Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Nearly all theologians agree, if you except Durandus and a few other followers of his, that the divine processions are operations of the divine intellect and of the divine will: but what operations they are, and of what kind, they do not agree among themselves. Some indeed affirm that they are certain resultances, or emanations, of the divine intellect and will; so that the divine Persons produced proceed from another Person, in nearly the same way in which properties flow forth from essences, not through a true action, but through a simple emanation. Suarez seems to think this, lib. 1. De Trinitate c. 8. Whence in lib. 6. c. 1. he teaches that the relation alone of the producing Person is the whole active procession, or productive action. Some Thomists teach that a twofold intellection is to be distinguished, one essential, common to the three divine Persons; the other notional, proper to the Father and productive of the Word. Others reject this distinction as contrary to the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, and affirm that in God there is a single essential intellection, which is productive of the divine Word, inasmuch as it is modified by the relation of Paternity and has the character of diction and of a true productive action. The rest, however, with the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. n. 13. and dist. 29. q. unica and Quodlibeto 14., contend not only that the divine processions are true actions, but also that they are equally and totally distinct from the essential acts of understanding and willing; so that diction does not formally include intellection, nor active spiration essential volition: whence it comes about that, although to understand and to will are operations common to all persons, yet to speak and to breathe forth are not. Which opinion, as truer and more consistent, in order that it may be defended more evidently and efficaciously,

Note 1. with the Doctor at the cited places, especially in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. n. 22., two acts of the divine intellect can be distinguished, namely to understand and to speak, and the same number of the divine will, namely to will and to breathe forth, of which the first is operative and the other productive; which two acts are formally distinguished from each other: for it implies a contradiction that one and the same act should by its nature be productive and non-productive of a term really distinct from the producing principle. Moreover, the productive act necessarily presupposes the operative one; for one operating and producing through the same principle, says the Doctor, is operative before he is productive: add that all theologians admit that the essential perfections, involving no relation to creatures, are prior to any notional perfection: whence since the divine intellection is something essential, but diction something notional, the latter presupposes the former; not indeed as a principle by which, but only as a condition without which not; not from need, but from the condition of the principle, which is first determined to operation rather than to production, as the Doctor observes in the same place: hence it comes about that the divine Father is first conceived as understanding and knowing himself and his own essence, before he is conceived as producing and speaking the Word.

Note 2. Our intellection is not formally and properly an action: both because every action properly so called always has some produced term; but intellection is not productive of a term, but is the very ultimate act and the ultimate perfection of the intellective potency: and because to understand is not to act, but a kind of undergoing, says the Philosopher, 3. De Anima, t. Whence formal intellection is the reception of that quality, namely the mental word, which is produced through diction and is received in the intellect itself. Hence inchoatively and effectively intellection consists in that operation of the intellect by which that quality, or mental word, is produced; but consummatively and formally in the reception of the same quality. For since that quality or word is the expressed likeness of the thing understood, without doubt by informing the intellect and adhering to it, it will assimilate the intellect to the known object, and thus render it completely understanding. But if intellection is sometimes called an action, this is not to be interpreted of an action properly so called, but because it has itself after the manner of an action, since it is always in fieri, and regards a term, not one which it produces, but one about which it is engaged, namely about the object, of which it is the living and perfect expression.

Note 3. From the Doctor, in 1. dist. 27. q. 3. n. 12., that the mental word is an act of the intelligence produced by the fruitful memory, not having being without actual intellection, representing the divine Word.

The Doctor gathers all the parts of this definition from Saint Augustine. It is said therefore, first, that it is an act of the intelligence, because it is a form actualizing the intellect, and rendering it formally and actually understanding, just as heat constitutes water formally hot: this part, however, is gathered from St. Augustine lib. 9. De Trinitate, cap. 12. and 13., where he expressly proves that the intellect alone, and not the will, produces the Word perfective and informative of itself. There is added: produced by the fruitful memory; that is, by the intellect informed and as it were pregnant with the intelligible species, for, as St. Augustine lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 10 says, formed thought from the thing which we know is the Word: and c. 11. our Word is born from our knowledge, and cap. 26. he says: the Word is expressed from memorable knowledge, that is, from the intellect having habitual knowledge, as it were the seed of the object. There is subjoined: not having being without actual intellection; for since the Word informs the intellect, and denominates it actually understanding, as long as it subsists, so long does actual intellection remain: whence St. Augustine lib. 9. cap. 8. says: We have the true knowledge of things conceived, as a Word within us, and by speaking it is born within, nor by being born does it depart from us. Finally there is added: representing the divine Word: for St. Augustine in lib. 9. investigates the origin and nature of the divine Word from a certain likeness with our word; whence in the last chapter he says: The mind itself and its knowledge, which is its offspring, and its word about itself, and love as a third, is a certain image of the Trinity. — These things being premised, three things are to be resolved: First, that the divine processions are true actions, and not only emanations and quasi resultances of one person from another: Second, that they are not the essential acts of understanding and willing: Third, that they are diction and spiration equally distinct from intellection and love.

First conclusion. — The divine processions are true and proper vital actions, and not pure and simple emanations.

This seems to be the genuine opinion of Saint Thomas and of the Subtle Doctor: for the former, 1. p. q. 10. art. 2, says: Origin signified actively is signified as proceeding from a subsistent person: whence it presupposes it; but origin signified passively, as nativity, is signified as a way to a subsistent person, and not yet as constituting it: and q. 41. art. 2. ad secundum: Motion being removed, he says, action imports nothing but the order of origin, according to which it proceeds from some cause or principle into that which is from the principle. In which words he plainly declares that origin, or the divine procession, is a certain mode, as it were a mean between the producing and the produced person, and so is not a simple immediate resultance of one person from another. — The Doctor agrees with him in 1. d. 28. q. 3. n. 3., saying: Origin, as origin, is not the proper form, neither of the person in which it is, nor of the person to which it is, but is as it were a way; and then neither is it primarily the form of the person, but as it were presupposes it. As if he would say that origin formally considered is a way between the producing person and the produced person; and so is not the proper form constitutive of that person of itself, but presupposes the producing person already constituted by its own proper form, and is the reason by which the produced person receives its being: but this is to have the true character of an action: therefore those authors truly judge the divine processions to be true and properly so called actions; not indeed simple emanations and metaphysical resultances. This same truth can be strengthened by all those opinions of the holy Fathers which we shall report below, by which we prove that the divine Word proceeds from the Father through a true and properly so called generation, just as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son through active spiration; for generation and spiration are true actions: therefore the divine processions are to be called such.

This same truth is also proved by theological reason: First indeed: the divine essence is otherwise determined to the Son and the Holy Spirit than to the Father: but it is determined to the Father through a simple resultance: therefore it ought not to be determined to the Son and the Holy Spirit through a simple resultance, but through a real and properly so called action. The major is clear: since the divine essence is not determined to the Son and the Holy Spirit, except inasmuch as they are said to be produced: but the Father is produced by no one: therefore the divine essence is otherwise determined to him than to the other persons. The minor also is evident: since the formal constitutive notion of the first supposit is not produced by anyone, but flows forth from the very bosom of the divine nature, as a property flows from the essence. — Then, a simple resultance is immediately from the substantial nature itself; for metaphysical properties flow immediately from the very bosom of the essence: therefore if the procession of the Son and of the Holy Spirit were a simple resultance, it would be immediately from the divine nature; which however Suarez himself with other theologians denies and impugns against Durandus, as will be clear in the following Article. — Finally, a subsistent person ought to be produced through a true action: but the divine processions are productive of subsistent persons, as is known by faith: therefore they are true actions.

You will object 1. In created things relations are not made through a true and proper action, but result from the foundation and the term being posited; whence Aristotle in the Praedicamentis, in the chapter On Relation, affirms that there is no motion per se toward a relation: therefore in like manner the constitutive relations of the divine persons are not produced through a true action, but through a simple resultance and emanation. The consequence seems evident, for it is lawful to proceed and reason from created things to divine things with proportion.

I deny the consequence. And the reason of the disparity is that, since created relations are small accidents of diminished entity, says the Doctor, they cannot be terms of a true productive action; whence they cannot be made otherwise than through a pure emanation and simple resultance: but it is otherwise with the divine relations, which, since they are substantial and constitutive of the divine persons, also have the perfection of substances and of things subsisting per se, which are properly said to be made, and therefore can be the proper terms of a true productive action.

You will object 2. An action properly so called involves several imperfections, namely, that it is a motion, an egress from the agent, and a reception in the patient, and that its term is really an effect and an act, just as the principle is really an agent and an efficient cause: but all these imperfections are unseemly for God: therefore an action properly so called is to be removed from him.

I deny the ma- jor: for action according to the common concept of action is only the ultimate actuality of the agent proceeding from it, indeed by a virtual egress, in which no imperfection is imported, because it signifies neither contingency nor dependence. Nor does it in like manner follow from this that the produced term is an effect, or an act, but only that it is truly and really produced: just as neither does it follow from the fact that the Father is the principle of the Word that the Word is called principiate, because principiate denotes an inferiority which is repugnant to the Word.

You will object 3. Aristotle, 9. Metaph. cap. 7., in this distinguishes an immanent operation from a transient one, that by the latter something is produced, but by the former nothing: he thinks therefore that by the immanent action of the intellect nothing can really be produced; and so that it is not truly productive: but the divine Persons proceed through immanent operations: therefore these are not truly productive actions.

The Doctor answers in 1. dist. 3. q. 7., near the end, that the Philosopher is to be understood of operative actions, which namely are occupied about the object, not in that they produce, but in that they perceive; such are intellection, volition, sensation, and appetition, which for that reason would more properly be called acts than immanent actions. But he is not speaking of actions productive in an immanent manner, such as are diction and active spiration, which were not known to Aristotle: for if indeed absolutely nothing were done through immanent actions, it would follow that neither the created intellect nor the divine intellect is truly productive of the Word, which is absurd to reason, but also seems to be adverse to faith.

Second conclusion. — The essential acts of understanding and willing in God, namely the divine intellection and volition, are not the actions by which the divine persons proceed.

This seems to be the manifest opinion of the holy Fathers, to be commended in the following Conclusion, which the Subtle Doctor proves in various ways at the places cited above: First indeed, essential intellection and volition are common to the three Persons: but the notional acts, or active processions, are not common to them, as is evident: therefore, etc. — Then, if those acts of understanding and willing were productive of the Persons from themselves, it would follow that each of the divine Persons would proceed from each, indeed even from themselves: for since those acts are essential, they are truly in each person, and thus would produce in each person. Finally, if those acts were productive and were lacking to some divine Person, it would follow that that Person is not blessed: for the divine Persons are beatified through the essential acts of understanding and willing. Therefore it must be concluded that the divine processions do not consist in those acts.

Some Thomists reply, that a twofold act of understanding and willing can be distinguished in God, one indeed essential, the other notional: that by the former the divine Persons are not produced, but by the latter.

On the contrary. This reply directly militates against St. Thomas; for in the first part, q. 31. art. 1. ad 2., he says: Nothing of those things which pertain to the intellect is said personally in divine matters, except the Word alone: and ad 3. To understand imports only the relation of the one understanding to the thing understood, in which no notion of origin is imported, but to speak imports principally the relation to the conceived Word. He does not therefore admit that twofold intellection, of which one is essential and the other notional, indeed he distinguishes intellection from diction, and says that the former is unproductive, but the latter productive. — Then, if the notional intellection were distinct from the essential one, it would be most of all through a relation; for notional things are not otherwise distinguished in God from essential and common ones, except because the former express a relation, but the latter do not so: but a relation is not sufficient to constitute any intellection formally or virtually distinct from the essential one; because every intellection is a vital act and a perception of the object, about which it is occupied, inasmuch as it is an object. But the divine relation is neither a vital act nor a perception of an object, but is only the term of the divine nature constitutive of the person, nor is it occupied about the object inasmuch as it is an object, but only regards it inasmuch as it is its term: therefore, etc. — Finally, in God there cannot be posited several Deities, of which one is essential and another notional: therefore neither several intellections and loves. The consequence is evident from the parity of reason: for Deity cannot be multiplied for this reason, that it is formally infinite; but it implies a contradiction that there be several infinite things of the same notion, because the infinite comprehends every perfection whatsoever that can be thought within its own genus: but intellection and love in God are no less something infinite in the notion of intellection and love, than Deity in the notion of Deity: therefore if there cannot be a twofold Deity, a twofold intellection cannot be admitted in God.

Others reply, that the divine processions taken actively are indeed the very acts of understanding and willing, not indeed absolutely, but with this modification, that intellection, inasmuch as it is in the Father, is the expression of the Word, but not in the Son and the Holy Spirit; the same is to be said of the divine love. As if they would say: essential intellection and love, as they are in some persons, have a term, but in others not; which indeed they explain and confirm by the example of the intellect and the will, which are the principles of these processions and persons; for although the intellect and the will are in all persons, yet they do not principiate and produce in all. Therefore, they say, just as the intellect and the will are communicated to several persons, without their carrying along with themselves procession and principiation, why should not the same be said of that essential intellection and love.

On the contrary. Either that modification adds something to the real essential intellection and love, or nothing: if it adds nothing; therefore there is no reason why in one person it should produce a term, but not in another: for the same thing remaining altogether the same is always apt to do the same, as the Philosophers commonly say. If it adds something, it is either something essential, or notional. Not the first, because the same difficulty recurs; for essential things are common to the three persons: nor the second, for nothing is notional besides the constitutive relations of the persons; but a relation, as we have said, is neither formally intellection, nor the same formally with intellection; for the whole being of a relation is to be had toward another; but the whole being of intellection is to perceive the object and to represent it; which two are formally distinct. Add that if that modification adds to the essential intellection something which is really or formally distinct from it, then intellection will not be the production of a term as it is essential intellection, but only as it is notional intellection; but it is false that two intellections are to be distinguished, of which one is essential and the other notional: therefore, etc. To the confirmation I say that there is no parity; for the actual production of heat is one thing, and actual heating another, because its whole essence is in second act, that is, in the actual production of heat: if therefore the actual production of the persons were the very essential intellection and volition, it implies a contradiction that they should be in some person and not produce a term in it.

The rest reply, that intellection and volition are the productions and processions of the persons, not as acts, but as the actions of speaking and of breathing forth.

On the contrary. Intellection is something formally distinct from diction: therefore they are not one and the same, and are badly confused by the Adversaries. The antecedent is proved: for intellection is something absolute in divine matters, but diction is something relative; or, which is the same, diction is something notional, but intellection something essential: but it is clear that essential things are distinguished from notional ones, and behave in divine matters in the same way analogically as with us substance and accident, or the essential and the accidental. Then, to speak is opposed relatively to the spoken, namely to the Word which is spoken: but to understand is not opposed to the Word itself; otherwise it would be really distinguished from it: therefore to speak and to understand are not one and the same. Finally: Paternity itself is formally diction, but that cannot be intellection, as we have already said: therefore intellection and diction are not formally one and the same.

Some reply, that diction is not indeed formally intellection, but truly really: but this is nothing else than openly passing over to the opinion of Scotus, who judges that diction is to be distinguished from essential intellection only formally, just as also from the essence; and so only the dispute about the name will remain, by which namely the Thomists call really intellection what we formally call diction. — Nevertheless in this also they seem to deviate much from the truth, for if the real identification of diction with intellection should suffice that diction be called intellection, then volition will be the procession of the Son, for volition, or love, is really diction: and then the essence also will be a production of itself, for the essence also is really diction.

Some reply 2. that to speak is indeed other than to understand, but only as the including is other than the included. For just as man is other than animal, because namely he includes animal and adds to it something else, namely rational; so by parity the notional act, besides the order which the essential act expresses to the known object, adds an order to the term produced through itself; for the divine intellect, they say, simultaneously understands the object by producing the term, and produces the term by understanding the object.

I answer. that the divine Speaking does not include the essential intellection, just as man includes animal; because man adds some notion and a perfective difference to animal, namely rationality: whence rationality is a certain animality, just as the fissure of the feet is footedness, as Aristotle says in lib. 7. Metaph. But speaking does not include anything of intellection in its concept; otherwise the speaking person would understand more, because it would have some intellection which the person who does not speak does not have, and so one would be wiser than the other, which implies a contradiction. — Secondly, speaking, as has been proved, is formally an action: but intellection is not an action, but an operation: therefore the one does not formally include the other, for they are of disparate and entirely different genera. — Finally, that which speaking would add over and above intellection would either be within the line and notion of intellection, and thus it would be something essential and consequently common, just as intellection itself is; or it would be something distinct, and so something notional, and thus speaking will truly be a formality distinct from the essential intellection, which is what we intend.

The 2nd Conclusion is proved. If the production of the divine Word were formally the essential intellection, it would follow that the Father does not communicate the perfectly blessed essence to the Son, nor that the Father is blessed before the production of the Son: but the consequent is absurd: therefore so is the antecedent. The consequence of the major is clear: because beatitude consists rather in an act of the will than in an act of the intellect; for beatitude is fruition, which is formally an act of the will: but intellection precedes the act of the will, and so precedes fruition itself, in which beatitude formally consists: therefore if the divine Word were produced through intellection, the Father would be conceived as producing him before he was blessed, and thus the Son would receive an essence not yet perfectly blessed. If these things are so, either the Son is blessed thereafter, and thus he has something not received from the Father; or he is not blessed, and so he will not be God, who is beatitude itself. — Nor does it matter that the Thomists reply that beatitude does not consist formally in an act of the will, but of the intellect; for although this were true, which we have nevertheless demonstrated to be false in Philosophy, yet the aforesaid argument still always presses them. For from this it also follows that something notional would be prior to something essential, the contrary of which is the received view among the theologians. The consequence is clear: because the production of the word, if it takes place through intellection, will be prior to the essential love; for intellection precedes love. It is confirmed: for if intellection is the actual production, for whatever instant there is essential intellection, there will also be the production of the Word: but intellection necessarily precedes the essential love: therefore it follows that, if the Word is produced through the essential intellection, its production precedes that love, and so something notional is prior to the essential things, which is repugnant.

Thirdly, the same Conclusion is finally proved. If the Word were the term of the divine intellection, as intellection is, it would follow that the Father is formally understanding by the Word, and thus formally wise with a begotten wisdom: but the consequent is against the holy Fathers and Doctors: therefore, etc. The consequence of the major is clear: because the Father is formally understanding; but one who is formally understanding understands by the intrinsic term of his intellection, when intellection claims such a term for itself; for this is why the Thomists affirm that the Word is produced by us through intellection, so that through it the object is understood. The minor will be clear below, and is sufficiently proved through St. Augustine lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 7.:

In that Trinity, he says, who dares to say that the Father understands neither himself, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, except through the Son? For if there only the Son understands, so that the intelligence belongs both to himself and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, we return to that absurdity, that the Father is not wise of himself, but of the Son, nor has the wisdom of the wise begotten, but the Father is said to be wise by that wisdom which he begot. For he who is not intelligence, neither is he able > to be wisdom; nor, if by this the Father does not understand of himself, but the Son understands for the Father, will the Son indeed make the Father wise.

The Thomists object 1. the various authorities of the holy Fathers, by which they seem to suggest that we, by understanding and thinking, speak in the heart and produce the word of the mind; from which they gather a similar production of the divine Word: first of all Saint Augustine lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 10. says: The word which sounds outwardly is a sign of the word which shines within, to which the name of word more properly belongs; and what Sapientiae 2. says: They said within themselves, thinking not aright; Matth. 9. They said within themselves, this man blasphemes, which speaking is at once explained when it is added: When Jesus had seen their thoughts; likewise cap. 15. He thought within himself, saying; and Luke 5. They began to think, saying. From which St. Augustine concludes: Certain thoughts, therefore, are locutions of the heart: and further on: Within, when we think, locution and vision are one... For the thought formed by the thing which we know is the Word which we speak in the heart. He asserts moreover in the same place that this must be transferred to the divine Word, saying: Whoever can understand this, namely that we speak a mental word by thinking, can now see through this mirror and in this enigma some likeness of that Word, of which it is said: In the beginning was the Word. With him agree St. Fulgentius, lib. 1. ad Monimum cap. 7.: So, he says, is the Word with God, as the word is in the mind, as the counsel is in the heart: for when the mind has the word within itself, it certainly has it by thinking, because to speak within oneself is nothing other than to think within oneself: and also St. Anselm in Monologio, cap. 28. This very locution, he says, can be understood as nothing other than the intelligence of the same Spirit, by which it understands all things; for what else is it for him to speak some thing to himself in this manner of speaking, than to understand? Although immediately in the same chapter and the following 29. he restricts this locution, so that it is the begotten Word itself. Again cap. 34.: It is the same, he says, to the supreme Spirit to know as to understand, or to speak: and cap. 16. about the middle: To think a thing of which we have memory, this is to speak it in the mind.

I answer. that the holy Fathers, by these and similar ways of speaking, mean nothing other than that we speak and converse mentally when we think something, whether that thought is meanwhile that action by which the word of the mind is produced, or the formal reception of that word in the intellect. Which they did not weigh so exactly, with the sole exception of Augustine, who, inquiring into these things more subtly, also gave the Subtle Doctor the occasion to distinguish the production of the Word from simple thought. And so the other Fathers, judging that it suffices for the explanation of this mystery that, just as we, when we think, form within ourselves an image of the thing thought, which is called the word of the mind; so God the Father, by conceiving his essence, forms a Word consubstantial with himself, which conception of the Word they improperly call thought and intellection; so that they confound simple thought with the true internal speaking. Which impropriety of speech St. Thomas also noted, 1. part. q. 31. art. 1. ad secundum and ad tertium, and it is openly gathered from St. Anselm himself in the cited place; for cap. 58. he says: Just as the Father is understanding and the Son is understanding and the Holy Spirit is understanding, so the Father is speaking and the Son is speaking and the Holy Spirit is speaking. By which he openly confounds speaking with simple intellection; for it is certain that the Son and the Holy Spirit are truly understanding, as the Father is, namely by essential intellection, but they are not speaking with the productive speaking of the Word. But as to Saint Augustine, I say that he is to be understood of speaking and locution as it were in facto esse, so that, just as the Word outwardly uttered is called by these words, locution, speaking, utterance, word, as synonyms, although properly locution and speaking are the expression or production of the Word and as it were the Word in fieri; so internal locution is sometimes taken for the knowledge, as it were in facto esse, which thought, so taken, is the Word itself produced: whence Saint Augustine, after the words cited above, adds: The thought formed by the thing which we know is the Word.

You will object 2. Every operation of the intellect is understanding; but speaking, or conversing mentally, is formally an operation of the intellect: therefore speaking, or conversing mentally, is understanding.

I distinguish the major. it is understanding, either radically, or formally, I concede; formally only, I deny: and so every operation of the intellect can be called intellection radically and denominatively, because it proceeds from the intellective potency, but not formally, as if it were truly intellection and formal thought; for the intellect has a twofold operation, namely the speaking productive of the Word, and the intellection, which in creatures is the very formal reception of the produced Word.

You will press. if that action which we call speaking is not formally intellection, it will not be from the intellect formally, or inasmuch as it is intellect, but only inasmuch as it is a productive potency, and thus the divine Word will proceed from the intellect only as it were materially, that is, from a principle which is really only intellect, but not formally: but the consequent is false; for if the Son does not proceed from the intellect inasmuch as it is formally intellect, it follows that by force of his procession he cannot properly be called the Father's mental Word, nor proceed from the memory of the Father, nor be wisdom from wisdom and vision from vision, as Saint Augustine speaks in book 15, chapters 7. and 13.; therefore, etc. The major is proved: for the intellect is not formally intellect, except inasmuch as it unfolds itself into the act of understanding, which is the act adequate to the intellect, inasmuch as it is intellect.

I distinguish the major. it will not be formally from the intellect, inasmuch as it is intellect, or inasmuch as it produces an act which is formally intellection, I concede: inasmuch as it produces an act which is intellection at least radically, I deny.

I likewise distinguish the proof. the adequate act of the intellect is intellection, either formally, or radically, I concede; formally only, I deny.

Add. that the argument can be turned back upon the Adversaries; for intellection, as intellection is formally, is not speaking; but they themselves admit that the divine Word does not proceed from the divine intellection, inasmuch as intellection is formal; for this is common to the three divine persons; but only inasmuch as it is modified in the first supposit and is called Speaking: therefore the aforesaid argument fights more against them than against us. Nor does it follow from this that the Son is not rightly called the Word, nor wisdom and vision from vision, etc.; rather, he has his appellation of Word from the fecund memory of the Father, by whom he is produced through speaking, and he is more rightly named the Word than if he were made through intellection; for thus he would have to be called not a word uttered, but only a thought, or intellection, of the Father: but the appellation of Word is followed by the other aforesaid denominations of his, which are synonymous with the Word.

You will object 3. The divine processions are not only productions of persons, but also communications of the nature and of the essential acts; for the procession ought to contain in fieri whatever the term produced through it contains in facto esse: but the produced Word contains the nature and the essential acts: therefore its procession must also contain the divine nature and the essential act of understanding, and so it must be none other than the divine intellection itself.

I answer. that indeed the divine procession contains in fieri and as it were communicates the essence and the essential acts; but I deny that it follows from this that it must therefore be that formal act of understanding; for by this reasoning the production of the Son could also be called an act of willing; for in the Son there is not only the divine Essence and the essential act of the Father's intellect, but there is also the essential act of his will: if therefore, in order that the Son have that act of the Father's intellect by force of his procession, it is necessary that the act itself be formally included in his procession, it will also be necessary that the act of the will be formally included in it, since he has the whole essence and the essential things by force of his procession. The same can be said of the Holy Spirit. The essential things are therefore not communicated to the Son because his procession is an essential act, but because the essence itself is the other co-principle of this offspring and production. Add that, if the Adversaries' inference were true, it would also conclude that the divine Essence is formally included in speaking, because the Son, by force of his procession, has the divine Essence no less than the divine intellection; but no theologian admits this consequence: therefore neither ought he to admit the antecedent.

They object 4. If intellection were presupposed to speaking and were something common to the three persons, it would follow that the Father does not know himself in the Word more than the Word itself and the Holy Spirit would be said to understand themselves in the Word: but this is against the common assertion of the theologians, who say that the Word represents the essence to the Father; whence it comes about that he is called his image: therefore, etc. The consequence is clear, because if the Father understands by an essential intellection, which is not formally speaking, the other persons will already be his equals; since they too understand the divine essence by the essential intellection and thus will know in the Word, etc.

I distinguish the consequence. that the Father would not be said to know himself in the Word more, by reason of the operation, I concede; by reason of representation, I deny; for when it is said that the divine Father knows himself in the Word, the sense is not that through the production of the Word he knows his essence, otherwise he would be wise with a begotten wisdom, which was said above to be false from St. Augustine; but the sense is that the Father has given to the Son the power of representing that essence as his own Word, not indeed as the Word of the other Persons. Therefore, just as the created word expresses the object to the speaker himself; so in the divine things, although the Word is not in the one speaking after the manner of an informing form, as it is in creatures, it nevertheless has from him a peculiar habitude, whereby it comes about that it is said to represent the divine essence more to him than to the other persons.

They object 5. The Subtle Doctor therefore distinguishes speaking from the essential intellection, namely lest the Word be said to proceed through the essential operation of understanding common to the three persons: but the same difficulty recurs if one admits an act in the divine intellect distinct from the essential intellection; therefore he falls into Scylla while wishing to avoid Charybdis. They prove the minor: that action formally distinct ex natura rei from the essential intellection is, in the notion of action, an absolute act, just as intellection itself is; therefore in the notion of action it is common and essential, just as intellection itself is. The consequence is clear; the antecedent is proved: that action, in the notion of action flowing from the intellect, is not formally a relation; for this is neither productive, nor does it go forth from the intellect after the manner of an action, since it is the term of the divine nature constituting it in the notion of person: therefore such an action under the concept of action is something absolute, just as intellection also is; for in God whatever is not relative is absolute and belongs to the essential things, and so it follows from the opinion of Scotus that the Father produces his Word through an absolute act common to the three persons — why then could he not concede the same of the very essential understanding itself, lest actions be multiplied in God in vain?

I deny the minor. and also the major of its proof: for the divine Speaking is in reality that constitutive formality of the first supposit; and so the very relation of Paternity: not indeed inasmuch as it is considered under the precise notion of a relation referring one thing to another, nor as it is that very divine operation by which the first supposit communicates its existence and its essential things to the second supposit, to which it is therefore referred as the generating to the begotten: whence the generative action in the divine things can be said to be formally a relation according to its adequate entity, although it is not formally a relation according to its inadequate entity and diverse connotation; for one and the same constitutive formality of the first supposit receives various appellations, because of the diverse connotation of the terms and its various offices; for first it constitutes the first person subsisting incommunicably; then it constitutes the principle able to produce, as that which; thirdly it bestows the active potency unto generation, or speaking; and finally it constitutes the Father as actually and as it were praedicamentally related to the Son.

Third conclusion. — Truly the divine Word proceeds through speaking, and the Holy Spirit through active spiration.

This is the opinion of the Subtle Doctor, at the places cited in the prior Conclusion, and the truth of this follows from the preceding; for if the Word and the Holy Spirit do not proceed through formal acts of intellection and essential love, whether considered formally or as modified, it follows that they must necessarily proceed through the acts of speaking and breathing forth, for no others can be devised in the divine things.

Moreover the Conclusion is proved by the Doctor in 1. d. 2. q. 7. n. 15. first indeed by the authority of St. Augustine, who everywhere teaches that the Word, both divine and ours, is produced by the fecund memory, not indeed by the intelligence: but the fecund memory is productive through speaking, not through intellection: therefore, according to the opinion of St. Augustine, the divine Word truly proceeds through a speaking distinct from intellection. The major is clear, namely that the Word, both divine and ours, must proceed from the fecund memory. St. Augustine indeed has this expressly lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 10. where he speaks thus of the word produced by us: When we beget the Word it is necessary that the Word be born from that very knowledge which we hold in memory; for the thought formed by the thing which we know is the Word which we speak in the heart. But he had said a little before that from this likeness of our word the production of the divine Word can be uncovered. In this mirror, he says, and in this enigma, some likeness of that Word is seen, of which it is said: In the beginning was the Word. And that both words, the divine as well as ours, proceed from the fecund memory, he indicates openly enough in the same place, c. 11.: Our word, he says, that which has no sound, is not just anyhow like in this enigma to that Word of God, which is also God, since thus this one too is born of our knowledge just as that one was born of the knowledge of the Father. — The minor is likewise evident; for the intelligence is concerned with the object to be perceived, but the fecund memory with the Word to be produced; the former is held in the simple vision of the object, the latter in the production of its term; the former alone is the operation of the divinity by which the divine persons comprehend their essence and themselves: the latter is the speaking and production by which the Father generates the Son entirely equal to himself, by force of his procession and production. Whatever could be objected against this Conclusion has already been solved in the preceding and will be solved in the following.

You will ask, whether the act of understanding is presupposed to the act of speaking in the divine things? — The Scotists commonly affirm it, both because the Subtle Doctor seems manifestly to assert this in 1. dist. 2. qu. ultima, as has already been observed in the first Note: and because the essential things are prior to the notional, but understanding is something essential, while speaking is something notional: and finally, because it belongs to the notion of a perfect principle that it first have its ultimate perfection before it produces: but understanding and willing seem to be the ultimate perfections of the Deity, and therefore the divine person must first be understanding and willing before it produces the Word from the fecundity of the nature. But it happens otherwise in creatures, where speaking precedes understanding, since the created intellect is not formally understanding except through the reception of the Word produced by speaking itself.

Nevertheless some protest, to whom our Baronius subscribes, Apolog. 2. act. 4. about the end, affirming that in the Father speaking is prior to intellection and volition, because, he says, speaking is the constituent of the Father, and nothing is prior in anything than that by which it is constituted; for nothing can be in something before that thing is, nor can it be before it is constituted in being, nor can it be constituted except through its constitutive principle, and so nothing can be in the Father before the Father is constituted in his being of Father. But he is not constituted in that being except through speaking, which, as is supposed, is the active generation itself. Whence he concludes that, although absolutely in God understanding is prior to speaking, nevertheless in the Father, as in the Father reduplicatively, speaking is prior to understanding, just as, although animal is prior to rational, nevertheless, as it is in man, rational is prior to animal; whence, since the Father is constituted in the being of Father through speaking, it is necessary that he speak before he understands, because it is prior for the Father to be than to understand. — But the other Scotists protest, with Rada, in the first part, Controversia 12. art. 3.: first, because according to the Subtle Doctor the Father is blessed before he generates: but beatitude is either in intellection, or in volition, or in both: therefore the divine Father understands his essence before he speaks and produces his Word. Then, because whenever some things observe a necessary order among themselves, they necessarily observe the same order wherever they are found: but understanding in itself is prior to speaking: therefore also in the Father intellection precedes speaking. Nor does the example of the animal help; for it is false that in man rational is prior to animal, for both concur to the constitution of man, animal indeed as the superior predicate, rational as the interior predicate; so, by parity, understanding and speaking together constitute the Father, understanding indeed as the superior predicate, speaking as the ultimate predicate, and therefore the latter presupposes the former. Finally, because whatever follows upon a notional predicate is not communicated to the other persons, for it is the proper character of the divine person: but the divine understanding is communicated to several and passes to all the divine persons: therefore it does not presuppose speaking, by which the latter is a notional predicate, but precedes.