace. But of God’s absolute power, both in the thing outside and in the act inside, these two could for eternity be separated, namely so that he would give remission to Peter at time a when a comes (which is only an imminent act in God) and yet not give grace to him in a when some outside act comes and goes - if in eternity he wanted to give remission for time a when a comes, and yet not did not want in eternity to give him grace for time a; for the first states only negation of a positive act, which is ‘to will to punish’, but the second states a positive different act.

75. And if you argue that Peter cannot be differently disposed to the divine will (as punitive will or non-punitive) save because he is differently disposed in some other respect, namely, because he is accepted or not accepted; for an object not in itself varied according to any other thing actually prior is not an object in a different way for divine volition- this is false, because our will too can in some act be differently disposed to an object that, even before the act, is disposed uniformly; and it could do so if it always had the same act contingently passing over secondary objects.That is: the will is free and not determined by its (secondary) objects, so that its acts relative to them are contingent. Consequently, if the same contingent act were always being done it could always be done differently. Scotus is not of the view that if we were in the same conditions again we would choose and do the same act again. On the contrary, our will could always have chosen differently; and if ours then a fortiori God’s. ⁴⁴