I. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

5. [Statement of the opinion] - There is here the opinion of Henry, Quodlibet VI q.2 - look at it there.a, b

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] [Henry’s opinion] that “the philosophers [sc. Avicenna] only posited in God an intellect of simple intelligence whereby he understands himself and all other things; and likewise they posited a simple will whereby all things are pleasing to him according to the fact they are good in their essence. Now such an intelligence, by the fact it is natural, is naturally disposed to producing the things it has understood and in one determinate way - and the like holds of the will concomitant to such simple apprehension; and therefore the philosophers had to posit that God produced creatures outside himself by necessity of nature and in accord with the best way of producing (namely by intellect and will as nature, not by will as dispositive and elective),” and in this they erred, because according to them no intrinsic personal emanation precedes the production of things externally.

    But this point, in the way the opinion of the philosophers says it, is not valid, because in order for God to produce something outside himself, simple knowledge and simple love of being well pleased (which alone belong to speculative knowledge) are not enough, but there is required a declarative and dispositive knowledge of things to be done and a love inciting and aspiring to the production of them; now this declarative and dispositive knowledge is the Word, and the aspiring love is the Holy Spirit; therefore the Word and Holy Spirit precede the production of things.

    Now the manner of positing [sc. by Henry] is as follows, that “however much God by simple knowledge knows things to be done and however much the will loves them, unless the intellect make disposition about them and the will aspire to the production of them, never would God by his wisdom and will produce them in being outside himself, because” - as I said [sc. just above] - “simple wisdom and its ensuing love pertain to pure speculation, but a work is then first produced when it is disposed by wisdom and aspired to by will, for the wisdom and love for this pertain to praxis. Hence, just as a natural form is not a principle of action as it is the perfection of what it is in but only as it has regard to an effect, so wisdom and love in divine reality, as they are the forms of intellect and will (as such, absolutely), are not a principle of action, but only as they have a regard to an effect; but the wisdom that disposes and the love that aspires, which have regard to act, are nothing but the wisdom and love that proceed [sc. as Son and Holy Spirit].”

    Hence he [Henry] says “just as a created artisan has in the wisdom of his art a double knowledge of the artifact, one of simple knowledge in universal art whereby he intuits things to be done purely speculatively, and another that disposes to a work whereby in his particular art, conceived from universal art, he intuits the order of his production (and this is practical knowledge, without which it is impossible for an artisan to proceed to a work) - so it is on the part of the will, because the artisan has a double love of the artifact, one simple whereby the form of the artifact pleases him (and this love does not order him to a work), and the other aspiring love whereby he desires the work to be made. Things are similar on the part of God, because by his simple knowledge he knows all things simply and absolutely, but in his practical knowledge he knows all things as in an art dispositive and declarative of them for a work - and one of these knowledges proceeds from the other; and likewise on the part of the will about simple and aspiring love.”

    Then they say that “intrinsic emanation is necessarily presupposed causally to emanation extrinsically, not because creatures are produced by way of efficient cause by the whole Trinity and by the produced persons, but because ‘produced wisdom and love’ are reasons in essential intellect and will disposing to the production of creatures by way of formal cause... such that the

    Word proceeding and Love proceeding are, with respect to the essence, the formal principle of the act of creating and as it were the proximate principle while the essence is the remote principle. And the essence, or the Father as he is essence, has the word in himself, that is in his essential intellect, for the perfection of his essential intellect - and similarly the Son (who is the Word itself) and similarly the Holy Spirit; but the Father has the word from himself (because he has it by speaking it), while the Son and Holy Spirit have the word in the essential intellect - perfecting the essential intellect - from the Father alone.”

    On behalf of this opinion, thus faithfully recited, one can argue as follows: Augustine On the Trinity 15.11 n.20 says that “just as there can be a word of ours which is not followed by a work, though there cannot be a work unless a word precedes, so the word of God can exist without any creature existing; but no creature can exist save through him ‘through whom all things were made’ [John 1.3];” therefore etc. - Again, there is an argument thus, that if creatures were produced only by simple knowledge and complaisance, then they would be produced of necessity, as the philosophers said; therefore they are produced by dispositive and deliberative knowledge and by elective and freely inclining will. Again, a natural form does not produce its effect immediately but introduces a certain respect; therefore the wisdom of artifice is similar. Third, speculative wisdom and the love corresponding to it are not the immediate principle of producing; but “wisdom as it is an essential in divine reality is speculative, possessing speculative ideas and reasons only for knowing, but wisdom that is personal is not only speculative but practical, possessing the idea of operating.”

    Once these things are seen, it is sufficiently plain what he [Scotus] is arguing against in this question [d.1 nn.6-14].

b.b [Interpolation from Appendix A] that although the whole knowledge that is in the Son is really in the Father (because the Son knows nothing that the Father does not know), and although the love too that is in the Holy Spirit is in the Father and the Son (because the Holy Spirit loves nothing that the Father and the Son do not love), yet the knowledge that is in the Son as it is in the Son has a certain special idea that it does not have as it is in the Father, which idea indeed is the idea of dispositive knowledge; likewise, the love in the Holy Spirit has a certain special idea that it does not have as it is in the Father and the Son, which idea indeed is the idea of love making aspiration for a work and aspiring to production of a work. For knowledge in the Father has only the idea of simple knowledge, but in the Son the idea of dispositive knowledge; for the Son in divine reality is nothing other than art or knowledge manifestive or declarative of the things that the Father knows in simple intelligence, making disposition and order for the things that are to be produced and for the manner of working; love too in the Father and the Son has the idea of love of simple complaisance, but in the Holy Spirit it has the idea of love making aspiration for and impelling to a work.

    Now this distinction of knowledge and love in divine reality can be taken according to a proportion to a double knowledge and love that are perceived in us. For an artisan first simply, and with simple intuition, intuits the form of the work, and second he orders and disposes for the making and for the manner of the making - and this is called dispositive knowledge, which is conceived from the prior knowledge. Likewise on the part of the will: when the form of the work is offered to the artisan he is first pleased in himself with it, and second he is moved by his complaisance with aspiration for the production of it - and this aspiration is called aspiring love, and it arises from the first love.

    One must imagine things to be thus in divine reality, according to their opinion; namely that in the Father there is as it were simple knowledge, not dispositive as to producing the thing or to the manner of producing it, but in the Son there is knowledge having the idea of this dispositive knowledge; similarly there is in the Father and the Son the love of simple complaisance in understood things, but in the Holy Spirit there is the idea of love making aspiration and inclination to a work.

    The second thing - which is said by this opinion - is that, for the producing of an effect, simple knowledge on the part of the intellect is not enough, but dispositive knowledge is required; nor even is the volition of simple complaisance on the part of the will enough, but there is required a love or volition making aspiration; from this a third thing follows, namely that the extrinsic production of creatures presupposes the persons in the divine essence as certain formal ideas of the essence whereby creatures are immediately produced - and this extrinsic production presupposes the intrinsic productions as what these formal ideas are acquired by. Hence this is the conclusion of this opinion, that extrinsic production presupposes intrinsic production as the cause by which is got the immediate productive formal principle; for as the author of this opinion expressly maintains (in the afore noted question, n.5), the essential acts of knowledge and love in divine reality, without the produced persons in addition (namely without produced love and produced word), were not complete or perfect for producing, but they are perfected through the produced word and produced love; and so these terms ‘word’ and ‘love’, perfecting the essential acts of understanding and willing in the three persons, are the immediate formal ideas and immediate principles for producing creatures.

    On behalf of this opinion the same doctor, in the same place [n.5], seems to gesture toward three reasons.

    The first is as follows: that which is produced by the knowledge of simple knowledge and by the love of simple complaisance, as by the immediate principles of production, is produced necessarily by the necessity of a natural determination for producing and for the manner of producing. The point is plain, because such knowledge and such love are disposed in a natural manner to producing their effect, and are disposed only to one determinate manner, no less so than heat is disposed to heating; hence too the philosophers (who posited in God only such knowledge and such love) posited that the world proceeds from God by a natural determination for producing and for one manner of producing only, such that God was not able not to produce nor able not to produce in a way other than he did produce, as is plain from Avicenna Metaphysics 9. Therefore, in order for God not to have produced the world by necessity, it is necessary that he have produced it not through knowledge of simple knowledge and love of simple complaisance - as through immediate principles - , but through dispositive knowledge (dispositive about producing and manner of producing) and through elective love and love freely aspiring to a work, as through acts supervenient to the earlier produced acts; but such dispositive knowledge and such aspiring love are the Word and the Holy Spirit in the case of divine reality; therefore the world is produced by produced word and produced love as through the immediate principles of its production.

    The second reason is as follows: as natural form is disposed to producing its effect naturally, so intellectual wisdom and the volition concomitant to it are disposed to producing their effect intellectually and by art; but “a natural form is not the immediate principle of operation as it is the perfection of that in which it is, but only insofar as it introduces a respect to the effect;” therefore in this way the wisdom and the volition of the artisan are not the immediate principle of a work save as they introduce a respect to the work. But this respect they do not introduce save as they are in the produced word and the produced love; therefore produced word and produced love are, in any artisan whatever, the immediate principle of doing a work by art. - Here one must note that, according to this doctor, intellectual wisdom as an essential is as it were the form of a natural agent as it is the perfection of what it is in, but wisdom itself, as it assumes the idea of word, is as it were the natural form itself as having a respect and order to the effect; hence, according to him, the word has, from its proper idea as word, a respect and order to making things, which essential wisdom, as such, does not have.

    The third reason is thus: speculative wisdom and the volition or love corresponding to it are not the immediate principle of operating, but only practical wisdom or knowledge and the love corresponding to it are - as is plain in the rational artisan, because the universal knowledge, whereby he considers something doable in general and according to its common principles, is not for him the idea of operating, but a certain practical knowledge is, one conceived from or under the universal knowledge; but “wisdom in divine reality, as it is an essential perfection, is only speculative, having, as such, speculative ideas only as ideas of knowing, but personal wisdom -which is the word - is not only speculative for knowing but practical, containing in itself ideas as they are principles of operating;” therefore the produced word corresponding to it and love are the immediate principle of operating and producing in divine reality. - The reason is confirmed by the verse of the Apostle I Corinthians 1.23-24, “‘We preach Christ,’ he says, ‘the virtue of God and the wisdom of God;’ ‘virtue’ insofar as Christ possesses the idea of practical science (and this is proper to him), according to which also the word is called operative power - ‘wisdom’ insofar as he possesses the idea of speculative science etc.” (look there in Henry [n.5]).

6. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this opinion there is a threefold argument: For first it seems to follow [sc. from Henry saying that ‘the three are with respect to the essence one formal and, as it were, proximate principle of the act of creating, and the essence is the remote principle’] that the Father does not formally create. For nothing formally acts which is not in act according to the proximate reason for acting; the Father is not formally in act with the Word or with the Holy Spirit. But according to this position the Word and Holy Spirit are the proximate reason for acting and causing, as understanding and volition are the remote reasons for causing; therefor the Father does not formally and proximately create.

7. And if you say that they all create ‘because they all have one word in their intellect by which essential intellection is perfected (although that word is only from the Father who speaks in turn for all), and all have one love in the common will (although that love is inspirited by the Father and Son together in turn for all)’, - against this I argue thus: I ask how the Father has this generated knowledge. Not formally (according to Augustine On the Trinity bk.7 ch.2),a but he has it as a correlative, as the producer has the produced; but in this way the haver is not in act formally with what is had by him; therefore he does not formally act by the action with respect to which the had - or that which is had - is the formal reason for acting.

a.a [Interpolation] because, according to him there, the Father is not wise with generated knowledge or wisdom.

8. It seems further to follow that the Son and Holy Spirit do not create, because generally the formal reason for acting does not act in the action with respect to which it is the formal reason for acting.a

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] but the Son and Holy Spirit, according to this position, are the formal reason for creating; therefore etc.

9. And if it be said that the Son creates and the Holy Spirit creates - however, neither of the persons seems to create proximately, because neither is in act formally through the other, and ‘everything acting proximately through intellect and will’ is in act by both the knowledge and the volition necessary for such act.

10. Further, second: I ask what you understand by dispositive or disposing wisdom and by aspiring love. For these are either appropriated to the Word and Holy Spirit or they are proper. If appropriated then in truth they are common to the three, and thus two persons are not the proximate formal reasons for creating. If proper, and if they state a respect of reason to creatures (because according to him [Henry] disposition states a respect of reason to the disposed things), then some respect of reason is proper to some divine person, which was rejected earlier (1 d.27 n.95, Lectura 1 d.18 nn.6-16 [no d.18 in Ordinatio]).

11. Further, what he says about practical ideas, namely that they are not in the Father but in the Word (as if one Person were not sufficient for production), seems to be contrary to Augustine On the Trinity 15.14 n.23, “Therefore this Word is truly truth, because whatever is in the science from which he is generated is also in him - but what is not in the science is not in him either;” and a little later, “God the Father knows all things in himself, and knows them in the Son;” and later, “All things that are in their science are fully seen by each of them.” From these words - and from others set down there -Augustine seems manifestly to maintain that nothing is in the Word more actually than it is in the intelligence of the Father, and consequently that nothing is more distinctly in the Word than it is in the intelligence of the Father.

12. Further, what he [Henry] says there, that ‘the word exists for perfecting essential intelligence’ seems to be false, because that which is the reason for acting with some non-immanent action is not perfected by that action (just as the hot, qua hot, is not perfected by the heating that is received in some passive thing); but according to him [v. 1 d.2 nn.277-79, 290-96] actual intellection is the reason for generating the Word, and the generating is not formally immanent in the Father himself, because the term of generating is not the form of the Father; therefore essential intellection - which is the reason for generating the Word according to him - is not perfected by the produced Word.

13. What he says about universal knowledge, that it is speculative, was rejected above (Prol. nn.360-61, ‘about divine theological science, whether it is speculative or practical’), because practical conclusions are resolved to practical principles and not to speculative ones, just as speculative conclusions are resolved to speculative principles and not to practical ones

14. Also, as to his statement that ‘the philosophers for this reason conceded that God necessarily produces what is other than himself, because they denied that in him proceeding dispositive or disposing wisdom and proceeding aspiring love are produced’, does not seem true, because essential volition - whether as it is in the three persons or as it is in the Son or as it is in the Father - is not necessarily of something other than itself

(as of a creature); for the divine will does not necessarily will anything other than itself, even if, per impossibile, it were not a principle productive internally - because then it would necessarily depend on a creature, which is unacceptable in the extreme.