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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.
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