A. The Opinion of Others

4. [Reasons for the opinion] - Here look at the opinion of Henry [of Ghent] about the eternity of essences, and specifically in Summa 21 q.4.a

a [Interpolation] Here some say [sc. Henry] that being taken most commonly - or thing - can be said to be from ‘think’ [Latin reor, thing in Latin is res], and thus it is common to figments and many other things. In another way, proceeding further, a thing is said to be from ‘ratitude’, as it is a ratified or valid thing and distinct from a fictitious thing; and this is double: for it is distinguished as thing to which being can belong or as thing to which being does belong, - and prior there is ‘to which being can belong’; and this thing, as it is by relation to the exemplar, is thus the essence, because just as God as efficient cause produces the thing in being of existence, so he produces it as exemplar in being of essence.

5. For this opinion the strongest argument is from what was touched on in the second principal argument, about the knowledge of God and the real eternal object [n.2].

6. There is added to this [n.5] that proportion is a property of being; but the proportion of an object known in eternity is something related to the knower, and the sort of thing that is ‘impossible to be’ is not so proportioned.

7. Further, as being is to non-being, so is possible to impossible - therefore by permutation [sc. being is to possible as non-being to impossible]; but every being is possible; therefore everything that is a pure non-being is impossible.

8. And there is a confirmation, because if some pure non-being (or a nothing) were possible, and some pure non-being (or a nothing) were impossible, one nothing would be more nothing than the other, which seems absurd; therefore a ‘possible’ is not altogether nothing but some being.

9. Further, Augustine On the Nature of the Good ch.18: “If good is some form, something not non-good is capacity for form;” therefore something not non-good is a possibility for actual goodness.

10. Again, On John homily 18 n.8: “Heart and mind form the same letters, but in different ways;” therefore they are made by the heart before they are by the hand.

11. And Avicenna Metaphysics VIII ch.7, about the double flow of things from God [sc. according to the being of essence and the being of existence].

12. It is also added by them [sc. Henry etc.] that the distinction of the being of essence from the being of existence [n.4] suffices for composition, because of the fact that essence (understood as having the being of essence) is still in potency to the being of existence, which it receives from the efficient cause insofar as it is efficient - and then “it is composed of potency and act.”

13. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against these points the arguments are:

First, that creation is production from nothing; but if a stone pre-had from eternity true real being, then, when it is produced by the efficient cause, it is not produced from nothing simply.

14. Secondly as follows: if it is not produced save only according to a new respect to the efficient cause, it does not seem to be produced in being simply, but only in being in a certain respect - and the creation will be less ‘a production simply’ than is alteration, where there is production (at least of something) as to absolute being.

15. Third (according to the same way) it is argued that it posits the same actual and aptitudinal relation on the part of God, and that because of this there cannot, on account of the old aptitudinal relation, be a new actual relation in God [d.35 n.35]; therefore likewise on the part of what is referred to God there is the same actual and aptitudinal relation, and it will, on account of the old aptitudinal relation, not be an actual new one; therefore since the aptitudinal relation to the being of existence was always in a being having the being of essence, there will be no new actual relation in it insofar as it is existent.

16. Fourth (according to the same way), because in the same immutable foundation there cannot be a new respect; here the foundation is the same, namely the being of essence, - and an immutable term, namely God; therefore there is no new respect to such a term, of the sort of respect that is posited as ‘being of existence’.

17. Again, fifth (according to the same middle term, about creation [sc. creation from nothing, n.13]), because the production of a thing according to the being of essence is most truly creation (for it is purely from nothing as from the term from which, and to a true being as to the term to which); and this production according to them is eternal [n.12]; therefore the creation is eternal, - the opposite of which he [sc. Henry] tries to show and says he has demonstrations for.

18. Sixth (according to the same way, through the opposite about annihilation), it follows that nothing can be annihilated; for just as it is produced from a being in essence, so it seems to return to a being in essence, - not to nothing.

19. Further, second principally [sc. after the arguments in nn.13-18]: the reasons -which were touched on in distinction 8 nn.263, 269 against Avicenna - that ‘nothing other than God is formally necessary’, can be made against this opinion [sc. the opinion about the being of essence from eternity, n.4], because these reasons are as conclusive about quidditative being (if it is true being) as about the being of existence; for the will does not more necessarily will ‘something other than itself’ in quidditative being than it wills ‘something other than itself’ in being of existence, because there is the same reason in both cases [d.8 nn.270, 272] - and so about the other middle terms there [d.8 nn.271, 273-274].

20. Further, third: a thing according to being of essence is either the term of a relation of the idea (which they posit in God) or it is not but is according to some other known being. If in the second way, then things are posited in vain in the former being; for essences do not seem to be posited because of anything other than as they are terms of the ideal relations that are eternally in God. If in the first way, then there is in God by act of the divine intellect something according to which God can be otherwise or change, the opposite of which was proved in distinction 30 n.41. - The proof of this last inference is that every ‘being’ other than God is formally non-necessary of itself; therefore let this ‘being’ (although per impossibile) be posited to be quidditatively otherwise, it follows that the entity in God - whether it is real or of reason -, which has this ‘being’ for term, will be otherwise, and thus from the positing of something about what is other than God something that is in God by act of his intellect will be able to be changed, which is impossible.

21. Further, when a cause is perfect and naturally independent in causing and it acts naturally, it seems that it can cause the things more immediate to it to be more perfect, because it produces according to the ultimate of its power; the divine intellect as intellect precisely - according to this way - produces in God ideal reasons and the essences themselves in reason of essence, and produces ideal reasons as it were first in itself before these essences in this being (for they exist by the fact they are of the exemplars); therefore the ideas have a truer being - since the divine intellect is naturally acting - than the things patterned after them; but the divine intellect does not cause ideas save as ‘beings of reason’ and not in any real being - therefore neither does he give any real being to the things patterned after the ideas, which things are more remote ‘caused things’ as it were.

22. Besides, fifth: it produces these essences in being either knowingly or not. If knowingly, then they are in the knower before they are in this being, and so in vain are these entities [sc. ideas] posited on account of God’s eternal knowledge. If not knowingly, then he produces them merely naturally (as fire heats), which seems absurd about any produced thing that is other than himself in nature; nay he even produces the Son as he is intellect, although not as understanding formally, as was expounded elsewhere [d.2 nn.290-296].

23. In addition, that he [sc. Henry] attributes one effect to the exemplar cause and another to the efficient cause does not seem probable, because the exemplar cause is only a certain efficient cause; for the efficient cause is divided into efficient cause by intellect or intention and efficient cause by nature, according to the Philosopher Physics 2.5.196b17-22. Just as therefore a natural producer is not a different cause from the efficient cause, so neither is the exemplar cause or the exemplar producer - and so ‘what is effected’ will be the same as ‘what is produced as exemplified’ by any understanding that produces artificially, insofar as it is understanding and insofar as it is exemplar.

24. Also as to what he adds ‘that composition exists in creatures through this potentiality to act’ [n.12] does not seem rational, because there seems to be nothing there that may be compared with something else; for if the whole of whiteness pre-exists in potency as the term of power, and afterwards it comes to be in act, not for this reason is there any composition of thing and thing; therefore if a thing pre-exists in being of essence and it is produced in being of existence (which is not different - according to them - from the essence, just as neither generally is a relation different from its foundation, for which reason they do not posit that relation and foundation make a composition), there will not be a composite being because of these two.

25. And this might be the seventh argument (according to the first way [nn.13-18]) for rejecting creation, because of the identity of relation with the foundation [n.24]; because the same thing cannot be really new and not new; therefore if being of existence states a relation that is the same as essence, no creature will be simply new.