Conversations with Augustine: Commentary on Williams’ Essay
Commentary on Williams’s Essay by Garrett Smith
Mr. Williams has given us some weighty food for thought in his essay on divine memory in the thought of three of the most difficult of Christian thinkers, and for this we must thank him. He has discussed an interesting link, perhaps even one heretofore unnoticed. Especially useful (at least to me, an avid reader of the scholastics but not of scholarship on them) was his note towards the end about the different models of the Trinity found among Franciscans and Dominicans regarding the explanatory role played by opposed relations and emanations.
Of course, such a brief essay leaves one wanting more; just how does Henry preserve divine simplicity when the divine intellect seems to be composed of a potential and actual principal? I can’t say such a move from Henry terribly surprises me, as nothing really surprises me about Henry after learning that the divine essence is “quasi-matter.” Also, Scott points out that Scotus errs in his interpretation of Henry, somehow because Henry also describes the divine intellects composition of actual and potential as having the ability to reflect on a “prior” act; again, how does Henry preserve divine simplicity while positing priority and posteriority in divinis? Does he develop some version of what in Scotist thought are the signa naturae? I have heard rumors that he does, at least with respect to the immaculate conception.
Regarding Duns Scotus, questions also arise; Scott writes in his conclusion “the persons as such are positively distinct such that when the Father produces an act of thinking, it is his, but when the Father generates the Son/Word, he generates a (formally) distinct entity who nevertheless is constituted by numerically the same divine essence that constitutes the Father”; now, I am a little confused by this. Is Scott here referring to the distinction between that by which the Father produces the Son and innascibilitas as being a formal distinction (if he is, then I believe he is correct), or is he rather referring to the difference between the Father and the Son (in which case, I think he may be mistaken)? The latter cannot be the case as the persons themselves are really distinct from each other while being formally distinct from the divine essence. But the rationes formales of the processions are only formally distinct from each other and the divine essence. That is, the products are really distinct, the processions are not. Indeed, Scotus’ argument against Godfrey on this issue is that a principle distinct only in reason cannot produce an effect that is really distinct.
A final question: it seems a commonplace in the literature to say as Scott does “Scotus views the divine essence as akin to an ‘immanent universal’”; by this are we to understand that the relation between supposit and nature is one of singular and universal? This is puzzling because Scotus himself explicitly denies this in both the Lectura and the Ordinatio (I d.2 pars 2 q.1-4 n.378:
“Ubi notandum quod natura non se habet ad suppositum sicut universale ad singulare”), offering a long series of arguments in the former work. Perhaps some qualification is usually given, such that this does not apply, and Scott for reasons of space did not make it.
All in all, an engaging, illuminating read and a great entry.
3 Responses so far
6:28 pm
Some quick responses:
1. Henry does posit ’signs of nature’ such that there is an order of prior and posterior in divinis. In one passage he labels these ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ ‘D’ and ‘E’. A = Father has an act of understanding the divine essence. B = The Father loves what he knows. C = The Father intellectually generates the Son/Word. D = The Father and Son mutually love one another. E = The Father and Son spirate the Holy Spirit/Zeal.
2. Re: Scotus; yes, the Father and Son are really distinct, but their constituents (generator-generated) are formally distinct from the divine essence. If there is not a ‘whole’ over and above the constituents, then one might say the persons are formally distinct from one another. Wouldn’t you think the claim that they are really distinct is based on the claim that there is a non-qualitative-thisness that constitutes the Father, and another non-qualitative-thisness that constitutes the Son? Interestingly, it is hard to see how a non-qualitative feature could be formally distinct from anything else–precisely b/c a formal property = a qualitative property. So, if this non-qual. thisness is the basis for the real distinction, we can say that the qual. properties generator or generated are formally distinct. In any case, I agree with what you say Garrett.
3. Re: the divine essence as an ‘immanent universal’. This sort of universal is not the sort that our medieval boys talk about. What Scotus wants to deny is that the divine essence is like a genus or species that is contracted into an individual instantiation of that property. So, if we look at Socrates and Plato, we can count two humanities. But, the divine essence is not contracted like this. There is only _one_ instantiation of the divine essence. This is expressed by the phrase, ‘the Father and Son are constituted by numerically the same divine essence’. If I said, ‘the divine essence that constitutes the Father is numerically distinct from the divine essence that constitutes the Son’, then we’d have a case that proposes that the divine essence is like a ‘universal’. So, in the contemp. context, a theory of ‘immanent universals’ imagines that there is no ‘contraction’ of the universal to a particular, but that the same universal can be an attribute of numerically distinct entities (cf. D. Armstrong’s _Theory of Universals_). This is why folk like Richard Cross describe Scotus’s view of the divine essence as being like an ‘immanent universal’. What is rejected is the claim that there are 2 or more divine essences. There is only numerically one divine essence. And if we secure this claim, then we can say the divine essence is like an ‘immanent universal’. But if we wish to discard the modern exposition, we could just say that for Scotus the divine essence is like a Platonic Form that self-exemplifies, and that each divine person is constituted by this self-exemplfied Platonic form. Of course, Scotus would reject that there are other Platonic forms (e.g. humanity, bovinity, etc.). But his doctrine of a common nature is a whole other matter.
12:08 pm
Hi Scott,
Thanks for your very helpful responses! One last question: does Scotus give an argument for why, employing your language of the divine essence being like a Platonic Form that self-exemplifies each of the Persons of the Trinity being constituted by this Form, there are only three rather than four or more Persons in the Godhead? I recall reading somewhere (and you alluded to St. Richard of Victor in your essay) that Scotus drew from St. Richard of Victor’s Trinitarian theology, in which I thought (and could be remembering this incorrectly) he attempted to argue for the necessity of only three Persons in the Godhead. Does any of this sound right, or am I mixing my memories with something that St. Thomas argues in SCG IV :)?
Best wishes and thanks for starting the Augustine Conference off so well,
Cynthia
5:28 pm
Hi Cynthia,
Scotus does argue that we can prove that God is a Trinity of persons; and he does this by broadly following Henry of Ghent way of proving that God is a Trinity of persons. That is, there are two productive powers in the divine essence (intellect and will), and God is necessarily eternally actual, thus, God (the Father) necessarily produces a Word/Son by intellect and produces Zeal/Holy Spirit by will/love.
Richard St. Victor is different in that he argues for the plurality in two ways. The first, more well known way is by the notion of perfect love, which I won’t rehearse just now. The second way is something of a clarification of the first, which is that the first divine person is ‘not from another and productive of another’, the second divine person is ‘from another and productive of another’, and the third divine person is ‘from another and not productive of another’. So, I usually represent this ciasmus in this way, where a ‘-’ means a negative property, and a ‘ ‘ is a positive property: – / / – . Father = – ; Son = ; Holy Spirit = – . Richard denies there could be a person who is ‘–’ b/c this is would not accord with perfect love. Incidentally, ‘–’ would be God as the Jews or Muslims know God.
Also, Scotus thinks that Richard’s claim that ‘mutual love’ is necessary for the production of the Holy Spirit is heretical b/c it means God the Father is in se imperfect and unable to spirate the Holy Spirit himself.
So, all in all, Scotus likes to give a ‘necessary argument’ for the Trinity, but just not Richards, instead he gives a critically enhanced version of Henry’s ‘necessary argument’ that there are exactly three divine persons. My short essay expresses one slice of Scotus’s critical enhancement over Henry’s view.
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