Summary of
John Poinsot On How to Be, Know, and
Love a Nonexistent Possible
During the early modern period, the Scholastic debate over nonexistent possibilities took some interesting turns. Besides trying to determine the ontological status of possibilities,
Scholastics considered two additional questions concerning possibility. One is the epistemological question: how does one have knowledge of the nonexistent possibles? Scholastics were mainly concerned about God's knowledge of them, perhaps considering the divine intellect as a more interesting case since human minds are so subject to error that they can be aware of impossibilities.
The third question is: does God love the nonexistent possibles? In the first three sections I will present Poinsot's views on each of these three questions. In the fourth and final section, I will take up the question as to whether Poinsot was, to use James Ross's phrase, a "photo-exemplarist," as well as the question concerning the extent to which Poinsot is a "voluntarist" with regard to possibilities. I conclude that Poinsot is a "photo-exemplarist," but that he does not endorse voluntarism.

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
Special Issue on John of St. Thomas
John Poinsot On How to Be, Know, and
Love a Nonexistent Possible
Jeffrey S. Coombs
Our Lady of the Lake University
San Antonio, Texas
Most loyal readers of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly will be familiar with the topic of this essay since these pages have recently been the site of an enlightening debate concerning the status of nonexistent possibles in the works of Thomas Aquinas.
1 However, it is not as well-known that this topic was the subject of some very extensive disputes among
Scholastics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
2 John Poinsot joined the debate, and I wish to present his views on the subject.
During the early modern period, the Scholastic debate over nonexistent possibilities took some interesting turns. Besides trying to determine the ontological status of possibilities,
Scholastics considered two additional questions concerning possibility. One is the epistemological question: how does one have knowledge of the nonexistent possibles? Scholastics were mainly concerned about God's knowledge of them, perhaps considering the divine intellect as a more interesting case since human minds are so subject to error that they can be aware of impossibilities.
The third question is: does God love the nonexistent possibles?
3 In the first three sections I will present Poinsot's views on each of these three questions. In the fourth and final section, I will take up the question as to whether Poinsot was, to use James Ross's phrase, a "photo-exemplarist," as well as the question concerning the extent to which Poinsot is a "voluntarist" with regard to possibilities. I conclude that Poinsot is a "photo-exemplarist," but that he does not endorse voluntarism. I will begin with the problem of the ontological status of nonexistent possibles.
1

2
I
The problem of the ontology of nonexistent possibles was much debated in and out of
Scholastic circles in the seventeenth century, and Poinsot was typical in turning his attention to it.
4
In his Cursus Theologici ( CT.
), Poinsot takes up the problem in two places: when discussing God's omnipotence and again when discussing St. Thomas Aquinas's doctrine concerning God's knowledge of "simple intelligence" ( scientia simplex intelligentia ). The problem which arises from
God's omnipotence concerns the object of God's omnipotence. God's omnipotence extends to all possibilities, but what are these possibilities? Is possibility some real, intrinsic predicate in creatures, logically prior to God's capacities? Further, is there some essential relation between
God's capacities and possibilities such that the destruction of a possibility would entail the destruction of God's omnipotence? ( CT . 3,577b,4) 5
The problem of possibility also arises from Aquinas's distinction in the Summa Theologica
I, q. 14, art. 9 between "knowledge of vision" ( scientia visionis ) and knowledge of simple intelligence. God's knowledge of vision includes knowledge of nonexistent entities, which however, either existed in the past or will exist in the future. Georg Henrik Von Wright has called such possibilities diachronic because there is some time at which the possibility must be actual.
6
An (optimistic) example of such a possibility would be the possibility of the sun's rising tomorrow.
There are, however, some entities which are in the potency of God or creatures which nonetheless do not now exist, never existed in the past, and never will exist in the future. Such a possibility would be Thomas Aquinas's son (unless the history books have somehow overlooked him). Von
Wright would call such a possibility synchronic because we could say at a time when we were quite sure that there was not, and never will be, a son of Aquinas, that at that time it was possible that there be one.
7 After all, it was possible for Aquinas's brothers to have tempted him away from the
Dominicans, in which case the reigning Catholic philosophy of our age would no doubt be Neo-
Scotism. Of course, in our history Aquinas did not weaken, but if there are in fact possible worlds other than our own, an unsaintly Thomas-counterpart would be a synchronic possibility. God

3 knows of these synchronic possibilities, according to Saint Thomas, by means of His "knowledge of simple intelligence."
The object of the knowledge of simple intelligence, Poinsot claims, is the essences or quiddities of entities in the state of "pure possibility." Simple intelligence thus remains within the limits of thought ( cognitio ) without adding any idea that those thoughts correspond to anything actually existing or that they should be willed to exist ( CT . 2,372a,2). However, since the essences of entities are "wrapped up" ( involvitur ) with possibility Poinsot uses the topic of God's knowledge of simple intelligence as an occasion for taking up the question "what is this possibility?" (372b-
373a,3).
Poinsot justifies raising the question concerning the nature of possibility because possibility distinguishes a real entity which can be created ( ens reale creabile ) from a pure mental construct incapable of existence ( ente pure ficto quod est incapax ut ponatur in re ). Although Poinsot casts the difference in terms of creatibility, the underlying distinction Poinsot is concerned about here is the distinction between entities which are logically possible and consistently describable, and those which are impossible and self-contradictory. Indeed, part of his project is to sort out the relationships between creatibility, consistency, and possibility on one hand, and increatibility, inconsistency, and impossibility on the other. Thus, what is at stake here is the very foundation of logic since logic is presumably the tool by which we distinguish the consistent from the inconsistent.
This problem is further complicated by the if we are going to postulate the existence of essences in a "state of pure possibility" as our ontological foundation for logic, then it is natural to think of these as being eternal. If they are not, then one could imagine a time at which or circumstance at which the rules of logic change, where, say, it is true that cats are not cats.
However, if the essences, and thus logic, are eternal, then this consideration conflicts with the idea that God created everything besides Himself. For the essences do not seem to require any creating for their existence. Poinsot thinks that prior to creation, essences are "nothing" except insofar as

4 their formal cause, the divine ideas, exists.
There are four opinions ( sententiae ) which Poinsot finds in past philosophical and theological works concerning the ontological status of the possibilities of creatures. The first, which he ascribes to one Gabriel a Sancto Vincentio, states that possibility is only an extrinsic name derived from God's potency. A cat is possible on this view because God possessed the potency to produce one. Gabriel presented a common metaphor in justification. Just as an object is said to be seen by the vision of the person seeing it, so an object is possible from the potency of God to make it ( CT . 3,578a-b,6). This line of reasoning requires several assumptions. First one must assume that the possibility of existence logically implies having the potency or ability to be caused to exist.
Then, one assumes that the phrase "is able to exist" has a deep structure which is grammatically passive as "is seen" is. Then, further, one assumes that x is seen only if there is some y who sees x .
By analogy, x will only be able to exist if there is some y to en able x to exist.
The second opinion is, Poinsot claims, the one most favored by Thomists of his time. It holds that possibility is an intrinsic predicate of creatures. Other intrinsic predicates are 'is true', 'is an entity', and 'is real'. True, real entities differ from impossible ones, which Poinsot says are purely mental constructs, in being possible and capable of existing. So, these Thomistae think that this capacity to exist is something real, true, and intrinsic to entities. Poinsot includes among these
Thomistae those who hold that logical possibility has an exemplar or final cause from God
(578b,7).
The third opinion, which Poinsot attributes to Scotus (but more fairly should only be ascribed to a certain Scotist of the seventeenth century named John Punch) states that prior to the potency of God to execute His will, there is a "diminished being" of creatures which is produced by the intellect of God as an intelligible being.
8 The entity in this case "exists" only in so far as it is something thought of. Poinsot speculates that perhaps all Scotus wants here from possible entities is that they be capable of being at thinkables ( ut ideabiles ) or as the subjects of ideas from which they can afterwards be the subjects of God's creation ( CT . 578b,8).

5
The fourth opinion holds that logical possibility is not something real and is not produced by God via an efficient cause or some kind of divine influx. Poinsot presupposes the common latemedieval idea that efficient causality only produces actual entities, not nonexistent possibles.
9
Logical possibility is "derived" from God by an exemplar or ideational cause. On this view, logical possibility is logically prior to the concept of omnipotence.
Poinsot finds two versions of this view among his contemporaries. The first version of the fourth opinion states that logical possibility comes about through exemplar causality from the divine ideas. The second version is less clear about the source of logical possibility. Logical possibility is derived from the active capacities of God ( ab ipso posse activo Dei ). God first has in
Himself the completely absolute and perfect active capacity from which the passive possibility of creatures follows. This passive possibility is logical possibility. How the passive possibility of creatures follows from the active potentialities of God is not clear on this view. Poinsot conjectures that this last version really collapses back to the first opinion.
The four opinions can be summarized in this way. The first opinion holds that ' x is possible' simply means 'God has the capacity to make x '. The second says that ' x is possible' means ' x has the capacity to exist.' Poinsot seems to think there are two versions of this opinion. Either this capacity is independent of God and self-caused by the entity in some way, or it is derived from the exemplar causation of the divine ideas (in which case it falls under the fourth opinion). The third opinion holds that ' x is possible' means ' x possesses diminished being'. The notion of diminished being itself is unclear and attempts to explain it tend to reduce this opinion to one of the others. Finally the fourth opinion is mainly concerned about the nature of the causality of possibility. Specifically, it denies efficient causality to possible entities. If that causality is not efficient causality, then it is either an exemplar causality, derived from the divine ideas by some neoplatonic emanation, or it comes from some place else. Poinsot's reasonable complaint about this latter is that the "some place else" is not identified.
The reader may have noted that Poinsot has not presented logically distinct opinions here.

6
In fact several issues are confused. The first issue is: are logical possibilities based on some feature of actual entities or not? The first two opinions answer this question with a "yes." According to the first, logical possibility is an actual feature (specifically His Capacity) of the actual God. According to the second, logical possibility is a feature of actual creatures, namely their intrinsic capacities.
The third opinion says, no, logical possibility is not based on any feature of an actual entity because
"diminished being," at least on one interpretation, possesses no actuality.
10 The fourth opinion is unclear on this point. Possibilities are clearly not features of actual creatures since they precede the efficient cause which produces actual creatures. However, possibilities clearly rely on the actual
God, but they are not themselves actual.
The second issue is: is logical possibility dependent on God or not? Opinions one and four say that it is dependent on God. The second opinion is unclear. Is that real capacity of actual entities dependent on God or not? Those who say that capacity has an exemplar cause from God clearly believe that the capacity is dependent on God, but the second opinion is not logically constrained to accept such a dependence. Of course, there may be theological constraints to accept it. The third opinion is notorious for ascribing to "diminished being" an independence from the divine.
11
The third issue is: if logical possibility is dependent on God, what is the nature of that dependence? The first opinion equates logical possibility with God's capacities, apparently with omnipotence. The fourth rejects any view which explains that dependence in terms of efficient causality, which only brings about actualities, not possibilities. Poinsot has difficulty finding a place for those who claim an exemplar causality for logical possibility since that view is logically compatible with both opinions two and four.
Poisot's own opinion has three parts. First, absolute or logical possibility consists in the relation between terms. This conclusion is based on Aquinas's discussion of God's omnipotence. A statement is possible when the two terms in it do not "conflict" ( non repugnant ). So, 'Socrates sits' is possible because the term 'Socrates' does not conflict with the term 'sits'. Impossibilities derive

7 from a conflict ( repugnatia ) between terms, as in 'a human is a donkey'. Possibility has to be explained in terms of the lack of conflict or repugnance of terms, Poinsot and Aquinas think, because otherwise one would be caught in an explanatory circle between the possibility of creatures and the definition of omnipotence. One cannot say that the possible is that which does not conflict with omnipotence and then define omnipotence as that which does not conflict with the possible
( CT . 2,373a,4 and 3,579b-580a,11). In other words, Poinsot derives possibility from noncontradiction. The question remains, however, what sort of ontological status do these logical relations have?
The second part of Poinsot's opinion provides an answer: the relation between terms participates in the divine essence or divine ideas by means of a necessary consequence ( CT .
3,579b,10). Every essential predicate as well as every "connection and construction" among the essences belongs to entities by participating in the divine essence. Possibilities, then, are derived from God's ideas, while impossibilities are not. Poinsot says that this participation is causal.
However, the divine mind causes possibilities only "formally." Efficient causes only bring about actual entities, not mere possibilities (581a-b,13-15). This formal causation is also called an emanation (582b,16).
The third and final part of Poinsot's opinion on the ontological status of possibility is that possibility does not exist in actuality except in God's potency and in the divine essence insofar as this essence can be imitated or participated in (579b,10). Thus, mere possibilities exist only as part of God's ability to cause actual entities to exist. `Cause' must mean `efficient cause' in this context.
For nothing eternally exists in actuality except God, and God creates all actual things in time from pure nothingness. Still, for anything created, it was always true to say of it before it existed that it was possible for it to exist, and possibilities provide the basis for essential predicates and the necessary connections among them. So, possibilities are eternal, but only because they are contained in God's ability to cause actual entities (583a-b,17-18).
The notion that possibilities are contained in God's capacity leads Poinsot to conclude that if

8 possibility could be destroyed in some fashion and thus made into impossibility, this would destroy
God's omnipotence and His essence. For if the possibility were destroyed, and it was contained in
God's capacities, this would entail a change in God as well (584b-585a,21). Furthermore, possibilities are a necessary consequence of God's omnipotence, but logic tells us that the falsehood of the conclusion of an implication entails the falsehood of the proposition from which (where there is only one premise). So, if a possibility were false, then God's omnipotence would be false (585ab,22-23).
II
The next question is: how does God know about these pure possibles? We noted earlier that Aquinas distinguished knowledge of vision from knowledge of simple intelligence.
Knowledge of vision includes knowledge of actual entities which will exist at some time, either in the past, present, or future. Knowledge of simple intelligence knows the mere possibles which never will exist. Knowledge of simple intelligence considers entities as they pertain to thought alone and excludes considering entities as they actually exist in time or as they might be willed to occur ( CT . 2,376a-b,2).
Pure possibilities are known by God "abstractively" but not "intuitively" according to
Poinsot. This distinction is drawn from the distinction between intuitive and abstractive awareness
( notitia ) made in Poinsot's Ars Logica . Although there was apparently much disagreement among
Thomists of the seventeeth century over how to draw this distinction, Poinsot says that an intuitive awareness is awareness of a present entity while abstractive awareness is the awareness of an absent entity.
12 In fact, Poinsot occasionally will use knowledge of vision as a synonym for intuitive awareness (376a,9).
Poinsot's argument for his claim that pure possibles must be known abstractively proceeds as follows. He first distinguishes two kinds of objects of divine thought: the primary object, God's essence, and the secondary object, creatures insofar as they are objects of God's thought. In the case of the primary object, God is clearly present to Himself and thus knows Himself intuitively. In the

9 case of the secondary objects (creatures insofar as they are objects of God's thought), God knows these as actual objects. Since the pure possibles are not actual, they are not present to God's thought since they do not coexist with the thought. Therefore, pure possibles must only be known abstractively, that is, in the way God considers objects which are not physically present to his awareness (374b-375a,8).
How this works is suggested by one example Poinsot offers:
An angel who sees the sun and the moon intuitively sees many effects which they could produce, such as the eclipses they could have at certain times. These effects and eclipses, however, are only known abstractively, because they are not present. Only the sun and the moon are known intuitively.
We are not to infer, however, that the abstractively known eclipises are known because they are inferred from the intuitively known sun and moon. Angels, apparently, know such things sine discursu and by a single indivisible understanding (376b,9).
By claiming that nonexistent possibles are known abstractively and thus as they are absent to God's knowledge, Poinsot seems to imply that God does not really have any idea of a nonexistent possible. But it needs to be understtod that the "absence" here is a matter of phyiscal existence, not of objective existence.
13 Thus, Poinsot does say that God does have ideas of the "pure" possibles.
God, he believes, has the power to create more things than He did or will make, and if God has such a power, than He must have an idea of such things. A possible could only be made if God had an idea of what it is and how it could be made. Otherwise, Poinsot seems to have thought, God would not have the power to make them. So, God possesses ideas of nonexistent possibles as a human artisan has an idea of something which she never intends to make (2,571b-572a,2-3). Since this latter passage is germane to determining Poinsot's photo-exemplarism, we will return to it in section IV.
III
Poinsot devotes twenty-two pages to a problem which present-day philosophers do not even

10 consider: does God love nonexistent possibles? The extent of the discussion as well as the number of authors cited by Poinsot shows that this question was a favorite of seventeenth century
Scholastics.
Poinsot tells us that the debate is an old one between Thomistic and Scotistic schools.
Scotists claim that God loves possible creatures with a certain ineffectual love called a "simple complacence" ( simplex complacentia ) (3,106a,2).
14 Although Poinsot was not very sympathetic with this view, many of his contemporaries were. One reason that was especially convincing to
Poinsot's contemporaries was their belief that God loves the possible salvation and glorification of sinners even if those sinners never repent. Thus, God would love for Judas Iscariot to repent his sins even though he never does so. These "Scotists" hold that even the nonexistent possibility of salvation for sinners who de facto do not repent would be a good and thus worthy of God's love.
15
Poinsot adamantly denies this. According to him, God in no way loves merely possible creatures, neither with a complacent nor an effective love. God cannot love something nonexistent with an effective love, since anything so loved must exist. An effective love always results in the existence of the loved object since "effective" means that the love is the efficient cause of the loved object. This is only true in God's case since human loves are notorious for being ineffective. For
God, however, effective love is the same as His volition to create entities in time (106b-7a,4).
Poinsot rules out God's complacent love of nonexistent possibles for the reason that quiddities in the state of pure possibility lack any intrnisic goodness which God could love complacently. God could only love something with a complacent love, if He found it pleasing.
And God is only pleased with entities that are good. Thus, if pure possibilities lack goodness, then
God would not love them, even complacently.
Poinsot considers two cases of "quiddities in the state of pure possibility," neither of which are loveable as a pure possible. There is the case in which the quiddity actually exists. Poinsot seems to have in mind the case where an instance of an essence exists, such as when Puff the cat exists, the quiddity of cat also exists. In this case, however, God would be loving an actual Puff

11 and not the purely possible cat. If Puff remained a pure possible along with all of the rest of the cats, this would be evidence that cats dis please God, not that they please Him and would be the objects of His complacent love (3,108a,5-6).
The other case in which quiddities are in the state of pure possibility is when they are considered as necessary and intrinsic connections of predicates. Thus, the purely possible quiddity of cat would partially consist of the necessary connection between the predicates "cat" and
"animal." In the case where there are no individual cats, as before the creation of all cats, they only existed within the causes of cats, presumably within the divine volition and the divine mind, and in any natural processes God ordained to bring cats about. However, as existing only within their causes, they are in themselves completely nothing. God certainly loves the causes of instances of quiddities, and since God is the originating cause, this only means that God loves Himself and finds
Himself pleasing. But He would not love the quiddity in itself in this case, because distinct from
God and His ideas, the quiddity is nothing.
Further, God cannot love or be pleased with nonexistent essential being ( esse essentiae, non existentiae ) because it is neither a perfected nor a perfecting being. Essential being is only the condition of the connection between predicates containing the capacity to exist through the power of an agent. As such it is only an obligation ( debitum ) or relation of one predicate for another, but not that one really belongs to the other. Thus, there is no completion or perfection here, only the need for perfection. There is also no integrity, but a connection to and need for integrity (108a-b,7).
Poinsot also claims that this "obligation" of one predicate for another entails that something is lacking. The idea seems to be that if there are no individual humans in existence, it would still be true that humans ought or are obliged to be rational animals. Since there are no individuals, this obligation would not, it seems, be fulfilled:
Further, goodness or perfection do not result from obligation ( debito ) alone because obligation entails a lack or the negation of possessing that which one is obligated to possess. But, wherever there is a negation or a lack, there is a defect and also an evil

12 or a non-good. If, therefore, one only finds the connection of essential predicates in the essences of entities from which all existence and any relation to existence is removed, and the essences are nothing but an obligation (because a given predicate is obligated to be in this entity, for example, rational animal is obligated to be in a human; that is, there is a necessity, and a connection or intrinsic obligation between human and rational animal), then there is no perfection here, only an obligation for perfection, or a necessity and a connection of that predicate which, if it is placed in existence, it will be the perfection of it. If, however, it is not placed in existence, and it is only obligated to exist..., it is not a perfection. (3,108b,7).
IV
In this last section I will place Poinsot's views into contemporary context by considering two questions raised recently by James Ross. Although Ross was attempting to interpret Aquinas's views on the nature of possibility, they are useful for getting clearer about Poinsot's, especially since
Poinsot took such pains himself to obtain a correct understanding of Thomas. Of course, we may not infer from any disparities between Poinsot and Thomas's answers to these question that Poinsot was or was not a true Thomist. After all, just who the real Thomas was is difficult to determine.
Thus, I will leave it to the Thomists to determine whether John of St. Thomas was a true Thomist or not.
The first question I wish to consider is: was Poinsot a "photo-exemplarist"? Photoexemplarism is, according to Ross, the view that "God has ideas, like photographs or blueprints,
`for each thing and each kind, both actual and possible.'" 16 On such a view, God knows the possibles as an "array of tin soldiers spread out on a carpet (another possible world)." 17 Ross then proceeds to argue that Aquinas does not hold such a view.
Does Poinsot? In section II we learned that although God only knows the possibles
"abstractively," God does have an idea of them. In fact we are invited by Poinsot to envision this

13 idea as an "image" ( instar ):
With regard to possibles God has a formative and ideational power over them, as also an omnipotent productive power. For God could make many more things than He de facto did or will make; and He has the power to make them, and therefore also the idea [of them]. If He knows those things He could make, and the way He could make them, and that they can only be made through the direction and artifice of the intellect, just as those things He has created, then He must form an idea of them [the possibles]. This follows because an idea is nothing other than a form expressed and formed by the intellect, as in us some image ( instar ) can be formed...just as the created artisan can form a true idea of a thing which she never intends to make. So
God knows many things which He can make, and the way in which they can be formed, although He does not want to create them (2,572a,3).
Although Poinsot does say that it is we humans who form the image ( instar ), it is still quite clear that he is suggesting that God's knowledge of possibles is similar to such an image.
But there is an ambiguity in this text. It is difficult to tell whether Poinsot is speaking of kinds or individuals , or both. One might think that Poinsot restricts the ideas of possibles to possible kinds on the ground that in his discussion of the ontology of possibles and again in the discussion of God's love of them, we found that nonexistent, pure possibles, when considered completely distinct from existence, are only the necessary connections between essential predicates which are only potential within God who is their cause (3,108a-b,6-7 and 3,581a,13). However,
Poinsot suggests in at least one text that individuals have quiddities.
18 Poinsot also says that despite the Thomistic doctrine that matter individuates entities, God has an idea of each individual. For unlike human artisans who only create the form of a statue in their minds, God creates both the matter and the form of entities. Therefore, if God is able to know prior to creation what individuals will be part of the Creation, He will have an idea of them (2,578a-b,24-25 and 582a-b,40-41.). The passage quoted above would therefore extend God's ideas of individuals to all possible individuals

14 that He could make and the ways in which He could make them, including the nature of the materials which would make them up. God, therefore, knows about Aquinas's possible children and as well as the possible DNA in their possible cells.
The greatest difficulty for Poinsot's photo-exemplarism, at least from the perspective of
Ross-ian Thomists, is that it entails that Poinsot must reject the "moderate realism" of Aquinas.
Moderate realism is the view that essences cannot "be" apart from existing individuals. Thus, if there are no individual cats, then there is no essence of cat. There are no, as Ross puts it, "empty names" for Aquinas. Poinsot's position would therefore place him in the Platonist-Augustinian camp which holds that essences can in some way "be" independently of individuals.
19
One thing that could be said in Poinsot's defense is that he does not equate God's ideas with the essences of things. Remember that prior to creation, the possibles are "completely nothing."
Only God's ideas exist which are the "formal" cause of the possible kinds and individuals
(3,583a,17).
In another sense Poinsot clearly is not a Ross-ian Thomist. Ross's Aquinas is a voluntarist because there is no essence and no possibility prior to the existence of entities. A voluntarist, according to Ross, is one who holds the view that "God creates the natures of things, and thus the content of possibility ad extra ." 20 Since the natures of entities would be co-created with their existence, then these natures would be created by God.
Poinsot is not a voluntarist. Poinsot told us that possibilities, as the basis for essential predicates and the necessary connections among them, are a necessary conequence of the divine essence (3,579,10). They are a necessary consequence of the divine essence because... possibility precedes all free acts of God, and is independent of them, for whether God wishes to produce a certain entity or not, this entity always remains possible, and the connection of essential predicates remains true. ... Thus, if an entity has [possibility] by participation in God and independently from His free will, it will have that possibility from a necessary participation in God (3,581a,14).

15
Thus, possible kinds and individuals have their foundation in the divine essence and the divine mind, but not in the divine will. For Poinsot, the possibility of cats is therefore fixed and necessary, and indeed, it is eternal:
Since a possibility is an essential predicate and a necessary connection, it is also independent of time. Whatever comes about in time is not possibility but existence
(583a,17).
Indeed, we found that Poinsot believed that if one could destroy a possibility, say, the possibility of cats, then God's own essence would be destroyed (584b,20). Thus, if cats were impossible, God would not be God. God clearly, then, does not create kinds. Kinds are rather part of the very structure of the divine understanding for Poinsot.
If Poinsot had had modern modal logic available him, he would prefer the system called S5.
For in this system all possibilities are necessary and unchangeable even by divine fiat. Poinsot holds that the participation of possibilities in the divine essence is independent of the divine will.
So, whether "God wishes to produce some entity or not, it remains a possible entity" (581a,14).
Thus, consistency and logic are firmly rooted for Poinsot in divine thought which anoints all of reality, including God, with intelligibility.. Not for Poinsot is the speculation of some philosophers of his age (and the Ross-ian Thomists of our own) that the whole rational edifice of logic could be at the whim of the divine will (582a,16).
For Poinsot, then, the possibility of kinds is a necessary consequence of the structure of the divine mind. He is a "photo-exemplarist" who holds that God has an idea of possible kinds and individuals, although only "abstractively." By knowing His essence God is somehow able to know the mere possibles without having a direct awareness of them, as the angel sees the eclipses by looking at the sun and moon. Poinsot is not a voluntarist. Possible kinds are not created by God nor are they subject to the divine will. Only actual entities are willed to exist by God.

16
NOTES
1. James Ross, "Aquinas's Exemplarism; Aquinas's Voluntarism" American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly 64 (1990), pp. 171-198; Ross's article had several replies: Armand Maurer,
C.S.B., "James Ross on the Divine Ideas: A Reply," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65
(1991), pp. 213-220; Lawrence Dewan O.P., "St. Thomas, James Ross, And Exemplarism: A
Reply," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1991), pp. 221-234; Ross replied to the latter two in the same issue on pp. 235-243.
2. For other discussions about possibility in the seventeenth century see Jeffrey Coombs,
"Scholasticism, Post-Medieval II: 17th Century" in Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology , vol. 2
(Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1991), pp. 806-809; Jeffrey Coombs, "The Possibility of Created
Entities in Seventeenth-Century Scotism," in The Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1993), pp. 447-459;
John P. Doyle, "Suarez and the Reality of the Possibles." The Modern Schoolman 45 (1967), pp.
29-48; Lilli Alanen and Simo Knuttilla, "The Foundations of Modality and Conceivability in
Descartes and his Predecessors" in Modern Modalities: Studies of the History of Modal Theories from Medieval Nominalism to Logical Positivism (Dordrecht/Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1988), pp. 1-70; Lilli Alanen, "Descartes, Duns Scotus and Ockham on Omnipotence and
Possibility" in Franciscan Studies 45 (1985), pp. 157-188. Much of interest on the topic of possibility can be found in the extensive literature concerning "eternal truths" in the philosophy of
Suárez and Descartes. For an introduction to this topic, see Willis Doney, editor, Eternal Truths and the Cartesian Circle: A Collection of Studies (New York-London: Garland Publishing, Inc.,
1987).
3. The range of questions about possibilities found in the seventeenth century has only recently been matched in this latter quarter of our own century in works such as David Lewis, On the

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Plurality of Worlds (New York-Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986) and the many recent discussions of modalities in works on philosophical theology, such as Alvin Plantiga's The Nature of Necessity
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974) and Thomas V. Morris' Anslemian Explorations: Essays in Philosophical Theology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), to name only a very few of those works.
4. A Scholastic philosopher, for my purposes, is one who attempts to reconcile Aristotelianism
(usually as interpreted by Medieval Christian philosophers such as Aquinas, Scotus, or Ockham) with Christianity.
5. CT . is an abbreviation for Joannis a Santo Thoma O.P. Cursus Theologici: Opera et Studio
Monachorum Quorumdam Solesmensium O.S.B. Editus, in quo Quid Contineatur Versa Pagella
Indicabit (Parisiis-Tornaci-Romae: Typis Societatis S. Joannis Evangelistae, 1934). The first number is the volume number, the second number is the page number with the letter 'a' or 'b' to indicate the column it appears in, and the third number is the paragraph number provided in this edition.
6. Georg Henrik Von Wright, "Diachronic and Synchronic Modality" in Truth, Knowledge, and
Modality: Philosophical Papers, Vol. III (Oxford-New York: Basil Blackwell, 1984), p. 97.
7. Ibid., p. 96.
8. Punch's view, as well as his interpretation of Scotus, is challenged by other Scotists of the period such as Bartholomew Mastrius. "The Possibility of Created Entities in Seventeenth-Century
Scotism," in The Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1993), pp. 447-459, Suárez thinks that this interpretation is Thomistic propaganda at On the Essence , p. 55 ( DM . 31,2,1).
9. See Wells's Introduction to Suárez's On the Essence , p. 8.

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10. Both of the Scotists Mastrius and Punch agree on this point. See my "Possibility of Created
Entities", pp. 450-451.
11. At least according to John Punch. See my "Possibility of Created Entities," p. 455.
12. Poinsot's definition of intuitive and abstractive awareness appears on p. 29 of Tractatus de
Signis: The Semiotic of John Poinsot , edited and translated by John N. Deely (Berkeley-Los
Angeles-London, University of California Press, 1985). That the distinction was much disputed is shown by the many reports of opposing views on pp. 288-290. Poinsot also devotes space to responding to alternative conceptions of the distinction when discussing how God knows possibles
"abstractively" in CT . 2,374b-376a,7-9.
13. De signis, Ques I bk 3,
14. Unfortunately, I will have to resurrect what Webster's dictionary deems an obsolete use of
`complacence' meaning: "a source of gratification or joy." Its present live meaning of "calm and secure satisfaction with one's self or lot" is not appropriate.
15. The discussion of this topic most familiar to me is in Leonardo de Peñafiel, S.J., Tractatus et
Disputationes in primam partem Divi Thomae: De Deo Uno et Trino, Tomus Secundus (Lugduni:
Sumptibus Horatii Boissat, et Georgii Remeus, 1666), p. 37a. I have used a microfilm copy available in the "Rare and Out-of-Print Books" collection of the Vatican Film Library at the Pius
XII Memorial Library in Saint Louis, Missouri, Manuscripta list 90, number 41, Roll 14.1. I was able to consult this work thanks to a Mellon Foundation Grant which allowed me to travel to the collection in June, 1991. It is listed in A Guide to Rare and Out-of-Print Books in the Vatican Film
Library , edited by Elizabeth and Donald Cress (Lanham, MD: University of America Press, 1986) on p. 75. Poinsot on 3,106a-b,2 lists several other contemporary proponents of the view including

Gabriel Vazquez.
16. James Ross, "Aquinas's Exemplarism," p. 173.
17. Ibid., p. 176.
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18. 3,107b,4. "Nomine autem speciei intelligitur quidditas sub consideratione quidditatis praecise, quo nomine etiam individuatio ipsa considerari potest, quia etiam suam habet quidditatem."
19. Ross, "Aquinas's Exemplarism," p. 183.
20. Ibid., p. 172.