Scotus for Dunces: An Introduction to the Subtle Doctor

Appendix Three

193 APPENDIX 3 Appendix Three Reading One Quodlibet 4, article 3, 4.61-4.63. Divine Persons in the Trinity1 From What Considerations could One Prescind and still have the First Person? 4.61 Given the two conclusions [of 4.48], viz., that the first person’s relationship of origin to the second is only one thing in reality but is conceptually distinguished, we can make clear to what extent the first person is separable apart from this relationship of origin to the second. If this means separable in reality , this is clearly false. Neither is there any need to distinguish this or that aspect of the relationship, for in reality it is but one single thing. If this were really removed, what is constituted by it would not remain either. If one means separable conceptually without contradiction, however, in the sense that the notion of the first person in the mind is separable from the notion of the relationship of origin between the first and second person, we must, it seems, make use of the distinction cited between the diverse ways of considering that one relationship. Of course if one abstracts or prescinds from all the ways at once, the mind will have no conception whatsoever of a suppositum related by such a relationship of origin. It is contradictory that an intellect should conceive the complete absence of any relationship of origin in a suppositum and still conceive of a suppositum related by such a relationship. There is no contradiction, however, that the suppositum considered according to a prior reason should SCOTUS FOR DUNCES 194 be conceivable apart from the relationship considered under some posterior reason or aspect. Now these diverse aspects in our mind would have that order of prior or posterior conceivability they would be apt to have in those objects suited to move our intellect. 4.62 Now perhaps one could without contradiction think of someone subsisting incommunicably apart from a relationship of origin to the second person if he were viewed under some special aspect involving a degree of indeterminateness or indifference , or involving only aptitude or degree of actuality or something [e.g., the act of generation] that could conceivably have passed away before [paternity] occurred. 4.63 But if you ask: Under what formal aspect would the first person be thought of as incommunicably existing? I reply: Perhaps one could abstract from the very relative incommunicable concept itself or from that absolute incommunicable form, some less specific concept, namely, “this form” or “this incommunicable entity.” And then perhaps one could conceive of this, in its proper singularity, to be that by which this person is incommunicable without conceiving anything more specific about his individuality . I do this sort of thing when I conceive not just “being ” but “this being” or “this substance” without thinking of this individual in any more specific way, as I do when I view some distant object, seeing it as a body before perceiving it to be an animal or just one animal. And perhaps it is this indifferent concept of an incommunicable form that he had in mind who thought of a divine suppositum without yet determining in his intellect whether the suppositum is absolute or relative. How else could one explain what philosophers thought of God’s activity in the world without assuming their every notion false? For it is clear they did not think of this relative suppositum as moving the heavens, yet they did assume some suppositum did so, because every action is ascribed to some suppositum. If they did not think of the notion of an incommunicable suppositum as indifferent to both absolute and relative, then they necessarily thought that this suppositum moving the heavens was absolute , which is false. What we say here about some concept indif- 195 APPENDIX 3 ferent to both absolute and relative or about that of an incommunicable suppositum unspecified as either absolute or relative is not in any way at odds with our prior statement that every entity invested with reality is either formally absolute or formally relative. For one can readily abstract from several things an indifferent concept, neither relative nor absolute. Nevertheless everything when specified to be existing extramentally has to be determinately either one or the other. Hence indifference of the concept that can be abstracted from several individuals does not imply a like indifference in the existing individual. SCOTUS FOR DUNCES 196...