Logos uttered

Use in the book

The creation sequence first appears as a list of particular natures: light, firmament, stars, animals and plants (pp. 60-62, II.060.1-II.061.1). The repeated And God said distinguishes their establishment. Those words are not treated simply as a literary convention. They mark a particular utterance that gives a nature its determinate task and power.

On pp. 63-64 the author explicitly glosses the Greek expression as God’s particular Word pronounced in the work of creation (II.063.2). Through it particular natures alone are created secondarily. Through the subsistent Logos both universal and particular natures are created primarily. The limitation alone belongs to the scope of the uttered Logos, not to a denial that the universal Word is also active in its creatures.

The author illustrates the distinction by contrasting two explanations of heaven’s creation (pp. 64-65, II.064.1). The Lord’s Word points to the universal subsistent cause; the specified Fiat, Let there be a firmament, points to the particular utterance. He then forbids separating the two (p. 65, II.065.1). A subordinate cause remains dependent, but its particular specification still matters to the account of what the creature can do.

The contrast with universal waters is drawn partly from an absence. No particular Fiat is found where the opening creation of those waters is described (pp. 66-67, II.066.1). For particular natures, by contrast, the text expressly says And God said (pp. 67-68, II.067.2). The author reads the difference as a cause of the difference between unrestricted elemental capacity and limited created power. Whether that scriptural inference convinces is separate from recognizing its function in his natural philosophy.

The claim of audibility immediately produces an objection: nobody able to hear was present at that stage (p. 68, II.068.1). The answer says that waters and elements already existed and possessed life and sensation sufficient to see God and hear his voice. The following scriptural examples are meant to establish such responsiveness. The debate shows that uttered is not a loose synonym for effective. The author defends the specific character of speech against an objection directed precisely at hearing.⁹

The practical application follows on pp. 75-76 (II.075.1). Particular natures created through the uttered Logos possess only their own created particular powers. They cannot produce a universal medicine, whether one is taken alone or many are assembled. The causal rule that the effect corresponds to its cause underlies the exclusion. Combining restricted powers is not permitted to change the scope of their creative assignment.

The next paragraph links permanence of natural order to the eternity and unchangeability of God’s Word (pp. 76-77, II.076.2). Day and night and the regular courses of celestial bodies exemplify an order precisely maintained. This is why the operative effects of a command are not confined to the moment it was first spoken. The word’s continuing force preserves the creature’s kind and the limits of its agency.

The same relation is expressed more concretely in the explanation of living kinds (pp. 130-131, II.130.2). Blessing, command and activity are implanted together; creatures receive particular life and reproduce through their own seed. The operator cannot repeat that divine establishment at will (p. 131, II.131.1). Art can prepare within the order, but it cannot give elements a new particular command equivalent to the creative utterance.

Places to read

1. Part II · II.061.1; II.063.2; II.064.1; II.065.1234Particular commands and the relation of first and second cause.
2. Part II · II.066.1; II.067.2; II.068.123Fiat, explicit speech and the objection concerning a hearer.
3. Part II · II.075.1; II.076.2; II.130.2; II.131.1234Limited powers, enduring order and the boundary of art.

Translation

The edition renders προφορικός as uttered and preserves pronounced and audible when the source elaborates the point. Particular Word names the same explanatory role in the accompanying Latin. Treating all these phrases as merely a divine idea would remove the objection and the author’s answer.

Fiat is kept where the author uses the Latin formula. It does not mean that every cited scriptural command has to be replaced by this one Latin word in English. The actual imperative concerning light, firmament or living creatures gives the particular content at issue.

Connections

The term supplies the causal explanation behind Blessing and command. That entry follows the particular generative charge in rainwater’s definition and the later selection of suitable waters. Life and sensation follows the response of the elements required by the answer to the audibility objection.

The sea’s ebb and flow offer another application of a continuing command: the gathering of waters is made their cause, while lunar correspondence is distinguished from that cause (pp. 104-106, II.104.2-II.105.1). A particular divine utterance can thus enter a proposed account of continuing natural motion as well as of reproduction.

Cautions

The author’s argument about audible speech and elemental hearing is a historical claim. It should not be silently reduced to a modern metaphor for information transfer, nor offered as a demonstrated account of acoustic events before living creatures.

Particular does not mean independent of God or independent of the universal Word. The author expressly insists on inseparability and on the continued causal priority of the subsistent Logos. Causal distinction remains even where the two are called one.

λόγος προφορικὸς

λόγος προφορικὸς — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.063.2; II.064.1.

verbum Dei particulare

verbum Dei particulare — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.063.2.

Fiat

Fiat — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.064.1; II.066.1.

vernehmlich Wort

vernehmlich Wort — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.067.2.