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Objection 1: It would seem that this term "person" cannot be
common to the three persons. For nothing is common to the three
persons but the essence. But this term "person" does not signify the
essence directly. Therefore it is not common to all three.
Objection 2: Further, the common is the opposite to the
incommunicable. But the very meaning of person is that it is
incommunicable; as appears from the definition given by Richard of
St. Victor (Question 29, Article 3, ad 4). Therefore this
term "person" is not common to all the three persons.
Objection 3: Further, if the name "person" is common to the
three, it is common either really, or logically. But it is not so
really; otherwise the three persons would be one person; nor again is
it so logically; otherwise person would be a universal. But in God
there is neither universal nor particular; neither genus nor species,
as we proved above (Question 3, Article 5). Therefore this term
'person' is not common to the three.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. vii, 4) that when we
ask, "Three what?" we say, "Three persons," because what a
person is, is common to them.
I answer that, The very mode of expression itself shows that this
term "person" is common to the three when we say "three persons";
for when we say "three men" we show that "man" is common to the
three. Now it is clear that this is not community of a real thing, as
if one essence were common to the three; otherwise there would be only
one person of the three, as also one essence.
What is meant by such a community has been variously determined by
those who have examined the subject. Some have called it a community
of exclusion, forasmuch as the definition of "person" contains the
word "incommunicable." Others thought it to be a community of
intention, as the definition of person contains the word
"individual"; as we say that to be a "species" is common to horse
and ox. Both of these explanations, however, are excluded by the
fact that "person" is not a name of exclusion nor of intention, but
the name of a reality. We must therefore resolve that even in human
affairs this name "person" is common by a community of idea, not as
genus or species, but as a vague individual thing. The names of
genera and species, as man or animal, are given to signify the common
natures themselves, but not the intentions of those common natures,
signified by the terms "genus" or "species." The vague individual
thing, as "some man," signifies the common nature with the
determinate mode of existence of singular things---that is,
something self-subsisting, as distinct from others. But the name of
a designated singular thing signifies that which distinguishes the
determinate thing; as the name Socrates signifies this flesh and this
bone. But there is this difference---that the term "some man"
signifies the nature, or the individual on the part of its nature,
with the mode of existence of singular things; while this name
"person" is not given to signify the individual on the part of the
nature, but the subsistent reality in that nature. Now this is common
in idea to the divine persons, that each of them subsists distinctly
from the others in the divine nature. Thus this name "person" is
common in idea to the three divine persons.
Reply to Objection 1: This argument is founded on a real
community.
Reply to Objection 2: Although person is incommunicable, yet the
mode itself of incommunicable existence can be common to many.
Reply to Objection 3: Although this community is logical and not
real, yet it does not follow that in God there is universal or
particular, or genus, or species; both because neither in human
affairs is the community of person the same as community of genus or
species; and because the divine persons have one being; whereas genus
and species and every other universal are predicated of many which
differ in being.
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