Ordinatio

Second I ask whether the ultimate end has only one idea of being enjoyable, or whether there is in it some distinction according to which the will could enjoy it according to one idea and not according to another. And that there is in it such a distinction the proof is: Because in Ethics 1.4.1096a23-27, in the paragraph, “But further, because the ultimate good…” the Philosopher says, and the Commentator [Eustratius Explanations on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 1 ch.6 (17E)], that, just as being and one are in every genus, so also is good, and he speaks there specifically of relation; therefore just as it has its own goodness, so its own enjoyability, and consequently, since there are different relations in God, there will be in him different ideas of being enjoyable.

Again, just as one is convertible with being, so also is good; therefore, when they are transferred to divine reality, they are transferred equally. Therefore just as one is an essential and a personal feature there, so also is good and goodness; therefore just as there are three unities in divine reality, so are there three goodnesses, and the intended proposition is as a result obtained.

Further, an act does not terminate at an object insofar as the object is numbered unless the object be numbered as it is the formal object; but the act of enjoying terminates at the three persons insofar as they are three; therefore the object of enjoyment is numbered insofar as it is the formal object.

Proof of the minor: we believe in God insofar as he is three; therefore we will see God insofar as he is three, because vision succeeds to faith according to the total perfection of it [Prologue n.217]; therefore we will enjoy God insofar as he is three.

To the opposite: In every essential order there is only one first, therefore in the order of ends there is only one end; but enjoyment is in respect of the end; therefore etc.

Again, to the first efficient cause the ultimate end corresponds; but there is only one first efficient cause, and under a single idea; therefore there is only one end. – The reason is confirmed too, because the unity of the efficient cause is so great that one person cannot cause without another causing; therefore similarly the unity of the end is so great that one person will not be able to be end without another person being end, and the intended proposition follows. – This second reason is confirmed by Augustine On the Trinity V ch.14 n.15: “The Father,” he says, “and the Son are one principle of the Holy Spirit as they are one Creator with respect to the creature.”

Again, just as there is in God one majesty, so also one goodness; but there is owed to him because of his majesty only one adoration, according to Damascene On the Orthodox Faith 1 ch.8, such that it is not possible to adore one person without adoring another;¹ therefore it is not possible to enjoy one person without enjoying another.

About the first I say that it is possible for the wayfarer to enjoy the divine essence without enjoying the person, and this is also possible as to ordered enjoyment. My proof for this is that according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2: “if essence is said relatively it is not essence, because every essence which is said relatively is something after the relative has been removed;” from which he concludes, ibid.: “wherefore, if the Father is not something in himself, he is not something which may be said relative to another.” The divine essence, then, is some conceivable object in whose concept relation is not included, therefore it can be thus conceived by the wayfarer; but essence thus conceived has the idea of the supreme good, therefore also the perfect idea of enjoyability; therefore it is possible to enjoy it too in ordered way.

A confirmation of this reason is because it can be deduced from purely natural facts that there is one supreme good, and yet from those natural facts we do not conceive God as he is three; therefore about the supreme good thus known it is possible to have some act of will, and not necessarily a non-ordered act; therefore it will have an ordered act of enjoyment about the essence and not about the person as we conceive person. The converse, however, is not possible, namely that one enjoy the person in an ordered way without enjoying the essence, because the person includes the essence in the idea of itself.

Second I say also that the wayfarer can enjoy in an ordered way one person without enjoying another. I prove this, because with respect to the three persons there are three distinct articles of faith; therefore one person can be conceived to whom one article corresponds while another person is not conceived to whom another article corresponds, and then in the former person the idea of the supreme good is conceived; one can therefore enjoy the person thus conceived without enjoying another. If you say that ‘person’ is relative, therefore it cannot be conceived unless its correlative be conceived, I reply: although the knowledge of a relative require knowledge of its correlative, it is nevertheless not necessary that the knower and enjoyer of one relative know and enjoy the other relative, because it is possible to enjoy God insofar as he is Creator without enjoying the creature that is nevertheless the term of that relation. – Likewise, although the Father is said correlatively to the Son and therefore cannot be understood insofar as he is Father without the Son being understood, yet he is not said relatively to the Holy Spirit insofar as he is Father; therefore it will be possible to conceive the Father as Father and to enjoy him without conceiving and enjoying the Holy Spirit.

About the second article [n. 30] it is asserted that it is not possible, when speaking of the absolute power of God, that anyone who comprehends should enjoy the divine essence without enjoying the person. The proof of this is first about vision [about enjoyment see nn. 40-41], namely that it is not possible absolutely for any intellect to see the divine essence without seeing the person: The first proof is as follows, because confused knowledge is imperfect knowledge; the vision of that essence cannot be imperfect; therefore visive knowledge of it cannot be confused. But if it were only knowledge or vision about the essence and not the person, or of the essence and not the person, it would be confused vision, because it would be of something common to the persons and would not be of the persons, which seems unacceptable.

The second is as follows: vision is of the existent as it is existent and as it is present to the seer according to its existence; and in this respect vision is distinguished from abstractive understanding, which latter can be of what is not existent or of what is existent not insofar as it is present in itself; and this distinction between intuitive and abstractive understanding is in the intellect as the distinction between the act of vision and the act of imagination is in the sensitive part. There is then an intuitive knowledge of the divine essence different from that which is abstractive knowledge, and the former is vision of the existence of it as it is existent and present according to its existence to the knowing power; but the divine essence only exists in a person; therefore there can only be vision of it in the person.

Again, something in which there are many things distinct by the nature of the thing cannot be known by intuitive knowledge unless all those things also be distinctly and perfectly seen. An example: whiteness is not seen distinctly unless all the parts that are at the base of a pyramid be seen, which parts are distinct by the nature of the thing. But the persons are in the essence and are distinct by the nature of the thing; therefore the essence is not distinctly seen unless the persons be seen.

From this there is an argument to the intended proposition [n.34] as concerns the second distinction, namely of the persons between themselves [n.30], because if the essence cannot be seen save in the person – and it is not seen more in one person than in another, because it is seen with equal immediacy to be related to any person whatever – therefore it cannot be seen unless it be seen in any person whatever, and so it is not seen in one person unless it be seen in another.

There is also further argument as to the enjoying proposed [n.34], because the will cannot abstract its object more than the intellect can show it; therefore if the intellect cannot distinctly show essence without person or person without person, then neither will the will be able to enjoy them distinctly.

And there is confirmation too as follows, because the will cannot have a distinct act on the part of the object unless a distinction either real or in idea is posited on the part of the object; but if the intellect apprehend the essence and person indistinctly, there will not be on the part of the object a distinction either of the thing or of the idea; therefore the will cannot have a distinct act on the part of a distinction in the first object. That there is not a real distinction on the part of the object is plain; that there is not a distinction in idea the proof is because the intellect does not distinctively comprehend, or does not distinctly apprehend, this and that; therefore it does not distinguish this and that.

On the part of enjoyment the argument is as follows: enjoyment gives rest to the enjoyer; one person without another does not give rest perfectly to the enjoyment of the enjoyer, nor does the essence without the person, because then the power at rest in it could not be made to be at further rest; nor can it be made to be at rest in anything else, because what is at ultimate rest cannot be made to be at further rest, and consequently that power could not be made to be at rest in another person or to enjoy it, which is false.

Again, if it were at rest in this person alone, and it is plain that it can enjoy another, then either the enjoyment of the other person can exist with the enjoyment of this person, or they will be incompossible, so that one of them will not exist with the other; if in the first way then two acts of the same species will exist at the same time in the same power, each of which acts is equal to the capacity of the power, which is impossible; if in the second way then neither act will be enjoyment, because neither act will be able to be perpetual.¹

[Scotus’ own opinion] – As to this article [n.34] I say that, speaking about the absolute power of God, there seems to be no contradiction in the possibility that, on the part of the intellect and on the part of the will, the act of each be terminated by the essence and not the person, or terminated by one person and not another, to wit that the intellect see the essence and not the person, or see one person and not another, and that the will enjoy the essence and not the person or enjoy one person and not another.

Proof for this is as follows:² any act has a first object on which it essentially depends, and it has a second object on which it does not essentially depend but does tend toward it in virtue of the first object; although, therefore, the same act could not remain in the same place unless it have a relation to the first object, yet it can stay the same without a relation to the second object, because it does not depend on the second object. An example: the act of vision of the divine essence and of other things in the divine essence is the same, but the essence is the first object and the seen things are the secondary object; now the seeing could not stay the same unless it were of the same essence, but it could stay the same without the fact of being of the things seen in the essence. Just as God, then, can without contradiction cooperate with that act insofar as it tends to the first object and not insofar as it tends to the second object, and yet it will be the same act, so he can without contradiction cooperate with the seeing of the essence, because the essence has the idea of the first object, while not cooperating with the same act of seeing or of enjoying insofar as it tends to a person, and, by parity of reasoning, insofar as it tends to one person and not to another.

Hereby to the arguments against this way [n.34]. When a statement is first made about confused vision [n.34], I say that the universal in creatures is divided through its singular instances; but this thing, which is ‘to be divided’, is a mark of imperfection, and so it does not belong to what is common in God, nay the divine essence, which is common to the three persons, is of itself ‘this’. So that is why knowledge of some universal abstracted from singulars is confused and imperfect, because the object is confused, being divided in the things which are confusedly conceived in it. But this knowledge of the divine essence is distinct, because its object is what is of itself ‘this’, and yet there is no need that in the distinctly conceived concept the person be distinctly conceived or known, because the person is not the first term of enjoyment or of vision, as has been said [n.32].

To the second, when argument is made about existent essence etc. [n.35], I say that it is necessary that the term of vision be existent as far as it is existent, but it is not necessary that subsistence, that is, incommunicable essence, belong to the idea of the term of vision. But the divine essence is of itself ‘this’ and actually existent, although it not of its idea include incommunicable subsistence, and therefore it can as ‘this’ be the term of vision without the persons being seen. An example: a white thing is seen intuitively insofar as it is existent and is present to vision according to its existence; but it is not necessary that the white thing be seen as subsistent or insofar as it has the idea of a supposit, because it does not have the idea of a supposit nor have the supposit in which it exists or is seen. As to the form of the argument, then, it is plain that although vision is only of the existent insofar as it is existent and is existent only in the person, yet the inference does not follow ‘therefore it is of the existent insofar as it is in the person’, but what should be inferred is only that it is of what subsists, or or of what exists in a subsistent.

To the third [n.36] I say that the first proposition is false except when in those things that are distinct by the nature of the thing the first thing seen is distinct, as is clear in your example about the base of a pyramid, for whiteness and a seen white thing are distinguished into the parts in which they are seen, and therefore the white thing is not distinctly seen unless these parts in which the seen white thing is distinguished be distinctly seen. But in the matter at hand, although the divine persons are distinct by the nature of the thing, yet the seen essence is not distinct in them, because it is of itself ‘this’; therefore the essence can be distinctly seen without those that subsist in it being seen.

As to the further deduction about the will [n.38], although there be no need to reply to it, because the antecedent must be denied, yet a reply can be made because the consequence does not seem to be necessary. When it is said that ‘the will does not abstract more than the intellect shows’, I say that the intellect can show some first object to the will and show in this first object some per se and not first object (and here the whole of that in which the act of the power terminates is called ‘first object’, and what is included per se in the object that first terminates is called ‘per se object’). Now each idea there shown [the idea of first object and of per se object] suffices for the will to have its own act with respect to it; for there is no need that the will wills the whole of the first object shown, but it can will the first object shown and not will what is shown in that first object shown. Let the following sort of example be posited: in bishop-hood is shown priesthood; such showing suffices for the will to have an act of willing or of not willing with respect to priesthood, so that it could from such showing have an act of willing with respect to bishop-hood and not with respect to priesthood; and yet there is only one showing, and a showing of one first object, in which first object however is included something as per se object. I say that the will does not abstract the universal from the singular, but there are many willed things shown to the will by understanding, which understanding is of some several things included in the first object, each of which, as thus shown, the will can will.

To the confirmation, when it is said that ‘the object differs either in reality or in idea’ [n.39], I say that it differs in idea. And when the criticism is made that it does not, ‘because the intellect does not conceive this distinctly from that’ [n.39], I say that for a distinction of reason it is not necessary that the intellect possess them as distinct objects, but it is enough that it conceive them in the first object.

To the other point about rest [n.40] I say that the Father rests in his essence as it is in himself; nor does it follow that ‘therefore he cannot rest in it as it is in the Son or the Holy Spirit’, rather he rests in the essence as communicated to them and does so with the same rest with which he rests in the essence as it is in himself. For that which rests first in some object rests in it as to whatever it is according to that mode; so here, if the blessed first enjoy the essence and then the person, he does not rest with a further rest beyond what he was resting with first but with the same rest, insofar as the object giving rest is the term as it is in any of them, and was not first the term as it is in that one.

Hereby to the fifth argument [n.41] I say that there will not be two acts there, because whatever act there is there of enjoyment or of vision, it is of the first object under one formal idea; but that one act can be of all of them or of the object per se by virtue of the first object, or it can be only of the first object itself; there will not then be two acts, at the same time or in succession, of the same species.³

As to the third article about the power of the creature [n.30] I say that the intellect cannot by its own natural power see the essence without seeing the person, because, since the intellect is of itself a natural and not a free power, when the object acts the intellect acts as much as it can; therefore if the object on its own part acts by manifesting the three persons to the intellect, it is not in the power of the intellect that it see something shown and something not see.

Likewise neither is it in the power of the will to have ordered enjoyment in this way without having enjoyment in that way, because just as it is not in the power of the will not to enjoy in ordered way (for if it were not enjoying when not impeded in this respect, it would be sinning and deserving not to enjoy), so it is not in the power of the will to enjoy something in ordered way and not to enjoy whatever it can enjoy; and therefore it is not in its power, while remaining in ordered state, not to enjoy under any idea under which it can enjoy.¹

On the contrary: whatever is not necessarily concomitant to an act is in the power of the will that elicits it; or in this way: whatever things the act of will does not at the same time necessarily regard, the will itself as it elicits the act also does not regard; or in this way: whatever things can be separated as they are the term of the act of will can also be separated in respect of the power as eliciting the act.

As to the article about the fact [n.30] I say that in fact there will be one vision and one enjoyment of the essence in three persons. And this is what Augustine says On the Trinity I ch.8 n.17: “Neither can be shown without the other,” and he is speaking of the Father and the Son; and the remark is to be understood of ordained power, of which Philip spoke when wanting the Father to be shown to him [John 14.8], as if he could in fact have seen the Son without the Father. And Augustine treats there of the words of Philip and of Christ’s response. Augustine also means this in On the Trinity XV ch.16 n.26: “Perhaps we will see the whole of our knowledge in one view all at once.” And the fact that he says ‘perhaps’ is not referred to the beatific object but to seeing other things in it.

Likewise about the wayfarer I say that in fact necessarily the habitual, though not the actual, ordered enjoyment is of the three persons together; for no wayfarer or comprehender can have ordered enjoyment of one person without enjoying another (that is, unless he habitually enjoy another, namely that he is in proximate disposition to enjoying another), if this person is conceived distinctly from that; and therefore enjoyment of one person does not stand with hatred of another person, because, as the Savior says, John 15.23: “he who hates me hates my Father also.”

To the principal arguments. To the first from the Ethics [n.23] I say that good is in one way convertible with being, and that in this way it can be placed in any genus; but good in this sense does not have the idea of enjoyable object, and therefore it is not necessary that the idea of enjoyable object should properly be wherever good taken in this way exists. For the idea of enjoyable object is not the idea of good in general but of perfect good, which is good without any defect, or is so at least in appearance or according to what has been prefixed by the will [n.16], and of such sort a relation is not.

To the second [n.24] it is said that things that regard in a uniform way the essence and the person are only the essential features, if those that belong only to a person are precisely the personal features; but things that under one idea regard the person and under another the essence are essential and personal features. ‘Good’ is related in the first way while ‘one’ is related in the second, namely ‘indivision’, which under one proper idea pertains to the essence and under another proper idea pertains to the person. But on the contrary: the cause of this fact is what the argument [n.24] is looking for; for it argues: since these two things seem to be equally convertible with being and equally transferred to divine reality, therefore each will be equally essential features only, or each will be personal and essential features.¹

To the third [n.25] I say that the ‘insofar as’ can denote only the fact that what follows is taken according to its formal idea or, in another way, it can beyond this denote that it is the formal idea of the inherence of the predicate in the subject. In the second way reduplication is taken most properly, because the reduplicated thing, whether it is taken for the whole of what it itself first is or for something that is included in the understanding of it, taking reduplication formally to be always that for which it is taken, is marked out as being the formal idea of the inherence of the predicate in the subject. To the matter at hand, then, I say that if this reduplication be taken as to both these ways in the major, the major is true and the minor is false; but if it is taken in the first way and not in the second, the minor is true and the major is false. And when the proof of the minor is given [n.26], I say that in the first way of taking it we will see the three insofar as they are three, that is, the formal idea of the Trinity will be seen, but the Trinity itself is not the formal idea of seeing or the formal cause of the inherence of the predicate, namely of ‘enjoyment’ or ‘vision’, but the unity of the essence is. And when proof is given further through the act of faith [n.26], which is of the three insofar as they are three, or triune insofar as triune, I say that the case is not similar, because the divine essence does not cause in us immediately the act of believing as it will cause in us immediately the act of seeing, and this is because of the imperfection of our understanding for the present state, because we understand the distinct persons from creatures and distinct acts. And therefore, as far as concerns our knowledge now, the Trinity can be the formal idea of knowing; but then the Trinity will be precisely known as it is and will not be the formal idea of knowing, because then it will be seen through the idea of the essence in itself precisely as through the idea of the first object.

To the reasons for the opposite. To the first [n.27] I say that there is only one ultimate end in itself, yet it has several distinct ideas which are not formally ideas of the ultimate end, and so one can enjoy it under the idea of the ultimate end without enjoying it under those ideas.

To the second [n.28] I say that, as was said in the preceding question [n.14], that it is per accidens that the idea of efficient cause and the idea of end come together in the same thing, yet in fact one is the formal idea of the end itself just as one is the formal idea of the efficient cause itself, but in that one idea the power can be at rest although it is not at rest in the personal ideas that are in the end. As to the confirmation when it is said that ‘one person cannot cause unless the other cause, therefore one person cannot terminate the act of enjoyment unless the other terminate it’ [n.28], I say that the conclusion does not follow; for it does well follow that one person from the nature of the thing is not the end unless another person is the end, but it does not follow about the end of the act as the act is elicited by the power, because the end of the act as elicited is the one to which the power as eliciting orders the act and because of which it elicits the act. But the end from the nature of the thing is the good, to which the act of its own nature is of a nature to be ordered, not indeed in idea of the object which is attained by the act, but in the way that all created natures are in their degree ordered to the ultimate end. To the authority of Augustine On the Trinity [n.28], it is plain that he is speaking there of the fact and of the formal idea of it.

To the final point about adoration [n.29] I say that there is one habitual adoration of the three persons, because whoever adores one of them habitually is subjecting himself to the whole Trinity; but this need not be the case actually; for he need not think actually of another person when he adores one of them, as is plain about someone praying to one of the persons by a prayer that is not directed actually to another person, as is plain of the hymn ‘Come, Creator Spirit’, and of many prayers established in the Church. Hence the prayers of the Church are frequently directed to the Father and at the end the Son is brought in as mediator; therefore while someone is actually directing his intention to adoring the Father, he need not then actually think of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, until after he introduces the Son in his adoration and thought, namely as mediator. And just as it is the same adoration in habit but not in act, so it is the same enjoyment in habit although not necessarily the same in act.