Distinction Without Composition: Voetius, Scotus, and the Formal Distinction
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Here is the paper I presented at the “Footprints of Gisbertus Voetius: His Teachings, Networks, and Legacies” conference.
Key Terms
Strictly Real Distinction/Real Distinction Simpliciter - Distinction between two things (res). Not to be placed in God in any way. What is typically thought of as a real distinction.
Thing (res)/Entity - A reality capable of terminating physical causality, whether alone or joined with others. Strictly real distinctions exist between things. Not to be multiplied in God except as it regards the persons of the Trinity relative to each other.
Object/Something/Aliquid - Used broadly to denote both things and formalities, which are only aspects or quasi-parts of things.
Formality - An objective reason conceptible in a thing from which ratios/concepts are derived. Formalities are “something of a thing” rather than themselves things. Formalities are really distinct secundum quid in the sense that they are actually distinguished before the act of the intellect; but they are not strictly really distinct because they are not things.
Ratio/Concept - Exist in our minds and not in the things themselves, although they are founded in the thing itself, according to the Scotists by reason of formalities, and according to Thomists by reason of “the eminence of the thing.”
Actual Formal Distinction Ex Parte Rei/Formal Real Distinction - A distinction between formalities. What Scotus means by the formal distinction. A real distinction secundum quid.
Virtual Formal Distinction - A distinction between ratios/concepts in the same reality grounded in the basis of the reality’s powers. Equivalent to the Thomist major virtual distinction. Not denied by Scotists, but held by them to be insufficient and itself founded in the actual formal distinction.
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