Scotus on the formal term, adequate term, and primary term of generation.

My translation:

Scotus, Ord. 1.5.2.un. nn. 94-97 [Vat. 4: 60-62].

[94] /60/ Generation in creatures occurs in two ways: by change or by production.
These two have formal definitions which can be separated without contradiction.

[95] Production formally pertains to a product, and it so happens that it comes about with a change of one of the parts of the composite, as is clear in creation. But change formally pertains to the act of the 'changeable', which passes from privation (to act).

But in creatures, change occurs with production, and this on account of the imperfection of the productive power which cannot give total being to the product. Thus, something of the product is presupposed, and that's what's changed by another of its parts. In this way, it produces a composite. Therefore, change and mutation can be separated without contradiction, and they can be really separated by looking to a perfect productive power.

[96] This is apparent in creation, where the perfection of the productive power which is first posited in total being entails that there really is the nature of a production, for the term acquires existence by that production. But there is no change here, for a change is said of some substratum 'now existing in a different way than it did before', from Physics VI [Z.3-4 234b5-7, 10-13], and in creation there is no substratum.

[97] To the proposed claim. Nothing imperfect should be posited in God. Only total perfection should be posited in God, and change is by definition said to be imperfect, for it entails potentiality in being changeable. A change is even said to be imperfect with respect to the active power of the changer, since the active power necessarily requires a co-cause to bring about the product (though not that there is here some imperfection. [So this kind of imperfection is not said of God]. Nor do we apply to God the imperfection associated with /62/ a passive power, nor even some imperfection in the active power. Rather, only the highest perfection [is said of God]. Thus, in no way is there posited here a generation with the character of a change nor quasi-change. In the divinity, there is only a generation that is a production, and this only in the sense that something acquires existence by that production. For this reason, divine generation occurs without matter, and thus only a term is assigned to divine generation, but no matter nor quasi-matter. This term is either the total or primary term, i.e., the adequate term – which, namely, primarily is produced – or the formal term, according to which the first term formally acquires its existence.


Scotus, Ord. 1.5.1.un. n. 28 [Vat. 4: 25-27].

[27] /25/ To the definition of 'to communicate', I say that the product of a production is the primary term, and I say that this 'primary term' /26/ is the adequate term. In this way, the Philosopher says in Metaphysics VII [Z.8 1033b16-18] that a composite [of matter and form] is generated primarily, since that is what primarily has existence by the production, so this is the adequate term [of production].

[28] In a composite [of matter and form], the form is the formal term of generation, but not a term per accidens. This is clear from the Philosopher in Physics II [B.1 193b12-18] where he proves that the form is the nature when he says that 'generation is natural because it is the way into a nature, and since it is the way into a form, then etc.'. Such a thing would not be if the form were only a per accidens term of generation. In the same way, the Philosopher wishes to say that the form and the end coincide in the same thing, which is true of the end – not of the generator, but rather of the generated thing. Therefore, the form is the end of a generation.

[29] Thus, the generator is related in one way to the primary term (which is the product or the generated thing), and in another way to the formal term. In creatures both of these relations are real, since there are two really distinct relations to, and both of these are really dependent on, the producer. But in the proposed claim, the producer has one real relation to the product, since it is a real distinction or real origin, /27/ though it does not have a real relation to the formal term in the product, since there is no real distinction [there], and without a real distinction there is no real relation. Therefore, 'to produce' in the divinity is called a real relation, 'but to communicate is called a relation of origin and quasi [a relation] of reason, concomitant to the real relation'.An example of this is the principle 'from which' [quo]. In creatures, it is really related to the product, just as the [principle] 'what' [quod] (for the same genus of cause pertains to art and to the artist, according to Metaphysics V [D.2 1013b20-33]), but the 'from which' does not have a real relation to the product because it is not distinct (according to [what is said in] distinction 7 [n. 13]). Nor the converse true, [namely, that] the formal term [is really related] to the producer.

[30] Therefore, when it is said that these are opposite relations, namely to communicate and to be communicated, I say that they are relations of reason, for they have opposite definitions, although they are necessarily concomitant with some real opposite relations, namely to produce and to be produced. But nevertheless, they are not formally 'these' and 'those' of the same relatives.

Some translations

I'm teaching a class this term on medieval trinitarian theology. The sub-topic on which we're focusing is 'the constitution of a divine person'. Here are a few translations I've done for the class:

Henry of Ghent, Summae Quaestionum Ordinariarum, article 56
John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio, book 1, distinction 26
William Ockham, Ordinatio, book 1, distinction 26

The Socratic Method

Some of my students will be reading Plato this week, and in their bibliography of 'helpful secondary literature', under the entry of Socratic method, I decided to list the classic essay by Peter Geach on the Euthyphro, which explains how Socrates always pursued the meaning of a term T: what is T? I also assigned the 1973 Tower of Power classic, 'What is Hip?' A fine example, I would say, of the Socratic method.

Ockham against Robert Cowton on the substratum view

One of the more obvious problems with Henry's theory is that it seems to entail that the divine essence is imperfect. By all standard medieval accounts, matter is less perfect than form because it has less actuality than form, and here 'actuality' refers to causal oomph (among other things). If Henry wants to say the divine essence is matter, it would seem to follow that the divine essence has less causal oomph, less actuality, or less perfection than it would if it were a form.

This is certainly not a consquence that Henry wants to draw. Robert Cowton, one of Henry's followers, attempted to address this problem by arguing that Henry's model of material production accurately applies to the Son's production, but only if we remove any imperfection from the model. For Robert, divine production is like material production, free from imperfection.

In material production, there is a producer and a product, so let's call these x and y, respectively. Both the producer and the product are composed of matter and form, so let's call the matter M and the form F, and let's use subscripts for x and y to specify the matter or form of x or y: the matter Mx and the form Fx of the producer, and the matter My and the form Fy of the product.

The same goes for divine production. There is a producer and a product, and let's call these x and y, and the producer and the product are each constituted from the divine essence and a personal property, so let's call these E and P, and let's use subscripts for x and y to specify the essence and the personal property of x and y: the essence Ex and the personal property Px for the producer, and essence Ey and the personal property Py for the product.

According to Robert, in material production, there are three imperfections that need to be removed in divine production. First, there is one lump of matter in the producer, and another lump of matter in the product, so the matter of the producer and the matter of the product are not numerically identical. Thus, in material production, we have:

(M1) Mx and My are not numerically identical.

But this is an imperfection, so Robert says we should remove this for the divine case. In divine production, the 'matter' is the divine essence, and it will not be numerically distinct in the producer and the product, so we have:

(D1) Ex and Ey are numerically identical.

In the production of the Son, the divine essence in the Father is numerically identical to the divine essence in the Son. Between the Father and the Son, there is just one divine essence that they share.

Second, the lump of matter that a product is made from is in potential to the form of the product. When a sculptor makes a statue out of a lump of clay, the clay is in a state of potentiality to the form of the statue, thus:

(M2) My is in a state of potentiality to Fy.

But this is also an imperfection, so Robert claims we should remove this from divine production. Thus, in divine production:

(D2) Ey is not in a state of potentiality to Py.

When the Father produces the Son in the divine essence, the divine essence is not in a state of potentiality to being a Son. Presumably, this means that 'before' the divine essence is a Son, it is not in a state of potentiality, It is always in a state of pure actuality.

Third, in material production, when a producer produces a product, this occurs by changing a lump of matter into a product. This means that the matter was first potentially the product, and after the production, it is actually the product. For example, when a sculptor turns a lump of clay into a statue, the clay changes from being potentially a statue to actually being a statue. Thus:

(M3) Before x produces y, My is potential. After x produces y, My is actual.

But this is an imperfection, so Robert says we should remove this imperfection in the divine case:

(D3) Ex and Ey are actual.

In divine production, then, the divine essence does not change from being potentially the Son to being actually the Son. Rather, the divine essence is always actual. D3 follows straightforwardly from D2.

In addition to the three imperfections just discussed, Robert thinks there are three perfections in material production that apply to divine production. First, in material production, the lump of matter in the producer is the same kind of thing as the lump of matter in the producer. Thus:

(M4) Mx is the same kind of thing as My.

This is a perfection, so this also applies to divine production:
(D4) Ex is the same kind of thing as Ey.

Of course, D4 follows directly from D1. If Ex and Ey are numerically the same thing, then there can only be one thing, E, so Ex and Ey will be whatever kind of thing E is.

Second, in material production, matter helps, along with a form, to constitute the product. When a sculptor produces a statue out of a lump of clay, the clay is part of what constitutes the statue. Thus:

(M5) My partially constitutes y.

This is a perfection, so this also applies to divine production:

(D5) Ey partially constitutes y.

Third, Robert claims that in material production, a product is not produced ex nihilo. Rather, a product is produced from some matter. Thus:

(M6) y is not produced ex nihilo.

Again, this is a perfection, so it applies to divine production too:

(D6) y is not produced ex nihilo.

When the Father produces the Son, he does not produce the Son from nothing. Rather, the divine essence already exists, and the divine essence is one of the ingredients in the Son.

(I must admit that I don't see why M6 would be a perfection. Surely Robert would think that an act of creating some y from nothing would be more perfect than producing y from some already existing matter. After all, to produce y from nothing would take more effort, as it were, than producing y from something already existing. Perhaps Robert is stretching for one more reason why material production could apply to the divine case, but whatever his reason, Robert takes this as a perfection of material production.)

As I have already explained, Ockham doesn't think we have any reason to say a model based on matter is any better than a model based on form. But Robert thinks there are reasons why this model of matter maps onto the divine case better than a model of form would. Much of Robert's argumentation for this relies on the fact that most of M1-M6 (and thus D1-D6) seems to require that the 'matter' is prior to the form.

For example, if D1 is true, that is, if Ex is identical to Ey, then when x produces y, E exists in x prior to its existence in y. Likewise, if D5 is true, that is, if Ey partially constitutes y, then Ey will be prior to y. Robert thus infers that whatever role E is going to play in the model, it will be prior to the product because it exists in the producer prior to the production, and because it partially constitutes the product. In material production, matter is prior to the product in just these ways, so matter is a good canditate for this role.

Ockham agrees that the divine essence is prior to the product, but this does not mean that the divine essence is more like matter than form. Presumably, Ockham is thinking of the example where God creates some matter under an already existing form. In such a case, the form is more prior than matter to the product, so mere priority is not enough to say the divine essence is more like matter than form.

Besides, in the divine case, the personal properties are really identical to the divine essence, and for Ockham, this should prevent any attempt to compare the divine essence and the personal properties to matter and form. Matter and form are really distinct entities, so it is simply not appropriate to talk about the divine essence and the personal propreties in hylomorphic terms.

All of this suggests that for Ockham, explaining the production of the Son in terms of material production is, at best, just an analogy. The divine essence is not literally matter, so Henry and his followers can only say this in an extended sense. Of course, one could ask: this is just an analogy, so why can't we use this analogy, or even many analogies, to explain divine production? It seems to me that Ockham finds material production to be a particularly bad analogy. At the end of the day, we have to remove so many features from the model of material production that we are hardly left with much of a model. If we go with material production, then we end up with a fairly thin model, a model with very few features that can't do much explanatory work. What Ockham wants, I think, is a thick model, a model with many features that can do some explanatory work.

Ockham against Henry on the substratum view

Like Scotus, Ockham thinks Henry's model of material production is problematic, and like Scotus, Ockham thinks the main problem lies in the claim that the divine essence is the matter or quasi matter of the divine persons. Ockham's argument is, roughly, that we can take the claim that the divine essence is matter either literally or in an extended sense, and since nobody thinks the divine essence is literally matter, it must be matter in an extendend sense. But if that's the case, we could just as easily say that in an extended sense the divine essence is something else – form, for example.

Let's say that a statement that is literally true is TL, and let's say that a statement that is true in an extended sense is TE. Thus:

(P1) The statement 'x is y' is either TL, or TE.
(P2) Not TL.
(P3) Not TE.
(P4) Therefore, x is not y.

As for P2, it seems obvious that the divine essence cannot literally be matter, but Ockham does not shy away from giving a few reasons for this, if only just to show how absurd it would be to take Henry's claim literally. Two are worth consideration.

First, Ockham says that the term 'matter' is applied precisely to that which is in potency to some really distinct form. According to Ockham:

(T1) Matter is (i) really distinct from form, and (ii) in potency to form.

If, then, this is what 'matter' means, then to say the divine essence is matter is to say:

(T2) The divine essence is (i) really distinct from some form or forms, and (ii) in potency to those forms.

In the divine case, the 'forms' would be the personal properties, so it would follow that the divine essence would be really distinct from the personal properties and in potency to the personal properties.

Of course, Henry thinks the divine essence is in potency to the personal properties, so it might seem that Henry would be quite happy to agree that the divine essence is 'matter' in just this sense. However, Henry also thinks that matter and form are really distinct, even though he thinks the divine essence is really identical to the personal properties. So although Henry may want to say the divine essence is in potency to the personal properties, Ockham's claim is that simply being in potency to a form is not enough to merit the proper label 'matter' (A strolling Socrates is in potency to the act of sitting, but does that make him the 'matter' of an act of sitting?). To be called 'matter' literally, the divine essence and the personal properties would also have to be really distinct.

Second, Ockham thinks that if we divide and sub-divide the world up various categories, some of which are incompatible with each other, we cannot apply something from one category to something of another, incompatible category. But this is exactly the kind of thing that is happening when Henry says the divine essence is matter. If we divide 'being' into the categories of created being and uncreated being such that anything contained in the category of created being cannot be applied to anything contained in the category of uncreated being, and if we then classify 'matter' in the category of created being, it follows that 'matter' cannot apply to anything in the category of uncreated being. Like most Christian scholastics, Henry does think that matter belongs in the category of created being, since the doctrine of creation entails this, and of course he thinks God is the only uncreated being. Consequently, Henry cannot attribute matter to the divine essence literally, for matter belongs to a category that is fundamentally inapplicable to God.

One might object that this argument would apply to every predicate from the created order which we apply to God (e.g., 'wisdom', 'goodness', 'love'). Indeed, by standard medieval accounts, human concepts are acquired by emprical observation of created entities, and so by Ockham's reasoning, it should follow that every concept we wish to apply to God in fact cannot be applied to God, for such concepts belong to the category of created being. It would seem from this that if Ockham is to be consistent, then he cannot apply any creaturely-acquired concepts to God.

However, Ockham does not think that every concept humans acquire belongs to the category of created being. At the very least, Ockham thinks the concept of 'being' applies to both created and uncreated being, and perhaps one could argue that there are other concepts that apply universally (or even transcendentally) to created and uncreated beings. Ockham's problem with Henry's account is not that he is using a concept acquired from creatures to describe God. The problem is that 'matter' belongs exlusively to the category of created being. And it is important to keep in mind that Ockham is talking about literal predication here. The point, then, is that if matter is classed in the category of uncreated being, then it can be applied literally to created beings only, not to uncreated being.

In any case, if it's not P2, then it must be P3. The claim that the divine essence is matter cannot to be taken literally, so it must be taken in an extended sense. However, Ockham thinks that speaking of something in an extendend sense requires some common condition C on which the extension is based.

(T3) If the statement 'x is y' is TE, then (i) x is C, and (ii) y is C.

For example, the claim 'Paul is lightning fast' is based on the condition C of being able to travel at high speeds. Paul is C, and lightning is C, so we can say 'Paul is lightning fast' based on C. (Compare with 'Paul is turtle fast', which still is intelligible based on the condition of speed, and 'Paul is lamp fast', which is not intelligible because there is no condition to draw a likeness.) Thus, if Henry wants to say that the divine essence is matter in an extended sense, then there must be some condition which is common to the divine essence and matter.

Ockham points out that if C is common to not just x and y, but also some other z, then we could just as easily say 'x is z'. That is, if this condition is common not just to the divine essence and matter, but also to other things, then we end up with no reason to say that the divine essence is matter, for we could just as easily say the divine essence is one of the other things which share the same condition.

For example, if there is some condition that applies to the divine essence, to matter, and to a goat, and if this condition is the basis by which one can say the divine essence is matter in an extendend sense, then one could just as easily say the divine essence is a goat. The point is that if we want to maintain in any non arbitrary way that the divine essence is matter in an extended sense, then the condition for that extended sense cannot be common to the divine essence, to matter, and to other things. It must be common only to the divine essence and matter.

But even if there is some condition that is common to the divine essence and matter, Ockham argues that if there another condition, D, that the divine essence shares only with something else, w, then we could also say 'x is w', and then we have no reason to choose y over w. For example, one could argue that there is some condition common only to the divine essence and to form, and that would be sufficient to allow us to say 'the divine essence is form' in an extended sense. And if we can say that in an extended sense, just as we can say 'the divine essence is matter' in an extended sense, why should we choose one over the other?

Ockham applies this argument in various ways to Henry's position. For example, Ockham rightly recognizes that one of the reasons Henry turns to material production is because the divine essence is included in the Son but is not produced in the Son, so Henry wants a model where some part of the product is not produced. In the realm of material beings, matter is just that: a part of the product that is not produced. But, Ockham argues, matter is the most obvious candidate here only because we are considering natural causes, and natural causes always presuppose matter.

But if we consider another cause such as God, then there is no reason to think that matter is the best candidate for the unproduced part of a product. After all, couldn't God create some matter under an already existing substantial form? In that case, the form would be the unproduced part of the product, so why don't we say the divine essence is form? Ockham does not see why Henry should say the divine essence is matter solely on the grounds that he is looking for a model that includes an unproduced part of the product.

Ockham also argues that we could say the divine essence is a hylomorphic composite just as easily as we can say the divine essence is matter. After all, a composite has per se unity, and neither the matter nor the form it is composed from has per se unity. Further, a composite is more perfect than either the matter or the form it is composed from. God is both per se and perfect, so why we not just say the divine essence is a hylomorphic composite instead of matter?

Peter of Tartaretus on Scotus, Ord. 1.5.2.un. nn. 129-138

More of Peter Tartaretus's 15th century exposition of the third difficulty Scotus brings up in the Ordinatio 1.5.2.un. nn. 129-138 (translated here). As is usual with Peter, these explanations make some of Scotus's more elliptical passages a bit clearer for me. Of course, this is a rough translation, and anytime I quickly translate a text, I'm bound to make some glaring, rudimentary errors. But the general ideas are here, for anyone interested.

[From Peter's Lucidissima Commentaria, bk. 1, dist. 5, quest. 2, art. 3, p. 202-203 of the 1583 Venetiis edition.]

The third difficulty is in the manner of the argument. Wherever one identifies the foundation of a relation and the relation which is founded in the foundation, one identifies some potentiality, because a foundation is in potentiality to any relation which actuates the foundation. In the divinity, the divine essence is the foundation of relations of origin, so the divine essence will be potential with respect to such relations. Therefore, Lord Scotus, since you posit real relations and the essence in the divinity, you posit potentiality and actuality.

Scotus responds with a distinction as the first point. The order of generation, and the order of perfection in creatures are opposites, as is clear from Metaphysics 9, because those things which are prior by generation are posterior by perfection, and those things which are prior by perfection, are posterior by generation. This should be understood for things in the same genus, for an accidental form is by generation induced in a composite after the substantial form, but nevertheless it is not prior in perfection, as is clear from Scotus's Quodlibet, question 13.

The second point is that in the order of generation and the order of perfection, that which is simply speaking first, is possessed by these orders uniformly. That is, in the divinity, what is strictly speaking first is possessed uniformly by both orders: namely, that which is first in one order is also first in the other order. In the divinity, what is first in origin is most perfectly first. In creatures the order goes from potentiality to act, and thus from imperfection to perfection. This is why the things that are prior by generation are posterior by perfection. But it is not this way in the divinity ad intra (although ad extra God could order nature otherwise)

The third point is that if in creatures these two orders uniformly coincide in what is first, that is, if they are simultaneous, we do not seek the matter first and the form second. Rather, we seek the form first and afterwards the matter, and this is because it is not presupposed that a natural agent acts by producing a form.

The fourth point is that in the divinity, one should imagine two instants of nature. When we do this, in the first instant there is the divine essence as the most actual being, existing de se and ex se. This is not how created natures exist, since they do not exist de se like this. They have actuality in their singulars. From this it follows that in this first instant of nature, we do not imagine the divine essence as a subject receptive of an act. When we imagine its existence in the second instant of nature, the properties and relations, which have existence from the divine essence itself, and the relations of origin spring forth, not as products, nor as really distinct, nor even as supposita [i.e. singular instances of the divine essence].

The fifth point is that the relations of origin do not spring forth as forms enforming the divine essence. Rather, they spring forth as things which are naturally identified with the divine essence, as will be said later. Something can be a foundation in two ways: as a material foundation, in which case it is receptive, or as a formal foundation, in which case it is perfective. The first sort of foundation is entirely receptive in creatures, and maximally so if the relation is distinct from the foundation. But when something is a formal and perfective foundation, it gives existence to its relations, and it makes those relations be ordered to it and spring forth from it. In this way, the divine essence is the foundation of the relations, because it is that by which the relations of origin are the same, namely that by which the relations are the same God.

Then Scotus moves to the form of the argument. He concedes the major premise for receptive foundations, but he denies this for formal and perfective foundations. In the way he says there is a formal and perfective foundation in the divinity, there is not a receptive and potential foundation there, and in this way the solution to the argument of this whole difficulty is clear.

An example of this can be taken from creatures. It is said that the relations of origin spring forth from the divine essence and are in the divine essence, but not as forms which actuate the divine essence. Rather, it is such that the divine essence gives existence to them. For the purpose of explaining this, we can take some examples from creatures, but since we can't know everything about God from creatures, we'll suppose something per impossibile.

The first example comes from the type of generation which is growth. As the Philosopher clearly sees, this supposes a suppositum. Suppose, per impossibile, that there is someone's hand, and that its matter remains under the form of the hand while it simultaneously acquires some other form, as for example when the hand grows. Here something new is induced in the matter, but the matter remaining under the form of the hand simultaneously acquires some other form. It is clear here that the acquired form does not give existence to that matter, because the matter already has its existence under the pre-existing form, and it remains so. It is similar in the proposition, although there is imperfection in this example because this sort of thing cannot happen unless there is a change, since such matter does not first have such a form, and then later does have such a form. In the proposition, by separating the imperfection of change, the divine essence is understood to already possess from its formal nature actuated being, and it is infinite being, in the first instant of nature. In the second instant of nature, the relations of origin are understood to spring forth from the divine essence, not as enforming relations so as to give existence to the divine essence, since the essence is already understood in the first instant of nature to have actuated existence, and infinite existence. Rather, the divine essence is why the relations of origin have existence. This example does not entirely attend to the proposition, but it does attend to some aspect of the proposition, as was said.

A second example: suppose that the soul enforms the heart, as the principle part [that it enforms], and then afterwards the soul becomes present to other organic parts like the head or the hand such that the soul gives existence to the head or the hand without changing itself. It is clear that the soul receives nothing, even though it did not initially have those parts but later did. Similarly, we say that the divine essence, in the second instant of nature, gives existence to the relations of origin, but not such that the divine nature itself receives existence from them, since in the first instant of nature it is understood to have infinite and actuated existence. This example is more apt than the first.

A third example is again more about matter, but it is more apt than the first. Suppose that the matter of the animated heart, itself remaining under the form of the heart, could communicate itself to diverse forms such as those of the hand, the head, and so on for other organic parts, and suppose that this could be such that the animated heart produced these composites from its communicated matter and these forms. If this happened, they would have the same matter by the communicated production and the communication of that matter such that the matter would be the basis for the existence of many. Similarly, the divine essence would be the basis for the existence of the relations. But this example does not attend much more to the proposition, since although the matter is the same in number and the basis for the existence of many parts, it would receive those forms by undergoing a change.

For this reason, there is a fourth example about form. Suppose that the soul, which is unlimited with respect to its parts, is communicated to the hand, the head, the foot, and so on, such that those parts were not those things unless the soul gave existence to them, and without changing itself. Similarly, the divine essence gives existence to the relations, without changing itself.

One could say that these examples do not attend very well to the proposition, and especially the two examples about matter do not explain the proposition very well, and neither do the two examples about form. But as for the example of the soul, suppose that, per impossibile, the soul is the basis for the existence of the head, the hand, and the foot, but not by enformation. This would be like saying that I am a man by humanity, but not by enformation, since humanity would not [according to this example] enform me. Secondly, suppose that in the examples some part has the nature of a whole, and that it exists per se. Then we would have per se subsistences, or supposita, and then the example would attend to the proposition because the same thing would be the basis for the existence of many without any change to itself. This is because it would not receive existence, nor would it receive something from them, and those parts would have existence, and the soul would not be called imperfect on that grounds that it wouldn't enform them.

Similarly, according to the proposition, the divine essence is the giver of existence, and it is the form by which the relations exist, and this is not by enformation. The divine essence is the form by which such relations have existence, and for this reason the divine essence does not have the nature of matter, nor the nature of a subject. From this, the argument that the divine essence does not have the nature of matter is clear. The divine essence has the nature of form. It is not the foundation, as matter is, but more as form is. Thus, the divine essence has the nature more of form.

This is confirmed by Damascus. The relation does not determine the nature. The hypostasis does not actuate the divine essence. Rather, the divine essence determines the hypostasis, because it constitutes the suppositum, as the Father is Father by paternity (holding that the divine persons are constituted by relations of origin). This explains that the divine essence is not a foundation in potentiality.

It should be known that for one thing to be related to another thing can be understood in two ways. In one way formally, as the Father is formally the Father by paternity, and something is formally similar by similarity. In another way, one thing is related to another thing foundationally, just as Socrates is similar to Plato foundationally by whiteness, by color, or by knowledge. But this is to be similar formally by similarity. If the divine essence were a foundation in potentiality to the divine relations of origin, then the Father would be related to the Son by the divine essence as the foundation, which is false. It is clear that this is false, since we say that the Father is Father to the Son, we do not say the essence is related to [i.e., is the Father to] the Son, as the foundation, because the divine essence is that by which the Father is ad se and not ad alterum. The Father's act of generating is related to the essence foundationally [rather than formally, and in this way] the divine essence can be called the most perfect foundation of the relations.

Scotus, Ord. 1.5.2.un. n. 129-138

Here's Scotus, Ordinatio, 1.5.2.un. n. 129-138 (the third of four difficulties he discusses. The first difficulty was translated here, the second difficulty was translated here, and Peter Tartaretus's commentary on the second difficulty was translated here).


[Third difficulty]

[n. 129] The third difficulty concerns how there could be a relation that does not require the proper basis of a foundation. A foundation seems to be prior to a relation, and quasi perfectible by it, not the converse, since a relation does not seem to be perfected by its foundation, because then it would presuppose its foundation. Therefore, since the divine essence is the foundation of these relations, it seems that it is quasi-matter.

[n. 130] I respond: in creatures, the order of generation and the order of perfection are contraries, as is clear from Metaphysics 9: 'those things which are prior in generation are posterior in perfection'. The reason is that creatures proceed from potency to act, and thus from imperfection to perfection. For this reason, the way of generation goes through the imperfect before the perfect. But by attending, simply speaking, to the first, it is necessary that the same thing be first, simply speaking, both in origin and in perfection (even according to the Philosopher, in the same place), since the whole order of generation is reduced to some first perfect thing [Vat. eds. note: first in the order of perfection], just as to the first of the whole [order of] origin.

[n. 131] Therefore, just as in creatures, if these two orders uniformly concur, we do not ask first about the matter which is the substrate of form. Rather, we ask first about the form which naturally gives actuality to matter, and secondly we ask about the matter which naturally receives being from form (or the suppositum which naturally subsists by that form). So also in the divinity. By beginning from the first instant of nature, the divine essence – as it exists per se and ex se – occurs entirely first. This does not pertain to any created nature, since no created nature has existence naturally prior to existence in a suppositum. But the divine essence, according to Augustine in De Trinitate book 7, is that by which the Father exists and that by which the Son exists, although it is not that by which the Father is the Father and that by which the Son is the Son. Therefore, per se existence pertains to the divine essence, considered most abstractly. In this first instant then, it occurs not as something receptive of some perfection, but rather as infinite perfection, able in the second instant of nature to be communicated to something, though not as a form enforming matter, but rather as a quiddity is communicated to a suppositum, as much as it [the suppositum] has existence by it [the quiddity]. And so the relations 'spring forth' – as a certain theologian [Henry] puts it – from it [the divine essence], and the persons 'spring forth' in it [the divine essence]. Not as certain quasi forms, giving existence to it, but as certain quasi supposita, in which it [the divine essence] receives the existence which is, simply speaking, its own, but in which supposita it gives 'existence' as that by which those supposita formally are, and that by which they are God. And so the relation which is springing forth, if it is a per se subsistent, springs forth not as the form of the essence but such that it is naturally God by that deity formally, although not such that it enforms it but such that it exists as the same thing as it by a most perfect identity. However, in no way, and the same is true of the converse, is the relation related to the essence as that by which the essence is formally determined or contracted, or in some actuated by it, because this is entirely repugnant to the infinity of the divine essence as it first occurs under the aspect of an infinite act.

[n. 132] I concede then that the essence is the foundation of those relations, but not a foundation quasi-potentially receiving them. Rather, as a foundation quasi in the manner of form, in which these forms naturally subsist – not, indeed, by enformation, as a similarity relation is in whiteness, but as subsistence is said to to be in a nature, just as Socrates is said to subsist in humanity because 'Socrates is a man by his humanity'. Therefore, you will not have the basis for potentiality or quasi potentiality in the divine essence from the nature of a foundation. Rather, you will have precisely the basis for form such that the relation which is founded in it [the divine essence] is, simply speaking, God.

[n. 133] An example of this can be taken from creatures by positing here a certain 'per impossibile'. Growth occurs because nourishment reaches a corrupted body, and its [the body's] matter receives the form of meat, and in this way it [the matter] is enformed by the soul. Now suppose that the same matter, remaining naturally [under the form of the body], receives another part of the form [of the same meat] (just as it is posited in rarefaction). Here the matter remains one, and it was enformed before but now is enformed by a new form. Nevertheless, this is formally a real change, because there is a change from privation to form. Suppose, as another example, that the same soul perfects first one part of the body (such as the heart), and afterwards it reaches another part of the organic body, a part which is perfectible by the soul. The soul then perfects that part newly reached, but nevertheless the soul itself is not changed, because there is no privation in it first and form afterwards. For privation is a lacking, and in this it is suitably meant to receive. But the soul, first un-enformed and afterwards enformed, is not meant to receive anything but rather to give [form to the parts of the body].

[n. 134] In both of these examples, there is a real production of some product, though in the first there is a change, and in the second there is not.

[n. 135] The [first] example would seem more apt if we suppose that the same matter of the animated heart could be communicated to different forms, such as the hand and the foot, and this in virtue of the activity of the animated heart so as to produce this composites [namely, the hand and foot composites] from its communicated matter and from these forms. Here there would be a real production of the whole, having the same matter, though this would occur with a change of the matter. But if, to take the other example, we suppose that the soul, on account of unlimited nature with respect to act and form, could be communicated to many parts, and so in virtue of the soul in the heart, it could be communicated to the hand and the foot, produced by the animated heart, then there would be here a real production of many things consubstantial in form, without any change in that form.

[n. 136] In both examples, it is supposed that the products are per se subsistences, not parts of the same thing, since to be a part is an imperfect. But by supposing this, the second example, in both of its versions, namely the example of communication the form to the product, perfectly represents production in God (the first example does not, since it is about the communication of matter). But still, by adding this to the position – namely that the soul in the heart and the hand and the foot is not an enforming form, since componibility includes imperfection, but rather is the whole form by which these subsistences are animated – then it is understood that deity is not communicated quasi-materially, but rather deity is communicated in the manner of form to the subsistent relations (if the persons are supposed to be relative), not as an enforming form but as that by which the relation or relative subsistent is God.

[n. 137] Therefore, the essence does not enform a relation, nor is it the converse. Rather, there is perfect identity here. But the essence possesses the manner of form with respect to relation, just as a nature does with respect to a suppositum, in as much as it is that by which the relation subsists and is God. Conversely, the relation is in no way the act of the essence, because just as (Damascus says) the relation 'determines the hypostasis, not the nature', so also is it the act of the hypostasis, not the nature. Similarly, when a relation enforms a foundation, the suppositum is said to be related in the second manner of per se predication according to that foundation, just as Socrates is similar according to [his] whiteness or by [his] whiteness [Vat. eds. note: cf. Henry, SQO 60.2 in corp. (Bad. 2: 162B)]. However, the Father is not the Father by deity, according to Augustine in De Trinitate book 7, chapter 4, so here there is no such manner of relation to the foundation of the sort that there is in other things, because here the foundation is not actuated by a relation. Rather, it is only the act of the suppositum or [it just is] the suppositum.

[n. 138] I say briefly then that relation and essence are both in a person but neither is a form enforming the other. Rather, they are perfectly the same, although not formally. Nevertheless, since they are not formally the same, a relation in no way perfects the essence, nor is it the formal term received in the essence. The essence is in this way the form of the relation, because it is that by which the relation exists and similarly is God. The essence is the formal term of generation, just as in creatures a nature is the formal term of generation, not an individual act [Vat. eds. note: cf. Henry, SQO 56.4 in corp. (Bad. 2: 116F-G)].

Scotus, Ord. 1.5.2.un. n. 107-125

Here's Scotus, Ordinatio, 1.5.2.un. n. 107-125 (the first of four fascinating difficulties he discusses. The second difficulty can be found in translation here, and Peter Tartaretus' 15th century commentary on the second difficulty can be found here).

[n. 107] There are four difficulties here. First, how is a divine person one when one thing [the essence or the personal property] is not the act of the other potential thing?

[n. 108] To this, I say the following. First, a created quiddity is that by which something is a quidditative entity, and this does not pertain to imperfection, for it pertains to a quiddity from the nature of quiddity.

[n. 109] Nevertheless, an imperfect actuality pertains to a created quiddity – humanity, let's say – because it is divisible by that which contracts it to an individual – say an individual property, whatever that is, let's call it a – and [the quiddity] receives from a some actuality (either unity or individisibility) which it possesses in the individual and does not have in itself. That contracting thing, namely a, is not only in Socrates as 'that by which Socrates is formally Socrates', but is in some formal with respect to a nature, and that nature is in some way potential with respect to a. Whence, and this is the second point, a nature is contracted and determined by some a.

[n. 110] Third, although the humanity in Socrates is some act, and precisely by receiving humanity and by being distinguishing against itself by a, humanity is more perfectly an act than a is, although a is more properly an act and in some way an act of nature in as much as it determines a nature.

[n. 111] That which pertains to imperfection is left behind by applying these three points to the divinity.

[n. 112] First, deity is, from itself, that by which God is God, and also the subsisting 'of that which properly is a' is formally God, since to be 'that by which' in this way does not pertain to imperfection in creatures but rather pertains to the quiditity by which something is a quidditiy.

[n. 113] Second, there is disimilarity here, because deity itself is not determined or contracted by a personal property, nor is it actuated in some way, since that would pertain to the imperfection and potentiality of created natures. Similarly, deity of itself is a 'this', and so just as it has ultimate unity of itself, so also does it have actuality. Therefore, the personal property is a proper of a person, but nevertheless it is not an act of the divine nature which in some way perfects or enforms it.

[n. 114] Third, there is some similarity here, because a relation is the proper act of a person, and the essence is not the proper act of a person (but it is some act). Nevertheless, the essence is formally an infinite act, but the relaton is not of its formal nature an infinite act.

[n. 115] But how can these two acts concur in the constitution of one thing, if neither is the act of the other? For it is necessary that one thing be in another, since if not, each would be a per se subsistent thing, and then they would not be in the same per se subsistent thing. Similarly, the unity of any sort of distinct things only seems to obtain, according to Aristotle, on the basis of act and potentiality.

[n. 116] I respond that the unity of a composite necessarily is from the basis of act and potentiality, just as the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 7.7 and the final chapter of book 8. But a divine person is not a composite, nor is it quasi composite. It is, rather, simple, and it is really simple just as the divine essence is considered in itself, having no real composition nor quasi composition. Nevertheless, the formal nature of the divin essence is not the formal nature of the relation, nor the converse, just as was said above on the trinity in the solution to distinction 2, question 1.

[n. 117] But how is it that the when the nature of the relation in the thing is not formally the same as the nature of the essence but yet they concur in the same thing but do not constitute a composite? The reason is that the nature [of the relation] is perfectly the same as that [of the essence], for on account of the infinity of that one nature [viz., of the essence], whatever can be with it is perfectly the same as it. Therefore, perfect identity excludes any composition or quasi composition, and that identity is on account of infinity – and nevertheless, the infinity does not destroy the formal natures which are not the same as that of the infinite nature.

[n. 118] Therefore, there is no quasi composition [that can be inferred] from these [viz., from the essenec and a property]. For this reason, there can be no inference to a composite from act and potentiality. Rather, there is one most simple thing [that can be inferred] from these, since one nature is perfectly, indeed most perfectly, the same as the other, even though they are not formally the same. But it does not follow that 'they are perfectly the same by an identity of simplicity, therefore they are formally the same', just as was held concerning identity in the aforementioned question [Ord. 1.2.2.1-4 nn. 408, 411, 413-14] and will be held below in distinction 8 [n. 209 and 217]. That same perfect identity excludes any aggregation, because the same thing is not aggregated to itself.

[n. 119] And when it is added that 'one thing must be in another', I concede this in the sense that a relation is in a foundation or a source, but not in the sense that an act is in potentiality. Rather, as they are identically contained in an infinite sea.

[n. 120] In this way, it could be said that all of these are true: 'deity is in the Father, paternity is in the Father', 'the Father is in deity or the divine nature, paternity is in deity', but nevertheless, the word 'in' here does not have the sense of an act being in potentiality.

[n. 121] Now, the first of these is true as a nature is in a suppositum, having quidditative being by it (since it pertains to a quiddity whence it is a quiddity), but this is not on account of a form enforming a suppositum, even in creatures.

[n. 122] The second of these is true as a hypostatic form is in a hypostasis. But not as [a hypostatic form] enforms a hypostasis. For just as much as a quiddity, a hypostatic form, even in creatures, is not an enforming form, even though it is the form of a suppositum. It is here rather a quasi part [Vat. eds. note: e.g., in creatures, socrateity-humanity in Socrates]. However, here [in the divine case] there is, as it were, one formal nature concurring with another, formally, in the same simple thing, but possessing in itself many formal natures.

[n. 123] The third of these is true as a suppositum is in a nature, and it is clear that it is not as an enforming [form]'.

[n. 124] The fourth of these is true in the same way, since the way in which a whole is first in something, the part is per se in the same way, although not first in the same thing. This is clear of being in a place. Therefore, if the Father is first in a nature, as a suppositum of nature, then paternity 'will be per se in the same nature', in the same way of being 'in', although not in the first.

[n. 125] Further, what was said [in n. 119] in my earlier response gives the manner of 'in' – namely the manner in which a relation is in a foundation – which is not reduced to being the form in matter except where the foundation is limited, in as much as it does not have that relation in itself by perfect identity.

The divine essence, quidditative properties, and natural kinds

Scotus thinks the divine essence is a quidditative property. What exactly does that mean? A quidditative property is a 'whatness' property, a property that explains what kind of thing something is. Here I've explained 'quiddity' with the notions of 'what' and 'kind'. Does that clarify anything? Not really. The notion of 'what' and 'kind' stand in need of just as much explanation as the notion of 'quiddity'. So what is it that makes a property quidditative?

Scotus often describes a quidditative property as being common to many. On this account, any property that can only occur in one individual at a time would fail to be a quidditative property, and everything else would be a quidditative property. Accordingly, properties like being human, being white, and even being matter or being a form would be quidditative properties.

Scotus certainly thinks that being human is a quidditative property, so in this sense, a quidditative property is much like a natural kind. But Scotus also thinks that matter and form have an essence, so presumably being matter and being a form also count as quidditative properties. Would the modern writer think these are natural kinds? Probably not. I also suspect that Scotus thinks being white counts as a quidditative property too, although many modern writers don't want to count colors as natural kinds.

All that said, though, what about the property being an individual? This property certainly can occur in many individuals, and in fact it should necessarily occur in every individual. But obviously this kind of property doesn't count as a natural kind. So trying to define quidditative properties in terms of commonality doesn't seem to be any more illuminating than 'quiddity', 'what', or 'kind'. The question stands: what exactly is it that makes a property common?

Scotus sometimes claims that common properties have less than numerical unity. Since they have less than numerical unity, they are not incompatible with entities that have numerical unity. The idea is that something with numerical unity is numerically one. Things that are numerically one are just that: they are one, not many. This might make us think that common properties are those that cannot be common to many. If this is right, then a quidditative property would be anything that's not numerically one.

But if that's what it means to be a quidditative property, it's not clear just how the divine essence could be a quidditative property. If lacking numerical unity is precisely what makes something common or quidditative, then the divine essence would not be quidditative because, for Scotus, it has numerical unity. Conversely, if having numerical unity is what makes something incapable of being common, then the divine essence would have precisely that property, namely numerical unity, which makes something incapable of being common.

So again, if having numerical unity is what is supposed to distinguish individual properties (haecceities) from quidditative properties, then again we don't explain very much. The divine essence has numerical unity, just like individual properties (haecceities), so having numerical unity is not enough to do the explanatory work we need here.

Scotus sometimes says that being an individual means being indivisible. However, for Scotus, the divine essence is individisible, but in the divine case, this is compatible with being shared. Some x could be individisible and still be shared, just so long as it is not divided by those who share it. The divine essence is 'common' in this sense. Although it is indivisible, it is shareable.

Indeed, Scotus thinks that although the divine essence is indivisible, it is also communicable. Again, the notion of 'communicable' or 'shareable' stands in need of just as much explanation as 'kind' or 'common'. What is it to be communicable? It won't help to appeal to less than numerical unity, commonality, and all the other options already mentioned, for all of these need explanation too.

As far as I can tell, Scotus can only say that the divine essence is 'common' in the sense that each divine person shares it. But this sort of commonality doesn't seem to answer any questions. Lots of things are commonly shared by many, but the shared items don't make various things belong to the same kind. A duvet, for example, can be shared by two people, but a duvet doesn't make two people belong to the same kind. Being a shareable property does not, in itself, seem to amount to being a quidditative property. [Or does it? If two people share a bed spread, then they'd both have the common property sharing a bedspread. Would the persons have a common property sharing the divine essence in a similar way? And is that sufficient for the divine essence to function as a quidditative property?]

Scotus is clearly trying to say that quidditative properties are kind-maker properties, for the divine essence is in this context a divine-maker property: any x that possesses the divine essence will be divine in virtue of possessing the divine essence. Of course, this definition does not explain much, since a 'kind' stands in need of explanation, but for now, let's just assume that a quidditative property can be defined as a kind-maker:

(PQ) A quidditative property =df a property K the exemplification of which by some x is a necessary and sufficient condition for x to belong to K-kind.

When something exemplifies a quidditative property, this property makes that thing into the kind of thing it is. For example, the property being human is a quidditative property because any x that exemplifies the property being human is a human (belongs to human-kind) in virtue of possessing the property being human.

For Scotus, the divine essence is a quidditative property because it is a divine-maker: any x that exemplifies the divine essence is divine in virtue of exemplifying the divine essence. As Scotus puts it, the divine essence is that by which each person is divine, just as the property being human is that by which Socrates is human.

One caveat. Many medievals think the divine essence does not belong to a genus, so for someone of this persuasion, it's not exactly correct to say that the divine essence functions as a kind-maker, for there is no divine 'kind' (no divine genus). (However, Ockham thinks the divine essence can belong to a genus, so for him, it could be accurate to say that the divine persons belong to divine-kind.) But nothing philosophically significant seems to turn on this. Whether these cats say the divine essence belongs to a genus or not, it functions for everybody as a kind-maker property: it is the property in virtue of the possession of which the divine persons are divine.

Divine persons and unity-making relations

Scott Williams has made some very helpful comments on a previous post.

One of the points that came up concerns why the divine essence and a personal property together count as a 'person'. Scott has pointed out that the features of the divine essence and the features of a personal property, when grouped together, satisfy the list of features required for something to be a person.

This is certainly right, but it raises a different question in my mind. It is true that all the features of the divine essence and the features of a personal property together satisfy the list of features required for something to be a person, but is this a sufficient reason to think that we should group the divine essence and a personal property together in the first place?

I think the answer is no. This situation here seems to be like this. Suppose that some x is an F if it exemplifies ten particular features. So something is an F if it exemplifies all ten of those features. Further, let's call the first five of those features 'feature-group A', and let's call the last five of those features 'feature-group B'. Thus, something will be an F if it exemplifies both feature-group A and feature-group B.

But now suppose that some x exemplifies feature-group A (but not feature-group B), while some y exemplifies feature-group B (but not feature-group A). If we group x and y together, then x + y together exemplify feature-group A and feature-group B. But does x + y then count as an F? I think the answer is no.

Let me try to explain with an example. Suppose that a chemist comes up with way to combine paper and gelatin to make gel-paper. This gel-paper would be a neat kind of paper that basically has all the features of paper, and all the features of gelatin. You can write on it and file it and so forth for all the things you do with paper, but you can also eat it and flavor it and so forth for all the things you do with gelatin.

But now suppose that I throw the following items into a pile: a piece of wadded up paper, an old glass marble, a brick, and a lump of gelatin. I could show you my pile, group the paper and gelatin together, and then say: 'look, that exemplifies all the features of paper, and all the features of gelatin, and that's the list of features required for something to be gel-paper. I have gel-paper!'

If I said that, you would probably look at me like I was crazy, and you might pull out a piece of gel-paper and show me the real stuff. When we compare the two, it becomes clear that even though my little heap of gelatin and paper exemplifies all the features required for something to be gel-paper, my heap is not gel-paper.

The reason is that in my pile, the paper and the gelatin are just grouped together in an arbitrary way. They are grouped together arbitrarily because I could just as easily group the brick and the gelatin, the brick and the marble, and so forth. In the pile, there is no reason that one constituent should be grouped with this constituent rather than that constituent, so any groupings are just arbitrary.

The only way I could legitimately group my paper and the gelatin together is if they were related to each other in a way stronger than they would be related to the other constituents of the pile. For example, if there were some kind of glue sticking between the paper and the gelatin but no glue sticking between the paper and the other constituents in the pile, then the paper would be related to the gelatin in a way stronger than it would be related to the other constituents.

But given that there is no such glue or anything like that in my pile, it is entirely arbitrary to group the paper and the gelatin. So in my pile, my 'gel-paper' is just an arbitrary grouping of paper-features and gelatin-features. By contrast, in the real gel-paper, the paper-features and the gelatin-features are not just arbitrarily grouped together. They have some stronger kind of relation holding them together.

So I cannot say some x and some y count as an F just because they jointly exemplify all the features required for something to be an F. My gelatin and my paper jointly exemplify all the features required for something to be gel-paper, but they are not gel-paper. I can only say that x and y count as an F if they are joined together in some way in the first place.

Likewise in the case of the trinity. Just because the divine essence and a personal property jointly exemplify all the features required to be a person, it does not follow that the divine essence + a personal property counts as a person, just as it does not follow that my piece of paper and lump of gelatin count as gel-paper. It is true that all the features of the divine essence and all the features of a personal property together exemplify the list of features required for something to be a person.

The fact that the divine essence and a personal property together exemplify all the features required for something to be a person is only relevant if the essence and property are joined or fused together in the first place. Otherwise, it's just two entities (neither entity needs to be a res or an object) that, when grouped together arbitrarily, exemplify feature-group A and feature-group B separately.

Obviously, the answer here is to establish a unity-making relation between the divine essence and a personal property. That's what Henry and Scotus need to do to get me past this little bump. But this is precisely the bit that I'm having trouble being persuaded of.

A 15th century commentary on Scotus, Ord. 1.5.2.un. nn. 126-128

A 15th century commentary on Scotus: Peter Tartaretus (Pierre Tartaret). This is his exposition of the second difficulty Scotus brings up in the Ordinatio 1.5.2.un. nn. 126-128. You can find a translation of this bit from Scotus, as well as my thoughts on it, in my last post.

[From Peter's Lucidissima Commentaria, bk. 1, dist. 5, quest. 2, art. 3, p. 202 of the 1583 Venetiis edition.]

The second difficulty is that although the divine essence is not called potentiality, at least the relation ought to be called an act. This is argued as follows. What pertains to an act pertains to distinguishing, or this pertains to it insofar as it is an act. But a relation in the divinity distinguishes, so it pertains to that relation insofar as it is an act. Therefore, there will still be something that [operates in the divinity] as potentiality or as matter.

The major [premise] is clear from the Philosopher: to distinguish is [an act] of form, just as distinguishing pertains to acts.

In response, Scotus makes a distinction. An act is, as will be clear enough in distinction 27, quidditative or personal. A quidditative act is that by which something is said to be quidditatively, and in this way the divine essence is a quidditative act because the Father is God by deity, and the Son is God by deity. A personal act is that by which something is said to be, in a certain way, incommunicable, just as filiation is that by which the Son is the Son, and Socrateity is that by which Socrates is formally called Socrates. Similarly, paternity in the divine Father is that by which the Father is the Father. Joining this distinction together, we get this: although the personal, or hypostatic, relation of origin is called a personal act, or a hypostatic act, nevertheless the divine essence is a quidditative act.

It is argued [against this] that an act of origin is said to be an act of essence, for an act which distinguishes is an act of that which does not distinguish if both concur in the constitution of something. A relation of origin distinguishes, and the divine essence is not distinguished in a person, so therefore a relation of origin will be an act of the divine essence. It follows that the essence will not be a quidditative act, it will rather be quasi matter, just as Henry said.

Scotus responds that when it comes to an act which distinguishes, or that which distinguishes an act, that act can be understood in two ways. In the first way, it can be understood as that thing which does not itself distinguish but is enumerated and divided, just as the humanity in Socrates, which does not itself distinguish, is distinguished, divided, and enumerated into its singulars. In the second way, it can be understood as that which does not itself distinguish, but is not divided, enumerated, or multipiled into its many supposita, and this is the case for the divine essence.

To the form of the argument, Scotus concedes the major [premise]. When it comes to that which itself does not distinguish but is enumerated, divided, and multiplied, then what distinguishes is an act of that. But Scotus denies this for that which does not distinguish, is not enumerated, nor is divided, as is the case for the divine essence. Otherwise, Scotus concedes the major [premise] in creatures. The argument is clear there, because a created nature is multiplied into singulars. But this is denied in the divinity because the divine nature is not divided, nor is it multiplied.

Scotus on the generic view, Ord. 1.5.2.un. nn. 126-128

Scotus, Ordinatio 1.5.2.un. nn. 126-128 [Vat. 4: 72-73].

(Note that when Scotus says 'relation' here, he means a personal property. Although Scotus is famous for toying with the idea that the personal properties might be absolute (monadic) properties, here he is sticking to the traditional claim that the personal properties are just the relations of being a father, being a son, and being a spirit.)

[n. 126] The second difficulty concerns how the the relation but not the essence could be a person distinguisher, since a relation does not have the nature of an act, and distinguishing is an act, according to Metaphysics 7.

[n. 127] I concede that the relation is a personal act, not a quidditative act, because it distinguishes personally and not quidditatively. However, the essence is a quidditative act and a quidditative distinguisher. The quidditative act is simply perfect, since it is infinite, but the personal act is not in this way formally infinite of itself.

[n. 128] If you say that "a distinguishing act is an act of that which does not distinguish", this is false unless that which does not distinguish is distinguished by a distinguishing act, just as in creatures. Humanity is distinguished in Socrates and Plato by a and b, and for this reason the distinguishing act – even individually – is an act of that which does not distinguish, because that distinguishing act distinguishes this nature, which does not [itself] distinguish. But this is not the case here, because the personal property does not distinguish the essence, nor does it contract or determine it.

According to Scotus, the divine essence establishes what kind of thing the persons are, while the personal properties establish which person each of the persons are. To explain this, he makes a distinction between quidditative acts and personal acts. The divine essence is a quidditative act, and the personal properties are personal acts.

A quidditative act occurs when something exemplifies a quidditative property. A quidditative property is a kind-maker in the sense that it is a property K which, if exemplified by some x, is sufficient for x to belong to K-kind. For example, the property being human is a property which, if exemplified by some x, is a sufficient condition for x to belong to human-kind (that is, it is sufficient for x to be human). Likewise, the divine essence is a quidditative property for the divine persons, so it is the property which, when exemplified by each divine person, makes each person divine.

Similarly, a personal act occurs when something exemplifies a personal property. In this context, a personal property is a person-maker in the sense that it is a property P which, if exemplified by some x, is sufficient for x to be person P. For example, the property being Socrates is a property which, if exemplified by some x, is sufficient for x to be the person Socrates. Likewise, in the trinitiy, the personal properties being a father, being a son, and being a spirit are personal properties, so they are the properties that, when exemplified individually, make each person a particular person – Father, Son, or Spirit.

But there is more to the story. Part of what it means to be a person is to be a particular person, and so part of the function of a personal act is to distinguish one person from another. How exactly does this work? It's tempting to think the personal properties are like individual properties, haecceities, in that they individuate quidditative properties. This would fit nicely with Scotus's position that in the natural world, quidditative properties are individuated by individual properties.

Consider Socrates and Plato. They each exemplify the quidditative property being human, and this is what makes them human. Yet even though they both exemplify the same quidditative property, they are not one and the same human. When we count Socrates and Plato, we count two humans. The property being human must be divided, as it were, so that it can be exemplified separately by Socrates and Plato, since if it were not divided for Socrates and Plato, there would only be one quidditative property shared between them, and then we'd only count one human, not two.

According to Scotus, individual properties divide or individuate quidditative properties by making them individual for those entities who exemplify them. For example, the property being Socrates individuates the property being human for Socrates, and the property being Plato individuates the property being human for Plato. At the end of the day, after the property being human has been individuated for Socrates and Plato, the tally reads two humans: one individuated in Socrates, and the other individuated in Plato.

As I said a moment ago, it is tempting to think the divine personal properties individuate the divine essence in this manner. Indeed, this would distinguish the divine persons from each other because it would make each of them a distinct divine person, just as individual properties make Socrates and Plato distinct humans.

But Scotus thinks the personal properties do not individuate the divine essence into separate exemplifications in each divine person. The Father, for example, does not exemplify one instance of deity, while the Son exemplifies another instance of deity. On the contrary, each divine person exemplifies one and the same divine essence. In the trinity, then, the personal properties do not distinguish or divide the divine essence in any way.

So what do the personal properties distinguish, if not instances of quidditative properties? In the case of the divine persons, there are only two options: the divine essence and the personal properties. We'd already seen that Scotus rules out the divine essence: the personal properties do not individuate the divine essence. That leaves only the personal properties. In other words, the only thing the personal properties can distinguish are themselves.

For Scotus, one personal property is distinct from another personal property because there is something intrinsic to it that prevents it from being compatible with any other personal property. In Scotus's terminology, the properties are repugnant to each other, for they each include something in their definition that prevents them from being compatible with any other personal property.

In Scotus's picture of the divine persons then, a personal act can only be an act that distinguishes one personal property from another. If Scotus thinks the personal properties do not distinguish or individuate the divine essence, it follows straightforwarldy that they cannot distinguish the divine essence. The only other thing they can distinguish in the trinity are the personal properties, so they simply distinguish themselves: one personal property is not any other personal property.

All this makes for a puzzling picture. In the natural order, individual properties individuate quidditative properties into distinct instances of those quidditative properties. Socrates' and Plato's personal properties, for example, individuate the property being human into two instances of being human – that is, the personal properties makes two humans. Consequently, there is a one-to-one correspondance between the number of individual properties and the number of instances for quidditative properties. For Socrates and Plato, there are two personal properties, and there are two instances of humanity.

If there were no one-to-one correspondance, that is, if quidditative properties were not individuated, it would be difficult to count how many humans there are. The reason is that the only things we count two of are those things that individually belong to each of the two things – those things there are two of. If something is shared between two things, then there's not two of those, there's only one, so we'd only count one shared thing.

Consider Socrates and Plato again. If we want to count two humans, we need two instances of humanity, not one shared instance. If there were only one shared humanity, the only things there'd be two of are Socrates' and Plato's personal properties, and then we could only count two personal properties. We could not count two humanities because there wouldn't be two of those, there'd only be one.

Scotus's picture of the trinity seems to lead to the same point. If the personal properties do not individuate the divine essence for the divine persons, then what are we counting? On Scotus's view, the divine essence is numerically one, it is not multiplied or divided for each person. If we try to count three somethings there, it seems that all we could count are personal properties. If you asked quid tres?, it appears that we should only say three personal properties.

More on Scotus vs. Henry 2

Yet another post on this Scotus vs. Henry thing. I think I finally figured out what I didn't understand in my last post. Here's my exposition of Scotus's argument in n. 73, from his Ordinatio 1.5.2.un.

On Henry's view, the divine essence plays a causal role in producing the Son. For Henry, of course, the divine essence plays the role of material cause, but for our purposes, it can be any causal role. So let's say that the divine essence plays some causal role, call it C, in producing the Son. When the Father produces the Son, then, C applies to the divine essence as it is in the Father. But, Scotus asks, is C a universal feature of every person that possesses the divine essence, or is it only a feature of a particular person (namely the Father)?

Consider, as an analogy, the property being intelligent. This property necessarily entails certain causal powers (such as the power to think) that every intelligent individual will possess. For example, if Socrates has the property being intelligent, then Socrates can think, if Plato has the property being intelligent, then Plato can think, and if any other individual possesses the property being intelligent, it too can think. But the property being intelligent can also entail other causal powers that will not necessarily be true of every individual that possesses the property being intelligent. For example, it requires intelligence to shop at the Athenian market, but not every intelligent individual can shop at the Athenian market. After all, there could be a possible world with no Athenian market, but there cannot be a possible world where intelligent individuals cannot think.

Scotus wants to know whether C – namely, the causal role that the divine essence plays in producing the Son – is like the causal role that being intelligent plays in thinking, or whether it's like the causal role that being intelligent plays in shopping at the Athenian market. In other words, does the divine essence necessarily entail C for every individual that possesses the divine essence, or is C true only of a particular individual (such as the Father) who possesses the divine essence?

If C is of the first sort, then we obviously end up with a circular explanation for the Son's production. For causal roles of the first sort, it follows that every individual who possesses the divine essence will play (or at least have the power to play) the causal role C in producing the Son, and since the Father, Son, and Spirit all possess the divine essence, C will necessarily be true of each of them. But if that's the case, then the Father, Son, and Spirit will (or can) play the causal role C in producing the Son, and that leaves us with the consequence that the Son is (or can be) caused, in the manner of C, by all three persons, and thus the Son is (or can be) caused by himself.

To avoid such a circular consequence, we are therefore pressured to take C as the second sort of causal role, namely the kind of causal role that is only true for a particular person who possesses the divine essence, namely the Father. In other words, if we want to say the divine plays some causal role in producing the Son, then if we want to avoid explaining the Son's production in a circular way, we need to say that the divine essence plays this causal role only when it exists in the Father.

But then the question is, why would it only play some causal role in the Father? What reason could be given for this? It is tempting to say, as many medieval theologians like Henry and Scotus do say, that the Father has the power to produce the Son in virtue of possessing the divine essence. We can use human intelligence again as an example. If a human person has the property being intelligent, then we could say she has the power to think in virtue of possessing that property. That seem sensible enough. But unfortunately, this doesn't get us very far. If the Father has the power to produce the Son in virtue of possessing the divine essence, then any other person which possessed the divine essence would have that power too, so why don't the other persons who possess the divine essence produce a Son? This is, in effect, the same question posed in a different way. Why is it that the divine essence plays a causal role in producing the Son only in the Father? Henry and Scotus each have strategies for getting around this, but I won't discuss those. My purpose here is just to figure out the force of Scotus's argument in n. 73.

So, Scotus has essentially shown that if the divine essence plays some causal role in producing the Son, then it can play that role only in the Father. From this, Scotus further argues that if the divine essence can play this causal role only when it is in the Father, and if this causal role is being a material cause as Henry has it, then it follows that the Son is produced in the Father. Imagine for a moment that the divine essence is a lump. If the divine essence is the material cause, as Henry holds, then this means the divine essence is the lump-in-which the Son is produced. But since the lump can only be the lump-in-which when it is in the Father, that is, when it is the Father's lump, then the Son can only be produced in the Father's lump. As Scotus sees it, then, Henry's view ends up with the consequence that the Son is produced in the Father, and that's a consequence Scotus sees as inappropriate.

I must admit that I find it hard to see why this should be a problem for Henry. If the divine essence is a substratum for the Father and the Son in the way that a lump of clay is the substratum of a statue, then of course the Son would be produced in that lump (the divine essence), and that lump would be in the Father. So it would not at all be inappropriate, on Henry's view, for this to be the case.

More on Scotus vs. Henry

More on Scotus's argument against Henry's substratum view. Here's my translation of the relevant bits.

[Ord. 1.5.2.un, my translation]

[n. 72] Further, a second argument against the principle claim [of Henry that the divine essence is the material term of the Son's production]. It is necessary to assign some being to the [divine] essence as it is that from which the Son is generated, because to be the causal basis of some true entity, in whatever genus of causal basis, does not belong to anything except a real entity.

[n. 73] Therefore, I ask what sort of being belongs to the essence as it is 'that from which the Son is generated' (by an impression). Either it is (a) precisely being ad se, which is the being of the essence qua essence – and then the Son is from the essence qua essence, and in this way [he is from] the three persons – or (b) it belongs to it to be in some subsistent [person]....

[The rest of n. 73 and n. 74 are translated in a previous post.]

The bit I have trouble with is (a).

Let me explain how I'm understanding this. For Henry, the divine essence is the material term of production, while for Scotus, it is the formal term. Consider a clay statue. We have a sculptor and a lump of clay. The sculptor takes the lump of clay, and fashions it into a statue by giving it the form of a statue. The sculptor is the producer, the form of the statue is the formal term of production, the clay is the material term of production, and the whole statue is the primary/adequate term of production. Saying the clay is the material term of production basically means that the clay is the stuff the statue is produced from. So the statue is related to the clay by a produced-from relation.

By analogy to the divine case, Henry thinks we can say the Son is produced-from the divine essence in the sense that the divine essence is the subject in which the Son is instantiated, similar to the way that a lump of clay is the subject in which a statue is instantiated. To put it in terms of causality, the divine essence plays the role of material cause in the Son's production.

Scotus says: okay, so if the divine essence plays the role of material cause, then are we talking about the divine essence as it is in all three persons, or as it is in the Father? If we go with the first option, then it follows that the divine essence as it is in all three persons will play a causal role in the Son's production. Scotus doesn't explain why this is a problem, but presumably, the consequence is that if the divine essence as it is in all three persons plays a causal role in producing the Son, then the divine essence as it is in the Son will play a causal role in producing the Son, and that's circular.

But what's the problem with this? I don't really see why this is a problem. We're just talking about material causality here, not efficient causality here. If the divine essence were the efficient cause (or played some efficient role) in the Son's production, then it makes sense. If the divine essence were the efficient cause of the Son, and if the divine essence were a part of the Son, then the Son would be efficiently caused by (a part of) himself. But we're not talking about efficient causality. We're talking about material causality, and I don't see why this is in any way odd.

Consider a clay statue. A statue is produced-from a lump of clay, and so the clay plays the role of material cause, but nobody would say the statue is produced-from a part of itself (or, if we allowed such a phrase, it wouldn't be problematic, for we all know what we mean: the statue is just produced from the lump of clay). On Scotus's reading, if the Son is produced-from the divine essence, then the Son is produced-from a part of himself, and that's circular. But if that's right, then this should be true for clay statues as well: if a statue is produced-from a lump of clay, then the statue is produced-from a part of itself, and that's circular. But surely we don't take the case of the clay statue as problematic, so why should we take the divine case as problematic?

I'm tempted to think Scotus is equivocating between efficient and material causality. As I hope is clear from what I've just written, Scotus's argument seems completely sensible if we think 'produced from' implies efficient causality, but it makes no sense if we think 'produced from' implies material causality. So it would be natural to think Scotus was just thinking about efficient causality when he wrote this bit.

But unfortunately, he seems to suggest in n. 72 that this argument applies, no matter what kind of causal role the divine essence plays (as Scotus puts it, 'in whatever genus of causal basis'). So apparently, Scotus thinks this works for any genus of causal role: efficient, material, formal, or final. So I'm stumped here. I can't seem to see why it would be a problem for material causality.

Besides, if Scotus thinks the argument works for any genus of causal basis, then it applies to the formal cause, and Scotus thinks the divine essence is the formal cause of the Son. So his argument would apply to his own theory just as much as to Henry's, if it were successful. Yep, I'm stumped.

Perhaps we could appeal to time here. A statue is produced from clay, but the clay is not a part of the statue until after the statue is produced, so it is not true, strictly speaking, that a statue is produced from a part of itself. But in the divine cause, time is not an issue. The Son is supposed to be eternally produced, so whenever it is true that the divine essence is a part of the Father, it is a part of the Son too. Thus, if the Son is produced-from (via material causality) the divine essence as it is in the Father, it is also true that the Son is produced-from (via material causality) the divine essence as it is in the Son. Then it would be circular.

But does that even work? I don't know. Something about all this seems very hocus pocus.

The divine attributes

The topic of the divine attributes focuses on the nature of God's properties. A divine attribute is a property of God. So what is the list of properties that belong to 'the divine attributes'?

Traditionally, such properties must be compatible with being God. The properties being good or being wise or being awesome are compatible with being God, but most of wouldn't say the property being addicted to child pornography is. So when it comes to the list of divine attributes, we're just including God-compatible properties on the list, attributes like 'good', 'wise', 'perfect', and so forth. (Which properties, I would suggest, are not PC-compatible, but only Mac-compatible).

In any case, this question has its locus classicus in Aquinas's discussion of the divine attributes. Aquinas's position runs as follows.

When we observe and ponder the world, we notice two types of entities: objects, and the properties of those objects. Consider a red car. The car is the object, but its red color is a property of the car. The car has other properties too, like being fast, weighing such and such, and so forth.

Now, would we say that an object is identical with any of its properties? Is a car identical -- the very same thing as -- its property of being red? Aquinas, at least, would say no. The car can still be the car without being red, so being a car and being red don't seem to entirely be the same thing. Likewise, the property being red can apply to things other than cars (like lamp shades and sunsets), so being red and being a car don't seem to be entirely the same thing.

Aquinas concludes from this that objects are different from their properties. Objects have properties, but objects are not identical to their properties.

Now apply this to properties that we include in our list of divine attributes. Take 'wise' for example. If I say 'Dan is wise', I seem to be talking about an object (Dan), and a property (being wise). On Aquinas's analysis, Dan is not identical to his property of being wise. After all, Dan can exist without being wise, and being wise can apply to objects other than Dan. Thus, Dan has wisdom, but Dan is not identical to his wisdom.

But what about when we say 'God is wise'? As Aquinas sees it, the situation is different. God does not have wisdom, God is wisdom. God is completely identical to his properties (i.e., the divine attributes). In other words, in the created realm, objects and properties are different, but in the divine case, the object in question (God) is identical to his properties (the divine attributes).

(Notice that this entails that God's properties will always be true of God, but this is not the case for creatures. Dan can exist without wisdom, but God cannot exist without wisdom. Dan can acquire or lose (if, perhaps, he had a lobotomy) wisdom, but God cannot acquire or lose wisdom.)

Aquinas, famously, argues that our minds work in accordance with the created order, so when I say something like 'John is wise', my mind understands John as having the property of being wise. So statements like 'John is wise' are understood as 'John has the property of being wise'. Aquinas thinks that our minds think this way because the world is that way, and God made our minds to understand the created order.

But God is not like the created world. God does not have the property of being wise. He is wisdom. As Aquinas sees it, we cannot understand it, because any statement like 'God is wise' gets translated in our brains as 'God has wisdom'. Thus, we always don't really understand the true meaning of our statements about God. We cannot then, understand what it is to be wisdom. We can only understand what it is to have wisdom.

(The same goes for existence. We can't understand what it is for God to be existence, we can only understand what it means to have existence. But existence is slightly more complicated than the other divine attributes like 'wisdom', because it is not clear that existence should be construed as a property. In any case, I won't discuss existence more here.)

As one author puts it, for Aquinas, we know that our words refer to God, but we don't understand the true sense of those words, since we can't understand what it is for God to be wisdom. We know our God-talk has reference, but it doesn't have sense. Aquinas is, in this respect, firmly in the negative theology tradition.

Some thoughts on the divine essence as a substratum

I've been thinking some more about this little debate between Henry and Scotus on the divine essence as a substratum for the persons. Here are some of my (rough) abstract thoughts on the matter. Maybe later I'll clean this up if I get a chance.

In book 7 of De Trinitate, Augustine ponders two ways to explain how the divine essence is common to all three divine persons: as a shared genus or species, as for example if three people shared one form of humanity, or as a common material or substratum, as for example if three statues were made from the same lump of gold. I will call the first of these views the 'generic view', and the second the 'substratum view'.

One might wonder if it really makes much difference which of these we choose. After all, on both views, the divine essence is just something shared by the three divine persons, so the relations of identity and distinction work out in more or less the same way. It doesn't matter much whether we say the divine essence is a common 'form' or a common 'substratum', because either way, the divine essence is common to all three persons.

Here I will try to show that there is one reason why it might make a difference which of these views we choose. Although the identity and distinction relations work out in more or less the same way for each of these views, when we consider how the Father produces the Son, the generic and substratum views have to part ways. And then, as I will argue below, it turns out that the substratum view (but not the generic view) pressures us to say that the divine essence belongs more to the Father than to the Son, and that sounds a lot like subordinationism.

1. The generic and substratum views

There are many ways to compare and contrast the generic and substratum views, but for our purposes, I would like to think of this in terms of instantiation. From this angle, the difference between the generic and substratum views is that on the generic view, the divine persons instantiate the divine essence, while on the substratum view, the divine essence instantiates the divine persons. I will say more about this in a moment, but first I want to explain what I mean by 'instantiation'.

Instantiation, as I understand it here, is a technical way of talking about 'where' properties occur. The idea is that properties don't just float around, detached from objects. They occur in objects. The property being red, for example, is not just a free-floating patch of color. Rather, it occurs in particular objects such as walls and fast cars. These objects are 'where' the property being red occurs. In the technical jargon, each occurrence of the property being red is an instance of being red, and the object where a property instance occurs is said to instantiate the property (or, to use the passive tense, the property is instantiated by the object). So when I say that some x instantiates F, I mean that the property F occurs in the object x.

This description of instantiation might seem a little vague, and it is, deliberately so. The reason is that I don't intend it to depend very much on particular ontological commitments. Instantiated properties can be described in a variety of ways, e.g., they can be tropes, immanent universals, qualities, and so forth, but we can still talk about these in terms of instantiation. The same goes for the objects which instantiate properties. These can also be understood in various ways – as bundles of tropes or properties, an independent substance, a substratum, and so forth – and we can still talk about this in terms of instantiation.

To maintain the serviceability of instantiation, all we need to do is meet two conditions. First, for any x that instantiates F and any y that does not instantiate F, F is ontologically connected to x but not to y. If we consider a red wall and a green water tower, the color red is ontologically connected to the wall in a way it is not connected to the water tower. This 'ontological connection' can be construed in many ways, but however we explain it, we need to maintain that the color red is ontologically connected to the wall rather than the water tower

Second, if some x instantiates F, then F does not instantiate x. In other words, the relation must be asymmetric. The color red comes to exist in walls and fast cars, but fast cars and walls do not come to exist in the color red. Again, there are many ways to explain how or why the ontological connection of objects and their properties is asymmetric, but so long as we can maintain that walls instantiate the color red and not the other way around, the notion of instantiation is serviceable. (If we deny the asymmetry of x and F, then the substratum and generic views are not different at all, because the divine essence is just the overlap of the three persons.)

So how does this apply to the trinity? As I said at the beginning of this section, on the substratum view, the divine essence instantiates the divine persons. Thus, the divine essence is 'where', as it were, the divine persons occur, so we end up with one object which instantiates three persons. To borrow from Augustine's analogy, if you can imagine three statues occurring simultaneously in the same lump of gold, you have a good idea of the substratum view.

The generic view, on the other hand, maintains the opposite position: the divine persons instantiate the divine essence. Thus, the divine persons are 'where', as it were, the divine essence occurs, so we end up with three objects that instantiate (we could also use the word 'exemplify' here to mean the same thing) one divine essence. If you can imagine a single statue occurring simultaneously in three lumps of clay (perhaps in the way that a polyadic property might occur simultaneously in multiple objects), you have a fair picture of the generic view.

As I suggested early on, it may not seem like there is any significant difference between the substratum and generic views. Indeed, on both views, the divine essence plays the role of something common to all three. It is just the 'overlap' of the persons. Whether we say that this 'overlap' occurs because the divine essence instantiates the persons or because the persons instantiate the divine essence, the identity and distinction relations turn out to be exactly the same. However, in the next section I will argue that although this is true for the identity and distinction relations, when we consider how these two views explain the production of the Son, the substratum and generic views have to part ways.

2. The production of the Son

Thus far I have suggested that we can define the generic and substratum views in terms of instantiation: on the generic view, the divine persons instantiate the divine essence, while on the substratum view, the divine essence instantiates the persons. Each of these views entails a different statement about how the divine essence is included in a divine person.

On the generic view, the divine essence is instantiated by the divine persons. Putting it this way might make it sound like we can first have a divine person which then instantiates the divine essence, and thus there is the possibility that a divine person could exist without instantiating the divine essence. But this needn't by the case. We could insist that a divine person cannot fail to instantiate the divine essence, just as a human cannot fail to instantiate the property being human. Thus, on the generic view, some x is a divine person only when it instantiates the divine essence.

On the substratum view, things are reversed: a divine person is instantiated by the divine essence. Again, although putting it this way might make it sound like the divine essence could exist without exemplifying a person, this needn't be the case. We could insist that the divine essence cannot fail to instantiate at least one divine person, just as some clay cannot fail to instantiate at least one lump. Thus, on the substratum view, the divine essence is a divine person only when it instantiates a person, just as a lump of clay is only a statue when it instantiates a statue.

These two different conceptions of what makes a person determines how we explain the production of the Son. On the generic view, some x is a divine person only when it instantiates the divine essence, so producing the Son entails that however we explain the inner machinery of production, the end result must be that the Father causes some x (the Son) to instantiate the divine essence. On the substratum view, the divine essence is a person only when it instantiates a person, so producing another person entails that however we explain the inner machinery of production, the end result must be that the Father causes the divine essence to instantiate a person. In short, on the generic view, the Father must cause the divine essence to come to exist in the Son, while on the substratum view, the Father must cause the Son to come to exist in the divine essence.

It is at this point that we start to encounter the difference between the substratum and generic views, but to arrive at a clear picture of this, we need to consider the causal relations entailed by production. Of course, there are many different causal relations that we could discuss here. For example, we could talk about how a stone falling is causally related to the physical forces that act upon the stone, or how the fire that burned down the neighbor's house was causally related to the circumstances leading to the fire.

But these are not the sort of causal relations that make a difference for the production of the Son. The reason is that when the Father produces the Son, there is nothing there to cause the Son except the Father. The Father must therefore be the sole and sufficient causal source for the Son. No matter how we construe the Father's causal or productive role in producing the Son, the end result will therefore be that the Son is directly emitted or elicited – produced – from the Father. The Son will come 'out of', if you will, the Father. There is nowhere else the Son could come from.

Thus, when we say that the Son is produced from the Father, this produced-from relation must have the sense of 'coming directly from'. The Son will not be related to any causal source other than the Father. There is not an external artisan who shapes the Son out of the Father, there is no physical force that causes the Son to spring forth from the Father, nor is there anything else. The Son comes from the Father, plain and simple.

But here is where the generic and substratum views start to part ways. On the generic view, the Son is produced from the Father but not from the divine essence, while on the substratum view, it's hard to see how the Son could fail to be produced from the divine essence. On the substratum view, the Son is produced from the Father, but the divine essence just is the substance of the Father. The divine essence just is that object 'where' the Father occurs. If the Son comes from the Father in the sense that the Son directly issues forth from the Father, then surely the Son comes from that object 'where' the Father occurs, namely the divine essence. It would be odd to think that the Son issued forth from the Father, but not from the object where the Father is instantiated.

Consider a clay statue. Suppose that, perhaps in some other worldly dimension, clay statues can produce products in such a way that the products directly issue forth from the producing statues. In this scenario, it's hard to see how such a product could fail to be produced from the clay. If the clay just is the substance of the statue, the object 'where' the statue occurs, then surely the product will issue forth from the clay. It would be odd to think that such a product would issue forth from the statue, but not from the clay where the statue is instantiated.

On the generic view, however, the Son does not come from the divine essence in this way. Rather, the Son directly issues forth from the Father. Of course, on the generic view, the Father instantiates the divine essence, so the Father is 'where' the divine essence occurs, but nothing turns on this. Consider the clay statue again. A product issuing forth from a clay statue would come from the clay in which the statue is instantiated. It would be odd to think the product came from the statue but not from the clay where the statue is instantiated.

As it turns out then, the substratum and generic views begin to part ways when we consider where the Son issues forth from for each of these views. On the substratum view, the Son would issue forth directly from the divine essence, while on the generic view, the Son would issue forth directly from the Father. In the next section, I will argue that this particular difference pressures the substratum view to distance itself even further from the generic view.

3. The substratum view and the divine essence

Saying that the Son comes from the divine essence pressures the substratum view to say that the divine essence belongs more to the Father than it does to the Son. Otherwise, it turns out that the Son is produced from himself. The idea here is that if the divine essence is equally the object which instantiates each divine person, then it follows that the Son is produced from the object which instantiates himself. And since the Son just is that object (in which the Son is instantiated), the Son is produced from himself, and that's circular. Let me try to explain this with some analogies.

Imagine if you and I jointly owned a lump of gold which we then cast into a statue. If someone asked what the statue was produced from, I couldn't say it was produced only from my gold, because it's just as much your gold as it is my gold. The statue would be produced from the gold that belongs to each of us. In order to say the statue was produced from my gold, the gold would have to belong more to me than to you.

Or, to use an example closer to the divine case, imagine a possible world where the only material is clay, and the only way such clay can be arranged is statue-wise (in such a world, any bit of clay is a lump and a statue). If you pointed to one of these statues and asked me what it was produced from, I couldn't say it was produced from the lump's clay any more than the statue's clay, since the clay is equally the lump's and the statue's. In order to say the statue was produced from the lump's clay, the clay would have to belong more to the lump than to the statue.

Similarly, if the divine essence is equally the substance of each divine person in the sense that it is the object which instantiates each divine person equally, then we cannot say the Son is produced from the Father's substance, because the divine essence is just as much the Son's substance as it is the Father's. To put this another way, whenever it is true that the divine essence is the substance of the Father, it is also true that the divine essence is the substance of the Son. Consequently, whenever it is true that Son is produced from the Father's substance, it is also true that the Son is produced from his own substance. The only way the Son could be produced from the Father's substance (and not his own substance), is if the divine essence belongs more to the Father than to the Son and/or Spirit.

The conclusion here is that if we want to say that the divine essence is equally the substance of each divine person, then we have to accept the circular consequence that the Son is produced from the substance of each divine person (and thus, in part from himself). In order to avoid this problem, we are pressured to say the divine essence belongs in some way more to the Father than it does to the Son. Only then will it follow that the Son is produced from the Father's substance rather than from his own.

But if we do that, it seems we end up with a text book case of subordinationism. If the divine essence belongs more to the Father than to the Son and Spirit, then it obviously follows that the Son and Spirit possess the divine essence in a way less than the Father does. Since the Son and Spirit are therefore less than the Father (in whatever way we define 'belonging less to' here), it's hard to see how this sort of thing would not be a case of subordinating the Son and Spirit to the Father. If we hold to the substratum view, we would therefore want to find a way to explain how the divine essence could belong more to the Father than to the Son in such a way that did not amount to subordinationism.