A. The Highest Grace could have been Created

1. Scotus’ own Reason

30. I prove the first: taking some determinate grace, say a, I ask by way of progressive ascent: either there is a stand at some highest grace, and then the conclusion is gained; or there is no stand and an infinite process is possible. And then it follows, in the latter case, that the more some grace exceeds a certain grace a the more perfect it is; and so a grace that exceeds infinitely is more perfect infinitely and will thus in itself be intensively infinite; and since it would be seen by the divine intellect as a single creatable thing, it can be created in a single creation. And thus, setting aside what the inference shows to be impossible, namely that there does exist such an infinite grace [sc. a grace to which there can be no equal, n.28], the conclusion is gained that the highest grace can be created by a single act of creation [cf. n.16], just as it is seen by the divine intellect to be a single creatable thing.

2. Others’ Reasons

31. [First reason]. From this reasoning two other arguments get their evidence, one of which is taken from the Philosopher Physics 3.7.207b17-18, the chapter on the infinite, that “as much can be in act as can be in potency”, and so there is no process to infinity when advancing toward form; and for this reason it has been necessary to posit for any form however perfect a completion that is somehow possible

32. But an objection is raised against this position [n.31], that in the case of numbers it is possible to advance toward a potential infinite even though no number is actually infinite; so it is not true of numbers that as much can be in act as can be in potency.

33. I reply in accord with Averroes [Physics 3 com. 67] that addition in the case of numbers is by division of the continuous; but in the division of the continuous the advance is made materially [sc. by division in the matter]; consequently numbers increase by an advance that is in the matter; but the continuous grows and increases by an advance toward form; now in an advance toward form there must be a stand, and a stand that is as much in act as in potency; but there is no stand in an advance that is in matter; and so there is a stand in the quantity of continuous things but not in a multitude of numbers, just as neither is there a stand in the division of continuous things into lesser and lesser quantities.

34. But an argument against this is that if number is per se one and is not like a heap (Metaphysics 8.6.1045a7-10, b23 - the Commentator Averroes says the opposite in Physics 3 com.68), then any number has its own proper form. Therefore in advancing to a greater number there is a progress toward a form that is proper and includes the preceding forms virtually; so there is no progress to infinity in numbers.a

a.a [Interpolation] Note on this point Augustine City of God 12.19, and the Commentator on the chapter on the Infinite, Physics 3 com.33, who says that every number is divisible; so see Metaphysics 2.2.994a11-19 on the Infinite, and note that the Commentator says the opposite, Physics 3 com.68.

35. I say, then, that the Philosopher’s argument here [n.31] is only conclusive about quantity of bulk, and according to this sort of quantity ‘a thing can be in potency as much as it can be in act’ - in fact it is in act because, according to the Philosopher, a quantum cannot grow in this way unless the parts taken from one continuous thing (by way of removal or division) are added continuously to another that is growing; and so, although these parts could never exceed the divided whole nor the increased whole, yet the divided whole can go to excess by addition of these parts; for if the whole quantity, to which addition is being made, could be actually greater than the whole potentially divided thing is and can be growing accordingly, then it could be bigger than the heaven.

36. The provability of the Philosopher’s statement is that a natural agent (without whose action he supposes nothing new can come to be) cannot make something bigger unless it takes parts from one quantity and adds them to another quantity. According to the theologians, indeed, this is not true when speaking of divine power, because there is some quantity potentially bigger than it actually is, for God can make it larger without adding to it parts that have been taken from another quantity [cf. Ord. 1 d.42 n.9].

37. In order, then, to apply the stated proposition of the Philosopher [n.31] to a virtual quantity, one needs to have a different proof from the Philosopher [sc. a philosophical and not theological proof], and in the place cited [n.31] the only proof is that, just as in the case of some permanent things something finite can be makeable by a single making, so too if one of the infinite things were makeable by a making, it would be makeable by a single making, and so something highest could be made, yet if there can be a process to infinity it would not be infinite.

38. From the fact, then, that charity or grace is something permanent, even as to any degree, the result is that if there is a process to infinity then any degree that has been made will be further perfectible; and so there can be at the same time as much in actuality as there can be in potency, for the possibility for such form is not a possibility for something that is only in a state of becoming but for something that is in a state of having become.

39. And this interpretation is touched on by the Commentator in Physics 3 com.69, that all powers that are in increase belong to one definite or demonstrated power; that is, that there is one power for a highest act in which are contained all the acts the many powers are capable of that are reduced to act one after another. But in the case of the division of the continuous, the many powers are not parts of one demonstrated or definite power, that is, there is not in their case some single act in which are contained all the acts completing the powers that are reducible to that act in turn; and so they are not parts of one demonstrated or definite power. This seems to mean only that in all ordered acts where there is, according to each degree, some act that is per se makeable, there is a highest in potency that can at the same time be in act, because it can be reduced to act by a single power; but in the case of acts that are only of a nature to exist in coming to be and where there are many ordered powers, there cannot be some single highest thing that can be in act as much as it is in potency but, beyond any potential coming to be, there can be something greater, although not something makeable by a single making.

40. [Second reason, n.31]. There is another reason posited for this conclusion [sc. that the highest grace can be created, n.29], namely that God can create as much charity as he can create (the subject of this major includes the predicate). Posit then that in fact ‘he creates as much as he can create’; therefore he cannot make anything greater; therefore the conclusion is gained that a highest creatable degree can be created.

41. Here the response is that the first proposition [sc. he can create as much as he can create, n.40] can be a hypothetical conditional, or a categorical proposition about a conditional predicate [sc. when the statement is conditional only about the predicate; William of Sherwoode Introductions to Logic pp.33-34, Syncategoremata pp.79-80].

42. In the first way the proposition is necessary because the antecedent includes the consequent: ‘if he can create so much, he can create so much’; and in this way one must suppose that it actually holds, so that both the antecedent and the consequent are posited as holding; because if the consequent is posited as holding and not the antecedent there is a fallacy of the consequence. For it need not be that what the antecedent follows on the consequent follows on, and this proposition about the holding of the antecedent [sc. ‘he can create as much as he can create’] is related to one about the possible holding of the consequent, and the inference ‘if man is an animal it is possible that he be white, therefore every animal is white’ is not valid. The first proposition therefore [sc. ‘he can create as much as he can create’] would have to be posited as holding in this way: ‘he creates as much as he creates’.

45. But if it is taken in the second way (when it is a categorical about a conditional predicate), the sense is, ‘he can create as much as he can create, that is, he can create a highest creatable’. And if a single power is indicated as modifying the whole proposition, it is, in its form, not true; and so the subject does not include the predicate, for the predicate is specified by a determination that is not per se known to be present in the subject, but it is true only by reason of the matter (for in the case of permanent things, however far one proceeds, the highest possible is as makeable by a single making as is anything else).

44. And these two reasons [nn.31, 40] get their evidence only from the first reason [n.30]