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.