II. Scotus’ own Response to the Questions

     As to the solution to these questions one must proceed as follows: one must see first how there is contingency in things, and second how there stands along with this the certitude and immutability of divine knowledge about them.

A. How there is Contingency in Things

     1. Contingency in things is Evident and Manifest

     As to the first point I say that the disjunction ‘necessary or possible’ is a property of being, speaking of convertible property [sc. property convertible with or true of being as such], just as there are many such unlimited properties in things [d.8 n.115]. But properties convertible with being - as more common - are said immediately of being, because being has a concept simply simple; and therefore there cannot be a middle term between being and its property, because there is no definition of either that could be the middle term. Also, if there is some non-first property of being, it is difficult to see by what prior thing, as by a middle term, it could be proved of being, because it is not easy to see an order in the properties of being; nor, if that order were known, would the propositions taken from the properties as premises seem to be much more evident than the conclusions.

     But in the disjunct properties, although the whole disjunct cannot be demonstrated of being, yet - commonly - when the extreme that is less noble is supposed about some being, one can prove about some being some extreme that is more noble; just as this inference holds ‘if some being is finite, then some being is infinite’ and ‘if some being is contingent, then some being is necessary’, because in such cases a more imperfect extreme could not be in a being in particular unless the more perfect extreme, on which it would depend, were present in some other being.

     But it does not in this way seem possible to demonstrate the more imperfect extreme of such a disjunction; for it is not the case that, if the more perfect extreme is in some being, therefore the more imperfect one is in some being (and this unless the disjunct extremes are correlatives, as cause and caused); so therefore one cannot demonstrate of being - through some prior middle term - the disjunction ‘necessary or contingent’. Nor even can this part of the disjunction - the part that is ‘contingent’ - be demonstrated of anything if ‘necessary’ is supposed of something; and so it seems that the proposition ‘some being is contingent’ is true first and not demonstrable by a demonstration ‘why’.

     Hence the Philosopher, when arguing against necessity in the case of future events, does not make a deduction to something more impossible than the hypothesis, but to something impossible more manifest to us, namely that we need not bother about things or deliberate [see the opening arguments above].

     And so those who deny such things need punishment or perception, because - according to Avicenna Metaphysics I ch.9 (74vab) - those who deny a first principle need to be flogged or exposed to fire until they admit that to be burned and not to be burned, to be flogged and not to be flogged, are not the same thing.The Vatican Editors suitably quote Avicenna thus: “We must dismiss the obtuse to the flames, as long they hold that fire and not-fire are one - and we must make them suffer the pain of beatings, as long as they hold that to be pained and not to be pained are one... This principle, then, which we defend against those who falsify it, is the first of the principles of demonstration; but the philosopher should be the first to guard them.” ¹³ So too, those who deny that some being is ‘contingent’ should be exposed to torments until they concede that it is possible for them not to be tormented.

     2. The Contingency in Things is because of the Contingent Causation of God

     On the supposition, then, of this as it were manifest truth, that some being is contingent, -one must ask how contingency can be preserved in beings.

     And I say - because of the first reason made against the third opinion (which is made more plain in distinction 2 in the question ‘On the existence of God’ [nn.80, 85-86]) - that no causation of any cause can be preserved as ‘contingent’ unless the first cause is posited as immediately causing contingently, and this by positing perfect causality in the first cause, the way Catholics do [d.42 n.9].

     3. The Cause of Contingency in Beings is on the Part of the Divine Will

     Now the first thing is a causer by intellect and will, and if a third executive power (different from these) is posited, it does not help the issue at hand, because if the first thing necessarily understands and wills, it necessarily produces. One must then look for this contingency in the divine intellect or in the divine will. But not in the intellect as it has first act before every act of will, because whatever the intellect understands in this way it understands purely naturally and by natural necessity, - and so no contingency can be something in his knowing, or something in his understanding, which he does not know and does not understand by such first intellection.

     The first contingency, then, must be looked for in the divine will, - and in order to see how it should be posited, one must first look in our own will, and at three things there: first, at what things there is liberty for in our will; second how possibility or contingency follows this liberty; and third, about the logical possibility of propositions, as to how possibility for opposites is expressed.

          a. How our Will can be Cause of Contingency in Things

     [What things there is liberty for in our will] - As to the first point, I say that the will, as to its first act, is free for opposite acts; it is also, by means of those opposite acts, free for opposite objects to which it tends, - and, further, to opposite effects which it produces.

     The first liberty necessarily possesses some imperfection annexed to it, because it possesses passive potentiality and mutability in the will. The third liberty is not the second, because even if, per impossibile, it were to effect nothing outwardly, still - insofar as it is will - it could tend freely to objects. But the middle reason of liberty [sc. the second liberty] is without imperfection (nay it is necessary for perfection), because every perfect power can tend to everything that is of a nature to be object of such power; therefore a perfect will can tend to everything that is of a nature to be will-able. Therefore liberty without imperfection - insofar as it is free - is for opposite objects to which it tends, and accidental to this liberty as such is that it produce opposite effects.

     [How contingency follows the liberty of our will] - About the second point I say that concomitant to this liberty is a single manifest power to opposites. For although there is not in it a power to will and not will at the same time (because this is a nothing), yet there is in it a power to will after not willing, or a power for a succession of opposite acts; and this power is manifest in all mutable things, on the succession of opposites in them [sc. a white thing in moment a can be black in moment b].

     Yet there is also another power (not as manifest) without any succession. For by positing that a created will only has being in one instant, and that in that instant it has this volition, it does not then necessarily have it. Proof: for if in that instant it did necessarily have it, then, since it is not a cause save in the instant when it would cause it, the will simply - when it is causing - would necessarily cause; for it is not a contingent cause now because it was pre-existent to the instant in which it causes (and then ‘as pre-existing’ it was able to cause or not cause), because just as this being, when it is, is necessary or contingent, so a cause, when it causes, causes then necessarily or contingently. So from the fact that in this instant it causes this willing, and not necessarily, then for that reason it causes contingently. This power, then, of the cause ‘for the opposite of what it causes’ is without succession.

     Also this power, a real one, is a power of what is naturally prior (as first acts) to opposites that are naturally posterior (as second acts); for a first act, considered in the instant in which it is naturally prior to a second act, so posits the second in being - as its own contingent effect - that, as naturally prior, it could equally posit some other opposite in being.

     Also concomitant to this real active power (naturally prior to what it produces) is logical power, which is non-repugnance of the terms. For to the will as first act, even when it is producing this willing, the opposite willing is not repugnant; both because the will is a contingent cause with respect to its effect, and so the opposite in idea of effect is not repugnant to it; and also because it is, as it is a subject, contingently disposed to this act as this act informs it, because to the subject the opposite of its ‘accident per accidens’ is not repugnant.

     Concomitant to the liberty of our will, therefore, insofar as it is for opposite acts, is a power both to opposites successively and to opposites at the same instant, - that is, that either of the two can be present without the other, and so the second power is a real cause for act as it is naturally prior to logical power; but the fourth power - namely to opposites simultaneously - is not concomitant to it, because this fourth power is a nothing.

     [About the logical distinction of propositions] - From this second point the third is plain, namely the distinguishing of this proposition ‘a will that is willing a is able not to will a’. For this is false in the composite sense, so as to signify the possibility of this proposition ‘a will that is willing a is not willing a’; it is true in the divided sense, so as to signify a possibility for opposites successively, because a will that is willing for moment a is able not to will for moment b.

     But if we also take a proposition about the possible which unites extremes for the same instant, to wit this one, ‘a will that is not willing something for moment a is able to will it for moment a’, this proposition too must be distinguished according to composite and divided senses; and in the composite sense it is false, namely that there is a possibility that the will is simultaneously willing for moment a and not willing for moment a; the divided sense is true, namely so as to signify that in the will in which ‘willing for moment a’ is present there can be present ‘not willing for moment a’ - but it will not thus stand simultaneously, but ‘not willing’ will stand in this way, namely that then the ‘willing’ is not present.

     And to understand this second distinction - which is more obscure - I say that in the composite sense there is a single categorical proposition, whose subject is this ‘a will not willing for moment a’ and whose predicate is ‘willing for moment a’; and then this predicate is being attributed as possible to a subject it is repugnant to, and consequently what is being indicated as possible to the subject is impossible to the subject. In the divided sense there are two categorical propositions, asserting of the will two predicates; in one proposition, about actual presence in the subject, there is asserted of the will the predicate ‘not willing a’ (which categorical proposition is understand by implicit composition of the terms); in the other categorical proposition, about possible presence in the subject, there is asserted as possible of the will the predicate ‘willing a’. And these two propositions are verified, because they are signified as attributing to the subjects their own predicates for the same instant; and this indeed is true, for to this will there does in the same instant belong not willing a, along with the possibility of the opposite, willing a, just as actual presence is signified along with possible presence.

     An example of this distinction is found in the proposition ‘all men who are white run’ -which, once the case is posited that all the white men are running (and none of the black men or the men colored in between), is true in the composite sense and false in the divided sense; in the composite sense there is one proposition, possessing one subject, which is determined by the term ‘white’ [sc. ‘all the white men’]; in the divided sense there are two propositions, asserting two predicates of the same subject [sc. ‘all men are white’ and ‘all men run’]. Similarly in this case ‘man who is white is necessarily an animal’; which in the composite sense is false, because the predicate does not belong necessarily to the whole of this subject [sc. ‘white man’Tr. ‘Animal’ does necessarily belong to man, but to man qua man and not to man qua white. ¹⁴]; in the divided sense it is true, because two predicates are indicated as said of the same subject (one necessarily [sc. ‘man is necessarily an animal’] and the other absolutely, without necessity [sc. ‘man is white’], and both predicates belong and both these categorical propositions are true.

     But against this second distinction there is argument in three ways, that it is not a logical one and that it is not the case that some power is for any instant for the opposite of what is in it at that instant.

     The first argument is from the proposition in De Interpretatione 9.91a23-24: “Everything that is, when it is, necessarily is.”

     The second is from this rule of the art of disputation [‘ars obligatoria’]: “When a false contingent is posited of the present instant, one must deny that it is.” Which rule he proves [Giles of Sherwood] by the fact that what is posited must be maintained as true; therefore it must be maintained for any instant for which it is possible; but it is not ‘a true possible’ for the instant for which it is posited, because if it were possible for that instant then it would be able to be true by motion or by change; but in neither way, because motion is not in an instant, and change is not in any instant for the opposite of what is then in it, because change and the end of change would be simultaneous.

     Further, third: if for any instant there is power for something whose opposite is present, that power is either along with act or prior to act; not along with act, as is plain - nor prior to act, because then it would be for act in a different instant from that in which the power is present in it.

     To the first of these I reply that that proposition of Aristotle can be categorical or hypothetical, just as also this one, ‘that an animal runs, if a man runs, is necessary’. This proposition, indeed, according as it is conditional, is to be distinguished according as ‘necessary’ can state the necessity of the consequence [sc. the whole ‘if... then... ’ conditional] or the necessity of the consequent [sc. the ‘then.’]; in the first way it is true, in the second way it is false.

     According as it is categorical, the whole remark ‘.runs if man runs’ is predicated of animal along with the mode of necessity, - and this categorical [sc. ‘that an animal runs if man runs is necessary’] is true, because a predicate so determined [sc. ‘.runs if man runs’] is necessarily present in the subject, although it is not a predicate absolutely; and therefore to argue in that case from the predicate so determined to the predicate taken absolutely is the fallacy of in a certain respect and simply [sc. to argue: ‘that an animal runs if man runs is necessary, therefore that an animal runs is necessary’].

     I say the same here, that if this proposition [sc. of Aristotle’s above] is taken as it is a hypothetical of time, the term ‘necessity’ indicates either the necessity of concomitance or the necessity of the concomitant; as it indicates the necessity of concomitance it is true [sc. ‘it is necessary that everything is when it is’], - as of the concomitant it is false [sc. ‘everything that is is necessary when it is’]. But if the proposition is taken as it is a categorical then the phrase ‘when it is’ does not determine the combination implicit in the phrase ‘[everything] that is’ but it determines the principal composition, which is signified by the phrase ‘is [necessary]’ - and then the predicate ‘is when it is’ is denoted as being said of the subject ‘that is’ along with the mode of necessity, and thus the proposition is true [sc. ‘it is necessary that everything that is is when it is’]; nor does the inference follow ‘therefore it is necessary’ [sc. ‘everything that is is necessary when it is’], but there is a fallacy of in a certain respect and simply in the other part [sc. from ‘is necessary when it is’ to ‘is necessary’].Nowadays logicians would explain this point by talking of the scope of the modal term ‘necessary’, that either it takes the whole proposition for its scope, so that it means: “the proposition ‘everything is when it is’ is necessary;” or it takes only the predicate for its scope, so that it means in effect: “everything that is exists with necessary existence when it exists.” ¹⁵ No true sense of this proposition, then, denotes that the being of something - in the instant in which it is - is necessary, but only that it is necessary in a certain respect, namely when it is; along with this there stands the fact that, in the instant in which it is, it is simply contingent, and consequently that in that instant the opposite of it could be present.

     To the second: that rule [of the art of disputation or ‘ars obligatoria’] is false and the proof is not valid, for although what is posited should be maintained as true, yet it can be maintained for that instant without denying that the instant is one for which it is false, because this inference does not hold, ‘it is false for that instant, therefore it is impossible’, as the proof insinuates; and when it says ‘if it can be true for the instant for which it is false, it can be made true for that instant either[by motion or change], etc.’, I say that neither by this way nor by that, because the possibility for its truth is not a possibility along with succession (as one thing after another thing), but it is power for the opposite of that which is in something insofar as the power is naturally prior to the act.

     To the third I say that there is power before the act; not ‘before’ in duration but ‘before’ in order of nature - because that which naturally precedes the act, as it naturally precedes the act, could be with the opposite of the act. And one must deny that every power is ‘with act or before act’, understanding the ‘before’ of priority in duration; but it is true when understanding by the ‘before’ priority of nature.

     A fourth objection is raised against this [sc. the second distinction]:

     That ‘if it is able to will a for this instant and it does not will a for this instant, then it is able not to will a for this instant’, because on a proposition about presence of the predicate in the subject there follows a proposition about possible presence; and then it seems to follow that it could will a and not will a at the same instant simultaneously.

     To this I reply - according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 9.5.1048a21-24 - that what has a power for opposites will do as it has the power to do; but not as it has a power of doing such that the mode is referred to the term of the power and not to the power itself, because I have a power at the same time for opposites but not for opposites at the same time.

     Then I say that this inference does not hold ‘[a power] is able to will this in moment a and able not to will this in moment a, therefore it is able to will and not will this in moment a’, because the power has ability for either of the opposites disjunctively at any instant, though not for both of them simultaneously; for just as there is a possibility for one of them, so there is for the not being of the other of them - and conversely, as it is for the latter so it is for the not being of the former. So it is not simultaneously for the being of this opposite and for the being of that, because a possibility for simultaneity would only exist if it were for both concurrently in the same instant, which is not got by the power’s being for each divisively at the same instant.

     An example of this is plain in permanent things: the inference ‘this body can be in this place at instant a, and that body can be in the same place at instant a, therefore these two bodies can be together at instant a’ is a non sequitur; for this body is able to be there in the way that that body is able not to be there (and conversely), and so the inference ‘if there is a power for each at the same instant or place, then for both’ does not hold, but it is fallacious whenever any one of the two excludes the other. For in this way too the inference ‘I am able to carry this stone all day (let it be something portable, proportionate to my strength), and I am able to carry that stone all day, therefore I am able simultaneously to carry both’ is a non sequitur; it is a non sequitur because here either of the two for which there is power divisively excludes the other. But simultaneity can never be inferred solely from the identity of this one instant or place, but there is need along with this for the two things said to be simultaneous to be conjoined with respect to a third.

          b. How the Divine Will is Cause of Contingency in Things

     Following on from what has just been said about our will, one must look at certain things about the divine will; and first, what it has liberty for; second what is the contingency with respect to willed things (the third, namely as to logical distinction of propositions, is the same here as there).

     [What the divine will has liberty for] - As to the first point I say that the divine will is not indifferent as to diverse acts of willing and not willing, because this in our will was not without imperfection of will. Our will also was free for opposite acts so that it might be for opposite objects, because of the limitation of each act with respect to its object; therefore, once unlimitedness of the same volition to diverse objects is posited, there is no need, on account of liberty for opposite objects, to posit liberty for opposite acts. The divine will is also free for opposite effects, but this is not the first liberty, just as it is not the first in us either.

     There remains then the liberty that is per se a matter of perfection without imperfection, namely to opposite objects such that, just as our will can, by diverse volitions, tend to diverse willed things, so the divine will can, by a single, unlimited, simple volition tend to any willed thing whatever, - so that, if the will or the volition were for only one will-able thing and could not be of the opposite (which is, however, of itself something will-able), this would be a mark of imperfection in the will, as was proved earlier about our will.

     And although one can distinguish in us the will as it is receptive and as it is operative and as it is productive (for it is productive of acts, and by what it has it operates formally by willing, and it is receptive of its own volition), yet it seems to have liberty insofar as it is operative, namely insofar as ‘having freedom formally’ it can thereby tend to the object; so let liberty be thus posited in the divine will per se and first, insofar as it is an operative power, although it is not receptive nor productive of its own volition. And yet some freedom insofar as it is productive can be preserved in it; for although production in being of existence is not necessarily concomitant with its operation (because operation is in eternity and production of being is in time), yet production in willed being is necessarily concomitant to its operation; and this power of the divine will does not then indeed produce first as it is productive, but produces in a certain respect (namely in willed being), and this production is concomitant with it as it is operative.

     [What the contingency of willed things is] - As to the second article, I say that the divine will has respect to nothing else as object than to its own essence; and this when considering it as it is a naturally prior tendency to the opposite. And not only is it naturally prior to its own act (as to its volition), but also insofar as it is willing, because just as our will, as naturally prior to its own act, elicits the act in such a way that it could in the same instant elicit the opposite, - so the divine will, insofar as it is naturally prior by volition alone, tends with such a tendency to the object contingently that it could in the same instant tend to the opposite object; and this both by logical potency, which is the non-repugnance of the terms (as was said of our will), and by real power, which is naturally prior to its act.

B. How along with the Contingency of Things there stands the Certainty of Divine Knowledge

     Having looked at the contingency of things as to existence, and this when considering it with respect to the divine will - it remains to look at the second principal point, how the certitude of knowledge stands along with it.

     This can be posited in two ways:

     In one way by the fact that the divine intellect, when seeing the determination of the divine will, sees that this thing will be at time a, because the will determines it will be at that time; for it knows the will is immutable and cannot be prevented.

     Or in a second way. Because the former way seems to posit a certain discursiveness in the divine intellect (as if it concludes from intuiting the determination of the will and its immutability that this thing will be), one can posit in a second way that the divine intellect either offers [sc. to the will] the simple terms of which the union is contingent in reality, or - if it offers the proposition uniting them - if offers it as neutral to itself; and the will, by choosing one side, namely the conjunction of these terms for some ‘now’ in reality, makes the following to be determinately true: ‘this will exist at moment a’. But when this ‘determinately true’ is in existence, the essence is the reason for the divine intellect of understanding this truth, and this naturally (as far as it is on the part of the essence), so that, just as the divine intellect naturally understands all necessary principles in advance as it were of an act of the divine will (because the truth of them does not depend on the intellect’s act and because they would be known by the divine intellect if, per impossibile, there was not something willing them), so the divine essence is the reason of knowing them in that prior stage, because they are then true; not indeed that the truths - nor even their terms - move the divine intellect to apprehend such truth (because then the divine intellect would be cheap, because then the truth would be revealed by something other than its own essence), but the divine essence is the reason of knowing the terms just as also for knowing the sort of propositions that join them; but then they are not true contingents, because there is then nothing by which they may have determinate truth; but when the determination of the divine will has been posited, they are then true in that instant, and the same thing - the same as was in the first moment - will be the reason for the divine intellect of knowing the things that are now true in the second instant and that would have been known in the first instant, if they had then been in the first instant.

     An example: it is just as if ‘a single act always in place’ in my seeing power is the reason of seeing the object, if now this color is present by another thing presenting it and now that color, - my eye will see now this, now that, and yet there will, through the same vision, be only a difference in priority and posteriority of seeing, because it is of the object that is first or later presented; and if one color were made present naturally and the other freely, there would be no difference formally in my vision so to prevent the eye, for its part, from seeing both naturally, yet it could see one contingently and the other naturally, insofar as one is made present to it contingently and the other necessarily.

     In whichever of these ways the divine intellect is posited as knowing the existence of things, it is plain that - according to each of them - there is a determination of the divine intellect to the existent thing to which the divine will is determined, and that there is a certitude of infallibility (because the will cannot be determined without the intellect determinately apprehending what the will determines), and also an immutability (because both the will and the intellect are immutable, from distinction 8 n.293), - and this in response to the first three questions [at the beginning]. And yet along with these [sc. determination, infallibility, immutability] there stands contingency of the known object, because the will, when it determinately wills this, contingently wills it - from the first article [sc. of Scotus’ own response to the questions].

     As to the fourth question [sc. whether God necessarily knows every condition of existence of everything], it seems one should perhaps distinguish this proposition ‘God necessarily knows a’ according to a composite and a divided sense - as that in the composite sense necessity of knowledge is indicated as it passes over to the object, and in the divided sense necessity of knowledge is indicated absolutely, which knowledge however does pass over to this object; in the first way it is false, in the second way true.

     However such a distinction does not seem a logical one, because, when the act passes over to the object, there seems to be no distinction as to the act absolutely or as to it as it passes over to the object, - to wit, if I say ‘I see Socrates’, because there may be a distinction either as to sight as it passes over to Socrates or as to sight absolutely, which sight is however of Socrates; and just as there is in the former case [sc. in the proposition ‘God necessarily knows a’] no distinction in a proposition about mere assertion [sc. ‘God knows a’], so neither does there seem to be a distinction when the modal term is appended [sc. ‘(God) necessarily (knows a)’], but a distinction only seems necessary if the act passes over to the object necessarily; and so this proposition ‘God necessarily knows a’ should, it seems, simply be denied, because of the fact that the predicate as so determined [sc. ‘necessarily knows’] does not necessarily belong to the subject, although the non-determined predicate [sc. ‘knows’, without the ‘necessarily’] does belong to it.

     An objection against this is that a rational act is not canceled by the matter it passes over to; for a ‘to say’ which passes over to ‘[I say] that I am saying nothing’ is as simply a ‘to say’ as when it passes over to ‘[I say] that I am saying something’; and therefore the inference ‘I say that I am saying nothing, therefore I say [something]’ follows just as does the inference ‘I say that I am sitting, therefore I say [something]’. Therefore, in the case of God, ‘to know’ is not so canceled by the matter it passes over to that it prevents an equal necessity [sc. that it prevents adding ‘necessarily’ to ‘God knows’].

     In response to this objection. Although the proposition [about God’s knowledge] is not so canceled that it stands only in a certain respect, yet it can fail to have necessity as it is signified to pass over to the matter (although it has necessity in itself), and this if an act that is most powerful in itself has respect to diverse objects; it is just as if I had an act of speaking that was the same as a motive power, and if the act could pass over to diverse objects contingently - although I would have the act necessarily (just as I would also have the power necessarily), yet I would not necessarily have the act as it is a passing over to such an object; nor does the inference hold ‘I am speaking necessarily, therefore I am necessarily saying this’, nay there could be a necessity of the speaking in itself along with a contingency in respect of the object; yet saying this object would be a saying simply, such that it would not be a saying in a certain respect.