Ordinatio

About the first proposition I first prove that there are two produced persons [nn.355-357], second that there are not more [358].

To prove that there are two produced persons I prove first that there is one produced person, and this as follows: the intellect as it is perfect memory, that is ‘having an object actually intelligible present to itself’ [n.221], is through some act of itself productive of an adequate term, namely an infinite one, from the preceding question [nn.302, 222]; but nothing produces itself, On the Trinity I ch.1 n.1; therefore what is produced by the act of the intellect is in some way distinguished from the producer. It is not distinguished essentially, because the divine essence, and any essential perfection intrinsic to it, is indistinguishable, from the question about the unity of God [nn.89-104], therefore the thing produced is distinguished personally from the thing producing; therefore there is some person produced by the act of intellect.

There is a similar argument about the produced act of will [footnote to n.302, nn.222, 226].¹

Now, that the person produced by this act and by that are different persons, the proof is because the same person cannot be produced by two sufficient and total productions; but this production is different from that one, from the preceding question [n.303]; therefore by this and that production the same person is not produced but two are. Proof of the major: if the same thing were produced by two total productions, it would receive being sufficiently by each; but if it receives being sufficiently from the producer by this production, it would perfectly have its being by no other posited production;² therefore it cannot receive being through another production, because then it would not exist without it.

Further, that there cannot be more produced persons than these two I thus prove: there can only be two productions inwardly. This was in some way proved in the preceding question [n.303], but it was deferred to distinction 7 [n.309] to be finally made clear; so let this now be certain, that there are only two productions inwardly. But neither of these can be terminated save in one person, because a produced person is the term adequate to the production; therefore etc.

It now remains to prove that there is one person not produced.¹ Here one doctor says [Henry of Ghent] that this is shown the way the unity of God is shown. The thing is also clear from Hilary On Synods n.26, where his meaning is that someone who says there are two unborns is confessing two gods.²

Again Henry [of Ghent] Summa a.54 q.2, where he argues to the opposite: “cases of being unborn would be of the same idea, and so there would be several properties of the same idea in the same singular nature, namely deity, which is impossible, whether these properties be absolute or relative; the thing is clear in the case of creatures.”

Again he there argues: “an unproduced person is a first principle; therefore several first principles.”

Again, in the solution: “Richard [of St. Victor] On the Trinity V ch.4: ‘the person not from another has power through the essence; wherefore he has in himself all power’.”

To the first [n.360]: there are in this as many negations of the same idea as there are other possibilities of the same idea; being unborn is a negation. – In another way: several relations are in the same thing, III d.8 q. un.

To the second [n.361]: now are three persons one principle of everything else.

To the third [n.362]: all power is in respect of any possible whatever. Nor can the reason be colored as the reason is colored about omnipotence in the question of the unity of God [n.180]; it is plain why not.

Further he argues in this way: several absolute supposits cannot exist in this nature, because nature does not exist in several absolute supposits without division of nature; there will then be several relative supposits. Either therefore by mutual relation among themselves, or in relation to some other things. But if there were several unproduced supposits, they would not be distinguished by relation to other supposits, because not by relation to producing supposits, because ex hypothesi there are none; nor by relation to produced supposits, because they would have to them the same relation, as now the Father and the Son have the same relation of active inspiriting to the Holy Spirit. Therefore they would be distinguished by relations among themselves, and this by relations of origin, which is the intended proposition.

These proofs do not seem sufficient. The first [n.359] is not, because the unity of God is proved from the fact that divine infinity is not divided into several essences; but it is not as manifest that the idea of ‘ungenerated’, or of ‘unborn’, is not in several supposits, – both because the idea of ‘unborn’ does not state any perfection simply, from which perfection simply the unity of being unborn could be concluded in the way that from infinite perfection the unity of the divine essence is concluded; and because indivisibility does not prove incommunicability. – Likewise, the authority of Hilary which he adduces [n.359] says that it is so but does not prove that it is so.

And when he assumes in his argument that several absolute persons cannot exist in the same nature [n.366], how is this more known than the conclusion? For he who would posit several ungenerated persons would not say that they are formally constituted by any relations; therefore, contrary to him, to assume that there cannot be several absolute persons seems to be to assume what is more immanifest than concluding to it.

When he says further that they are not distinguished by relations among themselves, because this would only be by relations of origin [nn.366, 253, 248], he would have to prove this consequence.³

So I prove the intended conclusion in another way thus: whatever can be in several supposits, and is not determined to a definite number by something other than itself, can, as far as concerns itself, exist in infinite supposits; and if it is a necessary being, it does exist in infinite supposits, because whatever can exist there does exist there. But if what is ungenerated can exist in several supposits, it is not determined by another as to how many supposits it is in, because to be determined by another to existence in a supposit or supposits is contrary to the idea of the ungenerated; therefore of its own idea it can exist in infinite supposits; and if it can exist in them, it does, because everything ungenerated is of itself a necessary being. The consequent is impossible, therefor also that from which it follows.⁴