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Methodically we go from the nominal definition of
personality to its real definition. Here again we observe
the laws for establishing a definition laid down by
Aristotle and St. Thomas.[279] We begin with the
nominal definition not only of person but of personality
itself. According to the common sense of men,
personality is that by which some subject is a person,
just as existence is that by which some subject exists.
This may appear to be somewhat ingenuous, yet we have an
intimation here that personality, whatever certain writers
may say, is not formally constituted by
existence.[280] Philosophically the transition to
the real definition is made by comparative induction, by
comparing this personality which we wish to define with
similar and dissimilar things and by correctly dividing the
genus of substance to which personality belongs.
Various opinions of Scholastics, who are divided into
those who admit or do not admit the real distinction
between what a thing is and its being, and between the
created essence and being
Denying this distinction, Scotus said that personality
is something negative, namely, the negation of the
hypostatic union in an individual nature such as Socrates
or Peter.[281] Suarez, likewise rejecting this
real distinction between created essence and being, said
that personality is a substantial mode presupposing the
existence of an individual nature and rendering it
incommunicable.[282]
Among those who with St. Thomas admit the real
distinction we find three opinions.
Cajetan and many other Thomists say that personality is
that by which an individual nature becomes immediately
capable of existing separately per se. Others with
Capreolus say somewhat less explicitly that personality is
the individual nature under the aspect of its
being.[283] Lastly, Cardinal Billot reduces
personality to the being that actuates an individual
nature.[284]
Many moderns abandon the ontological approach to this
question and consider it from the psychological and moral
viewpoint. They declare that personality is constituted
either by the consciousness of oneself or by liberty.
Consciousness and liberty, however, are only
manifestations of the personality; the subject that is
conscious of itself must first be constituted as a subject
capable of saying. So also the free subject is indeed
morally of its own right by liberty, but it also must
first be ontologically constituted as I, you, or he.
The true idea of personality. We are looking for the
real ontological definition of personality within the genus
of substance, because a person is an intelligent and free
substance or subject. We proceed progressively by
dividing the genus of substance by affirmation and negation
and by comparing the personality which we want to define
with similar and dissimilar things.
1. Personality, or that by which anything is a person,
is not something negative; it is positive just as the
person of which it is the formal constituent. If the
dependence of an accident is something positive, a
fortiori the independence of the subject or the person is
positive, that is, that by reason of which the person
exists separately per se. Moreover, since the
personalities of Socrates and Peter belong to the natural
order, they cannot be defined by a denial of the
hypostatic union, which is something essentially
supernatural and unique. If this were true, it would
follow that the personality could not be known naturally.
2. Personality, as something positive, must be
something substantial and not accidental because the person
is a substance. Hence personality in the proper sense
cannot be constituted by consciousness or liberty. Thus
personality is compared with dissimilar things and with
accidents; we now compare it with similar and related
things in the genus of substance.
3. Personality is something substantial but it is not
the nature of substance itself, nor this particular
nature, but it is this individual human nature, since
nature even as individuated is attributed to the person as
an essential part. St. Thomas says: "The suppositum
signifies the whole which has nature as a formal part that
perfects it."[285] We do not say, "Peter is his
own nature," because the whole is not the part; it is
greater than the part and contains other things besides.
Nor is personality the nature itself under the aspect of
being, since the individual nature, Peter for example,
is not that which exists but that by which it is a man.
That which exists is Peter himself, the person of
Peter. We are now asking for that by which something is
what it is. Personality therefore is not the individual
nature under the aspect of being; otherwise, since there
are two natures in Christ, Christ would have two persons
and two personalities.
4. Nor is personality Peter's existence because
existence is attributed to Peter as a constituted person
after the manner of a contingent predicate. Indeed
existence is a contingent predicate of every person that
has been created or can be created, for no human or
angelic person is its own being. Therefore, as St.
Thomas says, "In every creature there is a difference
between that which is and its being."[286] He also
says: "Being follows nature not as something that
possesses being but as that by which a thing is; but it
follows the person as something that has
being."[287] If, therefore, being follows the
person constituted as a person, it does not formally
constitute the person.
If being formally constituted the created person, the
real distinction between the created person and being would
be destroyed, and it would no longer be true to say that
Peter is not his own being. In other words, that which
is not its own being is really distinct from its being,
distinct apart from the consideration of our minds. But
the person of Peter, as well as his personality which
formally constitutes his person, is not Peter's being.
Therefore Peter's person and his personality are really
distinguished from his being. We shall see this all most
clearly in heaven when we see God, who alone is His own
being and who alone can say, "I am who am."
5. Personality, therefore, is something positive and
substantial, determining an individual nature of substance
so that it will be immediately capable of existing
separately per se. More briefly, it is that by which a
rational subject is what it is. Existence, however, is
a contingent predicate of the subject and its ultimate
actuality and therefore existence presupposes the
personality, which cannot be, as Suarez would have it,
a substantial mode following on existence. Personality
is, as it were, the terminal point where two lines meet,
the line of essence and the line of existence. Properly
it is that by which an intelligent subject is what it is.
This ontological personality is the foundation of the
psychological and moral personality or of the consciousness
of self and dominion of self.
This real definition explicitly enunciates what is vaguely
contained in the accepted nominal definition: personality
is that by which the intelligent subject is a person just
as existence is that by which a subject exists. Therefore
personality differs from the essence and from the existence
which it brings together.
In order to show that the quid rei is confusedly contained
in the quid nominis and that the real definition of
personality should preserve what is vaguely contained in
the nominal definition, Cajetan says: "The word
'person' and similarly the demonstrative personal
pronouns like 'I,' 'you,' and 'he,' all formally
signify the substance and not a negation or an accident or
something extraneous. If we all admit this, why, when
scrutinizing the quid rei, that is, when going from the
nominal to the real definition, do we depart from the
common admission?"[288] Why do we depart from the
common sense of mankind, from natural reason, and forget
the nominal definition of the person?
It is not surprising, then, that this opinion is
accepted by a great many theologians, by Ferrariensis,
John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticenses, Goudin,
Gonet, Billuart, Zigliara, Del Prado,
Sanseverino, Cardinal Mercier, Cardinal Lorenzelli,
Cardinal Lepicier, Hugon, Gredt, Szabo,
Maritain, and many others.[289]
Certain texts of Capreolus are quoted to show that the
person is the nature under the aspect of being.[290]
These texts, however, are not really opposed to
Cajetan's stand because for Capreolus personality is
properly that by which the individual rational nature
becomes immediately capable of existence and it is clear
that what exists is not the nature of Peter but his
person, that is, Peter himself. In other words,
personality is that by which the intelligent and free
subject is constituted as a subject possessing its own
nature, faculties, existence, operations,
consciousness, and the actual free dominion over itself.
Finally this theory, accepted by many theologians, is
based not only on the texts of St. Thomas cited above
but on many others, such as, "The form designated by
the word 'person' is not the essence or the nature but
the personality."[291] For St. Thomas,
therefore, personality is a kind of form or formality or
modality of the substantial order. "The name person is
imposed by the form of personality which gives the reason
for the subsistence of such a nature."[292]
Accordingly personality is that by which the rational
subject has the right to being separately per se. Thus
personality is a substantial mode, antecedent to being,
not subsequent to being, because being is the ultimate
actuality of a thing or of the subject.
Moreover, St. Thomas taught: "(In Christ) if the
human nature had not been assumed by the divine person,
the human nature would have had its own personality, and
to that extent the divine person is said to have consumed
the human nature, although this is not the proper
expression, because the divine person by its union impeded
the human nature from having its own
personality."[293] Thus, according to St.
Thomas, personality is distinguished from the individual
nature and also from existence because "being follows the
person as something that possesses being," and therefore
being does not constitute the person.[294] Lastly he
says, "The three (divine) persons have but one
being," and therefore "the personality is not the same
as the being since there are in God three personalities
and one being";[295] and "being is not by reason of
the suppositum," for a created suppositum is its own
being.[296]
We conclude that a person is a free and intelligent
subject and that it is predicated analogically of men and
angels, and of the divine persons, and that personality
is that by which this subject is what it is, namely, that
which determines an individual nature to be immediately
capable of existing separately per se.[297]
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