Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle

Question Ten

QUESTION TEN Is passive potency present in everything? Fifth, it is asked: Is passive potency present in everything? [Arguments pro and con] 1 [1] It seems so: It seems to be present even in God, for the Son is not generated from nothing, according to Augustine, Against Maximinus, 1 but from the substance of the Father. Therefore, this substance seems to be in passive potency as a quasi subject of generation. 2 Also, the simply perfect and the imperfect are privatively opposed and divide the whole of being. The simply perfect is affirmed of God alone. Therefore, whatever is caused is imperfect privatively. Therefore, it is perfectible. For privation only exists in something suited by nature to receive it. Everything perfectible, however, has passive potency. 3 This is confirmed, because only God is admittedly pure act; therefore in everything else there is some passive potency. 4 To the contrary: It is clear God [has no passive potency], because he is infinite act. 5 Also it is obvious that many created things, such as relations and many sorts of accidents, which are not receptive of any act, possess no passive potency. [I.—TO THE QUESTION] 6 [2] In answer to the question, we must say that some being, because of its supreme perfection is in no way perfectible, and therefore possesses in reality no passive potency. This being is God. 1 Augustine, Contra Maximinum II, ch. 14, n. 2 (PL 42, 771): “Nec videtis quam necesse sit, ut qui non est ex nihilo, non est ex aliqua re alia, sed ex Deo, nisi ex Dei substantia esse non possit, et hoc esse quod Deus est de quo est, hoc est, Deus est de Deo.” 538 THE METAPHYSICS OF JOHN DUNS SCOTUS 7 There are some, 2 however, who postulate in the divine essence a quasi passive potency, basing their view on a text from Augustine [n. 1], but I will pass over this opinion here. 8 Now it is evident that [in God] no passive potency exists as regard any act, for there is nothing in the divine essence that is not completely identical with it. But a passive potency, taken really, as regards its real act, is never found in the same thing. For qua receptive not only has it not received its act in actuality, but it is denuded of it, and of itself it is not that act. For it is impossible precisely to actuate that in which a real passive potency exists, without recognizing that of itself it does not possess that act to which it is in potency. 9 Now some things are so imperfect that they cannot serve as recipients of any perfection, such as the last accidents inhering in substance. And therefore, they possess no passive potency, although they have metaphysical potency, when they are not in act—as was said in the solution to the first question. 3 Some 4 indeed claim that all accidents are of this sort, so that none of them are recipients of further acts, although they are ordered in a certain way in perfecting a 2 Henry of Ghent, Summa a. 54, q. 3, ad 7 (II, f. 84E-F); Quodl. VIII q. 9 (f. 314 N); cf. Duns Scotus, Lectura I, d. 5, p. 2, q. un., nn. 52-56 (XVI 430-432; Ordinatio I, d. 5, p. 2, q. un., nn. 52-56 (IV 41-42). 3 Cf. supra, Bk. IX, qq. 1-2, n. 41; Duns Scotus, Porph. q. 6, n. 11: “Ad tertium dico quod accidens non est subiectum primum quod est subsistens et supportans, nam tale est sola substantia. Potest tamen accidens esse proximum et immediatum subiectum accidentis, quia est ratio susceptiva per quam aliud inest substantiae, ut superficies est subiectum albedinis. Hoc modo est in accidentibus subiectum passionis.” 4 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theol. I, q. 77, a. 8, ad 2 (V 5b-6a): “Ad secundum dicendum quod accidens per se non potest esse subiectum accidentis; sed unum accidens per prius recipitur in substantia quam aliud, sicut quantitas quam qualitas. Et hoc modo unum accidens dictur esse subiectum alterius... in quantum substantia uno accidente mediante recipit aliud”; Siger of Brabant, Quaest. in Metaphysicam, Rep. Paris. IV, q. 14 (ed. A. Maurer., [Philosophes Medievaux t. 25 Siger de Brabant Quaestiones in Metaphysicam (Louvain: Editions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie 1983, p. 423) “Nunc autem unum accidens respectu alterius non habet...