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.

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.