FOURTH ARTICLE: WHETHER IN GOD THE TERM PERSON SIGNIFIES RELATION

State of the question. In this question this article is of major importance. In the foregoing article we saw that in God, who is the most simple being, there can be no plurality except that of real relations mutually opposed. According to revelation, however, there are several persons in God. We must show, therefore, that a divine person can be constituted by a real divine relation. All the difficulties mentioned at the beginning of the article are reduced to this: person signifies something absolute and not relative. This becomes evident from the following considerations. 1. Person is predicated with reference to itself and not to another; 2. in God person is not really distinguished from the essence; 3. person is defined as an individual substance with a rational nature; 4. in men and angels person signifies something absolute and, if it signifies relation in God, it would be used equivocally of God and of men and angels.

Reply. The divine person signifies relation as subsisting. Boethius says," very name referring to persons signifies a relation." Thus Father signifies the relation to the Son, Son signifies the relation to the Father, and Holy Ghost signifies the relation to the Spirators. "By the relative names of the persons the Father is referred to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Ghost to both, for while we speak of the three persons relatively we believe in only one nature or substance... . For that which is the Father is not with reference to Himself but to the Son,... but, on the other hand, when we say God, this is said without reference to another."[307] "In the relation of the persons we discern number... . In this number alone do the persons indicate that they are referred to each other."[308] "In God all things are one and the same except where there is opposition of relation."[309]

In the body of the article St. Thomas presents three opinions and then offers the most acceptable opinion.

1. The opinion of the Master of the Sentences: even in God the term "person" in the singular may be taken to mean something absolute, but in the plural it is taken to mean something relative, contrary to the teaching of the heretics, especially the Arians, who said that the three persons are subordinate substances. St. Thomas replied that if the term "person" even in God in the singular signifies something absolute, we are not sufficiently removed from the error of the Arians. By affirming the plurality of persons we might be multiplying something absolute.

2. The term "person" in God signifies essence directly and relation indirectly, because, as it is said, the person is said to be one per se. This, however, is false etymology. This opinion is corrected by the following.

3. The term "person" in God signifies relation directly and essence indirectly. This opinion, St. Thomas remarks, approaches more closely to the truth.

Then St. Thomas offers proof for his own opinion: the divine person signifies relation as subsisting.

Person in general signifies an individual (or distinct) substance with an intellectual nature, or a "hypostasis" distinct from others. But in God there are no real distinctions except according to the relations of origin, which are subsisting.[310] Therefore in God person signifies a distinct relation as subsisting.

This is to say, in general there are two things in the person: the distinction by incommunicability (I, you, he) and subsistence in the intellectual nature. But these two things are not found in God except in the real relations mutually opposed and thus really distinct, whose "esse in" is substantial and entirely the same as subsisting being itself.

More briefly we may say that person in any nature means a subsisting being distinct from others. But in God there is no distinction except according to the real relations, which are subsisting. Therefore in God person signifies relation not as relation but as subsisting. In this way we preserve the analogy of person in God, namely, a subsisting being distinct from others. In another place St. Thomas says: "The signified relation is included indirectly in the meaning of divine person, which is nothing else than a subsisting being in the divine essence distinct by relation,"[311] or a subsistence distinct by relation in the divine nature.

Difficulty. The person renders a nature incommunicable to another suppositum. But the subsisting relation of paternity does not render the divine nature incommunicable. Therefore this subsisting relation of paternity does not constitute a person.

Reply. I distinguish the major: an absolute person renders a finite nature incommunicable, I concede; a relative person renders a divine nature incommunicable, this I subdistinguish: as of itself, I concede; in other respects, I deny. Thus the divine nature as terminated by paternity is incommunicable and in God there is only one Father and the Father alone enunciates. In an equilateral triangle the first angle constructed renders the surface incommunicable as of itself only, but this surface is communicated to the other opposite angles.

This reply will appear less clear than the objection because the objection arises from our inferior mode of knowledge, whereas the reply is taken from the height of the ineffable mystery and therefore requires profound meditation and mature thought. It is not necessary for theology to show that all the objections made against the mysteries are evidently false; it is sufficient to show that they are not necessary and cogent, in the words of St. Thomas.[312]

At the end of the body of the article several corollaries are presented.

First corollary. As the Deity is God, so the divine paternity is God the Father.[313] In God there is nothing except the Deity for there are no individuating notes from matter, no accidents, nor a being distinct from essence. Hence God and Deity are the same and the Father and the paternity are the same. On the other hand, Socrates is not his humanity, which is only an essential part; the whole is not the part, but it is greater than its part.

It is not perfectly true to say that Michael is his own Michaelity because, although the Michaelity is individuated of itself and not by matter, yet there are in Michael accidents and being besides his essence.

Second corollary. In God person signifies relation directly as subsisting and essence indirectly.

Third corollary. Inasmuch as the divine essence is subsisting per se, it is signified directly by the term person, and relation as relation, not as subsisting, is signified indirectly.

Reply to the first objection. The term "person" even in God refers to Himself inasmuch as it signifies relation, not as relation, but as subsisting; for example, the Father as subsisting refers to Himself although as a relation He refers to the Son.

Reply to the third objection. In our understanding of an individual substance, that is, a distinct and incommunicable substance, we understand a relation in God, as was said in the body of the article.

Reply to the fourth objection. In God the analogy of person is preserved, for it is something subsisting and distinct from others (a free and intelligent subject) which is proportionally predicated of the divine persons, angelic and human persons. But the three divine persons understand by the same essential intellection and they love by the same essential love.

First doubt. Are the divine persons constituted only by the subsisting relations opposed to each other or also by everything that belongs to them?

Against Praepositivus and Gregory of Rimini, the Thomists reply that the divine persons are constituted as persons by the fact that they are distinguished from each other. But they are distinguished from each other by nothing except the opposite subsisting relations, otherwise they would differ by essence and in essence. It has been defined, however, that they are the same in essence. Hence the Council of the Lateran declared: "The Most Holy Trinity is individual according to the common essence and separate according to the personal properties."[314] The Council of Florence says: "The divine persons differ by their properties."[315]

Confirmation. What is common to the three persons cannot constitute a special person distinct from the others. But all things that are absolute in God are common to the three persons.

Second doubt. Are the divine persons constituted by the active and passive origins, as St. Bonaventure thought, or according to the opinion attributed to him?

The reply is in the negative, for by its essential concept person denotes a fixed and permanent being since it is the ultimate terminus of nature, rendering it incommunicable and subsisting. But origin is essentially conceived as becoming; active origin is conceived as the influx and emanation from a principle, and passive origin is conceived as the path or tendency to a terminus. Active origin presupposes the person from which it issues, and passive generation is conceived as something supposed prior to the constitution of the person of the Son, according to our manner of thought.[316]

Third doubt. Is the person of the Father constituted by innascibility, as Vasquez thought?

The reply is in the negative, because innascibility taken formally is merely the negation of a principle and thus cannot constitute the person of the Father, which, since it is real, must be constituted by something real and positive. If, however, innascibility is taken fundamentally, the basis implied is either something absolute, and then it cannot constitute a particular person, or it is something relative, and then it can be nothing else than the relation of paternity. Vasquez had proposed this opinion to solve the following difficulty.