Book I, Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

From these things, by way of corollary, he infers twelve parts.

Many things, as if corollaries, seem to be inferred from this:

1. That act is simply prior to potency.

First, that act is simply prior to potency, in things movable and not movable, temporal and eternal. This is sufficiently evident from what has gone before, if we speak of the first act simply. That act is the purest, most absolute and most fully actual essence of God on high. From it, as from a root, the later things sprout like shoots: all the divine attributes. By their mediation it brings forth the other creatures from its inexhaustible fecundity. Hence Aristotle also, in Metaphysics 9, 13 1, and afterwards at length, proves that act is prior to potency in everything that moves and in everything that holds still 2, in three ways: in reason, that is, in definition; in substance 3, that is, in perfection; and in time, in a way yes and in a way no. For any individual that is generated is in potency before it is in act, and so potency is prior to act. But that from which the individual is generated is necessarily prior in act, and so act precedes potency in time, as the Philosopher teaches: "For always from a being in potency a being in act comes to be, from a being in act, always by some first thing that moves; and what moves is already in act." And further on, 17: "It is clear that act is prior to potency in substance and in time; for one act is always presupposed before another, up to that which belongs to what is always first mover. But also more properly; for eternal things are prior in substance to corruptible things." Here Averroes says, "The act which is the mover precedes in time the thing moved, and this ascends to the first thing moved and the first mover." For it has been declared in the Physics that all things moved are reduced to the first mover. That mover is act in which there is no potency at all, that is, no potency to any mutability in itself, as the fifth chapter showed beforehand.

2. That being is simply prior to non-being.

Hence, secondly, it is shown that being is simply prior to non-being: namely the being of the first act, as is sufficiently evident from the point just before. Hence Averroes, on Metaphysics 9, comment 13: universally, since potency is non-being and act is being, it is necessary that being precede non-being. Again, if this is not, it is true, and so it is, that this is not. Wherefore also, according to what was laid down in the point immediately before this one, by some prior truth and entity it is true, and so it is, that this is not. And the Philosopher says, Posterior Analytics 1, 17, that the affirmative is prior to the negative, as being is prior to non-being.

3. That the necessary is prior to the possible of contradiction.

Thirdly, too, it is gathered from the same that the necessary is prior to the possible of contradiction 4. For this appears evidently from the seventeenth part and the others of the first of this 5. The necessary can also be without such a possible, but not the converse; for by the second, every such possible is necessarily conserved by God. Again, if the necessary is not prior to the possible of contradiction, then it is its equal or posterior. But it is not equal and coeval with it, because, when there are not two things equally first simply, those two would have to be reduced to something prior to both, as to a first principle and first cause common to them; and nothing of the sort can be assigned. Nor can the possible of contradiction be prior to the necessary, since then potency would precede act, and non-being, being, which is against what has just now been shown. Again, if the possible of contradiction were prior to the necessary, then, since such a possible does not of necessity cause such a necessary, it could be without it, which is against the second of this, as was argued above. Again, what has no cause is prior to what has a cause; but according to Avicenna, Metaphysics 1, 6, the necessary to be of itself has no cause, and what is possible to be of itself has a cause. And further on, in the same, 8: "The necessary is that which is of itself truth, while the possible is ‖C1 to be through another than itself"; and chapter 6 proves that the necessary being has nothing equal to itself, nor anything prior to it, but is itself, through itself, the first of all other things.

4. That the necessary is prior to the impossible.

Fourthly, it can be known from this that the necessary is prior to the impossible. For the possible is prior to the impossible as affirmation to negation, possession to privation 6, and being to non-being; and the necessary is prior to the possible, as was most recently proved. Again, the necessary stands to the impossible as the affirmative to the negative, possession to privation, and being to non-being; and these precede those.

5. That the purely necessary to be, or pure necessity, is simply prior to anything else, and is the first root and primary foundation of all other things.

Fifthly, it is gathered from the same that the purely necessary to be, or pure necessity, is simply prior to anything else, and is the first root and primary foundation of all other things. This will be easily known once the earlier points are understood. It can nevertheless be shown briefly, over and above, in this way. If it is not so, something else is naturally prior to the necessary, or equal with it. But nothing not necessary is prior to it. For, since every later being is constituted in each of its being by the first being, it would follow that the necessary would be constituted in necessary being by a being not necessary but possible or contingent. This is manifestly impossible, because even with the possible destroyed the necessary would remain through itself, and because nothing can give another a firmer being than it has. Again, if one part of a contradiction is possible, the other is possible, and if one is necessary, the other is impossible. And if the possible were to constitute the necessary from being able not to be, it follows that the necessary is not; therefore from the possible follows the impossible, and from the true the false. Then, too, the possible or contingent would be prior to the necessary, against what was said before. Nor is anything not necessary equal with the necessary, according to the preceding lessons. The necessary to be is therefore principle to all others, and first cause of all.

Someone will perhaps object against these points as follows. According to what was said before, God's being is the first principle; consequently God's simply being is prior to His necessarily being, or to being-necessary-to-be; and as a part precedes the whole, so being precedes necessary being 7. It must be said, according to what was said before, that if God is and is the first principle, this name "God" signifies the first being most essentially and most properly. Wherefore, by like reasoning, it signifies most of all the necessary to be, and the predicate or verb will signify as correspondingly as it can. And so "that God is," if it is the first principle per se and first, signifies necessary being, being in this way 8. And whatever being the predicate or verb may signify, since the subject is naturally prior to the predicate and the verb, and it is of itself first necessary being, still necessary being precedes any other being whatever. But what is assumed as a consequence, that being precedes necessary being as a part the whole, is not true. For the necessary to be has no prior part, nor anything at all prior by which it is constituted in such being; but it itself, per se and first, is most simply such being.

6. That the first complex principle is supremely and purely necessary and firm.

Hence, sixthly, it is evident beyond doubt that the first complex principle is supremely and purely necessary and firm. For this correspondingly declares of the supremely and most firmly necessary being that it is, as the preceding points make manifest.

7. That the necessary is by no means rightly defined through the possible or the impossible.

Seventhly, it is plainly concluded that the necessary is by no means rightly defined through the possible, nor through the impossible. For nothing is rightly defined through something posterior to it, as is demonstrated in Posterior Analytics 2 and Metaphysics 7, but each of these is posterior to the necessary. The necessary is therefore not rightly defined by "what is not possible not to be," or by "what is impossible not to be." And therefore Avicenna, Metaphysics 1, 5, rejects the definitions the Ancients gave of the necessary, the possible and the impossible, because they defined those through one another, going around in a circle, as is evident from the definitions he recites there from the Ancients. He says that of these three, that which is more worthy to be understood is the necessary to be, since necessary to be signifies vehemence of being; but being is better known than non-being, for being is known through itself, non-being through being.

8. That the necessary to be cannot be simply defined.

Hence, eighthly, it can be evident that the necessary to be cannot be simply defined (for it has nothing simply prior to it). Yet it can in some fashion be made known to us and described, by a description taken from things posterior and less known, but better known to us, as definition is very frequently made in almost all the sciences.

9. That the affirmative is prior to any negative, and that any true negative is reduced to another, prior affirmative which is the cause of its truth.

Hence, ninthly, it is likewise clearly evident that the affirmative is prior to any negative, and that every true negative is reduced to a prior affirmative which is the cause of its truth. For the first principle, which is affirmative, is the first cause of any other truth, as the earlier points make manifest. Again, this is true even of the negative about which it seems less so: namely one both of whose extremes are impossible to be, such as "the Chimera is not a Tragelaphus" 9. For this is true, therefore it has some cause of truth; but that cause is not the terms alone, since those alone, per se, would render the proposition no more true than false, indeed neither true nor false. Nor can that cause be the Chimera, nor the Tragelaphus; for these are nothing and consequently cause nothing. It is therefore something existing that is the cause of the truth of ‖C1 that proposition. Here, however, someone may object. An immediate proposition has no prior proposition that is the cause of its truth, since then it could be shown through that a priori; but some negative proposition is immediate, as is evident in the book of the Posterior Analytics almost throughout. It must be said that a proposition's being immediate can be taken in two ways: simply, or in some determinate genus; or again, through the privation of a middle, simply or in a certain genus. In the first way no negative proposition is immediate, as reason seems to urge. In the second way one is: not wholly and simply, but in the genus of negative propositions, as through the privation of a prior negative proposition through which it could be demonstrated a priori. And so the said book can be understood.

10. That the first cause of any true negation is in God.

And from this it appears, tenthly, that the first cause of any true negation is in God. For of any true negation some prior affirmative is the cause, as was just shown; and the first cause of any true affirmative is the first complex principle, namely that God is, as the preceding points taught.

11. That God is the first cause of any non-being whatever.

From this eleventh point it seems to be inferred that God is the first cause of any non-being whatever. For being is truly denied of any non-being; but of this negative truth God is the first cause, as was shown just now. He is therefore the first cause of being so or not being so, as is signified by that statement; for according as a thing is or is not, a statement is called true or false, as Aristotle's Categories taught. Again, God is the first cause of any being or entity; and some being or entity is the cause of some non-being or non-entity; therefore God is the first cause of some non-being or non-entity, and therefore, by like reasoning, of any whatever. For the non-being of the bad is a certain non-being, and its cause is the good's being good; and a man is not an ass because he is a rational animal, that is, a man. And in the case of pure non-beings the same is evident. For some makeable thing is not made, and is not, because no maker has made it. Any species or thing makeable by God alone, such as another star in heaven or another angel, therefore was not coming to be and was not, because God did not make it. In the same way the saving of the ship did not occur, because the sailor was not present but was absent, perhaps occupied, as is evident from Aristotle, Metaphysics 5, 2, and from Anselm, On the Virgin Conception 5.

12. That the first cause of any impossibility and repugnance is in God.

Twelfthly, it is put forward from this that the first cause of any impossibility or repugnance is in God. For if impossibility and repugnance are taken negatively, it is evident from what has just now been shown. If in God is the first cause of any true negation, and of non-being, then also of the negation and non-being of anything impossible and repugnant; and since any true negative is reduced to a prior affirmative, and so to the first principle, namely that God is, as is sufficiently evident from the above. If, however, they are taken affirmatively and positively, it is evident likewise, since it is established through the immediately preceding chapters that God is the first cause of all such things. Again, of any impossibility and repugnance there is some cause, and God is the first cause of all causes. This too can be proved as the preceding points were proved. For it is true that this is impossible, whatever impossible thing is pointed out; but of this truth, and hence of its being so, the first cause is the first principle, namely that God is. Again, it is true that it is impossible that the Chimera be a Tragelaphus; but the cause of this truth is not the terms alone, nor the Chimera or the Tragelaphus, nor any non-being, because what wholly is not can cause nothing at all. Some one of the beings is therefore the cause of it, and God is the first cause of all beings.

Again, everything that is naturally and essentially prior to another is some cause of it. For if not, it could be without that prior; since any posterior can be without any prior on which it does not causally depend in being. With all and only those priors on which the posterior causally depends in being posited, that posterior can be posited. For if not, this would be because of the lack of some essential cause which would be required beforehand to cause it in being; but now all such causes are posited. Nor can it be imagined that this is because of the lack of some accidental cause, since it is not repugnant to a thing to be without any accident whatever of its own, as is evident from that very well known definition of accident recalled above. It is evident therefore that if the prior is not the cause of the posterior, the posterior can be without that prior. And if some posterior can be without a designated prior, that is not naturally and essentially prior to that posterior, but perhaps only accidentally, which destroys the hypothesis previously accepted. Rather, it seems that they are equals, or connected by no essential order. For if that prior is not the cause of the posterior, each can be without the other; therefore they are no more naturally or essentially ordered to one another than arithmetical units, or any unconnected things, which also overturns the hypothesis previously fixed. This being supposed, then, the argument goes thus. Everything naturally and essentially prior to another is some cause of it; but the necessary is naturally and essentially prior to the impossible, as was shown above; therefore the necessary is some cause of the impossibility and repugnance of anything whatever, and every necessary is the first necessary, namely God Himself, or something caused by and dependent on Him, as the preceding points taught.

For I imagine this. As, according to what was established earlier, the first of all things is pure necessity, or pure necessary-to-be, standing wholly of itself and depending on another in no way whatever, and from it, through likeness and conformity to it, everything else, necessary or possible, is necessary to be or possible to be; so, through dissimilarity to it and contrariety or opposition, everything impossible is impossible to be. I think, therefore, that everything impossible to be is impossible for this reason, that the necessary-to-be itself is necessarily repugnant to it, and so immovably forbids its being. But lest it perhaps be said to me that things do not follow imagination, and so the image of this imagination be reduced to nothing, I shall fortify it with some argument. For everything impossible to be is impossible to be for this reason, that being is necessarily and firmly repugnant to it. But in the impossible-to-be itself, since it wholly is not, there is nothing; hence neither any necessity, firmness or repugnance. That necessity or repugnance is therefore in something existing, so that it is impossible for that thing to be because some existing thing, per se, first and necessarily, is repugnant to it. But that impossible thing is repugnant to such an existent not per se and first, but only through the repugnance of the existent, namely because that existent is repugnant to it. So it is in relatives of the third mode 10, which are said by way of the measurable and the measure, of which sort are the sensible, the knowable and the intelligible, or the sensed, the known and the understood, with their correlatives. For these are called relatives not because they are referred per se and essentially, but because it happens to them that others, namely the correlatives, are referred to them per se and essentially, and are measured by them, as is evident from Metaphysics 5, 20, and likewise in the Commentary. It seems, therefore, that everything impossible to be is for that reason impossible to be, because

some existing thing, repugnant to it per se and first, forbids its being; but everything existing is first and pure necessity, or necessary to be, or something caused by and dependent on it. Again, impossible and possible are said relatively to one another according to privation, as is evident from Metaphysics 5, where cited before. But of the impossible, since it is a pure non-being, no relation per se and essentially can arise or be founded. For then two pure non-beings could be referred to one another per se and essentially, without the concurrent demand of any existing thing at all. This relation, therefore, is founded per se and first in the positive extreme, namely in the possible, and flows from it, and so is attributed, and in a way accrues, to the other, privative extreme, as was said just before of relatives of the third mode. The possible, therefore, causes that relation and the impossibility; and the necessary to be is prior to the possible to be, and cause of it, as was shown above; and God is the first cause of all possibles and necessaries, and of all their causations. Again, the impossible is impossible for this reason, that it is repugnant to the possible, or rather because the possible is repugnant to it. The possible, therefore, is the first cause of this repugnance and impossibility, and God is the first cause of every other causation and cause.

This can be confirmed by the fact that all opposites are reduced to the first opposites, which are possession and privation, as is evident from Metaphysics 10, 15, and Metaphysics 12, 23; and it is proved there that these are in the genus of substance. But the possessive and positive is naturally prior to the other; wherefore it is also some cause of it, as the preceding points make manifest. The first possession, therefore, in the genus of substance, namely God Himself, is the first cause of any privation, and therefore of any impossibility and repugnance whatever. Again, the proximate cause why anything is possible is that God can do it, as was shown above. Therefore the proximate cause why anything is not possible is that God cannot do it. And that God cannot do this is not because of a defect of power in Him, B1 since He is omnipotent. Hence Averroes, on Physics 8, 4: that an agent cannot do something impossible is not a diminution of the agent. Indeed, because of the abundance of His infinite power, and therefore most powerfully, He cannot do this. For He cannot because it is repugnant to His infinite power; indeed because His infinite power is immovably repugnant to it, and so necessarily forbids its being. And since, according to what was shown earlier, act too in God precedes potency, His power is therefore repugnant to such an impossible thing because His most pure act is immovably and necessarily repugnant to it. And this is because He is pure necessary to be, or pure necessity; for this is the first, simply, of all affirmations and negations, as was shown above. And this seems the completed resolution of all impossibility.

This reasoning is founded on the Philosopher's statement in Posterior Analytics 1, 12, where he inquires into the negative demonstrative middle proximate to a negative conclusion: for instance, why does the wall not breathe? He shows that it cannot be said that it is because it is not an animal, since then being an animal would be the proximate cause of breathing, and so every animal would breathe. For if negation is the cause of non-being, affirmation is the cause of being; as being without the measure of hot and cold is the cause of not healing, so being with their measure is the cause of healing; and similarly, if affirmation is the cause of being, negation is the cause of non-being. Again, whatever is impossible, God cannot do it. Either, then, it is impossible because God cannot do it, and so the proposition is obtained; or God cannot do it because it is impossible. And so, according to what was just alleged, God can do whatever is possible because it is possible. Thus too the possible's being possible would be naturally prior to God's being able to do it, and the first cause why God could do this, which the preceding points do not permit; and then God would receive power and perfection from another, nor would He suffice most fully to Himself, nor would He be the first cause of all. Even if it were so, some creature (indeed, what seems more unworthy, some pure non-being, neither created nor creatable) would forbid, make impossible and subject the Omnipotent to inevitable necessity, that He do or not do this or that. Similarly it would compel the divine intellect to understand and know such things, D1 and His most powerful and freest will to will them.

This opinion, however, Henry of Ghent holds, Quodlibet 8, question 3. He says that it is not true to say of anything simply impossible that God cannot do it because it cannot be done; rather it cannot be done because God cannot do it. So too in the affirmative, it is not said that God can do something because it can be done, but the contrary. John Scotus 11 likewise proves the same on Sentences 1, distinction 43, through an earlier reasoning founded on Posterior Analytics 1, and through another similar one, E1 and holding this he finally says there that nothing is simply impossible except what includes contradictories and incompossibles, which from their formal reasons are incompossible. They are incompossible primarily from that from which they have their formal reasons derivatively 12, namely from the divine intellect, but formally from themselves. E2 Someone will perhaps object against what was said by the said Doctors: for Henry holds the contrary plainly, Quodlibet 6, question 3, namely that the first cause

why something is possible is from God; but the first cause why something is impossible is from itself and from the nature of the thing, speaking of "thing" in the most common way, namely as it is common to all intelligibles, whether existing or not existing. For this he alleges Avicenna, Metaphysics 4, who says A1 that the agent therefore cannot, because it is not possible in itself. John likewise proves the contrary in the place cited before, and argues in this way. Nothing is simply impossible except that to which being is simply repugnant, and this first from itself, since from its first and per se formal reasons, setting aside anything else; indeed even if, per impossibile, God did not exist, that would still be impossible. And he says in the same place that the possibility and impossibility of possibles and impossibles are reduced derivatively to the divine intellect, not to His omnipotence or power, which seems to run against what was set out before.

To this, however, I say that it seems to me, with the aforesaid John in the place cited before, that Henry by his second statement corrects or retracts the first. Still, Henry himself, Avicenna and John could understand that no pure privation or privative impossibility, per se and first, which does not depend on some prior positive thing, is in God, such as would be the cause of the privation and impossibility of impossibles, as something positive in Him per se and first is the cause of any possibility of possibles. But the impossibility on the side of the impossible thing, that is, the pure and first necessity of the impossible thing's not being, is the cause why God, and any active thing, cannot do it; and this necessity is positive, according to the earlier points, and is in God. But John's reasoning does not proceed. For to what is impossible to be, being is repugnant not per se and first, but because the first being is necessarily repugnant to it, as was said above. Nor is this first from the formal reasons which he imagines. For if those reasons are in any way causes, they are reduced to a prior cause, to God, namely the first cause of all causes. And this is evident from the very man himself, saying there that such things are incompossible primarily from that from which they have their formal reasons derivatively, namely from the divine intellect. As for what he says, that even if God did not exist, such a thing would still be impossible, if "impossible" is taken affirmatively, it is false; because if He did not exist, nothing positive or affirmative would be. But if it is taken purely negatively, namely for "not possible to be," so it is true. For He Himself is the first and highest power by which anything possible is necessarily possible, and therefore, with Him not being, nothing would be possible; but from this does not follow what he wished.

Or otherwise, and perhaps better, it can be said that God's not being includes contradiction most necessarily. Wherefore, with God's non-being posited, not only does one part of the contradiction follow in many things and perhaps in all, but the other follows of necessity as well. And one can argue similarly against him. For he says that the divine intellect is the cause of impossibility in things. But granted that God should understand nothing concerning the impossible (because according to him, even if God did not exist, the impossible would still be impossible), it would still be impossible; therefore, by his own consequence, the divine intellect is not the cause of that impossibility. And what he says, that possibility and impossibility are reduced derivatively to God's intellect, not to His omnipotence or power, seems astonishing. For according to his own very frequent manner of imagining, the divine essence is the principle of power in God, since act precedes power in Him, and that power is itself in some way prior to His actual understanding 13. For he seems to understand all things most powerfully and most perfectly from this, that He has an intellective power most perfect and most potent. The essence, or pure being, seems therefore to be the principle of power, or of being able, and this of actual understanding; and whatever is the principle of a principle is the principle of what is derived from the principle. The divine essence and power, therefore, are principles of possibility and impossibility prior to the divine intellect.

Now he proves this saying of his thus: "That through which in God a possible is first constituted in intelligible being is the first reason of possibility; but through omnipotence, as it is distinguished from the intellect, a creature is not constituted in intelligible being, but through the intellect." But the minor of this argument seems faulty. For if the divine intellect constitutes something in intelligible being, since this cannot be done without understanding it, it constitutes it in intelligible being by understanding it. And since to constitute something constituted in some being is naturally prior to that constituted thing's being such, it seems that God naturally understands whatever intelligible before it is intelligible; which, however, does not appear so, but rather the contrary seems true. For it seems that the knowable in knowable being precedes knowledge, and the intelligible in intelligible being, the intellect. It seems that the divine essence, from the infinity of its power and virtue, most distinctly and in a way by name, constitutes intelligibly and contains all intelligibles, and the first, purest and most proper reasons of them all. And these are the ideas of which Philosophers and Theologians speak so much. So, in a way anticipating the divine intellect, it offers these to it as objects, and thus the intellect understands all things consequently. And Isaiah seems to attest this, in chapter 40, saying thus of God 14: "He calls them all by name; by the multitude of His might and strength and power, not one was left." Here the interlinear gloss expounds "by the multitude of might" thus: because He is omnipotent. Therefore His omnipotence is the cause of His understanding, and prior to it, and in the way just said.

And from this one could argue specially against Scotus. For if God's omnipotence is the cause of His understanding, and His understanding is the cause constituting intelligibles in intelligible being, then His omnipotence too constitutes them in this being: for whatever is the cause of a cause is the cause of the thing caused. And this could be confirmed from his own statements there. For he proves that God's omnipotence is prior to the creature in any of its being, whether existence or intelligible being, by the fact that this omnipotence is of itself formally necessary, whereas the creature is possible in any of its being, and such a necessary precedes every such possible, as he himself supposes and I showed above. It is therefore the cause of that, as the preceding points have persuaded.

Again, against another reasoning of his saying. For he says that the divine Intellect produces some two intelligibles in intelligible being, and that these, so produced, are from their formal reasons per se and first repugnant to one another, and are incompossible. It seems that by the same reasoning he ought consequently to say this of compossibles, possibles, similars, equals, greaters, lessers, and universally of all positives: namely that, their formal reasons being taken, they are per se and first such in themselves, or through their formal reasons. For the formal reason of white makes white be white just as much as it makes it not be black — indeed first and more. For white, by the fact that it is white, is not black; and universally every true negative is reduced to some prior true affirmative, as is evident from the earlier points. And so of no positive thing short of God would the first cause or reason be in God; whereas God is the first cause of all such things, and, as he himself says, the first reason of any possibility is in God.