Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

Note 1. The intellective potency in God can be taken in a threefold way: first, precisively, insofar as it signifies that to which it is not repugnant actually to understand, abstracting namely from the fact that God actually understands, in that way in which someone is said to be able to speak while he actually speaks; for he would not in fact speak unless he had the power and capacity of speaking: second, negatively, insofar as it denies actual intellection: just as when Peter is said to be able to be in act, that possibility denies the actual existence of Peter, who when he will be existing will no longer be possible; so likewise I can actually understand that which I do not actually understand: third, finally, actively and operatively, for the faculty vitally eliciting actual intellection. This potency, however, thus taken, is again said to be threefold, namely: 1. productive, which truly produces intellection, or the mental word, as a term really distinct from itself. 2. receptive, insofar as it receives the intellection, or the produced mental word. 3. operative, which truly and really does not produce actual intellection: but is, as it were, a fountain and root, whence the immediate intellection itself metaphysically emanates, just as the attributes immediately flow from the essence. It is precisely about this alone that the present Question is raised, namely whether such a faculty is to be admitted in God.

Note 2. This is the difference between intellect and intellection, that the former is the actus primus of understanding, namely the activity of the spiritual substance for knowing and perceiving the intelligible object: but the latter is the actus secundus, namely the very operation of the spiritual substance by which it in fact perceives the intelligible object. The former, however, is called first act, because it is the first reason why the spiritual substance is capable of perceiving the intelligible object: the latter is called second act, because it emanates from the very power and capacity of understanding, as effect from cause: whence the former is called not only act, but also potency, because it is ordered to a further act, which emanates from it and finally perfects it: but the latter is simpliciter named act, because it is, as it were, the form of the intellective power itself finally perfecting it in the order of understanding.

Note 3. For something to be said to understand and to know in actu primo, three things are customarily required. First indeed, that it have the power and activity, namely the potency for understanding. Second, that it have the intelligible object present, either through itself immediately, or through a vicarious species of itself. Third, finally, that it have the facility of perceiving such an object, whether through an activity innate to it, or through an acquired habit. Whether however these three are found in God, at least according to some proportion and likeness, the Authors do not agree among themselves; for some will that in God, besides the intelligible object, something also be necessarily prerequired which has the character of an intelligible species determining the intellect to the perception of the object. Some likewise will that a certain formality after the manner of a habit is also to be admitted, by which the divine intellect promptly and expeditiously perceives the intelligible object. Three things therefore are to be resolved in this Question. The first, whether there is some intellective power in God, formally distinct both from the essence and from actual intellection. The second, whether this power must be conceived as needing completion by an impressed species or habit, before actual intellection is conceived. The third, whether this divine intellective power has various and manifold acts, or rather one single act, simple and really undivided.

First conclusion. — An intellective power formally distinct from the divine Essence and from intellection is to be admitted in God.

This is the expressed opinion of the Doctor, as can be gathered from his various assertions which Smising recounts at length. Tract. 3. disp. 2. n. 13. First indeed, that the intellect, as it is a power and intellective potency, is formally distinguished from the divine Essence, the Doctor openly indicates in 1. dist. 18., where he says:

That the divine Persons and productions are formally distinct of themselves, and yet are distinguished principiatively, that is, by origin, from their principles, namely intellect and will, which are not only distinguished by reason, as was argued against the penultimate opinion, but the intellect formally is not the will ex natura rei: therefore likewise the Essence, on account of the parity of reason.

Moreover, in dist. 26., quaest. unica: Production does not belong to the Essence alone, as Essence, as to that which produces; but also to the intellect and the will, as to a productive principle together with the Essence. By these words the Doctor openly acknowledges two things: first indeed, that the intellective power in God has the character of a principle, namely of a potency: second, that that potency is distinct from the essence. This is confirmed from the same dist. 8. q. 4., especially q. 2. Quodlibetica, in the 3rd response to the first opinion, where he teaches that the divine Essence is the principal, but not the total principle of ad intra production, but together with the intellect and the will constitutes one total principle.

If you ask, he says, of these two concurring in the formal principle, is not the one the formal principle and the other a concomitant? Therefore, from that other formal one, it would either be said to be formally the same principle or wholly another. I answer: the two which concur in the principle, namely perfect memory, essence and intellect, and in the perfect will, the will and the present lovable object, do not relate per accidens, nor as a remote principle and a proximate one: but this whole, the infinite intellect having the infinite intelligible object present to itself, is per se one (total) principle; so that the one without the other is not a principle of producing: and therefore it is the one total principle simpliciter productive, not distinguished into two productive principles per accidens accompanying each other. Likewise of the will and the object with respect to spiration, and in like manner of the terms with respect to the productions. If you ask why the Essence alone, as it is distinguished against the will and the intellect, cannot be the principle of communicating itself? I answer: a merely intellectual essence is not the principle of any production, except as it coincides with memory and will. —

That he moreover also judges the intellective power to be distinguished from actual divine intellection, he indicates openly enough in 1. dist. 2. q. 2., where he proves that intellect and will are really identified with the divine Essence, because intellection and volition are really identified with the divine Essence itself; yet since intellection and volition are posterior in the order of reason to intellect and will, To will, he says, is understood as it were posterior to the will; if therefore to will is the same as that nature, much more is the will. He adds the same about the intellect: The reason for understanding must be from itself necessary being, if actual understanding (that is, intellection) is necessary being; for the reason for understanding is, as it were, pre-understood before understanding itself. By these words the Doctor openly indicates that intellection and the power of understanding are distinct ex natura rei. The same is evident from his almost innumerable texts, especially in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. and dist. 13. q. unica, to the second principal argument, and dist. 35. q. unica, to the second, and Quodlibeto 1. art. 3., where he expressly affirms that intellect and will are potencies and first acts, not only productive with respect to the Persons proceeding in God, but also operative with respect to the essential act of understanding and willing, common to the three adorable Persons.

This same truth is proved by reason: first indeed, that the intellective potency is formally distinguished from the divine Essence has already been proved more than sufficiently, where we treated of the formal distinction of the divine attributes from the divine Essence. That this divine intellective power is likewise formally distinguished from actual intellection is also openly evident: both because many things are verified of the divine intellect which do not belong to actual intellection; for the intellect is the reason why there is intellection in God, which does not fit intellection itself; for the same thing is not the reason of itself; moreover, intellection denominates God as understanding; but the intellect only denominates him as intellective: therefore they are not the same; finally, the intellect is, together with the divine Essence, the principle of the procession of the Word, which does not belong to intellection: therefore intellect and intellection are distinguished. — Second, in order that the intellective potency in God be truly understood after the manner of a first act, it suffices that the power of understanding be conceived, without the divine Essence and the actual knowledge of God being conceived: but we can understand that power, without the essence itself and actual intellection being thought: therefore an intellective potency distinct from the essence and from actual intellection can truly be understood in God. The minor is evident: for in order that such an intellective power be conceived, it suffices that God be apprehended insofar as he is a spiritual substance endowed with the power of understanding and willing, not attending to his essential predicates, nor to his actual knowledge. — Third, the intellective potency is a perfection simpliciter simple, involving no imperfection in its concept: therefore it is to be asserted of God. The consequence is evident; for God, as has already been abundantly proved, formally comprehends absolutely all perfections simpliciter simple. The antecedent is proved: for it is better to have the power of understanding than not to have it, and all those imperfections which surround created intellection, for instance that it is an act really distinct from the intellective faculty and received in it after the manner of a quality, can easily be removed from the divine intellective power: and so nothing prevents this divine power of understanding from being judged a perfection simpliciter simple. — Finally, if anything would hinder an intellective potency being attributed to God, it would be chiefly because, since God is pure act, every potency is unseemly for him: and consequently the intellective potency also is repugnant to him: but this reason is worthless; since all the Adversaries confess that in God there is found the intellect after the manner of the productive potency of the divine Word, why therefore could an intellective potency also not be found? not indeed productive of intellection, but only operative of it, namely that perfection from which, as from a root, another perfection metaphysically emanates; in that way namely in which the divine attributes flow from the essence and are distinguished from it.

You will say 1: Saint Maximus the Martyr, part. 1. tit. 3., expressly affirms that every intellective potency and intellection must be removed from God:

God, he says, is neither properly called understanding, nor intellect, lest he be thought composite; for that which is understanding has, considered together with itself, the faculty of understanding: and that which is understood, in order that it be understood, has the same faculty: but neither can intellection be said of him, for intellection by its nature has as subject a substance capable of itself. Wherefore it remains that he be constituted above all these things. —

I answer. This is to be understood of the intellect after the manner of a receptive potency of accidental intellection really distinct from it, and likewise of intellection insofar as it is a quality accidentally affecting and perfecting the intellective potency by which it is produced and in which it is received: but not of the intellective potency and intellection only formally distinct from the divine Essence and really identified with it: whence he adds: Unless perhaps we say that he is that intellection; so that it may be intellection itself according to substance, and wholly intellection, and only intellection, and intellection above, intellection.

They object 2. Whatever excludes divine simplicity, purity and infinity should not be admitted in God: but if the first act of understanding properly so called is in God, even by reason, and if there is a potency of understanding properly taken and as it is distinguished from the second act, it excludes these three: therefore the first act of understanding properly so called is not in God, even by reason. They prove the minor: that which essentially includes reception and distinction excludes simplicity, purity and infinity: the first act of understanding properly so called essentially includes distinction and reception: therefore it excludes simplicity. They prove the minor: the first act of understanding, as it is distinguished from the second act, is constituted formally by the productive and receptive power of intellection: but the productive and receptive power of intellection formally includes distinction and reception, for where there is production there is real distinction: therefore the first act of understanding properly so called formally says reception and distinction. They prove the major: the first act of understanding is constituted by something which cannot be common to it with the second act of understanding: but nothing else belongs to the first act which does not belong to the second act, besides the productive and receptive power: therefore by these the first act of understanding is constituted. —

I deny the minor. and to all its proofs I say that the Adversaries, in assigning these things, stray far from the truth, and do not grasp our opinion; for we do not assert that the divine intellect is productive and receptive of intellection, but only that it is operative and, as it were, an original perfection, from which intellection, like a rivulet from a fountain and a ray from the Sun, flows out; in that way namely in which the divine attributes emanate from the essence; since therefore the attributes in no way harm the divine simplicity, purity and infinity, so neither does the formal distinction of the intellective potency from the essence and intellection harm anything.

They object 3. from Durandus: The divine Essence is no less the same with its intellection, than some quality is the same with created intellection: but a certain quality is formally the same with created intellection: therefore likewise divine intellection is formally the same with the essence; and so there is no intellective potency in God from which this intellection emanates. —

I deny the major. for it is false that a stricter identity cannot be found in a created concept than in an uncreated one: for greater and stricter is the identity between man and humanity, than between the divine Essence and the divine Paternity: therefore although some quality is formally the same with created intellection, it does not follow from this that divine intellection is formally the same with the divine essence.

They press from the same author: The divine Essence is formally living: therefore also formally understanding and willing; and consequently intellection and volition do not formally differ from the divine Essence. The first sequel is evident, because intellectual life does not consist in any other operation than in intellection and volition. The second is also evident: for if intellection is formally distinguished from the essence, this will not be formal intellection, and so neither will it be living formally by intellection; for what is formally living is not distinguished from its life. The antecedent is proved; for the divine Essence by reason of its infinity involves every perfection which is without imperfection, but life includes no imperfection: therefore the divine essence is formally living. —

I distinguish the antecedent. The divine Essence is formally living, if formal life is taken for the primary act of vital operation together with it, namely for the principle of life, I concede; if life is taken for the vital operation itself, which is intellection and volition, I deny: for thus the divine essence is said to be living not formally, but only identically, because namely the operations of life, which are intellection and volition, are not really distinguished from it, but are identified with it.

They insist again from the same author: if volition and intellection are not formally the same as the divine Essence, this will be in potentia to intellection and volition, and so will not be pure and ultimate act: not indeed pure act, because it would involve potentiality; nor even ultimate act, because it would say an order to a further act, namely to intellection and volition by which it would be determined and perfected: but the consequence is absurd: therefore so is the antecedent. —

I distinguish the major. the divine essence would not be pure act really, and insofar as act is opposed to potential existence, I deny: it would not be pure act formally, insofar as namely it would be ordered to some formality which would emanate from it and identically perfect it, I concede: likewise it would not be ultimate act, that is, it would say an order to some form really distinct from it, I deny: it would not be ultimate act, that is, some formality would be given flowing from that divine Essence, identically perfecting it, and which would be really the essence itself, I concede: and thus I deny the minor: for as we have already said of the divine attributes, there is no imperfection in the divine Essence in that it has attributes formally distinct from itself and perfective of itself.

They object 4. For this reason in creatures there is given a potency which is a principle of action distinct from the created essence, because this essence, by reason of its finite perfection and limited entity, cannot be the immediate principle of its operation: but the essence of God is infinite: therefore it itself is immediately the principle of operation. It is confirmed: just as in creatures the properties immediately flow from the essence, since actual divine intellection has a stricter unity with the divine Essence than created properties have with their essence, it follows that that actual divine intellection also immediately flows from the divine Essence, and so no intellective potency is given midway between intellection and the divine essence. —

I answer 1. This argument proves too much; for from it it would follow that the divine Essence itself could be called the immediate principle of the divine Persons, and so the Son and the Holy Spirit would proceed immediately from the divine Nature, not however through the mediation of intellect and will, which all the theologians openly deny against Durandus. —

I answer 2. The difference between operations and properties is this, that operations and acts are not immediate perfections of the essence, as properties are, but immediately perfect the potencies from which they arise, and through the mediation of the potencies affect and perfect the essence. For although they flow from the essence itself remotely, nevertheless, since intellection and volition are diverse operations, diverse potencies, or notions, must also be assigned from which they emanate and by which they are distinguished: for volition, v. g., proceeds from the essence in a different way than intellection; for volition emanates from the essence as it is appetitive, whereas intellection as it is intellective. Whence it comes about that two proximate, distinct, and immediate principles must necessarily be assigned, one of which is appetitive, the other intellective, namely intellect and will, which principles are formally distinguished from the divine Essence and from its operations.

Finally, certain Scotists object that the Subtle Doctor directly opposes our opinion; for he himself in 1. dist. 26. q. unica n. 15. denies that intellect and will are divine attributes, but says that they are the very essence of God, and that God understands and wills essentially:

The divine Essence, he says, with everything that is as it were a quality set aside, has in itself, as it is an essence, those things which are the proper principles of the operation befitting God; of this kind are to understand and to will. I concede, therefore, that if we call attributes properly those alone which, as it were like qualities, perfect in esse secundo a thing presupposed in perfecto esse primo, namely as regards every perfection which befits it insofar as it is a substance, in this way intellect and will are not attributes; rather they are certain intrinsic perfections in the essence, as it is pre-understood to every quantity and quality. And a little later: since intellect is a certain life and will a certain life, they will not be properly attributes. And again: just as rationality is not an attribute of man, so neither is intellectuality of this essence. Finally: intellectuality, he says, expresses an intrinsic mode of this essence; but the attributes properly are wisdom and charity, and in another way the transcendentals, namely truth and goodness. —

Likewise in the Quodlibeta, quaest. 1. art. 1. § De Altero termino, he says:

Intellectuality is essentially the same as the divine Essence, understood in this way, that it is not only really the same as the Essence itself, and this with a simple identity, as perhaps any attribute whatsoever is held to be the same as the Essence itself; but it is the same to it in this way, that if the divine Essence itself were defined, intellectuality would not fall outside its definition, as wise and good would:

whence not a few Scotists infer with Lychetus in 1. dist. 8. q. 3. that intellect and will are not attributes, but either essential predicates or intrinsic modes of the divine Essence itself. —

I deny the major. For that is not the mind of the Doctor; rather the Doctor there speaks only of intellectuality, insofar as intellectuality is a mode of being contracting it to intellectual substance, which is the root and foundation not only of the intellective but also of the volitive potency. Nor does it matter that he says that intellectuality expresses an intrinsic mode of this essence, like infinity, which is not of the quiddity of the Deity, but its intrinsic mode: for I say that the Doctor there does not use intrinsic mode properly and strictly, insofar as it is something distinct from the quiddity; for in that same place he compares divine intellectuality with the rationality of man, which is known to be of the quiddity of man and its essential difference: but he takes intrinsic mode insofar as it is distinguished from the attributes and comprehends every objective notion by which it is involved in the adequate concept of the thing, in which indeed intellectuality agrees with infinity, although it is not properly an intrinsic mode as infinity is.

Second conclusion. — No formality is to be admitted in the divine intellect by which it would have the notion of an impressed species: yet a formality is admitted in it having the notion of a habit formally distinct from the essence: but indistinct from the intellect itself.

This Conclusion has three parts.

The first part is proved. An impressed species is required in the intellect for this reason, either because the object is absent, or because it is disproportionate, or because it is not sufficiently per se a motive of the intellect for forming intellection: but on neither head is such a species necessary to the divine intellect: since the divine essence is an object intimately present and sufficiently proportioned to the intellect itself: inasmuch as the divine Essence is infinitely intelligible and the intellect infinitely intellective, it also by itself sufficiently and immediately moves the intellect itself to the knowledge of itself: for to move the intellect is nothing other than for the object to be manifested to it and exhibited as something to be known; but it is certain that the divine Essence by itself immediately manifests itself thus to the divine intellect, and so it is equally certain that it immediately moves the divine intellect to its intuitive knowledge of itself. —

It is confirmed. The perfection and power of the divine Essence is not less than that of the angelic substance: but the angelic substance suffices per se, and needs no impressed species to determine and move the angelic intellect to the knowledge of itself: therefore much more will the divine Essence per se sufficiently be the motive of the divine intellect to the knowledge of itself: and hence any formality taking the place of an impressed species in the divine intellect itself would be futile.

The second part is the express opinion of the Doctor, who in several places affirms that there is to be admitted in God a habitual Knowledge and Wisdom, formally distinct from the actual and from the divine Essence of which it is an attribute, and this we will prove more fully in the following Article, by disclosing namely the essence and the characteristics of divine Knowledge.

The third part, moreover, is also conformable to the opinion of the Doctor, especially in 4. d. 16. q. 4, where he expressly affirms that the virtues of the divine will are not formally distinct from the will: because, he says, the will, from the very fact that it is infinite, suffices more for every rightness of act than any virtue, distinct in reality or in notion, superadded. As if he would say: where the principle of willing and of understanding is by its formal notion sufficient per se for every act of understanding and willing, no virtue formally distinct from them is required in them: but intellect and will in God are principles per se sufficient for the act of understanding and willing, since each is an infinite principle: therefore they require for this no habit formally distinct from themselves.

Third conclusion. — The act of the divine intellect is not multiple, but one and indivisible, both really and formally.

This is common among the theologians, and the holy Fathers defend it, especially Saint Augustine lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 14, where, after he taught that the Father and the Son know each other mutually and all things in themselves, he discloses with these words what sort that knowledge of theirs is:

The Father and the Son therefore know each other; but the one by begetting, the other by being born; and all things which are in their knowledge, in their Wisdom, in their Essence, each one of them sees at once, not piecemeal, or one by one, or as with an alternating concept, from here to there and from there to here, and again from there, or from there into one thing and another, so that it could not see some things unless it did not see others: but, as I said, it sees all things at once, of which there is none that it does not always see.

And in lib. 11. De Civitate Dei: Moreover, the Spirit of wisdom is called manifold in the holy Scriptures, because it has many things in itself; but what it has, this it is, and all those things it is one; for there are not many, but one Wisdom, etc.

Peter Damian also agrees, who affirms that God so embraces all times within the secrets of his foresight that nothing new at all accrues to him, nor does anything recede from him through the moments of their course: nor does he consider different things with different gazes; so that when he attends to past things he would be free from present or future ones: or again, when he considers present or future things, he would turn his eyes away from present ones: but with one only and simple gaze of his most present majesty he comprehends all things at once: nor this confusedly and without distinction, but he discerns all things and distinguishes each according to its own property.

Ammonius likewise acknowledged this truth in the Commentaries on the book of Aristotle de Interpretatione, where, when he had said that the Gods know all things, past, present, and future, but in the way that is befitting the Gods, that is, with one and determinate and immutable knowledge, he adds: for those things too which are divisible, it is necessary that they know indivisibly and without any interval: and those which are manifold, singularly: and those which are temporal, in an eternal mode, and in that mode in which they were made, as unmade.

The reason for this truth, moreover, is evident: first, because the act of the divine intellect, since it is infinite, is equivalent to absolutely all objects, even infinite ones, both intensively, as is the divine Essence, and extensively, if indeed possible creatures are infinite in number. Second, because since God is altogether invariable, he cannot have alternating acts and pass from one knowledge to another; finally, because no reason appears which could persuade the entitative multiplicity of divine knowledge: therefore it is not to be admitted.

Whatever can be objected against this Conclusion has partly been resolved from what was said on divine Immutability, and partly will be resolved from what will be said on the Invariability of divine knowledge: therefore let it be