Aristotle on Opposites 2: Contraries

Last time, I talked about the first kind of 'opposites' that Aristotle talks about in the Categories 10, namely 'correlatives'. Correlatives are relational features that are reciprocal, like 'double' and 'half' (each refers to the other).

The second kind of 'opposites' are what Aristotle calls 'contraries'. These are what we typically think of when someone says, 'give me an example of a pair of opposites'. 'Hot' and 'cold', 'good' and 'bad', 'black' and 'white', 'healthy' and 'sick', things like that.

Here in Categories 10, Aristotle says two things about contraries.

(1) Contraries are not relational and reciprocal. They do not each relate to the other in the way that 'double' and 'half' do. If something's 'double', then there must be something else that's 'half'. A 10kg block couldn't be 'double' if it were the only thing in the universe, for there'd be nothing it could be the double of. But if something's hot, then there's no guarantee that something else will be cold. A candle could exist all by itself, and it'd still be hot. Hell, even if one thing is hotter than another, the cooler of the two still needn't be cold.

Of course, contraries like 'hot' can stand in various relationships -- this bit of heat might be double the temperature of that one -- but the contraries themselves are not relational features like correlatives are. Contraries are, I reckon, non-relational features.

(2) Contraries are divided into two broad groups.

(a) In the first group belong all that are necessary and binary. A pair of contraries is necessary if the appropriate sorts of things always have one or the other (but not both), and never neither. (I say 'the appropriate sorts of things' because contraries don't belong to just any old thing. Only certain kinds of things can have certain kinds of contraries. Animals can be healthy or sick, but stones cannot.) A pair of contraries are binary if those two contraries are the only options, and there's nothing in between.

For example, health and sickness are necessary and binary in this sense. Every animal must be either healthy or sick, but never neither, and it can't be somewhere in between. (Of course, we might say that an animal is 'in between' in the sense that it's partly healthy and partly sick, but that applies to different parts of the animal, not the same part.) Similarly, 'odd' and 'even' are necessary and binary for whole numbers (except zero). Every whole number (apart from zero) must be either odd or even, and it can't be somewhere in between.

(b) In the second group belong all contraries that are neither necessary nor binary. White and blackness, for example, are not necessary, nor are they binary. Animals can be white, black, or anywhere in between.

Aristotle speaks as if the division between (a) and (b) is exhaustive. All necessary contraries are binary, and all unnecessary contraries are not binary. There are no necessary contraries that are not binary, and there are no unnecessary contraries that are binary.

That's all Aristotle says in Categories 10. It doesn't give us a whole lot to go on. I still wonder what it is, exactly, that makes two things contrary? Elsewhere, Aristotle says that contraries are what are 'the most distant in the same genus' (Categories 6, 6a15-18). That is, if we take any particular kind of feature that comes in a variety of degrees, the two ends of the spectrum are the contraries. For example, color comes in different shades ranging from black to white, but since black and white sit at the ends of the color spectrum, black and white are the contraries for color.

But that won't do; not quite. Aristotle thinks some contraries are binary; for them, there's nothing in between, so there's no spectrum. Consequently, we can't talk about a 'spectrum', or a 'variety of degrees', or anything like that. Instead, we need to talk about contraries as the two most different features that belong to the same kind. So even if there were no colors except for black and white, black and white would still be contraries because they're the most different of any two colors. And that would work for any feature-kind, no matter how many different features belonged to that kind.

However, this would mean that every two-membered feature-kind is a contrary. Would Aristotle accept that? I don't know. But more importantly, this would mean that all two-membered feature-kinds are necessary, for those kinds would be binary, and all binary contraries are necessary. Conversely, any more-than-two-membered feature-kinds would be unnecessary. I'm not sure whether Aristotle would accept this implication. Maybe he would. I don't know.

Before I finish, there are two little problems to bring up.

(i) A short while later in the Categories (see 12b37-13a2), Aristotle says that some contraries are essential constituents for certain kinds of things. For example, whiteness is an essential constituent of snow, because snow is always white. Doesn't this mean that whiteness is necessary for snow? If so, it should follow that whiteness belongs to a pair of binary contraries (for Aristotle has said that all necessary contraries are binary). But that's obviously false. There are other colors besides white and black. On the one hand, then, Aristotle says that all necessary pairs are binary, but on the other hand, he says some necessary pairs are not. Which is it?

(ii) Aristotle also says a little later (see 13a31-37) that contraries are variable: something can switch from one contrary to the other (a pot can become hot, then cold, then hot again). He makes this point in order to distinguish contraries from the third kind of opposites: namely, possessing a natural ability, and being deprived of that ability. Possession and deprivation, says Aristotle, are permanent (once blind, a man doesn't regain his sight), and since contraries are variable, they're not the same as possession/deprivation. Now, if some contraries are necessary constituents for certain things (as whiteness is for snow), then surely those are 'permanent'. Again, then, it seems that Aristotle is saying that contraries are 'variable', and that they're 'permanent'. Which is it?

Aristotle on Opposites: Correlatives

What are opposites? Any of us could give plenty of examples. 'Hot' and 'cold', 'good' and 'bad', and so forth. But what is it that makes these pairs of features opposites? And what is it that makes 'hot' the opposite only of 'cold' rather than, say, 'bad'?

Explaining a theory of opposites is no easy task, but Aristotle takes a shot at it in the Categories 10. There he says there are four kinds of opposites:

(a) correlatives (e.g., 'double' vs. 'half'),
(b) contraries (e.g., 'hot' vs. 'cold'),
(c) possession/deprivation (e.g., 'sight' vs. 'blindness'), and
(d) contradiction (e.g., 'Socrates is sitting' vs. 'Socrates is not sitting').

What about the first of these – what, exactly, are correlatives? Aristotle says the following:

'Pairs of opposites which fall under the category of relation are explained by reference of the one to the other, the reference being indicated by the preposition "of" or by some other preposition. Thus, "double" is a relative term, for that which is double is explained as the double of something'.
[11b22-33, emphasis mine, and I added the quotes around 'double'.]

Here's what I gather from this: every correlative is a relational feature. A relational feature relates one thing to another. How do we know when a feature relates one thing to another?

Well, Aristotle thinks it goes something like this. If we take some feature and try to explain what that feature is, we can only do so if we make reference to something else. For example, if I tried to explain to you what 'double' is, I'd have to talk about how something that's 'double' is twice as much as another thing. I couldn't really explain what 'double' is without also talking about what it's the double of.

In modern logic speak, we might say that relational features can only be expressed by two-place predicates. A two-place predicate is one that requires filling in two blanks to make sense. For example, the predicate 'is the double of' only makes sense if I fill in both of the following blanks: '_____ is the double of _____'.

I couldn't say '10kg is the double of...' and just drop off. You'd think I was either asking you to fill in the blank (as if I went around giving you pop math quizzes all day), or you'd think I got lost in thought and stopped mid-sentence (which I do). But you wouldn't think I uttered a complete sentence. A two-place predicate needs both blanks filled in.

(There are three-place, four-place, and n-place predicates too. A three-place predicate would be something like '_____ is half way in between _____ and _____'. I've got to fill in three blanks there, so it's a three-place predicate. But I think Aristotle believes that correlatives are best expressed by two-place predicates, so we can ignore all these n-place thing-a-ma-jigs for now.)

In any case, my point is that a relational feature is explained with reference to something else (it's explained with a two-place predicate), and every correlative is like this. Thus, 'double' is a relational feature because you have to explain it as the double of another thing. Likewise, 'half' is a relational feature because you have to explain it as the half of another thing. The same goes for other correlatives like 'parent' and 'offspring', 'taller' and 'shorter', and so on.

Another thing I gather from the quotation above is this: correlatives are reciprocal. That is, each one refers to the other: for any pair of correlatives R and R*, if x is related to y by R, then y is related to x by R*. Every correlative is like that. If x is the double of y, then y is half of x. If x is the parent of y, then y is the offspring of x. If x is taller than y, then y is shorter than x.

So that's correlatives. A pair of features are correlatives iff (i) each of the pair is a relational feature, and (ii) each of the pair are reciprocal. As Aristotle sees it, correlatives are one kind of opposites. 'Double' is the opposite of 'half'. 'Parent' is the opposite of 'offspring'. 'Taller' is the opposite of 'short'.

One last thing. We should be careful not to confuse the correlatives themselves with the things they correlate. Suppose I have a 10kg block and a 5kg block. Obviously, the first is double the second in weight, and the second is half the first in weight. But what are the actual 'opposites' here? The blocks? The weights?

It seems to me that the genuine opposites are the relationships the blocks have to each other (namely, the relationships of being double and half). The blocks (and their respective weights?) are 'opposites' only in virtue of their double/half relationships.

(Strictly speaking, perhaps the blocks are opposites in virtue of the double/half relationship, and the weights are the foundation/basis for that relationship. But still, aren't 10kg and 5kg opposites?)

Aquinas on the Filioque

In the last two posts, I talked about what Aquinas thinks are the essential ingredients or components of any production, and how he thinks those components allow us to distinguish two productions. As I explained, for Aquinas, every production will involve (a) a producer, (b) a 'formal term' (which is the final form the product takes), and (c) the receptive material that gets fashioned into the final product along the way. And given these, Aquinas thinks we can distinguish two productions if they differ with respect to at least one of these components.

Aquinas uses all of this, of course, to distinguish the Son from the Spirit, and so I might as well wrap this up by quickly going over that. Immediately after the quote I gave two posts back (the one from SCG 4.24, n. 11), Aquinas goes on to argue that we can only distinguish the Son and Spirit by their producers, not 'formal terms' or 'receptive material'. He reasons as follows.

First, we can't distinguish the Son and Spirit by (c) their receptive material, he says, because the Son and Spirit aren't material things, so there aren't two lumps of material there.

(Note that some scholastic authors, Henry of Ghent in particular, disagree with part of Aquinas's claim here; for Henry of Ghent, the divine essence is like a lump of quasi-material that all the persons are made from. Of course, there's just one such lump, so we couldn't distinguish the Son and Spirit based on that.)

Second, we can't distinguish the Son and Spirit by (b) their 'formal terms' either, because for Aquinas, the Son and Spirit have the very same form, namely the divine essence.

(Again, note that not all scholastic authors accept this. Henry of Ghent, again, thinks the personal properties (not the divine essence) are the forms of the persons, and those are all different.)

Third, that leaves (a) their producers. The Son and Spirit must, then, have different producers. Therefore, Aquinas concludes, the Son must be produced by one person (the Father), and the Spirit must be produced by two (the Father and Son together).

(Note also: This argument could equally conclude that the Son is produced by the Father alone, and the Spirit is produced by the Son alone. That'd amount to different producers too. But Aquinas would respond that if the Son were the sole producer of the Spirit, we might as well just call the Son 'father' and the Spirit 'son', for 'father-son' really means 'one producer-one product'. But that would be no good. The notion that 'father-son' relations only apply to 'one producer-one product' scenarios is precisely the point that Aquinas is trying to prove here, so he couldn't slip that in before he's proved it.)

Aquinas on Distinguishing Two Productions

In the last post, I talked about what Aquinas takes to be the basic components of any production. A production is a process whereby some material is fashioned into a product. The three basic components of such a process are these: there's the producer, there's the 'formal term' (the final form the product takes), and there's the 'receptive material' that gets fashioned into the product along the way.

As we saw in the quotation from the last post, Aquinas thinks two productions can only be distinguished by one of these three components. Let me restate that as follows: two productions P1 and P2 are distinct only if they differ with respect to (a) their producers, (b) their formal terms, or (c) their materials.

Consider (b) first: two productions are distinct if they have different formal terms. Let me try to explain this with the following scenario. Suppose that I am a cleaner who works for the sole sculptor within a hundred miles. This sculptor likes to work alone, so I only come in at night to clean. One night, I notice a clay statue on the table, but the next night I notice that the same lump of clay has been re-fashioned into a vase (I know it's the same lump of clay because the sculptor's only got one lump of clay at the moment; the next shipment has yet to come in).

Now, the only thing that's different between the two days is the shape/form of the clay. Apart from that, the clay (the receptive material) is the same, and the sculptor (the producer) is the same (after all, there isn't anyone else within a hundred miles who could've done the sculpting). Still, the fact that there are two different forms (the 'formal terms') provides enough information to tell me that there have been two productions, even if the producer and the material are the same: on the first day, the sculptor fashioned the clay into a statue, and on the second day, she fashioned it into a vase.

Now consider (c): two productions are distinct if they involve different lumps of material. Suppose that the next delivery of clay arrives, and that night I notice a that lump of red clay has been fashioned into a statue. On the next night, I notice that a brown lump of clay has been fashioned into what looks to me to be the exact same statue.

In this case, the producer is the same (it's the same sculptor who made both statues), and the forms are the same (both statues are identical copies), but the material is different: the first statue is made from red clay, and the second is made from brown clay. Still, the fact that there are different lumps of material is enough information to tell me that there have been two productions: on the first day, the sculptor made a statue out of red clay, and on the second day, she made one out of brown clay.

Now consider (a): two productions are distinct if they involve different producers. To get at this idea, we'll have to modify our hypothetical scenario a bit. Suppose that another sculptor moves in, and the two join up to form one esteemed sculpting firm. However, each sculptor likes to work alone, so they come in on alternate days. Suppose also that they're a bit manic, and so each one destroys whatever work the other one has left in the studio.

One night, I notice a statue made out of the last lump of clay (again, there's only one lump of clay left; the next shipment hasn't arrived). The next night, I notice what appears to be the exact same statue made from the exact same clay.

In this case, the material is the same (it's the same lump of clay), and the forms are the same (the statue has the same shape on both nights). But nevertheless, I know that two producers have been involved, and that's enough to tell me that two productions have occurred: on the first day, the first sculptor made a statue, but on the second day, the other sculptor smashed the previous statue into a lump, and then re-fashioned that lump into an identical statue.

Of course, these scenarios are contrived, but hopefully they illustrate how two productions are distinguished by their producers, formal terms, or materials. If two productions differ with respect to even one of these, that's enough to tell that there are two productions.

Now, I've talked as if we're looking for a way to notice a distinction between two productions, and I've been saying that if we notice a distinction between producers, formal terms, or materials, that gives us enough information to tell that there are two productions.

However, it's not clear that Aquinas is suggesting a criterion by which we can notice when two productions are distinct. Instead, he may be suggesting the cause of two productions being distinct. If that's what he means, then he'd be saying something like the following.

Consider (c) first: if a producer uses two lumps of material, that necessarily amounts to two productions (she makes one product out of one lump of material, and she makes another product out of another lump of material). That's not necessarily very plausible though. Surely I can use two lumps of material to make one product.

Now consider (a): if two producers produce, that necessarily amounts to two productions (one producer performs one production, and the other performs another act of production). This is not so plausible either. Surely two producers can cooperate to make one product. And besides, Aquinas believes the Father and Son together produce the Spirit, and does he want to say that the Spirit is produced by two productions? (Maybe he does; some scholastics do think that.)

Finally, consider (b): if a producer produces two formal terms, that necessarily amounts to two productions (she makes one product with a certain form, and she makes another product with a distinct form). That's much more plausible, for no one product could have two formal terms (a lump of clay can't have a statue shape and a vase shape at the same time, for example).

I reckon that from the list of (a), (b), and (c), (b) is the only plausible cause of distinction. (a) and (c) work fine as criteria of distinction, but surely a difference in (a) or (c) doesn't necessarily cause distinct productions.

Aquinas on the components of production

On a number of occasions throughout his various works, Aquinas defends the filioque (namely, the claim that the Holy Spirit is produced by two persons, the Father and the Son). At one point (SCG 4.24, n. 11), he says this:

'If the Holy Spirit were distinct from the Son, then they'd have to be produced by distinct productions or processions. Two productions, however, can only be distinguished by their principles, terms, or subjects.'

Never mind the first sentence. What interests me is the second sentence, for I think there's a nice bit of metaphysics here. I gather that Aquinas thinks the following three components are involved in any production:

(a) a principle,
(b) a formal term, and
(c) some receptive material (which Aquinas calls the 'subject').

Think of production as a process whereby some material gets fashioned into a product, much like how a lump of clay gets fashioned into a statue. Here, (a) the 'principle' is the source of the production, and in this sense it's the starting point of the whole process; (b) the 'formal term' is the final form the product takes, and so in this sense it's the end point of the whole process; and (c) the 'receptive material' is the stuff that gets fashioned into the final product along the way.

Of course, that's a rough way of putting it, so let's discuss each of these components in a little more detail. I'll start with the last item on the list and work my way backwards.

First, then, is the last on the list: the (c) 'receptive material'. We think of 'material' as stuff like wood, clay, or iron, but for Aquinas the meaning is a bit wider. Something deserves the label 'material' only if it has the capacity (in medieval-speak: a 'passive power') to be acted upon in some way. Aquinas calls it the 'subject' because it receives the activity of the producer. So, for example, a lump of clay has the capacity to be shaped into statues, vases, and the like, so clay is 'material' in this sense. But Socrates can be sunburnt, so he is like 'receptive material' for the sun's activity too. For Aquinas, the term 'receptive material' extends to quite to a few objects in the material world.

Further, the receptive material has to be the right kind of stuff, where 'the right kind of stuff' is anything that has the capacity to be fashioned into the particular kind of product in question. Materials have certain kinds of capacities ('passive powers'), but not others, so not all materials can be made into just any old product. Clay makes for great statues, but horrible nails. Organic tissue, on the other hand, makes for great animal bodies, but horrible statues.

Also, the receptive material has to be distinct from whatever product it's fashioned into. The very same lump of clay can become a statue, then a vase, and so it's clearly not the very same thing as the statue or the vase. If it were the same as the statue, it'd be destroyed when the statue is, but that's obviously not the case. I can smash a clay statue, but I'm still left with a lump of clay, even though the statue is no more.

As for (b) the 'formal term', different scholastic authors define this in different ways (Ockham, in particular, provides a distinctive definition in Ord. 1.5.3). But for Aquinas, it's the final form of the product. The 'formal term' is called the end point (terminus) of a production because it's the final form the product takes. When I sculpt a statue, my lump of clay takes on a succession of different shapes, but eventually I get to the one I'm after. The 'formal term' is that final shape that I finally get to, and that's why it's the 'end point' of a production.

(Sometimes a lump of matter doesn't go through a series of intermediate forms. Instead, it's immediately turned into the product in question. Living organisms are generated this way: a lump of organic tissue immediately becomes the organism in question as soon as it gets the organism's form. But even in cases like this, the product's form is the 'end point' of the production.)

As for (a), the term 'principle' has a broad meaning in scholastic writings, and it basically means 'source'. Of course, there are lots of way for one thing to be the 'source' of another, so there are lots of different kinds of principles. So what kind of principle does Aquinas have in mind when he talks about the 'principle' here?

I think there are two candidates here. First, a cause is one kind of principle. (Here I mean an 'efficient cause'. Aquinas also calls the 'formal' and 'material' causes 'principles', but those don't seem to be good candidates for what Aquinas is talking about here, so I'm only looking at the 'efficient cause', i.e., whatever acts to bring about an effect.) If we take 'principle' in this sense, then the 'principle' (efficient cause) of a production is the producer – i.e., the thing that actually does the producing.

But another kind of principle is a power source (or what I call a 'power-pack'). A power-pack, in this context, is some constituent or 'metaphysical part' of a producer that provides it with the power to produce the product in question. The idea here is that certain things have certain power-packs, and those power-packs give them certain powers. Consequently, something can only produce a particular kind of product if it has the right kind of power-pack.

On many an occasion, scholastic authors use the term 'principle' to refer to a 'power-pack' (see especially distinction 7 of the Sentences Commentaries), and so I suppose it's possible that Aquinas has the 'power-pack' in mind here when he talks about the 'principle' of a production.

So which is it? Does 'principle' mean 'producer' or 'power-pack'? I think that Aquinas must mean 'producer' here. I have two reasons for saying this. First, when some later authors present Aquinas's argument (and I'm thinking of Henry of Harclay in his Ord. Quest. 6), they just use the term 'producer' instead of 'principle'. Now, later authors often misconstrue Aquinas if it suits their purposes, but this particular reading is perfectly sensible, so I see no reason to doubt it.

Second, Aquinas's argument simply wouldn't work unless he meant 'producer'. He goes on to argue that we can only distinguish the Son and Spirit by (a) their principles, and from this, Aquinas concludes that the Son and Spirit must have different producers (the Son comes from one producer, and the Spirit comes from two producers). This wouldn't work if Aquinas didn't mean 'producer'. If he meant 'power-pack', he could only conclude that the Son and Spirit come from different 'power-packs', not different 'producers'.

A production, then, is a process whereby a producer (the 'principle') takes a lump of 'receptive material', and fashions into a product by giving it a particular form (the 'formal term'). This provides an abstract account for many different kinds of production: a statue is produced when a lump of clay is given a statue shape; a human being is produced when a lump of organic tissue is given a human form; 'tan Socrates' is produced when Socrates is given a tan color; and so on.

A very brief summary of Henry's Ordinary Questions, art. 54, q. 3

(References to Badius, volume II.)

54.3
Does a second divine person emanate from the first unproduced person?
(Bad. 78vN-87rX)

/79rO/ This question asks whether there is an action within God by which a divine person is produced, and here we're taking 'production' broadly enough to cover both generation (the Son's production) and spiration (the Spirit's production). On this question, we need to follow Church doctrine, for it's difficult to grasp this mystery.

The first reason to say 'yes' to this question comes from the nature of a divine person. A produced person in God is constituted by a relation to another person, and this relation distinguishes it from that other person too. But this distinction can only be based on a production relation (i.e., x produces y), and a production relation requires some act of production (which remains in God, else we're talking about creation). Thus, we have to say that in God, one person produces another person, and these two persons remain within one and the same God. /79rO/ Further, the produced person must be subsistent. The reason is that no product can inhere in God, and since any production in God will be entirely perfect, the product must be entirely similar to the producer (for a diversity of natures arises from different ways that things are produced: better producers result in better products, and lesser producers result in lesser products).

/79vP/ The second reason to say 'yes' to this question comes from the nature of the DE (= divine essence), for the DE is the most active thing there is, and so it is more perfectly self-diffusive than anything else. Of course, the most perfect self-diffusion comes about by producing another person that shares the same nature. (Henry cites Richard of St. Victor, De Trin. 1.9 for this argument).

/79vQ/ [Response to the first objection.]

You might object that a necessary being cannot be multiplied, and so just as the divine essence cannot be multiplied, neither can a divine person. I respond that this is true for necessary beings of the same nature, but not for necessary beings with diverse natures. The being of the DE is the same in each person, so it cannot have different natures in each person. But the being of 'person' (i.e., subsistence) can have many natures (e.g., a father-wise nature, a son-wise nature, and so forth). Thus, although the necessary being of God cannot be multiplied on the part of the DE, it can be multiplied on the part of the persons.

/79vR/ [Response to the second objection.]

You might also object that something's necessity cannot stem both from itself and from something else. Now, there is no divine person in God whose necessity stems from another, because then that person would be only a possible being in itself. Therefore, there cannot be a person who has being from another in God.

To this, I respond as I did in the previous question. If we say that a being whose necessity stems from itself cannot have necessity from another, this is only true for the DE. It is not true for a divine person, since the necessity of the Son and Spirit stems from themselves formally, but not principiatively. (That is, the Son and have the divine essence formally, and so they formally have necessary being (along with every other feature of the divine essence). But the Son and Spirit did not produce themselves, and so they did not cause themselves to have the divine essence.)

/79vS/ [Response to the third through sixth objections.]

[Obj. 3] Further, you might object that if the first unproduced person produces another person, then that produced person either is God, or it is not God. We can't say it's not God, because it's produced in God, and there's nothing in God except God. Nor we can we say it is God, because then God would produce God, and nothing can produce itself.

[Obj. 4] Similarly, if God produces God, then the produced-God either is the Father, or it is not. If it is God the Father, then the Father produces himself, which is impossible. On the other hand, if it's not God the Father, then it's God, but it's not God the Father. Thus, there will be two Gods, which is also impossible.

[Obj. 5] You might also object that if the unproduced person produces God, then the unproduced person does this either because that's what God does, or because that's what an unproduced person does. If it's because he's God, then since the product is God too, it would produce yet another God (for that's what God does), and that God would in turn produce still another God, and so on forever. On the other hand, it can't be because because he's unproduced either. Productions in God are perfect, and so they result in most similar products. Consequently, the unproduced person would have to produce an unproduced person, but that's impossible. Therefore, the unproduced person cannot produce God.

[Obj. 6] Finally, you might object that since nothing in God is contingent, then whatever is true in God is also necessary. Now, if God generates God, then it will be necessary if it's true that 'God generates God', and then one could not affirm the contrary, namely that 'God does not generate God'. However, 'God generates God' is true if the subject stands for the Father, but not if it stands for the Son or the Spirit. Therefore, God does not generate God.

/79vS-82vZ/ To these, I respond that the produced person is God, and we should concede that 'God produces God'. The word 'God' signifies the DE, simply speaking, but it's a concrete term, so it signifies the DE as a suppositum (just as 'tiger' signifies a particular tiger, not tiger-ness in general). Thus, 'God' signifies a divine suppositum (a person), and so it can stand for any divine suppositum (though we cannot say the essence produces the essence). To signify a specific person, we need relative terms like 'producer', 'Father', or 'person'.

[What I have just said is a very brief summary of a very long digression in Henry's text. In this digression, Henry talks about the various grammatical and logical rules that determine the meaning of the traditional phrase Deus generat deum. This particular topic is usually discussed in book I, distinction 4 of the Sentences commentaries, but in Henry's Ordinary Lectures, it happens here in 54.3. I have skipped most of the details in this long digression because I find it very boring, but Stephen Brown wrote a helpful article on this topic. It's got a title like 'Medieval Suppositon Theory in its Theological Context', and it can be found somewhere in Medieval Philosophy and Theology 3 (1993). If you want to take a crack at the text here, I suggest starting with 81vY-82vZ.]

/82vA/ [Response to the seventh objection.]

[Note: Badius' marginal note says this is a response to the fifth objection, but it's really a response to the seventh.]

You might object that 'to produce' and 'to be produced' are opposite relations, and so they entail distinct terms. Thus, if God produces God, the two would be distinct, but this is obviously false.

I respond to this in the same way that I responded to the third through sixth objections. The term 'God' signifies supposita, not the DE.

/82vB/ [Response to the eighth objection.]

You might also object that if God produces God, then this is either by free will, by nature, or by necessity, for there are no other ways to do something. It can't be nature or necessity, because these are not done by free will, but God is the most perfect agent, and the most perfect agent must be in control of its actions. However, it can't be by free will either, because then it would be contingent, and everything in God must be necessary.

In response, I say that 'by free will', 'by nature', or 'by necessity' can be taken nominally or adjectivally. If they are taken nominally, then they indicate some other necessary co-actor, and God does not produce God with another necessary co-actor. If they are taken adjectivally, then they only indicate the manner of production. But no matter what manner of production we're talking about, God does not produces God out of some need. Nevertheless, we can distinguish two kinds of necessity here. One is natural necessity. For example, fire necessarily heats because that's what fire does naturally. The other is conditional necessity. For example, you are necessarily spoken to when I speak to you. This second kind of necessity can occur without the first, but the first can't occur without the second. /83rB/ In the first way, God produces God necessarily. But if we take 'by nature' and 'by free will' adjectivally, then the Son is produced in both these ways, and so is the Spirit. That is, every divine person is produced both by nature and by will, for God's nature and will are essentially identical, so it's impossible for God to produce God by nature but not by will. /83rC/ Nevertheless, although nature and will concur for each production in God, they do so in different ways. In the production of the Son, nature is primary and the will is secondary, but in the production of the Spirit, it's the reverse. Thus, in every production in God is necessary, natural, and free.

However, one might think that nature/necessity are the opposite of the will, and so they cannot both concur in the same action. To this, it should be said that the will operates either voluntarily in the absolute sense [libera absolute], or as free will [libera arbitrio]. In this second way, nature/necessity and the will [do not] concur in the same action, for in this way, God does nothing by [free] will within himself (God only acts that way with creatures). /83vC/ But in the first way, nature/necessity can certainly concur in the same action.

/83vD/ If you said that God cannot produce God by will because such a production cannot not be, then I could respond in the way I just did.

[Response to the ninth objection.]

You might object that if God produces God, then the product-God must be produced either (a) from nothing, (b) from the producer-God's substance, or (c) from some other substance. Not (a), because then it would be a creation, and that would make the product-God a creature. Not (b), because if some product is made from some substance, that that substance had the potential to become what was made from it, but there's no potentiality in God. Nor (c), because then there'd be two divine substances. Therefore, God cannot produce God.

I respond to each of these possibilities. As for (a), Anselm gave us three different ways to understand 'from nothing'. In the first way, something is 'nothing' when it simply doesn't exist (as when I am not speaking at all, I say nothing). In the second way, something is 'from nothing' because it has no cause (e.g., the Father is from nothing because nothing produces him). In the third way, something is 'from nothing' either in the sense that it is made from no material parts (that is, it is created instead of being constructed from material parts), or in the sense that it acquires being after it did not have being before (as when something did not exist at one moment, but then did exist at a later moment). No produced divine person is 'from nothing' in any of these ways.

/84rE/ As for (b), the product-God can, in fact, be produced from the substance of the producer-God. If we think of the divine essence as 'matter', and if we think of the personal properties as 'forms', then we can easily understand how the Father produces the Son: the Father produces the Son by instantiating the Son's personal property (the 'form') in the divine essence (the 'matter'), and then the divine essence and the personal property together constitute a divine person. The three divine persons are like three composites of matter and form, it's just that they all share the same matter. Thus, the Son is made from the 'substance' (or 'matter') of the Father, much like how a clay statue is made from the 'substance' of a lump of clay.

/84vG/ If you object that the divine essence is totally actual and has no potentiality, I say that when some x has the potential to become y, either x and y are distinct in a real or intentional way, or they are distinct only conceptually. If they are distinct really or intentionally, then x can only become y by really changing into y, and in that way x changes from a potential y into an actual y. For example, a lump of clay is not the same thing as a statue, and so when a lump of clay is molded into a statue, the clay really changes from a potential statue to an actual statue. But if x and y are only conceptually distinct, then there cannot be any real change from a potential y into an actual y, for x and y are really just the same thing (though this only happens in the Trinity, for only there does the DE have the potential to be, say, a Son, even though that potential is eternally actualized because it eternally is a Son).

However, despite the similarity, divine generation is far better and more noble than creature generation. A creature is generated from an imperfect substance (namely, matter), but the Son is generated from a perfect substance (namely, the DE). Thus, divine generation is like a regular change in creatures – for example when Socrates gets a tan – because in such a regular change, the substrate (Socrates) is a complete substance. Still, the substrate (Socrates) is really distinct from the quality it acquires (a tan color), but in God the DE is really the same as the Son's personal property. Consequently, divine generation is like the production of a species. For example, when animality (a genus) acquires rationality (a specific difference), animality is only intentionally distinct from rationality. Nevertheless, divine generation is still different: (a) a genus is incomplete until it acquires a specific difference, but the DE is complete irrespective of the personal properties; (b) a genus is only conceptually common to many species, but the DE is really common by many divine persons.

/84vH-85vN/ [Henry gets into more stuff about the grammatical and logical rules for talking about the Son being produced 'from the substance of' the Father. Henry also indicates what the Latin prepositions a, ab, de, and ex signify. Not surprisingly, de signifies the material cause. In any case, since I'm not looking at logic issues here, I'm going to skip this stuff.]

/85vO/ One might argue against me further that if God produces God, then the producer-God either produces the product-God always, or not always. To this, I say first that divine production occurs within God, it is eternal, and it persists without beginning or end. Indeed, when a producer starts or stops producing, it changes from having activated powers to having dormant powers (or vice versa), but since God cannot change, he must always be producing. Also, when a disposed patient and agent are close to each other, an action necessarily occurs, but since the Father (the agent) and the DE (the patient) are properly disposed and close to each other (they are, in fact, united as one), the Father's act of producing the Son necessarily occurs, always.

/85vP/ One might think that the production never ceases because the product is never perfectly achieved (like when an artist continually works on a piece of art because it's not yet perfect). However, although all productions cause some product to have being, there are some productions where the product acquires being after it doesn't have being (where 'after' can refer to time or to nature), but there are some productions where this does not happen. /86rP/ [Henry then goes into some stuff about production that happens slowly and production that happens instantly, he goes into the production and conservation of a product, and he also goes into some stuff about Avicenna on the eternal dependence of the world on God. But I really can't follow it.] In God, a divine person is produced in the latter way. The produced person does not 'come into being'. Rather, the production is just sharing the being and essence of the Father. I deny Avicenna's claim that the world depends on God for its being eternally. That sort of thing only happens in the Trinity. The reason is that the 'matter' (= DE) in divine production has being from itself and not from another. For Avicenna, it's the other way around: the world's matter has being from another, not from itself. [I don't quite get why this matters. I guess I'd have to look at Quod. 1.7-8 to figure it out.]

/86vQ/ You might object that if God produces God, then this is either by the DE or by a suppositum (person). To this, I say that the principles and terms of actions belong only to supposita. But if you point out that divine supposita are relative, and in Physics 5 Aristotle says that relations cannot be the principle or term of an action, I say that this is true if we are talking about the nature of relations by themselves, but it is not true if we are talking about the nature of a relation's foundation (which in this case is the DE). When the DE has the character of one relative property, it is the principle of that by which it is formally, and when the DE has the character of another relative property, it is the the principle of that by which it is materially.

/86vR/ [Response to the tenth objection.]

You might object that acts are most noble because of themselves and not because of something they produce. God's internal (essential) action has the divine essence as its object, and that's the most noble thing of all. Therefore, God's internal divine action is most noble on account of itself, and not on account of something it produces.

To this I say that actions and operations are different, and each has its own kind of perfection. An operation gets its perfection from its object (the more perfect the object, the more perfect the operation), but an action gets its perfection from its product (the more perfect the product, the more perfect the production). Thus, God's (essential) operations like thinking and loving are most perfect because their object (= DE) is most perfect. Likewise, God's actions like producing the Son and Spirit are most perfect because their products (= Son and Spirit) are most perfect.

/86vS/ [Response to the eleventh objection.]

If you object than 'emanation' signifies some becoming or motion or coming out of, and none of that belongs to God, I say that this is true in creatures, but these concepts fall short when we try to apply them to God.

/87rT/ [Response to the twelfth objection.]

You might object that if one divine person emanates from an unproduced person, then it emanates by changing either (a) from non-being to being, or (b) from being to being – in which case it would either change (c) from the same being to the same being, or (d) from one being to another being. Not (a), because the Son does not begin to be, and everything that changes from non-being to being begins to be. Not (b), because that would be a proper change, and there are no proper changes in God. Nor would it be (c) or (d), because then it would exist before it was produced, which is impossible.

To this, I say that every divine person has aseity formally in the sense that the divine essence is the form of every person and the divine essence has aseity. Thus, even the persons that are produced have aseity formally, because although they are produced, the divine essence is shared with them. Creatures, on the other hand, do not have aseity formally. This is why created forms are multiplied. When parents make babies, the parents' forms are replicated in the babies, so new forms come into being with each baby. And since each new form is new, it depends for its existence on something else and therefore does not have aseity.

/87rV/ And when it is said in your objection that when a person is produced, there is either a change (a) from non-being to being, or (b) from being to being, I say that the word 'from' can indicate either the matter from which the product is produced, or the order/origin from which the product comes. In the divine case, the matter of the persons is the DE, and it exists in itself, so it's true that the produced person goes from being (= DE) to being (= produced person).

/87rX/ When it is further said in your objection that a produced person either goes (c) from the same being to the same being or (d) from one being to a different being, I say that it is not (d). On the contrary, it's (c), because the DE is the same in the Father and in the Son. But this is impossible in creatures.

A very brief summary of Henry's Ordinary Questions, art. 54, qq. 1-2

(All page references to the Badius edition, volume II.)

54.1
Is there an unproduced divine person?
(Bad. 77vA-78rH)

/77vB/ Richard of St. Victor (De Trin. 5.3, at the beginning) says there must be some first substance that is not produced by anything else. Likewise for the divine persons: there must be one divine person that is not produced by another. Otherwise, we'd have a chain of producers that would go on forever -- unless we claim there is a circle of producers, but that would mean the same person produces itself, which is impossible. Besides, something that's produced by another can't be the source of itself. We couldn't even grasp such a thing, and it's impossible anyways. Consequently, we cannot say there are an infinite number of divine persons.

/77vC/ Every being must either be (i) eternal and not produced, (ii) eternal and produced, or (ii) not eternal and produced. /78rC/ (A fourth option might be (iv) not eternal and not produced, but that's impossible, for everything that is not produced by anything else must be eternal.)

/78rD/ If you object that an unproduced divine person will have aseity (i.e., subsist/exist solely by itself), I say this is true formally, but not effectively (or, more properly, productively). A divine person who is not produced is not produced by itself, nor is it produced by anything else. The DE (= divine essence) is like this. This same reasoning can be applied to the divine persons.

/78rE/ Your objection assumes that whatever has aseity is an absolute thing, and this is not true. Something can have aseity in two ways. In one way, something can have absolute aseity when (a) nothing else causes it to subs-/exist, irrespective of (b) its relation to anything else. (Absolute things bear no essential relations to anything else, hence (b).) In God, only the DE has absolute aseity like this. /78rF/ In another way, though, something can have relative aseity when (a) nothing else causes it to subs-/exist, but it subs-/exists (b) only in relation to something else. The Father has relative aseity in this manner. He is not caused to subs-/exist by something else, but he only is Father with respect to the Son.

/78rG-H/ You might also object that there can only be one necessary being. In response, I say that if we take this essentially, then it's true that there is only one necessary being, namely God (the DE). If we take this personally, then we need to be careful, for your objection assumes that what is unproduced is a necessary being, but this is not always true. It's true that there's only one unproduced person in God, namely the Father, but it's not true that there's only one necessary person. On the contrary, there are three.


54.2
Is there only one unproduced divine person?
(Bad. 78rI-78vM)

/78vK/ Richard of St. Victor says that to be unproduced is not a shareable feature, for it can't belong to many things (De Trin. 5.3). Richard shows this (in 5.4) by appealing to the nature of the power for producing something. When something has this power itself (rather than having this power because it participates in something else that does have this power itself), it has this power fully. [Then there's something I don't understand, which concludes:] Thus, there can only be one such thing. In my Quod. 6, I also provided another argument for this same conclusion which appeals to the nature of relations (which multiply divine persons). Thus, there cannot be more than one God in the universe, and likewise, there cannot be more than one unproduced divine person in God.

/78vL/ You might object that since every production requires a terminus ad quem and a terminus a quo (a term 'to which' and 'from which'), and since there are two productions in God (that of the Son and Spirit), there must be two terms 'to which' and two terms 'from which', and so there must be two unproduced persons in God. To this I concede that every production requires a term 'to which' and 'from which'. But it does not follow that just because there are two products, there must also be two producers.

/78vM/ You might also object that since it is a perfection in God that there are many produced persons, then it should also be a perfection in God that there are many unproduced persons. To this, I concede that many produced persons is a perfection in God, but it does not follow that many unproduced persons in God is also a perfection.