A. The First and Perfect Causality is Necessarily in the Three Persons

16. As to the first point, I say that the perfect causality is necessarily in the three persons.

17. The proof is threefold:

First, because in the case of the principles of the two productions, namely the necessary and the contingent, the principle of necessary production is necessarily prior to the principle of contingent production (for a necessary effect cannot presuppose a contingent one); but something in divine reality is principle of intrinsic production, which production is necessary - and something in divine reality is principle of extrinsic production, which production is contingent; therefore necessarily something in God is principle of production that is necessary and intrinsic before something in him is principle of production that is contingent and extrinsic. In that prior stage then, when intrinsic production is complete, there is communicated to the three persons all the fecundity that is not repugnant to them, and consequently there is communicated to them that which is the productive principle of extrinsic communication; therefore in the instant in which there is in God a proximate principle for producing something contingent extrinsically, that principle is communicated to the three persons.

18. Again, the first object is naturally present to the power that has regard to such object as first before a secondary object is present to it, and this is especially true when only the first object is object of the power from the nature of the thing and of itself, and the secondary object is not of itself object of the power but comes to exist as such through the act of the power; now in this way the first object of the divine intellect and of its will is the divine essence alone, and all other things are only secondary objects and are produced in some way in their being by the divine intellect; therefore the divine essence is naturally present to its intellect as first object before anything else is. But the divine intellect, possessing the object present to itself, is not only an operative power about it, but also a productive power of knowledge adequate to the intellect as productive power; therefore it is then productive of the infinite Word and consequently of the Word generated in the divine nature. Likewise the divine will, possessing the essence actually understood as object present to itself, is not only an operative power (by which, namely, what formally has the will loves the object), but is also a productive power of adequate infinite love and consequently of a person inspirited in divine nature. Therefore naturally before the divine intellect and divine will naturally have or regard some secondary object, the complete idea is possessed of the production of the intrinsic divine persons and consequently those persons are produced before any other object is presented, and consequently much more are they prior to the causing of any other object.

19. Further, third, as follows: the relation of nature to supposit is prior to its relation to second act, because acting presupposes being and the relation of nature to supposit pertains to being;a likewise the relation of nature to supposit is essential and is in the whatness, but the relation that is of nature to acting does not appear to be thus essential. Therefore divine nature has being in the persons before it is a principle of extrinsic production.b

a.a [Interpolation] because nature must have being before acting; but it only has being in a supposit, just as the species only has being in an individual; therefore etc.

b.b [Note of Scotus] The first reason [n.17], if it proves any priority, does not however prove that contingent production necessarily pre-requires necessary production, because this priority is not as to the dependence of contingent on necessary production but as to the principle ‘by which’, which is common to both productions. Likewise, the second reason [n.18] assumes that the intellect, having the divine essence present to it before it has the secondary object, is the idea of generating, and this is true in such way that ‘as it is the idea of generating’ it does not require the secondary object; thus it may be said, contrariwise, that although the secondary object pre-requires that the first object be present to the power, yet it does not pre-require that, when the first object is present, the second person be generated, because the first object present in one person is sufficient for making the secondary object present. Likewise to the third argument [n.19]; action presupposes nature in some supposit but not necessarily in several - or not even in any supposit when the nature is agent. Thus these reasons [nn.17-19] are conclusive in the way explained in the third article [nn.41-43]; not because the order is by reason of these productions (so the extrinsic production is not properly said to presuppose or pre-require the intrinsic production), but the order is by the common foundation, in which the intrinsic production is more immediate and therefore prior.

20. Secondly, as to this article [n.16], one must look at what is the reason for this [sc. the priority of intrinsic production to extrinsic production].

And I say that the reason is not as the first position [sc. Henry’s, n.5] gestures to, namely that the Word and Holy Spirit are the proximate formal reasons for causing, or that in some way they complete the causality of the Father [nn.6, 12] (rather the same and equally perfect causality is in the Father as in the three persons). Therefore this priority [sc. of intrinsic to extrinsic production] is of the same sort in the Father and Son with respect to the Holy Spirit as was stated in 1 d.12 nn.7, 38-40 - and the reason posited there for this is not that there is a more imperfect fecundity in one person than in two, but that fecundity is communicated to the Son before the Holy Spirit is inspirited; and then in the instant of origin in which the Father produces the Son, the fecundity by which the Holy Spirit is produced will be in the Father and the Son, and from this the consequence is that then the Spirit is produced by the two, and the fecundity in them is one.

21. And thus here: the divine nature is communicated first in nature to the three divine supposits (according to the reasons set down above [nn.17-19]) before the creature can be immediately created; and therefore in the instant in which the creature is immediately producible, there is one causality in the three persons with respect to the creatures to be produced.

22. And this is the reason of Augustine On the Trinity 5.14 n.15, that ‘just as Father and Son are one principle for the Holy Spirit, so all three persons are one principle for the producing of creatures’.