FOURTH ARTICLE: WHETHER THE SON IS EQUAL TO THE FATHER IN GREATNESS

State of the question. We are dealing here with the equality of perfection for the purpose of explaining Christ's words, "The Father is greater than 1."[585] The difficulty arises because paternity pertains to dignity and does not belong to the Son. This is a statement of the question on which we touched earlier, namely, whether paternity is a simply perfect perfection properly so called, although the Son does not possess it. It is the same question as in the first article with the special difficulty that arises from the fact that paternity appears to be a special dignity.

Reply. The reply is in the affirmative: the Son is equal to the Father in perfection. This doctrine is of faith from the Scriptures: "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God."[586]

The theological reason is as follows: It is of the nature of paternity and filiation that the Son by generation attains to the possession of that perfect nature which is in the Father as it is possessed by the Father. And the Son attains to that perfect nature unless the power of generation is defective. But in God the power of generation is not defective; it is exercised most perfectly from all eternity. Therefore the Son possesses the entire perfection of the Father from all eternity.

Reply to the first objection. Only as man did Christ say, "The Father is greater than 1."

Reply to the second objection. The difficulty is that the Son lacks the dignity of paternity. St. Thomas replied: "Paternity is the dignity of the Father just as the essence is the dignity of the Father, since the dignity is absolute and pertains to the essence. Just as the same essence which is the paternity in the Father is filiation in the Son, so the same dignity which is paternity in the Father is filiation in the Son. But in the Father this dignity is according to the relation of the giver, and in the Son it is according to the relation of the recipient." But the divine generation is without the imperfection of the transition from potency to act since divine generation is not a mutation but the communication of uncreated being itself. Similarly, in the equilateral triangle the superficies is the same in the first angle and in the second, but in the first it is according to the relation of the giver and in the second according to the relation of the recipient. That is, as we have said above, the relations as such, according to their "esse ad", prescind from perfection and imperfection. Hence they are not simply simple perfections properly so called; for, although they do not involve any imperfection, it is not better to have them than not to have them. Otherwise the Son would lack some perfection and so would not be God.

St. Thomas points out that "a relation, inasmuch as it is a relation, does not have that which makes it something but only that by which it has a reference to something."[587] In this reply he says, "The thing in the something to which the reference is, is changed, " since the same dignity which in the Father is paternity is filiation in the Son. Thus divine filiation is not less perfect than divine paternity, just as in the triangle either angle at the base is not less perfect than the angle at the apex.

Reply to the third objection. The three persons together do not constitute greater perfection than one person alone, because the entire, infinite perfection of the divine nature is in each person, just as the superficies of the equilateral triangle is in each of the angles.

St. Thomas also points out in this article that in God relation and person are not something universal because all the relations are one according to essence and being. Humanity, however, is something universal, that is, it is apt to be in many through the multiplication of the form received in different parts of matter.