B. On the Formal Object of this Act

1. Three Ways or Opinions, from Others

18. About the second article [n.13], it seems that one of the following ways must be held: that the formal object of this sort of habit is God in himself according to his absolute idea [n.20], or that it is God insofar as he is agreeable to the lover [n.19], or third insofar as it includes both, namely as it is a certain infinite good in itself of which the lover is a sort of participation, in the way that the finite is a certain participation in the infinite good.

19. The second way [Aquinas] would thus posit that God, although insofar he is the good of the creature, as giving the creature its being, he is to be loved with natural love, yet insofar as he gives beatific being he is to be loved with charity, and so the object of charity would be God insofar as he is the beatific object of the lover.

20. The first way [n.18] would be posited because of what has just been touched upon [n.19], for it is not enough for someone’s being supremely loved that he be alone in himself the supreme good (as the infinite Good), but there is need in addition that he be the good of this lover insofar as he is participated by the lover.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

21. Argument against the first way [n.18] is that then, if there were, per impossibile, another God, he should be loved above all things with charity -which seems unacceptable of itself. It also seems unacceptable by reason, because there cannot be two things that are lovable above all things, because each would be loved above the other, and then one and the same thing would be loved above itself.

22. Second, because if the idea of ‘the simply good’ is the idea of the good lovable above all things, then the idea of a greater good is the idea of a greater lovable - and thus everyone would be obliged to love more than himself a neighbor better than himself, which does not seem probable.

23. The second way [n.19] does not seem probable because the act of charity - if it is perfect - has regard to God under the most perfect idea of lovability; but the most perfect idea of lovability in God is not the comparison of him to any creature but is some idea of lovability in itself; for an ‘in itself’ is absolutely better than any relation to another could be.

24. Further, if the supreme good, insofar as it is beatific, is the principal object of charity, I ask what is the beatific thing: is it an aptitudinal respect whereby it is of a nature to beatify, or is it an actual respect whereby, namely, it does actually beatify?

If in the first way, and the aptitude is not the reason for terminating a perfect act perfectly save by reason of the nature that such an aptitude belongs to (just as neither is any aptitude in itself universally a perfection but does necessarily carry with it the nature that it is present in) - then to say that God is thus the beatific object of charity is to say that he is, as far as he is of such a nature, the object of charity.

The second way does not seem probable, because the relation that is in the object insofar as it actually beatifies follows the act; for there is in the object no difference between the actual and aptitudinal respect, save because the act is elicited about the object; therefore to say this would be to posit that - insofar as it terminates the act elicited by charity - it would have the formal idea of the object of the act. Likewise ‘to desire the good for this person’ belongs to the affection for advantage, and according to this affection the will is not perfected by charity.

25. Besides both actual and aptitudinal beatitude, if it states anything in God, states precisely a relation of reason, actual or aptitudinal; no respect of reason can be the formal idea terminating the act of charity.

26. And the arguments touched in 1 Prol. nn.164-166 can be adduced for this point; therefore etc.

27. Against the third way [n.18] the argument is that there does not seem to be a double objective formal idea to the same act; one of them is put as formal with respect to charity and not both together. And from this the argument further is that the one that is the formal idea when joined with the other would, if it existed per se, be the per se formal object, as is plain in the case of other formal ideas (for example, if conjoined heat is the formal idea of heating, it would, if it existed by itself, still be the formal idea of heating); the one of the two, then, that is now the per se objective idea would, if it existed per se, be the per se term of the act, and consequently the other would not be and is not now the term.

28. Further, if some intellectual creature existed a se and was not an effect from another and was infinite of itself (as is the supposition attributed to the Philosopher about the intelligences other than the first [Scotus, Quodl. Q.7 n.37]), such a creature could love God above all things and love, in accord with right reason, nothing other than the first, and yet it would not be a participation, speaking of effectuality, in the first.

3. Scotus’ own Response

29. As to this article [n.18] I say that the objective idea of the act or habit of charity can be understood in three ways; either, first, that (taken in itself) it is of a nature to be the idea of the term per se; or, second, that it is an idea preceding an act, because of which the act is of a nature to be elicited about the object; or, third, that it accompanies the act, or is rather a sort of consequence of the elicited act.

30. The first idea is the proper objective idea, and nothing else is properly and strictly speaking; and this objective idea is the idea of God in himself. But the precise idea of ‘this essence’ is the formal idea that terminates every theological act and habit, and it is so in the case of any intellectual nature (as was touched on in 1 Prol. n.206). The proof in brief is that a power that regards a common object adequate to it either in idea of mover or in idea of term cannot be most perfectly at rest save in that alone in which is found the most perfect idea of adequate object; every intellectual and volitional power regards as adequate first object in term and in motive the totality of being; therefore in no being, created or uncreated, can it be perfectly at rest save in that in which is found the most perfect idea of being. But such alone is the first being, and not under any relative idea but under the idea by which it is ‘this being’.

31. The second idea [n.29] can in some way be called an idea objective with respect precisely to loving, for it is in some way of a nature to draw things to love it; and such in the question at issue is the idea of this nature relative to the lover, which idea is the good as communicative of itself. For just as in us a thing is loved first because of the good as noble, secondly because it is known to love back, so that this loving back is a special idea of lovability in it, drawing one to love something, an idea which is different from the idea in it of the noble - so in God not only does the infinite goodness, or this nature as this, draw to love of it, but precisely because this goodness will love me by communicating itself to me I then, for this reason, elicit an act of love about it. And in this second degree of lovability can be placed everything that the idea of lovability can show itself in -whether by creating or repairing or disposing for beatification - so that there is no distinction between these, nor does charity regard more the last or second idea than the first, but all of them together as certain ideas not only of the good as noble but of the good that communicates and loves - and because it loves therefore is it worthy of being loved back, according to the words of I John 4.19, ‘We love God because he first loved us.’

32. The third idea [n.29], which is the object completing the act, is not properly the objective formal idea, because it follows naturally the elicited act; and yet, to the extent it always accompanies the act it could be posited to be some idea of the object. And in this way God is loved insofar as he is the beatifying good object of lovability (just as he would be said to be loved to the extent he is supremely loved) - and this not through idea of object but through the idea in the object that accompanies the act.

33. An example of this threefold distinction [n.29]: suppose there were one most beautiful visible object that was so from the nature of the thing; second posit that it gives the power of vision when seen; third suppose that that which is the idea of the term of sighted love, if sight could primarily love such an object, were concomitant to the thing seen, insofar as the thing seen is got by the eye in the act of seeing. - The first point is the idea itself of such a nature, to the extent that in such a nature is perfectly found the idea of the object adequate to such power (as far as the idea can exist in anything). The second is a certain idea drawing to an act of love to the extent it has communicated itself by giving the power of seeing. The third is the idea that is concomitant to the act, in which sight is perfectly at rest. Absolutely, then, the first idea of the seeing, or of love in sight (if sight could love), would be the idea of ‘this nature’ - least and most improperly would it be the idea of what is attained by the act.

34. From this is seen to follow that those speak most improperly who say that God as he is the beatific object is the object of charity [n.19], if they mean by ‘beatific’ an actual respect (insofar as it is the term with respect to the act of beatifying [n.24]) - but if they mean aptitudinal respect, then (as was argued [n.24]) this is only the idea of being the term because the nature is the idea of being the term.