Ordinatio

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.