SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER THE PERSONS ARE DISTINGUISHED BY THE RELATIONS

St. Thomas replies affirmatively, as above in question 30, and also refutes the opinion of Alexander of Hales, attributed to St. Bonaventure, according to which the persons are constituted by the active and passive origins, for example, the Father is constituted by active generation and not by the relation of paternity.

To this St. Thomas replies that a person should be constituted by something intrinsic to the person itself that is stable and permanent in actual being. But the active and passive origins are rather extrinsic to the persons and they are conceived as in the state of becoming. Moreover, an active origin, like active generation, cannot formally constitute the person which it presupposes, since it is the Father who generates. Hence, according to our mode of conception it is better to say that the divine persons are constituted by the subsisting relations. Thus the Father signifies the First Person, and the generator is the property of this person.

Objection. That which presupposes a distinction cannot be the first principle of the distinction. But relation presupposes the distinction of the things that are related, since to be related means to have a reference to another. Therefore relation cannot be the first principle of distinction in God.

Reply. I concede the major. I distinguish the minor: a relation that is an accident presupposes the distinction of the supposita, I concede; a relation that is subsisting, I deny, because such a relation constitutes the persons and brings the distinction with it. So the reply to the third difficulty. Moreover, in proof of the minor it should be said that a relation has a reference to the correlative that is prior, this I deny; to the correlative that is simultaneous in nature, this I concede.

I insist. This was examined above. The relation which follows on active generation cannot constitute the person who generates. But the relation of paternity follows active generation since it is founded on active generation. Therefore the relation of paternity cannot constitute the person of the Father.

Reply. I distinguish the major: the relation as actually referring to the terminus, or that which in the exercise of the act refers to the Son (follows the person), this I concede; the relation which in the signified act modifies the divine essence (follows the person), this I deny. And I contradistinguish the minor.

Thus the first angle constructed in the triangle is a geometric figure even before it actually has a reference to the two other angles. So we can conceive whiteness in itself as that by which (ut quo) before we conceive it as modifying the wall (ut quod). Similarly habitual grace is conceived in itself before it is conceived as expelling sin; essence is conceived first in its formal act (in actu signato), as that which is capable of existence, before it is conceived as in the exercise of the act as having reference to a produced existence.

This distinction is not futile or without an analogy, but it must be said that relation, which is a predicamental in creatures, has a substantial "esse in" only in God and only in God can it constitute a person. Relation constitutes a person in God inasmuch as it is incommunicable and subsisting, and it constitutes a relative personality inasmuch as it is a relation.

In the third article of this question St. Thomas insists on the identity of the persons with the relations by which they are constituted, and he shows that the intellect cannot abstract the relations from the persons. This is contrary to the opinion attributed to St. Bonaventure. In explanation St. Thomas distinguishes between total abstraction, or logical abstraction, in which the entire universal (as genus or species) is abstracted from the particular, as, for example, animal from man, and formal abstraction, in which form is abstracted from matter, as, for example, when the form of the circle is abstracted from all sensible matter.

With respect to God we cannot use total or logical abstraction because God is not in any genus; hence we cannot abstract the relations from the persons. Nor can we by formal abstraction abstract the personal relations from the persons, for example, paternity from the Father, because there is no matter in God. The Father is His paternity and if we abstract the paternity nothing remains of the Father. On the other hand the form of the circle can be abstracted from all sensible matter, for example, from wood or stone.