New Petrus Thomae Edition

An edition of Petrus Thomae's Quaestiones de esse intelligibili has just been published, judging from the publisher's website (Leuven University Press, distributed in the USA by Cornell). It is a Scotist work on various issues associated with human and divine knowledge, causality, the ontological status of essences, and various interpretive problems in Scotus. It can be yours for only 75 euros!

It is volume I of a new series for the works of Petrus Thomae, the Scotist who taught at Barcelona in the 1320's.

Here is the publisher's information:

Description:

First critical edition of Petrus Thomae’s theory of non-causal dependence 

This work of Scotist metaphysics is an investigation into the ultimate constitution of things. In the course of this treatise, Petrus Thomae examines whether the essences of things ultimately depend on being thought of by God for their very intelligibility or whether they have it of themselves. Defending in detail the second option, Peter argues that creatures exist independently of the divine intellect in the divine essence. They enjoy real, eternal being in the divine essence and objective being in the divine mind. Aware that these views conflicted with his belief in the Christian doctrine of creation, Peter laboured to alleviate the conflict with a theory of non-causal dependence, according to which even if God did not cause creatures to be in the divine essence, nevertheless they are necessary correlatives of the divine essence.

Table of contents:

Preface

Introduction 

I. Life 

II. Works

III. Themes of the Quaestiones de esse intelligibili 

IV. The Edition

A. Description of Manuscripts

B. Prior Editions

C. Isolated Accidents

D. Common Accidents 

E. The alia littera of MS S

F. Stemma codicum 

G. Editorial Principles 

H. Authenticity and Title 

I. Dating 

J. Sources 

K. Influence 

Abbreviations

QUAESTIONES DE ESSE INTELLIGIBILI

Q. 1 Utrum intellectus creatus producat rem intellectam in esse intelligibili

Q. 2 Utrum intellectus divinus producat quidditates creabilium in esse intelligibili 

Q. 3 Utrum illud esse intelligibile quod habuit quidditas creabilis ab aeterno sit esse causatum 

Q. 4 Utrum esse intelligibile creabilium sit prius aliquo modo esse subsistentiae productae in divinis 

Q. 5 Utrum quidditas creaturae in esse intelligibili posita sit formaliter idea

Q. 6 Utrum esse quidditatis in esse intelligibili positae sit totaliter respectivum 

Q. 7 Utrum teneat ista consequentia: ‘aliquid non habet esse subiective, ergo non habet esse’ 

Q. 8 Utrum creatura ab aeterno habuit aliquod verum esse reale distinctum aliquo modo ab esse divino 

Q. 9 Utrum ponens creaturam habuisse aliquod verum esse reale ab aeterno possit salvare creationem 

Appendix

IOANNI S CANONICI Quaestiones super libros Physicorum II q. 3 a. 2 

MATTHIAS DOERING

Lectura I d. 35 

Lectura I d. 46 

Bibliography 

Primary Sources 

Secundary Sources 

Indices 

Should we Worship the Divine Ideas?

Ioannes Baconthorpe, Quodlibet II q. 3 (ed. f. 32r):

As far as the second is concerned, it seems it can be said that if 'idea' is understood as entirely the same as the divine essence and not as distinguished in any way, it is adored by latria. But  a distinct being of reason, distinct but which is the same as the divine essence, is to be adored with latria. But on account of another I do not say 'per se' or distinct so that its identity with the essence is not thought of, but as if it is a certain ratio not extraneous from God but rather connatual or by some other mode than itself it befalls God; so it is to be adored per accidens.

From these it is clear that it is not proved that an idea is not a creature as understood in respect to itself outside of God, because as is clear from the premises, everything is to be adored per se as per se divine or on account of the immediate union with God, just as the human nature in Christ, or on account of mediacy, as in those which are adored per accidens as clothes on account of a saint, holy on account of God.

[...]

From these I argue that the ideas or whatsoever other ought to be adored. This is according as they have some comparison or union with God, but in the proposed question we do not dispute that the ideas are creatures known by comparing the ideas to God, but rather by comparing the creatures themselves in understood being to themselves outside God; therefore from that adoration of the ideas it is not proved that ideas are not the creatures themsevles known. 

Baconthorpe was a Carmelite, writing during the 1320's, who defended the Scotist view of a divine idea as the 'creature as known'. He also holds, at least on issues pertaining to the divine ideas, similar views to Petrus Thomae, Alnwick, and James of Ascoli. The latin was a bit choppy, and I translated it in a hurry, so enjoy the resulting mishmash.

Alnwick on Virtual Containment

I've been writing on Alnwick's theories of containment lately. He has three: exemplaric containment in the divine intellect, eminent/perfectional containment in the divine essence, and virtual containment in the divine omnipotence.  Here I am going to post some arguments he makes about virtual containment, one of those scholastic notions that has a neo-Platonic origin at least as far back as the pseudo-Dionysius (and therefore Proclus) and gets ridiculed from time to time today. The basic point from the pseudo-D. is that effects are contained in their cause in a more noble manner than they exist as effects. Scotus builds his notion of unitive containment on this notion, and several other versions of Dionysian containment were developed by other Scotists during the early fourteenth century.

The arguments Alnwick makes are meant to defend the claim that "the creatures contained in God virtually according to their perfection are distinguished from God really and formally". Recall that the various modes of containment are attempts to explain how and in what way creatures pre-exist in God prior to their creation.

Guillelmus de Alnwick, Quodlibet q. 8 (ed. Ledoux, 448-9):

Every positive perfection is contained in God formally or virtually; but the perfection of a creature, inasmuch as it is distinguished from God, is some positive perfection, because creatures are distinguished from God by their positive perfections; therefore, the perfection of a creature, inasmuch as it is distinguished from God, is contained in God virtually or formally. Not formally, for so then it would not be distinguished from God absolutely (simpliciter); therefore it is contained as such in God virtually. Then I arguo thus: the perfection of a creature, inasmuch as it is distinguished from God, is contained by God virtually, as now has been proved; therefore the perfection of a creature, inasmuch as it is contained in God virtually, is not the same as God. And so it is clear that the perfection of a creature, insofar as it is contained in God from the side of itself [ex parte sui], is not the same as God.

Again, fourth: whatever is produceable by some agent is contained in it virtually, because nothing is produced by something which is not contained first in its produtive power; but a stone according to its own proper nature is produceable by God; therefore a stone according to its own proper nature is contained in God virtually. But it is clear tha a stone according to its own proper nature is not God, therefore a stone, inasmuch as it is virtually contained in God, is not God but is distinguished from him.

John Punch on the Eternal Being of Creatures

In my efforts to determine the influence, if any, of Peter Thomae's questions on intelligible being, I have begun leafing through the voluminous pages of the baroque Scotists.  In this post I am just going to list a series of conclusions that the Irishman Punch defends (for bio, see the 'Franciscan authors' website).

Ioannes Poncius, Cursus philosophiae, disp. 2 q. 5 (p. 902ff.)

'De esse creaturarum ab aeterno'

Conclusio I: Creatures have no real being simpliciter from eternity.

Conclusio II: All creatures have some being from eternity

This can scarcely be denied, because they were understood by God from eternity and they terminate the act of divine cognition; therefore they had some being according to which they terminate that cognition, whether they terminate it primarily or secondarily.

Conclusio III: That being which they had from eternity, for example a man, does not consist in extrinsic denomination taken from the omnipotence of God, nor in non-repugnance, nor in some ratio, whether real or rational or actual or aptitudinal.

This is of the Doctor [=Scotus] above, and commonly against some Thomists, who seem to say that that being is nothing other than possibile being and that that possible being comes about from  denomination taken from divine omnipotence.

Conclusio IV: That being, which creatures have from eternity, is diminished being, a quasi medium between being of reason and being simply real.

Conclusio V: That diminished being is not produced by the act of the divine intellect. [Both Petrus Thomae and William of Alnwick would agree with this].

This is against many Scotists and it seems to be against Scotus, above, but it is not, as will be proved.

It is proved first, because an object of speculative knowledge is not made by that [divine act] but rather is presupposed to it; but the knowledge, by which God knows creatures from eternity, is speculative; therefore it does not give that being to creatures according to which it knows them.

Gerard of Bologna on Divine Ideas

Mostly a note for myself.

From Xiberta, De scriptoribus scholasticis saeculi XIV ex ordine Carmelitarum, p. 101-102:

Not clear what he is citing, either Quod. I q. 8 or Summa q. 26

Essentia absoluta contentiva omnium creaturarum, ratione cuius dicitur exemplar et paradigma. Divina essentia est illud absolutum quod est idea et exemplar, in quo inspiciuntur creaturae omnes et omnes conditiones et proprietates et habitudines earum ad invicem tamquam in unico perfectissimo repraesentativo omnium. Et sic accipiendo nomen ideae, non est nisi unica idea; sed accipiendo ideam pro respectu consequente, sic sunt ideae multae.