III. To the Reasons for the First Opinion when holding the Second Opinion

130. Those who hold this conclusion [sc. that there is a contradiction involved in

God having made something other than himself without a beginning], especially because they posit the same impossibility to exist on the part of any species (and in some species - as in successive ones - it seems that everything taken is finite, although the whole is infinite by taking part after part [nn.124-28]), give response to the reasons of the first opinion [nn.102-116] thus:

To the first [n.102], that although it cannot naturally be known whether God’s will exists in respect of this particular, yet it can naturally be known that his will is not of anything that is not of itself willable, and this because there is a contradiction - and consequently an incompossibility - involved in the divine will’s being of that of which there is no idea; but then it is necessary to place the ‘non-willability’, as also the incompossibility, on the part of the object, from 1 d.43 nn.3, 6.

131. And so, when it is argued that ‘the what it is’ is not a middle term for demonstrating existence [n.102], the response is made that, although this is true, yet a creature can be a middle term for demonstrating the beginning of its existence.

132. Against this: that the middle term by which the beginning of existence will be demonstrated cannot be the ‘what it is’, according to them, therefore it must be existence.

133. And then it seems that the argument is doubly at fault: first, according to the fallacy of the consequent, because existence in the minor does not entail actual existence; second, because the premise in which existence is applied to a stone will be contingent, and thus the demonstration will not be a very probable reason but sophistical.

134. A response can, however, be made to the argument [n.102], that although the ‘what it is’ is contingently disposed to existence actual or non-actual (and therefore it is not a middle term for demonstrating absolute existence, or any absolute condition of existence [131]), yet some condition of existence can be repugnant to some ‘what it is’, and so can be a middle term for demonstrating that existence under such a condition does not fit that to which the ‘what it is’ belongs; just as the quiddity of a stone, although in itself it does not include existence, does yet of itself have ‘uncreated being’ repugnant to it - and so from the idea of this quiddity can be inferred that it does not have uncreated being, and not eternal being either.

135. Therefore one should say as to the issue at hand (according to this position [sc. when holding the second opinion, n.130]), that eternal existence is repugnant to a stone, and therefore from the quiddity of a stone can be demonstrated that it does not have eternal existence; and from this further, not absolutely that it has new being, but that if it exists it has new being - which is the intended conclusion.

136. The reasoning [nn.102, 131] is also at fault - as it seems - according to the fallacy of the consequent; for this consequence does not hold, ‘the opposite of this cannot be demonstrated, therefore this is possible’, but there is a fallacy of the consequent, for ‘first impossibles’ are impossible from the terms, just as their opposites, the ‘first necessaries’ are necessary from the terms; and although the first necessaries cannot be demonstrated (because they are first truths), yet it does not follow that therefore they are possibles; but to the antecedent ‘the opposite cannot be demonstrated’ one should add that the opposite is not a first necessary or something known from the terms - and perhaps this would be denied by some in the case of the issue at hand, although the fact that the opposite is necessary from the terms is latent and not evident to any intellect that confusedly conceives the terms.

137. To the second [n.103] it can be said that if there are necessary reasons for things believed, yet it is not dangerous to adduce them, neither because of the faithful nor because of the infidels.

138. Not as to the faithful, for Catholic doctors, when examining by reasons the truth of things believed and striving to understand what they believed, did not intend by this to destroy the merit of faith - on the contrary, Augustine and Anselm believed they were laboring meritoriously to understand what they believed, according to Isaiah 7.9 (according to another translation [the LXX]), “unless you believe you will not understand;” for while believing they examined, so that they might understand through reasons what they believed. But whether demonstrations - if they can be had - make faith void or not, on this see book three on the incarnation [3 Suppl. d.24].

139. Nor is it dangerous as regards infidels if necessary reasons can be had;a even if necessary reasons cannot be had for proving the existence of a fact - namely an article of faith - yet if they may be had for proving the possibility of the fact, then to adduce them against an infidel would even be useful, because he would in some way be thereby persuaded not to resist such articles of belief as impossibilities. But to adduce sophisms for demonstrations against infidels would indeed be dangerous - because the faith would thereby be exposed to derision (and so it also is in every other matter, even an indifferent one, as in the case of geometers, to propose sophisms as demonstrations). For it is better for the ignorant to know he is ignorant than to think because of sophisms that he knows; but those who state the opposite view say that they are not adducing sophisms but necessary reasons and true demonstrations - and hence they are not doing anything prejudicial to the faith (neither in respect of the faithful nor of infidels), but are rather with reasons of this sort confirming it.

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] because “demonstrative speech is of a nature to solve all questions that arise about a thing,” Averroes Physics 1 com.71.

140. As to the third [nn.104-105], although different people speak in many ways about it, yet I say that in the same consequence there can be many reasons because of which the inference is necessary, and therefore many places (namely taken from the many reasons of such consequence) in the antecedent itself; and wherever any of these reasons or any of these places can be found, a like inference can be found and drawn. An example: ‘a man runs, therefore an animal runs’ rightly follows from the place taken from species [sc. because man is a species of animal], and not only from this place but also from a more common one, namely from the place taken from subjective parts [sc. because animal is a subjective part of man, for man is a rational animal] - because not only is the consequence good wherever there is an inference from species to genus, but it is also good wherever there is an argument from a subjective part to the whole. And another example could be posited where many reasons for an inference come together, but this suffices for the present purpose.

141. So I say that this consequence holds, ‘there is fire in this moment now and it is not impeded, therefore there is light’; the place is from a cause naturally causing and not impeded; and not only this, but this consequence can also hold from a certain more common reason in the antecedent, namely from the reason of something naturally producing and not impeded. For not only does ‘a thing naturally causing and not impeded’ have a caused thing or an effect coeval with it (Physics 2.8.199a10-11), but also ‘a thing naturally producing’ has a product coeval with it, as is manifest from the second reason [here above]. So wherever there exists a like reason for inferring, there will exist, not only according to the special reason [sc. a thing causing] but also according to the general one [sc. a thing producing], a necessary and natural consequence.

142. And so I say that the example [n.104] is very well to the purpose; because if ‘there is fire’ entails, by reason of a thing producing naturally, ‘splendor is diffused’, then even if the antecedent were impossible and incompossible and the consequent likewise, yet the consequence is necessary and good. Therefore, wherever this reason for entailment exists [sc. a thing producing naturally], the consequence is necessary and good, however things may stand with the antecedent and consequent; but so it is here with the Father and the Son, because the Father is a natural producer with respect to the Son; therefore there will be here a like entailment, good and necessary.

143. And hereby is plain the response to the confirmation of the reason, ‘that no perfection that can be in a second cause is taken away from the first cause’ [n.106]. Now to have a simply necessary caused thing is not a mark of perfection in a second cause, nay it even fails to belong to any second cause (as was said in 1 d.8 n.306), although some second cause may have it in a certain respect; for to cause simply necessarily involves a contradiction, and so it belongs to no second cause.1 d.8 n.306: “I say that no natural connection of cause and caused is simply necessary in creatures, nor does any second cause cause simply naturally or simply necessarily but only in a certain respect. The first part is clear, because any second cause depends on the relation of the first cause to the caused; likewise, no second cause causes save by the first cause causing the caused along with it, and this naturally before the proximate cause causes; but the first cause only causes contingently, therefore the second cause causes simply contingently because it depends on the causation of the first, which causation is simply contingent. The second part, namely about necessity in a certain respect, is plain, because many natural causes, as far as concerns themselves, cannot not cause their effects, and so there is necessity in a certain respect -namely as far as concerns themselves - and not simply; just as fire, as far as concerns itself, cannot not heat, yet, with God cooperating, it can absolutely not heat, as is clear, and as was clear about the three boys in the furnace [Daniel 3.49-50].” ⁵ Nor does Augustine (when inferring something on the part of fire) argue from this as from something impossible, but he argues it [sc. splendor is coeternal with fire] from a more common reason (namely from the reason of a thing producing), which does not involve a contradiction, and this suffices for his reasoning [n.104, cf. 1 d.9 n.10].

144. The same point makes plain the response to the other reason, ‘that a diverse mode of causing does not vary the caused thing formally’ [n.107]. This is true of ‘diverse modes of causing’ that can be causes in some causation, but if one mode in causing is possible and another impossible, then according to the possible mode the caused will be such [sc. possible] and according to the impossible mode the caused thing will be different [sc. impossible]; just as the impossible follows from the impossible, though by natural consequence - so I say that by natural consequence the inference holds that if something did cause naturally it would cause necessarily (and even coeternally), but this mode of causing involves a contradiction in the case of ‘causing freely’; however some other mode of causing - namely causing freely - is compossible with this cause, and therefore it does not remove compossibility in the antecedent and consequent [sc. in the inference ‘if it causes freely, then it causes contingently’].

145. As to the fourth [n.110] someone might say (on behalf of this way [n.117]) that ‘to be eternal’ includes a lack of limitation, because it includes being made equal to God in some respect (namely lack of limitation in duration), and this cannot be without lack of limitation [sc. in every respect], because a thing cannot be made equal to God in one respect and not in another.

146. But this is nothing, because what also coexists with God today is not for this reason made equal to eternity, with which it coexists today; and this eternity too, as it coexists with this day, is infinite and independent - and the creature, as coexisting with eternity today, is finite and dependent and so is not made coequal with it. Therefore one should say that ‘to be eternal’ states some lack of limitation in a creature and hence is repugnant to it; but why there is this repugnance and lack of limitation, let each show through the fundamental reason that he would posit for it.

147. To the fifth [n.111] the response is by reducing it to the opposite, because ‘just as a creature could not actually tend to not-being and yet be always going to be, so it cannot actually have been after non-being and yet always have been’ (now it is of the idea of a creature, according to this position [n.117], that not only is it a having had in aptitude not-being before being, but also a having had in actuality not-being before being).

148. As to the authority [n.112], I say that the authority posited there from Augustine City of God is not according to Augustine’s own opinion, but he put it there according to the understanding of the philosophers; hence he prefaces there about the philosophers, “For they speak thus, ‘if a foot were in sand from eternity, etc.’” Hence, according to the truth, that a foot has always been thus and has caused a footprint in the sand involves a contradiction, because the footprint is caused by a pressing down of the foot in the sand through local motion; and so for some motion to have been such without a beginning, when the motion, of its very idea, is between opposites [sc. between a beginning and an end], is a contradiction.

149. To the point about ‘scarcely intelligible’ [n.113] I say that contradictories can be apprehended by the intellect, and can even be apprehended together (otherwise no intellect would say they were contradictories), as is generally plain from the argument of the Philosopher On the Soul 3.2.426b8-23, where he proves about the common sense and the other particular senses that no sense compares extremes unless it apprehends both. But to be understood thus is to be ‘scarcely understood’ because it is not a being understood along with assent, in the way we say that we ‘understand’ what we believe to be true and ‘do not understand’ what we do not believe to be true, although yet we apprehend it.

150. Or it can be said in another way that, if the ‘intelligible’ is taken for what the intellect can assent to and if it be said that the manner of the philosophers was in this way scarcely intelligible, then the exposition can be that the manner was in its universal form intelligible but not in itself and in particular; for it was intelligible along with assent under the idea of producer and not under the idea of causer - and to understand ‘causer’ under the idea of producer is to understand ‘causer’ imperfectly, just as to understand man under the idea of animal is to understand man imperfectly.

151. Or it can in a third way be said (and perhaps in accord with Augustine’s mind) that latent contradictories - as long as an evident contradiction in them is not perceived - can in some way be apprehended by the intellect, but not with certitude; and so this ‘contradiction’, if it exists, did yet escape the philosophers and could by them be ‘scarcely understood’.

152. As to what is added about the philosophers, it can be said that they conceded many latent contradictions - as that they commonly denied that there was a first cause causing contingently, and yet they said that there is contingency in beings and that some things happen contingently; but there is a contradiction involved in ‘some things happening contingently and the first cause causing necessarily’, as was proved in 1 d.8 nn.275-277, 281-291, and 1 d.39 nn.35-37, 41,

91 [in the Lectura; there is no d.39 in the Ordinatio], and to some extent above at nn.69-70.

153. As to what is added about the four causes [n.115] (which are considered by the metaphysician), and that proves that the abstraction, in understanding, of the efficient cause is from the mover and changer - I say that not everything abstracted in understanding (or in the consideration of the intellect) needs to be able to be separated in being from that from which abstraction in the intellect is made; and so from this it does not follow that there is in fact some efficient cause which is not a mover or changer.