Question Eight: Does The Divine Word Have Some
Question Eight
DOES THE DIVINE WORD HAVE SOME
CAUSALITY OF HIS OWN AS REGARDS
CREATURES?
8.1 The next question concerns omnipotence or active causality insofar as it pertains in particular to the Son in the divine and the question is this: Has the Son or the Divine Word* some causality of his own as regards the creature??
1] Arguments Pro and Con It is argued that he has:
An art implies a relation of causality to the artefact and of the idea to its ideatum* or concrete realization. But to be art and to contain in himself the ideas of all that can be made is something that pertains properly to the Divine Word. Therefore [he has a relation of causality to the artefact and ideatum].
The minor appears clear from Augustine®: "The perfect Word, to which nothing is lacking, is the art of the omnipotent and wise
God." This proves the first part of the minor. And he continues:
"Full of all living and immutable reasons,' which proves the second part of the minor, because by those "reasons," he understands the Ideas,* as appears clear from his mind in Eighty-Three Questions,* question 46. And in the same place [in The Trinity] he adds: 'In him God knows all things which he has made through him." These words prove both parts of the minor and must be understood in this fashion. God knows everything in him as in an art wherein the essences of the artefacts are relucent.
8.2 It is argued for the negative:
Augustine' speaking of the Incarnate Son says: ''He could not be sent by the Father without the Holy Spirit." And after some lines,
+ Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, di, q.1
(ed. Vives x1, 6-45); 1, d.27
(v1, 63106); d.10 (Iv, 339-66); d.12 (Vv, 25-64).
? Augustine, De Trin. vi, c.10, n.11: PL 42, 931; CCSL 50, 241.
* Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus 83, q.46, n.2: PL 40, 30.
' Augustine, De Trin. 1, c.5, nn.8-9: PL 42, 849-50; CCSL 50, 89-90.
QUESTION EIGHT
he adds: "Perhaps someone thinks we should say that the Son has also been sent by himself, because that conception and birth from Mary is the work of the Trinity by whose causation all things are caused." He concedes implicitly this conclusion in his answer to an objection: "How has the Father sent him, if he has sent himself?
First of all, I answer him, etc."'
8.3 In the same place he understands the incarnation to be the work of one and the same identical operation of Father and Son and Holy Spirit inseparably.
8.4 Again Augustine writes': "I assert with absolute confidence that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, being of one and the same substance, God and Creator, the omnipotent Trinity, work together inseparably."
Body of the Question 8.5 This question stated generally could be understood of any form of causality which God has with respect to creatures, but the arguments refer in particular to efficient causality.
Therefore, it is first necessary to inquire about efficient causality, and here there are three points requiring investigation.
First, is there some formal ground of causation that is proper to the Word?
Second, is some mode or order in causality or in causing proper to him? Third, is some relationship of causality or any relationship of his to a creature included per se in his constitutive property?
ARTICLE I
Is there some Formal Aspect of Causation Proper to the Word?
1. Negative Answer: Three Proofs 8.6 [Proof from authority] As regards the first point, we can say that no'formal ground of acting ad extra* is proper to him. This can be shown in three ways; first by authority, second by reason of [an empirical] or a posteriori* proof, and third by an a priori* proof.
The authority is that of Augustine,® who says: "In relation to the creature, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one principle even as they are one creator and one Lord." This indicates that just as there is in them a formal deity by which they are called God, so there is also one formal reason by which they function as cause and 5 Ibid., Iv, c.21, n.go: PL 42, gog; CCSL 50, 202.
6 Ibid., v, c.14, n.15: PL 42, 921; CCSL 50, 223.
GOD AND CREATURES
principle in virtue of which they are all referred to as one creator and one principle. Dionysius' says much the same: "All causable things are common to the divinity as a whole."
8.7 [Proof a posteriori] The a posterior: proof is taken from the evaluation of an act of causing, of which the Savior says*: "Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise." The word 'whatever' indicates clearly that Father and Son are not related to each other in their action as a universal and a particular cause, in the way, for example, the sun* and the father are in begetting an animal. The word also indicates that they are causes not of different effects but of the same effect. The verb '"'does'' shows that they are not related to each other as agent and formal ground for acting, for the "'reason for acting" does not act, properly speaking. The word "likewise" reveals clearly that in their action, they are not related as a higher cause in respect to a lower one which does not act of its own power, but only in virtue of another and in comparison to which it acts only dependently and imperfectly. Neither do they act as two partial causes of the same type (like two men pulling a boat), or as two causes of different types (as some say the agent intellect and phantasm cooperate in moving the possible intellect) in such a fashion that together they constitute one complete cause, for in situations of this sort neither cause can be complete. Only together do they form the complete or total cause, whereas each in itself is at best a partial or diminished cause. For that reason it is more correct to say that each cooperates with the other rather than that each causes the effect. Also two causes of this sort do not cause the effect in exactly the same way.
Having excluded these various imperfect ways of causing Christ means to say that the Father and Son, and by the same token the whole Trinity, simultaneously cause whatever they cause and they do so completely and with equal perfection. From this it follows that the Word has no formal ground of action that is his alone.
8.8 Proof of the consequence: No suppositum formally acts unless it be in act through something that functions as a formal ground for acting, which I understand in this way. Either this ground is the informing form, as in the case of creatures (for which reason Aristotle® concludes that the soul is the act and form of the body be7 Ps.Dionysius, De divinis nom. c.2, n.1: PG 3, 638; Dionysiaca 1, pp. 6667.
8 John 5:19.
9 Aristotle, De anima Ui, €.1
(412420).
QUESTION EIGHT
cause it is the source [principium quo]* of an animated body's operations); or else that which is the principle of acting is wholly identical with the acting suppositum,* as in the case of a simple subsisting form which, according to the Metaphysics,!° is at once the whole of what it is and therefore acts as a whole. Now what is proper to one person cannot be the act of another person in either of these two ways, which is what Augustine! means when he writes: "The Father cannot be wise with begotten wisdom." Therefore, it follows that if the formal ground for acting with some action is proper to one person, then another person will not be formally acting by that action.
8.9 [Objection and its solution] You may object, following one Doctor's opinion,' that the three divine persons in their common, essential intellect have one Word (which represents a quasi-proximate principle of causing even as the essence is the quasi-remote principle), but that the Father has this Word a se by speaking™ it, as it were, whereas the Son and Holy Spirit have it only from the Father, who, acting for all the persons, speaks the single Word to perfect the essential intellect. And he says something similar of the Holy Spirit as regards the will.
I answer: The Father certainly does not have the Word as his formal-act in either of the ways mentioned [in 8.8]. Therefore he could only have the Word as something either correlative or consubstantial, but in a suppositum distinct from himself. Yet neither alternative would suffice for the claim that one who has the Word in this way is acting by an action whose formal principle is possessed as a form or as the act of the one having it. But this is a minimum condition for claiming that the one having it acts by such an action. This is clear from the case of creatures not only as regards correlatives but also as regards persons, howsoever distinct, in regard to the same action.
8.10 [Proof a priori*] A third way to prove the thesis is a priori:
[6] First, by a proper middle term in this way. In God the proximate formal ground for causation is intellect or will, or some act of theirs.
But the three persons share the same intellect and the same single will, and consequently all have the same act of understanding and of volition and the same object, be it primary or secondary. There10 Aristotle, Metaph. vin, c.6 (1045b23-24).
11 Augustine, De Trin. vu, c.1, n.2: PL 42, 936; CCSL 50, 249.
12 Henry of Ghent, Quodl. vi, q.2 (fol. 219A-B); Swmma a.60, q.4, ad | (1, fol. 172B-173H).
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fore, the same proximate formal ground for causation is common to all three persons.
8.11 Augustine!® touches on this when he writes: "How has the Father sanctified him, if he has sanctified himself? For the same
Lord mentions both." And he proves this, and then adds: "How did the Father deliver him, if he has delivered himself, for the Apostle
Paul says both?" And he gives this reply: "He will answer, I believe, if he grasps the words correctly, 'Because the will of the Father and Son is one, and their operation inseparable.'"" And this is confirmed from another remark??: 'The will of God is the first and supreme cause of all things," that is to say, it is the formal ground for causation.
8.12 [An objection and its solution] One® might object to this that even though the will or intellect is the formal ground for causing, it is not such in every person, but only one person has the power properly insofar as it is the formal or proximate principle of causation.
Answer: If it is the same power with the same act and same object, then no matter what person it be in, it will always provide him with the same basis for causation as regards object that can be caused by such a power, for the suppositum does not provide the formal ground for acting with some new form of causality, but rather the suppositum takes on the formal character of an agent pre- . cisely because it has a formal ground for acting. Therefore every person with the same power will have the same relationship to a causable object.
8.13 [An invalid argument] Another proper middle term used to prove the thesis is the divine being, which is used as follows. The divine being is common to all three persons, because of the divine essence they have in common. But the divine being is the proper principle of causing, the proof of which is this: the being of things is properly a being that is caused and it must be caused by something similar to it; therefore it is caused per se by the divine being.1*
On the contrary, essence qua essence as a principle of acting acts only after the manner of nature* [i.e., necessarily]. Now God causes nothing extrinsic to himself in this fashion.17
13 Augustine, De Trin. 1, c.5, n.g: PL 42, 850; CCSL 50, go.
14 Ibid., m1, c.4, n.g: PL 42, 873; CCSL so, 136.
15 Cf. supra, note 12.
16' Thomas, Summa theol. 1, 4.45, a.6 in corp. (1, 232).
17 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. u, d.1, q.2, n.5 (ed. Vives x1, 54); Lectura, d.gg, nn.42-61 (XVI, 492-500); cf. infra, q.16.
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8.14 [Another a priori proof] Finally, the thesis is established by an a priort common middle term in this fashion. Everything caused depends per se upon a first cause as the imperfect and possible depend on the perfect and simply necessary. Therefore, whatever is the formal ground for causing will also be the formal ground for supporting this causal dependence, and hence it will be the formal reason for being perfect and necessary. But the three persons share in common the same necessity and perfection. Therefore the informal ground for acting will be common also.
2. Objection to these Proofs 8.15 Against these proofs [in 8.6ff.] one could argue:1* Knowledge and love, insofar as they are divine processions,* are "reasons'' according to which creatures are produced and fall into the category of formal causality in the sense that without them the essential intellect and will would not be sufficiently disposed to produce these creatures. Now the Word is the knowledge proceeding [from the Father] just as the Holy Spirit is the love proceeding [from Father and Son]. Therefore, the Word has some aspect of formal causality peculiar to himself and the same is true of the Holy Spirit.
8.16 The major premise is proved in four ways, the first of which is this: Wisdom qua essential is only speculative, whereas wisdom qua personal is practical with reference to what is to be accomplished, containing in itself the ideas which are the principles of operating. But no knowledge suffices as the proximate basis for operating if it is not practical. Therefore [wisdom qua essential is not sufficient].
8.17 The second proof is by way of an example, that of a created artist. An artisan wise in his art has a twofold knowledge of an artefact: (a) one is the simple knowledge of his art in general, by which he views everything that can be produced in a purely speculative way; (b) the other is dispositional knowledge as regards a specific work. By this knowledge of a particular art, which stems conceptually from the universal art, the artist sees the order he will follow in producing the work. This knowledge is practical, and without it he cannot execute the work. In a similar way, God knows the singular simply and he knows it absolutely as a particular manifestation
[of himself] through his essential knowledge, but by his produced knowledge [or the Word] he knows the same intrinsic and extrinsic things as a kind of expression of himself. And in particular, he knows in the Word all the things that can be made and knows just
18 Cf. supra, note 12.
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how to make them. Therefore, just as the knowledge of the universal art without that of the particular art does not suffice, so in God the essential knowledge without the productive knowledge is not sufficient.
8.18 The third proof of the major is by way of an analogy taken from natural things. As the natural form is not a principle of action insofar as it represents a perfection of the subject in which it exists, but only insofar as it expresses a relation to an effect, so wisdom and love are only principles of operation insofar as they imply a related | tionship to an effect. Now dispositional wisdom and affective love, which imply a relationship to an effect, are none other than the wisdom proceeding [from the Father] and the love proceeding [from Father and Son].
8.19 A fourth proof of the major based on how the intrinsic order of production is related to the extrinsic is this. Where the conceptual order among the essentials in God ends, there the order of origin* among the persons begins. By the same token, then, where the order of origin among the persons ends, there the order of origin as regards creatures begins. Therefore, the Father cannot produce a creature if the Word and Holy Spirit have not been first produced. But if the Father formally possessed in himself all that was needed to produce the creature, so that no causal aspect sup- . plied exclusively by the Word would be required, then the Father, it seems, could cause even without first producing the Son.
Augustine's words confirm this:'* "Our word can exist and yet no work may follow it, but there can be no work unless the Word precedes, just as the Word of God could be, even though no creature existed, but no creature could be, except through that Word through whom all things were made."
3. Answer to the Objection 8.20 The major in the argument [in 8.15] must be denied, for as we said [in 8.10-11], knowledge and love, insofar as they figure in God as the cause of creatures, are common formally to all three persons.
8.21 [To the first proof] The answer to the first proof for the major [in 8.16] is this. In us knowledge in the memory and in the word are not speculative and practical respectively. They only differ as habitual and actual knowledge and are always of the same type, being either both speculative or both practical. Therefore, if 19 Augustine, De Trin. xv, c.11, n.20: PL 42, 1073; CCSL 50a, 489.
QUESTION EIGHT
the essential knowledge in the Father is related in analogous fashion to his knowledge in the Word, then the former will not be speculative and the latter practical knowledge, but both will be practical or both will be speculative. What is added about the ideas being contained in his wisdom will be resolved in the answer to the initial argument [at 8.56].
8.22 [To the second proof] As for the second proof [in 8.17], I deny that the knowledge of the creature in the Father is related to knowledge in the Word as knowledge of an art in general would be.
This is clear from what we have just said, for the relationship between the two is that of knowledge in the memory and an act of understanding, and though knowledge in the Father is as it were habitual and the other quasi-actual, both would be equally universal or equally particular.
8.23 The assertion [in 8.17] that universal art is speculative whereas particular art is practical does not seem to be true either.
As the Ethics?® defines it: "Art is a state of knowledge concerned with making which involves a true course of reasoning."' Therefore, it is clear that all art is practical, since all knowledge of this sort is practical.
The admission that the particular art has its conceptual origins in the universal art also suggests this counterargument. Practical conclusions must be traced back to practical principles, at least proximately. What is more, there seems no way in which they could be derived from speculative principles unless the practical is the logical subalternate of the speculative, for in every discipline the conclusions proper to it are traced back to principles also proper to it, unless the lower science is logically subalternated* to the higher, the conclusions of which it uses as its principles.
Consequently, if some author claims that a universal art is speculative whereas the particular art is practical, this needs further exegesis and one could explain it in this way. The more an intermediate term recedes from one extreme, the more it approaches the other and may even be said to take on the character of the other, as is clear from the Physics?! where red in relation to white is called black. Now purely speculative knowledge is in no way directed to the production of a work, whereas purely practical knowledge is immediately directed to its production. Any intermediary knowledge, therefore, to the extent that it recedes from the one ex20 Aristotle, Ethica ad Nic. VI, c.5 (1140a20-21).
21 Aristotle, Physic. v, c.5 (229b15-21).
GOD AND CREATURES
treme, can be said to fall under the other. Now general knowledge of an art is not immediately directed to producing a particular work, since every actual production involves an individual object, as the Metaphysics? makes clear. Knowledge of a particular art, however, is immediately directive. To the extent, therefore, that general knowledge of an art is not immediately directive in the way the specific knowledge is, one could call it "speculative," even though it is not speculative in an unqualified sense, but is rather directive, although mediately, since the particular knowledge is, by virtue of it, immediately directive.
[12] 8.24 As for the added remark [in 8.17] that God knows in the Word all the things that can be made and how to make them, I ask:
What is this knowledge in God supposed to be? In our own case, I find there is at first knowledge about what can be done and this determines what has to be done. This knowledge is followed by an act of my will, by which I choose to act correctly in conformity with the dictates of reason. This volition is followed by the knowledge that I have chosen to act in this way, and if I knew my will would never change or could not be impeded, I would know that in time I would accomplish what I set out to do.
In God, however, there are no really distinct acts, but there is at -most a conceptual distinction. By this dispositional knowledge, therefore, either you refer to that knowledge that precedes as it were every act of his will or else you refer to the act by which he wills to produce in this way. And then it follows that if such dispositional knowledge is present in one person, it is also in the others, for all God's knowledge which is prior as it were to every act of the will is present in the divine intellect in virtue of the object which first moves it [i.e., the essence]. But such an object moves the divine intellect necessarily to all knowledge that precedes any act of the will, because in the whole process the only motive principle is one which acts the way nature does, which is necessarily. Or if by dispositional knowledge you mean that which is subsequent to some voluntary determination, then it follows that every person knows this determination of the will to be in every other person just as much as it is in himself, so that every person has equal knowledge about what can be done and how it can be accomplished.
Neither is it correct to say that one person knows that another, and not himself, has made this sort of decision as regards this possible work, for as we argued {in 8.10-11] for our main conclusion of 2 Aristotle, Metaph. 1, c.1
(g81a15-24).
QUESTION EIGHT
this article, if there is but one will then what it decides is also one, and so if one person decides about a specific work in this particular way, it follows the other person who has the same will-act does so in the same way, and when he reflects in his mind upon this willact, he will know that he is disposed to this particular work in the same way as the other persons are, and so this dispositional knowledge in their mind is something common to all three persons.
[13] 8.25 [To the third proof] As for the third proof [in 8.18] about a natural, active form, my answer is this: Although a natural, active form does have a certain relationship to its product which is indicated by the word "principle" or "potency," it still remains a fact that the subject of this relationship, which we call a principle and a potency, is a form that is not relative but absolute.
Proof: What an action or movement formally begins with is certainly no less something absolute than what it terminates with, particularly if this proposition is true: "The formal principle of acting is that which is alike in the agent and its product." As the Physics?* makes clear, the formal term of the action or movement not only can be something absolute, but it must be an absolute form which does not include some relation. Therefore, it is necessary, or at least possible, that the formal principle of acting be an absolute term and an absolute form.
An example illustrates this. Although heat has the power to warm and what I call a power or potency implies a relation concretely, nevertheless this relationship is not included per se in the definition of that active principle insofar as we take the active principle to be the subject said to have this power.
A somewhat more abstract example illustrates the same point. To be an object implies a relationship, as the very words indicate, yet if one is asked what the first object of vision is, it is no answer to {14] cite something relative, for then it would be a simple matter to list all the objects of the various powers, for instance, that the object of vision is the visible, the object of hearing is the audible and so on.
One must assign as first object something absolute which is the substrate of the relationship implied in its being an object, and the form of that absolute is what moves such a power per se, such as light or color as regards vision, or sound as regards hearing, and so on. Aristotle says as much in the De anima*: "The object of sight is the visible." And he continues: "What is visible is color and color is what
23 Aristotle, Physic. v, c.2 (225b10-15).
24 Aristotle, De anima Ul, c.7 (418a26-30).
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lies upon what is in its own nature visible; 'in its own nature' here means not that visibility is involved in the definition of what thus underlies color, but that this substratum contains in itself the cause of visibility. For every color has in it the power to set in movement," etc. He wants to say that if color is the first object of sight, it is visible of itself, not according to the first mode of per se predication*
(indicated by the words "not involved in the definition," that is to say, the predicate ''visible" does not fall under the definition of the subject), but according to the second mode of per se predication,* because the subject contains the cause of the predicate, and this is what he wants to express when he adds: "but that this substrate contains in itself the cause of visibility."
8.26 It is the same in many other instances and, in particular, in our case. When we ask for the active principle behind some action, we do not have in mind the concrete relationship implied by the fact that it is an active principle (otherwise it would be easy to state the principle behind every action, for the source of the heating would be the heating principle, the source of illumination, the illuminating principle, etc.). What we are looking for is the proximate basis for this relationship. Now this basis is an absolute form and it does not include the relation, for this could not be present in something which is prior by nature to the term of the relation, yet the active form is prior in nature to the term produced by the action,
. at least in equivocal* actions. Applying this to our case, we could say that if there is no more reason for the knowledge, as the formal basis for producing the creature, including the notion of the relationship to this creature, than there is for a natural, active form including the relationship to its effect (and here the form does not include the relation, but the relation follows from the form), then it would seem to follow that this relationship to creatures is not included in the definition of God's knowledge insofar as it is the formal principle for producing a creature.
8.27 To put it another way, briefly, we could say that in the knowledge produced [in the Word] there is no relation to what can be created that is not already present in the knowledge common to all three persons, a point we proved earlier [in 8.10-11].
8.28 [To the fourth proof] As regards the fourth proof of the major [in 8.19], although one could show many places where the proposed parallel between the two sets of priorities breaks down, still the conclusion that the Father could not produce creatures without first producing the Son and Holy Spirit is true enough.
QUESTION EIGHT
8.29 The reason for this is that whenever the same principle produces one thing with simple necessity and another contingently, he cannot produce that to which he is contingently related unless what he produces necessarily has already been produced, particularly when the necessity of producer and produced is one and the same.
Now the extrinsic product is produced contingently, whereas the intrinsic one is produced necessarily and in such a way that the latter is necessary by the same necessity as that which characterizes the producer. Therefore, the order of external products cannot begin unless the order of internal processions have taken place.?®
8.30 Another reason is this: Causality over what is posterior is communicated to the prior product if such causality is not repugnant to what it properly is, for being the first to be produced, there is NO inconsistency stemming from the order in which they are produced. Therefore, since the person produced is produced prior to any creatures, as the previous argument indicated, and since causality with respect to creatures is not repugnant to him by reason of his production, it follows that he is prior to the creatures not only because he is produced before them but also insofar as he is productive as regards creatures.
8.31 This twofold basis for priority can be inferred from Augus- [16] tine's words [in 8.19]. The first is expressed when he says: "The Word of God could be, even though no creature existed, but not vice versa,' whereas he mentions the second when he states that it is the Word "through whom all things were made."
8.32 But it does not follow either from these two grounds for priority or from this authority that the Word has some formal basis for causation that is peculiarly his own, for even without such he could still be prior as a person to a creature either as one product to another or as a productive principle to what is produced.
For there is no need that the product more immediate to the producer, even if this product be productive of some third thing, have some ground for producing that is exclusively its own. It is sufficient that it share the same common basis had by the first producer so long as this is communicated to him before the final product is produced, and so it is here. From this it is clear why the Father cannot create if Son and Holy Spirit are not produced, because if that is not produced to which the producer is necessarily related, then he cannot produce the other to which he is contingently related. Also if that person is not produced who was born to have the same causal
25 Cf, Duns Scotus, Ord. u, d.1, q.1, nn.12 and 14 (ed. Vivés x1, 22-26).
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relationship to some third being as the first producer has, then this third being cannot be produced. Hence the assumption made [in 8.19] that if no causal aspect exclusive to the Word were required, the Father could create even if he did not produce the Word, is clearly false for the two aforesaid reasons.
8.33 One might object that according to Augustine the creature necessarily presupposes the Word in some causal role, since he eG says [in 8.19]: "No creature could be, except through that Word through whom all things were made." But he would not be needed necessarily as a cause if the complete and total causality resided in the Father.
To this I answer: That the Word is a necessary causal prerequisite for the creature's production can be understood in two ways.
Either he is needed to perfect the causality or he is needed because he shares the same causality possessed by the first producer. Now the Son is not required in the first way, since he does not perfect the Father's causality. The Father possesses perfect causality in and by himself and he communicates this to the Son, who has it because the Father does. But the Son is required in the second way, for before the creature can be produced, the same nature possessed by the Father is communicated to him and consequently he has the selfsame active power as regards anything subsequent by nature. It follows that the Son shares with the Father the same causality that is a necessary prerequisite for the production of a creature.
8.34 Another answer, which says roughly the same thing, is that for an effect to need something as a causal prerequisite can be understood in two ways. One would be if it were needed simply from the viewpoint of the effect itself, namely if such a cause were not there, the effect would be lacking something sufficient to produce it. The other way would be because it is needed as a necessary concomitant in the cause. In the first way, the Son is not a necessary causal prerequisite, but he is in the second way, for the Father would possess the same total causal perfection, if per impossibile he alone existed. Nevertheless, because he is unable to act with this causality the Son first concurs with him and shares the same perfection with him, and uses it to perform the same creative act.
ARTICLE Is some Mode or Order in Causing Proper to the Word?
8.35 [The answer is negative] As for the second main question [18] [in 8.5], I say that the Son himself denies he has any primary causal-
QUESTION EIGHT
ity: "The Son can do nothing of himself.''?6 Nevertheless he does attribute to himself a subordinate authority in causing when he adds: "Except what he sees the Father doing." And further on he continues: "The works which the Father has given me to accomplish, these very works I do," etc.27 "The Father has given me,"— here is his authorization. "I do,"—here is the causality. The Son has a similar authority with respect to the Holy Spirit. The reason for both assertions is the same. The source of a person's principle of action is also the source of his acting and is the one by virtue of whom he acts. This other does not play the role of a superior cause, however, because he does not have a distinct power from the other, but the second person acts in virtue of the first as the principle communicating the causality to him and therefore as having authority over this causality, over which the recipient has a subordinate authority.
8.36 [Objections and their solution] If by his origin the Father causes before the Son, then the Son does not cause that effect, for what is caused before cannot be caused afterwards, unless the same thing could be caused twice, which is impossible.
8.37 One could argue from the order of origin the same as from the order of causality. If the Father makes something by himself, whereas the Son does not, then the Father causes something which is first in origin and, as first, it cannot be caused by the Son, as it were, in the second sign* or instant of origin, because the same thing cannot be caused twice.
8.38 To these objections I reply that an order in causing can be understood insofar as the action refers either to the producer or to the thing produced. If we take it in the first way, then there is an order of authority and subauthority in the case at hand, for such an order obtains between the agents insofar as one receives the formal principle of acting from the other. Taken in the second way, however, there is no order involved, for the creature is not put into existence first by the Father and only afterwards by the Son, but before the term is produced, the power to cause it is there in both, but it is there according to some order, viz., that of origin. But the order of origin being completed, all three persons possess this same power at the same sign of nature so that the effect is put into existence by all three at once. Therefore, the statement [in 8.36] that what is caused before cannot be caused afterwards is admittedly true if 'before' and 'afterwards' refer to the very same causing,
26 John 5:19, 27 Tbid., 36.
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and it is in this sense that the proof given for the statement holds.
But this does not justify the claim that the one person who has the causal power first in the order of origin and the other who has it afterwards in the order of origin cannot both use that power, which they possess simultaneously by nature, to cause the effect simultaneously.
8.39 One could give a different answer, especially to the second objection [in 8.37]. "To be first in origin to cause" means "to cause by oneself"; "'to cause as posterior in origin" means "'to cause by another." But just as a principle has the power of causing from another or of itself, so too does it have its causation. And it is not true that what is caused by one first in origin cannot be caused by another that is posterior in origin, for this would mean that something could not be caused by one thing of itself and by another not of itself, which is clearly false where the same active power exists in both the producer and the one produced.
ARTICLE III
Is some Relationship of Causality or any Relationship of His to a Creature Included per se in the Word's
Constitutive Property?
8.40 [The answer is negative] As for the third main question [in 8.5], I say that no relationship to a creature could be included per se in what is constitutive of the person of the Word.
8.41 [It is proved by three arguments] First, everything included per se in the person of the Word is real, where "real" is opposed to conceptual being, for the Word is constituted as real in this sense, and hence whatever is included in him per se is also real in this sense. Now in the divine, every relationship to a creature represents a conceptual relation. Therefore [it is not included per se in the Word].
8.42 Second, every relationship of God to a creature has as its proximate foundation something that is common to all three persons. Here I do not take '"'proximate" to mean that the relation would arise from the very nature of the foundation, for then it would be a real relation, but I understand "proximate" in the sense that it is the proximate reason why the act of the intellect conceptually relates the divine persons to the creature. For in using the method touched on [in 8.10] of the first article in regard to intellect and will, we could prove that any perfection of God can be conceptually related to a creature by an act of his intellect. But when
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QUESTION EIGHT
the proximate foundation for relating something in this way is common to all three persons, then the relation itself cannot be proper to any one of them. Therefore, no relation to a creature is included per se in the property of any person, for whatever is included in that way is something exclusive to that person.?*
8.43 Third, according to the first way, one could argue that whatever is in a divine person is of itself necessary being, where by "of itself" is excluded any derivation from a cause, but not necessarily from a principle,* for whatever is in a divine person is uncaused although it could be there as "stemming from a principle" [principiatum].* No relationship to a creature, however, be it real or conceptual, can be necessary in this sense, because the creatural term of the relation cannot be necessary in this way, for in whatever being it may have, a creature is either possible or at least not necessary of itself. Therefore, no relationship to a creature, whatever be its being, can be included per se in a divine person.
8.44 This argument, however, though it proceeds from true premises perhaps, could, it seems, be challenged or refuted on several grounds, and could only be shown to hold evidently by a reasoning so complicated that I have no intention of going into it here.
8.45 [Objections] To what was said [from 8.40 on], however, it [21] is objected that the very term "Word" implies a per se property of the second person and that in addition it imphes per se a relationship to a creature. Therefore [the Word implies a relationship per se to a creature].
The first proposition appears clear from the beginning of John's Gospel": "In the beginning was the Word," where the Evangelist intends to refer properly to the second person in the divine, and Augustine says®': "By that by which he is the Son, by that he is the Word."
The second proposition is proved also from Augustine*! where he is explaining John: 'In the beginning was the Word, which in Greek is called Jogos and in Latin Verbum, and signifies a 'reason.' But here 'Word' or Verbum is the better interpretation since it signifies not only a relationship to the Father, but also a relation to those things which have been made through the Word as an operative power." According to Augustine, then "Word" implies a relationship to a creature.
28 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, d.27, nn.g1-96.
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30 Augustine, De Trin. vu, c.2, n.3: PL 42, 936; CCSL 50, 250.
31 Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus 83, q.63: PL 40, 54.
GOD AND CREATURES
8.46 Specifically it is objected to the reason given [in 8.43]: If the claim were true that no creature is necessary of itself, whatever its mode of being may be, and hence no relationship to a creature can be necessary in this way, then it would follow that neither of the following relationships in God would be necessary of itself, viz., es knower to the creature known or as creative to a creature as something able to be created. But there is nothing formally or necessarily in God that is not necessary of itself. Therefore, it would follow that God does not necessarily know the creature nor is he necessarily able to create it, both of which are false.
8.47 [Solution to the objections] In the first objection [in 8.45], there is a twofold weakness: one concerning the real state of affairs,
(22) the other stemming from the meaning of "Word." As for the first of these, I say that in what is proper to the second person there is no [real] relationship per se to a creature, for the reasons cited [in 8.41-43].
8.48 As for the second, I insist that a real relation and a conceptual relation do not make for anything that is per se one. Hence if the name "Word" implies two relationships of this sort, it follows there is no single per se concept bound up with the name "Word," because the relationship to the Father as "'speaking the Word" is real whereas the relation to the creature as "'spoken" or "caused" is purely conceptual. Therefore, if "Word" per se implies but a single concept, then it denotes only one of the two and just connotes the other.
And if this is true, then one could probably say that just as "Son"
[Filius] and "the act or state of being a child" [filiatio] signify the same thing although the manner of signifying differs, so ""Word" as a kind of concrete term and its corresponding "'act or state of being a word" [verbatio], if one might be permitted to coin a term, signify the same thing, though the manner in which they do so differs. For "to be a word" is the same as to be spoken or be expressed intellectually. Hence "Word" implies in the concrete that which is intellectually expressed and then it will also connote a relation to that which is spoken through the word insofar as it connotes perfect knowledge and such knowledge has a conceptual relation to the things known through it.
Therefore, according to this interpretation, there would be this order in what is signified by "Word." First and per se it signifies the relationship of origin, namely as a passive intellectual expression, but it does so concretely; second, it connotes the knowledge, which is the quasi-formal term communicated through this expression, and
QUESTION EIGHT
this knowledge is common to all three persons although it is appropriated* to the Word; third, however, from the fact that this knowledge has a relationship to what is knowable, the name ''Word"' con- [23 ] notes this respect. According to this, then, the second proposition assumed in the argument has to be denied.
8.49 And as for its proof from Augustine [in 8.45], one could say that it would be better to translate logos as "Word" rather than
"reason," because this name "reason"
[ratio] implies neither his proper relationship of origin nor his appropriated subsequent relationship to the creature in the same way that '"'Word" does. Hence
Word qua Word can be related by the mind to anything and hence can have the appropriated conceptual relationship.
Augustine's words "'as signifying a relationship to the Father" must be taken to mean what is signified first and principally, whereas his added phrase "but also to those things which have been made" must refer to what is connoted.
8.50 As for the second objection [in 8.46], one could say that what is "necessary of itself' without inconsistency on its part could be had where there is no real being of anything that is not necessary of itself, for there is no contradiction on the part of some prior absolute that it exist without the existence of what is posterior, and still such a necessary being might be unable to exist without the "known being" of the other, because it would have a knowledge of the other necessarily and hence would have to have the other in its
"known being," and also in its "possible being' for similar reasons.
Therefore nothing real can pertain to a divine person unless it is necessary of itself, in the sense of being uncaused. But whatever is included in the property of a person does pertain to that person as something real. But it is possible that 'to know something" or "'to have power over something" does pertain to a person, even though neither the thing itself nor its "existence" as a thought object or possible represents a thing that is necessary of itself.
8.51 Another possible answer would be to say that so necessarily does God know and have causal power over the creature that each of these can be said to be formally something "necessary of itself' insofar as they are uncaused, but they are not "necessary" so far as their real existence goes but only in their diminutive being* or "existence" [as objects of knowledge or power]. But whatever is included in the person's property has to be necessary (in this sense of uncaused) so far as its real being goes. Now what is necessary of itself does not require as a necessary concomitant the real being of
GOD AND CREATURES
anything else, though it may require something else's ''being known" or its 'diminutive being."
8.52 A third possible answer would be to distinguish between (a) what is necessarily required (be it as a prior or as a concomitant condition) for something to have being as something necessary, and (b) what is necessary as something which is a consequence of another's necessary being.
8.53 [Exemplar and final causality] From what has been said about efficient causality, the solution to the question about exemplar* and final causality [in 8.5] should be clear. There is some formal ground by which each of these causes functions in its respective way, even as there is such a ground in the case of the efficient cause.
It follows then by analogy that none of these "causalities'" can be proper to one person unless the formal ground for causing is also proper. Therefore, there can be no more reason for any person to possess an exclusive ground for functioning as an exemplar or final cause than for doing so as an efficient cause.
8.54 This can be proved by the arguments cited in regard to efhcient causality, but the last [in 8.14] seems most clearly applicable as a proof of our thesis. For the formal ground supporting any form of causal dependence in any of the causal categories that we are speaking of here has to be some perfection, and if we are speaking of the first cause in any of these categories, it will have to be a pure perfection.* Therefore, if every pure perfection is the same in all three persons, it follows that all of these categories of causality have to be common to all.
Reply to the Initial Argument [25] 8.55 As for the argument for the opposite opinion [in 8.1], I say to the minor that any person is an artist to the extent he is creative, and since a divine person is simple, "having" and "what is had" do not differ, so that each person is the art and his art is in equal measure particular and actual, as is clear from the answers to the objections in the first article [8.20-22]. Nevertheless, by appropriation* the Word is called "Wisdom" and "Knowledge" insofar as by reason of the way he proceeds from the memory of the Father, it is particularly appropriate to speak of him as the actual knowledge of that memory and as expressing everything contained therein. This appears clear from Augustine®?: "Thus the Son is called the wisdom of the Father, just as he is called the 'light' of the Father," and he
** Augustine, De Trin. vii, c.1, n.2: PL 42, 936; CCSL 50, 249.
QUESTION EIGHT
immediately explains in what sense this is so: 'Just as he is the light of light, and both are one light, so he is understood to be wisdom of wisdom, and both are one wisdom." In like manner I say he is art of art and both are one art.
8.56 'The answer to what was said in the minor [of 8.1] about the ideas should be clear from our reply to the first objection [in 8.2021] of the first article. The ideas are common to all persons, although they are appropriated especially to the Word because of the peculiar way in which he emanates or proceeds as the Father's actual knowledge, namely, as the actual expression of every object contained, as it were, habitually in that paternal memory.
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