I. To the Question

A. Two Possible Conclusions

275. There are two conclusions for the question: first, that the beatitude simply of intellectual nature consists in the sole act that is enjoyment; second what enjoyment it consists in, because not in every enjoyment.

1. About the First Conclusion

276. The first conclusion is made clear by division thus: in genus there is only a twofold act of will: ‘to will’ and ‘to will-against’.Or, more colloquially, ‘to will’ and ‘to refuse’. Not to will at all, or to be indifferent, which is possible, is not an act but an absence of act. ⁵⁰ ‘To will’ too is double in genus: either because of the thing, or the good of the thing, willed; or because of the thing, or the good of the thing, that wills.

277. The first ‘to will’ is said to be the willing of the love of friendship, the second the willing of the love of concupiscence; and only the first is enjoyment, for to enjoy is to inhere with love [n.181] because of the thing itself, namely the thing loved.

278. Against this second distinction an objection is made through Augustine, On the Trinity 9.12 n.18, “The appetite of the seeker becomes the love of the enjoyer” [n.197]; the appetite of the seeker belongs to the love of concupiscence; therefore etc.

279. I reply: the wayfarer, as to the willing of concupiscence, wills a good for himself and, as to the willing of friendship, he wills well-being for God. The first appetite, in respect of a good to be possessed [sc. the love of concupiscence, or ‘the appetite of the seeker’], becomes the love of satisfaction for him in the good possessed, and so it becomes ‘the love of the enjoyer’ - it does not, however, become the love by which he formally enjoys, but it becomes his love who, by the other love [sc. the love of friendship], enjoys the same object in itself that, by this love [sc. the love of concupiscence], he loves for himself. The second appetite [love of satisfaction], that is, imperfect love, becomes the perfect love of the enjoyer by which, namely, he enjoys.

280. Having set down the division [nn.276-277] I give proof of the principal conclusion, not including nor excluding the passions (about which there will be question later, nn.413, 426, 431-433), but only speaking here of these acts of will [n.277].

281. It is plain that beatitude cannot consist in any willing-against; first because willing-against has evil for per se object, which cannot be the beatific object; second because the beatific act is first and immediate in respect of the ultimate end, and so is not had by virtue of any prior act of will. But it is plain that willing-against is not first with respect to the ultimate end; indeed it is not simply first among acts of will, but is either not had or not commonly had save by virtue of some willing, according to Anselm Fall of the Devil 4, “No one deserts justice save by wanting something else that does not stand with justice,” as he exemplifies about a miser and coin and bread.“For a miser, when he wants to keep the coin and prefers bread, which he cannot have unless he gives the coin, first wants to give it, that is, to give up the coin, before he does not want to keep it.” ⁵¹

282. Second, beatitude does not consist in an act of concupiscence:

First because although [such act] could be good when duly circumstanced, yet it is not good by reason of itself or by its object, even by God, because it can be immoderate. This is plain from Augustine 83 Questions q.30, “Perversity lies in using what is to be enjoyed” (just as above, in Ord. II d.6 nn.34-73, it was said that the angel first sinned by immoderate concupiscence of the beatific object for himself), as Anselm maintains in Fall of the Devil 6, where he maintains that the [fallen] angels desired what they would have had if they had stood; but they desired nothing before, or more than, beatitude, because to that does the affection of advantage first and supremely incline. Now an act of friendship in regard to God is good by reason of itself and of its object, at least because it cannot be immoderate by excess, though perhaps by deficiency.

283. Second, because an act of concupiscence is not and cannot be the first act of the will in regard to the end, for every act of concupiscence is in virtue of some act of friendship; for I desire a good for this [person] with concupiscence because I love him for whom I desire it.

284. Third, because an act of friendship is in the will according as it has an affection for justice; for if it had only affection for advantage, it could only supremely will things of advantage, according to Anselm [ibid. n.282, chs. 12, 14. But an act of concupiscence is present in the will according as the will has an affection for advantage, because it is necessarily present according to that affection, even were that affection alone present; but the affection of justice is nobler in idea than the affection of advantage, because the former is ruler and moderator of the latter, according to Anselm [On Concord q.3 n.11], and is proper to the will insofar as the will is free, because the affection of advantage would belong to the will even if the will were not free.

285. Then, fourth, because the act of friendship tends to the object as it is good in itself, but an act of concupiscence tends to it as it is good for me; but nobler is an object in itself than as had by something else - at least this relation of the object to the haver, which is in an object as desired by concupiscence its formal idea, diminishes the objective perfection that this good has as it is in itself.

2. About the Second Conclusion

286. The second main conclusion is plain, for a wayfarer can enjoy God since he can inhere in him by love because of himself [n.277].

287. If you say ‘not by love but by desire’ [n.269], this is false, because although God is not had by the [wayfaring] lover, and therefore could be desired as something to be had, yet not by desiring some good to be had by God that God does not have, but his infinite goodness only is pleasing to me, which, by accepting and being pleased with, I will every good to be present in that is present in it.

288. The proposed conclusion is also plain from Augustine 83 Questions q.30 [n.282], that virtue consists in enjoying what is to be enjoyed.

B. A Difficulty

289. But there is a difficulty here as to how beatific enjoyment and non-beatific enjoyment are distinguished.

1. First Solution

290. Not in species it seems, because when per se sufficient causes are of the same species the effects are too. So it is in the issue at hand, because the same will, the same charity, the same enjoyable object, and under the same idea on the part of the object. In accord with this, then, it would be posited that they only differ as greater and lesser in the same species.

291. Against this is objected that then the wayfarer would be blessed, though less blessed than the comprehender.

292. I reply: the consequence is not valid, because ‘beatitude’ is not imposed to signify the nature as to its species the way the name enjoyment is. Hence it is well conceded that both [sc. wayfarer and comprehender] enjoy, but one more, the other less; however, the name ‘beatitude’ is imposed to signify enjoyment in a determinate degree, so as not to be below that degree. And this degree the wayfarer never has, neither as to more nor less.

293. But [sc. to the contrary], diverse comprehenders have it thus [sc. more and less], and so one of them is more blessed than another.

294. ThisParagraphs 294-296 are an added extra in Scotus’ own ms. ⁵² is shown as follows, that if there are only there degrees of the same species, let the lowest degree of a blessed be taken and the highest degree of a wayfarer; if they are equal, then the wayfarer is blessed.

295. But this act [sc. of the wayfarer] does not fall short of that act [sc. of the blessed] to an infinite degree, as is plain. Posit then that it fails short to four degrees. It is possible for the enjoyment of the wayfarer to increase through four degrees, because knowledge also can. Since then too knowledge of the same species may have as many degrees as enjoyment also has, yet, once intensification of the knowledge is posited, the enjoyment of the knower can be intensified proportionately; therefore, it is still possible for the wayfarer to be blessed; therefore, it is also possible for a wayfarer to reach that degree [of enjoyment] and be blessed.

296. A similar argument can be made about a given degree of beatific enjoyment, from which the supreme degree of a wayfarer (suppose the blessed Mary) is distant by a certain number of degrees; yet if it is of the same species within the species of beatific enjoyment, let a descent be made to lower and lower degrees - a length there will be some beatific enjoyment equal to the non-beatific enjoyment, or less than it.

2. Another Solution

297. It can be said in another way, and more probably, that beatific and non-beatific enjoyment differ in species - formally indeed in themselves, but causally from their causes, or the disposition of their causes.

298. For if it be posited that the intellect is cause, though a partial cause, of volition, and the intellection of the wayfarer and the vision of the blessed differ in species, then the effects that necessarily require these diverse causes differ in species; for never does an individual of the same species necessarily require a cause of a different species from the cause that another individual requires.

299. But if intellection be said to be a cause sine qua non, it is at least essentially required, and then, as before, diverse things of the same species do not necessarily require in their causes any of a different species. So this opinion too [n.297] has to concede that volitions are distinguished in species by their objects, and yet the object, according to them [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet I q.15], is a cause sine qua non. But then the distinction of enjoyments can be saved by distinction of visions, just as an effect varies by the differing closeness of the agent to the passive subject (for an agent that is opposite to the passive subject in a direct line acts differently from one that is opposite to it in a reflex or broken line), and cognition here is as it were the coming close of the object to the will.

3. Conclusion

300. Holding to this second way then [nn.297, 299] one need not concede that, by God’s absolute power, can be caused in the soul of a wayfarer, at least of one not seeing God bare, any enjoyment equal to the lowest enjoyment possible for any blessed; because the supreme of the lowest species cannot be made equal to the lowest of the higher species, for the whole of the former is below the whole of the latter.

301. But it is difficult according to the first way to prevent in the soul of the wayfarer (while his obscure knowledge persists intense to such and such a degree) the possibility of some enjoyment being there equal to some given beatific enjoyment.