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The question, “Quid sit essentia creaturae,...” is raised by Suarez in his
Disputationes Metaphysicae ,
sua?” (Duns Scotus, Rep. Par. II, d.
1., q. 2); “Utrum esse essentiae creabilium quidditatum fuit
aeternum”
(Franciscus de Mayronis, Quodlibeta, q. 8); “An essentiae
rerum fuerint ab aeterno,
antequam a Deo producantur?” (Franciscus Zumel, In Primam D. Thomae Partem Commenta-rium, Venetiis
1597, q. 10, a. 3, q.u.).
Principio statuendum est, essentiam creaturae, seu creaturam de se, et
priusquam
a Deo fiat, nullum habere in se verum esse reale, et in hoc sensu,
praeciso esse
existentiae, essentiam non esse rem aliquam, sed omnino esse
nihil (Disp. Met. 31, 2, 1).
The qualification “in hoc sensu” is crucial here: for it clearly implies
that for
an essence - generally: a possibile possibilia contains at least all possible essences
(natures, quiddities), and all
possible individuals. As we shall see in the
main text, the question raised by Suarez stricdy con-
cerns the ontological
status of such possibilia as (possible) essences, and must
be distinguished
from the quite different question of what makes e.g. a
possible essence possible.
just
for it to be devoid of a “verum esse reale”, either in, or else “outside”,
the
divine intellect, and (hence) that, unlike Plato’s Forms or Ideas, possibilia
do not make up a realm of self-subsistent entities.
gula [...] propriis sunt creata rationibus. Has
autem rationes ubi esse arbitrandum est nisi in ipsa
mente creatoris? Non enim
extra se quidquam positum intuebatur, ut secundum id constitueret
quod
constituebat; nam hoc opinari sacrilegum est” (De diversis
quaestionibus 83, q. 46, n. 2).
their
actualization possibilia are devoid of a “verum esse reale”,
or, equiva-
lently, they lack an esse existentiae , and,
in this sense, they qualify as
“omnino...nihil”.possibilia (in the case of which the
qualification,
“before their actualization”, makes, plainly, no sense).
possibile is “omnino... nihil”,
however,
is ambiguous. It may mean that (a) no possibile has an esse existentiae
(i.e.,
the “verum esse reale” Suarez speaks of); or it may mean that ( b) possibilia
lack any mode of being whatever - be it an esse existentiae
, or an esse secun- dum quid such as e.g. an esse cognitum . And, plainly, (b)
implies (a): but not
conversely. (a) and (b)
when
he asserts both that an assence, before its production, lacks a “verum
esse reale” and that a “pos-
sible essence” “est ens
revera possibile et capax realis existentiae, ideoque [...] sub ente reali
ali-
quo modo comprehendi[tur]” (Disp. Met. 31, 2, 10).
Suarez partly relies here on Cajetanus’ view
whereby “... ens reale dupliciter
assumitur: uno modo ut distinguitur contra ens ab intellectu fa-
bricatum;
alio modo, ut distinguitur contra non existens actu” (commentary on St. Thomas’
Deente et essentia, c. IV, q. 6).
The question accordingly arises whether or not possibilia ,
devoid
though they are of a verum esse reale , have any
other kind of esse, and, if so,
what such an esse consists in. This question, it should be noted, strictly
con-
cerns what we might call the ‘reality’ (the ontological status) of possibilia :
not their possibility. We are asking, in
effect, whether or not possibilia are
real (in some sense
of “real”), and, if so, what their reality consists in. We
are
not asking what makes a given possibile possible,
i.e., what are the
grounds of its possibility. To see this more clearly, let us
suppose that possi- bilia are ascribed a mode of being;
that the latter is grounded in the divine
intellect; and, finally, that it
consists in (say) the being-of-being-objects-of-
the-divine-intellect. We are
still left with the question of what makes a(ny)
given possibile
, not so much an object of the divine intellect, as a
possible
object thereof. It need not be the divine intellect; nor need it be the
divine
will; nor need it be the divine power. It may just qualify as such (viz.
as pos-
sible) in and of itself, quite independently of God.
Possibilia , accordingly,
although they may depend on God for their
possible being , need not at all
depend on him for their
being possible.
Further, it should be clear that, even if it be conceded that the second
of our
two questions can intelligibly be asked only provided an affirmative
answer to
the first question is given, we are still dealing with two quite dif-
ferent
questions, and with two quite different traits (the possibility
vis-à-vis
the reality) of possibilia. Even though, that is, it be
conceded that (the pos-
sibility of) an answer to the second question requires
that the first question
be given an affirmative answer, the fact that a(ny) given
possibile has a pos-
sible being does not have to be
appealed to - and plays no role whatso-
ever - in the answer to the question of
what makes that possibile possible.
We should, in effect, be putting forward a perfectly consistent view, were
we to
hold both that that question can be answered without assuming
that
there are such things as possibilia , and that, if no such things “exist”, there
would be
nothing to which “(intrinsically) possible” could truly apply. On
the other hand,
we can answer the question of what grounds the reality (if
any) of possibilia without making any reference to the notion of
possibility -
even though only that which qualifies as possible to begin with can
intelligi-
bly be said to be endowed with reality.
...antequam [omnia] fierent, et cum iam facta sunt…semper in ipso
sunt, non quod
sunt in seipsis, sed quod est idem ipse. ... in ipso... sunt ipsa
prima essentia... (Monologion, c. 34; cf. also: “...omnis
creata substantia
tanto verius est in verbo, id est in intelligentia creatoris,
quam in seipsa,
quanto verius existit creatrix quam creata essentia”, Monol. , c. 36; “Hoc
igitur modo... intelligi potest, si
dicitur creatrix essentia universa fecisse de
nihilo, ...; id est: quae prius
nihil erant, nunc sunt aliquid”, Monol., c. 8).
On St. Anselm’s view, then, before they are produced by God the
essences of
creatures (or the creatures themselves) are nothing other than
the divine
“creatrix essentia”: so that reference to any mode of being which
those essences
- or those creatures - may be claimed to possess before their
production must be
explained away in terms of reference to (the mode of
being of) the divine creatrix essentia .
St. Augustine to put forth a
similar view with respect to divine ideas. According to St. Augustine,
“Sunt
[...] ideae principales quaedam formae vel rationes rerum stabiles atque
incommutabiles,
[...] quae divina intelligentia continentur” (De diversis quaestionibus 83, q. 46, n. 2). William of
Alnwick’s
interpretation is as follows: “...sola essentia divina est stabilis et
incommutabilis; [...].
Ideae ergo, secundum Augustinum, sunt sola essentia
divina, quae omnia continet intelligentia”
(Quaestione disputatae de esse intelligibili et de Quodlibet,
ed. by A. Ledoux, Florence 1937, p.
439). We should probably look
askance at such an interpretation.
lar view: according to him,
...ex hoc ipso quod quidditati esse attribuitur, non solum esse sed ipsa
quid
ditas creari dicitur: quia antequam esse habeat, nihil est, nisi forte
in
intellectu creantis, ubi non est creatura, sed creatrix essentia (Quaestionesdisp. de potentia q. 3, a. 5
ad 2um; cf. also, “Creatura in creatore est
creatrix
essentia, ut Anselmus dicit”, Quaestiones disp. de
ventate q. 4, a. 7 ad
l um ).
The important claim here, I suggest, is not so much that a quiddity, be-
fore its
“creation”, i.e., before it is endowed with an esse existentiae
, is “ni-
hil”, as that, before its “creation”, it is nothing other than the
divine crea- trix essentia : from which it follows that
it is devoid of any esse and (there-
fore) that it is
indeed “nihil”. To say, in other words, that, before its “crea-
tion”, a quiddity
“nihil est, nisi forte in intellectu creantis” (which appears
to suggest that it
is something after all, albeit only “in intellectu creantis”) is
just a
misleading way of saying that talk of its reality is actually and ulti-
mately
talk of the (absolute) reality of the divine “creatrix essentia”.
B. Iacobum de Viterbio’, Divus
Thomas (Piac.) 29 (1926), p. 624), “nihil”, in St. Thomas’
passage
have cited in the main text, should be understood in a quite different
way: “Essentiae (naturae)
absolute consideratae abstrahunt ab omni esse, tum
esse existentiae tum esse in intellectu. Ergo
nullum habent esse actuale, sunt
nihil, in quantum nihil opponitur omni actualitati. Non sunt au-
tem nihil,
sed dicunt quamdam realitatem in quantum ipsis attribuimus diversas perfectiones,
uti-
que non in actuali ordine existentiae, sed in ordine ad esse, quatenus
ipsae sunt natae ad esse, sci-
licet quatenus sunt possibiles”. A similar
interpretation had been but forward by Capreolus (who,
we shall see, also put
forth the interpretation I suggest in the main text): “Talis [...] natura [=
na-
tura secundum absolutam considerationem], antequam habeat esse in rerum
natura, [...] est om-
nino nihil, prout nihil opponitur enti quod dicit actum
existendi extra causam suam; sed non erat
nihil, prout opponitur enti quod
dicit quidditatem vel naturam in se, vel dicit actum essendi in in-
tellectu
divino, vel in potentia productiva Dei” (Defensiones Theologiae
Divi Thomae Aquinatis,
Paban and Pègues eds., Turonibus 1900, t. 2, p.
74b). Both Capreolus and Benes rely on St.
Thomas’ claim that “...hoc quod
aliquid competit naturae secundum absolutam considerationem
[i.e., a nature
considered in and of itself, “prout abstrahit ab omni esse”], est ratio quare
compe-
tat naturae alicui secundum esse quod habet in singulari, et non e
converso. [...] unde dato quod
Socrates et Plato non essent, adhuc humanae
naturae rationalitas competeret” (Quodlibet 8, q. 1,
a.
1). The claim just cited cannot, however, be taken to suggest that a nature -
“absolute conside-
rata” - is endowed with reality: for, St. Thomas adds,
“Similiter etiam intellectus divinus est ratio
naturae absolute consideratae”.
This suggests, rather, that the “absolute consideration” of a na-
ture is made
possible by the latter’s “existence” in the divine intellect, wherein, we know, it
is
nothing other than the divine creatrix essentia: all
the more so, in fact given St. Thomas’ con-
tention that “...uniuscuiusque
naturae creatae prima consideratio est secundum quod est
in intel-
lectu divino; secunda vero consideratio est
ipsius naturae absolute; [...]” (Quodl. 8, q. 1, a. 1).
At
play here, then, is not so much the question whether or not a nature -
“absolute considerata” -
has a reality, as the question of what makes it
possible for a nature to be “considered” absolute.
St. Thomas’ view, then, before their “creation” quiddities (essences) have
no esse whatsoever: the assertion that they have e.g. an esse objectivum is
only intelligible provided it is taken
to be an assertion about the esse of the
divine creatrix essentia .
tantae excellentiae, ut omnes essendi modos [...] eminenter praehabeat,
oportet ut esse naturale
ipsius divinae essentiae sit non solum ordinis
intelligibilis, [...] sed sit etiam esse obiectivum eiu-
sdem respectu
intellectus sui: [...] per hoc, nec essentia divina ut obiecta intellectui habet
esse di-
minutum; nec aliqua res, ut obiecta divino intellectui, habet esse
diminutum. Et de essentia divina
[...] manifeste sequitur: quia eius esse
obiectivum est esse naturale ipsius Dei, propter eius emi-
nentiam. De aliis
vero sequitur ex eo, quod alia non aliter possunt obiici Deo, quam in obiecta
es-
sentia divina [...] consequenter esse obiectivum rerum respectu
intellectus divini, non est esse rela-
tivum, sed absolutum realissimum,
scilicet esse Dei (In Summam Theologiae I, q. 15, a. 1,
n.
VIII).
The same view is also put forth by St. Thomas in the following passage
(a reply
to the objection whereby “...Anselmus dicit... quod creatura in
Deo est creatrix
essentia. Sed creatrix essentia est tantum una. Ergo crea-
tura in Deo est tantum
una. Sed hoc modo creatur creatura a Deo secun-
dum quod in ipso praeexistit.
Ergo a Deo non est nisi una tantum crea-
tura...”):
...dicendum, quod creatura dicitur esse in Deo dupliciter. Uno modo
sicut in
causa gubernante et conservante esse creaturae; et sic praesupponi-
tur esse
creaturae distinctum a creatore ad hoc quod creatura in Deo esse
dicatur.
...creatura hoc modo in Deo existens, non est creatrix essentia.
Alio modo
dicitur creatura esse in Deo sicut in virtute causae agentis, vel si-
cut in cognoscente; et sic creatura in Deo est ipsa essentia
divina,... Quamvis
autem hoc modo creatura in Deo existens sit divina
essentia, non tamen per
istum modum est ibi una tantum creatura, sed multae. Nam
essentia Dei est
sufficiens medium ad cognoscendum diversas creaturas, et
sufficiens virtus
ad eas producendas (Quaest. disp. de
potentia q. 3, a. 16 ad 24um - italics
mine;
see also q. 3, a. 15 in corp., as well as, “...in Deo nihil est diversum
ab ipso;
unde et creaturae, secundum hoc quod in Deo sunt, non sunt aliud
a Deo: quia
creaturae in Deo sunt causatrix essentia, ut dicit Anselmus, ...”,
In Sent. I, d. 36, q. 1, a. 3 ad lum).
The claim, accordingly, that creatures ( qua possible), or
essences ( qua
exemplifiable), are endowed with a mode of being is to be explained away
in
terms of the (misleading) claim that they “exist” in God, which claim, in
turn,
is to be understood in terms of the (correct) claim that the alleged esse
of possible creatures (or of exemplifiable essences) in nothing other
than
the esse of the divine creatrix
essentia. To put forward a view of this sort is,
in effect, to maintain
that for possible creatures - or for exemplifiable
essences - to have an esse is, first, for the divine essence to be imitable
in
such-and-such ways, and, second, for God to have the power to bring
it
about that his essence is actually imitated in those ways (some, if not
quite
all, of them). Talk of the esse , or the reality, of
possible creatures and
essences accordingly gives way to talk of the (absolute)
reality of the divine
essence, and of its imitability as well. The conclusion
plainly follows that
possible creatures and essences cannot be ascribed any
ontological status at
all: or - equivalently - that possible creatures and
essences are endowed
with no more than the reality which divine ideas are endowed
with.
Now, according to St. Thomas, reference to the reality of a divine idea
is
ultimately reference to the reality of the divine essence (thought of as
im-
itable): reference to the reality of possible creatures and essences will,
there-
fore, also be reference to the reality of God’s essence.
scit eam ut propriam rationem et ideam
huius creaturae” (Summa Theologiae I, q. 15, a.
2);
“...Deus secundum essentiam suam est similitudo omnium rerum. Unde idea in
Deo nihil aliud
est quam Dei essentia” (Summa
Theologiae I, q. 15, a. 3 ad 3um; see also Summa contra gentiles I,
54); “...essentia [divina]
...est idea rerum; non quidem ut est essentia, sed ut est intellecta” (Quae-
stiones disp. de ventate q. 3, a. 2); “...rationes ideales
rerum, quae sunt in Deo ab aeterno, non
sunt aliud secundum rem ab ipso
intellectu et essentia divina” (In Sent. I, d. 19, q. 5,
a. 3); “...idea
non nominat tantum essentiam, sed essentiam imitabilem: unde
secundum quod est multiplex imi-
tabilitas in essentia divina [...], est
pluralitas idearum” (In Sent. I, d. 36, q. 2, a. 2 ad lum). The
passages I have just cited should be taken
to mean not only that nothing can be in God which is
really distinct from him,
but, also (and more significantly), that ideas and possibilia are devoid of
any esse or reality.
St. Thomas appears to put forth a similar view with respect to eternal
truths:
“...quia solus intellectus divinus est aeternus, in ipso solo veritas
aeternitatem habet. Nec propter
hoc sequitur quod aliquid aliud sit aeternum quam
Deus: quia veritas intellectus divini est ipse
Deus” (Summa
Theologiae I, q. 16, a. 7). Talk of the reality of eternal truths, in
other words, just
is talk of the reality of God himself. As I have remarked
earlier in the main text, St. Thomas’ view
concerning the reality of essences
has also been put forward by (among others) Zumel and Wil-
liam of Alnwick.
According to Zumel, “...creatis rebus creatae sunt rerum essentiae [...]
solum
ergo rerum essentiae et quidditates in intellectu Dei, vel in potentia
activa Dei, fuerunt ab aeter-
no” (In Primam, cit., p.
157a: the surrounding context makes it quite clear that to contend that
es-
sences “are” ab aeterno in the divine intellect is
really to contend that they are nothing other than
the divine creatrix essentia). According to William of Alnwick, “...
sicut [...] res creata aut creabilis
prout continetur in essentia divina
perfectionaliter et eminenter non est aliud ab essentia divina, et
prout
continetur virtualiter in Deo non est aliud quam potentia Dei, sicut prout habet
esse reprae-
sentatum in essentia divina non est aliud quam essentia divina
repraesentans et prout habet esse
scitum sive cognitum in scientia Dei non est
aliud quam scientia Dei” (Quaestiones disputatae,
cit.,
p. 16; see also pp. 67, 114).
creatures, in other words, just is talk of respects in which the divine
essence
is imitable : to say that “there are” such things
as possibilia is only a mislead-
ing way of saying that
the divine essence can be imitated in
such-and-such
respects, and that God has the power to turn (as it were) that
“can” into an
“is”. St. Thomas is very explicit about this: he contends, for
example, that
Ea...quae non sunt nec erunt nec fuerunt a Deo sciuntur quasi eius
virtuti
possibilia. Unde non cognoscit ea ut aliqualiter existentia in seipsis,
sed ut
existentia solum in potentia divina (Summa
contra gentiles I, 66 —
italics mine: it may be of some interest to
consider here Arnauld’s remark
to Leibniz, to which I shall return later, that
“...tout ce que nous appelons
substances possibles, purement possibles, ne peut
être autre chose que la
toute-puissance de Dieu”, LR,
98).
For God to know a pure possible,
fuerunt” (see the passage cited in the main text).
know an object of sorts which has a reality (an
esse) of sorts, as for him to
know how far his power extends - and each
of the ways in which he could
have exercised his power corresponds, as it were,
to a way in which his
essence is imitable. In particular, St. Thomas’ claim that
pure possibles
“sunt aliquo modo existentia” ( Quaest . disp. de veri tate q. 1, a. 8 ad lum) is
not meant to suggest that pure possibles are somehow endowed with
a
mode of being: it means, rather, that for them to be “aliquo modo” is
noth-
ing other than for them to be in the divine power - and for them so to be
is
nothing other than for God to be such that he could have exercised
his
power in such-and-such ways. Ascriptions of reality to
possibilia must ac-
cordingly be explained away in terms of assertions
concerning the extent of
God’s power: to say that pure possibles “sunt in
potentia... Dei” ( Summa Theologiae I, q. 19, a. 9) is
not to say that they have the mode of being
which consists (for example) in the being-of-being-objects-of-the-divine-
power;
it is, rather, to say something about the way(s) in which God could
have
exercised his power.
A view of this sort should not, of course, be taken to provide an answer
to the
question of what grounds the possibility of the possible; nor should it
be taken
to suggest that talk of (the notion of) possibility is to be under-
stood in
terms of talk of (the notion of) producibility. It should instead be
taken to
provide an answer to the quite different question of whether or
not so-called possibilia have reality, and, if so, what grounds that
reality. We
have just seen how St. Thomas answer the latter question. Like all
the
schoolmen, he denies that possibilia make up a realm
of entities whose exis-
tence is independent of that of God. Such a denial,
however, is consistent
with two rather different views: (1) the view whereby possibilia have a real-
ity which is bestowed on them by
(and is formally distinct from the reality
of) God; (2) the view whereby talk of
the reality of possibilia reduces with-
out remainder to
talk of the reality of God (so that only God, i.e., the di-
vine
creatrix essentia , can correctly be said to have reality). St. Thomas,
I
have attempted to show, put forward (2).
He has also been taken, however, for instance by
Capreo-
lus (see fn. 8), to put forth both (2) and a
version of (1). Of these two views,
Capreolus remarks, “secunda [= (2) above]
...est securior”; but, he adds,
Non tamen alia via est erronea,..., nisi pro quanto videtur ponere quod
essentia
habeat aliquod esse, et non a Deo. Sed hoc non debet movere.
Quia, sicut dicit
Henricus, et bene, meo judicio, essentia habet duplex esse,
scilicet esse
essentiae, et esse exsistentiae; et quodlibet istorum habet a Deo;
sed primum
habet a Deo ut est causa exemplaris, dans per suum intelligere
esse intelligibile
et quidditativum cuilibet essentiae; ...esse intelligibile, esse
quidditativum,
cum non sit esse nisi secundum quid, non est per creatio-
nem, ... ( Defensiones Theologiae..., cit., t. 2, p. 76a).
I doubt very much that St. Thomas would have accepted Capreolus’
view whereby an
uncreated essence has an “esse intelligibile et quiddita-
tivum” which is
bestowed on it by God, and is distinct from the divine esse.
Capreolus does not, of course, have in mind a real distinction here: he
has
in mind, however, a kind of distinction which makes it impossible to
ex-
plain away any reference to the reality of essences in terms of reference
to
the (absolute) reality of the divine creatrix essentia .
The very notion of an
eternal uncreated essence which is somehow distinct
from the divine
essence is quite foreign, I believe, to St. Thomas’ metaphysical
theology.
But it plays a fundamental role in Capreolus’ passage I have just
cited, as
well as in a passage where Capreolus takes up, and answers, the question
of
whether or not, before its creation, something (say a stone) has any kind of
esse (this question is really a question concerning the
meaning of “nihil” in
“creatio ex nihilo”):
...lapis erat omnino nihil in genere exsistentium; nec erat ibi aliquid ul-
tra
tale nihil, exsistens in actu, et de quo posset dici, hoc est actu. Erat
autem
ultra nihileitatem, quae est carentia actualis exsistentiae, essentia in
esse
essentiae; quae, absolute considerata, ut natura vel quidditas, est
sub-
strahibilis nihileitati exsistentiae et aliquidditati exsistentiae,...Et
ipsa, se-
cundum se, semper est aliquid in genere essentiarum, et in esse
intelligibili,
et in potentia activa Creatoris, licet non in esse reali
actuali,... Et cum dici-
tur quod tunc lapis non est factus ex puro nihilo; dico
quod non est factus
ex puro nihilo in genere entium vel essentiarum, sed ex puro
nihilo in
genere exsistentium actu vel in potentia passiva extra Deum (DefensionesTheologiae..., cit., t. 2, p. 73a; see also
pp. 73b, 74b).
Three points are worthy of notice here. First, unlike St. Thomas,
Capreolus makes
reference not just to an essence, “absolute considerata”,
but also (and more
significantly) to an essence in esse essentiae: so
that,
when it comes to essences, it is not just a question of
consideratio , but also
(and more significantly) of esse
- a so-called esse essentiae. Second, Capreo-
lus
draws a distinction between, on the one hand, a “purum nihil” “in
genere...
essentiarum”, and, on the other, a “purum nihil” “in genere exsis-
tentium”, and
contends that e.g. a stone, before its creation, only qualifies
as a “purum
nihil” in the second of the two ways just described. In a word:
before its
creation a stone is an essence in esse essentiae. Finally,
third, to
claim that an essence is “substrahibilis nihileitati exsistentiae” is,
I suggest,
to claim that its being devoid of an esse
exsistentiae is perfectly consistent
with its being endowed with an
(uncreated) esse essentiae. It plainly follows
from
these three points that, on Capreolus’ view, the answer to the ques-
tion, “Quid
sit essentia creaturae...”, cannot quite be that the “essentia
creaturae” is
nothing other than the divine creatrix essentia. The correct
an-
swer, according to Capreolus, is that an essence, before its creation, is
en-
dowed with an esse essentiae , and only counts as
“nihil” in the sense that it
lacks an esse exsistentiae:
this, of course, we have seen, implies neither that
the esse
essentiae of an essence is a “verum esse reale” (it is, in fact, an esse secundum quid ), nor that it is independent of God
(it is, in fact, dependent
on the divine intellect).
A view of this sort could hardly be taken to capture the spirit (and the
letter)
of St. Thomas’ answer to the question, “Quid sit essentia creatu-
rae...”. It
can, however, plausibly be taken to capture the letter - if not
quite the spirit - of Henry of Ghent’s answer to that question (the notion
of esse essentiae is, after all, Henry of Ghent’s). And it can
also plausibly be
taken to capture the spirit - if not quite the letter - of Duns
Scotus’ answer
to that question. Like Scotus, Capreolus ascribes to essences an
esse intelli- gibile , and takes the latter to be an
esse purely secundum quid. Like
Henry
of Ghent, and unlike Scotus, he contends that essences are endowed
with
an esse essentiae : unlike Henry of Ghent, however, he
does not regard such
as esse as an
esse reale. Like Scotus and Henry of Ghent, and unlike St.
Thomas, he
has no qualms with the idea of an eternal uncreated essence.
Like Scotus, and
unlike Henry of Ghent, he distinguishes (albeit only im-
plicitly) between the
notion of production, and that of creation, of essences:
on his view, however,
unlike on Scotus’, that distinction goes hand-in-hand
with (and, in all
likelihood, it is founded on) the distinction - Henry of
Ghent’s - between esse essentiae and esse exsistentiae.
Now Henry of
Ghent’s answer to the question, “Quid sit essentia
creaturae..”, although it
has little or no hearing on our understanding of
Leibniz’s own answer to it,
is definitely relevant to an understanding of Scotus’
views on the reality of
essences: let us tum, then, to a discussion of Henry’s
views on that topic.
In Ord. I (d. 36,
q.u.) Scotus raises - and gives a
negative answer to - the question, “Utrum
fundamentum relationis aeter-
nae ad Deum ut cognoscentem habeat vere esse
essentiae ex hoc quod est
sub tali respectu”. The context in which the
question is raised is this: God
knows creatures (or their essences) ab aeterno; hence, qua known by him
ab aeterno , creatures (or their essences) bear an
eternal relation to God. They
are, also, the “fundamentum” of that
relation.
(Lettura I, d. 35, q.u., n. 40); “...res [...] fundat
relationem idealem secundum esse deminutum
quod habuit ab aetemo” ( Lectura I, d. 36, q.u., n. 26). See also Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 36, 54.
given by Scotus, as well as the arguments he puts forward in
its favour, are
meant by him to be in direct opposition to Henry of Ghent’s
affirmative
answer and (in particular) to Henry of Ghent’s contention that the
“funda-
mentum relationis aeternae ad Deum” possesses a so-called esse essentiae.
Two questions arise here. First: why should such a “fundamentum” be
as-
cribed such an esse ? Second: what kind of esse is the es se essentiae ?
In order to answer both questions we should distinguish, to begin with,
between
two senses of the notion of a res : “res a reor reris”, on
the one
hand, and “res a ratitudine”, on the other.
reris dieta, quae continet sub se rem
imaginariam quae est purum non ens, [...] et continet sub se
rem veram quae est
natura et essentia alicuius vel rei increatae vel creatae habentis ideam in
mente
divina et natae existere extra, in quo non consideratur ratio eius quod
est esse aliquid per essen-
tiam nisi ex respectu quodam ad rationem
exemplarem in Deo. Res enim quaecunque sive exi-
stens sive non existens, si
habet esse in Deo secundum exemplarem rationem, non solum dicitur
quod est res
dieta a reor reris, sed etiam quod sit natura et essentia aliqua. Et ideo dicitur
res a ra-
titudine. Et haec res [...] est in sua essentia participatio quaedam
divini esse, quod nondum est
esse existentiae, sed quiditativum, ...” (Aurea Quodlibeta, Venetiis 1613, Quodl. 5, q. 2, t. 1, p. 229
col. 1; note, incidentally, that the
“esse... quiditativum” Henry of Ghent refers to here is what he
usually calls
esse essentiae). res a reor
reris : never mind whether it is a “res imaginaria” or a “res
vera” (cf. fn. 13).
Thus impossible or fictitious “things” such as chimeras, and
possible ones
as well, are correctly deemed to be res a reor
reris. Only a proper subset of
the set of res a reor
reris , however, qualifies as the set of res a rettitudine
:
these are essences, and, according to Henry, what sets apart a “res
vera”
from a “res imaginaria” (which is a “purum non ens”)
exemplar in Deo et propterea non est natum esse extra
aliquid in rerum natura, quale [...] intendi-
mus hoc nomine chimaera vel
hircocervus, illud omnino non potest dici natura vel essentia aut res
vel
certitudo aliqua nata capi ab intellectu [...]. Unde et de tali non ente non
potest esse scientia”
(Aurea Quodlibeta, cit., Quodl. 3,
q. 9, t. 1, p. 99 col. 2).
fact that it is (or has)
an essence, as the fact that it is endowed with an “esse
proprium”esse
proprium is Avicenna’s: “Unaquaeque [...] res habet certitudinem,
qua
est id quod est, sicut triangulus habet certitudinem qua est triangulus
[...], et hoc est quod fortasse
appellamus esse proprium”
(Liber de philosophia prima I, c. 6). Thus characterized, an esse pro-prium need not at all be a mode of being: it
was, however, so regarded by Henry, who took it to
be an esse essentiae (see e.g. Summae questionum
ordinariarum, Parisius 1520, a. 21, q. 4, fo. 1 21v).
As we shall see later, on Henry’s view the divine essence, thought of as
imitable, is the formal or
exemplary cause of the esse
essentiae of essences: this view he traces back to Avicenna’s
conten-
tion that “Animal [...] acceptum [...] per se est natura, de qua
dicitur quod esse eius prius est
quam esse naturale, [...] et hoc est cuius
esse proprie dicitur divinum esse, quoniam causa sui esse
ex hoc quod est
animal est Dei intentione” (Liber de philosophia prima V,
c. 1: see e.g. AureaQuodlibeta, cit., Quodl. 3, q. 9, t. 1, p. 99 col. 2). esse essentiae . Now such
an esse - rather than, say, an esse cognitum
or an esse intelligibile - is, we
shall presently
see, precisely what makes an essence (be it exemplified or
not) the object of a
scientia realis , properly so-called: otherwise put,
on
Henry’s view a scientia only qualifies as realis provided its objects have an
esse proprium , i.e., an esse essentiae
,Summae,
cit., a. 24, q. 3, fo. 138v. (cf. in particular, “... dubitatio de re quacunque
an
sit in esse essentiae natura aliqua an non, debet determinari in principio
cuiuslibet cognitionis
scientialis”). Cf. also Scotus, Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 2.
essence has - or may have - three kinds of esse: an esse rationis; an esse naturae ;
and an esse essentiae.
et tres modos habet in
esse. Unum enim habet esse naturae extra in rebus; alterum vero habet
esse
rationis; tertium vero habet esse essentiae. Animal enim acceptum cum
accidentibus suis in singu
-laribus est res naturalis; acceptum vero cum
accidentibus suis in anima est res rationis; acceptum
vero secundum se est
esse essentiae, de qua dicitur quod esse eius est prius, quam esse eius
natu-
rae vel rationis” (Aurea Quodlibeta, cit., Quodl. 3, q. 9, t. 1, p. 99 col. 1-2).
In order to qualify as the object of a scientia realis, it
must, evidently,
have some type of esse : else it would
be a “purum non ens”. Now the esse
in question cannot be an esse naturae : for an essence can
be known quite
independently of whether or not it is actually exemplified. Nor
can it be an
esse rationis : for the latter could hardly count as the esse of an essence
purely qua
essence, i.e., of an essence conceived of “absque omni condi-
tione quam nata est
habere in esse naturae vel rationis”.Aurea Quodlibeta, cit., Quodl. 3, q.
9, t. 1, col. 2.
be an esse
essentiae.
view whereby the “fundamentum
relationis aeternae ad Deum ut cognoscentem” need not at all
have an esse essentiae] obicitur quod fundamentum relationis, quando
fundat relationem, est se-
cundum illud esse secundum quod fundat, - aliter
secundum illud esse non fundaret; sed lapis se-
cundum verum esse essentiae
fundat illam relationem aeternam ad Deum ut scientem, et hoc in
aeternitate;
ergo lapis est in aeternitate secundum illud esse. Probatio minoris: secundum
illud
esse fundat relationem ad Deum ut scientem, secundum quod esse eius ut
obiectum cognoscitur a
Deo; cognoscitur autem a Deo sub ratione essentiae
verae [= sub ratione essentiae in esse essen-
tiae], non sub ratione essentiae
deminutae, ...” (Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 30; cf. also Rep. Par. II, d. 1.,
q. 2, n. 12, as well as the
following passages: “...essentiae [in esse essentiae] non videntur
propter
aliquid poni, nisi ut sint termini relationum idealium, quae
aeternaliter sunt in Deo. [...] ponuntur
istae entitates [=essentiae in esse
essentiae] propter cognitionem Dei aeternam”, Ord. I, d.
36,
q.u., n. 20, 22).
have raised above: only essences which are endowed with an esse essentiae
can, first, provide the divine scientia with its proper
objects (each such ob-
ject being an essence purely qua
essence, not an essentia deminuta : see fn.
19); and,
second, qualify as the proper “fundamentum” of the eternal rela-
tion which, as
known by God, they bear to God. This is not to say, of
course, that essences in
esse essentiae make up a realm of
self-subsistent
entities.
In order to see why, we must now turn to a discussion of Henry’s con-
ception of
the divine scientia . The latter’s primary object is the
divine
essence purely sub ratione essentiae: this means
that, in the first (as it were)
and most fundamental stage God can only be said
to know himself, and
things other than himself only insofar as they are identical
with the divine
essence (as Henry puts it, “... Deus cognoscit alia a se ut sunt
in sua essentia
idem quod ipsa, et sic non ut alia”, Quodl.
9, q. 2, p. 27). God, however,
also knows his essence sub
ratione imitabilitatis , i.e., as imitable (by possible
essences) in
infinitely many respects. Now each respect of imitability - or,
more generally,
the divine essence sub ratione imitabilitatis - is not only
an
idea or exemplar, but, qua idea or exemplar, it
plays, also, the role of a for-
mal cause, whose effect (so to speak) is an ideatum/exemplatum:
a possible
essence, endowed with an esse essentiae ,
by which the divine essence is im-
itable (there will of course be as many such
essences as there are ideas).
Otherwise put, God can only be said perfectly to
know his own essence sub ratione imitabilitatis provided
he also knows, at the same time, the objects,
i.e., the essences, by which it is
imitable: and it is precisely by thus knowing
his essence - or by thinking of it
as imitable - that he endows those objects
with an esse
essentiae (see fn. 20). For our present purposes, the most im-
portant
point in this account is Henry’s contention that the esse
essentiae of
essences is bestowed on them by God, or, more precisely, by
his essence
qua “forma exemplaris”: it follows from this, evidently, that
such an esse
must be deemed to be dependent on God.
[...] essentia creaturae...” (Summae, cit.,
a. 68, q. 5, fo. 230v.); “Est... autem participatio divini esse
in essentia,
esse essentiae, inquantum essentia illa exemplatum est divini esse secundum
rationem
causae formalis, quia per ipsum esse essentiae, ut per actum sibi
proprium essentialem habet id
quod res est ex ratione sui generis, quod sit
ens, et natura, et essentia proprie dieta, non solum fig-
mentum, ...” (Aurea Quodlibeta, cit., Quodl. 10, q.
8, t. 2, p. 160, col. 4); “Illa [...] ratio in divina
essentia, secundum quam
sua essentia est ratio qua cognoscit alia a se, nihil aliud est quam
imita-
bilitas qua ab aliis imitetur, quam vocamus ideam. Quae est talis ratio
sive respectus in divina es-
sentia, non ex se ut essentia est secundum se et
absolute [= essentia sub ratione essentiae], [...]
set ut est iam cognita et
obiectum primum divini intellectus [...] Et quia, [...] scientia de rebus
ex
parte Dei est causa exemplaris rerum ut sint ad se aliquid per essentiam,
ideo [...] propter creatu-
ras plures specie differentes, ut sint aliquid per
essentiam, necesse est ponere ideas plures in Deo,
quibus in notitia sua habet
praesentialiter, ut in mundo archetypo, singula praesentia ab aeterno,
[...,]
et hoc in esse suo quidditativo quod sunt per suam essentiam per divinam scientiam
constitu-
tam” (Quodlibet 9, q. 2, Macken ed., Leiden
1983, pp. 28-29, 34).
essence in esse essentiae is an ideatum; an ideatum , in turn, is a productum ;
mae in constituendo illas in esse
essentiae [...] et hoc secundum rationem causae formalis exem-
plaris, idcirco
respectus ideae ad ideata [...] est penes genus relationis [...] quod est inter
produ-
centem et productum...” (Summae, cit., a. 68, q.
5, fo. 230v).
as such, the ideatum can only owe its
esse (viz. its esse essentiae) to its pro- ducens , viz. God - or the divine essence - thought
of as a formal cause. It
would be quite wrong, therefore, to ascribe to Henry the
view whereby
essences possess their esse essentiae
independently of God:
sentias
rerum ex se habere quoddam esse essentiae, quod vocat esse reale, aeternum et
improduc-
tum, conveniens creaturis indipendenter a Deo, quodque in eis
supponitur, non solum ante effì-
cientiam, sed etiam ante scientiam Dei” (Disp. Met. 31, 2, 2). Actually, Scotus does not quite
put
things this way: he only ascribes to Henry the view whereby the esse essentiae of essences is an
esse reale aeternum. Further, Henry holds neither that the
esse essentiae of essences is independent
of God,
nor that it is “improductum”, nor that it pertains to essences “ante scientiam
Dei” (see
the passages cited in fn. 20 and fn. 21, as well as Aurea Quodlibeta, cit., Quodl. 3, q.
9, t. 1, p. 99
col. 2, and Quodl. 8, q. 9, t. 2, p. 25 col.
3).
esse , however, is the esse essentiae?
(I come now to the second of the two
questions raised earlier).
As I have remarked above, it is neither an esse naturae - or
an esse exi- stentiae - nor an esse
rationis (or an esse cognitum , or an esse intelligibile ,
each of which qualifies as an esse rationis). Should we characterize it as an
esse reale ? We probably should, for the following three
reasons. First,
essences in their esse essentiae are
really distinct from God:
scendo
de ipsa id quod ipsa habet esse in se ipsa, aliud a Deo,
...” (Quodl. 9, q. 2, cit., p. 27 - ita-
lics mine).
Note, also, that the ideata of ideas, i.e., of the
“respectus [...] imitabilitatis in divina es-
sentia”
(Quodl. 9, q. 2, cit., p. 36), are also referred to by Henry as ideas (ibid., pp. 36-37), and are
characterized by him as
“rerum essentiae[e] in divina notitia ut quaedam obiecta cognita
com-
prehensa[e], quae secundum rem sunt aliae a divina
natura, ...” (Summae, cit., a. 68, q. 5, fo. 231r-
italics mine). Further, according to Henry “...
huiusmodi rationes [= rationes ideales = ideae] in
Deo non sunt nisi respectus
quidam, quibus ipse ut forma exemplaris relative se habet ad essen-
tias rerum
extra, sicut ad quaedam exemplata relative se habentia ad Deum, in eo quod id
quod
sunt aliquid per essentiam, exemplata quaedam sunt. Cognoscens enim
distincte unum relativo-
rum, necessario simul cognoscit et aliud. Et est
talis haec Dei cognitio in cognoscendo se secun-
dum rationem formae
exemplaris, a quo secundum rationem causae formalis habent esse aliquid
per
essentiam ipsa exemplata in esse suo cognito” (Quodl. 9,
q. 2, cit., pp. 30-31).
tainly suggests that such an esse , unlike the esse rationis of
essences, is an esse reale . Second, the esse essentiae of an essence, unlike its esse
rationis , could
hardly be said entirely to consist in e.g. the
being-of-being-known: Henry
sharply distinguishes between “esse aliquid per
essentiam”, on the one hand,
and “esse cognitum”, on the other (see fn. 23). The
former, unlike the latter,
is not an esse secundum quid :
it can, therefore, only be (something like) an
esse reale . Finally, third, on Henry’s view essences in their
esse essentiae bear
a rea l
relation to God,
sentias
creaturarum, quae ex hoc sunt aliquid secundum essentiam, quod respondent
rationibus
idealibus existentibus in Deo et ratione ipsius essentiae habent relationem realem ad Deum”
( Quodlibet 9, q. 1, Macken ed., Leiden 1983, p. 8 -
italics mine). esse
ess entiae counts
as an esse reale (it could
hardly be deemed to be an esse secundum quid).
What is meant, however, by the claim that the esse essentiae
of an
essence is an esse reale ? In order to answer this
question, a distinction must
be drawn between two different (but complementary)
points of view from
which an essence can be considered: that of the divine
intellect, and that of
the essence taken in and of itself, i.e., not as an essentia intellecta , but as an
essentia absoluta.
essentia absoluta see Quodl. 2, q. 1, cit., t. 1,
p. 46, col. 2, 3. esse ra- tionis , or an esse secundum
quid : and, thus considered, it only has the (kind
of)
esse which consists in the being-of-being-known. In the latter case,
on
the other hand, an essence possesses the being-of-being-an-essence, i.e.,
the
(kind of) being which pertains to it purely qua essence,
rather than the be-
ing which pertains to it qua intel lecta.
esse rei quod habet essentialiter de se,
et hoc appellatur esse essentiae, quoddam vero quod recipit ab alio, [...].
Primum esse habetessentia creaturae essentialiter [i.e., purely qua
essence], sed tamen participative, in quantum habet
formale exemplar in Deo (Quodlibet 1, q. 9, Macken ed., Leiden 1979, p. 53 – italics
mine). The
italicized material clearly suggests that esse
essentiae of an essence is an esse reale.
esse intelligibly qualifies as
an esse reale at least in this sense, that it is possessed by an
essentia intel- lecta , Lectura I, d. 35, q.u., n.
33): according
to Henry, on the other hand, an idea - conceived of as an ideatum (cf. fn. 23) - is
rather a quiditas taken
in and of itself, than a “quiditas intellecta”. Note, however, that the
notion
of an essentia intellecta is ambiguous (see fn.
31 below). intellecta (this
would make it an ens secundum quid ), but insofar as it
is an essence.esse essentiae of an essence is “un êtrepropre de l’objet connu, non point en tant que
connu, mais en tant qu’il est un objet” (Henri
deGand: Essai sur les tendences de sa métaphysique, Paris 1938, p.
102 - cf. also p. 42). This is preci-
sely what Henry has in mind in the
passage I have cited in fn. 26.
It plainly follows from this that, on Henry’s view, a possible essence can-
not
be identified with the divine creatrix essentia : for, we
have seen, although
it only “exists” in the divine intellect, it is really
distinct from God. Further,
we have also seen, it is endowed with an esse proprium which is really distinct
from (the esse of) God. And, if ascription to an essence of an esse rationis is
ascription to it of a reality secundum quid , ascription to it of an esse
reale is
acription to it of an unqualified reality: never mind the fact
that it possesses
the latter entirely on account of its being the ideatum of the “corresponding”
divine idea (the same is true of
actually existing things: they are real tout court ,
although their reality tout court is bestowed on them by
God).
As I have remarked earlier, Scotus rejects the
view -
Henry of Ghent’s - whereby essences, before they are actually
exemplified,
are endowed with (in particular) an esse
essentiae. In fact, according to him
“...lapis ab aeterno intellectus
non est aliquid, sed nihil”.Rep. Par. I, d. 36, q. 1, n. 29. Cf. also, “Aliter
[...] inest ista negatio ‘nihileitas’ homini in
aeternitate, et chimaerae,
et tamen non propter hoc est unum magis nihil altero” (Ord. I, d. 36,
q.u., n. 62). Now the claim that, before they are
exemplified, essences (or the things whereof they
are essences) are “nihil”
implies no more than that, before they are exemplified, they lack both an
esse existentiae and an esse
essentiae. Thus, Scotus contends, “...de nihilo (id est non de
aliquo)
secundum esse exsistentiae potest Deus creare, et per consequens de
nihilo (id est non de aliquo)
secundum esse essentiae, [...] Et tamen non
potest aliquid creari, id est produci ad ‘esse’ simplici-
ter de nihilo, id
est nullo modo ente (nec simpliciter nec secundum quid)”
(Ord. II, d. 1, q. 2, n.
82, 83). Note, on the other hand, that the
production of essences in esse intelligibile is a
produc-
tion “de simpliciter nihilo, id est non de aliquo secundum esse
essentiae nec esse exsistentiae, nec
secundum aliquod esse secundum quid”
(Ord. II, d. 1, q. 2, n. 84).
mean that e.g. a stone (or the quiddity thereof) which is known by God ab aeterno is devoid of any esse,
or any reality, whatsoever. On the contrary: al-
though it lacks an esse essentiae (or an esse reale),
it has what Scotus calls an
esse intelligibile or an esse cognitum
- the kind of esse he typically refers to
as an
esse deminutum . Further, on his view, unlike on the view
of e.g. St.
Thomas and Henry of Ghent, God has a “direct” knowledge of
(the
essences of) creatures: he knows them, that is, rather in
seipso in seipsis ,
than in seipso by means of respects - or relations - of
imitability (thus Sco-
tus points out that “...potest concedi quod sunt
relationes aeternae in Deo
ad cognita, sed non priores naturaliter ipsis cognitis
in ratione obiectorum”,
Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 31).
More precisely, according to Scotus the “instant of eternity” in which
God knows
creatures (or essences, or quiddities) can be subdivided into at
least three
different so-called instants of nature, the first naturally (but not:
temporally)
prior to the second, the second naturally (but not: temporally)
prior to the
third. In the first instant of nature, God - Scotus holds - un-
derstands (knows)
his own essence “sub ratione mere absoluta”. In the sec-
ond instant, “[Deus] ...
producit lapidem in esse intelligibili et intelligit lapi-
dem” (we are actually
dealing with one and the same “act” here),
tur intelligere rem est ipsam producere in esse
intelligibili” (Rep. Par. II, d. 1, q. 2, n. 12). See also
Lectura I, d. 35, q.u., n. 22; and Mastrius, Disputationes in XII Aristotelis Libros
Metaphysicorum,
Venetiis 1647, disp. 8, q. 1, a. 2, n. 258).
such a production is also the production of a relation which goes in one
di-
rection only, viz. from the stone (or its quiddity) to God. And, in the
third
instant, “...intellectus divinus... comparando se ad lapidem
intellectum,
potest causare in se relationem rationis” [ Ord.
I, d. 36, q.u., n. 32; see also
Ord. I, d. 3 pars 2, q.u., n. 326). It follows from this,
clearly, that the rela-
tion which God bears to that which is known by him is
“naturally” poste-
rior to his knowledge of it, and (hence) that, contrary to
what St. Thomas
and Henry of Ghent had contended, such a knowledge is a direct knowl-
edge of things (quiddities, creatures). For
God to know them, we have just
seen, is for God to produce them in esse intelligibile - and conversely. A
certain amount of
care must be exercised here, however. For the view
whereby one and the same “act”
is at play just is the view whereby it is pre-
cisely by
knowing things - quiddities, creatures - in themselves (and not, of
course: in
esse intelligibile) , or by
exercising all at once his infinite power of
thinking, that God produces things -
quiddities, creatures - in esse intelligi- bile . Thus
Scotus contends (for example) that
...Deus...in secundo [instanti]...intelligit omnia alia a se ut
constituta
naturaliter in quodam esse intelligibili per actum intelligendi
divinum: et re-
spectu rerum aliarum a se, ut habent esse intelligibile, est Deus
causa natu-
ralis per actum suum intelligendi (Lectura I,
d. 3 pars 1, q. 3, n. 191; cf.
also, “...intellectus divinus primo intelligit
essentiam suam, et secundo lapi-
dem, et sic producit
lapidem in esse intelligibili”, Lectura I, d. 35, q.u.,
n.
36 - italics mine; see also Rep. Par. I, d. 36, q. 2,
n. 34).
Scotus is not saying here that what God knows is a known quiddity, or
an essentia intellecta . essentia intellecta is ambiguous, though:
talk of such an essence may just
be talk of an essence which is known by God
and (hence) of an essence simpliciter, or it may
be
talk of an essence-qua-known, i.e., qua falling under the relatio
deminuens which is expressed by
“intellecta”. Only in the second case
is the essentia intellecta an ens
deminutum. (This is the di-
stinction Scotus describes when he
contends that “...ex hoc quod quiditas lapidis habet esse sub
scientia Dei,
habet esse suum deminutum, licet in comparatione ad scientiam Dei non deminuitur
[that is: what God knows is a quiddity simpliciter, which -
qua known by him: cf., “sub scientia
Dei” - has
an
esse deminutum ]”; Lectura I, d.
36, q.u., n. 30).
essence “absolute” (cf. Lectura I, d. 36, q.u., n. 30),
and, second, that, by
knowing an essence absolute , he produces it in esse intelligibile.
respectu deminuentis non
est deminutum” (Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 33).
words, the essence which is known by him as something “absolute”
acqui-
res, by the very fact of being known by him (and at the same instant
in
which it is known by him), an esse intelligibile . It
may well be wondered,
however, why Scotus takes essences to be produced in esse intelligibile by
the divine intellect, and, in
particular, why he ascribes to them such an esse .
The answer, I suggest, is to be found in Avicenna’s idea of a “duplex
fluxus
rerum a Deo”,Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 11. Avicenna says: “... [Deus]
intelligit suam essentiam esse princi-
pium fluxus omnis intellecti in quantum
est intellectum et causatum, sicut intellexit suam essen-
tiam esse principium
fluxus omnis entis in quantum est ens causatum” (Liber de
philosophia prima
VIII, c. 7). Scotus agrees: he points out, however, that “Non... dicit
Avicenna illum fluxum ‘in
esse intellecto’ esse fluxum in esse quiditativo,
quia ‘esse intellectum’ est esse distinctum contra
totum esse reale, tam
quiditativum quam exsistentiae” (Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n.
66). In other words,
the “fluxus”, i.e., the production, of essences is a
“fluxus” (production) of essences in esse
intelli-gibile, not in esse essentiae (or quiditativum).
cipit esse,
antequam sit, necesse est ut sit possibile in se”.Liber de philosophia prima IV, c. 2.
out (in Ord. II, d. 1, q. 2, n. 77), such a
contention may be taken to imply,
and had in fact been taken by Henry of Ghent to
imply, that creation can-
not be creation ex nihilo with
respect both to the esse exsistentiae and to
the esse essentiae . Scotus accepts Avicenna’s contention, but
takes it to im-
ply something quite different:
Concedo...quod omne creabile prius erat possibile ex parte sui, sed
ista
possibilitas... non fundatur in aliquo esse simpliciter [= an esse
essen-tiae or an esse exsistentiae] sed in esse
cognito (Ord. II, d. 1, q. 2, n. 93; cf.
also, “Ideo dico
quod in creando Deus producit aliquid de nihilo simplici-
ter [= non de aliquo
secundum esse exsistentiae et esse essentiae], et tamen
praesupponitur illud esse
possibile et habere esse secundum quid”, Lectura
II, d. 1, q.
2, n. 81).
Note “et” in the second of the two passages just cited: it suggests, first,
that
nothing can be endowed with an esse exsistentiae - or be
created - un-
less it is possible in and of itself to begin with (or, in Scotus’
terminology,
unless it is possible formaliter to begin
with); and, second, that possession,
on the part of e.g. an essence, of an esse secundum quid - for example, an
esse cognitum - provides the ontological (but not the
“formal”) foundation
of its possibility. The question whether or not something
qualifies as (logi-
cally) possible - i.e., whether or not its constituents are
mutually compossi-
ble, i.e., whether or not they jointly involve a repugnantia - can only arise,
that is, after those
constituents have been produced in esse intelligibile -
or
in esse cognitum - by the divine intellect (“after”
expresses here a natural,
not a temporal, relation).possibile depends on
the latter’s
being produced in esse intelligibile by the divine
intellect: it implies, at most, that, if no
intellect (not even God’s)
existed, possibilia would be devoid of any esse, so that “possible” could
not intelligibly apply to
anything. This is not to say, plainly, that (part of) what makes a possibile
possible is the fact that it is endowed with an
esse intelligibile. Nicolaus de Orbellis’ remark
is
especially relevant here, that (on Scotus’ view) “Est [...] contradictio
reducenda ad intellectum di-
vinum tamquam ad causam non contradictionis, sed
partium possibilium” [Super Sententias com-pendium
perutile I, d. 43). With obvious and minor modifications, the same applies
to (the notion
of) logical possibility: thus Frassen points out that “...cum [...]
non repugnantia sit alicujus rei
non repugnantia, necessario supponit
conceptum rei, in quo illa non repugnantia fundetur: ergo
ut creaturae
possibiles dicantur habere non repugnantiam ad existendum, prius supponi
debent
habere aliquod esse: illud autem esse non possunt habere ab alio quam
ab intellectu divino, ...”
(Scotus Academicus I, Romae 1900, p. 37).
productus in esse intelligibili per
intellectum divinum, est ex se for-
maliter possibilis, et quasi principiative
per intellectum divinum” ( Ord. I, d.
43, q.u., n. 7). I
take it that for a possibile to be possible,
principiative , is for
it to be endowed with an esse
intelligibile by the divine intellect, and for it
to be possible, formaliter , is for its “constituents” to be mutually
compossi-
ble in and of themselves, quite in dependently of God: the point of the
dis-
tinction is, of course, that, if possibilia had no
esse intelligibile , “possible,
formaliter ” would not be true of anything. This is precisely
why an esse in- telligibile is needed (see fn. 35). What
kind of esse , however, is the esse in-
telligibile of e.g. essences?
It is not an esse reale : specifically, from the claim that
essences are pro-
duced in esse intelligibile by the
divine intellect, it follows neither that they
are endowed with an esse reale (such as, for example, an esse
essentiae ), nor
that they exist “outside” God. According to Scotus,
...intellectum [divinum] esse necessario respectu alicuius obiecti nonponit illud obiectum esse aliquid in entitate reali aliud a primo
obiecto, quia
‘esse cognitum ab intellectu divino’ non
ponit illud esse in se, sed intellectui
praesentatum vel in intellectu
praesentialiter; ...intellectus [divinus] potest
esse necessario aliorum
intelligibilium... absque hoc quod habeant esse aliudab esse
divino (quatenus sunt sibi praesentia), ... (Ord. I,
d. 8 pars 2, q.u., n.
274 - italics mine).
Four points here. First, we have seen earlier, it is by
knowing a creature
(or its essence) that the divine intellect bestows an esse intelligibile on it.
Second, such an esse is not really distinct from the esse of God:
but it is for-
mally non-identical with it. Third, such an
esse is not an esse reale ,
cuius per se necessarii, ...” (Appendix A to
Scotus, Opera Omnia, Vatican City 1950-, vol. VI,
p.
439); “...dico quod productio ista [= productio in esse intelligibili] est
in esse alterius rationis ab
omni esse simpliciter,...”
(Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 44); “...ens [...] deminutum, quod scilicet est
ens co-
gnitum, non habet esse realis exsistentiae”
(Ord. I, d. 13, q.u., n. 34); “...obiectum in quantum habet
‘esse’ in
intellectu, non habet ‘esse’ reale sed tantum intentionale”
(Ord. I, d. 3 pars 1, q. 4, n. 260).
(hence) not an esse essentiae. Fourth, such a production is not a
production
of “things” ad extra: creatures, or their
essences, before they are endowed
with an esse simpliciter
only “exist” as objects of, and in, the divine intel-
lect, and they only
possess therein an esse intelligibile , which is an esse
merely secundum quid. Although it is only implicitly made
in the passage I
have just cited, the second point is explicitly made by Scotus
when he as-
serts that
...istud ‘esse secundum quid’ reducitur ad aliquod esse simpliciter,
quod est
esse ipsius intellectionis; sed istud ‘esse simpliciter’ non est
forma-liter esse eius quod dicitur ‘esse secundum quid’, sed est eius
terminative
vel principiative, ... (Ord. I, d. 36, q.u.,
n. 46 - italics mine; see also Ord. I,
d. 30, q. 1-2, n.
50; Rep. Par. I, d. 36, q. 2, n. 31).
Now to contend that the esse simpliciter of a divine
intellection is not
“formaliter” - but only “terminative vel principiative” - the
esse of that
which has an esse secundum quid is to contend not only that
the former and
the latter (kind of) esse are formally
non-identical, but, also, that the latter
(kind of) esse
is bestowed on essences by an act of the divine intellect. The
divine intellect,
that is, being the principle whereby essences are produced
in
esse intelligibile (hence, plainly, “principiative”), is also, from the
per-
spective - as it were - of the essences themselves, the “terminus” to
which
their esse intelligibile “reduces” - hence, plainly,
“terminative”. (Scotus’
claim is relevant here that, in the instant of nature in
which the divine intel-
lect produces e.g. a stone, or its essence, in esse intelligibile , intellectio
divina terminat relationem
‘lapidis ut intelletti’ ad ipsam”, Ord. I, d. 35,
q.u., n.
32).
Since it is formally non-identical with the esse of the
“corresponding”
divine intellection, the esse intelligibile
of an essence qualifies, indeed, as an
esse of sorts: think of it as the kind of
esse which entirely consists in
the
being-of-being-an-object-of-the-divine-intellect (more simply: the
being-of-
being-known). Such an esse cannot, of course, be
an esse reale , or an esse es- sentiae .
It is, in fact, an esse deminutum : this is just to say
that an essence-
qua -known (see fn. 31) is devoid of esse
simpliciter , but endowed with the
being-of-being-known. An essence-qua-known is, accordingly, as ens ratio-
nis :
tum in
cognoscente, hoc autem esse est diminutum respectu esse existentiae realis” (In Sent. III,
d. 8, n. 19). ens rationis a so-called
intentio secunda
is. For one thing, an intentio secunda is no more than a
relation of reason:
esse res rationis, et tamen ista non possunt esse extra intellectum”
(Quodl., q. 3, n. 2); “...omnis
intentio secunda
est relatio rationis, non quaecumque, sed pertinens ad extremum actus
intellec-
tus componentis et dividentis, vel saltem conferentis unum ad
alterum” (Ord. I, d. 23, q.u., n. 10).
An essence-qua-known is, of course, a res rationis :
this implies in no way, however, that it is, there-
fore, an
intentio secunda (“...omnis intentio secunda est ens
rationis, et non e contra”, M. Hiber-
nicus, commentary on Scotus’ Quaestiones Super Universalia Porphyrij, III, n. 18).
what God produces in esse intelligibile in the second
instant of nature, on
the other hand, is not simply a relation, but its
foundation as well. For an-
other, unlike an intentio secunda
an essence-qua-known can ( qua
essence)
also “exist” outside the divine intellect. Not, of course, that the esse deminutum of an essence-qua-known can “formally” be an esse reale :
but,
rather, that an essence, which, qua known, is an ens deminutum in the di-
vine intellect, can also have an
esse reale outside it.
In order to see more clearly what is meant by the claim that an essence-
qua - known is an ens deminutum , we must
now turn to a brief discussion of
Scotus’ objections to Henry of Ghent’s notion
of esse essentiae. Two of
them are especially relevant to our present purposes: and both of them are
raised
by Scotus in the course of answering the question, “Utrum funda-
mentum
relationis aeternae ad Deum...” ( Ord. I, d. 36, q.u.).
antequam causetur in actu,
habeat verum esse reale a causa sua?” (Rep. Par. II, d. 1,
q. 2).
Scotus, I have remarked earlier, creatures, or
their essences, since they are
known ab aeterno by God,
bear to him an eternal relation: and, in order to
qualify as the foundation of
such a relation, they need to possess no more
than an esse
secundum quid - an esse intelligibile or an esse cognitum (i.e.,
an esse deminutum
: see fn. 12). Now the first of the two objections I have
alluded to is put
forth by Scotus in his reply to an objection he raises
against the view I have
just briefly described. It goes as follows:
Dices, quomodo potest lapis ab aeterno intelligi, nisi habeat esse aeter-
num?
Videtur quod nullo modo, quia secundum illud esse, secundum quod
est fundamentum
relationis, si relatio est aeterna, et fundamentum eius: sed
intelligitur lapis
ab aeterno a Deo; igitur lapis fundat relationem intellecti a
Deo ad
intelligentem aeternaliter; igitur illud esse, secundum quod fundat
relationem
intellecti a Deo, est aeterna (Rep. Par. II, d. 1, q. 2, n.
12).
The “esse aeternum” Scotus speaks of here is, clearly, Henry of
Ghent’s esse essentiae :Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 30; Lectura I, d. 36, q.u., n. 28.
the point of view of Henry’s own views. Scotus
replies,
reply to the
following argument in favour of the view that what founds the relation to God “ut
co-
gnoscens” is an ens which possesses an esse essentiae: “...secundum illud esse [lapis] fundat
rela-
tionem ad Deum scientem, secundum quod esse eius ut obiectum cognoscitur
a Deo; cognoscitur
autem a Deo sub ratione essentiae verae [=sub ratione
essentiae in esse essentiae], non sub ra-
tione essentiae deminutae” (Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 30; see also Lectura I, d. 36, q.u., n. 28, where
Scotus raises against his own
view the objection whereby “...Deus novit lapidem non secundum
aliquam
intentionem secundam et secundum aliquod esse intentionale, sed novit creaturam
secun-
dum esse suum essentiae; igitur cum fundat relationem idealem ab
aeterno, ab aeterno lapis ha-
buit esse essentiae”).
...concedo quod lapis secundum verissimum esse est intellectus aeterna-
liter,
ita quod respectu intellectionis accipitur secundum esse simpliciter, sed
totum
ut lapis intellectus est esse diminutum (Rep. Par. II, d. 1,
q. 2, n. 13).
Scotus’ point is this: from the fact that (1) “...lapis secundum verissi-
mum
esse est intellectus aeternaliter”, or, equivalently, that “[lapis] co-
gnoscitur
a Deo sub ratione essentiae verae, non sub ratione essentiae
deminutae” (see fn.
41), it follows in no wise that (2) the stone - or its
essence - has thereby an esse aeternum , i.e., an esse essentiae. (Nor does it
follow that the stone, or
its essence, qua foundation of the relation it bears
to
God ab aeterno , has such an esse). For,
in spite of its being endowed
with an esse deminutum (so
that (2) is false), it can be known ab aeterno by
God
“secundum verissimum esse” (so that (1) is true), because - Scotus re-
marks -
“...deminutum respectu deminuentis non est deminutum, sed re-
spectu tertii, ad
quod comparatur sub determinatione deminuente” ( Ord.
I,
d. 36, q.u., n. 33). Now e.g. “cognitum” - in “esse cognitum” - is said
to
express a so-called “determinatio deminuens”, since an object, qua known
(that is: as it falls under the “determinatio” expressed by
“known”), has an
esse - the being-of-being-known - which is as it were
deminished with re-
spect to its esse simpliciter. It is
indeed an esse: but it falls short of being an
esse simpliciter , so that, compared to the latter, it can only
qualify as an esse deminutum , esse cognitum
is ambiguous: it may be talk of a mode of being; or it
may be talk of the fact
that the relevant object falls under the “determinatio deminuens” which
is
expressed by “cognitum”. The distinction is very clearly drawn by Poncius:
“...advertendum est
duplex posse considerari esse cognitum in re quae
cognoscitur; unum, cuius ratio formalis habetur
ab ipsa cognitione, [...] et
potest vocari esse cognitum reduplicative, hoc est esse affectum cogni-
tione;
[...]. Alterum esse Cognitum est esse intentionale, quod habet res, quae
cognoscitur, [...] et
hoc esse cognitum vocatur a Scotistis esse diminutum”
(Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti cursus inte-ger,
Lugduni 1662, p. 36a).
stone or its essence is an ens deminutum (or a
“diminished” stone) - al-
though, qua known by him, it
is indeed an ens deminutum.
Rather, what God knows is the “quiditas [lapidis] absolute” ( Lectura
I,
d. 36, q.u., n. 30); the object of his knowledge, in other words, is an
ens simpliciter , not an ens
deminutum : but the esse of the stone-qua-known,
compared to the esse
simpliciter of the stone, counts as an esse deminutum
,
i.e., as an esse merely
secundum quid.
esse, tamen lapis intellectus
comparatus ad esse, verum habet esse diminutum, ita quod esse lapi-
dis in
cognitione est esse diminutum lapidis” (Rep. Par. II, d.
1, q. 2, n. 13).
trast between
that which is known - for example, a stone simpliciter -
and
its ontological status: that which is known (for example, a stone simpliciter)
has, qua known, an esse deminutum;
and it is precisely qua known that it
founds its
eternal relation to God. It does not follow, plainly, that that
which is known is
an ens deminutum ; it follows, however, that the
founda-
tion of the eternal relation to God is indeed an ens
deminutum (this implies
in no way, of course, that that which God knows
is an ens deminutum).
The conclusion seems evident: in order to qualify as the foundation of
the
eternal relation it bears to God, an essence need not at all possess any-
thing like an esse essentiae . An esse
deminutum will do: it is not to be ob-
jected here (we have just seen)
that, since what God knows is an essence
“sub ratione essentiae verae, non sub
ratione essentiae deminutae” (cf. fn.
41), an esse deminutum
cannot be - or provide - the required foundation.
For (we have also seen)
the fact that such an esse is - or provides - such
a
foundation implies in no way that the objects of God’s knowledge
are
therefore entia deminuta , or essences “sub ratione
essentiae deminutae”.
On the contrary: the objects of God’s knowledge are
essences “sub ratione
essentiae verae”, and they only count as
entia deminuta as a result (as it
were) of their being known by God -
i.e., as a result (as it were) of the fact
that they fall under a “determinatio
deminuens’’.
quiditas
rosae absolute est obiectum respectu cognitionis meae, et - ut comparatur ad
relationem
quam fundat - non deminuitur [this just means that what is known by
me is the quiddity of the rose
“absolute”, not a “diminished” rose]; sed tamen
ut comparatur ad tertium sub deminuente [read:
sub determinatione deminuente],
est secundum quid” (Lectura I, d. 36, q.u., n. 30). With
obvious
and minor modifications, the same applies to the divine intellect and
the “objects” of its intellections. lapis
intel- lectus , and hence an ens deminutum (cf.
fn. 31), founds its (eternal) relation
to God, but it is the
lapis simpliciter , not an ens deminutum , which is
the
object of God’s knowledge. This, I suggest, is what Scotus means when
he
asserts that the divine production of an essence in esse
intelligibile is the
production, not just of a relation, but also of its
foundation “secundum esse
deminutum... quod est esse secundum quid edam entis
absoluti” ( Ord. I, d.
36, q.u., n. 44: such an “ens
absolutum” is, clearly, the “quiditas... abso-
lute” of
Lectura I, d. 36, q.u., n. 30).
So much, then, for the first of the two objections I have alluded to ear-
lier.
The second objection, to a discussion of which I now turn, has the
same moral as
the first, viz. that it is perfectly pointless (or unnecessary) to
ascribe to
essences an esse essentiae . It essentially consists in the
claim, first,
that God knows ab aeterno both essences
and existences; and, second, that,
just as his
eternal knowledge of existences does not require - in order to be
possible - that
things exist ab aeterno , so his eternal knowledge of
essences
does not require - in order to be possible - that essences be endowed
ab aeterno with an esse essentiae
.
[...] esse
quiditativum [= esse essentiae] praecedens esse in effectu: quia ita determinate,
et
distincte novit Deus existentiam rerum, sicut essentias rerum, et ita ab
aeterno existentiam huius
pro tali terminatione, sicut essentiam sub esse
quiditativo. Si igitur non sit necesse ponere existen-
tias ab aeterno, igitur
nec propter hoc erit necesse ponere essentias ab aeterno” (Rep.
Par. II, d. 1,
q- 2, n. 11; see also Ord. I,
d. 36, q.u., n. 20 - “...frustra ponitur res in isto esse [= esse essen-
tiae]
...” - and n. 22 - “...frustra ponuntur istae entitates [=essentiae in esse
essentiae]...”). The
same objection is put forward by Scotus in Lectura I, d. 36, q.u., n. 24.
are known by God ab aeterno , can only be - or provide - a
proper founda-
tion of the (eternal) relation they bear to God if they are
ascribed an eternal
esse essentiae - short of which they could hardly qualify as
objects of (di-
vine) knowledge. We have now come full circle: for this is
precisely the
view, or the objection, which Scotus disposes of by asserting
that
“...deminutum respectu deminuentis...”.
Scotus has several other objections to Henry of Ghent’s contention that
essences
possess ab aeterno an esse reale -
specifically, an esse essentiae .Ord. I, d. 36, q.u., n. 13,
18 (creation and annihilation become impossible if essen-
ces are ascribed an
esse essentiae); n. 17 (the divine production of
essences in esse essentiae is not
only eternai, but
also a creation, properly so-called: hence creation is eternal, contrary to
what
Henry holds).
They are not relevant to our present purposes, however: and, quite
apart
from that, the two objections I have discussed above are, I believe, the
re-
ally crucial ones. It should be noted, on the other hand, that, their
differ-
ences on the issue of esse essentiae
notwithstanding, Henry of Ghent and
Duns Scotus agree on two fairly important
points. First, both of them main-
tain that essences, before they acquire an esse exsistentiae , are endowed
with an
esse ( deminutum , according to Scotus; essentiae ,
according to
Henry). Second, both of them reject St. Thomas’ contention that
essences,
before they acquire an esse exsistentiae , are
nothing other than the divine
creatrix essentia : for (we have seen) on Henry’s view the esse essentiae of
essences is really distinct from the esse of God, and on Scotus’ view the esse
deminutum of essences is formally non-identical with the esse of the divine
essence.
This, then, is the context in which Leibniz’s
views concern-
ing the reality of the inhabitants of the “pays des possibles”
can best be un-
derstood and discussed: we may, in fact, not implausibly take
Leibniz to
have meant those views to provide an answer to the question, “Quid
sit es-
sentia creaturae...”. We have seen above how St. Anselm, St.
Thomas,
Capreolus, Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus answer that question:
which
of those answers would Leibniz have accepted? Scotus’, I believe,
rather
than Capreolus’ or Henry of Ghent’s: definitely not St. Anselm’s and
St.
Thomas’; definitely not the view, that is, whereby talk of
never-to-be-exem-
plified essences (as well as of essences before they are
actually exemplified)
is just talk of the divine creatrix
essentia; and talk of possibilia and their
(al-
leged) reality is to be understood, and explained away, in terms of talk
of
the divine power and its (absolute) reality.
There is no doubt, I submit, and will presently attempt to show, that
Leibniz ascribed a reality - specifically, a reality secundum
quid; an esse co- gnitum - to
possibilia (i.e., complete individual concepts or individual
essences or
complete divine ideas, as well as specific concepts or specific
essences or
specific divine ideas).
an
individual substance: a specific divine idea, on the other hand, is an idea which,
if exemplified
at all, can only be exemplified by all, and only, the members
of a given species. Note, also, that
Leibniz took a complete individuai
concept to be an individual essence (see e.g. VE, 186,
417,
1709; GP, 345; and the claim that “...chaque
substance exprime l’univers tout entier, et toute son
essence individuelle ne
consiste que dans cette expression de l’univers”, LBr 16 Bl 78); and a
spe-
cific - or “abstract” - concept, to be a specific essence: according to
him, “...la notion d’une
espèce n’enferme que des verités éternelles ou
nécessaires, [...] Ainsi la notion de la sphère en gé-
nérale est incomplete
ou abstraite, c’est-à-dire qu’on n’y considère que l’essence de la sphère
en
général” (LR, 105, 106; see also LR, 129). In other words, the “abstract” concept of the “sphere
in
general” is nothing other than the concept of such an abstractum - or, as Leibniz sometimes
says ,
formalitas (see e.g. VE, 1059) - as sphericity:
and, plainly, the abstract concept of an F in ge-
nerai
(where “F” ranges over natural kinds, or species) will be the concept of such an
abstractum,
or of such a natura
communis, as e.g. humanity, or equinity, or... As constituents of the
“regio
idearum”, such concepts, or the abstracta
whereof they are concepts, cannot of course be thought
of as the “result” of a
process of abstraction on God’s part: for God’s knowledge is
exclusively
“intuitive” (NE IV.xvii.16). The following
passage is also relevant here: “...in regione aeternarum
veritatum sive in
campo idearum a parte rei existente subsistunt Unitas, Circulus, Potentia,
aequa-
litas, calor, rosa, aliaeque realitates vel formae vel perfectiones,
etiamsi nulla existerent entia singu-
laria, nec cogitaretur de istis
universalibus” (A 2, 1, 392).
well aware of the distinction, which I have drawn earlier,
between the ques-
tion of the reality, and the question of the possibility, of
possibilia ; and that
he took the reality (but not the
possibility) of possibilia to depend on the di-
vine
intellect. There is a considerable amount of textual evidence in favour
of the
two claims I have just made: let us consider, to begin with, the tex-
tual
evidence in favour of the first of them.
Leibniz contends, for example, that “…c’est...l’entendement divin qui
fait la
realité des verités éternelles” (T, § 184: the surrounding context
makes it quite
clear that the same applies, on his view, to possibilia as
well).
He should be taken to assert, first, that possibilia
are endowed with reality,
and, second, that the source of that reality is
the divine intellect. This is not
the (kind of) reality which is involved in
Leibniz’s reference to “...possi-
bilia, seu essentiam vel realitatem possibilem
exprimentia” (GP VII, 303:
Leibniz may well have in mind
here something like Suarez’s idea of an es- sentia realis ) ;
or to “...quantitas realitatis” (VE, 239; cf. also GP I, 225); or
to “realitas obiectiva” (VE, 1107, 1108); or in his claim that “Perfectio...est
realitas pura”
( Grua , 324). It is, rather, a mode of being:
Dans la region des verités eternelles se trouvent tous les possibles...
ces
verités mêmes ne sont pas sans qu’il y ait un entendement
qui en prenne
connoissance; car elles ne subsisteroient point, s’l n’y
avoit un entendement
Divin, où elles se trouvent realisées, ...
(T, § 189 - italics mine: the same
clearly applies
to the “possibles” themselves, i.e., specific essences - to
which eternal truths
owe their truth: see GP VI, 614; VE,
484 - and indivi-
dual essences).
That is: eternal truths, and their constituent essences, as well as individ-
ual
essences, have an esse (or a reality), which they acquire from
the divine
intellect: and for the latter to bestow on the former an esse (or a reality) is
for it to take “cognizance” of them,
that is, more precisely, it is for it to
confer on them the
being-of-being-cognized. (A similar view, it will be re-
called, had been put
forth by Scotus: the passage just cited also makes it
quite clear that Leibniz
would have rejected William of Alnwick’s view
whereby “esse scitum sive cognitum
in scientia Dei non est aliud quam
scientia Dei” - see fn. 10).
That eternal truths, and therefore their constituent essences, exist (in
some
sense of “exist”), Leibniz regarded as unquestionable:
truths is the starting point of one of
Leibniz’s “proofs” of the existence of God (see e.g. VE,
66,
484; GP VI, 614). De rerum originatione radicali , the claim is made (among
others) that
...oportet aeternas veritates existentiam habere in quodam subjecto...
absolute
necessario, id est in Deo, per quem haec, quae alioqui imaginaria fo-
rent... realisentur (GP VII, 305 - italics mine; cf. also GP VI, 614; VE, 65-66).realisantur per solum divinum intellectum veritates aeternae
omnes,
et ex contingentibus respectivae” (VE, 1083 -
italics mine); “Divina essentia est [...] regio aeterna-
rum veritatum, ita ut
per existentiam Dei veritates circa possibilia non-existentia realisentur, ...”
(GM III, 586 - italics
mine); and Leibniz’s reference to “...Dieu, en qui seul ces verités
éternelles
sont realisées” (GP VI, 582).
The contrast which Leibniz draws here is not just a contrast between
existing simpliciter , on the one hand, and being purely imaginary (i.e.,
not
existing at all), on the other: for, on his view, eternal truths and their
con-
stituent essences exist in a different sense (or way) than the sense (or
way)
in which actual individual substances (are said to) exist. The latter exist
simpliciter: not the former. The former are “realized” (i.e.,
endowed with a
reality secundum quid) by the divine
intellect without any intervention, as it
were, of the divine will: not the
latter, which should be deemed rather to be
created, than to be realized, by
God.
existentiarum in uno, [...]
cum per ipsum non tantum existentia, [...] sed et possibilia habeant
rea-
litatem” (GP VII, 305): this implies in no way,
however, that (possible) essences and existences
have the same (kind of) reality.
The “realitas” Leibniz alludes to in the passage just cited is both
the realitas simpliciter of existences and the realitas secundum quid of (possible) essences: and, on
his view, God
is the source - the “ratio” - of both kinds of reality (see also fn. 51).
essentiae sed res creantur”, GP IV, 259).VE, 237. The
distinction implicitly at play here is a distinction between “ex-istentificare” (C, 534), on the one hand,
and “realisare”/“realiser”, on the other; or,
equivalently,
between “productio”, on the one hand, and
“realitas”, on the other (cf., “...in Deo et per
Deum
Essentiae sibi viam faciunt ad existendum, ita ut in Deo sit realitas
essentiarum, seu aetemarum
veritatum, et productio
existentiarum, seu contingentium veritatum” (VE, 1142;
earlier in the
same text God is said to be the “fundus essentiarum, fons
existentiarum”). Leibniz unequivocally
denies that essences are created by
God: according to him, “Dieu n’est point auteur des essences,
entant qu’elles
ne sont que des possibilités” (T, § 335): he is, on the
other hand, their “author”
insofar as they are exemplified by actually
existing individual. More precisely, he brings it
about that some essences are
exemplified and, in this sense, he can intelligibly be said to be
their
“author”. The following passages are also relevant here: “Omnia originem
habent a Deo, essentiae
ab ejus intellectu, existentiae ab ejus voluntate” (VE, 2544: I take it that for an essence to have
its
“origin” from God is for it to be endowed with an esse secundum
quid by the divine in-
tellect); “...la nature ideale de la creature
[...] est renfermée dans les verités eternelles qui sont
dans l’entendement de
Dieu, indipendamment de sa volonté” (T, § 20; cf. also GP IV, 259, 285);
“Son entendement est la source des essences, et sa volonté est l’origine des existences’ (T, §
7);
“...Theologicae veritati satisfacere licebit, dummodo pro rebus actualibus
ipsis assumamus inte-
gras [=completas] rerum possibilium notiones, sive
ideas, quas in Divina mente esse ante omne
decretum voluntatis... negari non
potest” (VE, 46).
to, then, is more properly characterized as a contrast between, on the
one
hand, the purely imaginary and the real secundum quid
, and, on the other,
the real secundum quid and the
real simpliciter , i.e., the result, so to say, of
God’s
production of “things” ad extra (so that we have yet another
contrast
here: between the divine intellect considered in and on itself, on the
one
hand, and the divine intellect taken together with the divine will, on
the
other - see the passages cited in fn. 51).
The first of these two contrasts is explicitly drawn by Leibniz in a num-
ber of
texts: thus, for example, in De rerum originatione radicali
he first as-
serts that “...ut possibilitas est principium Essentiae, ita
perfectio seu Es-
sentiae gradus...principium Existentiae” (
GP VII, 304). He raises, next, an
objection to the claim just cited:
“...possibilitates seu essentiae ante vel
praeter existentiam sunt imaginariae
seu fictitiae, nulla ergo in ipsis quaeri
potest ratio existendi” ( GP VII, 304). That is: before they are actualized/ex-
emplified
possibilities/essences have no esse whatsoever (recall St.
Thomas’s
contention, cited earlier, that “...ipsa quidditas creari dicitur; quia
ante-
quam esse habeat nihil est”, i.e., it is devoid of any
esse whatever). Not ac-
cording to Leibniz: who may now plausibly be
taken to proceed to answer
the question, “Quid sit essentia creaturae...”:
Respondeo neque essentias istas, neque aeternas de ipsis veritates...,
esse
fictitias, sed existere in quadam... regione idearum,
nempe in ipso Deo, es-
sentiae omnis existentiaeque caeterorum fonte...cum per ipsum non
tantum
existentia, quae Mundus complectitur, sed et possibilia habeant realitatem (GP VII, 305 - italics mine; cf. also, "...
existituritionis essentiarum oportet
esse radicem existentem a parte rei; alioqui
nihil prorsus erit in Essentiis nisi
animi figmentum”, VE,
1141; “Possibilitas metaphysica seu essentiarum fo-
ret figmentum si non
fundaretur in aliquo realiter existente,...nempre Deo”,
G, 392-393; “Ipsa rerum possibilitas, cum actu non existunt,
realitatem habet
fundatam in divina existentia”, GP VI, 440 - italics mine).
The passages just cited unequivocally show that, on Leibniz’s view,
essences
( possibilia ) - whether or not they are ever exemplified
(actualized)
– are endowed with an esse (a reality) of sorts:
they could, therefore, hardly
be regarded as purely imaginary or “fictitious”.
They also unequivocally
show that, on his view, for a non-exemplified essence to
“exist” is for God
to bestow on it a reality which the essence possesses purely
as an object of
the divine intellect (and in the divine
intellect: “...la nature essentielle des
choses, sera l’objet de
l’entendement,... Mais cet objet est interne, et se
trouve dans l’entendement
divin”).T, § 20. The qualification “interne” is meant to rule out
the view whereby essences exist
(or have a reality) “outside” God. Cf. St.
Augustine here: “...restat ut omnia ratione sint condita,
nec eadem ratione
homo quam equus; [...]. Has autem rationes ubi esse arbitrandum est nisi
in
ipsa mente creatoris? Non enim extra se quidquam positum intuebatur, ut
secundum id constitue-
ret quod constituebat” (De diversis
quaestionibus 83 , q. 46, n. 2). St. Augustine also held that God
has
rationes - i.e., ideas - not just of species/kinds, but
also of each of their members, i.e., of indi-
viduals: “...quilibet homo una
ratione, qua homo intelligitur, factus est. At ut populus fiat, quam-
vis et
ipsa una ratio, non tamen hominis ratio, sed hominum. Si igitur pars huius
universi est Ne-
bridius, sicut est, et omne universum partibus confit, non
potuit universi conditor Deus rationem
partium non habere” (Ep. 14, in Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina, t. 33,
col. 80). This - and, more ge-
nerally, the question, raised by the schoolmen,
whether or not God has ideas of individuate, and,
if so, what kinds of ideas
they are - may very well be the source of Leibniz’s theory of
complete
concepts (complete divine ideas): I have in mind, in particular,
Leibniz’s claim that “[Deus] non
po[test] constituere de individuo condendo
nisi perspecta tota individui ejus conditione, seu, ut
ego soleo loqui,
notione completa prius considerata. Et vero alioqui de nondum perspecta
judica-
ret. Si decrevit condere aliquem hominem certis quibusdam praeditum
qualitatibus, non ideo de-
crevit condere Adamum, nam opus est restringentibus
ad naturam individualem” (Grua, 345).
Now plainly, the
claim, “...alioqui de nondum perspecta judicaret”, is meant to explain
why
“[Deus] non po[test] constituere...”, i.e., more precisely, why God must
be said to have (com-
plete) ideas of individuate: and,
I believe, the context in which such an explanation is best under-
stood is
provided by St. Augustine’s view whereby “...quis audeat dicere Deum
irrationabiliter
omnia condidisse? Quod si recte dici [...] non potest, restat
ut omnia ratione sint condita” (De di-versis quaestionibus
83 , q. 46, n. 2; cf. also Scotus’ view whereby “...Deus omnia causat vel
cau-
sare potest, - non irrationabiliter, ergo rationabiliter; ergo habet
rationem secundum quam for-
mat. Non autem eandem omnium, - ergo singula
propriis rationibus format; [...] ergo omne for-
mabile potest formare
secundum rationem propriam sibi, [...] tale ponitur idea”, Ord.
I, d. 36,
q.u., n. 39). I take it that the (impossible) case in which
“Deus de nondum perspecta judicaret” is
a case in which he would (be said to)
act “irrationabiliter”.
in which Leibniz explicitly puts forward the view whereby
possibilia -
whether they are ever actualized or not - must be deemed to be reai. In
the
first of them, he also puts forward the view whereby divine ideas are the
ex-
emplars which God looks at (so to say) in creating the world:
Lorsque Dieu agit suivant sa sagesse, il se jegle sur les idées des possi-
bles
qui sont ses objets, mais qui n’ont aucune realité hors de luy avant
leur
creation actuelle (GP VI, 422; cf. also, “...toute
idée distincte est par là
même conforme avec son objet; et il n’y en a que de
distinctes en Dieu: ou-
tre que d’abord l’objet n’existe nulle part, et quand il
existera, il sera formé
sur cette idée”, T, § 192).
Three points here. First, I take it that to claim that the “ideas of
the
possibles” - or the “possibles” themselves - have no reality “outside”
God
is not so much to claim that they have no reality at all, as to deny that
they
are self-subsistent entities and assert that they are indeed endowed with
a
reality - but only in God. Second, talk of the idea of a possible is just
talk
of the idea of what would (and, hence, could) be the case, if the idea
itself
were exemplified.
deratae, ante omne existendum decreti actuale, jam inest quicquid ei
eventurum est si existat”
(VE, 485: “si existat” should
be taken to mean “if it - i.e., the concept - were exemplified”).
specific divine ideas, the truth
of “If such-and-such an idea were exempli-
fied, it would be the case that...”
requires in no way that a possibile (a pos-
sible
individual, a possible species) “exist” which “corresponds” to that
idea: all
that is required is that the antecedent contain, or entail, the conse-
quent, or
- equivalently - that what the consequent describes be contained
in, or entailed
by, the content of the relevant idea (this is just an application
to
counterfactuals of the inesse conception of truth). That
counterfactual is
true, then, iff what its consequent describes is indeed
contained in - or does
indeed follow from - the relevant idea: a divine idea,
accordingly, may well
be the idea of (say) a possible
individual, without there being (in any sense
of “be”) a possible individual
which the idea is an idea of. Otherwise put,
“of’, in “idea of a possible”,
expresses a relation, not so much between a
given idea and its (possible) ideatum , as between two sets of exemplifiable
properties:
the set whose constituents make up the original idea, and the set
whose
constituents are “consequences” of that idea - and, as such, are
“contained” in
it.
Finally, third, to contend, as Leibniz does, that God, when he “acts ac-
cording
to his wisdom” (i.e., I take it, when he chooses a world to actualize
and then actualizes it), “se regie sur les idées des possibles”, or,
equiva-
lentlt, that any given object (any given individual substance) is “formed
ac-
cording to the idea” God has of it, is to contend that a complete divine
idea
plays the role of an exemplar (the same applies, at
a more abstract level, to
specific divine ideas). More precisely, it is to
contend that a proper subset
of the set of all complete divine ideas - the latter
set making up a so-called
mundus intelligibilis - is the exemplary model God has
employed in creat-
ing our world. Each of the members of that set, then, is an
exemplar whose
exemplatum would be an individual substance, if that exemplar
were actu-
ally exemplified. Unlike on Henry of Ghent’s view, on this view there
is no
need for such things as possible exemplata.
Exemplars - complete divine
ideas - will do, since they are, or provide,
“perfect” representations (see
LR , 88) of what would be the case if they were exemplified:
hence, I sub-
mit, Leibniz’s claim that, in the “regio idearum”, “Il y a des
representa-
tions, non seulement de ce qui arrive, mais encor de tout ce qui est
possi-
ble” (T, § 414: cf. also, “Ces mondes sont tous
icy, c’est à dire en idées”, T,
§ 414; and, “...possibilia
ab aeterno sunt in ideis Divini Intellectus” GP
VI,
440).
Further, Leibniz contends that “all possible essences” (i.e., all
possible
complete and specific divine ideas) must be regarded as “eternal and
neces-
sary” (T, § 335):
ble (GP III, 315). Both
contentions should be understood in the context of Leibniz’s assertion,
“Je ne
voudrois pas dire [...] avec Monsieur Poiret et quelques Cartesiens que les idées
des choses
viennent de la volonté de Dieu. Elles viennent de son entendement,
autant qu’elles ne referment
que la possibilité” (Grua,
502-503): and, “insofar as they only involve possibility”, they should
be
deemed to be necessary (since, we shall see, according to Leibniz the
possibility of the possibile -
and, in particular, of an idea - is independent
of the divine will and of the divine intellect). ab aeterno in the divine
in-
tellect, or equivalently, since they “exist” in something (the divine
intellect)
which is itself eternal and which endows them ab
aeterno with an esse or a
reality; and
“necessary”, since, first, they are independent of the divine will,
and, second,
the divine intellect only bestows reality on them - it does not
make them what
they are (see e.g. VE, 237), it merely represents
them
“comme elles sont dans les verités eternelles” (T, §
149). These “eternal
and necessary” essences, Leibniz - like St. Augustine - also
refers to as “ra-
tiones aeternae”:
...Kestnerus...mihi objicit, si Deus rationes aeternas sequitur
, aliquid
datum iri prius Deo. Sed respondendum est,
rationes aeternas esse in divino intellectu , nec ideo quicquam esse
prius Deo, sed tantummodo divinam in-
tellectionem esse natura priorem divina
volitione (GP VII, 5 07 -
italics
mine).
Now a view of this sort, whereby divine ideas (or the so-called
“rationes
aeternae”) only “exist” in the divine intellect, and play therein the
role of ex-
emplars, should be traced back to St. Augustine: according to
whom
Sunt...ideae principales quaedam formae vel rationes rerum stabiles
atque
incommutabiles, quae ipsae formatae non sunt ac per hoc aeternae...,
quae divina
intelligentia continentur...secundum eas...formari dicitur
omne quod oriri et
interire potest et omne quod oritur et interit (De diver-sis
quaestionibus 83, q. 46, n. 2; cf. also St. Augustine reference to
“...divi-
nis incommutabilibus aeternisque rationibus…”, De
Genesi ad litteram V,
113).
than he is the “cause” of his own intellect (see VE, 238; T, § 380): ideas, therefore, could
hardly
be said to have been “formed”. Further, we have seen in the main text,
on Leibniz's view ideas
only have reality in the divine intellect and can,
therefore, correctly be said to be “contained” in it
(as its “objects”).
St. Augustine’s claim that ideas “divina intelligentia continentur” in no
way
implies, of course, although it may well be taken to suggest, that ideas
have
reality in the “divine intelligence”: it is essentially (if not, perhaps,
ex-
clusively) meant to rule out the view whereby ideas are self-subsistent
enti-
ties. Whether or not they should be ascribed a reality in the “divine
intelli-
gence” - and, if so, what kind of reality - St. Augustine does not
explicitly
say (but cf. fn. 7). Leibniz, on the other hand, I have attempted to
show,
was quite explicit about this: such possibilia as
divine ideas (or possible
essences) do have a reality, albeit purely secundum quid , in the divine intel-
lect. So do,
according to him, such possibilia as possible individuate (I
come
now to the second of the two passages I have alluded to earlier). As
we
have already seen, possibilia of the latter kind are
really not needed: the
fact, however, that Leibniz was willing to ascribe to them
a reality of sorts
provides fairly conclusive (if only indirect) evidence for the
claim that, in
the texts I have cited above, Leibniz should be taken to ascribe a
reality of
sorts to possibilia of the former kind as well.
For, plainly, the contention
that possible individuals
have reality in the divine intellect is likely to be re-
garded as stronger and
more questionable, from a purely ontological point
of view, than the contention
that divine ideas have reality therein: and, if
the former
are indeed ascribed a reality, it is not at all unlikely that the lat-
ter should
be ascribed a reality as well.
The passage now. In a letter to Leibniz of 1686, Arnauld remarks that
...je n’ai aucune idée de ces substance purement possibles, c’est-à-dire
que Dieu
ne créera jamais. Et je suis fort porté à croire que ce sont de chi-
mères que nous nous formons, et que tout ce que nous appelons
substances
possibles, purement possibles, ne peut être autre chose que la
toute-puis-
sance de Dieu (LR, 98).
Arnauld’s view here is, first, that for “purely possible substances” to
be
“chimeras” is for them to be wholly devoid of reality; and, second, that
if
talk of such substances is to be intelligible at all, it must be reduced to,
or
be understood in terms of, talk of God’s omnipotence. Talk of a
possible
substance, then, is no more than a mere compendium
loquendi: a concise (if
misleading) way of saying that God could have
exercised his power differ-
ently than he actually has. Leibniz’s reply is as
follows:
Quant à la réalité des substances purement possibles, ..., vous dites,
Monsieur,
d’être fort porté à croire que ce sont des chimères, à quoi je ne
m’oppose pas,
si vous l’entendez, comme je crois, qu’ils n’ont point d ’autre
réalité que celle qu’ils ont dans l’entendement divin et
dans la puissance ac-
tive de Dieu (LR, 120 - italics
mine).
Should we take Leibniz to agree with Arnauld that purely possible sub-
stances
are, indeed, “chimeras”? Not quite: for the sense in which they are
chimeras
according to him is not the sense in which they are chimeras ac-
cording to
Arnauld (one is slightly taken aback by Leibniz’s “comme je
crois”: but let that
pass). Two very different senses of the notion of a
chimera are in fact at play
here: for to assert that purely possible substances
are chimeras may be to assert
either that (1) they are devoid of esse sim- pliciter
(which is perfectly consistent with their having an esse
purely secun- dum quid ) ; or that (2) they are devoid
of any esse whatever. Leibniz accepts
(1) but rejects (2):
Arnauld, on the other hand, accepts (2) - hence his
claim that “...tout ce que
nous appelons substances possibles, ..., ne peut
être autre chose que la
toute-puissance de Dieu”.
This is precisely what Leibniz denies. For one thing, his assertion that
purely
possible substances are chimeras is a conditional assertion
(cf. “si” in
the passage just cited): accept the condition - as Leibniz evidently
does -
and the resulting view is that possibilia are
chimeras only in sense (1) above
– as the remark, “... n’ont point d’
autre réalité que celle qu’ils ont...”
clearly
shows. (It would evidently make little or no sense to make that remark,
and
then proceed to assert that possibilia have no reality
whatsoever). For an-
other, unlike Arnauld Leibniz makes reference both to the
divine power
and to the divine intellect. He means to deny, plainly, that a
reduction with-
out remainder of possibilia and their
reality to God’s omnipotence is in fact
possible - since
possibilia also have reality in (i.e., acquire their reality from)
the
divine intellect. Far from being chimeras in Arnauld’s sense of “chime-
ra”, then, possibilia must be conceded to “exist” in the
divine intellect, and
to have therein the reality which consists in the
being-of-being-objects-
of-God’s-intellect.possibilia have
reality in the “active power of God” is to
claim that they have the
being-of-being-objects-of-the-divine-power (the distinction between the
mode
of being I have just described and the mode of being I have described in the
passage foot-
noted parallels the distinction between “extrinsic” and
“intrinsic” possibility).
To put forth a view of this sort is, plainly, to reject both St. Thomas’
view
whereby God knows never-to-be-realized possibilia “ut existentia
solum in potentia divina” ( Summa contra
gentiles I, 66 - italics mine); and
the view - St. Anselm’s and St.
Thomas’ - whereby talk of essences before
they are exemplified, and of
never-to-be-exemplified essences, is just talk of
the divine
creatrix essentia . It is, of course, also to contend that
possibilia
depend, for their reality, on the divine intellect. The question
naturally
arises at this point whether or not, according to Leibniz, the possibility of
possibilia , and the truth (as
contrasted with the reality) of eternal truths, de-
pend on God - be it God’s
will, or God’s power, or God’s intellect.
stion of the possibility (truth), and the question of the reality, of possibilia (eternal truths): thus, as
concerns eternal
truths, in the Monadologie he first raises (and answers)
the question of their rea-
lity (see §§ 43-45), and then raises (and answers)
the question of their truth (see § 46).
answer, we shall now see,
was uncompromisingly negative: the possibility of
possibilia and the truth of eternal truths depend neither on
God’s will, nor
on God’s power, nor on God’s intellect. Here is why: let us
suppose, to be-
gin with, that they indeed depend on the divine will and power.
Then -
Leibniz argues - the divine intellect, since it is not only “formally”
distinct
from (see GP I, 257), but, also, “naturally”
prior to, the divine will and
power, cannot be said to have the possible and the
true as its “objects”:
which means that it cannot be said to conceive of either
of them - which
means, in turn, that God could hardly be said to possess anything
like an
intellect. (This is plainly absurd: so is, therefore, the original
supposition).
Now, on Leibniz’s view the “natural” priority of the intellect
comes of this,
that God can only will, and exercise his power upon, that which
his intel-
lect “already” knows to be possible and true:
choses, et l’entendement estant
necessairement avant la volonté (je parie de prioritate
naturae, non
temporis), l’entendement de Dieu sera avant la verité des choses
et par consequent n’aura pas la
verité pour objet” (GP
IV, 285 - with obvious and minor modifications, the same line of argu-
ment
applies to the possibility of the possible); “...les objets de l’entendement ne
sauroient aller
au-déla du possible, qui en un sense est seul intelligible”
(T, § 225); “...la puissance de Dieu [...]
s’étend
[...] à tout ce qui n’implique aucune contradiction” (T, §
227: this clearly suggests that
the possibility of the possible is independent of
- and in some sense precedes - the divine power);
“...voluntas Dei supponit
rei volendae intellectum; intellectus hic involvit rei intellectae
possibili-
tatem. Ergo voluntas supponit rei volendae possibilitatem” (GP I, 256); “Possibile est [...] exi-
stere, etiam
illud quod Deus non vult existere, quia posset existere sua natura, si Deus id
existere
vellet. At Deus non potest velle ut existat. Fateor, manet tamen
possibile sua natura, etsi non sit
possibile respectu divinae voluntatis. Quia
sua natura possibile definivimus, quod in se non impli-
cat contradictionem”
(VE, 277: note “in se” here). See also GP VI, 559; VE, 2545.
as such independently of the
divine will and power.
They also qualify as such independently of the divine intellect: for, ac-
cording
to Leibniz, the exercise, on God’ part, of his infinite power of
thinking must be
deemed to take place according (and only according) to
the principle of
Contradiction, which (we shall presently see) is definitive
both of the
absolutely possible and of the absolutely necessary. It follows,
clearly, that
the possibility of the absolutely possible, and the truth of eter-
nal truths
(which are absolutely necessary truths), are independent of the
divine intellect.
This, I submit, is precisely the view Leibniz has in mind
when he points out
that
...les verités d’intelligence sont universelles, et...ce qui est vray là des-
sus
à l’ègard de nous l’est aussi pour les anges et pour Dieu. Ces verités
eternelles
sont le point fixe et immuable sur lequel tout roule (Grua,
379).
The truths Leibniz refers to here as “verités d’intelligence” are,
plainly,
eternal truths: the latter are absolutely necessary truths,
sary (see e.g. A 2, 1, 246; VE, 65, 457, 482,
1173; GP VI, 61; T, disc. § 2 - “...les verités
eternelles
[...] sont absolument nécessaires”); or it may mean (2) “known by
God ab aeterno”. A truth
which is eternal in sense (1)
of “eternal” is, of course, also eternal in sense (2) of “eternal”: but
not
conversely. (The fact, then, that eternal truths “exist” in an eternal intellect
could hardly be
taken to explain why an eternal truth qualifies as eternal in
sense (1) of “eternal”: see Suarez here,
Disp. Met. 31, 12, 40).
denial involves - explicitly or implicitly - a flouting of the principle of
Con-
tradiction.
tualiter identicas, quippe quae ex solis ideis sive definitionibus [...]
demonstrari [...] possunt, ita
ut appareat oppositum implicare
contradictionem, ...” (VE, 1173-1174; see also GP I, 253; VE,
455, 456, 1969, 1972).
those truths, it is most unlikely that he should be in a position
not to abide
by the principle of Contradiction. In
fact, more precisely, since, on Leib-
niz’s view, he cannot but abide by that
principle,
rien dire” (A 6, 3, 236): “cela” is Descartes’ view whereby “je n’ose
pas dire, que Dieu ne peut
faire une montagne sans vallèe, ou que 1. et 2. ne
fassent pas 3. mais qu’il m’a donné une âme,
faite en sorte, que je ne puis
pas le concevoir autrement” (Leibniz cites Clerselier’s translation of
the
original Latin, for which see Adam and Tannery, eds., Oeuvres de
Descartes, V, 224). Cf. also,
“...principia logica et metaphysica
sunt communia divinis et humanis, [...]. Tale principium meta-
physicum est: non
posse idem simul esse et non esse; ...” (Grua, 20; see also
238, 471). The two
passages I have just cited unequivocally suggest that, on
Leibniz’s view, God cannot but think ac-
cording to the principle of
Contradiction: or, more generally, that no intellect (not even God’s)
can
conceive of an absolute impossibility, i.e., an impossibility which explicitly or
implicitly invol-
ves a denial of the principle of Contradiction (see GP IV, 360; VE, 1078). The same view
had
been put forth by (among others) St. Thomas and Duns Scotus: “Illud [...]
quod non cadit in in-
tellectum non potest cadere in voluntatem. Sed ea quae
sunt secundum se impossibilia non cadunt
in intellectum, cum sibi ipsis
repugnent [...]. In divinam ergo voluntatem non possunt cadere quae
secundum
se sunt impossibilia” (Summa contra gentiles I, 84; see
also Summa Theologiae I, q. 19,
a. 3, and Quodlibet 9, q. 1, a.u.); “...in cuius cognitione vel
cogitatione includitur contradictio, il-
lud dicitur non cogitabile, quia tunc
sunt duo cogitabilia opposita nullo modo faciendo unum co-
gitabile, quia
neutrum determinat alterum” (Ord. I, d. 2 pars 1, q. 1-2,
n. 137).
those truths. If this is so, however, God must also abide by the
absolutely
possible, since the latter is characterized in terms of the principle
of Con-
tradiction (according to Leibniz, "...idem [est] possibilitas quam non
impli-
cantia contradictionis” AA 6, 1, 514; “Possibile
est quod non continet con-
tradictorium seu A non- A ”,
VE, 1962). The possibility of the absolutely
possible,
then, does not - and cannot - depend on the divine intellect. We
have already
seen that it is independent of the divine will and power: but to
say that it is
independent of the divine will, power, and intellect is to
say,
more simply, that it is independent of God, and (hence) that the
question
of what grounds it can (indeed, must) be answered without making any
ref-
erence to God.
A certain amount of care must be exercised at this point: for, according
to
Leibniz (and, I believe, according to Scotus as well), the (kind of)
inde-
pendence at play here is an independence with respect to God’s actual
exis-
tence, not with respect to his possible existence
(true, if God did not exist,
he would be impossible: this implies in no way,
however, that the supposi-
tion that God does not exist and the supposition that
he is impossible are
equivalent). In other, and clearer, words: while it makes
perfectly good
sense to claim that e.g. a non-actual state of affairs s qualifies as absolutely
possible quite independently of
whether or not God exists, i.e., quite inde-
pendently of whether or not s will ever obtain, it is by no means clear that it
makes
any sense to claim that s qualifies as (absolutely) possible
quite inde-
pendently of whether or not God is possible, i.e., quite
independently of
whether or not possible conditions exist which, had they been
actual,
would have brought s about. (The reason for making
the latter claim is, of
course, that the absolute possibility of s is entirely a matter of non-re- pugnantia terminorum ; hence, it might be thought,
s must qualify as abso-
lutely possible quite
independently of whether or not God is possible. The
reason for rejecting that
claim, on the other hand, is that the fact that the
absolute possibility of s is entirely a matter of non-repugnantia
terminorum
need not at all imply that it is an unrealizable possibility, i.e., a
possibility
which could not have been realized under any conditions whatsoever,
or,
equivalently, a possibility whose “object” is not a costituent of any
possible
world).
Thus we may - and do - claim that the absolute possibility of s is en-
tirely a matter of non-repugnantia
terminorum , which is itself independent
of whether or not God actually -
or even possibly - exists (note that such a
non-repugnantia should be said rather to make s
absolutely possible, than to
make it possible). This claim
implies no more than that, if God did not ex-
ist, or else if he were impossible,
possibilia would be deprived of their
onto- logical foundation (since the latter can only be provided by
God), and,
hence, that there would exist no possibilia at
all, in any sense of “exist”. We
may, however, be unwilling to claim that s would count as possible even if
God were impossible,
i.e., even if s could not have obtained under any
con-
ditions whatever. For, were we to make such a claim, we should in effect
be
making the wholly implausible claim that there are such things as
unrealiz-
able possibilities. An absolute possibility, of course, qualifies as
such - viz.
as absolute - in and of itself: but it may
justly be wondered what we are
talking about when we say of it that it is an
unrealizable possibility.
per
actum divini intellectus” (Philosophiae, cit., p. 903b):
“Obiicies tertio: si Deus repugnaret, re-
pugnaret
etiam creatura possibilis: ergo creatura possibilis habet esse suum a Deo. Respondeo di-
stinguendo antecedens: ex defectu influxus
ullius in esse possibili, nego - ex eo quod si Deus re-
pugnaret, non esset
aliqua causa, quae posset dare creaturae esse simpliciter, et consequenter
non
haberet esse possibile, concedo antecedens; et distinguo consequens:
quatenus non esset possibilis
nisi Deus esset [read: esset possibilis],
concedo consequentiam - quatenus Deus communicaret
ipsi esse possibile per
influxum aliquem realem, aut intentionalem, nego consequentiam” (Philoso-phiae, cit., p. 904a-b). I take Poncius to put forth here
the following view: if God were impossible,
it would be impossible for a(ny)
given “possible creature” c to be actualized, so that, if
by “possi-
ble” be meant “actualizable”, c would indeed
not be possible (or, as Poncius says: “...creatura
[...] non haberet esse
possibile”). Actualizable or no, however, c would still
possess an esse possi-bile, i.e., it would still
count as possible, since it has its esse possibile in and
of itself (“... [creatura]
habet [...] esse [possibile] a seipsa formaliter et
necessario”, Philosophiae, cit., p. 904b), and
(hence)
independently of whether or not God is infact possible. If God were impossible,
c could
not, of course, be actualized under any
conditions whatsoever: but this, according to Poncius, lea-
ves its esse possibile unscathed. On this view, then, the notion of
an unrealizable possibility is a
perfectly intelligible one - so is,
consequently, that of a possibile which is not a
constituent of any
possible world (note, however, that, on Poncius’ view, a
world may be possible without being ac-
tualizable, since it has its esse possibile in and of itself).
Hence, I take it, the contention that the possibility of the (absolutely)
possi-
ble depends on the possibility of God: such a contention, however,
means
no more than that there are no such things as unrealizable
possibilities
(there is, of course, a weaker sense of “unrealizable” according to
which a
possibility can intelligibly be said to be unrealizable). Now, I suggest,
Leib-
niz has a view of this sort in mind when he points out to Bourguet that
J’accorde que l’idée des possibles suppose necessairement celle [c’est à
dire l’idée] de l’existence d’un
être qui puisse produire le possible. Mais l’i-
dée des possibles ne
suppose point l’existence même de cet être, comme
il
semble que vous le prenés, Monsieur, en adjoutant: s’il n’y
avoit point untel être, rien ne seroit possible. Car il suffit qu’un
être qui puisse produire la
chose, soit possible, à fin que la chose soit
possible,... Mais c’est ex alio ca-pite, que rien ne
seroit possible si l’être necessaire n’existoit point. C’est
parce que la realité
des possibles et des verités eternelles doit être fondée
dans quelque chose de
réel et d’existant (GP III, 572).
A number of points are worthy of notice here. First, Leibniz
sharply
distinguishes between “l’idée de l’existence d’un être qui...” and
“l’exis-
tence même de cet être”: this distinction, I submit, is equivalent to
the dis-
tinction between the possible existence of a being which can actualize
a
given possible, and the actual existence of that being. Second, talk
of
“l’idée des possibles” is not implausibly taken to be talk of the possibility
of
the possibles. Third, the contention that "...il suffit que..à fin que la
chose
soit possible” should be taken to rule out the existence of unrealizable
pos-
sibilities - Leibniz’s point being, then, that the existence of a
possible
causenot, mind you: actual - thus consider Leibniz’s claim that “...quand on
parle de la
possibilité d’une chose, il ne s’agit pas des causes [viz. actual causes] qui peuvent faire ou empè-
cher qu’elle
existe actuellement: [...] lorsqu’on demande si une chose est possible ou
necessaire, et
qu’on y fait entrer la consideration de ce que Dieu veut ou
choisit, on change de question. Car
Dieu choisit parmi les possibles, ...”
(T, § 235). See also LR, 116.
re- alizable. This, of course, is perfectly consistent
with the claim - Leibniz’s, as
a matter of fact - that the absolutely possible
qualifies as such in and of it-
self
according to whom “...illa potentia [= potentia logica] est modus
[...] compositionis factus ab in-
tellectu, causatus ex habitudine terminorum
illius compositionis, scilicet quod non repugnant. Et
licet communiter
correspondeat sibi in re aliqua potentia realis, tamen haec non est per se de
ra-
tione huius potentiae: et sic possibile fuisset mundum fore ante eius
creationem, si tunc fuisset in-
tellectus formans hanc compositionem, Mundus erit, - licet tunc nec fuisset potentia passiva
ad
esse mundi, nec etiam activa, posito hoc per impossibile; ...”. The
logically possible, then, qualifies
as such independently of whether or not a
“potentia realis” actually exists (or will actually exist)
which can bring it about, and hence, in
particular, of whether or not God actually exists. The
pas-
sage continues as follows: “...dum tamen sine
contradictione posset potentia fore ad hoc activa”
(Quaest. subtilissimae in Metaph. Arist. IX q. 2, n. 3 - italics mine).
Note the shift from talk of a
“potentia” which actually exists to talk of a
“potentia” which could exist: Scotus’ point, I
believe,
is that the fact that, first, a given combination of “terms” involves
no repugnantia (and “corresponds”,
therefore, to a
logical possibility), and, second, that such a non-repugnantia is entirely a
matter of the rationes formales of the “terms”, should in no way be taken to imply that
there are
such things as unrealizable possibilities. This point strictly
concerns the notion of possibility: not
that of logical
possibility (which counts as such, viz. as logical, in and of itself). Scotus may
well
have a view of this sort in mind when he asserts that “...si oculus esset
in tenebris, et impossibile
esset illud opacum causans tenebras amoveri,
impossibile esset talem oculum videre, - non qui-
dem ex repugnantia
intrinseca terminorum, quae est oculi ad videre, sed ex repugnantia
alicuius
extrinseci ad alterum extremorum, scilicet illius opaci ad videre”
(In Sent. II, d. 7, q.u., n. 17; cf.
also In Sent. IV, d. 11, q. 2, n. 8).
sharply distinguishes between the question of the possibility, and the ques-
tion
of the reality, of possibilia , and explicitly suggests that
the reality - but
not the possibility - of possibilia
depends on the (actual) existence of God
(as we have seen, thin only means that,
if God did not exist, possibilia
would be devoid of reality, whereas, if God were impossible, not only
would
possibilia be devoid of reality, but, also, the very notion
of possibility
– or the “idea” thereof - would be unintelligible).
By way of conclusion, I should like briefly to discuss Leibniz’s claim
that
“...nisi...Deus existeret, nihil possible foret” (GP VI,
440).
de possible”
(T, § 184); “...sans luy il n’y auroit rien de réel dans
les possibilités, et non seulement
rien d’existant, mais encor rien de
possible” (GP VI, 614).
is clearly
ambiguous: it may be taken to mean that (1) God is what makes
the possible
possible; or that (2) God is what bestows reality on possibilia ;
or that (3) God both makes the possible possible and
bestows reality on
possibilia . We should opt for (2). For, we have seen earlier,
according to
Leibniz whether or not something (say, a state of affairs) qualifies
as abso-
lutely possible depends on whether or not it implies (involves) a
contradic-
tion - and whether or not it implies (involves) a contradiction
entirely de-
pends on the so-called rationes formales of
its “constituents”. The (abso-
lute) possibility of a
possibile is, accordingly, independent of God, who, be-
ing bound (we
have also seen earlier) by the principle of Contradiction, can
no more make the
possible possible than he can flout that principle.
“...nisi...Deus existeret, nihil possible foret” does not mean, then, that
the
possibility of possibilia depends on the divine intellect: it
does not
mean, either, that it depends on the divine will and power. Rather, it
means
that, if God did not exist, the claim that possibilia
have reality and, hence,
that there are (in some sense of “there are”) such
things as possibilia would
have to be dismissed as false:
everything - be it an actually existing thing or
a possibile -
depends on God for its reality - be it a reality simpliciter
or a
reality merely secundum quid (see e.g. GP VI, 439). As Leibniz points out to
Bourguet in the
passage I have cited earlier, the reason why “rien ne seroit
possible si l’être
necessaire n’existoit point” is that “...la réalité des possi-
bles...doit être fondée dans quelque chose de réel et d’existant”: this im-
plies
in no way, of course, nor does it suggest, that the possibility
of the
possibles must be so “founded”. (With obvious and minor
modifications
the same account applies to such conterfactuals as, “Si nulla esset
substan-
tia aeterna nullae forent aeternae veritates”, VE, 484).
lity, of
eternal truths is independent of God: the claim cited in the main text qualifies,
therefore,
as false if it is taken to mean that, if God did not exist, eternal
truths would not be true; it quali-
fies as true, on the other hand, if it is
taken to mean that, if God did not exist, eternal truths
would have no
reality. I should note in passing that the claim in question bears a striking
simila-
rity to St. Thomas’ claim that “...si nullus intellectus esset
aeternus, nulla veritas esset aeterna"
(Summa Theologiae I, q. 16, a. 7): the agreement, however,
is purely verbal. Unlike St. Thomas
(but cf. Summa contra
gentiles II, 25), Leibniz would have accepted Scotus’ view whereby
“...si
poneretur, per impossibile, quod Deus non esset, et quod triangulus
esset, adhuc habere tres an-
gulos resolveretur ut in naturam trianguli,...”
(Rep. Par. I, prol. III, quaestiunc. 4, n. 17); as
well
as Suarez’s view whereby “...si per impossibile nulla esset [...] causa,
nihilominus illa enunciatio
[=‘Omne animal est sensibile’] vera esset” (Disp. Met. 31, 12, 45); as well as Cajetanus’ view
whe-
reby “Nihil [...] minus remaneret scientia mea de trianguli passionibus
et rosa, etc., si omnia an-
nihilarentur me solo remanente, quam si remaneret
prima causa aut corpus coeleste etc.” (Com-
mentarium in Post. Analyt. Arist., c. VI, V); as well as
Soncinas’ view whereby “Si per impossibile
Deus non esset, et nulla causa
agens, hominem esse animal esset verum,...” (Quaestiones
meta-physicales acutissimae V, q. 10).