Ordinatio

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