C. Scotus’ own Opinion

36. As to this article [n.8] I concede that the Father and the Son inspirit the Holy Spirit by the will insofar as they are altogether one, because for the idea of principle, precisely as principle, there is only required its perfection in itself and that it be had in the person before it is understood to have an adequate term; but the will is ‘altogether one’ in the Father and the Son, and it exists in them by origin before it is understood to have an adequate term (because both persons are also inspiritive), and therefore the will, as it exists in them, is the same productive principle with respect to the Holy Spirit.

37. But, for understanding the words of Richard [nn.11-12], I draw a distinction, that ‘concordant will’ can be understood in many ways; either concordant in some elicited second act, as in loving the same thing, and then loving either the creature or the Holy Spirit; or in loving themselves and in loving back, as that the Father loves thereby the Son and conversely; or ‘concordant’ can be understood habitually, insofar as first act is of a nature to have a second quasi-act. The Father and the Son do not seem to inspirit the Holy Spirit with a concordant will in the first two ways, because (as was proved in the first reason by two proofs [nn.14, 15, 19]) they do not formally inspirit either by love of the essence (as was proved in the first proof [n.15]) or by love of each other (as was touched on in the second proof [n.19]). Therefore the understanding must be taken in the third way: ‘by concordant will’ that is ‘by will insofar as it is first act, in which they are of a nature to be concordant in their act, by concordantly producing love’; by such a will - I say - they inspirit, and more by a single will than by a concordant will, because, as the will is understood to be first act, it is understood to be one will in them and not to have concord save in the following way of speaking, ‘because these persons are understood to be able to be concordant in their quasi-second act by concordantly inspiriting’.

38. Then, by saving the words of Richard in some way, I say that, when in some one and the same thing there are two active principles ‘active in an ordered way’, that one thing is not in proximate power to acting with the second principle unless it is preunderstood in the act of the first principle, - an example is about intellect and will in the soul; therefore the Father is not altogether fecund with a power proximate to inspiriting (which is an act of the will as the principle ‘by which’) unless he is pre-understood in the act of the prior principle (which is the intellect), and consequently the will is not the proximate principle save as it is in the two of them; this follows because, by that prior production - without which this power is not proximate - the will is in the two of them because, by the act of the first fecundity, there is communicated to the produced person the second fecundity, namely the fecundity of the will with respect to the inspiriting of the Holy Spirit; there is however no other fecundity - namely fecundity of will - in the two than in the one, but the same in both the producer and the product.

39. There is in some way an example of this in us. The soul is not fecund ‘with proximate power’ for having an act of willing unless it is in actual intellection, although it does not, by that intellection, formally produce the act of loving but by the will as it is first act, which preexists in the soul before intellection, although not in power altogether proximate to acting. If then the soul, in producing intellection, were to communicate to it the fecundity of volition, the will would not be in proximate power to producing love unless the word was first produced, and so after fecund will had been communicated to it; and thus the will would never be proximately fecund save in the two of them, - not however such that this fecundity should, of its idea, require existence in two because it could not exist in one (nay, it itself would already preexist in the mind itself); but, because of the order of fecundities in producing, there would necessarily have to be a second fecundity - when it is in proximate power - in the two of them.

40. It can therefore be conceded that the Father and the Son inspirit by the one will which is in them, and which is perfectly fecund existing in the two supposits, because it is understood to be communicated to the generated supposit - and so to exist in both supposits - before the Holy Spirit is produced by it.

41. But how is the Holy Spirit inspirited by mutual love [n.11]?

I reply: by love, that is by the will by which the Father and Son as in first act are of a nature to love themselves mutually; by this will - I say - as existing in them, and of a nature to be the sort by which they may love themselves mutually, the Holy Spirit is inspirited, but not by any second act as it were of love actually bestowed and requited. But if this does not suffice for the intention of Richard, let him expound him who can, because his determination does not seem to stand well with the statements of Augustine -who attributes to the Father and the Son the perfect idea of one principle with respect to the Holy Spirit as he does to the Trinity with respect to the creature [n.6] - if his determination contradict what was just said above; but as to how Augustine says that the Father and the Son love themselves by the Holy Spirit, as if the Holy Spirit is the very mutual love of the Father and the Son (as Augustine seems to say in On the Trinity VI ch.5 n.7), it will be expounded in distinction 32 [I d.32 qq.1-2 nn.1, 11], where the Master

[Lombard] treats of this question ‘Whether the Father and Son love themselves by the Holy Spirit’.