Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

Note 1. As to the resolution of the present Question, a threefold being of creatures can be distinguished: first, indeed, virtual and eminent being, which they have in the divine Essence and Omnipotence, which can represent and produce them. Second, known and objective being, which all things have in the divine Intellect knowing them from eternity. Third, finally, entitative being, which they have in themselves while they truly and really exist. Here there is no question of entitative being, nor yet of virtual and eminent being, which is not the proper and formal being of creatures, but is the very divine being itself, that is, the divine Essence itself, inasmuch as it is the first being and the principle of the other beings. Whence just as the being of heat in the sun is nothing other than the being of the sun itself, as able to produce heat, so likewise the virtual being of creatures in God is not distinct from the divine being, but is the divine power itself, by which God can produce creatures. Only the known being, therefore, which they have in the divine Intellect, is in question here. But it must be noted that this known being is taken in two ways: first, for the divine knowledge itself, by which God knows possible creatures; second, for that extrinsic denomination, as it were, resulting in creatures from this divine knowledge and by which creatures are denominated known, just as a wall is said to be seen from a vision. Here, however, we are not speaking of the former known being. For it is certain that it is truly real, because it is the divine knowledge itself, in which creatures are comprehended. Whence it comes about that they are said to live in the Word, according to that saying of John: What was made, in him was life, — Life, says Augustine, creative, because the knowledge of God is really creative life. Only the objective being taken in the second way, therefore, is in question here.

Note 2. A threefold possibility of things can be distinguished from the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. and elsewhere, namely logical, metaphysical and physical. The first is the non-repugnance of things to existing, or as he speaks in n. 10., the logical Possible is a mode of composition formed by the intellect, namely of that whose terms do not include a contradiction. The second possibility is called by the same Doctor in 2. dist. 12. q. 1. that objective being by which a thing can be perceived and can be the object of a knowing potency. The third, finally, is that being of creatures expressing a respect to the divine Omnipotence, by which they can be produced. The present question concerns only metaphysical possibility, and not the others.

Note 3. From the same Doctor in 1. dist. 13. quaest. unica, n. 5., in disclosing the possibility of things, three instants of nature can be distinguished, in the first of which the divine intellect produces creatures in intelligible and objective being, namely by conceiving them according to that being which they can really have if they are produced. In the second, a creature can be conceived as having possible being of itself: *Because, says the Doctor, of itself formally it is not repugnant to it to have being, and of itself formally it is repugnant to it to have necessary being from itself, and in these two things stands the whole notion of the possible. In the third, finally, the creature expresses a respect to the divine Omnipotence, by which it can be produced. In the first instant it has metaphysical possibility, in the second logical, and in the third physical: or as the Doctor speaks in the same place n. 6.: in the prior instant creatures have possible being principiatively from the divine intellect, in the second they have formal possible being from themselves, in the third they have complete possible being from the respect which they express to the divine Omnipotence.

But whether things are so in fact, the Doctors do not agree. For first, Henry Quodlib. 8. q. 1. and 9. attributes to creatures some real being of essence, eternal, by reason of which creatures are said to be intelligible and are known by the divine intellect: which opinion Waldensis reports and condemns in Wycliffe as a most wicked error, lib. 1. Fidei, cap. 8. — which error likewise Cajetan, prima parte quaest. 14. art. 5., and Bannes, q. 10. art. 3., wrongly ascribe to the Subtle Doctor.

Second, Suarez disp. 30. metaphysica sect. 17. distinguishes a twofold possibility of things, one negative, which is the non-repugnance of the thing to be produced; the other positive, which consists in a certain extrinsic denomination proceeding from the omnipotence of God, from which creatures are formally denominated possible. He says that creatures have the former by reason prior to being understood by God; the latter, however, while they are known. Third, our Aureolus in 1. dist. 30. art. 4. affirms that the possible being of creatures is nothing other than the virtual being, that is, the being of a cause able to produce them. Finally, Vasquez 1. parte, disp. 104. cap. 4. and 5., and likewise almost all the other recent authors, say that creatures are possible, at least incompletely, independently of the divine intellect. But that what is truer may appear, three things are to be resolved in the present Question: first, whether creatures have had any real possible being from eternity; second, from what precisely they have their first possible being distinct from the divine Essence — namely, whether from themselves, or from the divine intellect; third, what that possible being of creatures is formally.

First conclusion. — Possible things have absolutely no real, formal being from eternity. This is the express opinion of the Doctor in 1. dist. 36., which he proves against Henry with seven arguments, of which the principal one is drawn from the creation of things. Whatever is created is produced from nothing; but creatures are formed through creation: therefore they are produced from nothing; and so before their creation they were nothing, and therefore they had no real being. It is confirmed; because just as that which presupposes the matter out of which it is produced is not judged to be produced through creation, but through eduction or generation, so neither is that judged to be created from nothing whose some real being is presupposed.

Henry replies. Creation is indeed made from the nothing of existence, so that what is created was not previously existing, but not from the nothing of essence, so that what is created had true being beforehand.

On the contrary. thus I press with the Doctor: creation is a production from non-being to being simpliciter; but that which presupposes its real being is not produced to being simpliciter, but only to being secundum quid, namely to the being of existence: therefore what is created presupposes no real being, otherwise, says the Doctor, creation will be less a production simpliciter than Alteration is, where there is a production of at least something as to absolute being.

Add. that existence is only a mode of the thing: therefore if a thing is produced only according to existence, it is not produced according to being simpliciter.

Second: That real being, if creatures had any from eternity, would either be communicated by God, or not. Not the first, because God does not communicate being except through production, and production terminates at an existing thing, and so those possible creatures would have been existing from eternity, which is against the faith. Nor the second, because the whole being of the creature is participated and dependent from God.

Some moderns reply. that the whole being of creatures is indeed dependent and participated as to existence, but not as to essence.

Against. existence is only a mode of created things: therefore if created things depend on God only according to existence, they depend only according to some mode of themselves, and considered in themselves, they are absolutely independent of God. Next, if a creature depends on God only as to its existence: therefore it will be an essentially independent being, for its essence will depend on nothing. Finally, the essences of creatures would seem to be equally necessary as the divine Essence, which depends on nothing: but it is unbecoming for Christians to admit these and similar consequences: therefore also that from which they are inferred.

Third: If a creature before its production has real essential being, it follows that it cannot be annihilated, for just as, says the Doctor, the real being of the essence would be presupposed to creation, by like reason it would remain after annihilation. But that whose essence really remains after its corruption ought to be judged less annihilated than that whose matter remains; for that essence really subsisting is more the proper being of the thing than matter is, which before its corruption was a constitutive part of it.

Finally: the Doctor adds other arguments, arguing ad hominem against Henry. First, if creatures had real essential being from eternity, it would follow that something is necessary besides God; for since the essences of things are invariable and necessary, if they had true real being from eternity, there would also be something essentially necessary besides God. Second, since the divine intellect is a natural cause, and acts naturally, what it produces more immediately it also produces more perfectly, because it produces them according to all its activity and fecundity: therefore, since the divine intellect produces the ideal notions and the essences themselves in the notion of essence, but the ideal notions before the essences, because the essences are made only insofar as they are exemplified; therefore those ideas would have truer and more perfect being than the essences themselves, and so the essences would not be real. See the other arguments in the Doctor himself in the same place.

You will say 1. That has real being whose real truth is from eternity; but the real truth of the essences of creatures is from eternity, for this proposition, Man is a rational animal, is true from eternity: therefore likewise the essence of man signified by that proposition is real from eternity.

I deny the major. For fictitious beings also have truth from eternity, and yet not true entity: whence the falsity of the minor is clear. For in like manner I could infer, Chimaera is a fictitious and impossible being, is true from eternity: therefore the chimaera is real from eternity — which inference is utterly null, and so from the truth of a thing it is not lawful to infer its reality. — Or I say with Saint Thomas 1. part. q. 10. a. 3. ad 3. that this proposition is true inasmuch as the signified thing was objectively in the divine mind, but not subjectively, that is, real in itself. To this the Doctor consents in the above-cited n. 11., saying:

When you say further: therefore it has no definition unless it is existing, I deny that consequence, because a definition is a distinct knowledge of the defined thing according to all its essential parts, and a distinct knowledge can be of something, although it itself is not a firm being; and it does not follow: a firm being is understood by definition: therefore a firm being exists.

— Or I say with the same Doctor in 1. dist. 3. quaest. 4. n. 18. that the necessary truths of things are and are seen in God in four ways: first, as in the proximate object, because the divine intellect gives intelligible being to creatures from eternity, in whose power they necessarily shine immutably. Second, as in that which contains the proximate object, because the divine intellect, like a book, contains those intelligibles, which can be called an eternal light secundum quid. Third, as in something by whose power it moves the object, because just as the divine intellect produces things other than itself in intelligible being, so it gives the notion of object by which it moves. Fourth, as in a remote known object, because the divine Essence is the first principle of things to be contemplated and the ultimate end of things to be done, and so the truth of things can stand from eternity, although the true things are not real in themselves.

You will insist. The knowledge by which God knows the essences of creatures is real from eternity: therefore the known object is real. The consequence is clear, both because correlates are simultaneous in nature: therefore God knowing creatures and creatures known are simultaneous in nature. And because knowledges are specified by their object.

I concede the antecedent, but I deny the consequence. both because the reality of the divine Knowledge is not derived from the secondary object, such as creatures are, but from the primary object, that is, from the divine Essence: and because, as the Doctor infers num. 6. from St. Augustine lib. 5. in Genes. 7., God does not know things made otherwise than as things to be made. He therefore foreknew the being of existence, just as the being of essence, and yet on account of that founded relation he does not concede that any being of existence was true being from eternity: therefore by like reason this is not to be conceded about the being of essence.

You will say 2. According to Aristotle and the other Philosophers, the essences of things are eternal, invariable, ungenerable and incorruptible: but they would not be such if they had nothing real from eternity, etc.

I distinguish the major. They are eternal according to entitative being, I deny; according to ideal, objective, virtual being, which they have in the divine intellect and in the divine omnipotence, I concede. And with the minor similarly distinguished, the consequence is to be denied. And so, that creatures are said to be eternal and ungenerable according to essence, but not according to existence, these things are not to be understood as if they were produced in time according to existence only; for it is certain that everything whatever that is in them is truly produced and generated, whether it be essence, or property, or existence. But these things are to be understood in this way: that the objective concept and the essential predicates of things abstract from existence and are altogether invariable, so that whether man exists or not, this proposition is always true, Man is a rational animal.

You will say 3. What is placed in the predicamental line is real, for reality is one of the conditions for the notion of a category: but creatures are placed in the predicamental line even before they exist and insofar as they are possible, indeed they must necessarily abstract from existence in order to be placed in the categories: therefore insofar as they are possible they are truly real.

I distinguish the major. It must be real, either objectively or entitatively, I concede; entitatively only, I deny. To the minor I say that possible creatures are not indeed real entitatively and formally in themselves, but only objectively, ideally, and in the divine intellect, which suffices for them to be able to be placed in the categories.

Second conclusion. — The first distinct being of creatures is from the divine intellect. So the Subtle Doctor in many places, but especially in 1. dist. 43. n. 5., where he speaks thus:

Through the potency itself, under the notion according to which it is omnipotence, it does not have an object that is first possible, but through the divine intellect producing it in the first instant in intelligible being, and the intellect is not formally the active potency by which God is formally called omnipotent, and then the thing produced by the divine intellect into such being, namely intelligible being, in the first instant of nature, has of itself possible being in the second instant of nature.

By which the Doctor plainly signifies that creatures have their first being from the intellect, namely known being. Second, that they have from themselves a non-repugnance to existing, which non-repugnance is accompanied by a relation of reason to the omnipotence able to produce them, and so this non-repugnance is accompanied, or followed, by their formal and complete possible being.

Proof first. by the authority of St. Augustine lib. 5. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 18., where he says:

These visible things before they were made did not exist; how then were they known to God, which did not exist? Again: how would he make those which were not known to him, for he made nothing in ignorance? Therefore he made them as known, he did not know them as made; accordingly, before they were made, they also were: they were in the knowledge of God, they were not in their own nature.

consequently, according to the mind of St. Augustine, possible creatures have no other being besides the objective being which they have in the essence, that is, in the intellect of God; for if they had any other being, it would especially be essential being: but St. Augustine excludes that by saying that things were not something in their own nature, and consequently neither in their own essence, because essence and nature are the same.

It is also proved by reason. Every being that creatures have, since it is neither in themselves nor from themselves, is produced either by the intellect or by the will of God; but the first being of creatures is not produced by the will: therefore by the intellect of God.

The minor is proved. The being that creatures have from the will and omnipotence of God from eternity is willed and future being: but before that willed and future being, creatures first have possible and intelligible being, for nothing is willed unless it is foreknown, and nothing future is decreed unless it is first possible: therefore the first possible being which creatures have is not from the will, but from the intellect of God.

Further, if creatures had some being before the divine intellection, they would have it most of all either from themselves or from God: but not from themselves, as has already been proved, otherwise they would not be creatures: therefore whatever being they had, they would have from God. But they cannot have any being from God before the divine intellection, because if they had it, they would have it either by emanation or by production. Not the former, for nothing emanates from God except what is divine and really undivided from the divine Essence, such as are the divine perfections and the relations of origin: but creatures are neither something divine nor really undivided from God. Nor the latter, for the first operation of the Godhead, both ad intra and ad extra, takes place through the intellect, as is evident: therefore the first being that creatures have is from the divine intellect.

Finally, the fecundity of the divine intellect is greater than the fecundity of the created intellect: but the created intellect bestows known being upon the things which it understands. For just as a seen stone has seen being through vision, so the same stone, known through knowledge, has known being; yet with this twofold defect: first, that that known being in the created intellect is not the primary being, but a secondary one, because the created intellect presupposes its effect, but does not truly produce it; second, that that known being is extrinsic to the things; since these defects cannot fall upon the divine intellect, inasmuch as it is most perfect, the consequence is that in producing creatures in known being, it produces them according to their primary and intrinsic being, and so the first being that creatures have must necessarily be from the divine intellect.

You will say 1. The possibility of creatures consists in their non-repugnance to existing: but they have that non-repugnance from themselves: therefore they also have possibility from themselves.

I distinguish the major. Complete possibility consists in that non-repugnance with an order to omnipotence, from which creatures are not repugnant to be produced, I concede; first and inchoate possibility, or the first concept of a possible thing, consists in that non-repugnance, I deny: for since the non-repugnance is the non-repugnance of some thing, it necessarily presupposes the concept of the thing, in which that non-repugnance is grounded: therefore, for creatures to be said to have non-repugnance to existing, they must first be supposed to have some being: but they cannot have that being from any other than the divine intellect, and consequently they have their first being only from the divine intellect.

You will say 2. Speculative knowledge does not produce its object, but presupposes it: but the knowledge by which God knows possible creatures is speculative: therefore He does not produce those possible creatures, but presupposes them.

I distinguish the major. Speculative knowledge does not produce its object in the real and entitative being which it has in itself, I concede; it does not produce it in the intelligible being which it has in the intellect, I deny; because, says the Doctor num. 6, Even if something does not exist, it can nevertheless be understood by us, whether its essence or its existence, and yet it is not posited on account of our intellection that it has true being of existence. Nor is there any difference in this regard, as it seems, between our intellect and the divine one, except that the divine intellect produces those intelligibles in intelligible being primarily, ours does not produce primarily.

They press again. Things are intelligible in the divine Essence before they are understood by the divine intellect: therefore they do not have only known being. — I distinguish the antecedent, with our de Bassoli, in 1. distinction 36, question 1, article 2: they are intelligible before, formally and distinctly, so that they shine forth in it as in a mirror, I deny the antecedent; they are intelligible before, virtually and indistinctly, as effects in their cause, I concede the antecedent. Moreover, for something to be called intelligible, formally speaking, it must actually be represented, either in itself or in a species, which is not how possible things are in the essence, before they are supposed to be understood.

You will insist. If creatures are produced in possible and diminished being by the knowledge of God, the consequence is that when God knows Himself, indeed also when He knows creatures already existing, He produces them in possible and diminished being: but the consequence is false: therefore so is the antecedent.

I deny the major. For the divine intellect really to produce things in diminished and possible being, the known thing must presuppose no being at all, and so when God knows either Himself or creatures already existing, He must in no way produce Himself or the known creatures in known, possible, and diminished being.

Third conclusion. — That possible being, known formally in itself and considered insofar as it is conceived as something distinct from the Essence and Intellect of God, is not something real. This is the express opinion of the Doctor in 1. dist. 36, quaest. unica, in the reply to the second argument, where he says:

I say that this production in known being is in a being of another notion from every being simpliciter, and it is not a relation of reason only, but also of an absolute foundation, not indeed according to the being of essence or of existence, which is true being; but according to diminished being, which being is being secundum quid, even of an absolute being, which absolute being, however, according to that diminished being, is accompanied by a relation of reason.

In the same place, dist. 13, quaest. unica, he says:

a being of reason has being only in the intellect, because a being of reason is not caused by the object except insofar as it is known, and as such it has being only in the intellect, which is diminished being, from 6. Metaphys.; but nothing, insofar as it is diminished being, is the proper notion of true being.

And in dist. 36, n. 10, where, after he had said that that diminished being produced by the divine intellect has the notion of a being not respective but absolute, he says:

that absolute being, however, according to that diminished being, is accompanied by a relation of reason. An example of this: if Caesar had been annihilated and yet there were a statue of Caesar, Caesar would be represented through the statue. That represented being is of another notion from every being simpliciter, whether of essence or of existence, nor is it the diminished being of Caesar, as if something of Caesar had this being and something did not. Just as an Ethiopian is diminishedly white, because something of him is truly white and something is not; but the whole Caesar and his being from his cause is true being of existence and of essence, of which whole, according to its total being, there is that being secundum quid, and in it, according to that being secundum quid, there can be some relation to the statue.

By these words the Doctor signifies that just as the formal representation of Caesar imports nothing real either in the statue or in Caesar, so neither does that diminished representative being of creatures signify anything real, either in itself or in the creatures themselves.

Further, that is a pure being of reason which has being only objectively in the divine intellect in the way in which second intentions have being in the created intellect: but that diminished being has no other being than the objective being in the intellect of God: therefore it is formally in itself a being of reason.

Finally, if that objective being had some reality, it would have it most of all either according to essence or according to existence: but neither can be said. Not the first, because, as has already been proved, creatures have no real being in themselves from eternity; nor the second, because creatures, as possible and according to that known being, have no existence in themselves: therefore they are a pure being of reason.

You will say 1. Possible creatures, and creatures in known being, have something beyond a chimera, for existence is repugnant to the latter, but not to the former: but a chimera is a being of reason: therefore creatures, according to that possible and objective being, are not a being of reason.

The Doctor cited above denies the major, num. 14, saying:

the first and utterly irreducible reason why being is not repugnant to man is that he is formally a man, and this whether really in the thing or conceptibly in the intellect; and the first reason why being is repugnant to a chimera is the chimera insofar as it is a chimera. Therefore that negation of nothingness inheres in man in eternity and in the chimera in different ways, and yet the one is not on this account more nothing than the other.

To this reply he had prefixed the reason num. 13, saying that the negation of something inheres in another either on account of the mere defect of the cause producing it, or on account of the repugnance which it has to receiving it. In the former way whiteness is denied of a wall that is not white. In the latter way it is denied of an Angel, and in this case a wall that is not white is no less nothing of whiteness than an Angel. And the reason, he says, why this negation is not more than that one is that any negation denies the whole affirmation opposed to it, from whatever reason it is such. For it is just as true to say that a black wall is not white as that an Angel is not white. The same must be said by way of similitude of possible creatures and of the chimera, because real being is truly denied of both from eternity.

You will say 2. A being of reason is that which is fashioned by the intellect after the manner of a real being when it is not a real being: but a possible being cannot be so fashioned by the divine intellect: therefore it is not a being of reason. The major is evident from Logic. The minor is proved: for such a fiction, since it imports the highest imperfection, cannot be attributed to the divine intellect, which is most perfect in every way.

I distinguish the major. A purely fictitious being of reason is so fashioned by the created intellect, I concede; a being of reason arising through a certain resultant of some operation, I deny. To the minor I say that that possible or diminished being is not indeed fashioned by the divine intellect, nor fabricated by it through a true and real fictitious operation; but is conceived by us after the manner of a diminished being resulting from the infinite knowledge by which the divine intellect, comprehending the divine Essence and Omnipotence, and intuitively knowing their infinitely representative and productive power, first conceives creatures in possible being, that is, that they do not repugn, from which concept arises the denomination of known being, which is a being of reason, and which can result from the knowledge of a being that can at some time be true and real; and so the divine intellect makes a being of reason, not by fashioning, but by conceiving a true being.

You will say 3. If possible creatures are truly said to be produced from eternity according to diminished being by the divine intellect, and to be known by it from eternity, by the same reasoning the divine Essence, known also from eternity by the divine intellect itself, could be said to be produced by it according to diminished being: but the consequence is false: therefore so is the antecedent.

I deny the sequel of the major. For a thing to be able to be produced in known being and to have the notion of diminished being, it must first have no real being, whether of essence or of existence, before it is known by the divine intellect: but the divine Essence, prior by nature to being known by the divine intellect, already has the being of existence in itself and formally, for existence is of the Essence of God; and so the divine Essence itself, however much it may be known by the divine intellect, cannot have the notion of diminished being.

You will say 4. From what has been said it is evident that the Doctor affirms that that known being and diminished being is the foundation of a relation of reason: therefore, in the mind of the Doctor, either that diminished being is not a being of reason, or the Doctor contradicts himself.

I answer. The Doctor for that reason calls that diminished being something absolute, because it is conceived after the manner of some form resulting from the knowledge of a true being and bestowing the denomination of known being; which resulting form, namely, is also conceived as founding a relation to that from which it results and to that which it denominates. This denominating form, however, and the relation to the denominated thing have nothing of reality in themselves, but are a pure being of reason, not indeed a fictitious one, but as it were one arising through resultant; for since a being of reason arises from the knowledge of a true being, and since every denomination of known being is a being of reason, it is clear that the divine intellect, in understanding possible things, forms a being of reason not by fiction, but by denomination and resultant, in the way, namely, in which the bodily eye, in seeing a wall, is said to produce a being of reason through resultant, because the being seen, which the intellect conceives to remain in the wall after the vision, is a pure being of reason.

Corollary I. — From these things gather, 1., how wrongly Cajetan and some Thomists charge the Subtle Doctor, affirming that he fell into the error of Wycliffe. For as Thomas of Walden reports, libr. 1. Fidei antiquae, cap. 1., Wycliffe was involved in this error, that he called the threefold being of creatures — namely, the intelligible being in the divine intellect, the virtual being in second causes, and the entitative being in its own genus — being simpliciter, so that the objective being which creatures have in the divine intellect is as real as the entitative being which they have in themselves while they exist; moreover he affirmed that that intelligible being is properly and formally in God. Hence he contended that God could absolutely and simpliciter be called a horse, an ass, etc.; indeed he also contended that creatures, formally existing in God by reason of this intelligible being, could truly be called God; how foreign both of these are to the opinion of the Subtle Doctor is abundantly clear from what has been said.

Corollary II. — Gather, 2., that creatures are not represented actually and formally in the divine Essence before they are understood; both because creatures as such are not contained in the divine Essence except as effects in a cause: but effects are not contained actually in the cause, but only eminently and virtually: therefore neither are they represented actually and distinctly; and because if creatures had represented and intelligible being in the divine Essence before they are understood, it would follow that they pertain to the memory of the Father, which is the intellect itself fecundated by the object, rather than to the intelligence, which is the intellect with actual intellection: but this conflicts with the mind of the Doctor, who in 2. dist. 1. qu. 1. affirms that creatures do not have being in the memory of the Father.

Add. that since according to D. Aug., lib. 15 De Trinitate, the divine Word is born from the whole memory of the Father, and consequently from everything which is actually contained and represented in the memory of the Father; if creatures shone forth in the memory of the Father itself, they would be the reasons for producing the divine Word, and by the force of its production it would be the likeness and image of creatures, which whether it is true we will disclose in the Treatise De Trinitate.