Ordinatio

Fourth [n.24] I say that we can reach many concepts proper to God that do not belong to creatures, of which sort are the concepts of all perfections simply at their highest. And the most perfect concept, in which as it were in a certain description we most perfectly know God, is by conceiving all perfections simply and at their highest. However, the concept possible for us that is more perfect at the same time and more simple is the concept of ‘infinite being’. For this is more simple than the concept of good being, true being, or other similar concepts, because ‘infinite’ is not a quasi-attribute or property of being, or of that of which it is said, but it states an intrinsic mode of the entity, such that when I say ‘infinite being’ I do not have a concept as it were per accidens of subject and property, but a concept per se of the subject in a certain degree of perfection, namely of infinity – just as an intense whiteness does not state a concept per accidents as ‘visible whiteness’ does; rather intensity states a degree intrinsic to whiteness in itself. And so the simplicity of this concept ‘infinite being’ is plain.

The proof of the perfection of this concept is, first, because this concept, among all the concepts conceivable to us, virtually includes more things – for just as being virtually includes in itself true and good, so infinite being includes infinite true and infinite good and every perfection simply under the idea of infinite; second, because, by a demonstration-that, ‘to be’ is ultimately proved of infinite being, as appears from the first question of the second distinction [Ord. I d.2 nn.74, 111-136, 147]. And those things are more perfect that are known from creatures last of all by a demonstration-that, because to prove them from creatures is, on account of their distance from creatures, very difficult.

If you say of supreme good or supreme being that this states a mode intrinsic to being, and includes virtually the other concepts – I reply that if ‘supreme’ is understood comparatively [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.41 q.2], in this way it states a respect to what is extrinsic; but ‘infinite’ states a concept to itself. But if you understand ‘supreme’ absolutely, that is, that from the nature of the thing the perfection of it could not be exceeded, it is more expressly conceived in the idea of infinite being. For ‘supreme good’ does not in itself indicate whether it is infinite or finite. – From this becomes clear the rejection of what was said [n.20] in the preceding opinion, that it is most perfect to know the attributes by reducing them, on account of divine simplicity, to divine existence. For knowledge of divine existence under the idea of the infinite is more perfect than knowledge of it under the idea of simplicity, because simplicity is communicated to creatures, but infinity (in the way it belongs to God) is not.