FIFTH ARTICLE: WHETHER THE POWER TO GENERATE SIGNIFIES THE RELATION AND NOT THE ESSENCE

Reply. The power of generating signifies directly the divine nature and indirectly the relation of paternity. This is another way of saying what was said at the beginning of this treatise in the question on the processions, namely, the proximate principle quo of the processions is the divine nature itself as modified by the relations of paternity and spiration. In the present article this principle quo is called the notional power of generating or spirating.

St. Thomas offers proof for this for the power of generating, which is more easily understood than the second power: In the created order every agent produces what is like to itself according to the form by which it acts inasmuch as it determines its production according to its own proper determination. Thus a cow generates a cow, a horse generates a horse, and everything that generates produces something like itself according to its species or nature. Hence in the one who generates, the nature is the principle quo of generation; thus Socrates generates as a man and generates a man. If Socrates generated as Socrates he would generate Socrates. Therefore the active principle of generation is directly the nature of the generator and indirectly it is the personality of the generator, for when Socrates generates, the principle quo of generation is human nature as it is in Socrates; so also in God the principle quo of generation is the divine nature as it is in the Father. Similarly the superficies of the triangle is communicated to the second and third angles as it is in the first angle. Particular attention should be given to what St. Thomas says at the end of the body of the article: "In created things the individual form constitutes the person of the generator, but it is not that by which the generator generates, otherwise Socrates would generate Socrates. Hence paternity cannot be taken as that by which the Father generates, but it must be understood as the form that constitutes the person of the generator, otherwise the Father would generate a Father."

According to St. Thomas, then, the personality of Socrates is the individual form, namely, that by which something is what it is, or the first subject of attribution.[569] But this individual form of Socrates is not matter marked by quantity, or the individuating conditions, since it is called the individual form; nor is this form Socrates' existence, which is a contingent predicate in Socrates.[570]