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State of the question. It is asked whether there is a
potentia of generating and spirating in God. Following
St. Augustine, St. Thomas replies in the affirmative
because potentia is nothing else than the principle of some
act, and in this instance the potentia is active. As he
says in the reply to the second difficulty, passive
potentia cannot exist in God, nor can there be any power
which is necessarily opposed for then the potentia would be
passive.
A difficulty is raised in the third objection. Potentia
is predicated of God with respect to certain effects (in
this way we speak of God's omnipotence); but power is
not predicated of God with respect to the divine
operations, divine intellection and will, because God is
pure act. Therefore in God there is no intellective
faculty but only intellect subsisting per se, nor is there
a volitional faculty. Indeed, the divine persons are not
effects of God, and therefore we cannot speak of the
potentia of generating or spirating in God.
Reply. According to St. Thomas' reply the potentia
of generating is not properly the principle of active
generation but the principle of the begotten person, just
as the creative power is not the principle of the creative
action, which is not an accident in God, but the
principle of the created effect.
As Billuart points out, these notional powers, that
is, the powers of generating and spirating, are not
virtually distinct from the acts because there is no
foundation in God for conceiving Him as being in potency
to anything since He is pure act.
Thus in God the intellect is not virtually distinct from
intellection since God's intellect is intellection
subsisting per se, noesis noeseos Similarly God's will
is not virtually distinct from His love, by which He
loves Himself necessarily, and loves other things
freely. This unique act of love is the indifferent
mistress of those goods which are able not to be.
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