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Sixth Titulus
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SIXTH TITULUS OSES: ENOUGH HAS BEEN argued up to this point against our sect and the sect of the Saracens. You have confounded both, from reason as well as from authority . Now, however, explain what sort of faith yours is and distinguish the nature of your belief [credulitas] under [various] chapters. petrus: At the beginning of my book I proclaimed the nature of my belief to you under headings. Now, then, investigate my disputation under any heading and, if it please you, defeat what I said, if you are able. moses: I do desire to do so, if I will be able to. Now, then, I will begin to investigate the first part of your faith: namely, how it is that God is one and yet three persons (which Christians call the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) such that no one of these is by nature [naturaliter] prior to another in time, nor separated from another substantially [substantialiter]. After that, we will debate other parts of your belief, until we have covered all. Explain, then, how these three persons exist, and do this first in a rational fashion. petrus: I want to call the three persons “substance,” “wisdom ,” and “will.” Moreover, I name the first person “substance” for this reason: because wisdom and will are in it and come from it and it itself comes from nothing else. Although there are three persons, all are one substance.1 164 1. Alfonsi’s Trinitarian speculation here is unusual, to say the least. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan definition emphasizes that the divine substance is shared equally by the three persons that form the Godhead. Although twelfthcentury Christian exegetes sometimes identified the three persons as Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, this model of substance, wisdom, and will Gilbert Dahan suggests may be derived from the Kalam, that is, generally speaking, medieval Islamic natural or philosophical theology, which also influenced Jewish and Christian thinkers. See his “L’usage de la ratio dans la polémique contre les juifs, XIIe –XIVe siècles,” 302. moses: Can these three be discovered by reason? petrus: They can. Since in the first part of my book we treated resolutely and adequately of substance (namely, that it exists), we do not have to look into it further now, but it remains to explain whether wisdom and will are present in substance itself. moses: This is what I am asking. petrus: Since, then, it truly follows that substance is the very creator of all things and the beginning of all things having a beginning and the maker of all things made, it is necessary that it have wisdom and will. This is so that it would know what it wills to make before it makes it, and even so that it will to make it, because before it may produce a work in reality [in demonstratione] it is first formed in the mind by imagining it, and this imagination is wisdom. Moreover, when it knows it in this way, either it makes it or it does not make it. It does not make it, however, if it does not will it. Whereas, if it makes it, it also wills it. And this is will. Therefore, it appears from our discussion that the work is preceded by both wisdom and will. The creator of the world, therefore, is unable to create anything before the knowledge or the will should exist in him. moses: That is true. petrus: Therefore, God is substance, wisdom, and will. moses: That is true. But you still have to prove (as you believe ) that both wisdom and will exist eternally in God, and are inseparable from him, and that he does not exist prior to them in time. petrus: I will show that to be true. Certainly, although it follows that God has wisdom and will, we have to know whether this wisdom and will are existent in him and are not separated from him, or whether [they exist] outside him, or whether at some time [they exist] with him and at some time not. moses: It is true that they exist in him and are not separated from him. This is because, were this not the case, then God would be not-wise after he has been wise, or he would be without a will after he has had a will, which cannot happen, since after they are in him they may be separated from him only per accidens, and no accident is...