Ordinatio

But this is explained by some [Henry of Ghent] as follows: notional acts are founded on essential immanent acts; but there are only two essential acts that abide within, which are understanding and willing; so there are only two notional acts that are productive within, founded on the same essential acts.

A confirmation of the reason is because notional acts founded on essential acts are adequated to them, and so there cannot be a multiplication of notional acts founded on the same essential act.

The mode¹ of their founding is this, as is collected from the many statements of him who has this opinion that are scattered about in many places:² “Both the intellect and the will, whatever they have being in, because of their separation from matter, after they have being in their own first act of simple intelligence or volition, can turn themselves back on themselves, and on their simple acts and on the objects of them, through acts of turning back or through conversive acts of understanding and willing.”

“For the intellect not only understands truth by simple intelligence but also by conversive intelligence, by understanding that it understands, by turning itself back on the understood object and on the simple act of understanding and on itself understanding through the conversive act, because the second knowledge which is in the word not only knows and understand the thing but knows and understands it in such a way that it knows that it knows and understands it. Likewise the will not only wills the good with simple volition, but also with conversive volition, by willing that it will, by turning itself back on the willed object and on the simple act of willing and on itself willing through its conversive act.

But this turning back agrees with the intellect and the will partly in one and the same way and partly in different ways. For the fact that both turn themselves back as they exist as bare, pure, and mere powers, this is in one and the same way as far as concerns their turning themselves back; for both turn only themselves back by their own active force, which force agrees equally with both, but in different ways as concerns the objects to which they turn themselves back.

For the intellect, after it has turned itself back to the things to which it is turned back, is related as a certain potential and pure possible, and this as the bare and pure intellect is of a nature to receive something from them, as a proper passive thing receives from its proper natural active thing, which active thing indeed is the intellect informed with simple knowledge, and this in respect of the formation of declarative knowledge. But the will, after it has turned itself back to what it has turned itself back to, is related as a certain active thing, and this as the bare and pure will is of a nature to express something about those things, as a proper active thing about its proper passive thing, which is the same will, informed by simple love, about which – when thus informed – the same will as bare is of a nature to express incentive love, who is in the divine reality the Holy Spirit, who has being from the persons producing him, not by an informing of that about which he is subjectively, nor through any impression made on the same according to the manner in which the Word or the Son proceeds from the Father by a certain quasi-informing or impression made on the paternal converted intellect,³ but by a certain quasi-striking or pushing out or progress or – speaking more properly – by a certain expressing of what is produced from that from which it is subjectively produced.”

“On the part of the intellect an act of saying is caused by simple knowledge in the bare intellect when it is turned back on itself and on its simple knowledge, such that the intellect informed with simple knowledge is an active and eliciting principle of the notional act of the intellect. But the bare converted intellect itself is only a passive principle, of which, as if of some material, the Word is produced as though by impression. Now, on the part of the will, a notional act is caused by the bare will itself when turned back on itself and on its simple love and on the will informed with simple love, such that the bare converted will is an active and elicitive principle of the notional act of the will. But the will itself, informed with simple love, is a quasi-passive principle, from which, as from material, the Holy Spirit is produced according to a certain expressing.”

But how the intellect as nature is an active principle with respect to intellect as pure for producing the Word, this is made clear in this way,⁴ because [point f] “the intellect as essential notion existing in the Father, or, which is the same thing, existing in an act of understanding its own essence, which act the essence itself as it were brings about in its own intellect as it is in potency, as it were, to essential knowledge according to the idea of understanding – this intellect is fertile with natural fertility for producing from itself something like itself.⁵

Now the intellect, as it is a certain essential knowledge in act, is the nature and as the active principle, by which the Father, as he is pure intellect and only intellect, forms from the same intellect, as from a passive principle, the knowledge which is the Word, which in reality is the same knowledge as that from which it is formed, differing from it only insofar as it proceeds from it as manifesting and declaring it.

And in the whole same way must we thus understand the word to be formed in us. For a thing when first known impresses a simple knowledge of itself on our intellect by representing itself to the intellect as to something purely passive and as under the idea in which it is intellect. But the intellect thus perfected by simple knowledge through the object known, which it contains expressively in itself, is made to be fertile and an active principle by way of nature, making impress on itself as it is intellect only as on a passive principle, so as to form in itself declarative knowledge about simple knowledge, so that – according to this – when it is said ‘a word is formed by the intellect’ and that ‘the intellect is active also in the formation of it’, this is understood about the intellect actually informed with simple knowledge, by which, as by the formal idea of acting, the intellect is an active principle; for by this it is a principle, and its idea as it is intellect and passive with respect to the simple knowledge, which it receives from the object, is necessarily prior to its idea according to which it is nature and active through inherent simple knowledge; and therefore, in order of idea, it has being as it is intellect before it has being as it is nature.”

Thus then is the mode made plain how, according to this opinion, the notional act is founded on the essential act, and how it is so in diverse ways in the intellect and the will [nn.273-280].

This opinion posits four articles which I do not believe to be true. The first is that the divine Word is generated through impression [nn.273-280]; the second is that this is through impression on the intellect as it is turned back on itself; the third is that essential knowledge is the formal idea of generating declarative knowledge; the fourth is that it is generated through impression on the intellect as bare.

[Article one] – I set aside the rejection of the first article until distinction 5 [I d.5 q.2 nn.2-10], where it properly has place.

[Article two] – Against the second article I argue in a threefold way: first that on the intellect thus turned back the Word is not impressed, the second that such turning back is not necessary for generating the Word, the third that there is no such turning back.

I argue for the first as follows, namely¹ that the intellect is not turned back save as it is in some supposit, because turning back is posited as an action, and actions are of supposits. Then I ask, whose supposit or whose person is it as turned back on the formed intellect? If as so converted it belongs to the person of the Son, and according to you this conversion precedes the generation of the Word, then before the generation of the Word there are two persons, which is heretical. But if, as it is turned back on the formed intellect, it belongs to the Father himself, and if whose it is as converted is his as formed by generated knowledge, as I will prove, then the intellect as it is of the Father is formed by generated knowledge; therefore generated knowledge is formally of the very person of the Father, because what person the intellect is of as formed, of the same person is the knowledge by which it is formed. The assumption that needs to be proved I prove thus: whose it is as it is turned back on formed intellect, his it is as he has formed intellect for object actually present; therefore it is his as formed by the object. The proof of this consequence is that a passive thing proportioned, disposed, and approximated to a proportioned sufficient active thing is of a nature to be immediately perfected by that active thing, from the Philosopher Metaphysics 9.5.1048a5-7; for then is something in proximate potency, according to the Philosopher, when nothing needs to be added, subtracted, or lessened for the act to be present within. But the intellect bare, as converted and having formed intellect as present object, is a passive thing disposed, proportioned, and approximate to informed intellect as to a sufficiently active object; therefore the bare intellect as converted – with no variation made with respect to it of subsistence or any entity at all as such – is formed generated knowledge. And thus is the first consequence proved.²

Here a response could be made that the intellect bare, through the fact that from it the knowledge is actually formed, or by the fact it is a quasi-matter informed by generated knowledge, has ‘existence’ in the generated person [I d.5 q.2 n.8]. But against this response are the two first arguments set down in d.5 [ibid. nn.5-8] against the opinion about quasi-matter, which is there specifically refuted.³

I argue for the second [sc. of the second article, n.284] thus,⁴ because the intellect of the Father, having the object present to itself, is a natural principle, not only operative with respect to the intellection of the Father but also productive with respect to generated knowledge; therefore it would still, when the reflection is removed, be a productive principle.

Again⁵ I prove the third [= the second, n.284] thus: if by conversion nothing is understood to be in the intellect which would not be understood to be there when no conversion is understood, then conversion is nothing there; if something is understood to be in the intellect which would not be understood without the conversion, what, I ask, is it? – not the presence of the object, not the perfection of the power, not finally the determination of the power to act or to the exercise of act. As to how some posit that the will in us turns the intelligence back toward memory, it is plain that the will does not turn it back toward generation of the divine Word.

Again, this conversion is not the action which is operation, because it is not intellection nor volition, nor is it an action productive-of-which.

[Article three] – The third⁶ article [n.282] is that the intellect informed with actual essential knowledge is a principle active and elicitive of generated knowledge.

This I refute⁷ as follows: the Word is not generated by intelligence but by memory,⁸ according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.14 n.24;⁹ therefore, although in the Father memory, intelligence, and will go together,¹⁰ the Father does not generate the Son formally by intelligence as ‘by which’ but as he is memory. Now as he has actual knowledge quasi-elicited and as second act, he is in act of intelligence, to which belongs all actual understanding; therefore as such he will not generate the Word, but as it is in act of memory, that is, as he has the intelligible object present to his intellect; for here first act is understood as if preceding second act, and second act is to understand actually.

Second thus: production more agrees with first act as active principle than with second act, because perfect operations are ends in their idea, and so they are not for the sake of other ends; therefore intellection as it is the operation of the Father is not the formal productive idea of any term, but only the first act (by virtue of which the operation is elicited) will be the productive principle.

Third thus: if the actual intellection of the Father is the formal idea of producing the Word, still the object as present to the Father’s intellect as having the idea of memory will be the prior productive principle of generated knowledge, because it is apparent in us that it is of a nature to generate more immediately than the act of understanding is; therefore some Word will be generated by the Father as he is memory itself before generated by him as he is knowing intelligence itself.¹¹

Further, all intellection, since its being is in becoming, has a principle or quasi-principle whose being is not in becoming, because otherwise there will be a process to infinity; therefore of some understanding of the object a, to wit the first understanding, only the memory must be the principle or quasi-existing such that it is not the whole complex ‘intellect understanding’ [n.221], otherwise this would not be the first intellection. But all understandings of a, and in an intellect of the same idea, are of the same idea. But whatever is a perfect principle of the first thing in a species can be the principle of anything else and immediately; therefore perfect memory of a can be the immediate principle or quasi-principle of every understanding of a. Therefore the memory of the Father can be the immediate principle of the Word; therefore he necessarily is. On the contrary: therefore the memory of the Son to the intelligence of the Son is not as the memory of the Father to the intelligence of the Father.

Further, the Word is most immediately declarative of that by which he is most immediately expressed; therefore if the elicitive idea of the Word be the actual knowledge in the formed intellect of the Father, it follows that the Word be more immediately Word or declarative of the intellection of the Father than of the essence of the Father, which seems unacceptable, because then there would be another prior Word that would be immediately declarative of the essence of the Father, or one should say that the essence could not immediately be declared by some Word, which seems unacceptable, since according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.10 n.19: “knowledge formed by the thing which we contain by memory” is the word; the first object of the divine memory is essence as essence.

Further, if the actual intellection of the Father were generated or produced, it would be produced by virtue of the essence not as already known but as prior to all knowledge; this is plain also according to truth, because otherwise there would be a process to infinity in acts of understanding, namely act before act, and also according to them, because he said above [Henry of Ghent, n.278] that the essence itself in the Father’s intellect does in the Father the act of understanding the essence. From this I argue as follows: actual knowledge of the essence cannot formally be of a different idea in the persons by the fact that it is communicated by another or not communicated by another, because then deity would formally be of a different idea in the persons;¹² therefore actual knowledge of the essence is of the same idea in the Father and in the Son. Therefore, that which, if it were principal, is of a nature to be the principle ‘by which’ with respect to one, the same will be principle with respect to another if it follow the principal.¹³

About the fourth article [n.282], I pass over it, except that in this he [Henry of Ghent] seems to be contradicting himself, as was argued before [footnote to n.285].

The second¹⁴ article [n.282] is also false in us, because the most perfect word will be in the fatherland, according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.11 nn.20-21, and yet it will not be a word generated by a turning back on first act, so that the word, because of this, is a reflex act in the way he says that by the second knowledge which is in the word the intellect knows that it knows or understands [n.274]. But the proof that it is not reflex knowledge [n.287] is that the most perfect created word does not have for its first object something created but something uncreated.

The third¹⁵ article too [nn.282, 290] is false in us; both because confused knowledge cannot be the elicitive principle of distinct knowledge, just as neither can an imperfect thing be the elicitive principle of some perfect production; and because the confused actual knowledge would exist together with distinct actual knowledge, and so two elicited acts together, or a confused act would, when it did not exist, generate a distinct act; and because every second act of understanding is generated by memory as memory is in a first act proportional to it, namely perfect by perfect, imperfect by imperfect, as will be clear later [I d.3 p.3 q.2 nn.12-13].

I say then to the question that there are only two productions distinct according to formal ideas of productions, and this because there are only two productive principles that have distinct formal ideas of production.

Of this causal statement I prove the antecedent and the consequence. The antecedent I prove as follows: every plurality is reduced to as much unity, or as much fewness, as it can be reduced to; therefore the plurality of active principles will be reduced to as much unity, or as much fewness, as it can be reduced to. But it cannot be reduced to some single productive principle. The proof is because¹ the principle would determinately have one mode of being principle, or the mode of being principle of one of them: for either it would be of itself determinately productive by way of nature, or not determinately of itself but freely productive, and so by way of will; therefore these cannot be reduced to some principle as it were third from these that would, namely in producing, have the idea of neither of them. Nor is one reduced to the other because then one would in its whole genus be imperfect, which is false, because since it belongs to both from the same perfection to be an operative and productive principle (which was proved in the preceding solution, in the proof of the minor of the first syllogism there given [nn.224, 226]), and since neither is in itself imperfect insofar as it is operative, for then it would not exist formally in God, therefore also is neither imperfect insofar as it is productive.

The productive principles, therefore, cannot be reduced to a lesser fewness than to duality of principle, namely a principle productive by way of nature and a principle productive by way of will. Now these two principles, according to their ideas of being principle, should be placed in the first being, because in it there is every idea of principle that is not reduced to another prior principle. Therefore there are only two productive principles of different idea in the first productive thing, namely one productive by way of nature and one productive freely. Now these are inward productive principles are, because any productive principle which is not reduced to another prior principle is of a nature to have a production and a product adequate to itself; therefore the productive principle which is will is of a nature to have a product adequate to it, and the productive principle which is nature is of a nature to have a product adequate to it. These productive principles are infinite, therefore the products adequate to them can only be infinite. Also omnipotence in the first thing cannot have a possible infinite object, because then the creature could be infinite;² but nothing is formally infinite except God, from the question ‘Whether there is a God’ [nn.39, 74-147]. Therefore these principles are productive of some things in the divine nature.

Further it follows: if there are only two productive principles of different idea, then there are only two productions numerically. The proof is that each productive principle has a production adequate to itself and co-eternal; therefore while that production stands it cannot have another.³

An objection is raised against this deduction [nn.301-303] as follows: nature is of itself a determinate principle for acting; but in divine reality intellect whereby it is intellect not only seems to be a determinate principle for acting but also an essence by nature as it is in some way prior to intellect, being its root as it were and foundation, in the way that any essence seems to be the foundation of a power; therefore not only the intellect but also the essence itself as essence should be set down as having the idea of being principle of the principle which is nature as it is distinguished from will.

Second, there is a doubt about these productive acts, how they belong to those productive principles whose the essential acts are; for since acts distinguish powers, On the Soul 2.4.415a16-20, it seems that to the powers to which the essential acts [understanding, willing] belong, the notional acts [generating, inspiriting, n.271] do not belong.

Third, the proof does not seem to be valid which is adduced for showing that the duality in productive principles cannot be reduced to unity [n.301], for to be principle necessarily and to be principle contingently are opposite modes of being a principle and yet this duality is reduced to unity. And I concede that the ‘one thing’ has determinately one of these two modes, the mode namely that is more perfect and prior. So it should be said, in the matter at hand, that to the principle which is nature – because it is prior in idea of being principle – is the will reduced, although it have the opposite mode of being a principle.

Fourth,¹ whence is proved the proposition ‘when one act adequate to the power stands, the power cannot have another act’ [n.303]? If it understand adequation according to extension, the question is begged; if according to intension, it seems to be false. For although the vision of the Word is adequate to the intellective power of the soul of Christ, yet it can also know by an elicited act some other intelligible; it is plain too that God knows himself by a knowledge adequate to his intellect according to intension, and yet he knows things other than himself. If this is how it is about an act adequate to the operative power, which allows of another, much more does it seem to be so of the productive power, because its product is not in the productive power as operation is in the operative power.

Again, a principle is not a principle insofar as the thing that has the principle is already understood to be posited in existence, but insofar as it is prior to that thing; now as it is prior it is not differently disposed by the fact that what has it as a principle is posited to be in existence. Therefore if, when this thing is not posited, it could be the principle of another thing, it seems by parity of reason that, when this thing is posited, it could at the same time be the principle of another thing, because when the first thing is posited the principle, insofar as it is principle, that is, insofar as it is prior to what has it as a principle, is in no way differently disposed.

The solution of these two ultimate questions [nn.307-308], and the clarification of the reason against which they are made, and the proof of the conclusion for which the reason is adduced, namely that there are only two productions – let them be dismissed to distinction 7 [n.358], in the question ‘Whether there could be several Sons in divine reality’ [I d.7 q.2].²

[Response to the instances] – To the first [n.304] I reply that this whole ‘the intellect having an object actually intelligible present to itself’ [n.211] has the idea of perfect memory in first act, namely the idea that is the immediate principle of second act and of generated knowledge; now in this principle that is memory two things come together which constitute one total principle, namely essence in the idea of object and intellect, each of which is per se a quasi-partial principle with respect to a production adequate to this total principle. When therefore it is argued that the idea of nature belongs not only to intellect but to essence [n.304], I reply that the total principle, including the essence as object and the intellect as a power having the object present to itself, is the productive principle which is nature and is the complete principle of producing by way of nature.³ For if essence as object did not have the idea of principle in the production of the Word, why would the Word be said more of the essence than of a stone, if from the sole infinity of intellect as productive principle an infinite Word, when any other object whatever was present, could be produced?

To the second doubt [n.305] I say that memory in the Father is the operative principle of the Father, by which, namely, as by first act, the Father formally understands as in second act; the same memory of the Father is also the productive principle by which the Father, existing in first act, produces, as in second act, generated knowledge. The productive act, therefore, is not founded on the essential act, which consists in second act, namely which is a quasi-operation on the formal idea of eliciting the second productive act, but in a certain way pre-requires that second act, because the first act, which is operative and productive, is the idea of perfecting a supposit in second act, in which it exists first by a certain order before that which is produced is understood to be produced or perfected. For what operates and produces through that principle is operating before it is producing.

An example. If ‘to shine’ were set down as some operation in a luminous thing, and ‘to illuminate’ were set down as production of light by the luminous thing, light in the luminous thing would be the principle ‘by which’ both with respect to the operation which is ‘to shine’ and with respect to the production which is ‘to illuminate’; yet ‘to shine’, which is an operation, would not be the formal idea of the illumination that is production, but would be there the order, as it were, of the effects ordered to the same common cause of both, from which one effect proceeds more immediately than the other. So it is in the matter at hand. A certain order to the same first act, which is the memory of the Father, is understood to be possessed by the ‘to understand’, which is an operation of the Father, and by the ‘to say’, which is the ‘to produce’ of the Father with respect to generated knowledge; not such an order that the ‘to understand’ of the Father is the cause or elicitive principle of the ‘to say’ of the Word, but that the ‘to understand’ is more immediately quasi-produced by the memory of the Father than the ‘to say’ or the Word is produced by the same memory. So there is not such an order there as is posited by the first opinion [of Henry of Ghent, 280] in the idea of a presupposed object or in the idea of the formal principle of acting, but only the prior order of quasi-product to product, with respect to the same principle, a principle common to quasi-product and product.

And then to the passage of On the Soul, about the distinction of powers by acts [n.305], one could say that ‘to quasi-produce’ and ‘to produce’ are acts of the same idea; for if that which is not produced but quasi-produced were really distinct from the producer, it would truly be a product; therefore what is now present without production, though by virtue of a principle which would be productive of it if it could be made distinct – and to this extent let it be called a quasi-product – does not vary the act formally from the act by which it would be produced were it producible.

Another response would be about the agent and possible intellect, but I pass it over now; I have not yet said to which intellect, as to partial principle, it belongs to produce knowledge (this will be spoken of below), but I have now spoken about the intellect indistinctly [n.232].

To the third [n.306] I say that when two principles have opposite modes of being principle, neither of which requires any imperfection, neither is reduced to the other as to a prior in nature, although there could there be some priority of origin, as it were, or something of the sort. But now neither of these principles includes any imperfection, no more insofar as it is productive than insofar as it is operative; therefore one of them will not be reduced to the other as to a prior in nature, nor both to a third, for the same reason, because neither is imperfect, and also because the third thing would be a principle according to the idea of one or other of them, because there is between them no middle in being principle, and so, if both were reduced to a third, one would be reduced to the other and the same to itself.

Against these [nn.310-315] an instance is made, and first in this way: intelligence is in the Father under the proper idea of intelligence, and the Word is the proper perfection of intelligence as intelligence; therefore the Word belongs to the intelligence of the Father [n.290], which was before denied [nn.291-296].

Further, Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.12 n.22: “The Word is vision of vision;” therefore actual knowledge is the idea of generating the Word [n.290].

Further, there does not seem to be a difference between memory and intelligence in the Father, therefore to reject the Father as he is intelligence from being the principle of the Word and to reject the Father as memory does not seem to be different; therefore you are approving and rejecting the same thing [nn.310, 291].

The fourth instance is: there seems to be no reason why the Father produces generated knowledge in this act and not in that, since each is second act and is a principle by virtue of the same first act [nn.311, 292].

To the first [n.316] I say that the Father is formally memory, intelligence, and will, according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.7 n.12: “In the Trinity who would dare to say that the Father only through the Son understands himself and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but only per se remembers either the Son or the Holy Spirit?” – there follows – “who would presume to opine or affirm this in the Trinity? But if there only the Son understands and neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit are understanding, one is reduced to the absurdity that the Father is not wise about himself but about the Son.” So St. Augustine. He understands, therefore, that the Father is formally memory for himself, intelligence for himself, and will for himself; and in this respect there is a dissimilarity between the persons and the parts of the image in us, according to him. When therefore it is said that ‘the proper act of intelligence is the Word’ [n.316], I deny it; rather it belongs to the idea of the Word that he is generated knowledge.

You say that it suffices that he be declarative knowledge. I deny it, understanding by ‘declarative’ a relation of reason, as of the intelligible to the intellect; for such is the relation of the actual declarative knowledge of the Father, by which the Father formally understands, to the habitual knowledge of the Father as he is memory, such that the object present to the Father’s intellect is made clear as equally by the actual knowledge of the Father as by the actual knowledge that is the Son, – and yet the actual knowledge of the Father is not the Word, because nothing can exist formally in the Father save what is non-generated.

When it is said, second, that there is ‘knowledge of knowledge’ [n.317] I reply that the self-same Augustine expounds himself On the Trinity XV ch.11 n.20: “the vision of thinking is most similar to the vision of science;” and ibid. ch.12 n.22: “Then is the Word most similar to the thing to be known from which he is generated, and the image of it: vision of thinking from vision of science.” – These phrases are intransitive. For as ‘vision of thinking’ is nothing other than thinking, so ‘vision of science’ is nothing than science. It is the same thing then to say that from the vision of science the vision of thinking is born as to say that from science thinking is born. But ‘science’ is habitual science, which perfects memory, according to the same Augustine ibid. ch.15 n.25, where he says: “If there can be in the soul some eternal science, there cannot be eternal thinking of the same science.” The ‘eternal’ according to him pertains to memory, ‘non-eternal’ to intelligence. He does not then intend the phrases ‘vision of vision’, ‘knowledge of knowledge’ to mean anything other than that second act, which is vision or thinking in intelligence, is born from the first act that is habitual vision or science, according to him.

To the third instance, when an argument is made about the difference between memory and intelligence [n.318], I say that those adversaries do not posit a real difference between the intellect and the will of the Father, and yet these have so much difference that one can be the elicitive principle of some production of which the other is not the formal elicitive principle; for the Son is not produced formally by way of will. Therefore although the memory and intelligence of the Father do not differ really, there is yet as much difference between them that one of them could be posited as the elicitive principle of some production of which the remaining one is not posited as the formal elicitive principle. Such difference is plain according to Augustine ibid. ch.7 n.12 and as before [n.291]. For the difference is such that if the Father by way of memory were knowing but not understanding, he would not be perfect, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 12.9.1074b17-18, notwithstanding the identity of memory with intelligence or of recollection with understanding.

To the fourth instance [n.319] I say that this is an immediate contingent proposition, ‘heat is heating’ and this an immediate necessary one, ‘heat is able to heat’, because there is no middle found between the extremes of either of these. So I say that this proposition is per se, ‘operation insofar as it is operation is not productive’, because operations as operations are the ends and perfections of the one operating [n.292]; but production as production is not the perfection of the producer but contains the term produced outside the essence of the producer, or at any rate not formally in the person of the producer.

Why then does the first act by which the Father understands or formally operates not produce? I reply that the ‘to understand’ is the ‘to operate’ of the Father by his own idea, and is not the ‘to produce’; but by production or by speaking he produces in the way that something heats by heating, of which there is not formally another prior cause.

But as to your statement that the principle of these two acts is the same [n.319], without interchange of mode of agent intellect and possible intellect [nn.314, 232], it can be conceded that, from the fullness of perfection, there can belong to something that it operate and that it produce something other than itself. This, however, will be plain when it will be asserted that ‘to say’ is not some act of understanding formally [I d.6 q. un. nn.2-4]; it is however some act of intellect. But no act of understanding is formally productive, but some other natural act, preceding or following, can be productive – of which sort is the act of saying.