Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, what "real" (ly reales) signifies is clear. But why it is added will be stated in the body of the text: namely, because not all relations are real. "That they are in God" (ly sint in Deo) signifies the mode of being (essendi) in God formally. And since it is asked in the plural number, it is also intimated that he intends to ask whether there are several real relations in God, and that the question concerns relations ad intra: for relations ad extra and those treated above¹ have already been discussed, and they would belong more to God with respect to other things than to God in himself according to himself, which is the way we now speak of him.

II. In the body he does three things: first, he proposes the responsive conclusion; second, he treats that term real²; third, he proves the conclusion³.

As to the first point, the responsive conclusion to the question is affirmative: Certain relations are really present in the divine persons.

III. As to the second point, the reason is given why "reality" is added above relation; and what a real respect is, and what one of reason⁴. The reason for the first is the difference between relation and the other genera: for all things of the other genera are according to the thing itself; but of relation some are according to reason only, and some according to the thing itself. – And this difference arises from another, namely that the others, by their proper notion, signify something inhering in a subject; whereas relation, by its proper notion, signifies only a respect to another.

IV. Concerning these statements, there are many doubts. First, concerning the first difference, on the side of either extreme. On the side, indeed, of relation, thus. Relation, insofar as it is one genus distinct from the other genera, according to its own formal ratio, is a real being: since it is a part, member, or mode of real being divided into the ten genera. Therefore it is false that this is singular in the genus relation, that some things are found according to reason. – And if it were said that here we are not speaking of relation insofar as it is one genus, but insofar as it is a certain analogate common to all relatives: this response is refuted by the text itself, which distinguishes relation from the other genera. For what is distinct from the genera is evidently one of the genera.

On the side of the remaining genera, however, there is doubt: since in all of them something seems to be found according to the thing, and something according to the concept. For the rose understood is a substance according to the concept; and likewise the abstracted triangle; and so with the others. Therefore it is not proper to relation to have something according to the thing, and something according to the concept. – In the genus of quantity, too, species are found in both ways: real ones indeed, as body; but ones of reason formally, as time, at least according to St. Thomas⁵. Therefore.

V. Concerning the second difference, a doubt likewise arises on both sides. On the side of relation, it is similar to what was said above ⁶: because the genus relation does not signify only the "toward" by its proper account, but toward something real; otherwise a part of real being would not be formally such.

On the part of the other genera, however: since action, according to its proper meaning, does not signify something inhering in a subject, as St. Thomas also attests elsewhere, namely in Questions on the Power of God De Potentia, question VII, article 2. Therefore not every other genus of accident signifies, according to its proper meaning, something inhering in a subject.

VI. To these doubts, answering in reverse order, so that we may begin from the root, it must be said that toward something, or relation, according to its proper concept is nothing other than that by which it is first distinguished from all else. This, however, is neither being an entity, nor being an accident or inherent thing, nor being a real what, since all of these are common: rather it is being toward another, which the simple expression best signifies by the term toward. And therefore, whenever we speak of toward something, or of relation, according to its proper concept, we are speaking of "toward." And since many relations are real, many are of reason only, and each has its own toward; it follows that toward, insofar as it is "toward," need be neither a real entity nor an entity of reason, but may indifferently be either. Nor is it unfitting that something thus abstracted from the real should be modified, in respect of a certain part of itself, toward the difference of real being. And since in that part the term toward is included formally as its distinctive property, though modified, therefore also, when speaking of real relations formally according to that which is proper to them, whereby they are distinguished from the rest of the genus of things, one can understand it of toward insofar as it is "toward." And thus it is clear that it makes no difference sometimes to speak of toward something and of real toward something, namely when we speak of them according to that simple condition which is proper to them: for it must be interpreted in both places as toward; for this alone among simple things is proper to itself, as is evident from the matter itself.

VII. And by this the answer is clear both to the first and to the second doubt concerning the ad aliquid⁷. And the reason is evident why it is said that relations, according to their proper intelligible content, posit nothing in the relative, etc. For all these things, insofar as they proceed from the reason of the ad ut sic, are true; although from such an ad, say a real one, they would be false. And therefore one must speak cautiously. For one must speak in one way of the species, and universally of relations that are necessarily real by their proper intelligible contents, such as paternity and filiation, and others of this kind; and in another way of relations absolutely: for these signify only an ad aliquid, whereas those signify an ad aliquid that is real.

VIII. To the objection from the side of the other genera in the second doubt⁸, it is said that the text does not compare ad aliquid to all the other genera in the second division, but to the absolute genera, namely quantity and quality, which alone are expressed in the text. That this is the mind of St. Thomas is attested by his words in I, dist. XXVI, qu. II, art. 1, where he expressly explains all the other absolute forms in this division. And therefore, if action is an absolute form (whatever may be said about its mode of signifying, of which the Author speaks in the Quaestiones de Potentia), on the part of the thing it exists and has that it be signified as inhering. But if it is a respective form, nothing stands in the way of our proposal.

It could nevertheless be said, if the extension to other genera is granted, that by ly inhaerens is understood, not what the word inhaerens formally signifies, but every mode of being which, by its formal account, signifies having esse in the order of real things. And in this way all the other genera besides ad aliquid are included, even substance; indeed also the remaining beings, whether within a genus or outside any genus. That this is the meaning of the text can be gathered from the fact that neither the proper account of quality nor that of quantity consists in inesse, since inesse is common to all the genera of accident; rather it consists in a certain mode of inessing, yet such a one that it posits something in the order of real things by what is proper and peculiar to it alone. The opposite of this the text was intending to show in the case of relation.

IX. To the first doubt concerning the other genera⁹, it is said that it proceeds from a bad understanding of the assigned difference. For relation is, so to speak, a certain essence, to whose subjective parts it is repugnant to have being in the nature of things, and they claim for themselves being of reason only; but to certain others it belongs to have being in the nature of things. And again, relation is such a being that the addition of being in reason is not a diminishing condition, as in other things. For a rose according to reason is not a rose; nor is Homer in opinion Homer; but a relation in reason is a true relation. And again, relation is not a being of nature in one respect and of reason in another, say completively: but sometimes it is simply a being of reason.

And by this the response to the objections is clear. For time, and things like it, depend on reason only in a completive way. Nor is the rose or the triangle, according to its esse of reason, a true rose or a true triangle. Nor is the distinction of the rose in its esse of nature and its esse of reason a distinction of different quiddities, one of which would be a real being and the other a being of reason, as we said could happen in the case of relation; rather, it is a distinction of one and the same thing according to diverse modes of being, namely simply or in a certain respect.

X. What, however, a real relation is, and what a relation of reason¹⁰ is explained by distinguishing that a relation sometimes exists in the natures of things themselves, and sometimes only in the apprehension of the mind. The former indeed occurs when two things have an inclination or order toward one another, as is clear in the case of a heavy body and the place below; the latter, however, when the mind confers one upon the other, as is shown in species and genus.

XI. Note two things here. First, the text is to be interpreted as concerning real mutual relations (since it is of these that we are speaking), and of the fundamental order or inclination fundamentali, as was explained at qu. XIII¹¹ – Second, by the name rationis conferentis is to be understood the intellect understanding one thing in comparison with another in any way whatever, so that the doctrine may be universal. In how many ways this can happen, you have in I Sent., dist. XXVI, qu. II, art. 1, and Qq. de Potentia, qu. VII, art. 11.

XII. Concerning this part a doubt arises from distinction XLV of the First Book¹² of Scotus himself, who held that not every relation of reason is from the intellect, but that some are from the will, and some from the imagination. And he proves this by the following argument. Every power capable of having an act concerning an object existing not as existing, and of comparing that object to another to which it is not compared by the nature of the thing, can cause in the object, as it is an object, a relation of it to the other; but the will is of this kind, since it can use God with respect to a creature, and similarly in other cases: therefore it can cause such a relation. Then further: such a relation, it is agreed, is not real; therefore it is a relation of reason, yet not through the work of the intellect.

XIII. To this, from Books V and VI of the Metaphysics, it must be said that since being (ens) is not found as distinct and treated except in being in itself, divided into the ten genera, and being by accident, discussed in Book VI of the Metaphysics¹³, and true being, begun in Book V¹⁴ and determined in Book VI¹⁵; fiction seems to posit another mode of being. Aristotle himself thought that being was sufficiently determined in the soul, when he determined concerning true being. Hence such relations have no other actual being (esse) than because the proposition about them is true.

It must be distinguished, however, that a relation of reason can be considered in two ways. In one way, according to its being: and thus it has being only in being understood. In another way, according to its proximate cause, or foundation: and thus it is caused both by the will and by the imagination. Indeed, even by exterior sight: for sight, by attaining color, causes in it the relation of the seen to the seer. And likewise the right side of an animal causes the relation of rightness in the column. And yet these relations are not actual except when they are understood. Hence, since the will of itself, considered as distinct from reason, and likewise any other power, cause a relation in the object in this way—because they do not cause otherwise than if they were natural causes which, acting upon a disposed patient, etc., would bring it about that a real relation resulted—they also, in this way, bring it about that a relation of reason results, whenever an ens rationis is capable of being. But this, since it consists in being understood, is never actual unless it is understood: for with the aforementioned foundations preexisting, it exists as it were habitually. Therefore Scotus's major premise, understood concerning causality and relation of reason according to actual being, is false; but true according to fundamental being. And on this account the text says that a respect of this kind is in the mere apprehension of reason.

XIV. That the third¹⁶, the proposed conclusion is proved as follows. Whenever something proceeds from a principle of the same nature, both are of the same order, and consequently they have real respects toward one another: but the processions in God are in the identity of nature: therefore the relations according to the divine processions are real, which was the point intended. – All things are clear from what has been said.

XV. In response to the first, note, newly, that, because predication is founded upon being-in (inesse), by the same reason by which a relation, from its proper notion, does not inhere, and yet according to the reality of things sometimes does inhere, it is also said that it is not predicated, and yet it is predicated in this way, namely, in the manner of an ordering toward another.

XVI. In response to the second, you have it that the relation of specific or generic identity is a mutual real relation, from that word, "It is otherwise, however" etc. And even if this were not said, it could be proven by reason. For two humanities are no less alike in nature than two whitenesses: but the relation of specific similarity between two white things is real: therefore also between two men, etc. And this is very much to be noted and attended to, when one treats of the foundation of a relation, or of the distinction of a relation from its foundation. For you have from this both that a relation is founded immediately in substance, and that it is really distinct from its foundation: since it is established, according to St. Thomas¹⁷, that relations of this kind are accidents, placed in the category of Relation.

Nor does the first statement meet any objection from the fact that elsewhere¹⁸ it is said that a relation must be founded in substance through the mediation of the other genera, on account of its weakness. For this is to be understood not really, but formally. For similarity is a relation said to be founded upon quantity, because one founds it, as is clear in V Metaphysics¹⁹; and yet it is evident that, in reality, qualities, and universally forms of the same character, found it—under the aspect, however, of one, insofar as one makes the same in substance, equal in quantity, similar in quality. – But how the remaining statements are consonant with what was said must be examined later²⁰.