f. 87rb: Quandocumque sunt aliqua idem ex parte rei totaliter, quidquid convenit uni et alii; si ergo intellectus et voluntas sunt idem totaliter et ut precedunt distinctionem personarum, ergo intellectus vellet et voluntas intelligeret et cum intellectus intelligeret malum culpe voluntas vellet.
Translation:
Whenever there are things that are totally the same from the nature of a thing, whatever befalls one will also befall the other; if therefore the intellect and the will are totally the same and as they precede the distinction of [the Trinitarian] persons, therefore the intellect will will and the will will understand and when the intellect understands the evil of fault, the will will will it.
18 comments:
I mentioned on my own blog that I have only two readers - RP the Writer (RPW) and RP the Reader (RPR). RPW is very smart and only posts profound insights, great poetry, and etcetera. RPR is abysmally ignorant and stupid. But I wrote it as a joke on myself because it is good for me to realize I am an absurd nincompoop. If all blog writers and commentators realized this about themselves it would be a lot more fun reading and commenting on blogs.
I'm glad to see this kind of joke dates back to medieval times. After all, if one of the premises is 2=1 it's not surprising strange results can be deduced.
Another thing I wrote when I first started my current nut-house thoughts-diary is a definition of Logic as an attempt to answer: Who's on First. In the case of the argument you posted, Who is on First, and Second.
But a distinction "from the nature of the thing", or "in reality" does not mean a numerical distinction. All the argument claims is that what really corresponds to the will and what really corresponds to the intellect cannot be absolutely the same thing. (Or, as the anonymous author puts it "non sequitur 'non idem formaliter, ergo diversum realiter'")
Your analogy would hold if you could be the author of posts whose content you never understood, kinda like egotistically speaking in tongues.
(In any case, 2=1 is not a fundamental premise of scholastic philosophy. That would be 3=1)
There are plenty of Scholastic jokes about the formal distinction, but this ain't one of them. Indeed, the answers to many questions lie in the jokes.
So Ledoux is wrong, and this isn't a draft of Alnwick's later question? Does the "Dyonisian" opinion cited here match what Ledoux thinks is James of Ascoli's position in Alnwick's quodlibet, q. 1?
(by the way, on the next page, I'd correct that "brigam"-lookin' thing to "nugationem")
Bubba,
The argument is sleight-of-hand: he wants it both ways - intellect and will are two things that are one thing. It's the problem of the one and the many: one for God and many for us.
The argument has to proceed from a prior basis: God is simple, therefore there is no distinction in God between intellect and will (or love, or justice, etc). And then ask what this means according to our way of knowing. Because, for us, intellect and will are not quite the same (though in my latest opinions I am close to throwing out will altogether).
Will is often thought of as choice. Some people think the will can make arbitrary choices independent of knowledge, habit, passion, etc. Some people think the will more or less automatically chooses the good the intellect knows at a particular moment. Whichever is the case for man (or some other explanation), I don't see how it is possible to think God makes choices.
But another aspect of will is to "rest" in the possession of the good. And this is certainly compatible with the notion that in God intellect and will are nor distinct.
The subtlety of the position lies in another theological problem: divine omniscience, willing, and goodness. Whether or not God chooses or wills, what God wills, insofar as it is willed by God, is good. What God knows, qua known-by-God, cannot be limited to goodness: Lord knows what I did last night, but God surely didn't will it. So there are two different sets of objects that correspond to two divine powers.
Of course, you can propose other solutions. Peter Auriol, for example, claimed that the difference was merely between the extramental connotations of the terms "intellect" and "will", to which someone else replied that "to connotate" and "not to connotate" were themselves contradictory, and so amounted to the same thing. At that point, ol' Pete dropped distinction that the terms signify directly (in recto) the same, simple thing, but obliquely (in obliquo) refer to different external sets.
Now, those who defend the position cited by now-anonymous author would deny your assertion that "intellect and will are two things that are one thing". To the contrary, the intellect and will are (when taken together with the essence) one thing (res). They terms intellect and will, however, do not pick out the same reality in the that one thing, but rather different formal aspects.
The argument has to proceed from a prior basis: God is simple, therefore there is no distinction in God between intellect and will (or love, or justice, etc). And then ask what this means according to our way of knowing.
There's a misunderstanding here. For Scotists, God's simplicity does not entail a lack of all distinction, but a lack of all composition. The intellect and will are not parts constituting a whole. That doesn't imply that they are in no way distinct.
A question for RP: So is creation a necessary emanation or boiling-over from the divine intellect?
Bubba, all I meant was that it might be 'secundum alium' as Duba pointed out in his article in the Quodlibeta volume. The title is the same as that of James of Ascoli's Quodlibet q. 1, though from what I've seen, James holds a version of the intentional distinction. I haven't had a chance to check James Quod. yet. My original interest in the question was to see if there was any connection to Scotus' Quaestio de formaliatibus.
I suspect there may be some 'secundum alium' going on in the three questions that follow the possible Alnwick question and treat intelligible being. At first I thought they might be a fragment from James' Sentence commentary because the positive doctrine in one of them, expressed in the first person, was basically that of James' as edited by Yokoyama ("consecutive' theory of divine ideas, metaphorical causation, an argument about a stone being univocally being in itself and in God). But the third of these questions attacked an anonymous opinion that is identical to an opinion that Petrus Thomae attacks in his QQ de esse intelligibili and explicitly acribes to James. So either these questions aren't by James but by someone influenced by him, or they aren't all by the same author.
Lee,
Creation is necessary but free. I would say a revelation of part of his self-knowledge. The things created (including us) are this revelation - a manifestation of his intelligibility. So, I can say the things we freely think and do are how God reveals (to us) what he eternally knows we will freely think and do.
Michael,
If you mean the distinction is in our knowing, fine.
If you try and think of God as Truth knowing Truth rather than as - what is it, self-subsisting being? - then formal distinction doesn't arise.
Bubba,
Now, those who defend the position cited by now-anonymous author would deny your assertion that "intellect and will are two things that are one thing". To the contrary, the intellect and will are (when taken together with the essence) one thing (res). They terms intellect and will, however, do not pick out the same reality in the that one thing, but rather different formal aspects.
You are a contestant on Jeopardy. You provide as the question to every answer: What is the formal distinction? You win millions of dollars.
Just joking!
I'm not saying that the argument really says two are one but that he talks as if it is the case. Intellect and Will is two, so therefore if they are one, then God wills evil. Besides, it assumes if intellect and will are one then thinking is willing and willing is thinking. I would conjecture God doesn't think or will.
Lee and Michael and I had a bit of discussion some time ago on formal distinctions "prior to God's thought". Of course my view is that God is his thought so that nothing can be prior. It seems to me that formal distinction arises from thinking of God as Being. Nevertheless, the "different formal aspects" is according to our way of knowing about God and not God's way of knowing himself.
Aquinas says in God Person is not really distinct from Nature. Yet we speak of three persons all the time. Augustine said if we didn't say person we couldn't say anything; examples of what I mean of according to our way of knowing.
was just passing through Mr. Ascoli's quodlibet this morning -- It turns out that the second part of question 1 has a whole series of arguments based on the intellect and the will, including this puppy (sorry for the typos):
Tertio ad eandem conclusionem principalem arguitur sic: quandocumque aliqua sunt totaliter idem ex natura rei quicquid convenit uni istorum ex natura rei convenit et reliquo; sed Deus ex natura rei intelligit per intellectum et non intelligit per voluntatem, et ex natura rei vult per voluntatem et non vult per intellectum; ergo intellectus et voluntas distinguuntur in eo ex natura rei. Maior istius rationis est evidens; sed probo minorem, quia si Deus vellet per intellectum, sequeretur quod vellet naturaliter quicquid vult, sicut intelligit naturaliter quicquid intelligit; et similiter, si Deus vellet per intellectum et intelligeret per voluntatem, tunc sequeretur quod omne intellectum a Deo esset volitum ab ipso, et ita, cum Deus intelligat privationes et mala culpe, Deus vellet mala culpe, quod est absurdum.
Nec potest dici quod ista verificantur de intellectu divino et voluntate divina per comparationem ad intellectum et voluntatem creatam, quia quando aliqua sunt idem totaliter ex natura rei, ad quodcumque comparatur unum, et reliquum comparatur eque primo. Si ergo intellectus et voluntas divina sunt totaliter idem, ad quodcumque comparatur unum, et reliquum, et econverso. Numquam ergo ex comparatione ad intellectum et volutnatem creatam poterit aliquid attribui voluntati divine, quod non eque primo attribuatur intellectui divino, et econverso.
So I guess I'd better look closer at Jimmy myself. Later.
If you mean the distinction is in our knowing, fine.
No, I certainly don't mean that.
Creation is necessary but free.
This sounds like a contradiction.
I have to say that your position in general frequently sounds incoherent. It's hard for me to tell whether you're understanding the Scotist arguments before rejecting them or not.
Bubba: sweet!
Michael,
Creation is necessary but free.
This sounds like a contradiction.
"It is undoubtedly true that the divine act of willing has necessity from the point of view of the One willing and of the act; for God’s action is His essence, which is clearly eternal." (De Veritate 23, IV)
I have to say that your position in general frequently sounds incoherent. It's hard for me to tell whether you're understanding the Scotist arguments before rejecting them or not.
I'll clarify it for you: my position is incoherent (particularly so when it is my own thinking) and I don't understand Scotist arguments. I won't think less of you if you completely ignore me. It is, in general, what I expect on every blog.
RP,
if you read the rest of the corpus of De Veritate 23.4 you'll see Aquinas clearly stating that the divine will is necessary in everything regarding God himself but insofar as it is directed at creatures it is not necessary.
I won't think less of you if you completely ignore me. It is, in general, what I expect on every blog.
I've been ignored on plenty of blogs myself. We don't have so many readers here that we want to blow them all off.
Michael,
You've read DV 23, 4 exactly right: necessary but free.
What does Scotus say?
Michael,
But the point of the post is that Thomists would say (I think) his necessity is his essence, his freedom is his essence, his intellect is his essence, his will is his essence, etc, all of which Scotists apparently deny. Is it any wonder I don't understand their arguments?
The solution that makes sense to me is that the distinction between God's intellect and will is something we make so we can understand something about God.
And Scotists, I suppose, say that God's own understanding makes these same distinctions. That's quite a leap for anyone to make so you can see it's quite reasonable to not accept Scotist arguments.
Michael,
I'll make one more comment and then consider myself banned.
How do you even know God has an intellect and will?
Consider the following thought experiment to get you into the mood with which I ask this question:
Suppose you could know without before and after. All you could know is what you know and that you know. If for us something changes, you would only know what is the case now. You wouldn't know what you previously knew because there is no previous for you. You wouldn't know something changed - you would have no memory. You wouldn't know the future because in some sense the future is after now. There would be no discursive thinking.
This is not God's eternal knowledge, but a bit similar; maybe how it is for angels and souls in heaven.
Now apply this to will. Presumably you can only will what you know and what you know doesn't change. So, you would will unchangeably - fixed on one thing, whatever that may be. The only possibility I can think of is to will what you know. But to will what is known is to rest in truth.
But anyway, for God what he knows never changes and what he wills never changes so to say it is knowing and willing is in comparison to our own knowing and willing while at the same time admitting it is not really like it because for us (in this life) it is impossible to know without before and after.
What is it to know Socrates as sitting when Socrates is sitting and Socrates as standing when Socrates is standing and yet have no change in your knowing? Just what is known and what is this knowing?
Before and after may be a consequence of finitude so maybe in heaven there is a before and after even for angels (though no time interval).
RP: Scotists dont' say that God makes these distinctions. That's what Henry of Ghent says.
Different attributes in God such as intellect and will are formally distinct, that is, they have distinct definitions. Even Aquinas in his Quaestio de attributis thinks that there are distinct definitions in God that are not generated by the human mind. Otherwise all our knowledge of God would be false.
You seem to be advocating just Aristotle's prime mover. no knowledge, no will, nothing but thinking of itself.
Alternatively, if you think there is creation and God has knowledge of it, you would have to admit that God's knowledge of a creature is necessary, there is no difference between intellect, will and essence, so there must not be a difference between the intellect, a thought of the intellect, and the object thought about, so there must not be a difference between the divine essence and creatures. So creatures are God.
And Scotists only deny that the divine intellect is formally (has the same definition as) the divine essence, that the divine intellect is formally the divine will, that divine justice is formally divine wisdom and so on.
Post a Comment