Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, note that this article contains within itself two questions, namely, Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son; and, Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son in such a way that, if he did not proceed from him, he would not be personally distinct from him. The first question is disputed between the Greeks and the Latins; the second, however, among the Latins themselves.

Wherefore, a doubt immediately arises concerning the title. Since the questions are equal in number to those which we truly know¹: but this question is one, and two things are known, as is clear in the body of the text. – And this is especially unfitting for one writing article by article: it is his task to examine each question individually, one by one.

II. To this a twofold answer can be given. First, because, as is said in II Poster.², to ask whether the moon is eclipsed and to ask whether there is some cause of the eclipse of the moon are one and the same; so likewise to ask whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son and to ask whether there is some reason for his procession from the Son are one and the same. Now, when the question is put in this way, it is evident that it is best answered both that it is so, and that it is so on account of such a reason. Hence in this article there is no defect; rather, in answering, what was contained implicitly in the title has been made explicit. – Nor was it necessary to divide the question asked and the reason of what was asked into two articles: otherwise every article would have to be divided into two.

Second, it is said that, because in every object of knowable inquiry there is understood per se and insofar as it is such, it is not the present intention to discuss the procession of the Holy Spirit in whatever manner, but per se. Thus what is intended is: Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, that is: Whether it belongs to the proper ratio of the person of the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Son. For what belongs to something per se belongs to it by its own proper ratio. In answering this question affirmatively, therefore, one must not only show that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, but must claim this for him on account of his personal property or form: otherwise it would not be shown that this belongs to him insofar as he is such.

For a fuller clarification of this, know that it can befit some produced thing in two ways to be produced necessarily by several divine persons: in one way, on the part of the producer; in another way, on the part of the thing produced. An example of the first is found in the production of a creature by God: for it is necessarily from the three persons, because the works of the Trinity ad extra are undivided, and not by reason of the thing produced; since a creature could be produced, and have its esse just as it is, even if it were produced by the Father alone. An example of the second would be had if a creature were deprived of its formal constitutive principle if it were not from several persons. As to the matter at hand, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son necessarily on the part of the producer, according to all: because all things that are the Father's and are not repugnant to the Son are necessarily common to the Son himself. But whether he proceeds necessarily from the Son on the part of the thing produced is brought into doubt. Yet because what befits a produced thing per se befits it on the part of itself (for other things befit it per accidens, or almost per accidens), therefore, speaking per se, the question is asked: Whether the Holy Spirit has from his own constitutive and distinctive principle that he proceeds from the Son.

III. In the body he does two things: first, he answers the question; second, he argues against the Greeks³.

As to the first point, a single conclusion is set forth in answer to the question, in the affirmative, namely: The Holy Spirit necessarily proceeds from the Son. – And it is proved by three arguments⁴.

The first is this. If the Holy Spirit were not from the Son, He could not be personally distinguished from Him: therefore. – And the inference is proved thus. The divine Persons are not distinguished from one another by anything absolute, but only by relations of opposed origin, according to being principle and from a principle: therefore, if the Holy Spirit did not have such a relation of origin from the Son, He would not be personally distinguished from Him.

The assumption is proved with respect to each of its parts individually. The first, namely not through something absolute, because the unity of essence would be lacking, since every absolute is essential. The second, namely that it is through relations alone, follows manifestly from the first. The third, however, namely opposed, is made clear from this: that in the Father there are in one person two relations which do not distinguish it, because they are not relatively opposed. The fourth, however, namely of origin, because in God there cannot be other opposed relations except of origin (which must be understood of proper relations). Finally the fifth, namely according to principle and from a principle, follows manifestly from what precedes.

The consequence is proved as follows. Given the assumption, either the Son proceeds from the Holy Spirit, or conversely; but no one says the first: therefore it is necessary that the Holy Spirit be from the Son.

IV. Concerning the conditional assumed, and its proof, a doubt arises from Scotus, in the First Book, distinction XI, question II, who holds the opposite. And he argues against the foundation of the position, namely, only relative opposition distinguishes really in the divine, from four heads.

First. The disparation of formal reasons that are really incompossible in the same supposit distinguishes really wherever it is found: but two total modes of taking the same nature, namely by way of nativity and of procession, are disparate, and in the divine in the aforesaid way: therefore not only relative opposition distinguishes really the divine persons. – In accordance with this motive, he resolves the proof brought forward in the text concerning two relations in the Father, saying that it is not the same account of active and passive productions: for one can give being to many; yet it cannot receive being more than once, unless perhaps it should cease to be.

V. And this motive is confirmed on the side of the productions by the arguments of Aureol, in distinction XI of the First Part, question I, article 3⁵, which consist in this: To be generated and to be spirated are incompossible in the same supposit, except that being spirated is conjoined with being generated; therefore they are really distinguished from themselves.

The consequence is plain. And the antecedent, as regards its first part, is evident. As for the second part, however, it is proved in three ways.

First, because whatever belongs to something in the divine agrees with it formally and of itself: therefore incompossibility also belongs to these of itself. – And this is confirmed. Because that incompossibility arises from the order by which one procession presupposes another: but order arises from the formal rationes: therefore they are incompressible first from themselves.

Second, if this incompatibility arises from the fact that being generated is conjoined with spirating, in what genus of cause does spirating give this incompatibility to being generated? Not efficiently or finally, as is evident. Nor formally: for then it would follow that being generated and being spirated⁶ would be formally the same.

Third, because if this incompatibility arises from this source, it is either because to be generated and to spirate are the same in reality, or because they come together simultaneously in the Son, or because one precedes the other. But none of these can be said: because all of these hold for spirating itself with respect to the essence, which is admittedly not incompatible with being spirated.

VI. The second chapter from which Scotus argues is this. If in the Father, per impossibile, there were no active spiration, but it were in the Son alone, there would still be a Trinity of persons: therefore relative opposition is not required between the Holy Spirit and the person from whom He is distinguished. And thus the whole argument collapses.

VII. The third argument is taken from the side of the Son's own constitutive principle. The Son is constituted in personal being (esse personale) by filiation; therefore he is in fact personally distinguished from the Holy Spirit by filiation; therefore, setting aside the active spiration in the Son by an act of the intellect, there still remains that by which the Son is personally distinguished from the Holy Spirit; therefore, etc. — The first inference is proved from that well-known maxim, the constitutive principle is the same as that which distinguishes one from others; as is clear through Porphyry⁷, and inductively.

VIII. The fourth argument, conversely, proceeds from the personal distinctive to the constitutive, thus: The Son is personally distinguished from the Holy Spirit; therefore by something that belongs to the personal notion of the Son himself; therefore not by active spiration; therefore, setting that aside, a personal distinction would still remain between the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The first consequence is proved by induction and by reason. By induction, indeed, since the following holds: A distinguishes B really, therefore it is of its real reason; it distinguishes it essentially, therefore it is of its essential reason; it distinguishes it suppositaliter, therefore it is of the supposital reason; it distinguishes it relatively, therefore it is of the relative reason, etc. — But by reason, because if personal distinction could be brought about by something that is not of the personal reason, then one could not maintain that Christ's humanity is not distinguished personally from the Word: for I would say that it is distinguished personally by something which nevertheless does not constitute a person.

IX. And this argument is confirmed on the side of the personal distinctive, by Aureolus, where above, art. 3⁸, thus. If spiration distinguished the Son from the Holy Spirit personally, the Father and the Son would be one person: but this is false: therefore.

The consequence is proven. Spiration distinguishes the Father and the Son from the Holy Spirit, insofar as they are one spirator; and, according to you, it distinguishes them personally; therefore, to be one spirator is to be one person. And if it is not to be one person, then it does not distinguish personally. — And the argument is founded upon that great maxim: every formal distinctive principle of several things on one side from something else posits in those several things something one, the foundation of that distinction, proportional to it.

X. To make this difficulty evident, although treating of what constitutes persons belongs to Question XL⁹, yet because of the matter discussed here by custom, know that, since in the divine there is formally nothing but substance and relation; and substance, as common, neither constitutes nor distinguishes the hypostases: it must be that both are attributed to relation. Now, since something can belong to relation in two ways, namely according to what is proper to relation, and according to what is common to it and to absolutes; whatever is attributed to the divine relations must belong to them insofar as they are relations. And thus, to constitute and to distinguish belongs to the divine relation precisely as a relative thing. Now between a relative thing and an absolute thing there is this difference, that an absolute thing constitutes a thing in itself, while a relation constitutes a thing toward another. And since each thing, insofar as it is a being, is likewise one and distinct; the absolute constitutive principle, just as it constitutes a being in itself, so distinguishes it in itself, and consequently from all other things: but the constitutive principle in relative being, because it constitutes a being toward one other thing, namely its correlative, so distinguishes it from that one thing only. Otherwise diversity, or distinction, would not be a passion proportionate to being: for the constitutive principle would do more in distinguishing something than in constituting it, which does not seem intelligible. XI. If, therefore, in the divine only relation multiplies the trinity, and this belongs to relation not per accidens, but insofar as it is a relative thing; and a relative thing, as such, constitutes and distinguishes only relatively (for whatever other distinction it has, it does not have insofar as it is a relative thing, but would have it from what is common to it and to absolutes, as is clear in the case of disparation: for this is not proper to relatives, and so cannot be caused by relation according to the intelligible character of relation): it follows that in the divine there is no real distinction except a relative one; so that not only are the distinct things relative, but the distinction itself is relative. And since it is established that relative distinction is not without relative opposition, and is only with respect to a correlative; it manifestly follows that only relative opposition really distinguishes the divine persons.

And failing to notice or penetrate this was the cause of the dissension in this matter. For if they had noticed that the Church, by handing down the unity of substance and the trinity of the related realities, intimates through its formal mode of speaking that this is to be understood formally, they would indeed have seen, from the very fact that the distinction is handed down only of the relatives, that the distinction itself must also belong properly to the relatives insofar as they are relative. This they cannot preserve while they say that the realities are indeed distinct relatives, yet are distinguished without relative opposition, because they are disparate and incompossible, etc.; for these are common features, not proper to relatives, as we have already said.

XII. From these, moreover, we have the answer to the objections concerning the constitutive principle of the Son himself. For when it is said¹⁰ that the constitutive and the distinctive of a thing from every other are the same, a distinction must be made between two kinds of constitutive principle, namely absolute or relative: and what is said is true in the case of absolutes. In the case of relatives, however, a further distinction must be made between two kinds of distinction, namely relative or any other kind whatever, such as disparate, or contrary, or contradictory, or even privative. And it must be said that, speaking of relative distinction, the assumption is most false: for the constitutive principle of something in relative being is not distinctive of it by a relative distinction except from its correlative, on account of the very nature of relation: but from all else it distinguishes it in any other manner. For the double, as such, precisely because it exists only with respect to the half, is not distinguished relatively except from the half: but from the triple and the quadruple, and the other beings, it is indeed distinguished by its doubleness insofar as it is this being, not relatively, as is evident in itself.

And because in the divine persons the person is formally a relation, there is no personal distinction, nor real distinction, unless it be a relative one. And therefore in fact the following is false, the Son is really, or personally, distinguished from the Holy Spirit by filiation: because the following is false, the Son is relatively distinguished from the Holy Spirit by filiation. Although the following is true, the Son is distinguished from the Holy Spirit by filiation. But such a distinction does not suffice for a real distinction: indeed, it is a fallacy of the consequent to argue from a distinction to a relative distinction. And mark this well, because upon it depends the solution of everything.

XIII. From these considerations it is also evident that the sign of the letter concerning the two relations in the Father¹¹ stands in its full force. For it is a sign that only relative distinction and opposition are there real. – Scotus's solution, however¹² is not to the point, because it turns aside from relations to processions: for the letter speaks of relations, not of emanations. Therefore.

XIV. But against these words of St. Thomas some argue more forcefully, speaking of the relations themselves, saying that they err by taking a non-cause as a cause. For the reason why two non-opposite relations do not constitute two persons is not the negation of opposition. Then, because it is established that in fact procession and paternity, and likewise filiation, constitute several persons: and yet procession is not relatively opposed to any of them. – Then, because, if negation were the cause of negation, affirmation would be the cause of affirmation, namely that opposite relations would constitute two persons: but this is known to be false, because common spiration and procession are opposite relations, and yet spiration constitutes no person.

XV. To these things it is briefly answered that they proceed from a bad interpretation of the text. For when it is said that, because they are not opposed, they do not constitute two persons, ly constitute determines ly two, and does not determine ly persons, except insofar as two according to the thing: so that the sense is that, because they are not opposed, they do not constitute two persons, that is, they do not make a real distinction of the persons: for to constitute two, as such, is nothing other than to distinguish, etc. And thus the true and precise cause is assigned. For the Holy Spirit is not constituted in a distinct esse from the Son and the Father, except as spirating: so that spiration constitutes the Father and the Son in this, that they be distinct persons from the Holy Spirit; although they are distinguished from one another by paternity and filiation. – The root of these things, however, is that they are relative realities, etc. For, the unity of substance being preserved, the distinction of persons cannot otherwise be preserved except through relations of origin, of whose intelligible character a real distinction proper to the relations of origin is part: and this is known to come about through opposition, as is clear from what has been said¹³.

Hence the reply to the objections is clear¹⁴. For they equivocate, since they fail to notice that they are dealing with speech when they posit things in a distinct esse; and that in relative matter there is a singular manner of positing and distinguishing, etc.

XVI. But the objects, on the side of the distinctive¹⁵, seem to create difficulty more from the force of the words than from the thing itself. In point of fact, it must be said that spiration really distinguishes the person of the Son from the Holy Spirit relatively: and for this reason it is said to distinguish personally. It is clear, however, that it does not follow that what distinguishes a person relatively must be personality itself, or belong to the intrinsic intelligibility of personality.

But to those who force the words and ask, By what is the Son distinguished personally from the Holy Spirit? it must be said that to distinguish personally, since it is to make formally a person distinct from another person, happens in two ways: in one way, by making both, namely the person and the distinction; in another way, by making one of them, namely the distinction in the person. Just as we say that making a white house happens in two ways: namely, either by making both, or by joining one thing to the other. Nor does it matter for our purpose whether this is done effectively or formally. Therefore that which distinguishes personally, by making the whole and each of its parts, must belong to the personal character (ratio personalis). But such is not spiration. That which, however, distinguishes personally, by making the whole by reason of one part in another, need not belong to the personal character: but it suffices that it be a notion relative to the person, etc.

And so, to be one spirator is not to be one person¹⁶: because spiration is not constitutive of a person. And yet spiration distinguishes the person of the Son and of the Father personally, making the distinction, not the personality, from the Holy Spirit.

XVII. As for the objections drawn from the side of the emanations¹⁷, the answer is given in the text, ad septimum. And it consists in this, that the emanations of the Son and of the Holy Spirit can be taken in two ways. In one way, according to their complete rationes. And thus they include an order of origin of one from the other: and consequently, for the Son and the Holy Spirit to be distinguished by their productions, and to be distinguished by a relative opposition of origin, is one and the same thing. In another way they can be taken with the order of origin between them set aside, as the objectors take them. And thus we say first, that they are taken according to their incomplete rationes: and therefore it is no wonder if they mislead those who use them as though they were complete. Second, that they are not two total acceptations of the same nature: but the first is an acceptation of the nature simply; the second, however, secundum quid. For if the order of origin between them were set aside, the Son through generation would receive the nature simply; and he himself through procession would receive it secundum quid. And so the arguments which suppose or assume these emanations to be total and incompossible, with the order of origin between them set aside, collapse: for incompossibility, totality, and other things of this kind belong to them when taken integrally, not imperfectly.

XVIII. To the objections of Aureol, however,¹⁸ in keeping with this argument from the side of the processions, a reply is given point by point. And to the first, indeed, it is clear from what has been said¹⁹ that, taking generation and spiration with the order of origin between them set aside, they are not incompossible. Nor is it true that their incompossibility arises from that order by which one pre-requires the other; rather, it is constituted from the order of origin, by which one is from the other.

To the second objection, when the question concerns the genus of causality, it is said that spiration gives to the begotten incompossibility — this formally; just as whiteness is said to give formally to its subject the incompatibility with blackness. Nor does this consequence hold: therefore, being begotten would be the same as being spirated, which is the correlative of spiration itself; just as it does not hold that therefore the subject of whiteness is blackness, which is contrary to whiteness.

To the third, however, it is said that on account of none of those three is there this incompatibility: but on account of this, because spiration is a notion of a person relative to the Holy Spirit Himself.

XIX. To the single motive on the part of the Father²⁰, it is said that, if the Holy Spirit were to proceed from the Son alone, he would still be distinguished from the Father by the order of origin, not immediately indeed, but mediately. And in the same way there would be relative opposition between them, so long as this proposition would be true: the Father spirates the Holy Spirit mediately; for thus the Father would be enclosed under one of the two opposites. — Yet there would be no consubstantiality of the three persons: for the exclusion of the Father from immediate spiration would redound to an inequality of substance.

XX. The second argument set forth in the text to prove the principal conclusion²¹ is this: We love nothing except what we apprehend by a conception of the mind; therefore love proceeds from the word; therefore the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, because the latter proceeds as word, the former as love.

XXI. With regard to this argument, note that in the text it is adduced more as reasonable than as necessary; as those words show, namely, the reason of the procession of both accords with this. I say this, however, because that argument is founded on this, that love proceeds from the lover and from the beloved as conceived, since we cannot love what is unknown. But this foundation concerning love and conception essentially is true in every intellectual nature; although, as will be said ²², concerning love notionally, and likewise concerning conception notionally, it does not display evident necessity; for someone could say that the Father produces His notional love by knowing Himself essentially. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently reasonable that, as the order is among the essentials of intellect and will, so also should be the order among the notionals of each; and hence, notional love, which is the Holy Spirit, proceeds from notional conception, which is the Word; just as essential love arises, according to reason, from essential conception, by which formally the Father knows all things.

XXII. Some, however, attempting to undermine the inference of this argument, object against it in two ways. First. The apprehension of the intellect can occur without a concept: therefore love can also occur; hence the antecedent is false. – The assumption is proved, both in the beatific vision, and in the act of believing, and because the word is something other, in you, than the act of understanding.

Second, because the following does not hold: we cannot understand without sense; therefore understanding is from sense as from a productive principle. Therefore the inference is worthless, etc.

XXIII. To this it is said that the antecedent is true of natural intellection. Hence nothing stands in the way of the beatific vision. – By the act of believing, however, the word of faith is formed. – And although the word is other than the intellection, it is nevertheless inseparable from it, nor can it be cut off from it in natural things.

The second objection, however, is quite childish. For it supposes that St. Thomas was unaware that from the concurrence of something there does not follow its concurrence as a productive principle—a fact that even children know. For the text presupposes common principles, namely that the good as known is a productive principle of love, as is clear in III On the Soul²³ and XII Metaphysics²⁴; and it assumes that to be known is to be conceived by the mind, which was established in qu. XXVII²⁵; and thus it infers what was intended. Hence the objection brought forward militates against that crude sense, not against the true and intended one.

XXIV. The third argument²⁶ is drawn from the order of things, and is as follows. From one source there never proceed several things without an order among themselves, except in the case of things differing only materially: therefore from the one Father the Son and the Holy Spirit do not proceed without an order between themselves: therefore there must be an order of origin between them.

The antecedent is made manifest, as to its first part, in creatures: for in this the beauty of divine wisdom shines forth. As to the second part, however, it is made manifest in artificial things, say two hammers. – The final inference, moreover, is proved from this: that the divine persons are not distinguished materially; nor do they admit any order except that of origin; for all others entail some imperfection. – And if you know how to confirm this argument, you will find it effective: for where there is real plurality without real order, there is confusion.

XXV. Against this argument, however, some object. First, because the antecedent is false. Then, because if God were to produce several Gabriels, there would be an immaterial plurality without order. Then, because God can produce all things immediately through Himself.

Second, because the text contradicts itself, when it adds that the Greeks concede an order imported by the word per; and without proof it assumes that there can be no order there unless imported by the word a or ab.

XXVI. To this it is said that by the term material plurality is here understood material plurality as distinguished from specific plurality; such as in fact exists between two intellections of the same species, and would exist between two Gabriels. – Moreover, many things, or all things, are not produced by God specifically distinct without an order among themselves, even though immediately by God.

Nor did the Greeks understand in thought any other order by the particle per than the one we understand by the particle a. For, as is clear in the following article, per denotes causality; and upon resolution it is easily evident that this must be reduced to the genus of efficient cause in the matter at hand. And therefore it is clear that the text did not assume without an implicit proof that there cannot be a real order there unless between a quo alius and qui ab alio: for the others are known to involve imperfection.

XXVII. As to the second part of this article²⁷, he argues against the Greeks by reciting three of their sayings: namely, first, that they commonly concede an order between the Son and the Holy Spirit; second, that some concede that the Holy Spirit is or flows from the Son; third, that it is denied that He proceeds from the Son. From these he argues that they are guilty either of ignorance or of obstinacy, since the third contradicts the first and the second. This he proves as follows. To proceed is most common among all things pertaining to origin: therefore, from any concession concerning origin, whether order, or being from, or flowing from, there follows an affirmation of procession; and thus the prior affirmations are repugnant to the negation of procession. – The antecedent is proved: because we use procession in all such cases, as is evident inductively.

XXVIII. In response to the third, know that some inveigh against these words, because from them it follows that Damascene was a heretic: which is simply unfitting; and especially in that particular work, because Pope Eugenius accepts it²⁸.

To this it is said that it does not follow that he was a heretic. For, as was said in question XXXII, last article, before a matter is considered or determined by the Church, one who holds a false opinion is without the fault of heresy; if he were afterward to persist in it obstinately, he would be a heretic. Now John Damascene is said to have lived at that time when this matter had not yet been decided. Therefore, etc.

XXIX. In response to the seventh, note that from these words it seems to be drawn that, according to St. Thomas, the divine emanations are distinguished by the fact that one is from one, the other from two, as Scotus brought forward in the thirteenth distinction of the First Book. But in truth these statements differ as heaven and earth: to say that the difference is because one is from one, and the other from two supposits, and to say that the difference is because one is from the Father alone, the other from the Father and the Son. There, indeed, only the difference between the unity and plurality of supposits is given as the cause; which is ridiculous, and against which Scotus labored. Here, however, the order of origin between them is given as the cause. For this is what those words signify: — For the order of origin cannot otherwise be preserved, unless one be from the Father and the Son. Now this order of origin, since it has already been shown to pertain to the integrity of the formal rationes of the origins themselves, insofar as they are really distinct²⁹, therefore, understanding this in a sound sense, there is no harm in conceding that the person of the Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Son by His origin.