Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Note 1. The present difficulty is not raised about the inclination and native capacity of the intellect to know this mystery, from whatever source its knowledge is drawn, whether through revelation or through demonstration; for it is certain, says the Doctor, quaest. 1. Prol., that since the possible intellect is naturally perfected by any knowledge whatever, it is also naturally inclined to any knowledge whatever; for every passive potency is borne by a natural weight toward that which perfects it, and so the created intellect naturally inclines toward the knowledge of every truth, but above all toward the knowledge of the most excellent truth, such as is the unity of the divine essence and the Trinity and equality of the persons. Nor is the present question raised about the simple and imperfect active knowledge of these terms, God and Threefold: for it is established, says the Doctor, quaest. 1. quodlibetica art. 1., that any created intellect can, by its native light alone, know God as the first cause, and so can detect the unity of the essence: moreover, attending to the ternary number and to the meaning of the name person, it will also be able to perceive what the Trinity of persons signifies, when it has heard it proposed by someone. But the whole difficulty is whether some philosopher can, through the innate power of understanding and reasoning, detect the Trinity

of the persons in God, just as he can know by natural reasoning that there is one God.

Note 2. Indeed, several philosophers attained some knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity, as Justin the Martyr copiously proves in the Oratione ad Gentes, Clement of Alexandria in lib. 5. of the Stromata, Cyril in lib. 1. and 2. of the Contra Iulianum, and above all Eugubinus in lib. 1. and 2. of the De perenni Philosophia. For first, the divine Plato in various places posited the supreme God; then he asserts that from him was begotten a mind, through which he fashioned all other things: and thirdly, that which he calls the soul of the world. Whence Claudianus Mamertinus, in Eusebius, lib. 11. of the De Praeparatione Evangelica, says of Plato: How many ages before the childbearing of the Virgin, before the preaching of the supreme Trinity among the Gentiles, did he seek, find, and set forth, with praiseworthy daring, wonderful genius, and inimitable eloquence, the ineffable unity, one three Persons in the divinity. Likewise he reports that Mercury Trismegistus, that is, thrice greatest, aimed more closely at the Christian truth: for in the book entitled Pymander he says: That light, I, the mind, am God, before the moist nature which shone forth from the darkness: and further within: but the mind, God, existing as both-sexed, as the author of life and of light, brought forth by word another mind, the maker, whereby God is fire and Spirit. There can be added Zoroaster the Chaldean, who said: The Monad begot the dyad, and in the whole world the Triad shines; to which that well-known saying of Trismegistus corresponds: The Monad begot the monad, and reflected its love upon itself: hence St. Augustine lib. 7. Confessionum, c. 9. in the De Platonicorum libris says: I read there, not indeed in these words, but this very same thing altogether urged by many and manifold reasons, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. From what source, however, these philosophers drew this knowledge is no slight controversy among the theologians, to be settled in this Question.

Note 3. Regarding the resolution of the present difficulty, there is a threefold opinion of the theologians. For some affirm that the mystery of the Trinity so exceeds the grasp of the human mind that it cannot be detected by any natural power: indeed, that the very reasoning toward obtaining knowledge of it is so opposed to all principles that if anyone is led by reason alone, he judges that mystery to be altogether impossible. Others, however, to whom Raymundus Lullius lent his favor, having taken up the completely opposite path, affirm that this mystery not only does not contradict natural reason, but can be evidently demonstrated by it. For Raymundus, in the book which he calls the Apostrophe, and in the books of the Sentences, contends that three things pertaining to this mystery can be demonstrated by natural light. First, that there are several Persons in God. Second, that there are neither more nor fewer than three. Third, that these three Persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He notes, however, that the demonstrations of these truths are not a priori, nor a posteriori, but of equiparance: and he calls demonstrations of equiparance those which are made neither through cause nor through effect, but from equals. Finally, the rest, embracing the middle opinion as the safer one, teach that the mystery of the Trinity neither contradicts natural reason, nor can be demonstrated or detected by it, setting aside divine revelation, with whom it is

First conclusion. — No created intellect, setting aside divine revelation, can obtain for itself certain and evident knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity. This seems to be of Faith, for Sacred Scripture urges it: for in Matthaei 11. No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him. Which is read more expressly in Lucae 10. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him: which contexts the Nicene Council brings forth in lib. 2. to prove that the mystery of the divine generation is impossible to penetrate: whence also the Antiochene Synod 1., celebrated in the time of Pope Dionysius, says in the profession of Faith: If we have any knowledge of God, however moderate, with his Son revealing, as he says: no one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son has revealed him, we ought to be content. With which St. Epiphanius agrees, Haeresi 76., saying:

All things fly past and exceed, and they abandon every syllogistic cause to that doctrinal sentence taken from divine Scripture, namely, no one knows the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son, and the one to whom he has revealed him. He reveals, however, through the Holy Spirit, not to those who reason about him through syllogisms, but to those who believe in him lawfully and perfectly.

It is confirmed. — From the same Matth. c. 16. Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father. By the name of flesh and blood, however, is comprehended and expressed not only all knowledge begged from the senses, but also that which is to be acquired by the powers of nature, as the holy Cyril of Alexandria understands in the Oratione de Verbi Incarnatione, which he delivered in the Ephesine Synod, saying: Do not inquire too curiously into the matter itself: for it is not perceived through the wisdom of the Greeks, or worldly sense, but is foreign to both; Blessed are you, Simon Bariona, says the Lord, because flesh and blood, etc., for the knowledge of the Son of God is a heavenly gift, and of divine inspiration. It can also be confirmed by all those places of Scripture by which we are forbidden to scrutinize the deeper mysteries of the Divinity, of which kind is that of Iob. 28. Where will you find the wisdom of God? for it lies hidden from the eyes of men, and is concealed in the birds of the sky.

Proof 2. By the authority of the holy Fathers, but above all of Dionysius in the book De divinis nominibus cap. 13., where he says: The Divinity, which surpasses all things, celebrated under the name of Unity and Trinity, is not Unity and Trinity known by us, or by any other of the things that are: and he subjoins the reason which we assigned in the preface. To him alludes the holy Nazianzen in the Oration De Theologia n. 67., where, speaking of the Triune God, he says: Let us follow faith rather than reason as our guide, if only you have learned the weakness of your mind in nearer things, and have recognized that it belongs to reason that you know those things which exceed the grasp of human reason to be one: lest otherwise you be altogether earthly, being ignorant even of your own ignorance. Whence the holy Jerome rightly said in the proem of lib. 18. in Isaiam: The right confession of the Trinity is the ignorance of knowledge; for, says the holy Hilary in lib. 1. De Trinit., a steadfast faith spurns captious and useless philosophical questions, and truth, not succumbing to the deceits of human follies, does not offer itself as a spoil to falsity. Whence, wisely and most learnedly pondering those words of Ioannis cap. 6. There are some among you who do not believe, the holy Augustine says that the Evangelist did not say: there are some among you who do not understand, but gave the cause why they do not understand: for there are some among you who do not believe, and therefore they do not understand, because they do not believe; for the Prophet says, unless you believe, you will not understand.

Thirdly, finally, this same truth is proved by reason: every certain and evident knowledge of a thing is born through demonstration: but there is no demonstration by which, setting aside revelation, one could instill certain and evident knowledge of the divine Trinity. Proof: every means of demonstration is either cause, or effect, or something equivalent; for every demonstration is either a priori, or a posteriori, or of equiparance: but in natural things no means shines forth to the intellect by whose guidance it could ascend to evident knowledge of the Trinity. For first, such a means cannot be a cause, since the divine Trinity of persons lacks every cause, and is altogether independent of any extrinsic maker. Nor is it an effect: for if any effect could lead to the knowledge of the Triune God, above all would the creatures which are known to have been established by God himself: but the knowledge of creatures cannot lead by the hand to the knowledge of the divine Trinity, because creatures do not flow from God inasmuch as he is a Trinity in persons, but inasmuch as he is one in essence: therefore from the knowledge of creatures we cannot know the Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

He tries to prove the first, however, in this way: wherever there is concord and equality, there is plurality: but in God there is concord and equality of the agent and of the acted-upon in the act itself, or, as he himself speaks, of the good-making and the good-makable, in the act of making good: therefore there is in God a plurality of persons. He proves the minor: where there is an act, there is concord of the agent; but in God there is a good-making act: therefore there is concord and equality of the good-making and the good-makable; and so there are several persons in God.

But this argument is neither demonstrative, nor of any weight. It is not indeed demonstrative, because it supposes that which is in no way evident, and which is perceived by divine faith alone, namely that in God there is a productive act ad intra: for although natural reason might show that God operates through intellect and will, it would not disclose that this operation is productive of another person; indeed, unless faith persuaded the contrary, one would say that the act of understanding and willing in God is nothing other than his own infinite substance itself, which is conceived by us after the manner of an operation and an act. Nor likewise is that argument of any weight, since it supposes that every divine production is a making-good, and so is done only through the will, which truly is opposed to faith; for the divine Son is produced through the intellect, and only the Holy Spirit proceeds through the will.

Secondly: the same Author tries to prove that that plurality of persons is threefold, because that essence which is in the maximum of action, that is, which acts most perfectly, requires only one good-making action, one good-makable passion, and a single act of making good; that is, that essence is most perfect in acting in which only a single agent or producer, a single product, and a single act are found; for if there were several, one would limit another: but God is in the maximum of action: therefore in God there is a single producer, a single product, and a single act. He proves the same truth from the distinctive notion: that essence is in the maximum of distinction in which there is a single distinguisher, generator, or producer, likewise a single distinguishable and generable or producible, and a single distinguishing through spirating and loving: but goodness is in the maximum of distinction: whence he concludes that there is a single distinguisher and generator with respect to the Son, and this is the Father: and a single distinguishable, generable, and producible with respect to the Father, and this is the Son, and a single distinguishing through spirating and loving, and this is the Holy Spirit.

But these proofs wander far from the intended end; first because this Author supposes what would have to be proved, namely that that essence is in the maximum of action, in which there is only a single producer, a single product, and a single act: indeed natural reason suggests that that cause is the more perfect which has manifold power and produces more effects: then because it is inferred from this that in God there is a single act, namely to spirate, and so the act of the divine intellect, namely to understand, is excluded; but this is heretical and alien to reason: finally, because from these arguments several absurdities follow against the mystery of the Trinity. First indeed, that one person is distinguished through another; which is truly false, for the divine persons are distinguished from one another through their own proper characters. Then, since the three persons are really distinct from one another, there is not only a single distinguishable and a single distinguisher, but there are three distinguishable, namely the three persons, and three distinguishers, namely the three personal properties. Finally, it follows from that doctrine that there are more divine persons than three, for it is of faith that there are two acts of production in God, namely to generate and to spirate: and consequently in God there would be the generative, the generable, and to generate, and so there will be three persons: then the spirative, the spirable, and to spirate, and so another three will also be persons, and so there will be six.

Thirdly, finally: that Trinity of persons which Lullius thinks he has evidently demonstrated, he likewise tries to show by an evident argument to be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and he reasons thus: everything must be conceded in the divine goodness through which the good-making is in the maximum of action, and the good-makable in the maximum of passion; that is, that must be attributed to God which has the more perfect mode of producer and product: but this is done through paternity and filiation: therefore in God, by reason of producer and product, there are the Father and the Son. He proves the minor: because the most perfect mode of producing belongs to the Father with respect to the Son; for he generates the Son from his whole substance. That there must also be the Holy Spirit, he tries to prove thus: everything must be conceded in the divine goodness through which making good is in the maximum of act, that is, through which it is most perfectly the act of the good-maker and of the good-makable: but this is done through loving: therefore in the divine goodness loving is to be admitted, which we call the Holy Spirit. He proves the minor, because otherwise making good, or loving, would not be infinite, and so would not be most perfect, nor in the maximum of act.

But how weak this proof is, there is no one who does not see; for even if we conceded that in God there is a most perfect production and in the maximum of passion and of action, it would not follow from this that it is between the Father and the Son, even though it were from the whole substance of the producer: for the generation of the Son among humans is a true generation, and yet it is not from the whole substance, but from part of the substance of the begetter; how then can Lullius gather that the production from the whole substance, which is found only in divine things, must be called the generation of the Son, especially since the Holy Spirit is also from the whole substance, and yet is not the Son? Therefore truly, setting aside divine revelation, the divine mystery of the Trinity cannot be demonstrated.

You will say 1. The evident knowledge of an effect begets evident knowledge of the cause: but the creatures evidently known by us are effects of the divine Trinity; for the three divine persons, who have the same omnipotence and power of creating, concur per se to all created effects: therefore from the knowledge of creatures a man will be able to detect the divine Trinity. — I distinguish the major: if the necessary connection and dependence of the effect on the cause is known, I concede: otherwise, I deny. Likewise, with the minor distinguished, I deny the consequence; for a man will indeed be able to know the creature as it is an effect of God, and from this knowledge to infer that the productive divine power is necessarily in some supposit; for all actions are held to be of supposits; and so he will be able to know naturally that there is some divine person which is productive of creatures. From this knowledge, however, he cannot naturally gather the plurality of persons in God, because creatures have a necessary connection with the one God, as he is one; not, however, as he is threefold: for if per impossibile there were a single person in God, the infinite productive power would be no less in it, and so creatures would depend on it no less.

You will say 2. Once the image is known, its prototype can be known: but man is truly an image of the Most Holy Trinity: therefore from the knowledge of himself he will be able to rise to the knowledge of the divine Trinity. — I distinguish the major: if the formal notion of the image and that relation which it has to the Prototype are known, I concede: otherwise, I deny: for a relation cannot be known unless both extremes are known. To the minor I say that a man cannot know himself under the notion of image through the light of reason innate to him, as the holy Augustine most excellently explains in lib. 15. De Trinit. cap. 21., where, pondering that saying of the Apostle, 1. ad Corinth. 13.¹ Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate, he says that the Apostle did not say, we see now the mirror, but through a mirror. Whence he concludes:

Those, therefore, who see their own mind, in the manner in which it can be seen, and in it that Trinity, and yet do not believe or understand it to be an image of God: they see indeed the mirror, but to such an extent they do not see through the mirror him who is now to be seen through the mirror, that they do not even know that the mirror itself, which they see, is a mirror, that is, an image.

You will say 3. Several philosophers obtained a sufficiently clear knowledge of the divine Trinity, as we observed in Note 2: but they did not acquire it from any other source than the very storehouse of philosophy and the innate power of reasoning: therefore the knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity can be obtained. — I deny the minor: for first, they could have received that knowledge from tradition itself, which was propagated by hereditary right from Adam to Noah, and from him to Abraham: and Abraham and Moses disseminated that same knowledge among the Egyptian philosophers, from whom all the Greek sages who ever existed, but especially Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato, were instructed, as the holy Fathers Justin and Cyril, cited above, affirm. Clement of Alexandria adds, lib. 5. of the Stromata, that Plato and the other philosophers learned very many things from the Hebrews and Chaldeans, among whom the knowledge of the Most Holy Trinity, divinely revealed to the first patriarchs, had been derived and propagated. I add, moreover, that the philosophers could perhaps have received such knowledge from the Sibyls, whose distinction was virginity, and the reward of virginity, divination, says St. Jerome, lib. 1. Contra Iovinianum: whence it is the concordant opinion of Christians, as is clear from Lactantius, lib. 1. cap. 6., that the Sibyls by divine instinct prophesied many things about the Holy Trinity, but especially about the Son of God and the humanity to be assumed by Him: whence all this knowledge of the philosophers about the Trinity presupposes revelation. Finally, the philosophers could have attained some knowledge of the divine persons through the oracles of the demons, to whom this mystery had been revealed before their fall: for, as Eugubinus relates, lib. 2. De perenni Philosophia, last chapter, Apollo of Delphi, asked by a priest about the true religion, answered among other things:

Do not question me about the Holy and divine Father, and the dear Offspring of the great Sovereign, and the Breath, which holds the whole bound world together.

Vives relates something similar in the 10. lib. of De Civit. cap. 23. De Serapide, who, consulted by Thule, King of Egypt, as to which one might be the more blessed, is said to have answered:

In the beginning God is, then the Word, and to Him the Spirit is added; these are coeval and tend to the One.

Nor should it seem a wonder that the demons were the heralds of so great a mystery; for they could have been driven to this either by the good angels, or by God Himself, who sometimes commands the light of truth to shine forth from the darkness of falsehood. Add that the demons themselves could have been stirred to this, in order to undermine belief in the Divinity: for, instilling the knowledge of the three divine Persons, they the more easily persuaded that there are three Gods; hence also all that knowledge which the philosophers had about the Trinity was mixed with almost infinite errors: whence not undeservedly Plato himself is called the Forerunner of the Arians; for he posited three Gods, namely the supreme God, the Demiurge, and the Soul; but he asserted the two latter to be created, and far inferior to the supreme God, which was almost the invention of Arius: whence Tertullian with the best right called the philosophers, especially the Platonists, the Patriarchs of the heretics.

You will insist. St. Athanasius, in many places, but especially in the disputation against Arius, which is read in the Council of Nicaea, and in Oration 2. contra Arianos, affirms that the pagan philosophers were inexcusable, because they did not acknowledge the divinity of the Word from creatures; for in that second Oration he says: Paul rightly reproaches the Greeks, because, contemplating the mutual harmony of the parts and the order of the things of nature, they thought nothing of the reason of nature, that is, the Word. For things known show forth their Maker, that through them they may understand the true God. And by the same Paul eternal power and divinity were also added, to signify the Son: and in the third Oration he says: in the works there is impressed an image of wisdom, that the world might through it acknowledge its Maker, namely the reason, or the Word, and through the Word the Father, etc.

Therefore the philosophers could in truth have discovered the Trinity of Persons through the innate light of reason.

I answer. St. Athanasius, in these and similar words, understood the supernatural help of exciting grace, by which the philosophers, enlightened, contemplating created things, could attain at least an obscure knowledge of the divine Trinity; for the same Athanasius says, Orat. 1. Contra Arianos: The gifts of His grace conferred upon us are without doubt great and above man, and that which by its excellence transcends all those charisms of the Father, namely the knowledge of the Word Himself and the gift of the Holy Spirit; by which words he openly confesses that the knowledge of the Word and of the Holy Spirit is above man, and so transcends the natural powers of the human intellect.

You will ask 1. whether Raymond Lull really judged that an evident knowledge of the Trinity can be obtained without any supernatural illumination, or rather presupposed revelation? I answer. that it is more likely that he judged that the Trinity of divine Persons can be demonstrated evidently, independently of any supernatural illumination: both because he himself affirms in many places that all the articles of faith can be proved by necessary, demonstrative, and evident reasons: therefore he does not think that faith and revelation are prerequired for those demonstrations; and because Eymericus relates, in the Directorium Inquisitorum, part two, q. 9., that Lull professed that for such demonstrations faith is not necessary, for he used to say: faith is necessary for ignorant, rustic men, and for ministerial men, and for those not having an elevated intellect, who do not know how to know through reason, and love to know through faith; and men of dull wit, and the illiterate, and the ignorant love to know the articles of faith through faith, and not through reason, and are more easily drawn to the truth of Christians through faith than through reason: but a subtle man is more easily drawn through reason than through faith.

You will ask 2. whether at least by natural light the mystery of the Trinity can come into suspicion? I answer. that it seems more probable that the inquiry into and suspicion of so great a Mystery, divine revelation being set aside, can nowhere be excited in the created intellect: both because there is no natural object that could suggest such a doubt or inquiry; and because if perhaps it apprehended that three Persons are three Gods, it could not recall its thought from this apprehension, as now we recall it whenever it presents itself to our minds, on account of a firmer reason, namely on account of the supreme authority of God revealing and saying that there are three Persons in the unity of the Godhead.

Second conclusion. — Just as the divine existence of the Trinity cannot be proved by natural reason, so neither can its impossibility be demonstrated.

Proof. if any natural reason could persuade the impossibility of the divine Trinity, it would be chiefly because it is repugnant to the most universal and best known metaphysical principles: or because it runs against the most accepted principles of discourse and of the syllogistic art; or finally, because the Trinity of Persons in the unity of essence conflicts with the very inmost predicates of God: but neither can be said. Therefore, etc. The minor is proved as to the first part. the metaphysical principles, on which all truth whatsoever rests, are chiefly these: it is impossible for something to be and not to be at the same time: that is, affirmation and negation of one and the same thing cannot be enunciated at once and together; which, however, the mystery of the Trinity seems to impugn: for the divine essence, which is really the same as the personality, is communicated, but the personality is not: therefore the same entity is really communicated and not really communicated. Similarly, the Father and the Divinity are a single thing, and yet the Father really generates; but the Divinity does not really generate: therefore the same indivisible thing generates and does not generate. Finally, the same singular thing is and is common, for the Deity is essentially this, and yet is common to several: therefore it is at once common and not common: and so the mystery of the Trinity seems to run against the most accepted principles of Metaphysics, and to involve open contradictions.

On the contrary. for a contradiction to be true and manifest, it does not suffice that affirmation and negation be made of the same thing according to its real entity, but it is also required that it be made according to one and the same formality: for it is true that man reasons insofar as he is rational, and does not reason insofar as he is sentient, nor does any contradiction follow from this; because to reason and not to reason are not enunciated of man in respect of the same principle and the same power; for the sentient power is formally diverse from the rational power: so, by parity of reasoning, no contradiction follows in God from the fact that the essence is communicated but the Personality is not; likewise that the Father generates but the essence does not; because although Paternity and Personality are really the same as the essence, they nonetheless differ from it formally, which suffices to save and resolve the contradiction, as we proved when treating of the formal distinction of the attributes, both from one another and from the divine Essence.

The minor is also proved as to the second part. namely that the mystery of the Trinity does not conflict with the syllogistic principles, which are chiefly three: The first is, things which are the same as one and the same third are the same among themselves: the second, being said of all: the third, being said of none, that is, whatever is affirmed or denied of some superior is also affirmed and denied of all things that are contained under it; whence the difficulty can be formed in this way: Paternity and Filiation are really the same as the divine Essence: therefore they must also be really the same among themselves, if indeed that principle is true: things which are the same as one and the same third are the same among themselves; and so there will be no real distinction of the persons. Then the essence is really the same thing as Paternity, and is really the same thing as Filiation: but Paternity and Filiation are two things: therefore the essence is also two things; otherwise the principle of being said of all will be false.

But these difficulties are easily resolved; for, omitting the various answers of others, the Doctor answers two things in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. n. 17. First, that from this principle one may only infer that the extremes have no other identity with one another than they have with the third: whence, since the personalities do not have formal identity with the divine essence, so neither can they have that formal identity with one another. But since someone could insist that, since the personalities have real identity with the essence, so they should also be really the same among themselves; because things which are the same as one and the same third are the same among themselves with that very identity by which they are the same with the third.

He answers 2. that that principle holds universally only when the extremes which agree in a third have it from their own principles and their formal notion that they also agree with one another in this way. When, however, things that are identified with a third cannot from their own formal notion be so identified, then it does not necessarily follow from their identity with the third that they are also really identified among themselves. But the divine personalities have it from their formal notion that they cannot be identified with one another, because they are the constituents of distinct persons.

Finally the third part of the minor is proved. if the plurality of persons were repugnant to God from His own predicates, chiefly because it seems to obstruct His Unity, Aseity, and Infinity: to unity indeed, because since God is the first being, He must be no less alone by reason of person than by reason of essence: to aseity truly, because God is a being a se: therefore, since the Son is produced by the Father, and the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son, they cannot have the notion of Divinity: finally to infinity, because if several persons are given, there will be several infinite things, which is repugnant.

But these are easily resolved. The first indeed, because the primacy of being denies a multitude of gods, but this is not asserted through the Trinity; since the three persons are only one God: the second likewise, because Aseity, as we said in the Disputation on the Attributes, denies only dependence, but not production; although the Son and the Holy Spirit are produced, their production is nonetheless wholly independent. Finally the third, because the Trinity of Persons does not import a plurality of infinite things, because, as will be proved below, the personalities import neither perfection nor imperfection. And consequently, from no ground can the impossibility of the divine Trinity be evinced.