Ordinatio

I prove this as follows: [The first principal reason] – Whatever is of its formal nature a productive principle is, in whatever it is, without imperfection; but perfect memory or, what is the same, this whole ‘intellect having the intelligible object present to itself’, is of its formal nature a productive principle of generated knowledge [n.310], and it is plain that such memory is in some divine person and is so of itself, because some divine person is not produced; therefore that person will be able through such perfect principle to produce perfectly.¹

I argue further: no production through perfect memory is perfect unless it be of knowledge adequate to that memory or that intellect with respect to such object; but to the memory or intellect of an infinite divine person no knowledge is adequate with respect to the divine essence as intelligible save an infinite one; because that intellect comprehends the infinite object, therefore some divine person can through memory produce infinite knowledge. Further, but the knowledge will exist only in the divine nature, because no other thing is infinite; therefore in divine reality there can through memory be a production inwardly. But, further, if it can be then it is; both because there ‘possible being’ is ‘necessary being’, and because that principle is productive by way of nature; therefore necessarily. The consequence is plain, because it cannot be impeded, nor does it depend on something else in acting; but everything acting from necessity of nature necessarily acts, unless it is impeded or depends on another in acting.

The major of the first syllogism [n.221]² is clear, because what does not of itself agree with a productive principle that is productive in it, can exist only for one of two reasons: either because of the principle’s imperfection in it,³ or because the principle, as received in it, exists by a production adequate to it, as is true of the generative power if it exist in the Son, and of the inspiriting power if it exist in the Holy Spirit; but each of these reasons is excluded by what is said in the major⁴ ‘of itself’ [‘of its own formal nature’], because nothing has of itself a productive principle unless it have it without imperfection and also not communicated by a production belonging to such a principle.

The proof of the minor of the first syllogism [n.221]^{5 6} is because this belongs to every created memory; not however whence it is created or imperfect, because imperfection is never the idea of producing or communicating being, because this belongs to it from perfection, not from imperfection.^{7 8}

The major of the second syllogism [n.222] is made clear thus: for just as there is no perfect memory with respect to anything intelligible unless the object is present in its idea of being actually intelligible, insofar as it can be present to it as an intelligible, so there is no perfect offspring of such memory unless there is as much actual knowledge of the object as can belong to such an intellect with respect to such an object; and I call that knowledge adequate to such an intellect with respect to such an object.

This [n.221] can be argued of the will, because the will that has an actually known object present to it is, by its own idea, productive of love of such a produced object.

[Response to the first principal reason] – On the contrary I bring an instance against this reason [n.221], so as to make it clearer. And the major indeed of the reason I concede. But to the minor let it be said that the whole thing is not of itself a productive principle, but only when the intellect can have of itself a produced knowledge; but this is when it can have a knowledge other than itself by which it is perfected; but an infinite intellect cannot have a knowledge distinct from itself by which it is perfected, and so it does not seem that a productive principle should be there posited.

And this reason [n.227] is confirmed, first because a generated knowledge would be posited in vain, second because it is impossible to posit it.

Proof of the first point [n.228]: in us there is a necessary generated knowledge, because by it the intellect is perfected, which would without it be imperfect; but an infinite intellect, although it have an object present to it, is however not formally perfected by generated knowledge but by ungenerated knowledge, the same as it really, by which it formally understands.

The second point, namely impossibility [n.228], I prove⁹ because a productive thing that has an adequate product cannot produce another; therefore since that whole ‘an intellect having an object actually present to itself’, or a memory, has in the paternal intellect an ungenerated knowledge adequate to itself quasi-produced from itself (because posterior in some way, according to idea of understanding, to such memory or to such presence of an object), it seems that it has no further virtue for producing a distinct knowledge, different from this one.¹⁰

By excluding these reasons I confirm the argument [n.221]. And to exclude the response to the minor [n.227] in itself, I say that our intellect has with respect to generated knowledge a receptive potency; and this potentiality is one of imperfection, because it is a passive potentiality; and it does nothing through itself for the idea of productive principle, because no imperfection is formally of the idea of a productive principle, and especially when the productive principle can in itself be perfect. Our intellect also has the idea of productive principle with respect to generated knowledge; and this is from its perfection, insofar as a first act virtually contains the second act.

The first of these, namely to receive intellection, clearly belongs to the possible intellect. About the second it is not as certain whether it belongs to the possible or to the agent intellect; there will be inquiry about this elsewhere [Scotus, Quodlibet q.15 nn.13-20, 24]. But now this indistinctly taken point about the intellect, that it is a productive principle of knowledge, I think to be sufficiently true, and it will be made clear in I d.3 [p.3 q.2]; and intellect in this sense exists in God, because he has intellect according to every idea of intellect that does not posit imperfection.

Then I argue thus: whenever two things per accidens come together in something,¹¹ namely the idea of acting and of undergoing, when that which is the idea of acting is per se, it is no less the idea of acting; the point is plain from Physics 2.1.192b23-27 about a doctor healing himself: if medicine be separated from illness it will no less be the idea of healing. Therefore if these two be separated in the intellect from each other, when that remains which was the per se idea of productive principle it will still be the idea of producing, however much the receptive passive potentiality not be there. An example of this might be manifest: if knowledge of itself were co-created or consubstantial with our intellect, according as some understand Augustine about hidden knowledge, On the Trinity XIV ch.7 n.9, then the intellect, although it could not receive the generated knowledge by which it knows itself formally,¹² yet in another intellect, to wit in an angel or a human blessed in the fatherland, it could generate knowledge of itself in idea of object, because thus to generate belongs to itself whereby it is in act, although it not be receptive of it.¹³ From this is plain that the gloss [n.231] on that first minor [n.221] is in itself null.

To confirm the gloss about the ‘in vain’ [n.228], I say that in every order of agents, especially where a principle active of itself is not imperfect, there is a stand at some active principle simply perfect – namely that the agent acts from the fullness of perfection and is called an agent from liberality [Ord. I d.8 p.2 q.un. n.13], according to Avicenna Metaphysics 6. ch.5 (95ra). But no agent acts liberally which expects to be perfected from its action. For, just as in human acts he is liberal who acts or gives not expecting return, so similarly an agent is called liberal which is in no way perfected by its production or product.

From this an argument is made as follows: in every genus of productive principle that does not include imperfection, a stand can be made at some principle simply perfect; but the intellect is such a principle, and the will similarly; therefore in this genus a stand can be made at something simply perfect. But nothing is a simply perfect agent which does not act liberally, in the way stated [n.234].¹⁴ Therefore in the genus of this productive genus there is some such principle that is in no way perfected by its production; such an intellect, having thus an actually intelligible object present to itself, is none save that which does not receive nor is perfected through the intellection which it generates or which is by its virtue generated. Therefore it is not necessary that every intellect produces a knowledge so as to be perfected by it, but it is necessary that there is some prior producing intellect that is not perfectible through its product.

And when [the objection] says [n.228] ‘then it will be in vain’, this does not follow, for it will be the supreme good; but it is not produced by the producer so that the producer be perfected by it, but it is from the fullness of perfection of the producer.¹⁵

But when afterwards the argument about impossibility is made [n.230], I take it to the opposite, because if some actually intelligible object present to the intelligence or memory of the Father have there actual quasi-produced knowledge of the Father, yet it does not have the actual knowledge produced in the Father. Now from no principle productive of itself is producing taken away as it exists in something, unless that principle be understood to have produced, or to produce, by some production adequate to the virtue of such productive principle; therefore however much the memory, as it is in the Father, have a quasi-product, it can still truly produce a product. But it is true that since it truly had really a product adequate to itself, it will not be able to produce another.¹⁶

[Second principal reason] – Second principally [n.221] to the principal conclusion [n.220] I argue thus: the object as it is in the memory produces itself, or is a reason for producing itself, as it is in the intelligence; but that the object has ‘existence’ in both places in a certain respect, this is a mark of imperfection, because if the memory were perfect and the intelligence perfect, the object would be simply the same as both; therefore when all imperfection has been taken away, but preserving that which is simply a mark of perfection, the object simply the same as the memory will generate or will be the reason for generating something in the intelligence which it is simply the same as, which is the thing proposed.

[The third principal reason] – Further, third in this way: in any condition of being which is not of its idea imperfect, there is a necessity simply of perfection; therefore in the production too because that does not of itself signify imperfection.¹⁷ Proof of the antecedent, because just as the necessary is a condition of perfection in being insofar as it is being, so also it is a condition of perfection in anything dividing being that is not necessarily of itself imperfect and limited. For just as when being is divided through opposites, one of the dividing things is a matter of perfection in being, the other of imperfection, so in anything at all which is a matter of perfection one member of any division at all is possible which is a matter of imperfection, and the other is necessary which is a matter of perfection. But the producer insofar as it is such does not include imperfection, therefore it is not a perfect producer in idea of producer unless it be necessarily producer. But the first producer cannot be necessarily producer of something other than itself and externally, as is said in I d.8 [p.2 q. un nn.12-14]; therefore internally. A similar argument is made about natural production, because natural production is the first production; therefore it belongs to the first producer; but it does not belong to the first producer externally, as will be clear elsewhere [ibid.], therefore internally.¹⁸

[Fourth principal reason] – In addition, opposite relations of the second mode of relatives can belong to the same limited nature, just as to the same will belongs the idea of mover and movable when the will moves itself; but the relations of produced and produced, although they are more repugnant than the relations of mover and moved, are relations of this sort according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.15.1020b26-32, 1021a14-25; for in that place he sets down, for example, the heater and heatable as relations of the first kind, and father and son, or generated and him whom he generates, as relations of the second.¹⁹

The reason is confirmed, and then I argue thus, because just as will is in a way unlimited insofar as it founds some opposed relations of the second mode, namely from the fact it virtually contains that which it is in potency for formally possessing, therefore much more can an essence simply unlimited simply found opposite relations of that sort that are more repugnant, such as are the relations of producer and produced. For the infinity of the divine essence more exceeds any sort of lack of limitation of anything created than the repugnance of any relations of the second mode exceeds the repugnance of any others of the same mode.²⁰

According to the Canterbury articles²¹ it is necessary that the reasons [nn.221, 238-241] for solving this question not be demonstrations.

So, the minor of the first reason [n.221] is not manifest according to natural reason. When it is proved [n.224] I reply: to be a principle of producing belongs really to the memory not whereby it is memory, insofar as memory has a unity of analogy to an infinite and finite memory, but to the finite memory only, not however that finitude is the formal reason of producing, but the nature is, which we specifically call by circumlocution ‘finite memory’. I concede therefore that imperfection is not the idea of producing but perfection is [n.224], yet not a perfection common to finite and infinite perfection, but such perfection as is necessarily accompanied by some imperfection; the reason is because to have the relation of naturally productive cause according to natural reason belongs only to such a perfect thing as is imperfect, because the imperfect is not naturally immediately producible save by the imperfect, and it is not clear but that every producible is imperfect.

Therefore the instance against the gloss of the minor [n.233] is to be conceded, that it is not therefore non-active because non-receptive.

But to the second instance about a liberal agent [n.235] I reply: here the productive principle is not plain without being necessarily imperfect and perfectible by the product, although that perfectibility not be the idea of acting.

To the third instance about the product and quasi-product [n.237] I reply: it is not plain that perfect memory is a principle of producing.

To the fourth about acting and making [footnote to n.237]: the response to the major by the gloss is not valid, that ‘it is understood of a principle of producing in which it is univocally, not equivocally’, because – against this – where it is a principle analogically, there it will be more a principle of producing; an example about heat in the sun with respect to heat in fire.

Now a certain doctor¹ argues otherwise in this way: the first person is constituted by relation to the second, and only by relation of origin; therefore one should posit in divine reality diverse supposits of which one is from another, etc. Proof of the first proposition: for the first person is relative to the second; and if he were not constituted by that relation then that relation would either be accidental to him or would be adventitious to the person² constituted, which is unacceptable.

Secondly he argues thus: a virtue supremely active diffuses itself supremely; but it would not diffuse itself supremely if it did not produce something supreme,³ or unless it communicated a supreme nature to something; therefore etc.

Others⁴ argue through the idea of good, because the good is of itself communicative; therefore the supremely good is supremely communicative; only internally, because nothing ‘other’ can be supreme.

There is a similar argument about the idea of the perfect, because the perfect is what can produce something like itself, from Metaphysics 1.1.981b7 and Meteorology 4.3.380a12-15; therefore the first agent, which is most perfect, can produce something like itself. But more perfect is what can produce something like itself univocally than equivocally, because equivocal production is imperfect; therefore etc.

These reasons do not make the intended proposition [n.220] clear through what is more manifest, either to the faithful or to the infidel. The first [n.248], when it accepts that the first person is constituted by relation, if it intends to persuade the infidel, is accepting something less known than the principal proposition; for it is less known to such a one that a per se subsistent thing is constituted by relation than that there is production in divine reality.⁵ If too the reason intends to persuade the faithful it still proceeds from that is less known, because that there is production in divine reality is an evident article of faith; but it is not in this way first evident that this is an article of faith, that the first person is constituted by relation.⁶

And when it is argued further that the distinction there is only by relations of origin [n.248], this not immediately manifest from faith as is the conclusion which it is intending to show.^{7 8}

When he proves it, because otherwise the relation would be adventitious to the constituted person and so would be an accident [n.248], this proof does not seem to be valid, because it could be argued in a similar way about active inspiriting, about which all hold that it does not constitute a person, nor yet is it an accident, because what the essence is in a person is perfectly the same as the foundation.

And when it is argued secondly that something supremely active is supremely diffusive of itself, the response would be that it is true to the extent that it is possible for something to be diffused, but it would be necessary to prove that it would be possible for something to be diffused or communicated in unity of nature.

Through the same point to the third argument about the idea of good [n.250], because it would be necessary to prove that communication of the same thing or nature would be possible, because to an impossible that includes contradiction there is no power or communication of goodness.⁹

Likewise to the fourth ‘the perfect is of a nature to produce a supreme like itself’ [n.251], it is true as to a supreme as like to it as can be produced;¹⁰ therefore one ought to prove that a like supreme univocally would be producible.¹¹