|
Objection 1: It would seem that an exclusive diction can be joined
to the personal term, even though the predicate is common. For our
Lord speaking to the Father, said: "That they may know Thee, the
only true God" (Jn. 17:3). Therefore the Father alone is
true God.
Objection 2: Further, He said: "No one knows the Son but the
Father" (Mt. 11:27); which means that the Father alone
knows the Son. But to know the Son is common (to the persons).
Therefore the same conclusion follows.
Objection 3: Further, an exclusive diction does not exclude what
enters into the concept of the term to which it is joined. Hence it
does not exclude the part, nor the universal; for it does not follow
that if we say "Socrates alone is white," that therefore "his hand
is not white," or that "man is not white." But one person is in
the concept of another; as the Father is in the concept of the Son;
and conversely. Therefore, when we say, The Father alone is God,
we do not exclude the Son, nor the Holy Ghost; so that such a mode
of speaking is true.
Objection 4: Further, the Church sings: "Thou alone art Most
High, O Jesus Christ."
On the contrary, This proposition "The Father alone is God"
includes two assertions---namely, that the Father is God, and
that no other besides the Father is God. But this second proposition
is false, for the Son is another from the Father, and He is God.
Therefore this is false, The Father alone is God; and the same of
the like sayings.
I answer that, When we say, "The Father alone is God," such a
proposition can be taken in several senses. If "alone" means
solitude in the Father, it is false in a categorematical sense; but
if taken in a syncategorematical sense it can again be understood in
several ways. For if it exclude (all others) from the form of the
subject, it is true, the sense being "the Father alone is
God"---that is, "He who with no other is the Father, is
God." In this way Augustine expounds when he says (De Trin.
vi, 6): "We say the Father alone, not because He is separate
from the Son, or from the Holy Ghost, but because they are not the
Father together with Him." This, however, is not the usual way of
speaking, unless we understand another implication, as though we said
"He who alone is called the Father is God." But in the strict
sense the exclusion affects the predicate. And thus the proposition is
false if it excludes another in the masculine sense; but true if it
excludes it in the neuter sense; because the Son is another person
than the Father, but not another thing; and the same applies to the
Holy Ghost. But because this diction "alone," properly speaking,
refers to the subject, it tends to exclude another Person rather than
other things. Hence such a way of speaking is not to be taken too
literally, but it should be piously expounded, whenever we find it in
an authentic work.
Reply to Objection 1: When we say, "Thee the only true God,"
we do not understand it as referring to the person of the Father, but
to the whole Trinity, as Augustine expounds (De Trin. vi, 9).
Or, if understood of the person of the Father, the other persons are
not excluded by reason of the unity of essence; in so far as the word
"only" excludes another thing, as above explained.
The same Reply can be given to OBJ 2. For an essential term
applied to the Father does not exclude the Son or the Holy Ghost,
by reason of the unity of essence. Hence we must understand that in
the text quoted the term "no one" is not the same as "no man,"
which the word itself would seem to signify (for the person of the
Father could not be excepted), but is taken according to the usual
way of speaking in a distributive sense, to mean any rational nature.
Reply to Objection 3: The exclusive diction does not exclude what
enters into the concept of the term to which it is adjoined, if they do
not differ in "suppositum," as part and universal. But the Son
differs in "suppositum" from the Father; and so there is no parity.
Reply to Objection 4: We do not say absolutely that the Son alone
is Most High; but that He alone is Most High "with the Holy
Ghost, in the glory of God the Father."
|
|