THIRD ARTICLE: WHETHER THE ESSENTIAL NAMES CAN BE PREDICATED SINGLY OF THE THREE PERSONS

The question is whether the essential names are predicated of the three persons only singly or also in the plural, for example, whether we can say, in God there are three Gods, or at least three divine beings.

In reply we refer to the distinction between the substantive and adjective. Those things which signify the essence substantively are predicated of the three persons only singly and not in the plural; thus we do not say, three Gods. Those things, however, which signify the essence adjectively are predicated of the three persons in the plural: thus we say three wise beings.

It should be noted that what grammarians today call substantive and adjective were formerly called a substantive noun, as stone, wood; and an adjective noun, as white. It was called adjective because it denoted something that inhered in a subject like an accident.

The point is that a substance is in itself and not in another, and thus it has in itself its own unity or plurality. Therefore if a substantive noun is predicated in the plural it signifies a plurality of substances, for example, many men, in which the essence or substantial form is multiplied. Therefore we do not say, three Gods.

On the other hand an accident is not in itself but in another, and therefore the accident receives unity or plurality from its subject. In adjective nouns, therefore, the singularity or plurality follows on the subject or suppositum, and the multiplication of the suppositum suffices without the multiplication of the form, for example, if the same whiteness pertains to two supposita, we may say, two that are white.

Thus we do not say, three Gods, but three divine beings, three who exist, three who are eternal, three uncreated, if these terms are taken adjectively. In the Athanasian Creed we read: "The three persons are co-eternal together and co-equal." If these words are taken substantively, we say One uncreated, as we read in the same Creed, "is also they are not three uncreated, nor three infinites: but one Uncreated, and one Infinite."

Reply to the second objection. St. Thomas notes that in the Hebrew "Eloim" is used in the plural. But we do not say in the plural, Gods or substances, lest the plurality refer to the substance.

Reply to the third objection. That which pertains to a relation is predicated in the plural; that which refers to the substance is predicated in the singular. It is better to say three real relations than three relative realities, because the relations in God are not multiplied according to their "esse in" but according to their "esse ad". St. Augustine is quoted here as saying, "The very Trinity is the highest thing."