Ordinatio

As to the third article [n.285], it is said [cf. Henry of Ghent infra], according to Boethius On the Hebdomads, that “what a thing is by and what it is are diverse,” because that which a thing is ‘by’ is called its ‘ratification’, and that by which it is ‘what it is’ is called its ‘somesort-ness’ [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 11 q.3]. On this understanding it is said that the respect of vestige in a creature is not founded on the ratification of the thing, but only on its somesort-ness, and it is formally the ratification of it [ibid., 5 q.6, 11 q.3].¹

The way posited is this: according to Avicenna Metaphysics 5 ch.1, “humanity is only humanity;” therefore the idea of humanity is not the ratified thing; therefore, it must be a ratified thing by something else outside the formal idea of humanity.

The argument is also made that which its ratification is formally by is the vestigial relation, and this first as follows: whatever is included in the per se understanding of something insofar as it is such is that by which it is such, or the same formally as it insofar as it is such; but the vestigial respect is included in the idea of any ratified being; therefore etc. Proof of the minor: some being is what its ‘to be’ is, as God; some being is what ‘to be’ belongs to, as is every being other than God, which is not a ‘to be’ of itself but only a being to which ‘to be’ belongs [cf. Henry, Quodlibet 5 a.2, Summa a.2 q.6]. From this the argument is as follows: any being that is not of itself ‘to be’ but to which ‘to be’ belongs is not a ratified being save by participating ‘to be’ itself, or insofar as it does participate ‘to be’ itself [cf. n.109]; everything other than God is what ‘to be’ belongs to and is not ‘to be’ itself; therefore it is not ratified save to the extent it participates ‘to be’; therefore by that participation is it formally ratified.

Secondly [cf. n.304] as follows: nothing other than God can be perfectly known without knowledge of all the intrinsic and extrinsic causes, Physics 1.1.184.14-17, “Then each thing etc.” [Henry, Summa a.1 q.5]; but if the essence of something such were absolute and were not to include a respect essentially to an extrinsic cause, it could be perfectly known without knowledge of the extrinsic cause; therefore it is necessary that it include such a respect [ibid., a.27 q.1].

Augustine On the Trinity 8.3 n.4 is brought in here [“you will see God, not good with another good, but the good of every good.” Cf. Henry, ibid. a.24 q.8].

Again, Boethius On Hebdomads, “If little by little you take away, through the intellect, the good itself, then, though there may be good things, yet they will not be good by the fact that they are.” Therefore, the idea of good is taken away from them when the first good is, through the intellect, taken away; and consequently goodness in them states a relation to, or participation in, the supreme good.

If argument is made against the opinion [n.302] from Averroes Metaphysics 12 com.19, that relation has the weakest being, so there is not and cannot be formally ratification of ratified being [Henry, Quodlibet 9 q.3 etc.] – it is said that relation is double: one accidental, one substantial. And this distinction of relation is taken from Simplicius On the Categories (‘When’), where he maintains that some cases of ‘in’ do not constitute categories as others do, because of the fact that some respects are essential or substantial, some are not but accidental [Henry, ibid.²]. They say, therefore, that the statement of the commentator [Averroes] is true of accidental relation, not of substantial relation.

But if it is objected that every relation presupposes a foundation in ratified being, therefore it is not itself the ratification of the foundation [nn.295, 323] – it is said that this is true of a relation coming to a foundation, but not of a relation constituting a foundation.

Against these points [nn.302-309]. So that these words may be understood, I distinguish three things according to the opinion of the doctor [Henry of Ghent] on whose statements this opinion seems to be based. For, according to him ‘thing’, res, is in one way said from reor, reris, which means to ‘think’; in a second way ‘thing’ is said to be from ratification. In place of these words I take plainer words: for ‘thing’ as said from ‘think’ I take ‘thinkable reality’, which is common, according to him, to figments and non-figments; for ‘thing’ as said from ‘ratification’ I take, according to his intention, quidditative reality, because he posits that a quidditative thing is ratified by the fact it is exemplified, which does not belong to figments. Beyond these there only remains the reality of actual existence. We have, therefore, three things in order: thinkable reality, quidditative reality, and reality of existence.

I ask, then, what he means by ‘somesort-ness’? [n.302]. For if he means thinkable reality, since that is common to something and to nothing, it is of itself nothing. Therefore. if ratification be founded on somesort-ness taken in this way [n.302], it is founded on nothing; therefore it is nothing, because what is nothing relative to itself is nothing relative to another thing, On the Trinity 7.1 n.2 [“Wherefore if the Father is not something in relation to himself, he is altogether not who may be said in relation to anything”]; therefore ratification is nothing; therefore, the total thing, composed of ratification and somesort-ness, is two nothings.

If somesort-ness be called quidditative reality, I ask what he means by ratification, either quidditative reality or reality of existence. If quidditative reality, then to say that ratification is founded on somesort-ness [n.302] is to say that quidditative reality is founded on quidditative reality, which is to say nothing, because then the same thing would be founded on itself according to the same being. If he means reality of existence – on the contrary: then ratification is presupposed to it, because a thing, according to this opinion, has truly ratified being before being of existence, and so its first ratification cannot be the being of existence.¹

If you say that the somesort-ness that is thinkable reality is a ‘what’ common to something and nothing, but there is another somesort-ness that is proper to a thing able to be and that does not belong to figments (of which a thing having somesort-ness is composed, and from being as from its own ratification,) – on the contrary: this is to say that there is a double somesort-ness, one of something and nothing, and another of something only, just as if it were said there is a double whiteness, one of white and black, another of white only. And in addition to this, as to the somesort-ness proper to possible being, I ask: either it is a respect only and is founded on the somesort-ness that is common (because that alone precedes it), and then it will be founded on nothing, as was said [n.311], and then it will be nothing; or the somesort-ness that is proper is an absolute, and thereby, for you, the thing that has it is distinguished from fictions; so this is the first ratification of a thing and is an absolute, and thus a respect will not be the first ratification of a thing.

Further, second [n.313], as follows: humanity has of itself a concept to which it is not repugnant that something falls under it in fact, or to which it is repugnant of itself that something falls under it in fact, or to which of itself something does fall under it in fact. Not in the third way, according to every opinion, for the reason that this is proper to God alone. If it be granted that it is repugnant of itself to the concept that something falls under it, then by no respect that comes to it from without can belong to it that something could fall under it; for what is repugnant to something by some part of it cannot not be repugnant to it while its nature remains, and so cannot become non-repugnant to it by any respect that comes to it from without. Therefore, the concept of humanity is such that to it of itself is not repugnant that something in fact falls under it; but such concept is a concept of ratified thing, according to the opinion of this master [Henry of Ghent], because to be in fact is repugnant to the concept of a figment [cf. n.310].

Besides, third: the Philosopher, Metaphysics 4.6.1011a19-20, infers from the opinion of those who say that all appearances are true this impossibility, that everything will be relative to something. And he does not mean this only by way of denomination, because in thus is it true that everything is relative to something, at least everything other than God; therefore he means to infer it as something maximally unacceptable that everything is essentially relative to something. But this opinion posits that everything is essentially relative to something; therefore, this conclusion, namely that all things are relative to something, is more unacceptable than that all appearances are true.

If you say that the Philosopher is saying that all things will be relative to another, namely “relative to opinion and sense” – on the contrary: in an argument, a conclusion leading to something impossible must be equally or more impossible than the premises; the inferred conclusion here, insofar as it is inferred, does not differ from the premise that posits all things to be true on account of their appearing to sense or to opinion – save in this that it infers ‘everything is relative to something’ [cf. n.307]; therefore if in something it has a greater impossibility than the premises, it is this impossibility, that all things are relative to something simply.

Fourth as follows: humanity, insofar as it is humanity, either has only the ‘what’ of the name or it has the ‘what’ of a thing repugnant to figments [cf. Henry, Summa a.24 q.3]. If in the first way, then of humanity, as it is humanity, there is no more a science than there is of a chimaera, and consequently metaphysics, which is about quiddities, will no more be a science than if it were about figments unintelligible because of the contradiction included in them. But if humanity, as it is humanity, has the ‘what’ of a thing that is repugnant to figments, then humanity, whence it is humanity, is a ratified thing [cf. n.303].

The reply is made that humanity, whence it is humanity, has some definition, but the definition does not indicate a ratified being because figments can have genus and difference; but, in order to get the complete idea of a ratified being, one must add a respect to unparticipating being [cf. n.304].

This [n.318] does not make reply to the argument [n.317] without making metaphysics no science. Likewise too, what it says about figments (that they have genus and difference) is false, because all such things have an idea that is in itself false, because including a contradiction, because one part contradicts the other; but such parts are never genus and difference, for a difference is per se determinative of a genus and is, consequently, not repugnant to it.

Second, argument is made against the opinion [n.302] from his own statements [n.310]. First as follows: each thing is active formally by its ratification,¹ the proof of which is because by ratification is it formally in act; but nothing is in itself formally active by a relation, because a relation is not a principle of acting [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.39 qq.3,4]; therefore ratification is not a relation.

Again, according to him no creature, insofar as ratified, differs in species from the being that is God [Henry, Quodlibet 7 qq.1-2]; but the very being that is God, according to every opinion, is absolute; how then does that which is formally a relation not differ in species from that which is absolute?

Again, according to him, a being of reason participates ratified being or first being, but is not formally a ratified being [ibid., 5 q.2]. Therefore, this sort of participation is not formally ratification itself [n.304].

To the reasons for the opposite opinion [n.302-307] as concerns this third article. To the remark of Avicenna about humanity [n.303] I say that, through the fact that he says that “horseness is only horseness,” he does not exclude things that belong per se to the idea of horseness (of which sort is ratified being), but he excludes things that are properties of being, as ‘one’, ‘act’ etc., as is plain there from his text.

To the second [n.304], both the major and the minor are false; the major because animal is in man formally or per se or essentially, insofar as he is man, yet animality or animal is not formally man; but if be added in the major ‘whatever is per se included in the understanding of something as ultimate in it’, the major is true, and thus is the minor false.

When proof is given [n.304] through the other prosyllogism, “what ‘to be’ belongs to,” I say that the major of this prosyllogism is false, if by the ‘insofar as’ be understood that something is redoubled ‘per se in the first mode’, or if ‘participating’ in the major be taken as a gerundive.¹ And, insofar it is explained by ‘because’, the major (if a causality pertaining to the first mode per se is understood) is in the same way false, because participation itself in the first mode per se is not that by which a being is ratified formally. But if by the ‘insofar as’ be understood causality pertaining to the second mode per se (of the sort that is in a subject with respect to its proper property), I concede that in this way ‘such a being insofar as it is such a being’ (for example a stone insofar as it is a stone) does participate ‘to be’ itself. However, the proposition is not true conversely, namely that ‘insofar as it participates it is a being’. An example: this is false properly speaking, ‘man insofar as capable of laughter is man’, understanding this in the second mode per se, and much more in the first mode per se; but this is true ‘man insofar as he is man is capable of laughter’ in the second mode. And yet the other, the first, can be conceded in some way, because a stone insofar as it is a stone participates ‘to be’ itself, such that a stone, posited in ratified being, has by necessity and in the second mode per se the respect of participation, without which the ‘to be’ includes a contradiction – just as does being a subject without the proper property, or being the necessary foundation of a relation without the relation when the term of the relation has been posited. Then I understand it thus, that in the first instant of nature there is a being which is its ‘to be’, namely God. In the second moment, a stone is a ratified being, an absolute, which is understood as then neither participating nor non-participating. In the third moment, there is the participation itself, a certain respect, consequent to the stone.

To the next argument from the Physics, about causes [n.305], I say that it is one thing to be a relation prior to knowledge of the caused through the cause, and another thing for the cause itself to be included in the knowledge of the thing caused. For although stone has a respect to God before stone is known (and so it is not known perfectly if God is not known [cf. n.277]), yet stone is known when the respect to God is not known; and from this follows that that respect is not of the essence of stone, because nothing is known unless what is of its essence is known.

To Augustine [n.306]: I concede that every other good is good by participation, but the authority does not maintain that participation is of the essence of that good.

As to Boethius [n.307] it must be said that the authority proves the opposite, because in it he posits a removal of the first good by the intellect and, speaking about creatures with that in place, he says that when speaking of the ‘to be’ of them, “although they are and are good, yet they are not good insofar as they are.” So he himself, when, as to the intellect, he removes the first good, speaks of creatures according the ‘to be’ of creatures. But if the ‘to be’ of creatures were a respect to the supreme good, it would not only be a contradiction to remove the first good and to speak of the ‘to be’ of creatures, but it would not be intelligible; for it is not intelligible to posit a respect by removing the term of the respect. Therefore he understands that the ‘to be’ of creatures is absolute. But goodness for him states a certain ‘flow’ from the first good, and it is true that this term states a respect, and so it cannot belong absolutely to the thing. Therefore, if things in their ‘to be’ were not from the first good, they would not be good insofar as they are, because insofar as they are they did not flow from the first good. They would, however, be good per accidens, if they were to flow from the first good according to another ‘to be’ – just as a stone, if it did not as to itself exist by the will of the first good but as to its hardness, it would be good insofar as it is hard (because by the will of the first good), though not insofar as it is a stone or insofar as it is a being. It is plain, therefore, that [Boethius] is taking ‘good’ for the respect of flowing from the first good, and in this way too is the goodness in other beings not from God save because they are from the will of the first good. But this is not the absolute and intrinsic perfection of a creature, and therefore goodness, according to another absolute idea, does not state a respect to the creator, although goodness as Boethius takes it there does state a respect to the creator.