Ordinatio

To the arguments for the opinion [nn.83-90]. To the first [n.83] I say that the likeness would entail many false things, because it would entail that just as we assent necessarily to the conclusions because of the principles, so we would assent necessarily to the things for the end because of the end, which is false. Therefore I say that the likeness holds as to two things, namely as to the order of these things and of those by comparing them among themselves, and as to the order of those by comparing them to powers that tend toward them in ordered fashion; I understand it thus, that as there is an order between those true things in themselves, so also between these good things, and just as those true things are in ordered fashion thus known, so also would these good things be thus in ordered fashion to be willed. But there is no likeness as to the order of necessity in one and in the other, comparing them to powers absolutely. For it is not necessary that the will keep the sort of order in its own acts that willable things are of a nature to have from their nature; nor is the assent alike on this side and on that, because necessity is in the intellect because of the evidence of the object necessarily causing assent in the intellect: but no goodness of the object necessarily causes assent of the will, but the will freely assents to any good at all, and so it freely assents to a greater good as it does to a lesser.

To the second, when the argument is about participation [n.84], I say that the major is false because the will wills nothing necessarily; and therefore it need not be that it necessarily will that thing by reason of which it wills everything else, if there were anything such. The minor is false also because by virtue of and participation in the ultimate end it wills whatever it wills, because ‘by participation in or by virtue of something the will wills things’ can be understood in two ways: either by virtue of or participation in it as efficient cause or as what contains it virtually, or by virtue of it as the first object because of which as willed it wills other things. If it be understood in the first way, the minor assumed with the major is not to the purpose, because that by virtue of which as efficient cause something is willed need not be willed, just as that which is the efficient cause of something seen need not be seen; for it need not be that I first see God with my bodily eye if I see a color, which is a certain participation of God as efficient cause. If it be understood in the second way, namely about participation of it as first willed object, then the minor is false; for it is not by virtue of God willed that I will whatever is willed, because then every act of the will would be actual using, by referring it to the first willed object.¹

To the third [n.85] it is said in one way that, although there be no defect there of any good nor any malice and therefore perhaps the will would not be able not to will it, because the object of an act of not willing is the bad or the defective, yet it is able not to will that perfect good, because it is in the power of the will not only to will thus and so, but also to will and not to will, because its freedom is for acting or not acting. For if it can by commanding move other powers to act, not only thus and so but also to determinately acting and not acting, it does not seem that there be less freedom of it in respect of itself as to determination of act.² ^[Text cancelled by Scotus: “Against this response I prove that if the will is able not to will, it can refuse to will, because if it cannot refuse to will, this is because it necessarily has in itself something to which that refusing is opposed. But that can only be actual willing; the proof is because no habitual or aptitudinal inclination to willing is repugnant to the very refusing. Even if it be granted that it is a not-refusing to will, this does not avoid the problem, because a negation agrees necessarily to nothing positive save on account of some positing necessarily agreeing with that positive thing on which the negation follows; and then that positing in the proposed case cannot be any habitual or aptitudinal inclination, because not-refusing does not follow on it, just as neither is refusing opposed to it, because the positive necessarily agreeing with the will, on account of which refusing is repugnant to it, will be actual willing. If therefore it cannot refuse to will, it necessarily wills. – And this reason generally shows that to nothing susceptive of contraries and of intermediates, if they have intermediates, is any form of that genus repugnant, or that it is impossible for a form to be present in it, unless some form of that genus is necessarily present in the same thing, or something else is, to which that which cannot be present in it is virtually repugnant. Such a positive that is virtually repugnant to a very refusing cannot be found in the proposed case.

It could, however, be said that the will itself, through some elicited willing, commands or prohibits the action of an inferior power. But it cannot thus suspend all willing, because then it would at the same time will nothing and will something. But however it may be about the suspension of all willing, the will can at least suspend every act about this object through some elicited willing, and in this way do I refuse now to elicit anything about this object until it be more distinctly shown to me. And this refusing to will is a certain elicited act, a sort of reflecting back on willing the object, not an object that is present or was present, but one that could be present; which, although it is not shown in itself, is however shown in its cause, namely in the object shown, which is of a nature to be, in some genus of principle, the principle of the act.

It is in another way said to the third preceding reason [nn.149, 85] that it has not been proved that the will could not refuse to will a good in which there is found no idea of evil or of defect of good, just as it has not been proved that it could not will that in which is found no idea of good, and this either in reality or in apprehension before that thing is the term of the act of willing. About this perhaps there will be discussion elsewhere [2 d.6 q.2 n.13, d.43 q. un; 4 Suppl. d.49 p.2 q.2 nn.4-10].

To the authority of Augustine On the Trinity [n.84], that everyone wants to be blessed, therefore everyone necessarily wills the ultimate end in where there is beatitude, I say that he does not mean actual volition. For his intention is that the mimic actor, of whom he is speaking, would have spoken the truth about what everyone coming together wanted had he said to them all: “You all want to be blessed.” But not everyone who was then coming together to the spectacle had then actually the appetite for beatitude, because they did not all have actual thought about it. So he is speaking of habitual or aptitudinal volition, namely that whereby the will itself is ready for immediately inclining to an act of willing beatitude if beatitude be actually offered by the intellect.

Likewise, the authority is not to the purpose. Because if it is certain that everyone wills beatitude, this is not in an act of friendship, by willing the beatific good be well for him, but in an act of concupiscence, by willing the good for himself as a sufficient good, because it is not certain that disordered wills have ordered delight of the first good in itself, but all wills, whether ordered or disordered, have the concupiscence of willing, or the will of concupiscence, for what is good for them. But an act of concupiscence cannot be an act of enjoyment, because everyone who desires with concupiscence desires for someone else what he loves with the love of friendship, and so the act of concupiscence is not an act of enjoyment but only the act of friendship is. Therefore, although Augustine is speaking of the act of willing beatitude, not however of an act of friendship but of an act of concupiscence, and thus not of enjoyment, and so it is not to the purpose.

To the argument for their fourth article, when they argue about doing and being [n.88], I say that the act would not be supernatural but natural, because the will can naturally elicit some act about an object in whatever way it is shown by the intellect; and because the act does not exceed the faculty of the power, so neither does the object as it is the term of the act of that power.

When it is said, second, that then such a will could be blessed [n.89], I say no, according to Augustine On the Trinity XIII ch.5 n.8: “The blessed have whatever they want and want nothing evil.” This definition must be understood in this way, that the blessed person is he who has whatever he can will in an ordered way, not merely whatever he now actually wills; for then some wayfarer could be blessed for the time when he is thinking about only one thing that he has in an ordered way. But the will can wish in an ordered way to have charity, because it can will not only to have the substance of the act of enjoying, but it can will to have an enjoyment accepted by God; if therefore it does not have it, it does not have whatever it can will in ordered way. Also, the way charity is required, not only for gratification of act but for some grade of perfection intrinsic to the act, will be discussed later [1 d.17 p.1 qq.1-2].