Ordinatio

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.