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This is to say, whether the name "Father" is used not
metaphorically but properly of the First Person and not
of the others. The reply is in the affirmative for so the
name is used in the Gospels, for example, in the formula
for baptism, in the creeds, and by the councils.
This can be explained easily as follows. The proper name
of any person signifies that by which that person is
distinguished from others. But that by which the person
of the Father is distinguished from the other persons is
paternity.
Reply to the first objection. "Father" is indeed the
name of a relation, but in God since relation is
subsisting it can be the constitutive of a person.
Reply to the third objection. The divine Word is not
metaphorically called the Son, because He is the mental
concept, not accidental but substantial. Therefore the
Father is so called not metaphorically but properly.
Reply to the fourth objection. The name "paternity" as
it is used in its proper sense of God the Father has a
prior significance than when it is used as designating an
earthly father, at least with regard to the thing
signified if not with regard to the manner of
signification. For divine generation is the most perfect
of all because it generates not only that which is similar
in species but a Son whose nature is numerically the same
as the nature of the Father. The earthly father,
moreover, in generation does not produce the spiritual
soul of his son, but only a disposition for it, nor does
he produce a son in adult age. God, on the other hand,
communicates to His Son His infinite nature,
numerically the same as His own, so that His Son is
immediately and eternally as perfect as the Father.
More and more it appears that the first procession is
truly and properly generation, a generation that is
spiritual in the full meaning of that word. It is not
only conception, as when we say we conceive a mental
concept; conception is only the initial stage of
generation.
In God, the Father not only spiritually conceives His
Son; He truly and properly generates Him spiritually,
that is, He communicates to Him His nature in its
entirety and numerically one with His own nature, which
nature cannot be multiplied or divided. The Father
communicates His nature to the Son from all eternity so
that the only-begotten Son is from all eternity most
perfect, an adult, if I may say so, in His divine age
and entirely equal to the Father. From the height of his
mystery light falls on the words of St. Paul to the
Ephesians (3:15): "I bow my knees to the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in
heaven and earth is named." For from the divine
paternity is derived that spiritual paternity by which the
Supreme Pontiff is the Father of the Christian people,
by which the founder of a religious order is the father of
his sons, by which the bishop is the father of his
diocese, and by which the priest is the father of the
souls committed to his care. From this divine paternity,
too, is derived that earthly paternity, which is
something noble and excellent in the good Christian
father, who like a patriarch gives his sons and daughters
not only corporal life but heavenly blessings as did
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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