Ordinatio

To the principal arguments. – To the first [n.1] I draw a distinction about natural object. For ‘natural object’ can be taken either for that which the power can attain naturally or by the action of naturally active causes, or for that to which the power is naturally inclined whether it can naturally attain the object or not. The major, then, could be denied by understanding ‘natural’ in the first way, because the first object is adequate to the power and is therefore abstracted from all those things that the power can operate on; but it is not necessary that if the intellect could naturally understand such common thing, that it could naturally understand whatever is contained under it, because the intellection of something contained is much more excellent than a confused intellection of such common thing; thus, when the minor has been conceded in each sense, the intended conclusion is not gained, namely about what is naturally attainable, because in this way was the major false.

Against this response I argue that it destroys itself. For the first object is adequate by itself to the power and is true object, that is, that the power regards nothing as object save what the idea of the first object is in, and whatever the idea of the first object is in the power regards as object; therefore, it is impossible for something to be naturally first without whatever is thus contained being naturally the per se object. For grant the opposite, and then it is not naturally adequate but exceeds, and something inferior to it is adequate and so is first. Now the reason that is adduced for the response [n.90] is a fallacy of figure of speech. For although being as it is something intelligible in a single act (as man is intelligible in a single intellection) is naturally intelligible (for the single intellection of being as of a single object is natural), yet being cannot be posited to be the first object naturally attainable because it is the first object as it is included in all per se objects, and as such it is not naturally attainable unless any of them at all is naturally attainable. Therefore it changes here ‘this something’ to ‘some sort of thing’ when it argues ‘being is naturally intelligible, therefore being as it is the first object of the intellect, that is, adequate object, is naturally attainable’, for the antecedent is true of being as it is one intelligible, like white, but the consequent draws a conclusion about being as it is included in every intelligible, not as it is understood apart from them.

To the argument [n.1], then, there is another response, a real one, namely that the minor is false about natural object, that is, naturally attainable object, – it is true in another way, namely what the power is naturally inclined or ordained to [n.90]. And in this way should the authority of Avicenna be understood. But as to what is to be set down as the first object naturally attainable, about this below in 1 d.3 p.1 q.3 nn.8-12. The response is confirmed by Anselm On Free Choice of the Will ch.3, “No ability, as I think,” he says, “do we have that is by itself sufficient for act.” He calls ability what we commonly call power; it is clear from his example about sight. It is not therefore inappropriate for a power to be naturally ordered to an object which it cannot naturally attain from natural causes, like whatever is ordered of itself alone [to something] and yet cannot attain it alone.

To the second argument [n.2] I deny the consequence. – To the proof [n.2] the thing is clear from what was said [nn.73-78] in the response given to the second argument for the opinion of the Philosopher, because higher things are ordered to passively receiving a greater perfection than they themselves can actively produce, and consequently the perfection of them cannot be produced except by some supernatural agent. It is not so with the perfection of inferior things, whose ultimate perfection can be subject to the action of inferior agents.

To the third argument [n.3] I say that the possible intellect is not proportionate to firm possession of some propositional truth, that is, it is not a movable proportional to the sort of agents that cannot be known from phantasms and the natural light of the agent intellect. When you argue ‘therefore it is made proportional by something else’ I concede the point – both as to ‘by something else’ in the sense of ‘by a mover’, because the possible intellect assents to the truth through a mover that reveals supernaturally, and as to ‘by something else’ in the sense of a ‘form’, because it assents by the assent that is made in the possible intellect, which assent is a sort of inclination in the intellect toward that object, making it proportionate to the object. When about that ‘something else’ you ask further ‘whether it is natural or supernatural’, I say that it is supernatural, whether you understand the question of the agent or of the form. When you infer ‘therefore the intellect is not proportionate with it, and is by something else made proportionate with it ’, I say that it is of itself in obediential potency to the agent [cf. 3 d.1 q.2 n.7, q.4 n.2], and thus it is proportional with it sufficiently for the purpose of being moved by it. Likewise, it is of itself capable of the assent caused by such an agent, even naturally capable; it is not necessary, therefore, that it be by something else made proportional for receiving the assent. A stand, then, is made at the second stage, not the first [n.3], because the revealed truth does not sufficiently incline the intellect to assent to it, and thus the agent is not proportional and the recipient is not proportional to it; but a supernatural agent does sufficiently incline the intellect to the truth, by causing in it an assent whereby it is proportioned to this truth, such that there is no need for the intellect to be by something else made proportionate to such an agent or to the form impressed by it, just as there is need that it be made proportionate to such an object through something else in the aforesaid double way [n.94]