4. To the Reasons for the Rejected Opinion

324. To the reasons for the opposite opinion [n.302-307] as concerns this third article.

To the remark of Avicenna about humanity [n.303] I say that, through the statement he makes that “horseness is only horseness,” he does not exclude things that belong per se to the idea of horseness (of which sort is ratified being), but he excludes things that are properties of being, as ‘one’, ‘act’ etc., as is plain there from his text.

325. To the second [n.304], both the major and the minor are false; the major because animal is in man formally or per se or essentially, insofar as he is man, yet animality or animal is not formally man; but if it were added in the major ‘whatever is per se included in the understanding of something as being ultimate in it’, the major is true, and the minor false in this way is false.

326. When proof is given [n.304] through the other prosyllogism, “what ‘to be’ belongs to,” I say that the major of this prosyllogism is false, if by the ‘insofar as’ is understood that something is redoubled ‘per se in the first mode’, or if ‘participating’ in the major is taken as a gerundive. The major of the prosyllogism (a syllogism used to prove another syllogism) is “any being that is not of itself ‘to be’, but to which ‘to be’ belongs, is not a ratified being save by participating that very ‘to be’, or insofar as it participates that very ‘to be’.” This major, says Scotus, is false if, first, what the ‘insofar as’ doubles, namely the participating (“save...insofar as it participates that very ‘to be’”), is taken as falling into the definition of the subject, because the subject is not defined by that fact, though the fact be true. The major is also false, second, if the ‘participating’, or the Latin ‘participando’, is taken to be a gerundive, for then the predicate would become something like ‘save by that very ‘to be’ needing to be participated’, which commits the same error, because the ‘needing to be’ makes the participation part of the definition of the subject when it is not. ⁴¹ And, insofar it is explained by a ‘because’, the major (if a causality pertaining to the first mode per se is understood) is in the same way false, because participation itself in the first mode per se is not that by which a being is ratified formally. But if by the ‘insofar as’ be understood causality pertaining to the second mode per se (of the sort that is in a subject with respect to its proper property), I concede that in this way ‘such a being insofar as it is such a being’ (for example a stone insofar as it is a stone) does participate ‘to be’ itself. However, the proposition is not true conversely, namely that ‘insofar as it participates it is a being’. An example: this is false properly speaking, ‘man insofar as capable of laughter is man’, understanding this both in the second mode per se, and much more in the first mode per se; but this is true ‘man insofar as he is man is capable of laughter’ in the second mode. And yet the other, the first, can be conceded in some way, because a stone insofar as it is a stone participates ‘to be’ itself, such that a stone, posited in ratified being, has by necessity and in the second mode per se the respect of participation, without which the ‘to be’ includes a contradiction - just as does being a subject without its proper property, or being the foundation necessary for a relation without the relation when the term of the relation has been posited. Then I understand it thus, that in the first instant of nature there is a being which is its ‘to be’, namely God. In the second moment, a stone is a ratified being, an absolute, which is understood as then neither participating nor non-participating. In the third moment, there is the participation itself, a certain respect, consequent to the stone.

327. To the next argument from the Physics, about causes [n.305], I say that it is one thing to be a relation prior to knowledge of the caused through the cause, and another thing for the cause itself to be included in the knowledge of the thing caused. For although the stone has a respect to God before the stone is known (and so it is not known if God is not known, perfectly [cf. n.277]), yet the stone is known when the respect to God is not known; and from this follows that the respect is not of the essence of the stone, because nothing is known unless that is known which is of its essence.

328. To Augustine [n.306]: I concede that every other good is good by participation, but the authority does not maintain that participation is of the essence of that good.

329. As to Boethius [n.307] it must be said that the authority proves the opposite, because in it he posits a removal of the first good by the intellect and, speaking about creatures with that in place, he says that when speaking of the ‘to be’ of them, “although they are and are good, yet they are not good insofar as they are.” So he himself, when, as to the intellect, he removes the first good, speaks of creatures according the ‘to be’ of creatures. But if the ‘to be’ of creatures were a respect to the supreme good, it would not only be a contradiction to remove the first good and to speak of the ‘to be’ of creatures, but it would not be intelligible; for it is not intelligible to posit a respect by removing the term of the respect. Therefore he understands that the ‘to be’ of creatures be absolute. But goodness, for him, states a certain ‘flow’ from the first good, and it is true that this term states a respect, and so it cannot belong absolutely to a thing. Therefore, if things in their ‘to be’ were not from the first good, they would not be good insofar as they are, because insofar as they are they did not flow from the first good. They would, however, be good per accidens, if they were to flow from the first good according to another ‘to be’ - just as a stone, if it did not exist by the will of the first good according to itsself but according to its hardness, it would be good insofar as it is hard (because by the will of the first good), though not insofar as it is a stone or insofar as it is a being. It is plain, therefore, that

Boethius is taking ‘good’ for the respect of flowing from the first good, and in this way too is the goodness in other beings not from God save because they are from the will of the first good. But this is not the absolute and intrinsic perfection of a creature, and therefore goodness, according to another absolute idea, does not state a respect to the creator, although goodness as Boethius takes it there does state a respect to the creator.