The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus :: Ordinatio. Book 3. Distinctions 1

II. To the Principal Arguments

A. To the Common Arguments

62. To the arguments.

To the first [n.2] I say that what is infinite is not combinable as a part, because the whole is more perfect than the part and nothing is more perfect than the infinite; the infinite can however be united to, that is, it is able to be the term of the dependence on it of something else.

63. And when the addition is made there [not in the Ordinatio, but in the Lectura 3 d.1 n.3] that ‘the infinite cannot be added to, therefore neither can it be united to’, I reply that the infinite does not have in itself any entity formally, but virtually or eminently, and so human nature, the way the Word does not have human nature in himself, can be added to the Word, that is, such a nature may formally depend on the Word; but human nature as it is in the Word eminently or virtually does not in this way depend on the Word, because it does not in this way have dependent entity.

64. To the second [n.3], a proportion, that is, a determinate relation, is conceded, but not a quantitative one, the sort that is said to be of double to half or of one quantity to another; rather, the sort conceded is said to be generally of passive to active and, conversely, of active to passive or of act to potency; but human nature is able, with a special dependence, to be dependent in respect of a divine person, and this dependence is a sufficient proportion for such union.

65. To the third [n.4] I say that contraries are incompossible not because they are diverse - that is, agree in nothing - (for in this way things diverse in genus are more diverse than contraries), but because, even though they agree in many things, there is a repugnance in them; and this sort of repugnance is not between things that agree in nothing or in little; so divine and human nature, although they are more diverse than contraries, are nevertheless not more repugnant. An example: surface and whiteness are more diverse than white and black, and yet a surface can be white, though white cannot formally be black, or conversely, because of their formal repugnance.

66. To the fourth [n.5] I say that some undergoing corresponds to the incarnation act, whereby it is an act passing over to another; but this undergoing is not signified, properly speaking, by ‘to be incarnated’, but by ‘to be united’ or ‘to be assumed’ - for this action, as it passes over to an object, passes over to human nature, not to the Word; and so what, on the part of human nature, corresponds to the act is an undergoing. Although formally and grammatically, therefore, ‘to be incarnated’ seems to indicate the undergoing of the action ‘to incarnate’, yet ‘to be assumed’ signifies the undergoing really in the nature united, which undergoing is more properly signified by ‘to be united’ or ‘to be assumed’; and I concede that the nature assumed does undergo, and is in a state of potency

B. To the Special Arguments

1. To the Argument on the Part of the Nature that is United

67. To the special argument on the part of the nature assumed [n.6] I say that human nature per se existing is not made complete by the same thing as is person by created personhood, because in the third article [nn.36-39] it was said that person does not ultimately exist by anything positive; but the nature per se exists, speaking of the proper existence of nature, by created positive existence.

68. To the first proof of the assumption [n.7], when the assertion is made that ‘its existence is per se existence’, I concede it in the sense that ‘to exist per se’ is distinguished from ‘to exist in’ (which is proper to accidents). But when the assumption is made that ‘per se existence in intellectual nature is personhood’, I deny it when universally taking ‘per se’ in the above sense, namely as it is distinguished from to exist per se in another, because there is required for personality the ultimate in absence or negation of actual and aptitudinal dependence on a person of another nature; but not everything that per se exists in the prior way (as it is distinguished from accident) need per se exist in this second way.

69. As to the second proof [n.8], it is plain that created nature is a ‘this’ by something positive, but not by something the same formally as the entity of nature, because repugnance to being divided does not belong to created nature save through some positive entity; but there is no need thus to posit, over and above that entity of singularity, some other positive entity of personhood.

2. To the Arguments on the Part of that which Assumes

70. [To the first] - As to the next argument [n.9], he who would say that person differs only in idea from essence would have this argument [n.9] against him; but there is some positive distinction between nature and personal property, as is plain from I d.2 nn.388-410. But if the first position is taken [sc. person and essence differ only in idea], one could still reply to the argument [n.9] on the ground of fallacy of amphiboly (see 1 d.26 nn.52, 73, 78-77, about ‘absolute persons’).

71. [To the second] - To the next argument [n.10], as to the part that ‘a respect does not terminate the dependence of an absolute nature’, the response is made [by William of Ware] that a divine person, insofar as he is relative, does terminate the dependence on him of a created nature - and that in two kinds of cause, namely efficient and formal cause:

The first is clear thus, that the Word assumes, that is, ‘takes to himself’, but the other persons do not do so; and further, because to be incarnated is to ‘descend on’ in a special way, and descending on pertains to efficient causality; and because the Word is the operative power of the Father, and so can have a proper operation beside that which is common to the whole Trinity.

72. The second is clear because the Word is the formal cause for the reason that he terminates formally; but he terminates insofar as he is a relative person, such that the relative property is the reason for the terminating; so he should not be understood to be the formal cause in this sense, that he is the other part of a composite, or that he is a formal cause supervening on a composition, or that he is the exemplar form (because this is common to the whole Trinity), but that he is the formal cause formally terminating -that is giving - the form specifically to the distance that is between the nature united and himself as term.

73. Against what is said about the proper efficiency of the Word [n.71], that it is not common to the whole Trinity, there are the authorities adduced by the Master in the text [3 d.1 ch.3 n.2], that the whole Trinity operated the incarnation equally.

74. And if you say [William of Ware] that there is some special mode of acting in the Word by which he is said to instantiate a nature in a different way from that in which the Father and Holy Spirit instantiate it - on the contrary:

In actions directed outwardly there is no distinction in the three persons in their acting, save that which follows the origin, namely that one person acts from himself, another not from himself but from another; but this distinction is not the reason that some person, as the Son, is said to assume human nature, or to be the person of the nature, and not another person, because if the Father were incarnated and the Trinity effected the incarnation, this distinction would exist in their operating just as it does now, because the Father would act from himself and the Son not from himself.

75. Besides a personal respect cannot be the proper reason for acting outwardly (as is clear in 1 d.18 on Gift, and d.27 on the Word [the first is not in the Ordinatio but in the Lectura]).

76. Further, a created supposit does not act in respect of the nature it belongs to, because according to them [William of Ware and his followers], ‘nature naturally precedes the supposit, but not as actually acting’; therefore neither is that which supplies the place of the supposit, insofar as it does so, an agent with respect to such nature.

77. As to what is said second, about form [n.72], it seems to misuse the words ‘form’ or ‘formal cause’, because according to it the eternal Father - insofar as he is Father - would be the formal cause with respect to the Son, namely insofar as the Father terminates the relation of the Son to the Father.

78. As to what is also said there [n.72] about the supposit, that it has the idea of the whole and so has the idea of form (as the form is the whole, Metaphysics 5.26.1023b26-28) - the antecedent is false and the consequence null.

The first point is plain from what has been said, that person does not add any absolute entity over and above the singular nature, and therefore neither does the supposit in general do so, just as neither does person in intellectual nature [nn.55-56, 59, 69]; and consequently it is not the whole with respect to the singular nature.

79. Second, the proof has no validity [n.78]; for the whole is form for the reason that any part is as it were potential with respect to the perfection of the whole; in the issue at hand, however, the Word is not potential with respect to a quasi composite person. Also, if the Word ought to be this whole, the way Damascene ² concedes the composite nature to be the Word, this is not true of ‘person taken absolutely according to personal entity’ when compared to the nature, but of ‘person in the nature’ when compared to the nature. The conclusion ought to be, then, that the Word was incarnate as form but not as formal cause; for if the entity of the supposit and of the nature with respect to the whole created entity are considered absolutely, the proper entity of the supposit is not formal with respect to the nature, but rather material.

80. But as to what is adduced for the statement ‘to assume is to take to oneself’ [n.71], I reply that ‘to take’, as it signifies action absolutely, belongs to the whole Trinity equally, without any distinction besides the one that follows origin; but ‘to oneself’, as it signifies the term of the action, signifies as it terminates the respect of the Word.

81. Likewise, as to what is said about ‘descend on’ [n.71] I reply that if that ‘descending’ is taken for some condition of the efficient or producing or conserving cause, the whole Trinity descends on the nature in the same way; but if it is taken for some other intimacy, of the sort that is of the supposit to the nature that depends on it, then in this way only the Word descends on, because he terminates the dependence of the nature. But this ‘descending on’ is not any efficiency but is a priority of an altogether different idea.

82. Also as to the addition that ‘the Word is the operative power of the Father’ [n.71], it is true that he acts otherwise than the Father as to the action that follows origin, namely the Father acts ‘from himself’ and the Son ‘not from himself but from another’, for which reason the Father creates through the Word and not conversely [2 d.1 n.33, 1 d.27 n.98]. But there is not, on account of this distinction, one person who as incarnate acts thus and another person who as non-incarnate does not act thus.

83. To the principal argument [n.10], therefore, I say that if a divine person is an absolute, the absolute terminates the dependence of the nature; but if it is a relative, although a relative as such cannot terminate a dependence that is of a caused thing to the cause, yet it can terminate a dependence that is of a different idea, namely the dependence that is on a supposit as supposit. So, in order to terminate the dependence, any entity is sufficient that can be the proper idea of a supposit, and such is this positive entity posited to be.

3. To the Argument on the Part of the Union

84. To the final argument [n.11] I say that the proposition is false, namely that ‘every dependence is of caused thing on cause or on prior caused thing’: for there is a dependence of a different idea from that, and it is not a dependence on something as that something has quiddity but as it is a subsistent being or a supposit; of such sort is the dependence here [cf. n.212 below].

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