FIFTH ARTICLE: WHETHER ESSENTIAL TERMS TAKEN IN THE ABSTRACT CAN BE SUBSTITUTED FOR PERSON

The reply is in the negative from the Fourth Lateran Council,[536] which declared against the error of Abbot Joachim: "The divine essence does not generate, nor is it generated, but it is the Father who generates and the Son who is generated." Abbot Joachim did not advert to the fact that the truth of a proposition depends not only on the thing signified but also on the manner of signification; the mode must also conform to the truth.

The reason for this reply is as follows: although the Deity is God without any real distinction, we cannot say that the Deity generates although we can say that God generates, because the formal signification is not the same. "Deity" signifies the divine essence in itself, but "God" signifies the divine essence in the suppositum or in a person that possesses the divine essence. Only by reason of the suppositum of the Father is this proposition true: God generates, that is, inasmuch as "God" is substituted for "the Father."

To say that the Deity generates and that the Deity is generated is to imply in the Deity a real distinction, which can exist only between the persons according to the opposition of relation, since no person can generate himself.

Reply to the fifth objection. But we can say that the divine essence is God generating or that which generates because here the predicate is used in place of the name of the person, and, as we shall see in the following article, we can say that the divine essence is the Father according to an identical predication.