Scotus, Ord. 1.5.2un nn. 72-74

Here is a very brief and very rough summary of one of Scotus's arguments against Henry's view that the divine essence is the material term of generation. I hope to polish this up and explain it much better and more clearly, but for now I had to get my thoughts down before they disappeared from my brain forever.

Henry argues that in the Son, the whole Son is the primary term of generation, the personal property being a son is the secondary term of generation, and the divine essence is the material term of generation. Against this, Scotus offers the following argument (my loose translation):


[Ord. 1.5.2.un 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]. And then I ask: in which subsistent [person]? If it is (i) the ingenerate Father, then in this case the notion of 'the being from which something is produced' will include the notion of 'the being in which a form is induced', and since the notion 'the being in which' here includes 'to have that which is in it', by consequence [it will include the notion of] 'being formally by itself'. Thus, if the essence as it is in the Father is that from which the Son is generated (by an impression, according to Henry), it follows that that very essence as it is in the Father will be that in which the generated knowledge is imprinted, and then the essence as it is in the Father will formally be the Word (or, to put it another way, the essence will be in a state of knowing generated knowledge), which is incompatible [with Henry's view]. But if (ii) the essence as it is in some subsistent [person] other than the Father is that from which the Son is generated, then in as much as it is 'that from which', a term of generation will proceed from it in some way, and then there are two subsistent [persons] after the term of generation, which is inappropriate.

[n. 74] If you say the essence 'in as much as it is that from which the Son is generated' has no existence in the person, just as matter 'in as much as it is that from which a generated thing is generated' does not have being in some suppositum but rather only has being in potency to the generating suppositum, this strengthens nothing. The reason is that, as was said, it is necessary to attribute some real being to the causal basis of some entity, in whatever genus of causal basis. For this reason, although the being of the composite which matter possesses by participation in the composite does not belong to matter, some being properly belongs to matter which is naturally prior to the being the matter possesses as a part of a composite. And therefore here it is necessary to give to the essence 'in as much as it is that from which the Son is generated' some being, and that must be either the being of a suppositum or the being of the essence according to itself, so the argument stands.

This typically dense passage by Scotus is one of Scotus's best arguments against Henry's view that the divine essence is the material term of production.

Scotus begins with the claim (n. 72) that

(T1) A real product requires a real causal basis.

Talk of 'real' in this context means 'existing'. The idea is that if no cause exists, then no effect will exist. This much seems uncontroversial. Any product is a product only because it bears the relation 'is produced by x', where x is a producer. Thus, without a producer x, there cannot be the relation 'is produced by x'.

Scotus further adds that this applies to any genus of causal basis. That is,

(T2) For any kind of causal basis, (T1) applies.

This particular claim may be more controversial. Consider the statement 'the vacuum caused the marble and the feather to fall at the same speed'. Here the vacuum is the causal basis for the marble and the feather falling at the same speed, but everybody would agree that a vacuum is nothing at all. The vacuum is not some existing cause, it is rather just a condition. Thus, certain kinds of causal bases, for example certain kinds of conditions, fail (T2).

Scotus is undoubtedly thinking of a causal basis along Aristotelian lines, and thus the only kinds of causal bases he has in mind are efficient, final, formal, and material. And of course in this case the causal basis in question is the material cause. We can easily avoid the problem by replacing (T2) with:

(T2') For any material causal basis, (T1) applies.

Scotus then moves on to play out the implications of (T1) and (T2) for Henry's theory. Scotus is taking issue with Henry's claim that

(H1) The divine essence is the material causal basis for the production of the Son.

Henry is here explaining the sense of 'from' in the Nicene creed's statement that the Son is produced 'from the substance of the Father'. For Henry, when we say the Son is from the Father's substance, we mean the divine essence plays the role of matter in the Son's production, and thus the Son is 'from' the matter (divine essence) in the same way that a generated thing in the created realm is generated 'from' matter. For example, I can make a wall from bricks. In a similar way, Henry says the Father produces the Son from the divine essence. In Henry's technical vocabulary, the matter of a produced wall bears a relation 'being the material from which' to the producer, and this sort of relation obtains for the divine essence as it is in the Son.

Against this, Scotus applies (T1) and asks: what sort of existence does the causal basis have? In the case of divine production, we are dealing with the divine essence. There are only two kinds of existence for the divine essence: (a) existence ad se, or (b) existence in a suppositum. That is, we can talk about how the divine essence (a) exists on its own, or how it (b) exists in a particular person.

Scotus tackles (a) first. His argument rests on the claim that divine essence, qua essence, exists equally in all three persons, without any limitation to a particular person. Thus:

(T3) The divine essence qua essence is common to all three persons.

Recall that we are trying to identify x in the Son's relation 'is from material x'. If x is the divine essence qua essence, then the Son will bear the relation 'is from' to all three persons. And this leads to the circular consequence that the Son bears the relation 'is from material x' to part of himself.

So that's out. Scotus then moves on to (b), the claim that the divine essence is the divine essence as it exists in a particular person. He then asks: which person? Either it is (i) the Father, or (ii) some other person.

It can't be (ii), because then we'd have the Father, the produced Son, and some other person, which is incompatible with the claims of trinitarian dogma.

But what about (i)? To this, Scotus argues that if we accept (i), then we have to conclude that the Son is produced in the Father. Since the divine essence is the matter of the Father as much as it is the matter of the Son, then the divine essence as it is in the Father will both found the relation 'is from material x' and the relation 'inheres in material x'. In other words, the divine essence as it is in the Father will both elicit the Son's form and receive the Son's form. And Scotus points out that if something is both the material and the form, it is formally existent on its own.

This much itself doesn't seem problematic. For example, I can take a lump of clay and make a statue out of it. The statue is both the material from which the statue is made, and the material in which the statue's form is received. And imagine a lump of clay which had the power to form itself into different shapes. It could form itself into a statue, and the same state of affairs would apply without any external agents.

[Edit: Scotus's point must be that the Son is not formally existent on his own. That's what the Father is. The Son is produced, not formally self-existent.]

However, for Henry, the Father is the divine essence existing in a state of knowing nothing but the simple divine essence. The Father's intellect can then look back on itself, see what it is knowing, and then produce a concept of that. This concept is then imprinted on the divine essence, and so the divine essence in the state of knowing this produced knowledge is the Word (the Son). And here is where Henry gets into trouble. As Scotus points out, if the same divine essence is the subject of both simple knowledge and generated knowledge, then the divine essence will either be the Father or the Word. It can't be both.

Finally, Scotus raises a possible objection. In created things, we don't say that the matter of a product exists. It is simply in potency to the producer. Likewise, in the case of God, we don't say the divine essence exists (in the Son before the Son is produced), we simply say it is in potency to receive the form of the Son. But Scotus finds this objection insufficient. Even in the case of material beings, we still have to say that matter has some being before it comes to exist in a composite. Likewise, in the divine case, the divine essence has to exist in the Father before it comes to exist in the Son.