I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Others

10. The statement is made here [Bonaventure, Aquinas, Henry of Ghent] that there are not two real filiations in Christ. And this for two reasons.

1. First Reason and Rejection of it

11. One is [Aquinas] that filiation is per se of the supposit, not of the nature, so nature is in no way called filiation; but here there is only one supposit; therefore there is here only one filiation.

12. Against this reason:

If filiation is only of the person, so that it cannot be multiplied even though the foundation is multiplied, then this belongs to filiation either from its being a relation absolutely or from its being the relation of this sort of origin. Not in the first way because then Christ, if he had been white, would not have been really like someone else white, nor would he have been really equal to someone having as much size as he had; also relations in created supposits could not, then, be multiplied on the basis of their foundations. If in the second way, then this is false, because the multiplying of a relation of origin in a supposit is not more repugnant than is the multiplication of the originating itself that precedes the relation of origin as the proximate reason of founding it; but origins are multiplied in the same supposit, according to Damascene ch.53, “We venerate two generations of Christ.”

13. Further, the eternal Father, although he is one supposit, has yet two relations of origin, one with respect to the Son and one with respect to the Holy Spirit, and thus two relations of active production are founded on the same supposit and the same foundation, that is, on the essence; therefore much more can two relations of passive origin be founded on two diverse foundations.

14. Again, according to Damascene ch.60, “Because we say that Christ has two natures, we say that he has two natural wills and natural operations;” ch.61, “But we say that there are two operations in our Lord Jesus Christ,” but relation regards the supposit no more than operation does, because operation belongs to the supposit (Metaphysics 1.1.981a12-17);Cf. Scotus 4 d.12 q.3 n.34, “I say that the proposition ‘to act belongs per se to the supposit’ is not got from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 1 (1.1.981a12-17), but what is had there is that action is about singulars... But whence comes the mode of arguing? ‘Action is about the singular as object, therefore it belongs to the supposit alone as agent’.” ⁸⁴ therefore etc. By this too one can argue to the proposed conclusion from operation, that just as Christ operated naturally with certain operations of human nature (such as eating and drinking), so, if he had generated two sons, he would have really had two paternities with respect to them, because of two active generations; therefore he has now two filiations because of two passive generations.

15. Again, what belongs to Christ according precisely to the idea of his eternal personhood is not said of him as he is man; for just as this proposition is false, ‘Christ, insofar as he is man, is an eternal person’, so too is this one false, ‘Christ, insofar as he is man, is Son’, if filiation were only said of him according to the idea of eternal personhood.

2. Second Reason and Rejection of it

16. Another reason is posited [Henry of Ghent, Aquinas] for this conclusion [n.10], namely that two dispositions the same in species cannot be located in the same thing; these two filiations, if they were in the same thing, would be the same in species; therefore etc.

17. The major is made clear by others [Godfrey of Fontaines] as follows:

First because potency is per se related to form and not per se to ‘this form’, because it is a ‘this’ through what it receives in the form; therefore, if it could be in act as regard one form and in potency as regard another, then the same thing in respect of the same thing (namely in respect of the form in which - as such - it happens to be this or that) would be in potency and in act first.

Second because every distinction is either by nature of division or by nature of opposition; a distinction in the same species by nature of opposition is impossible, and impossible by nature of division where the subject is the same, because accidents get numerical distinction, as they get entity, only from their subjects.

18. And the proof [Godfrey] is that there cannot be several properties in divine reality of the same idea, because they would not be distinguished either by opposition or by division unless the divine essence - in which they exist - were divided, which is unacceptable; therefore etc.

19. The inference [n.16] is made clear [Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent] by the fact that someone who generates by a first act of generation acquires paternity with respect to a first son, and acquires no new paternity by a second act of generating but is related to a second son by the same paternity; therefore, just as there cannot be several paternities in this case, because the forms are of the same species, so for the same reason there cannot be several filiations in Christ’s case.

20. Against this argument [n.16]: the major seems false and the minor likewise.

21. That the major is false my proof is that, in the case of every essential order, the unity of a prior can essentially stand with a plurality of posteriors that do not per se inhere in the prior and are not adequate to it; a subject is essentially prior to the disposition that is posited as inherent in it (for it does not per se or adequately inhere in it); therefore etc.

22. The antecedent here [n.21] is proved by a likeness with cause and effect, because there can be one cause for several effects; and although an effect here does not exist in the cause, yet there is no greater repugnance in posteriors that do inhere (provided however they do not inhere per se) than in other posteriors that exist in something per se, because then there is no intrinsic cause for unity to follow on unity (and especially if the unities are not adequate), such that one of them in its actuality determines the potentiality of the receiver; there is, then, no contradiction in even several absolutes of the same idea being per accidens present in the same thing to which one of them is adequate.

23. The antecedent [n.21] is also proved in the case of some things as to the fact, because several imaginative species exist in the same organ of imagination, otherwise when one species of one imaginable thing was destroyed, no one could perfectly imagine any imaginable; and it is plain that the imaginative species are of the same species, as are also the objects by which they are generated; and they are in the same part of the organ, because the organ could not be divided into all the many minimal parts that can per se be formed for all the many separately existing imaginables that can at once exist in the whole organ; therefore it is necessary that there not be in the organ distinct parts corresponding to the imaginables.

24. And if it be objected ‘why then can the same quantity not be altered by an operation of nature into possessing at once many qualities of the same idea?’ - I reply that, since there are in a subject many powers for many forms of numerically the same species, then, if some act is not introduced in it that contains all the acts that can be present in the perfectible subject, the total potentiality of the receiving subject does not reach its term, and so there is no contradiction in some other form existing in it at the same time; and yet in fact no other form is introduced by a natural agent, because a natural agent intends a pre-existing imperfect form, for it introduces some reality that is of a nature to be a part along with the pre-existing reality; and it unites it to the preexisting reality as part to part, and so it does not introduce a form altogether other; there would however be no repugnance in a form being other provided the subject be not diversified because of it, because a subject having a potentiality for several forms of the same species is unlimited in some way with respect to them - and a thing unlimited with respect to certain things does not have to be multiplied along with them.

25. The aforesaid reason [n.21] proceeds about several absolutes in the same perfectible subject; but even if it not entail the intended conclusion, yet this conclusion is more easily proved about relations of the same species.

First because, as paternity is founded on ‘having generated’, so ‘this paternity’ is founded on ‘this having generated’, and ‘this filiation’ is founded on ‘this having been generated’; by this paternity then does the father regard this son first by this filiation.

26. Further, correlatives by nature go together, so that when one is destroyed the other is too - therefore, when this filiation in this son is destroyed, this paternity in this father is destroyed; therefore if paternity in relation to a second son remain when the first paternity to the first son is destroyed, it follows that the paternity to the second son was different from the paternity to the first son, for no new relation arises because of the fact the first son is removed, just as neither does a new generation come to a first son by positing that a second was generated while the first son is living.

27. Further, when something is of a certain sort ultimately by something else, the sort cannot remain in it unless what has the sort is of that sort by that something else (as whiteness cannot remain on a surface if the surface is not white, and especially if the surface is white ultimately by whiteness); but a relation is that by which what has the relation is ultimately related to another; therefore a relation cannot remain the same in something unless what it remains in is related to another by that relation, but it does not remain the same when the term is destroyed relative to which what has the relation is said to be formally such by the relation.a

a.a [Interpolation] therefore because of some other term.

28. Further, a father has in some way a respect different relative to this son and relative to that son; if the respect is different by a different relation, the intended conclusion is got; if by a different respect of the same idea, the intended conclusion is again got, for the respects will be of the same idea because of foundations that are the same in species; similarly this is false, because a respect is not always founded on a relation as being something other than the relation, for positing two such things is superfluous; but if the respects are the same in the relation on which they are founded, then to say the respect is multiplied is the same as to say the relation is; therefore the intended conclusion is got.

29. Further, distinction in a prior naturally entails distinction in a posterior; but a supposit that is related precedes not only the relation but also the foundation; therefore when the foundation is multiplied so is the relation - and so it is in the issue at hand, that since there are two foundations, there will be two relations.

30. Further the minor of the reason [n.16] is false, because eternal filiation and temporal filiation are not of the same idea - and this is especially true according to them [sc. Henry of Ghent and his followers], because they themselves say that nothing of the same idea can be asserted of the temporal and of the eternal.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

31. As to the question I say that the filiation in Christ relative to the Father is different from the filiation in him to his Mother, and both filiations are real.

32. [In Christ there are two filiations] - I prove the first by the fact that filiation is the condition of something naturally produced like the producer in intellectual nature. The particulars here are plain, because as paternity is ‘the condition of a producer’ so filiation is ‘the condition of a produced’; ‘naturally produced’ as well for, by reason of lacking this particular, the Holy Spirit is not son; and similarly as to ‘like the producer’, and for this reason a worm is not son of the sun; ‘in intellectual nature’, so fire is not son of fire nor plant of plant nor, properly, ox of ox.

33. But if you altogether insist that a brute animal is son of a brute animal (as that a calf is son of an ox), then filiation is ‘the condition of something naturally produced, and like the producer, and in non-intellectual or sensitive nature’.

34. Nothing in this description has regard per se and first to a supposit save by reason of passive production, because all the other things added regard the nature either in the producer or in the produced or in both; so by reason of nothing does filiation determine for itself its belonging to a supposit more than passive generation does. But passive generation is multiplied by the multiplication of actually existing natures that are received through acts of generation, as is apparent from Damascene ch. 53, that there are ‘two generations of Christ’ [n.12]; therefore filiation too will be multiplied by the multiplication of the generations.

35. Again, what was argued on the basis of the foundations [n.29] is proved on the basis of the terms, because there cannot be the same relation to two terms, for then the same relation would be and not be at the same time.Tr. A relation only has being as relation to something, so if a relation has two terms its being to one term is not its being to the other, and so its being simply (which for it is relative being) is not its being simply. ⁸⁵

36. Further, the proposed thesis - as to the first point [nn.31-32] - is shown more particularly as follows: that all divine personal properties equally lack a respect to anything created as to their term; therefore just as eternal paternity cannot be a relation whereby the Father would be called son in time, so neither can eternal filiation be a relation whereby the Son would be called son in time.

37. [These filiations are real] - Second, namely that each filiation is real [n.31]. The point is plain about eternal filiation, because the Son is really Son eternal.

38. The proof about temporal filiation is that that relation is real which, from the nature of the extremes when they are posited without act of intellect, is consequent to the extremes [cf. 1 d.31 n.6]; but when a generating Mother is posited and a supposit having through generation the generated nature, filiation from the nature of the extremes without act of intellect follows in the latter just as maternity follows in the former.

39. But if anyone imagines that here the intellect is operating to cause the relation - the disproof of this is that if Mary had borne a pure man, she would have been truly mother and he truly son by a real relation; but she acted no less now than she would have acted then, nor did Christ as man any less receive nature from her than if a pure man had received it; therefore he is as much a son now from the nature of the extremes as he would then have been, and the relation is as real now as it would then have been.

C. Doubt

40. But there is a doubt whether this real filiation is the same as the foundation, namely as the nature received through generation.

41. And it seems that it is, because the respect of the creature to God as to its efficient cause is the same as the foundation, from 2 d.1 n.260; therefore too a respect to the proximate efficient cause is the same as the effect. The proof of the consequence is that all ordered efficient causes have the idea of one total cause; one and the same relation is not consubstantial and non-consubstantial with the same thing; therefore etc.

42. I reply that this relation is not the same as the foundation, because just as it is a contradiction for something to remain in a thing when that which is really the same as it does not remain, so it is a contradiction for something to be the same really as something and be able to remain the same without that other remaining - therefore, just as the first relation of something to that without which it cannot be is the same as the related thing, so a relation to anything without which the related thing can be is not the same as the related thing; but this nature [sc. Christ’s human nature] could be the same in number without the relation to the Mother and without the Mother as term, because the same nature could have been created immediately by God;a the same nature could also have been had through temporal generation from another mother, as was touched on in 2 d.16 [not in the Ordinatio; see Lectura 2 d.20 n.27], where it was said that the same person who is son of one father could have been son of another father; therefore etc.

a.a [Interpolation] because whatever a second cause can cause immediately, the first cause can cause immediately by itself.

43. If it be objected that ‘although the nature could have been produced in being such that filiation was not founded in it, yet, from the fact that this filiation is founded, it does not seem that the nature can remain without this filiation; on the contrary, if it does so, there will be a contradiction, because to be haver of this nature and to be son is to be generated in this nature by this Mother; but he who is generated in this nature by this Mother cannot not be generated in this nature by this Mother (for that anything that happened in the past did not happen in the past involves a contradiction); therefore that the haver of this nature, received from this generator, is now not a son by this filiation involves a contradiction, which would not be the case if filiation was accidental to this nature’;

44. I reply:

Either [sc. in a first way] filiation is precisely a relation founded on a passive generation insofar as it is past, so that - whether in reality or in the intellect - something is said to be son because it was at some time generated, and thus ‘to be son’ will not predicate something of a thing really present, although it does verbally, but only something of a thing past; just as the proposition ‘Socrates is about to run’, although it seem to be about the present, yet in fact posits something only for the future, because it is equivalent to this one, ‘Socrates will run’, so the proposition ‘Socrates is generated’ is equivalent to ‘Socrates has been generated’, and the former, in this understanding, is equivalent to ‘Socrates is or was a son’. And in this way ‘son’ states a real relation, but not according to ‘is’ simply, namely not according to the ‘is’ of existence, but according to the ‘is’ of the past, which is an ‘is’ that is real in a certain respect, as is also the ‘is’ of the future - or rather, ‘son’ states a real relation in the way that potency before act in a potential nature states a real relation in a way, but according to a diminished entity of the thing.

45. And the objection [n.43] seems to proceed of this way, because according to this way ‘whatever once was a son’ cannot ever not be a son, just as ‘what was’ cannot not have been, in the way too that ‘what at some time is possible’ cannot not be possible when it is not actually present. In this way one would have to say that, if John was annihilated, he was still son of Zebedee [Luke 5.10] - nor could God destroy this relation however much the foundation were annihilated as to actual existence, nor would filiation state more of reality about an existing son than about a non-existing son.

46. It could, in another way, be said that filiation states the complete relation of a passive product as long as the actual existence - received through generation - continues without interruption; and in this way Christ would have been son of Mary up to his death and would not have been her son after the resurrection, because the actual existence of the human nature received through generation from Mary would have been interrupted by death, and the existence as it was received a second time after the resurrection was followed by a different relation to God who resuscitated it. In this way too no one would be son of anyone after the general resurrection - and this opinion seems absurd.

47. It seems then that one should, in a third way, take the mean between these two extremes [nn.44-46], namely that filiation states the relation of generated to generator as founded on the actual existence of the nature generated, or as founded on the actually existing generated nature itself - and this whether the nature was continuously preserved without interruption after being received, or was with interruption preserved the same after being received, such that both preservings are accidental to it.

48. And one can in this way reply to the argument [n.43] and say that although this nature, received through this generation, could not have the same numerical being that it received by not founding this numerically same relation, yet this relation itself is not consubstantial with the nature, because the numerically same existence was absolutely able to have been had without the relation and without the generation, if the existence had been received from a creator or from some generator immediately.

49. As to the argument touched on for this doubt [n.41], I reply that the relation of a nature to the first efficient cause is consubstantial with the nature, because the nature could not be the same if it did not really have for itself the same relation to the first efficient cause; but its relation to a second efficient cause is only an accidental relation, because the nature could remain the same without a relation to any second efficient cause. And as to this subject there was discussion at length in 2 d.1 nn.261-275, about how the relation of the creature to God as efficient cause is the same and not the same as the creature: the same truly and really, not the same formally; nor is the relation any the more the same in this way because it is the validityVatican editors: The Latin is ‘ratitudo’ from ‘reor’, to think or validate or ratify, and signifies a thing as certain. Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 5 q.2, “The first..most common concept, common to this concept and to that, is the concept whereby a thing ‘res’, as said from ‘reor’, is conceived, which ‘thing’ contains under it ‘imaginary thing’, which is a pure non-being. But if a thing has being in God according to exemplar idea, not only does one say that it is a thing or ‘res’ as taken from ‘reor’, but also that it is some nature and essence, and so it is called a validated thing, or ‘res’ as taken from ‘ratitudo’.” ⁸⁶ or firmness of the foundation.

50. Nor are these claims contradictory; for although truth and goodness are really the same as absolute entity, and although this truth and this goodness are the same as this entity, yet they are not the same formally or quidditatively [cf. 1 d.8 nn.191-209], because truth and goodness are as it were properties of being, Metaphysics 4.2.1004b10-17 [cf. 1 d.3 n.134]. So it is in the case of the reality from which genus is taken and from which difference is taken, and likewise in the case of quiddity and individual entity and many other things that have been touched on frequently as to this difference on the part of the thing, namely the difference whereby this reality is not formally that reality although it is identical with it [cf. 1 d.3 n.133, d.11 nn.51-52, 2 d.3 nn.176-179, 187 etc].

51. Nor, further - according to him who saysVatican editors: Probably Richard of Conington, an Anglican Minorite, said by contemporaries to have been a follower or disciple of Henry of Ghent; his commentary on the Sentences is missing. ⁸⁷ that the vestigial respect is the validity of the foundation [cf. 1 d.3 nn.302-309] - is there any contradiction in something’s being the same as the foundation (which was conceded in 2 d.1 nn.261-271 ‘On the Relation of the Creature to God’), and yet not being the same as the validity of the foundation (which was denied in 1 d.3 nn.310-323, in the question ‘On the Vestige’), because he posits [sc. Richard of Conington, along with Henry; cf. 2 d.1 nn.241-242] that every relation of the creature to God is the same as the foundation, yet not that every validity of the foundation is the same as the foundation; but he distinguishes, on this point, the vestigial respect from the other respects [cf. 1 d.3 nn.302-304].