SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER A RELATION IN GOD IS THE SAME AS HIS ESSENCE

State of the question. After asking the question whether a thing is we ask the question what it is. The difficulty arises from the fact that the relative element, the "to another," is not understood as something substantial, for then the essence of God would not be something substantial but relative.

The reply, however, is affirmative and of faith, namely, the relations in God are actually the same as His essence, although they are distinguished by reason from the essence. This truth was defined in the Council of Reims against Gilbert Porretanus: "When we speak of the three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we say that they are one God and one substance. Conversely, we confess that the divine substance is three persons."[223] "We believe that there are no relations in God that are not God."[224]

In these propositions, as in every affirmative proposition, the verb "is" affirms the real identity of the subject and the predicate, as, for example, the Father is God and the paternity is the deity, because God is His own deity and the Father is His own paternity.[225] The same teaching was defined by the Fourth Lateran Council,[226] and the following proposition of Eckard was condemned, "In God there can be no distinction and none can be conceived."[227]

The most common opinion of theologians is that the divine relations are distinguished from the divine essence only by reason with a foundation in reality, that is, only virtually. To this the Thomists generally add that the distinction is a minor virtual distinction after the manner of that which is implicit and explicit inasmuch as our concept of the divine essence implicitly contains the relations. Before considering St. Thomas' argument, we will briefly explain the meaning of these terms.

A virtual distinction, or a distinction of reason with a foundation in reality, may be minor or major. A major virtual distinction is after the manner of that which excludes and that which is excluded. Such a distinction exists between the genus and the differences extrinsic to it which the genus contains, not implicitly, but only virtually. Thus animality may be without rationality, and with regard to rationality it has a foundation in actuality as something potential and perfectible.

A minor virtual distinction, however, is after the manner of those things that are implicit and explicit. Thus subsisting being itself, according to our concept, implicitly contains the divine attributes, but it does not have a foundation in actuality for these attributes as something potential, or as something imperfect and perfectible by the divine attributes, because subsisting being, according to our concept, is pure act. For when we speak of subsisting being we do not yet speak explicitly of mercy and justice. It must be noted, however, that this minor virtual distinction is more than the verbal distinction between Tullius and Cicero. We cannot equivalently use the names, divine essence, divine mercy, or divine justice in the same way that we equivalently use the names Tullius and Cicero. We cannot say, for instance, that God punishes by His mercy and pardons by His justice.

Lastly, it may be recalled that Scotus held that the distinction between the divine essence, the attributes and the relations was formal actual from the nature of things, because the distinction, in his view, is not real since it is not between one thing and another but between two formalities of the same thing.

To this the Thomists reply that this formal actual distinction based on the nature of the thing either antecedes the consideration of our minds and then, however small it is, it is real; or it does not antecede the consideration of our minds, and then it is a distinction of reason with a foundation in the thing or a virtual distinction. There is no middle point in the distinction between what antecedes and what does not antecede the consideration of our minds.

After these preliminaries we shall consider how St. Thomas proved the commonly accepted doctrine that the real relations in God are not really distinct from the divine essence but are distinguished from it only by reason.

St. Thomas explained this proposition by two arguments: by the indirect argument (sed contra) and the direct argument.

The indirect argument. Everything that is not the divine essence is a creature. But the relations really belong to God. If therefore they are not the divine essence, they are creatures; and the worship of latria cannot be offered to the divine relations.

The direct argument. Whatever in created things has an accidental being in another ("esse in"), when transferred to God has a substantial being in another ("esse in"), because no accidents are found in God. But in created things a relation is really distinguished from its subject solely because it has an accidental being in another ("esse in") from which it derives the reality of its "esse ad" or reference to another. Therefore in God a relation is not really distinct from its subject inasmuch as its "esse in", or being in another, is substantial from which is derived the reality of its reference to another, its "esse ad". The major is evident from the fact that in God, who is pure act, there can be no accident perfecting something potential and perfectible.[228] The minor is explained by the fact that in creatures a relation places nothing real in the subject except so far as it places in the subject that which is common to all accidents, namely, the "esse in", which is an accidental being really distinct from substance. According to its own peculiar structure, a relation is not properly in a subject, as are quantity and quality, but it is a reference to something else.

If therefore, for example, the relation of paternity is transferred to God where the "esse in" will be substantial, the relation will not be really distinct from the divine essence; it will be distinguished only by reason since it expresses a reference to something else, namely, of the Father to the Son. Therefore neither by the divine relations nor by the divine attributes is the divine essence something potential and perfectible because of a foundation in its nature. Hence the divine essence, as it is conceived by us, implicitly contains the divine relations, from which it is distinguished by a minor virtual distinction. By this latter term the Thomists have epitomized this present article.

It must be carefully noted that what is the peculiar feature of a relation, namely, the "esse ad", does not properly inhere in the subject as does the peculiar feature of the accident of quality. If the "esse ad" properly inhered in the subject, there could be no relative opposition between the real relations without there being at the same time opposition in the very essence of God, which is impossible. This entire article is reduced to this simple thought: the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, and the paternity is the deity because God is His own deity and the Father is His own paternity. In all these statements the verb "is" expresses the real identity of the subject and the predicate.

The difference between St. Thomas and Suarez.[229] The principle that "in God all things are one and the same except where there is opposition of relation" is not understood in the same way by St. Thomas and by Suarez since they do not understand relation in the same way. For St. Thomas being (esse) does not formally belong to accidental or predicamental relation (paternity, for instance) according to its "esse ad", because the "esse ad" prescinds from existence; it is found also in a relation of reason (in the relation of God to creatures, for example). Being, however, belongs formally to an accidental relation according to its "esse in", namely, as it is an accident inhering (at least aptitudinally) in a real subject. If the "esse in" is real, then the "esse ad" is real, but it takes its title to reality not from itself but from the "esse in."[230]

But in God the "esse in" cannot be an accident, since God is pure act and no accident is found in Him. Therefore in God the "esse in" of the divine relations is identified with the one existence of the divine substance; it is identified with subsisting being itself.[231] From this it follows that in the Trinity the divine relations have the same "esse in" since they exist by the one existence of the divine essence itself.[232] "Since a divine person is the same as the divine nature, in the divine persons the being of the person is not different from the being of the divine nature. Therefore the three divine persons have but one being." Similarly in Christ there is one being for the two natures because Christ is one person, and this presupposes a real distinction between created essence and being.

Suarez, on the contrary, did not admit this real distinction and held that there were two existences in Christ and three relative existences in the Trinity. For Suarez the relations have their own proper existence even according to their "esse ad". He found it difficult to solve the objection arising from the axiom that two things that are the same as a third are also the same as each other. But the divine persons are the same as a third, namely, the divine essence. Therefore they are the same as each other.

Suarez did not know how to solve this objection except by denying the major with respect to God.[233] He was aware of St. Thomas' reply that those things which are the same as a third are the same as each other unless there is present the opposition of relation. But because he had a different concept of relation he held that this convenient answer did not solve the difficulty since nothing like this is found in creatures. Therefore he concluded that this axiom taken in its most universal extension, prescinding from created and uncreated being, is false for, while it is true in certain cases, that is, in creatures, it cannot be inferred for the entire extension of being.

This is the same as saying that this axiom does not apply to God. But this axiom is directly derived from the principle of contradiction or identity, which patently must be applicable to God analogically because it is the law of being as being, the most universal law therefore, apart from which there is nothing but absurdity, which would be unthinkable.

The principal difference between Suarez and St. Thomas is that for Suarez the "esse ad" of a relation is real by reason of itself, just as he held that the created essence is actual by reason of itself and is therefore not really distinct from its existence. Suarez did not conceive being other than that which is, not as that by which a thing is. He did not admit a real distinction between essence, either of a created substance or accident, and being. This is the foundation of the difference. Whether he wished it or not, Suarez multiplied the absolute in God, and therefore the objection based on the principle of identity remained unanswerable.[234]