FIRST ARTICLE: WHETHER A RELATION IS THE SAME AS A PERSON

St. Thomas recalls that an incommunicable relation as subsisting is the same as a person, which is something subsisting and incommunicable. Moreover, in his reply to the first objection he shows that personal properties, like paternity and filiation, are not really distinct from the persons because as God and the Deity are the same (God is His own Deity), so the Father and paternity are the same. In God the abstract is not distinct from the concrete because there is no matter in God; on the contrary, humanity is only an essential part of the concrete man, who besides has individuating notes. God, however, is pure form without matter, and He is His own being and His own act. Properties that are not personal, such as active spiration, are not really distinct from the persons to whom they are attributed, because the simplicity of God excludes every real distinction except where there is opposition of relation.