FIRST ARTICLE: WHETHER IN GOD THE ESSENCE IS THE SAME AS A PERSON

State of the question. In this title "the same" signifies real identity. It appears that the essence is not the same as the person because there are three persons and only one essence. Moreover, the persons are distinct and the essence is not distinct. Finally, the person is subject to the essence inasmuch as the person is the first subject of attribution and nothing is subject to itself.

Reply. The reply is in the affirmative: the persons are not really distinguished from the essence. This doctrine was defined by the Fourth Lateran Council: "In God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, because each of the three persons is that thing which is the substance, the essence, or the divine nature."[525] We have treated of this matter in question 28, where we referred to the definition of the Council of Reims (1148) against Gilbert Porretanus. There we also expounded Scotus' theory, which tries to establish between the divine persons and the divine essence a distinction called formal-actual on the part of the thing.

In the sed contra St. Thomas quotes the authority of St. Augustine: "When we say the person of the Father we are saying nothing else than the substance of the Father."[526] We should note that the words "nothing else" mean not really distinct. This point is of major importance with regard to St. Thomas, doctrine about the real distinction between a created essence and being. Although St. Thomas does not often say expressly that a real distinction exists between created essence and being, he often affirms that opinion. For example, in the Contra Gentes he says: "It is proper in every substance, except subsisting being itself, that the substance itself be one thing and the being another."[527] In other words, antecedent to the consideration of our minds Peter is not his being; his being, which is in him as a contingent attribute, is something other than his essence. We are now asking whether a divine person is something other than the divine essence. St. Augustine answered in the negative.

In the body of the article St. Thomas coordinates and synthesizes the conceptual analysis given previously.[528] He reasons as follows: Relations inhere accidentally in creatures, but in God they are the essence itself because their "esse in" is substantial. But a divine person, for example, the Father, signifies a subsisting relation.[529] Therefore the divine persons are not really distinct from the divine essence although they are really distinct from each other because of the opposition of relation. Symbolically, in the triangle the three angles are really distinct from each other but they are not distinct from the common surface.

Reply to the first objection. This does not involve a contradiction because the relations are not distinguished from each other according to their "esse in" but only according to their "esse ad" because of their relative opposition.

Reply to the second objection. But the divine persons are distinguished from the essence just as the divine attributes are distinguished from one another, and this is sufficient so that something may be affirmed of the essence and denied of the persons; for example, the essence is communicable but paternity is not, just as mercy is the principle of forgiveness and justice is not.

Reply to the third objection. If it should be said that nothing is subject to itself, the reply is that the divine persons are analogically considered as the subject of the divine essence without any real distinction, whereas in sensible things there is a real distinction between the matter, by which the thing is individuated, and the form which is given to this subject; similarly in created things a real distinction exists between substance and the accidents.

Scotus raised certain objections against this article, but we have already considered them together with Cajetan's replies.[530] We recall here that the formal-actual distinction on the part of the thing which was proposed by Scotus is an impossible middle between a real distinction and a distinction of reason. A distinction either precedes the consideration of our minds and then it is real, however weak it may be, or it does not precede the consideration of our minds and follows and then it is not real but of reason although it may often be founded in the thing and then it is called virtual. In the present instance the distinction in question is a virtual distinction of a minor order after the manner of that which is implicit and explicit, that is, the essence of God as understood by us implicitly contains the persons in act and the Deity as seen by the blessed and as it is in itself explicitly contains the persons in act.

No middle can be found between the distinction which precedes the consideration of our minds and the distinction which does not so precede. Scotus, theory of the formal-actual distinction on the part of the things sins against the rules of division. A division, as Aristotle pointed out, must divide the whole, and in order that it be adequate it must be into two members opposed to each other by affirmation and negation and not into three members. In the Porphyrian tree substance is divided per se, adequately and progressively into members contradictorily opposed to each other: corporeal and incorporeal substance; animate and inanimate corporeal substances; sensitive and non-sensitive living substances; sensitive rational and sensitive non-rational. Distinction must be divided in the same way: real distinction or that which precedes the consideration of our minds and the non-real, which does not precede the consideration of our minds; between these two we cannot conceive, nor can there be, a middle, because a thing either is or is not antecedent to the consideration of our minds.

Hence distinction, which is the absence of identity, must be divided immediately, not into three members (of reason, formal-actual on the part of the thing, and real), but into two members opposed to each other by contradiction:[531]

1. Real distinction.

2. Distinction of reason, either founded on the thing, or virtual, or not founded on the thing.

The major virtual distinction after the manner of that which is excluded and excluding, for example, between genus and difference.

The minor virtual distinction after the manner of that which is implicit and explicit, for example, between the attributes of God.

A similar case arises in the division of divine science.[532]

We recall here Cajetan's admirable reply to Scotus on this question: "The Deity as it is in itself is above being and above unity, it is above all simply simple perfections, which it contains formally and eminently in their formal natures." These words of Cajetan are the sublimest comment on this entire treatise.[533]

"We fall into error," says Cajetan, "Then we proceed from the absolute and the relative to God, because the distinction between absolute and relative is conceived by us as prior to God and therefore we try to place God in one or the other of these two members of the distinction. Whereas the matter is entirely different. The divine nature is prior to being and all its differences, it transcends all being and is above unity... . Thus in God there is but one formal nature or reason, and this is neither purely absolute nor purely relative, not purely communicable or purely incommunicable, but it contains most eminently and formally both that which is of absolute perfection and whatever the relative Trinity requires."

This formal and most eminent nature is the Deity as it is in itself, and when the blessed behold God they see no distinction between the essence and paternity although the essence is communicable while the paternity is not. It appears therefore, as it were a posteriori, that the Deity is above being, although the Deity formally and eminently contains being; a sign of this is the fact that, whereas in the natural order being is particible, as are also good, truth, intellect, and will, the Deity as such cannot be participated in naturally by even the highest angel or creatable angel. Participation in the Deity can take place only through grace, which disposes us to see God immediately as He sees Himself, although not comprehensively.

The Deity inasmuch as it is above being, unity, intellect, and will is that great darkness of the mystics because it transcends the limits of intelligibility in this life.[534]