Ordinatio

By holding onto the four reasons [nn.221, 238, 239, 240-241] and especially the first two [nn.221, 238] for the affirmative conclusion to the question, I respond to the arguments for the opposite [nn.201-208]. To the first [nn.201-206] by denying the major.

When it is proved first through the necessary from itself and from another [n.202], I say that if the same genus of cause is imported by these two, ‘from itself’ and ‘from another’, it is true that in this way nothing is necessary from itself and from another; but if another genus of cause is imported, to wit through the ‘from itself’ the formal cause and through the ‘from another’ the effective or productive cause, it is not unacceptable for the same thing to be necessary from itself in one way and from another in another way.

When the major of the prosyllogism [n.202] is proved, I say that what is necessary from itself formally cannot not exist when any other thing is removed whose removal does not include incompossibility in positing it is other; but ‘necessary of itself formally’ follows ‘being able not to be’ when any other thing is removed through incompossibility, just as from the positing of one incompossible another incompossible follows.

But then there is a doubt what the difference is between the necessary from itself of the Son, according to theologians, and of a necessarily produced creature, according to philosophers. I respond: the philosophers, when positing that creatures are necessarily produced, would have to say that the creatures would have an entity whereby they would be formally necessary, although in that entity they would depend on a necessarily producing cause; but the Son has an entity formally necessary and the same entity as the producer. A creature, then, if it were necessary of itself, could not fail to be when everything else was removed whose removal does not involve a contradiction, although, when a cause other than itself was removed by incompossibility, it could fail to be; but the Son could not fail to be when everything else as to entity was removed, because he could not fail to be unless the person producing was removed, and the producer is not other as to entity than the produced. Hence if the Father were to produce a creature naturally and necessarily, he would produce it formally necessary, and yet it would not then be necessary with as much necessity as the Son now is necessary.¹

To the second proof of the major [n.203] I say that the logical possible differs from the real possible, as is plain from the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.12.1019b28-30. The logical possible is a mode of composition formed by the intellect, whose terms do not involve contradiction, and so this proposition is possible: ‘God exists, God can be produced, and God is God’; but the real possible is what is received from some power in reality as from a power inhering in something or terminated at something as at a term. But the Son is not possible with real possibility or with a possibility inhering in something or determined to him, because possibility, whether active or passive, is to another thing in nature, as is plain from the definition of active and passive power at Metaphysics 5.12.1019a15-20, that it is a principle of changing another either from another insofar as it is other or from another or insofar as it is other. But the Son is the term of productive power, which abstracts from the idea of effective power, and if that power be called simply power, the term of that power can be said to be simply possible; but that possibility is not repugnant to being formally necessary, although perhaps the possibility of which the philosophers speak, of active and passive power, is properly repugnant to necessity of itself; but this doubt is about active power, if they were to posit that something necessary has a productive principle.

To the third proof, when it is said ‘there is order there, so the first person is understood when the second person is not understood’ [n.204], I reply that in the first understanding the second person is not necessarily understood along with the first person if that first person is absolute; but it does not follow from this that, if the first person is understood with the second not understood, therefore the second person is understood not to exist,² just as it does not follow ‘the animal which is in man is understood when rational is not understood, therefore man is understood not to be rational’.³

When, however, you infer change from opposed terms [n.204], you take it as if the produced were understood not to exist when the producer exists, which is false; you are, therefore, changing abstraction without falsehood, which is by not considering the thing from which abstraction is made, into false abstraction, which is by considering that from which abstraction is made not to exist

To the fourth proof [n.205] I say that the person would not be in essence without production; for it has essence through production. The consequence is not: ‘therefore the essence becomes from not having the person to having it’, but the consequence is: ‘therefore the essence, which of its idea does not include person’ (which is true if person is relative, first because then there is something when the relative is taken away, according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2, and second because a respect is not of the idea of an absolute) – the essence, I say – has ‘that production, or through production it has the person in which it subsists’, which person or production, however, is not of the idea of essence. But change does not follow from the fact that something is in something which is not of the idea of it, but change requires that something be in something in which the opposite of it first was, which does not hold in this case.

To the fifth proof [n.206] I say that also in generation in creatures two ideas come together, namely that it is a change and that it is a production; but as it is a change it is the form of the changed subject, and as it is a production it is of the produced term as the way [to it]. These ideas do not include themselves essentially even in creatures, because they have a regard first to diverse things. Therefore without contradiction can the idea of production be understood without the idea of change, and in this way is generation transferred to divine reality under the idea of production, although not under the idea of change.

To the second principal argument [n.207] I say that this does not follow ‘it is from another therefore it is dependent’. When the proof is given, I concede that nature is equally independently in producer and produced.⁴ When it is argued from independence that there will not be pre-requirement, I deny the consequence, because dependence follows the formal entity of the dependent thing on that on which it depends; when therefore they have the same entity, there is not dependence there, but there can be pre-requirement if one supposit have it from a second.

To the final argument [n.208] I say that changes other than generation are of their formal idea more imperfect than generation, because⁵ the terms introduced are more imperfect than the terms of generation; yet the other changes do not require, as to what they presuppose, as much imperfection in the subject as generation requires, and this as it is a change, because generation requires in the subject an entity in potency, and this for existence simply, other changes do not.

Applying this to the issue at hand, I say that generation is not transferred to divine reality as to what generation presupposes, to wit a changeable subject, which is a matter of imperfection, because as it is a change it is not in divine reality, – but it is transferred to divine reality insofar as it is a production, under the idea in which production is of a term, which term is more perfect than the terms of other changes; and thus can essence be well received through generation as the most perfect term in divine reality, although there could not be received through some other change some other term of other changes, because this would prove composition and imperfection, because the term of any change at all would be an accident combinable with a subject.