Ordinatio

Now, that the first being has intelligence and will I argue thus: some agent is a per se first agent, because to every cause per accidens some cause per se is prior, Physics 2.6.198a8-9, where Aristotle means this of nature, about which it is less evident; but every agent per se acts for an end.

And from this there is a twofold argument. First as follows: every natural agent, precisely considered, would act of necessity and just as much if it were not to act for any other end but was acting independently; therefore if it does not act save for an end, this is because it depends on an agent that loves the end; of such a sort is the first efficient cause, therefore etc.

Again, if the first agent acts for an end, then that end moves the first efficient cause as loved by an act of will or as only naturally loved. If as loved by an act of will, the intended conclusion is gained. If only naturally loved, this is false, because it does not naturally love an end other than itself, in the way the heavy loves the center and matter loves form; for then it would in some way be in relation to an end because inclined to an end. But if it only naturally loves the end which is itself, this is nothing save itself being itself, for this does not preserve the doubleness of idea in itself.

Another argument, by as it were bringing together the reason already made, is as follows: the first efficient cause directs its effect to an end; therefore it directs either naturally or by knowing and loving the end. Not naturally, because a non-knower directs nothing save in virtue of a knower; for it belongs first to the wise to order things, Metaphysics 1.2.982a17-18; but the first efficient cause directs in virtue of nothing else, just as neither does it cause in virtue of anything else, – for then it would not be first; therefore etc.

Again, something is contingently caused; therefore the first cause causes contingently, therefore it causes willingly.

Proof of the first consequence: any second cause causes insofar as it is moved by the first cause; therefore if the first cause moves necessarily, any other cause is moved necessarily and anything else is caused necessarily; therefore if some second cause moves contingently, the first cause too will move contingently, because the second cause, does not cause save in virtue of the first cause to the extent it is moved by it.

Proof of the second consequence: there is no principle of contingent operation save the will or something concomitant to will, because any other thing acts from the necessity of nature, and so not contingently; therefore etc.

There is objection against this reason, and first against the first consequence the argument is as follows, because our own willing could still cause something contingently, and so there is no requirement that the first cause contingently cause it.

Again, the Philosopher conceded the antecedent, namely that something is contingently caused, and he denied the consequent by understanding it of will, namely that the first cause causes contingently, by positing contingency in inferior things, not because God wills contingently, but as a result of motion, which causes necessarily insofar as it is uniform, but deformity, and so contingency, follows from its parts.

Against the second consequence, ‘if it causes contingently, therefore it causes willingly’: this does not seem to hold, because some of the things that are moved naturally can be impeded, and so the opposite can – contingently and violently – can come about.

To the first [n.82] one must say that if God is the first moving or efficient cause with respect to our will, the same follows about it as about other things, because he either necessarily moves the will immediately or he moves another thing immediately and this other thing, having been necessarily moved, would necessarily move the will, because this other thing only moves from the fact that it is moved. The ultimate result is that what is proximate to the will would necessarily move the will, even if what is proximate to the will is the will itself; and so it will necessarily will, and it will be necessarily willing. And further the impossibility follows that he necessarily causes whatever is caused.

To the second [n.83] I say that I do not call the contingent here whatever is non-necessary or non-eternal, but something whose opposite might happen when that something happens; therefore I said ‘something is contingently caused’ [n.79], and not ‘something is contingent’. Now I say that the Philosopher cannot deny the consequent by saving the antecedent through recourse to motion [n.83], because if that whole motion is from its cause necessarily, any part at all of it is necessarily caused when it is caused, that is, it is caused inevitably, so that the opposite cannot then be caused; and further, what is caused by any part of the motion is caused necessarily and unavoidably. Either therefore nothing happens contingently, that is avoidably, or the first thing causes immediately in such a way that it could also not cause.

To the third [n.84] I say that if some cause can impede it, this is only in virtue of a superior cause, and so on up to the first cause, and if the first cause necessarily moves the cause immediate to itself, there will be necessity up to the last one; therefore it will impede necessarily, and consequently no other cause can naturally cause.¹

Thus therefore it seems to have been shown in a triple way that the first agent has intelligence and will, the first of which ways is that nature acts for an end and only because it is dependent and directed to the end by a knower [n.76]; the second is that the first agent itself for an end [nn.77-78], and the third that some effect comes about contingently when it is caused [nn.79-87].

Further, as to the question preliminary to infinity, I prove second that its understanding and will are the same as its essence, and first of the volition of itself as of an object such that to love the first cause is essentially the same as the nature of the cause and of every act of its will. Proof. The causality and causation of the final cause is simply first, according to Avicenna Metaphysics 6 ch.5 (95rb), who says that “if there were knowledge about any cause whatever, knowledge about the final cause would be noblest;” for this cause, as concerns its causality, precedes the efficient cause, because it moves the efficient cause to act, – and therefore the causality of the first cause and the causation of it is, according to any causation in any genus of cause, through and through uncausable. But the causality of the first end is to move the efficient cause as a thing loved; but it is the same thing for the first end to move the first efficient cause as a thing loved by it and for the first efficient cause to love the first end, because for an object to be loved by the will is nothing other than for the will to love the object. Therefore that the first efficient cause loves the first end is through and through uncausable, and so is necessary of itself, and so it will be the same as the first nature. And there is as it were a conversion of the reasoning from the opposite of the conclusion, because if the first loving is other than the first nature, then it is causable, and consequently effectible; therefore it is from some per se efficient cause which loves the end. Therefore the first loving would be caused by some love of the end prior to this caused first loving, which is impossible.

Aristotle shows this fact about intelligence, Metaphysics 12.9.1074b17-21, because otherwise the first thing will not be the best substance, for it is through understanding that it is honorable.

Second, because otherwise its continuance will be laborious for it. Again, if it is not that [sc. the same as its essence], it will be in potency of contradiction to it; on that nature labor follows, according to him.²

These reasons can be made clear by reason. The first [n.90] thus: since the ultimate perfection of every being in first act exists in the second act whereby it is conjoined to what is best, especially if the best acts and does not merely make (for every intelligible is active, and the first nature is intelligible, from the premise [nn.75-88]), the consequence is that its ultimate perfection will be in second act; therefore if this act is not the substance of it, its substance is not best, because its best is something else.

The second reason [n.91] can be made clear thus: a potency merely receptive is a potency of contradiction; therefore since it is not of this sort, therefore etc. – But because according to Aristotle this reason is not demonstrative but only probable, let the intended proposition be shown in another way, from the identity of the power and of the object in itself; therefore they will have the same act. But the consequence, plainly, is not valid; an instance is that an angel understands itself and loves itself and yet an angel’s act of loving and of understanding are not the same as its substance.

This conclusion, namely that the divine essence is the same as its willing itself, is true from corollaries: for it follows first that that the will is the same as the first nature, because willing exists only in the will; therefore the will whose willing is uncausable is also uncausable; therefore etc. And likewise, willing is understood to be as it were posterior to the will; yet willing is the same as that nature; therefore the will more so.

Again, second, it follows that understanding itself is the same as that nature, because nothing is loved unless it is known; therefore if loving itself is necessarily existent from itself, the consequence is that understanding itself is necessarily existent from itself.

And if understanding is closer to that nature than willing, then the consequence further is that the intellect is the same as that nature, as was just argued about the will from willing [n.94].

There is a fourth consequence too, that the idea of understanding itself is the same as itself, because it necessarily exists of itself if understanding necessarily exist of itself and the idea of understanding itself is as it were pre-understood to the intellect.

Having shown of self-understanding and self-willing that they are the same as the essence of the first being, I show from other things the proposition intended, namely about all its understanding and willing. And let the third conclusion be this: no understanding can be an accident of the first nature. The proof is because it has been shown of the first nature that it is in itself the first effective thing [nn.43-56]; therefore it has from itself the resources whence, after everything else has been removed, it could cause anything causable, at least as first cause of the causable. But with its knowledge removed it does not have the resources whence it could cause the causable; therefore knowledge of anything else whatever is not other than its nature. – The proof of the assumption is because nothing can cause except from love of the end, by willing it, because it cannot otherwise be a per se agent, because neither can it act, for an end; as it is, however, there is pre-understood to its willing of anything for the end its understanding of it; therefore before the first moment in which it is understood to be causing or willing a, necessarily it is pre-understood to be understanding a; so without this it cannot per se bring a about, and so in the case of other things.

Again, the same thing is proved because all understandings of the same intellect have a like relation to the intellect, according to their essential identity or accidental identity (as is clear of every created intellect and its understandings), because they seem to be perfections of the same genus; therefore if some of them have a subject receptive of them, then all of them do, and if one of them is an accident each of them also is. But some cannot be an accident in the first thing, from the preceding conclusion [n.89], because there cannot be a non-understanding of itself; therefore none of them will there be an accident.

Again, understanding, if it is what can be an accident, will be received in the intellect as in a subject; therefore also in the understanding which is the same as the intellect, and thus a more perfect understanding will be in receptive potency in respect of a more imperfect understanding.

Again, the same understanding can be about setting several objects in order, therefore the more perfect it is the more the objects; therefore the most perfect understanding, with which a more perfect degree of being understood is incompossible, will be the same as the understanding of all objects. The understanding of the first thing is most perfect in this way; therefore it is the same as all intelligible objects, and that which is of itself is the same as itself, from what has just preceded [n.89]; therefore the understanding of all things is the same. And I intend the same conclusion to be understood about willing.

Again, this intellect is nothing but a certain understanding; but this intellect is the same for all things, and so is what cannot be of any other object; therefore neither can it understand another thing. Therefore there is the intellect for all things. – It is the fallacy of the accident to conclude from the identity of certain things among themselves to their identity with respect to a third thing with respect to which they are extraneous;³ and it is plain from a similitude: to understand is the same as to will; ‘if therefore to understand itself belongs to something, then willing too belongs to the same thing’, does not follow, but it only follows because it is a willing; which willing indeed is something that belongs to the same thing, because one must so understand ‘of the same thing’ that the inference can be drawn in a divided, not a conjoined, manner, on account of an accident.⁴

Again, the intellect of the first thing has one act that is adequate to itself and coeternal, because understanding itself is the same as itself; therefore it cannot have any other understanding. – The consequence is not valid. An example about the blessed who at the same time see God and something else even if they see God according to the utmost of their capacity, as is posited about the soul of Christ, and still it can see something else.

Again an argument: this intellect has in itself through identity the greatest perfection of understanding; therefore it has every other understanding. – Response: this does not follow, because an understanding that is lesser can be causable and therefore can differ from the uncausable, but the greatest understanding cannot.

The fourth principal conclusion about the intellect and the will of God is this: the intellect of the first thing understands always and with a distinct and necessary act any intelligible thing naturally before that thing exists in itself.

The proof of the first part is because the first thing can know what is thus intelligible; for this belongs to perfection in the intellect, being able distinctly and actually to know any intelligible thing; rather, to posit this is necessary for the idea of intellect, because every intellect is of the whole of being taken in the most common way, as will be determined d.3 [I d.3 p.1 q.3 nn.3, 8-12, 24]. But the intellect of the first thing can only have an understanding the same as itself, from what was just said [n.98]; therefore it has actual and distinct understanding of any intelligible whatever, and this the same as itself and so always and necessarily.

The second part, about priority, is proved thus, that whatever is the same as itself is necessarily existent, as was plain above [n.106]; but the being of things other than itself is non-necessarily existent. Necessary existence is of itself prior in nature to everything non-necessary.

It is proved in another way, that the existence of anything else depends on the first thing as on a cause and, as a cause is of something causable, knowledge of the causable on the part of the cause is necessarily included; therefore the knowledge will be naturally prior to the very existence of the known thing.

The first part of the conclusion is also proved in another way, because a perfect artisan distinctly knows everything to be done before it is done, otherwise he would not operate perfectly, because knowledge is the measure by which he operates; therefore God is in possession of distinct and actual knowledge, or at any rate habitual knowledge, of all things producible by him prior to those things.

Against this: there is an instance about art, that universal art suffices for producing universal things [Scotus, Metaphysics I q.5 nn.3-4, VII p.2 q.15 n.1] – Look there for a response [ibid. VII p.2 q.15 n.9]. response [ibid. VII p.2 q.15 n.9].