Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Name: Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio
Author: Claude Frassen

Quaestio I: An sint reales in Deo personarum processiones

Note 1. The name of procession is used in creatures chiefly to signify the origin, or emanation, of one thing from another, as from a principle or cause; hence a twofold emanation, or procession, is distinguished, namely immanent and transient. The former is that whose term remains within its principle or cause, such as is the production of a mental word residing in the intellect that produces it: the transient, however, is that whose term goes forth outside its principle or cause, from which it is produced, such as is the procession of heat from fire into water. In divine matters, however, the word Procession signifies a true and real emanation of one person from another, which does not go forth from God into creatures, but remains within the entity of the divine substance and, as it were, subsists eternally in the bosom of the producing person, concerning which is that saying of Ioannis 1.: The Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father.

Note 2. That although, in order to explain the ineffable mystery of one divine person proceeding from another, Theologians indiscriminately use the names of production, procession, origin, or emanation: nevertheless the word Production properly signifies, as it were, the action of the person producing another: but the others more correctly express the going forth, or emanation, of one person from another: hence they distinguish a twofold procession, just as they do origin itself, namely active and passive. Active procession is the very action of the producing person: passive, however, is the emanation of the produced person. Moreover, it must be noted that although Procession, by the usage of the Church, signifies the emanation of the Holy Spirit, who in the Creed of St. Athanasius is said to be not begotten, but proceeding: nevertheless its signification extends more widely among Theologians; for they are accustomed to use that word to express the origin of each divine Person that emanates.

Note 3. Productive action in creatures is various, but has especially a threefold imperfection attached to it; inasmuch as it produces in the effect dependence, contingency, and diversity of entity from the producing principle. Dependence, I say, because since the effect that is produced passes from non-being to being, it is most certain that before its production it was nothing; and therefore the whole being which it obtains it owes to the producing cause, and consequently depends on it as regards its entity, which it borrows only from the fecundity of the producing cause. Moreover, it imports contingency; for since before its production it was nothing, it is evident that it does not have a necessity of existing, nor therefore is it a necessary being, but only a contingent one. Finally, it has an essence at least numerically different from its principle, because a created being, on account of its finiteness, cannot be communicated without division of itself. Hence if some productive action is granted in which the produced thing is so necessary simpliciter that it cannot be conceived not to exist, and has the same numerically identical essence with the producing principle, it will certainly be established that it is free from these imperfections. Whether, however, in God there is some action of this kind, without any imperfection, productive of the divine persons: or whether the divine Essence is determined from itself to three persons, as to the first without any production, as certain heretics will, who on that account are called Αὐτόθεοι, because they asserted that all divine Persons are from themselves and not from others, this is to be determined in the Question.

First conclusion. — It has been established by faith that there is in divine things a real procession ad intra, according to which one person proceeds and is produced by another.

It is gathered first from various texts of Sacred Scripture, by which the divine Word is said to proceed from the Father; especially, however, from Ioannis 8.: I proceeded from God; and chapter 7: I know him, because I am from him. Although Origen, Euthymius and Theophylact explain these passages of a temporal procession, that is, of the temporal mission of the Son from the Father, that he might come into the world; nevertheless from this too the intended point is proved, because the mission of one person from another does not take place except by reason of the procession from the one by whom it is sent, as will be proved below. — Then Sirach 24: the divine Word, or divine Wisdom, is said to have come forth from the mouth of the Most High, that is, from the intellect of the Father, as the firstborn before every creature. And Sapientiae 7: it is called a certain pure emanation of the brightness of the omnipotent God. And Micah 5: it is said: His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. — Finally, this very thing is proved by all those oracles by which the Son is said to have received from the Father 1. Life; thus Ioannis 5.: As the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. 2. Power, Ioannis 17.: As you gave him power over all flesh. 3. Authority, Matthew 11: All things have been delivered to me by my Father, etc. For since the divine Essence really contains all these divine perfections and is not distinct from them, it follows that the Father gave the essence to which he conferred the aforesaid perfections. — The same sacred Scripture testifies the same thing concerning the Holy Spirit, for Ioannis 15. we read: When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father: and chapter 16: He will glorify me, because he will receive from what is mine and declare it to you. Therefore the Holy Spirit receives knowledge from the Son, and consequently the essence and the other attributes. The word will receive, however, is put in the future, because it indicates the future effect of the same Holy Spirit upon the faithful; nor does this conflict with the procession, which, since it is eternal, embraces all times. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is called in Romans 8 the Spirit of Christ: in Acts 6 the Spirit of Jesus: in Galatians 1 the Spirit of the Son: but one person cannot be called another's, except because it proceeds from it. It is established, therefore, from Sacred Scripture that there are in God from eternity two productive processions of the divine persons.

Secondly: This same truth was defined in various Councils, especially the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, Lateran and Florentine, and is contained in all the creeds of faith approved by the Church, especially the Nicene, where it is said of the Son: God of God, light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made. Of the Holy Spirit, however: Who proceeds from the Father and the Son: and in the Constantinopolitan these are added: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, proceeding from the Father, and with the Father and the Son to be adored. With these accords St. Athanasius in his Creed, in which it is read: The Son is from the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten: the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. The Council of Toledo 11, celebrated in the year 675, also assents and excellently teaches and embraces all things in its exposition of the faith, in which we read: We confess and believe that the holy and ineffable Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is one God by nature... And we indeed profess the Father to be not begotten, not created, but unbegotten; for he draws his origin from no one, from whom also the Son received nativity, and the Holy Spirit procession, etc.

Thirdly: The holy Fathers prove and confirm this same truth with unanimous assent; and that especially from that passage of Ioannis 5.: As the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. This passage St. Ambrose weighs here, lib. 4. De Fide, chapter 5: Who does not notice, he says, that this is to be referred to the unity of life, that the same life is that of the Father and of the Son? For as the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son to have life in himself, he gave through unity. With him accords St. Hilary, lib. De Synodis, on Canon 4 of the Orientals, where, explaining the same text, he says: That in both there is life, in both is signified essence... For he does not have anything other than what he gave; and as he has life, so he gave life to be had. With them accords St. Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinitate cap. 26, treating the same passage: As generation from the Father, he says, bestows on the Son essence without beginning of time, without any mutability of nature; so procession from both bestows essence on the Holy Spirit, without beginning of time, without any mutability of nature. They likewise prove from the fact that the divine Essence is communicated by the Father to the Son and the Holy Spirit: thus Cyril, book 2 Thesaurus, chapter 1: The divine substance, he says, constituted by a certain ineffable and supreme nature, begot the Son from the hypostasis of the Father: for perfect Deity cannot be, unless it has the Son and brings forth fruit from itself. Hence St. Athanasius, in the 3rd sermon of the Acts of the Council of Nicaea, reproves the Arians, because they said that the paternal nature is sterile and unfruitful. St. Hilary accords, lib. De Synodis, about the middle: A perfect nativity, he says, gave the nature of the Son from the impassible substance not born. We will bring forward abundantly more things similar to these in what follows.

It is proved fourthly by reason, and that a manifold one, by Theologians. Of these the first is gathered from the holy Fathers, who therefore gather that the three persons are not three Gods, but one God, because the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from a single principle, namely the Father, who communicates his same essence to the Son and the Holy Spirit through origin, which, if removed, it would follow that the Son must be of another essence: for thus Nazianzen reasons, Orat. 37: For us, he says, there is one God, since there is one Deity, and those things which are from him are referred to the one: similarly St. Hilary in the same way gathers that there is one unproduced person, but the other two produced: Since therefore (he says, lib. De Synodis, about the middle) there is one God, while they cannot be unbegotten: since for this reason God is one, when the Father is God and the Son is God of God; because innascibility alone rests with the one. St. Fulgentius subscribes, to the fifth objection of the Arians: For indeed, he says, while the unbegotten cannot have one nature, since neither does one find in himself the generation of things from himself; nor does one from one truly recognize in himself the substance of nativity. — The second reason: it is of faith that three persons really distinct from one another are given in the unity of essence: but there cannot be a real distinction of persons in the unity of essence, without a real production and procession of one person from another: therefore it must truly be admitted. The minor is proved: with the procession ceasing, the opposition ceases: but where there is no opposition, there cannot be a distinction of persons: therefore, etc. The minor is evident: since the divine nature, on account of its infinity, identifies with itself all things with which it has no opposition. The major is proved: the divine essence cannot have opposition, except on account of opposite relations; for all things in divine matters are the same, where the opposition of relation does not obstruct: but there is in God no opposition of relation, except on account of procession: which I prove thus: every relation is founded either in measure, or in unity, or in production: but in an infinite being the notion of measure cannot have place; for the infinite is immeasurable, because it is interminable; similarly the relation of unity cannot be found in God, because the supreme unity of the divine nature excludes every distinction of nature whatsoever: therefore only the relation of origin can be found in God. — Thirdly: the Doctor proves this same truth in 1. dist. 2. quaest. 7.: whatever from its formal notion is a sufficient productive principle, in whatever it is from itself, in that it is truly a perfectly productive principle: but the intellect, having an object actually intelligible present to itself and duly proportioned, from its formal notion is a productive principle of begotten knowledge: therefore wherever it will be, it will produce begotten knowledge, and that according to the proportion of its perfection. He subsumes; but in God there is an intellect having an object actually intelligible present to itself and proportioned, namely the divine essence: therefore also in God the intellect is a productive principle of begotten knowledge, not of any kind whatsoever, but of one adequate to itself; for every perfect principle can produce a term adequate to itself; and consequently, since the divine intellect is infinite, it is productive of infinite begotten knowledge. Moreover, since no infinite thing can exist in another; that begotten knowledge will necessarily be subsisting per se. Again, since outside God there is nothing infinite subsisting per se, it follows that the divine intellect must produce a subsisting begotten knowledge, which truly is God. — The same argument can be formed concerning the divine will:

The will, having an object lovable and proportioned to itself, is productive of love proportioned to itself: but the infinite divine will has the divine essence adequately proportioned to itself: therefore it will be able to produce infinite love: but infinite love is a produced divine person: therefore, etc. Although, however, this argument does not suffice to prove that the mystery of the Trinity can be demonstrated and known naturally, as we said in Question 3 of the preceding Article, nevertheless it is efficacious, so that, with the light of faith going before, it may be established that real productions ad intra must necessarily be admitted in God — In like manner St. Augustine proves the same truth lib. 9. De Trinitate, cap. 11. In speaking, he says, it must be held that every thing whatsoever which we know generates in us a knowledge of itself: for knowledge is born from both, from the knower and the known. Therefore when the mind knows itself, it alone is the parent of its knowledge; for it itself is both the known and the knower. Hence he concludes: The mind itself and its knowledge, which is its offspring, and its Word concerning itself, and love as the third, are a certain image of the Trinity; and these three are one, and one substance; nor is the offspring lesser, while the mind knows itself as great as it is: nor is the love lesser, while it loves itself as much as it knows and as great as it is. But so that the aforesaid reason may appear more efficacious from the solution of its attacks, the Doctor attacks it in this way.

He attacks 1. The intellect is productive of generated knowledge only then, when it must understand through that generated knowledge, or must be perfected through it: but the divine intellect cannot be perfected, nor understand through any knowledge really distinct from itself: therefore although it has an object adequately proportioned to itself, it does not follow from that that it is productive of generated knowledge. It is confirmed 1. God through ungenerated knowledge sufficiently understands all intelligible things and is perfected through it: therefore generated knowledge would be entirely futile for this. It is confirmed 2. Ungenerated knowledge is adequate to the divine intellect: therefore it cannot have another generated knowledge. The consequence is clear: for we say that the divine Word is not productive of another Word for this reason, because the divine intellect has an adequate term in the production of only one Word. It is confirmed 3. The intellect, since it is an active potency and not indeed a factive one, cannot produce anything except in itself: but generated knowledge, if there were any, would not be produced in the intellect: therefore it cannot be produced through it: and consequently the intellect is not productive of generated knowledge. — He denies the major. The Doctor denies it, because the notion of the active does not depend per se on the notion of the passive, or of the perfectible; but it is per accidens that the created intellect is productive of the knowledge by which it understands and is perfected: for since it cannot understand through any ungenerated knowledge, it is necessary that it produce generated knowledge, through which it understands and is perfected; and therefore it produces it out of need. Whence a twofold notion is to be distinguished in it: one indeed insofar as it is receptive of generated knowledge; the other insofar as it is productive of the same: the former denotes imperfection, because it involves potentiality and perfectibility; the latter however imports no imperfection, rather it expresses the highest perfection, namely fecundity and activity. Therefore the former is not found in the divine intellect, but only the latter. Whence it follows that the divine intellect can produce intellection, although it cannot receive it, and consequently not only can the fecund memory produce generated knowledge when it can understand and be perfected through it, but also when it neither understands nor is perfected through it. — To the first confirmation he denies the consequence: for it is false that every agent acts for this reason, that it may be perfected through its production: rather there are many agents which operate from the fullness of perfection and fecundity; and therefore by Avicenna, 6. Metaphysicorum, cap. ultimo, they are called agents from liberality. — To the second confirmation he distinguishes the antecedent: ungenerated knowledge is adequate in the notion of ungenerated and as it were produced knowledge, he concedes the antecedent: adequate in the notion of knowledge truly generated and produced, he denies the antecedent and the consequence. Rather, from this he turns the argument back: the divine intellect does not have all the adequate knowledge corresponding to itself without generated knowledge: therefore it has generated knowledge. — To the third confirmation he denies that the active and the factive are accidental differences of potency, since the same potency can be active and factive, as is clear concerning the angelic intellect. But that every created intellect requires a subject in which it acts or brings about intellection, this comes about from the imperfection of created intellection, which since it is an accident, therefore requires a subject in which it inheres, or in which it is received connaturally: whence since in the divine the produced knowledge is per se subsistent, it can truly be understood to be produced, without its being understood to be received in the intellect itself.

Again it can be objected against the aforesaid argument: if this argument concluded anything, it would follow that the Son and the Holy Spirit could also produce generated knowledge and produced love, and so more than three divine persons would be given: but this is repugnant to faith: therefore the aforesaid proof is null. The sequel of the major is proved: for the Son and the Holy Spirit have the divine intellect and will with the divine Essence adequately proportioned, in the notion of the intelligible and the amiable, just as much as the Father: therefore if by this argument the Father can produce generated knowledge and produced love, the Son and the Holy Spirit will be able to do the same. — I deny the sequel and the consequence. For the argument of the proof is not the same concerning the Father as concerning the Son and the Holy Spirit: for the Doctor in his major posited: wherever there is a productive principle sufficient from itself, that is, not from another, it will be able to produce: which argument cannot be applied to the Son and the Holy Spirit; for they do not have a productive principle from themselves; for they have their being from the Father. Add that the argument is not the same concerning the Father as concerning the other persons, because the Father, since he is from himself, does not presuppose generated knowledge adequate to his fecund memory; rather it is presupposed to him, and therefore the production of such knowledge is not repugnant to him: but the Son, since he is the generated knowledge itself, adequate both intensively and extensively to the productive principle, therefore cannot produce another generated knowledge: likewise the Holy Spirit, since he has being from the Father and the Son, presupposes both, and consequently cannot produce generated knowledge.

You will object 1. Against the truth of the conclusion: a being from itself cannot have origin from another: but every divine person is a being from itself, otherwise it would not be God: therefore it cannot have origin. The major is evident, for to have origin is to be from another. — I distinguish the major. A being from itself cannot have origin from another, as from an extrinsic cause and a principle of a diverse nature, I concede: as from a principle of the same nature and excluding all dependence, causality and contingency, I deny: for a being from itself can be taken in two ways: first, as it excludes an extraneous principle and one of another nature; and so truly all divine persons are from themselves: second, as it excludes a real principle which is of the same nature, and so only the divine Father is from himself.

You will insist. What proceeds from another must have a distinct being, and a nature diverse at least in number from him from whom it proceeds: but the divine persons subsist in the same nature in number, and are one God, as we have proved: therefore one cannot proceed from another. — I distinguish the major. What proceeds from another by a finite, corporeal and material procession must have another nature diverse from him, I concede the major: what proceeds by an infinite, intellectual and spiritual procession, I deny the major. For since infinity identifies to itself all things which do not have opposition; and since there is no opposition between the nature which is in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, therefore although the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father, they ought not on that account to be divine natures distinct in number.

You will object 2. What proceeds from another receives something from him from whom it proceeds; and so it is of a needy and more imperfect nature; needy indeed, for unless it were in need it would not receive: more imperfect indeed, because according to that word of Act. 20., it is more blessed to give than to receive: but among the divine persons, since there is the highest equality, no neediness and inferiority can be found: therefore neither can there be a procession. — I distinguish the major. To be produced by another freely and contingently, not through the communication of a diverse nature, is to be of a needy and inferior nature, I concede: to be produced by another most necessarily and through the communication of the same infinite nature, is to be in need and of an inferior nature, I deny: in the former way, it is more blessed to give than to receive; but not in the latter, as St. Augustine expressly explains, lib. 3. Contra Maximinum, c. 14., after the middle: It is more blessed to give than to receive, he says, but in this life, where there is want, than which abundance is certainly better; for it is better to have than to lack; and it is better to give than to receive; to spend than to beg. But where he who gave gave by living, and he who received received by being born, help was not brought to the needy, but abundance itself was generated. Nor can he who received be unequal to him who gave, because he received even this, that he might be equal.

You will object 3. No product is necessary from itself: but every divine person is a necessary being from itself, since it is God: therefore none is produced. The Doctor proves the major in 1. dist. 2. qu. 7. num. 1.: what is necessary from itself is necessary, all else being set aside: but what is necessary from another is not necessary when that is removed: therefore it cannot be necessary from itself and be from another. He proves secondly: every product can possibly be produced, or has a receptive potency of the very being which it receives, otherwise it could not be produced, nor consequently would it be a product, or it would follow that the impossible would be produced; but what can possibly be produced is not a necessary being: therefore etc. He proves thirdly: through production the divine Essence has a product, which it would not have without production: therefore through production it is truly changed, because from not having a product it becomes having one, and consequently it is not a necessary being. He proves fourthly: production through the intellect would be true generation: therefore if one of the divine persons were produced through the intellect, it would truly be generated: but every generation is essentially a change: therefore there would truly be change in the divine, if production were given: but every change in God implies a contradiction: therefore likewise every production in God implies a contradiction. — The Doctor answers, ibid. n. 9. by denying the major; to the first proof of which he distinguishes the major: nothing can be formally necessary from itself, and at the same time be formally necessary from another, he concedes: nothing can be formally necessary from itself, and at the same time be necessary from another efficiently, or productively, he denies. For in the opinion of the ancient Philosophers, who judged that creatures are produced by God necessarily, it was necessary that they assert those creatures to have an entity by which they were formally necessary, although they received that entity from a cause producing necessarily: whence it is clear that in the opinion of those Philosophers something can at the same time be formally necessary in itself, and at the same time be necessary from another productively. Greater however is the necessity of being, both formally and productively, in the divine Son, e.g. than it would be in creatures if they were produced necessarily; because creatures would receive a diverse essence from the producing cause; but the Son has altogether the same essence with the principle from which he is produced: whence the Doctor concludes: if the Father naturally and necessarily produced a creature, he would produce it formally necessary: yet it would not then be necessary with as great a necessity as the Son is necessary. Or more briefly I distinguish the major: what is necessary from itself, by exclusion of both contingency and production, would be necessary with anything else set aside, I concede: what is necessary from itself only by exclusion of contingency, but not by exclusion of the producing principle, would be necessary with anything else removed, or with that productive principle set aside, especially where it has altogether the same entity with the producing principle itself, as the Son and the Holy Spirit have with the divine Father, I deny. — To the second proof the Doctor distinguishes the major, n. 10.: every product can possibly be produced, either with logical possibility, which says only the non-repugnance that something be produced, so that those terms, possible and to be produced, can be composed with one another without contradiction through the concept of the intellect; or with physical and real possibility, by which is expressed an aptitude, either to receive some accident, or to receive an entity diverse from the productive principle, he concedes the antecedent: that it is only possible to be produced with physical possibility, he denies. He likewise distinguishes the minor; that what is necessary simpliciter does not have physical and real potency to be produced, he concedes; logical and intentional, he denies. Thus a divine Person cannot have physical potency to being, because it would have to be first in potency before it were in act, which is repugnant to a most necessary being. It can however have logical potency, because since in fact it is produced, it is not repugnant that it can be produced. Or more briefly and clearly: what is necessary does not have potency to receive being, I distinguish: if that being which it receives through production is not most necessary and essentially the same with the producing principle, I concede; if it receives being which is most necessary and altogether essentially the same with the producing principle, I deny: but the produced persons in the divine have altogether the same being, essentially and most necessary, with the producing principle; whence although they are from another, they are no less a necessary being. — To the third proof he denies the consequence, because for a change it does not suffice that something so has being through something, that without it it truly would not be; but further it is required that it could have not had that being, and moreover that it could have received it from another than the one from whom it receives it; but the divine Essence never was without production, nor without the Person which it had by means of production, nor could it be without both of them, and consequently it does not become from not having to having, and therefore it is not changed. — To the fourth and final proof he denies the minor; for although generation in creatures imports two things, namely production and change, nevertheless it is essentially production, and only per accidens involves change: whence there can be true generation, where there is true production in the likeness of nature, even if it does not import change, as happens in the divine.

You will object 4. Every production imports the dependence of the product upon the producer: but in the divine there can be no dependence; for all things are most highly equal: therefore neither can there be production. The major is proved: if the product did not depend on the producer, both would have the nature equally, and consequently the product would not require that the producer first have the nature, insofar as it would receive it from him; which is against the formal notion of production: therefore, etc. — He denies the major. The Doctor, ibidem n. 12., denies it and distinguishes its proof: if the produced person did not depend on the producer, both would have the nature equally, that is, would have it without any real dependence of one upon the other, he concedes: both would have it from itself, but not one from the other, he denies: for although one divine Person does not depend on another, nevertheless it requires that the producing person first have the divine nature determined to itself by priority of origin, before it is determined to the produced person: but this pre-requirement is more a presupposition of one person to another than a dependence of one upon another, as we will explain more fully when treating of the consubstantiality and equality of the divine Persons.

You will object 5. Several changes, which do not involve as much imperfection as generation involves, cannot be in the divine: therefore much more can there not be generation in the divine: but if there is no generation in the divine, neither will there be able to be spiration: therefore in the divine there will be no production. The antecedent is proved: neither local motion (latio), or local change, nor alteration, that is, change toward quality, can be in the divine: but these changes do not involve as much imperfection as generation imports, as is clear from the fact that many perfect beings, e.g. the Heavens and the Angels, can be moved locally, which however cannot be generated. — He distinguishes the consequent. The Doctor ibidem: generation cannot be in the divine, insofar as it says imperfection, he concedes: insofar as it says production, he denies: for generation can be considered, as we have already said, either according to the notion of change, by which it connotes the passage from non-being to being, or according to the notion of production, which connotes the produced substance: in the former way it is equally repugnant in the divine, as are the other changes; but not in the latter, because the produced person does not pass from non-being to being, but through its production receives altogether the same being with the producing principle.

Finally you will object with the holy Fathers; first indeed the holy Epiphanius, haeresi 69., who calls the Son Αὐτοθέον, which the heretics Autotheani interpret as having essence from himself. Then St. Augustine, in Ps. 109., and Cyril, lib. 6. De Trin., say that the Father and the Son are one principle, from which it seems to follow that the Son lacks a principle, and accordingly is not from the Father, but from himself. Thirdly, the Son is called Iehoua, just as the Father: but this name signifies him to be the fountain of being: therefore he has essence from himself, and consequently is not produced. — I deny the consequence. And to the first proof I say that St. Epiphanius only intends that the Son of God is truly and properly God; not supposititious, nor fictitious, nor has the Divinity as it were foreign and undue, but proper and due to himself, no less than to the Father, who communicated it; for αυτό, whether in composition or outside, signifies hardly anything else than properly and per se, as Genebrardus notes from Plato and Aristotle, lib. 1. De Trinitate, as Ruiz observes, Disp. 1. Sect. 2. num. 4. — To the second I say that when the holy Fathers call the Son of God a principle, they are to be understood comparatively and respectively, either with regard to the Holy Spirit, or with regard to creatures; so that with the Father he is the one principle of the Holy Spirit ad intra; and with the Father and the Holy Spirit he is the one principle of creatures ad extra. In a similar way the Third objection is solved: for the Son is called the fountain of being, because namely through the fecundity of love he communicates the divine being to the Holy Spirit, and through the fecundity of power he bestows created being upon all beings ad extra.

Quaestio II: Quot sint divinae processiones, et qualiter invicem distinguantur

Note 1. The question proceeds concerning the Processions, both of the same notion and of a diverse one; namely, whether in God there are several processions distinct in number and in species. For although according to the Doctor in 1. dist. 17. n. 3. there is not properly genus, nor species, nor specific difference in the divine realities; because these smack of part and composition, and therefore of imperfection; whence properly no specific distinction is to be assigned among the divine realities; nevertheless in God there are some things which, since they are distinguished more than by number and have diverse formal notions, can for that reason be called as it were distinct in species; for they differ more, v. g. generation and active spiration, than two generations and two active spirations would differ, if there were so many. It is to be resolved, therefore, whether the divine Processions are several diverse in species, and several of the same notion distinct by number alone.

Note 2. The individual Processions are distinguished by Theologians into active and passive, whence they can be compared with one another in four ways: First, indeed, the active Processions can be compared among themselves, namely generation with spiration: Second, one passive Procession with another, as being generated with being spirated: Third, the active can be compared with the passive corresponding to it, as to generate with to be generated: Fourth, finally, the active can be compared with the passive disparate from it, as to generate with to be spirated. It is certain, however, that the passive Processions are really distinguished among themselves, for this is necessary for establishing the real distinction and constitution of the divine Persons, as will be evident in the following Disputation. It is equally certain that active spiration is distinguished from the passive corresponding to it; for from this the real distinction between the producing and the produced person is gathered; and likewise from the passive disparate from it, as will be evident when we prove that even if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, He would nonetheless be really distinguished from Him; whence for the present there remains the difficulty to be solved, in what manner the active Processions are distinguished from one another.

Note 3. The distinction of things can be conceived in two ways, namely, either with respect to us, or with respect to themselves. Things are said to differ with respect to us when we conjecture their distinction from certain merely extrinsic notions; since otherwise the intrinsic notion, from which their discrepancy could be derived, lies hidden from us; but they are said to differ with respect to themselves when they are known to differ from their own proper and formal intrinsic notions. And this again in two ways, namely adequately, or first; and inadequately, or not first. In the former way those things are mutually discrepant which differ in their whole selves, as individual differences. In the latter way those things are said to differ which agree in some intrinsic principle, and are discrepant through another thing intrinsic to themselves, as species and individuals, which agree with one another in the generic or specific notion; but they are discrepant through the specific or individual difference.

These things being premised, a threefold difficulty is to be solved; the first, indeed, whether in reality there are two and not more than two processions formally and as it were specifically distinct. The second, whether several processions of the same notion, or in number, is repugnant. The third, from which principles the diversity and distinction of those processions is to be derived. The first resolution will militate against Raymundus Lullius, who, if any faith is to be given to Eymericus, not consistent with himself, affirmed now one only, now several and almost innumerable divine Processions: one only, indeed, for he repeatedly asserted that within God there is only one act of making good, that is, of communicating goodness and the divine essence, because, he says, if there were several acts, each of them would be finite and limited, but this is supremely repugnant to a being infinite in every way. But he likewise admitted several divine processions, for in lib. 1. Sentent. q. 2. he speaks thus: In the divine realities the essence is not idle, but essence and nature nature-fies, goodness makes good, and infinity infinitifies, and eternity eternifies, etc. That, however, in the aforesaid words he did not understand only the formal constitution and denomination of the attributes, but truly also willed there to be various operations ad intra, such as are to understand and to love, is gathered from the same author: As God, he says, naturally has to understand and to love intrinsically, so intrinsically He has naturally to make good, to eternify, to possify and to virtufy; as he speaks in lib. De Centum Dei Nominibus. The second difficulty, however, will have to be solved against the Theologians, who do not agree among themselves in assigning the principles from which the distinction of the divine Processions is to be derived.

First conclusion. — In reality there are two and not more than two processions formally and as it were specifically distinct from one another.

The first part already remains proved more than sufficiently from what has been said thus far, and will appear more evidently from what is to be said in the following Article, in which it will be proved further that the divine intellect and will in God are two distinct principles of the proceeding divine Persons; whence only the following remains to be proved

The second part, which the Doctor thus proves in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. n. 18.: There are as many and no more Processions of diverse notion in the divine realities as there are distinct productive principles: but these are only two, namely fruitful memory and fruitful will, of which one is productive by way of nature; the other, however, by way of freedom, or of will: therefore there are only two Processions of diverse notion. The major is evident; for since the Processions are from productive principles, it follows that their diversity and multiplicity is to be derived from these principles. The minor is proved as to the first part, namely that those two productive principles are distinct: the principle of acting naturally, and the principle of acting freely, have an opposite mode of acting: therefore there cannot be given one principle, to which this diverse mode of acting uniquely belongs; for either, says the Doctor, that productive principle would act from itself determinately, and thus by way of nature, or it would act not from itself determinately, but freely, and thus by way of the voluntary. But since these modes of acting are directly opposed to one another, they cannot be reduced back into one only principle: therefore, etc. Nor can they even be reduced to some third, because it would be necessary that that third principle also have those diverse modes of acting, namely by way of nature and by way of the voluntary: moreover, neither can one of them be reduced to the other: both on account of the same reason, and because since those principles are equally perfectly productive, there would not be a stronger reason why one should be reduced to the other, than why that one to the other: and finally, because nothing is reduced to another, unless the less perfect to the more perfect; in God, however, there is not found an inequality of perfection; therefore if in God there are necessarily two productive principles and not more, there are also only two processions.

You will object 1. Doctor: a diverse mode of principiating can be reduced back into one only principle: therefore although to principiate by way of the will and by way of nature are opposed modes of principiating, from this it is not lawful to infer that there are two distinct principles; nor consequently two processions, nor two proceeding persons. The antecedent is evident; for to principiate necessarily and to principiate contingently are opposed modes of principiating: but these belong to the same principle, namely the divine will, with respect to diverse productions; for with respect to the production ad intra it principiates necessarily; with respect, however, to the production ad extra it principiates contingently: therefore a diverse mode of principiating can be reduced back into one only principle. — The Doctor cited above, n. 23., answers by distinguishing the antecedent; a diverse mode of principiating can be reduced back into one only principle, when those two modes import no imperfection, he denies: when one of them connotes an imperfection, or a lesser perfection, he concedes. For it is necessary that everything imperfect be reduced to the perfect; whence since the mode of principiating contingently connotes an imperfection, because all contingency imports mutability and defectibility; hence it must be reduced to the necessary principle. But the modes of principiating by way of nature, and by way of will have no imperfection mixed in, and so neither of them must be reduced to the other. — Or I distinguish the consequence. From a diverse mode of operating in whatever way it is not lawful to gather the diversity of the principles, I concede; from a diverse mode of operating, such as fruitful memory has, and the divine will, I deny the consequence. For it is evident that the divine intellect does not have the same mode of operating, which the will has; for that one acts naturally, this one, however, voluntarily; it is likewise evident that in God there is no other potency, to which both of these opposed modes of operating could belong: therefore from those diverse modes of operating the diversity of the productive principles in God is rightly gathered; and consequently the diversity and distinction of the divine processions is also duly inferred.

You will object 2. The divine nature, inasmuch as it is nature, is no less a productive principle than the intellect and the will; therefore if from the diversity of principles the diversity of processions is justly gathered, three must necessarily be admitted; since indeed there are three productive principles in the divine realities, namely nature, intellect and will. — The Doctor answers in the same place, distinguishing the antecedent: the divine nature is a productive principle considered apart from the intellect and the will, he denies; joined with each divine faculty, he concedes; for fruitful memory, which is the adequate and total principle of the production of the Son, v. g., includes the intellect and the divine essence, each of which partially concurs to that production. The same is to be said of the will with respect to the production of the Holy Spirit. Whence the divine nature together with the intellect and the will constitutes two integral and adequate principles of the divine productions, of which the Doctor offers the reason, that the adequate principle of intellective knowledge and of love is not the object alone, but the object together with the potency of understanding and willing: whence since the divine nature concurs to the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit as the object to the speaking of the mental Word, and the expression of subsistent love; hence it is that the essence, or divine nature, constitutes only two adequate principles of production, but is not, however, some adequate principle distinct from them.

You will object 3. Doctor: potencies are distinguished by acts: therefore since from the twofold essential potency in God there are two essential acts, namely essential understanding and willing, there cannot be assigned to them two other notional acts, namely generation and spiration; and consequently from those two divine potencies the duality of the divine processions is not rightly inferred. The sequela is evident, since from the same distinctive the distinctions of diverse notions cannot be derived: but the distinction of the notional acts and the distinction of the essential acts are distinctions of diverse notions: therefore that diversity of both cannot be derived from those same two principles. — He denies the sequela. The Doctor ibidem n. 22.; and also the consequence of its proof; for although one potency cannot have several adequate acts of distinct notion, behaving in the same way toward those acts, so that it has each one produced, or each one unproduced; nevertheless it can have several acts of diverse notion, behaving in a diverse way toward them; so that it is related to one by way of an operative, or emanative, principle; to the other, however, it is related by way of a productive principle: thus, however, fruitful memory is related, v. g., to the essential unproduced knowledge and to the generated knowledge, because to the first it is related by way of an operative principle, not, however, a productive one; to the second, however, it is related by way of a productive principle, not an operative one.

You will object 1. Not only is potency the principle of the divine procession, but also the object, namely the divine essence: but although in the divine realities several potencies are given, several objects are not, however, given; for the object of the intellect and of the will is one only, namely the divine essence: therefore although there are two potencies, it does not, however, follow from this that there are two diverse processions and productions. — I distinguish the minor. In the divine realities there are not distinct objects, as it were material ones, I concede: formal ones, I deny. For the same divine essence, since it is intelligible and amiable, has a diverse formality; and so a distinct notion of the formal object, by which it is diversely attained by the intellect in the notion of the intelligible and by the will in the notion of the amiable.

You will object 5. In the divine realities there is only one action: therefore also one only procession. The consequence is evident: for a procession either is active, and thus is synonymous with action; or passive, and thus is correlative to action, and so can only be multiplied according to its multiplication. The antecedent is proved; for active spiration and active generation in the divine Father are really identified, as we shall prove below: therefore they are one only action really. — I deny the antecedent. And to its proof I say that indeed spiration and generation are indeed one thing, not, however, one action: for if notwithstanding the real identification of the relations with the divine essence, there are nonetheless several diverse and distinct relations, why not likewise, notwithstanding the real identification of spiration and generation, can there be diverse actions? Add, that if the real identification were an obstacle to the multitude of productions, or processions, the Son and the Holy Spirit would not be several, or distinct, because namely the intellect and the will, from which they proceed, are not really distinguished.

You will insist. In the divine realities nothing is distinct from another, except according to origin and relation, or inasmuch as one proceeds from another: but one procession, or production, does not proceed from another: therefore neither is it distinguished from it. — I distinguish this major. If it does not have principles from elsewhere, by which it is distinguished, other than through the notion of origin from another, from which it is distinguished, I concede: if it has them, I deny. For we shall prove below, that even if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, He would nonetheless be really distinguished from Him; because passive spiration, by which He is constituted, is a distinct constitutive and distinctive principle from filiation, or passive generation, by which the Son is constituted; therefore by parity, although one procession does not arise from another, it is nonetheless no less distinguished from it, from the fact that they are diverse modes of operating, namely to proceed naturally and voluntarily, and they proceed from distinct and diverse principles, namely the intellect and the will, which suffice to distinguish those processions.

You will object 6. The divine Father, in producing the Son, either expends his whole power and fruitfulness and totally, or not; if the first, he cannot produce another person, for beyond the whole there is nothing; if not, it follows that the term produced by it is not infinite: for creatures are not infinite for this reason: although God expends his whole power in their production — for his power has no parts, of which he could occupy one while reserving another, but is wholly indivisible, and therefore he expends it whole when he occupies it — creatures, I say, are not infinite, because God does not totally occupy his power in them. — I answer. God, while he generates the Son, occupies his whole power and totally, namely as much as he can occupy it through one potency, namely through the intellect: for thus the Father expends the fruitfulness of the divine intellect in the production of the Son, so that he cannot produce another Son, as will be evident in the following Conclusion: this, however, does not prevent that he can at the same time go forth into act, also totally through the will, because it is a productive term as it were of another species and through a production as it were specifically distinct from the production, which is made through the intellect. Whence in form: the divine Father expends his whole power and totally in the production of the Son, so that that production adequately matches and as it were exhausts the fruitfulness of every kind of the divine intellect, I concede; for the speech is only about the generation of the Word, or of the intellective term: so that it adequately matches and exhausts the fruitfulness of every kind of the Divinity, so that he cannot through another potency, namely the will, go forth into a productive act of another divine person, I deny.

You will insist. The divine power expended in the production of the Son is in every way infinite: therefore it not only totally matches the fruitfulness of the divine intellect, but also of the Deity itself. The antecedent is evident: for if it were not in every way infinite, it would be limited in some things; and thus it would not produce a term in every way equal to the producing principle. The consequence is likewise evident; for that which is in every way infinite comprehends everything that is of the same genus, and so an infinitely productive power must contain every altogether conceivable productive power. — I distinguish the antecedent. It is in every way infinite in the notion of the divine intellective power and productive of generated knowledge, I concede: in the notion of the divine power simpliciter, I deny. For although for any procession an infinite perfection, or productive power, is required, which in any procession has an adequate act in the notion of the formality of the act, it does not, however, have an extensive adequacy and according to the notion of all the acts, which it can have ad intra: for just as to produce any creature from nothing the infinite power of God is required, as some will have it, and nonetheless not any creation is an adequate act of that power; so in like manner, although for the production of the Son an infinite perfection and fruitfulness of the divine nature is required, that, however, is not exhausted by that procession alone, because it is not in every way adequate to the communicative power of the divine essence, which can be communicated not only through the intellect by way of generation and of knowledge, in the notion of the knowable; but also through the will, by way of spiration and as amiable; whence each one of those productions is adequate to its principle, and therefore cannot be multiplied in number, as will appear

Second conclusion. — It is of faith that there are not in fact several processions of the same kind, distinguished only in number, nor can there be.

It is proved by all those considerations by which we have already shown that there are only three divine persons, and not more. It is moreover evident from all those texts of Sacred Scripture, especially Io. 1. and 3., in which the Son of God is called the only-begotten, from which it is established that God has only one only Son; and so in the divine there are not two generations, much less several. The same is confirmed by all the Creeds, by which we believe in Jesus Christ the only-begotten and only Son of God; whence in the Creed of Saint Athanasius we expressly profess that there is one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

The Doctor proves this truth in q. 2. Quodlib. art. 2. by this theological argument: if in the divine there can be several productions of the same kind, then there could be infinite ones, and consequently there will necessarily be infinite ones; for in a being that is supremely necessary, to be is the same as to be able: but the consequent is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The minor is evident, for no one has so far so ineptly raved as to assert that the divine Persons are infinite in number: and Saint Bonaventure proves this truth in 1. dist. 2. art. 1. qu. 2. by a fourfold argument; namely, from distinction, order, connection, and completion. First, indeed, from distinction: where there is distinction, he says, there is no confusion: but where there is infinity, there is confusion: therefore, since there is distinction among the divine Persons, there will be no confusion, nor consequently infinity. Second, where there is order, there is termination and mediation: but where there is termination there is no infinity, because infinity knows no term: therefore if there is order in the divine, there is no infinity. Third, where there is connection, it is necessary that all the persons proceed from one; for if one from another, and so on in consequence, then there is an infinite distance between the first and the last: but this is incongruous: therefore all proceed from one. Finally, where there is supreme completion, there is no infinity, for completion takes place in beatitude: but if the persons were infinite, it would be impossible for anyone to be beatified by God: for the knowledge of each person contributes to beatitude: therefore the blessed soul must know all the divine Persons; but it could not know infinite ones, since its power is finite: therefore an infinite number of divine Persons would be absurd. The Doctor proves the major: first, indeed, by the authority of St. Augustine, who argues thus in Contra Maximinum, lib. 3. c. 12. The divine generation would be immoderate, he says, if the begotten Son were to generate a grandson for the Father, because the grandson himself, unless he were to generate a great-grandson for his grandfather, would, according to your wonderful wisdom, be called impotent. He then adds: Nor would the series of generation be filled up, if one were always generated from another, nor would anyone complete it, if a single omnipotent one sufficed. As if he were saying that if one produced person does not suffice to complete the whole production of one action, neither in like manner will another suffice, nor again another, and thus processions and persons of the same kind, infinite in number, would necessarily have to be admitted.

The Doctor proves 2. by this argument: everything multiplicable into several things of the same kind is not determined of itself to a certain plurality, but if it is so determined, it is necessary that it be determined by another: but the divine procession, if it is multiplicable into several processions of the same kind, e.g. into several generations, cannot be determined by another to a certain plurality: therefore if it is multiplicable into several processions of the same kind, it is in no way determined to a certain plurality, but it is necessary that that series of divine processions become infinite. The major is evident by the example of created being, which since it is multiplicable into several created beings of the same kind, it follows that it is not determined of itself to a certain plurality, and unless it were determined to a certain number by an extrinsic agent or by circumstances, its productions could be infinite syncategorematically. The minor is proved: if the divine procession were determined to a certain plurality by another, it would be most of all either by something posterior, or by something prior: but it can be done by neither. Not indeed by something posterior to itself, for no being has its entity from a being posterior to itself; therefore neither can it have its unity from it: nor even by something prior: for this would be either the formal principle of the divine procession, namely the fecund memory and will, or it would be the producing principle, namely the divine person: but by none of these would the divine procession be determined to a certain plurality, if it were multiplicable into several processions of the same kind: for the formal principle of production, namely that by which, and the producing principle, namely that which, if it can have several productions of the same kind, cannot determine itself to a certain number of productions; whence if it were so determined, it would necessarily have to be determined by another: but this cannot be said: both because there is nothing in God besides the fecund memory and will from which this determination could be understood to be made: and because, whatever that may be, about it the same question returns, whether it is prior or posterior; but it could not be posterior, because, as I said, nothing receives its unity, nor its plurality, from what is posterior to itself; nor could it be prior, because that will also be necessary, and so it will not be able to determine the other to a certain number, unless that in turn is determined by another, and so there will be a progress to infinity in those determinations of the divine processions, which since it implies a contradiction, also implies that there are several divine processions of the same kind and distinguished only in number.

He proves 3. also by this argument: a potency which has an adequate act, while it has it, cannot have another: but the divine generative potency has in fact an act adequate to itself in the generation of the Son, or of the Word: therefore it cannot have another at the same time; otherwise that act would both be and not be adequate to it. The minor is proved: for the Son is an infinite term, just as the intellect is; therefore he is truly its adequate term.

You will say. That adequacy is understood either of the act adequate extensively, or of adequacy intensively. If the first, the principle is begged; for this is the same as having an act beyond which another could not be had, whose truth and proof is not evident. If the second, that seems plainly false: for the soul of Christ, e.g., has the created vision of the Word adequate to itself intensively, and yet besides that it still has other visions: likewise the divine intellect has the vision of the divine essence adequate to itself intensively, and nevertheless it also has beyond that the vision of things other than itself. Whence the Doctor in the Reportatis lib. 1. dist. 2. qu. 7., having adduced the same argument, adds that this argument too does not hold; which he proves with the argument just made: therefore etc. — I answer. The aforementioned argument must be understood of adequacy intensively: for the Doctor explains this adequacy through the perfectional infinity of the productive principle and of the produced term; but it is repugnant that an infinite term be multiplied according to the same kind, because the infinite of itself is a being, and therefore it truly is repugnant that there be several sons infinitely perfect. With adequacy thus taken, I answer that the examples put forward in the objection do not press, for neither the intellect of God nor the intellect of the soul of Christ has several visions adequate to itself intensively, but the divine intellect indeed beholds with one vision adequate to itself the divine essence and in it everything visible: but the intellect of the soul of Christ, although it has several visions, nevertheless does not have several visions adequate to its total power of understanding; for it has one vision of the Word and of certain things in the Word adequate to itself, insofar as it is equipped with the light of glory: it also has visions of other things outside the Word, or in their own kind, proportionate and perhaps adequate, insofar as it is equipped and informed by other co-principles of understanding, so that, as our Smising says, Disput. 3. num. 109., neither the created vision of the Word and of the things in the Word, nor the visions outside the Word considered separately, are in Christ adequate to the one total power of understanding which is in him. The objections which could be formed against this solution have already been solved in qu. 3. of the preceding Article.

You will say 2. The aforementioned argument supposes that the divine generative potency is in perpetual use and act of generation: but this seems false, for what forbids God, after his Son was begotten, from having ceased from his generation, so as thus to produce another again? For if anything were an obstacle, it would be most of all because God's actions must be measured by eternity, and must not pass into the past: but this argument seems weak; for, as we read in Genesis 2.: He rested from all the work that he had made: moreover, God no longer produces past days, or those things which passed away with those days: finally, that divine generation itself is said to have passed into the past, for we read in Psal. 2. and 109.: From the womb, before the daystar, I have begotten you: therefore etc. — I deny the minor. For God is in perpetual act of the generation of his Son, and that necessarily and unfailingly: for the divine Father is in perpetual inception or conservation of his own being: but his being is the actual generation, or the notion of Paternity, by which he is constituted, as will be evident below: therefore he always necessarily generates the Son. The same is to be said by parity of the Holy Spirit; for if God is always in actual generation, and it itself does not pass into the past, by the same argument he must be in perpetual spiration. To the confirmations I say that God is in perpetual creation, or conservation, of creatures as long as they exist; whence, since the divine Son always exists, it is necessary that his generation also be necessarily continuous. But to Sacred Scripture I answer that past is indeed truly said of that generation; yet not past in our way of conceiving, that is, that it is purely past; but past in such a way that it involves all times, as is said in Apocalypse 1.: Who is, who was, and who is to come: nay, the very same is gathered from the same words of the second Psalm: This day I have begotten you; for just as I have begotten signifies the past, so this day denotes the present.

Third conclusion. — The divine processions are formally distinguished by themselves. This is the Doctor's teaching in 1. dist. 13. num. 18. For, as he says there, generation is formally by itself generation, and spiration is formally by itself spiration; and from their formal notions it is impossible for generation to be spiration, everything else being excluded per impossibile, so that one need not ask by what they are distinguished, because the whole formal notion of the one is not the same as the whole formal notion of the other.

But he proves first by the authority of St. Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 27. where, after he had declared the supreme difficulty of investigating the difference between the generation of the Word and the spiration of the Holy Spirit, which indeed he says is to be detected only through the beatific vision, he says: Lift up your eyes to that very light, and fix them on it if you can, for thus you will see what distinguishes the nativity of the divine Word from the procession of God, on account of which the only-begotten Son is not of the

Father, otherwise he would be his brother, but the Holy Spirit is said to proceed: and a little below he affirms that the will proceeds from knowledge, yet is not an image of knowledge, saying: Since indeed the will proceeds from knowledge, for no one wills what he does not at all know what or of what kind it is: yet it is not an image of knowledge, and therefore in this matter a certain distance between nativity and procession is understood to be intimated, because to behold something in thought is not the same as to desire it. By which St. Augustine openly confesses that those divine processions are distinguished from one another by their intrinsic principles: since from the distinction of the processions he concludes the distinction of the proceeding Persons. The Doctor confirms this from the same lib. 5. of the De Trinitate, cap. 9. and 11., where St. Augustine, inquiring why the Holy Spirit is not the Son, since nevertheless he goes forth from the Father, solves it by saying: For he goes forth not as born, but as given: by which it is established that St. Augustine intimates that the distinction of the divine Persons is to be traced back to their distinct emanations; and therefore it must be inferred that he teaches that the emanations of the divine Persons are distinct by themselves; for if their distinction were to be traced back from another source, St. Augustine would also affirm that the distinction of the persons is to be traced back from the same source.

He proves 2. Those things differ first per se which differ from one another as wholes formally and adequately: but such are the divine processions: therefore they differ by themselves and are distinguished formally. The major is evident: since the discrepancy of the individual differences (which all philosophers confess to differ of themselves spontaneously) cannot be traced back from elsewhere. The minor is therefore proved: those things differ formally by themselves which differ through a form intrinsic to themselves, and which are the formal notions of the distinction of others: but such are generation and spiration; for from them the difference of the produced divine persons is traced back, while they themselves are distinguished from one another by their own formal notion: therefore etc.

You will say 1. Processions of this kind agree in several predicates, for instance in being, in Divinity, in spirituality, and in the notion of one divine Person proceeding from another: therefore they do not differ as wholes, nor formally by themselves. — Some Scotists answer. This generic and, as it were, transcendental agreement does not stand in the way of those divine processions differing first formally and adequately by themselves: for if by a precision of the intellect they are considered under their own formal notion of generation and of spiration, and insofar as they abstract from the aforementioned predicates as transcendental, it will evidently appear that they are first diverse; because no predicate belonging to generation, as generation is, is included in the definition of spiration, as spiration is; not so is it to be said of those that agree specifically: for man, as man is, e.g., involves in himself a predicate which is common to brute, as brute is, a common predicate, which by proper differences can be contracted to either. — These solutions are indeed the best; nevertheless I add a third, namely that generation and spiration signify an opposed mode of proceeding: for generation signifies the mode of proceeding naturally, but spiration the mode of proceeding freely: but to proceed naturally and to proceed freely are modes of proceeding diverse by themselves: therefore those divine processions are also such.

From these gather 1. The aforesaid processions are indeed gathered by us to be distinct from the diversity of the principles, that is, intellect and will, from which they arise, but not to have their formal distinction from them; for they have their distinction from that from which they have their being formally: but they do not have their being formally from the principles, but only principiatively: therefore neither do they have their formal notion from them, but only their origination.

From these gather 2. That diversity is not to be traced back from the fact that one person is from one principle, another from two, because, as the Doctor says in 1. dist. 13. q. unica, the unity and plurality of supposits does not cause a diversity of notion in forms, or quasi forms, which are in them, or from them, e.g. because whiteness of its notion and of itself is that which changes sight, it does not vary this notion from the fact that it is either in a wall, or in paper, or in other subjects: therefore, by a like argument, generation and spiration do not differ from one another from the fact that they are in diverse supposits, one of which emanates from one principle, namely the Son from the Father; the other from two, namely from the Father and the Son; most of all, since the Holy Spirit from his formal notion does not require a plurality of supposits for his production and spiration, as will be evident below.

From these gather 3. This diversity of the processions is not to be traced back from the fact that one should be prior in origin to another, namely generation prior to spiration, nor from the fact that one originates from another, namely passive spiration from passive generation, or filiation: for when something is prior to another, the reason of such priority and origin is rightly sought; whence things are not precisely distinguished first by the notion of such priority or posteriority which is to be found between them: therefore neither are those divine emanations first distinguished through this notion of prior and posterior. Moreover, even if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, he would not on that account be less really distinguished from him, as we will teach below: therefore, although he would not originate from passive generation, he would not the less be really distinguished from it, and so their diversity is not to be traced back by reason of the origination of one from the other. It is consequently the case, therefore, that that very diversity of the divine processions is traced back from their formal notion.

Quaestio III: Quid, et quales sint divinae processiones

Nearly all theologians agree, if you except Durandus and a few other followers of his, that the divine processions are operations of the divine intellect and of the divine will: but what operations they are, and of what kind, they do not agree among themselves. Some indeed affirm that they are certain resultances, or emanations, of the divine intellect and will; so that the divine Persons produced proceed from another Person, in nearly the same way in which properties flow forth from essences, not through a true action, but through a simple emanation. Suarez seems to think this, lib. 1. De Trinitate c. 8. Whence in lib. 6. c. 1. he teaches that the relation alone of the producing Person is the whole active procession, or productive action. Some Thomists teach that a twofold intellection is to be distinguished, one essential, common to the three divine Persons; the other notional, proper to the Father and productive of the Word. Others reject this distinction as contrary to the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, and affirm that in God there is a single essential intellection, which is productive of the divine Word, inasmuch as it is modified by the relation of Paternity and has the character of diction and of a true productive action. The rest, however, with the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. n. 13. and dist. 29. q. unica and Quodlibeto 14., contend not only that the divine processions are true actions, but also that they are equally and totally distinct from the essential acts of understanding and willing; so that diction does not formally include intellection, nor active spiration essential volition: whence it comes about that, although to understand and to will are operations common to all persons, yet to speak and to breathe forth are not. Which opinion, as truer and more consistent, in order that it may be defended more evidently and efficaciously,

Note 1. with the Doctor at the cited places, especially in 1. dist. 2. q. 7. n. 22., two acts of the divine intellect can be distinguished, namely to understand and to speak, and the same number of the divine will, namely to will and to breathe forth, of which the first is operative and the other productive; which two acts are formally distinguished from each other: for it implies a contradiction that one and the same act should by its nature be productive and non-productive of a term really distinct from the producing principle. Moreover, the productive act necessarily presupposes the operative one; for one operating and producing through the same principle, says the Doctor, is operative before he is productive: add that all theologians admit that the essential perfections, involving no relation to creatures, are prior to any notional perfection: whence since the divine intellection is something essential, but diction something notional, the latter presupposes the former; not indeed as a principle by which, but only as a condition without which not; not from need, but from the condition of the principle, which is first determined to operation rather than to production, as the Doctor observes in the same place: hence it comes about that the divine Father is first conceived as understanding and knowing himself and his own essence, before he is conceived as producing and speaking the Word.

Note 2. Our intellection is not formally and properly an action: both because every action properly so called always has some produced term; but intellection is not productive of a term, but is the very ultimate act and the ultimate perfection of the intellective potency: and because to understand is not to act, but a kind of undergoing, says the Philosopher, 3. De Anima, t. Whence formal intellection is the reception of that quality, namely the mental word, which is produced through diction and is received in the intellect itself. Hence inchoatively and effectively intellection consists in that operation of the intellect by which that quality, or mental word, is produced; but consummatively and formally in the reception of the same quality. For since that quality or word is the expressed likeness of the thing understood, without doubt by informing the intellect and adhering to it, it will assimilate the intellect to the known object, and thus render it completely understanding. But if intellection is sometimes called an action, this is not to be interpreted of an action properly so called, but because it has itself after the manner of an action, since it is always in fieri, and regards a term, not one which it produces, but one about which it is engaged, namely about the object, of which it is the living and perfect expression.

Note 3. From the Doctor, in 1. dist. 27. q. 3. n. 12., that the mental word is an act of the intelligence produced by the fruitful memory, not having being without actual intellection, representing the divine Word.

The Doctor gathers all the parts of this definition from Saint Augustine. It is said therefore, first, that it is an act of the intelligence, because it is a form actualizing the intellect, and rendering it formally and actually understanding, just as heat constitutes water formally hot: this part, however, is gathered from St. Augustine lib. 9. De Trinitate, cap. 12. and 13., where he expressly proves that the intellect alone, and not the will, produces the Word perfective and informative of itself. There is added: produced by the fruitful memory; that is, by the intellect informed and as it were pregnant with the intelligible species, for, as St. Augustine lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 10 says, formed thought from the thing which we know is the Word: and c. 11. our Word is born from our knowledge, and cap. 26. he says: the Word is expressed from memorable knowledge, that is, from the intellect having habitual knowledge, as it were the seed of the object. There is subjoined: not having being without actual intellection; for since the Word informs the intellect, and denominates it actually understanding, as long as it subsists, so long does actual intellection remain: whence St. Augustine lib. 9. cap. 8. says: We have the true knowledge of things conceived, as a Word within us, and by speaking it is born within, nor by being born does it depart from us. Finally there is added: representing the divine Word: for St. Augustine in lib. 9. investigates the origin and nature of the divine Word from a certain likeness with our word; whence in the last chapter he says: The mind itself and its knowledge, which is its offspring, and its word about itself, and love as a third, is a certain image of the Trinity. — These things being premised, three things are to be resolved: First, that the divine processions are true actions, and not only emanations and quasi resultances of one person from another: Second, that they are not the essential acts of understanding and willing: Third, that they are diction and spiration equally distinct from intellection and love.

First conclusion. — The divine processions are true and proper vital actions, and not pure and simple emanations.

This seems to be the genuine opinion of Saint Thomas and of the Subtle Doctor: for the former, 1. p. q. 10. art. 2, says: Origin signified actively is signified as proceeding from a subsistent person: whence it presupposes it; but origin signified passively, as nativity, is signified as a way to a subsistent person, and not yet as constituting it: and q. 41. art. 2. ad secundum: Motion being removed, he says, action imports nothing but the order of origin, according to which it proceeds from some cause or principle into that which is from the principle. In which words he plainly declares that origin, or the divine procession, is a certain mode, as it were a mean between the producing and the produced person, and so is not a simple immediate resultance of one person from another. — The Doctor agrees with him in 1. d. 28. q. 3. n. 3., saying: Origin, as origin, is not the proper form, neither of the person in which it is, nor of the person to which it is, but is as it were a way; and then neither is it primarily the form of the person, but as it were presupposes it. As if he would say that origin formally considered is a way between the producing person and the produced person; and so is not the proper form constitutive of that person of itself, but presupposes the producing person already constituted by its own proper form, and is the reason by which the produced person receives its being: but this is to have the true character of an action: therefore those authors truly judge the divine processions to be true and properly so called actions; not indeed simple emanations and metaphysical resultances. This same truth can be strengthened by all those opinions of the holy Fathers which we shall report below, by which we prove that the divine Word proceeds from the Father through a true and properly so called generation, just as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son through active spiration; for generation and spiration are true actions: therefore the divine processions are to be called such.

This same truth is also proved by theological reason: First indeed: the divine essence is otherwise determined to the Son and the Holy Spirit than to the Father: but it is determined to the Father through a simple resultance: therefore it ought not to be determined to the Son and the Holy Spirit through a simple resultance, but through a real and properly so called action. The major is clear: since the divine essence is not determined to the Son and the Holy Spirit, except inasmuch as they are said to be produced: but the Father is produced by no one: therefore the divine essence is otherwise determined to him than to the other persons. The minor also is evident: since the formal constitutive notion of the first supposit is not produced by anyone, but flows forth from the very bosom of the divine nature, as a property flows from the essence. — Then, a simple resultance is immediately from the substantial nature itself; for metaphysical properties flow immediately from the very bosom of the essence: therefore if the procession of the Son and of the Holy Spirit were a simple resultance, it would be immediately from the divine nature; which however Suarez himself with other theologians denies and impugns against Durandus, as will be clear in the following Article. — Finally, a subsistent person ought to be produced through a true action: but the divine processions are productive of subsistent persons, as is known by faith: therefore they are true actions.

You will object 1. In created things relations are not made through a true and proper action, but result from the foundation and the term being posited; whence Aristotle in the Praedicamentis, in the chapter On Relation, affirms that there is no motion per se toward a relation: therefore in like manner the constitutive relations of the divine persons are not produced through a true action, but through a simple resultance and emanation. The consequence seems evident, for it is lawful to proceed and reason from created things to divine things with proportion.

I deny the consequence. And the reason of the disparity is that, since created relations are small accidents of diminished entity, says the Doctor, they cannot be terms of a true productive action; whence they cannot be made otherwise than through a pure emanation and simple resultance: but it is otherwise with the divine relations, which, since they are substantial and constitutive of the divine persons, also have the perfection of substances and of things subsisting per se, which are properly said to be made, and therefore can be the proper terms of a true productive action.

You will object 2. An action properly so called involves several imperfections, namely, that it is a motion, an egress from the agent, and a reception in the patient, and that its term is really an effect and an act, just as the principle is really an agent and an efficient cause: but all these imperfections are unseemly for God: therefore an action properly so called is to be removed from him.

I deny the ma- jor: for action according to the common concept of action is only the ultimate actuality of the agent proceeding from it, indeed by a virtual egress, in which no imperfection is imported, because it signifies neither contingency nor dependence. Nor does it in like manner follow from this that the produced term is an effect, or an act, but only that it is truly and really produced: just as neither does it follow from the fact that the Father is the principle of the Word that the Word is called principiate, because principiate denotes an inferiority which is repugnant to the Word.

You will object 3. Aristotle, 9. Metaph. cap. 7., in this distinguishes an immanent operation from a transient one, that by the latter something is produced, but by the former nothing: he thinks therefore that by the immanent action of the intellect nothing can really be produced; and so that it is not truly productive: but the divine Persons proceed through immanent operations: therefore these are not truly productive actions.

The Doctor answers in 1. dist. 3. q. 7., near the end, that the Philosopher is to be understood of operative actions, which namely are occupied about the object, not in that they produce, but in that they perceive; such are intellection, volition, sensation, and appetition, which for that reason would more properly be called acts than immanent actions. But he is not speaking of actions productive in an immanent manner, such as are diction and active spiration, which were not known to Aristotle: for if indeed absolutely nothing were done through immanent actions, it would follow that neither the created intellect nor the divine intellect is truly productive of the Word, which is absurd to reason, but also seems to be adverse to faith.

Second conclusion. — The essential acts of understanding and willing in God, namely the divine intellection and volition, are not the actions by which the divine persons proceed.

This seems to be the manifest opinion of the holy Fathers, to be commended in the following Conclusion, which the Subtle Doctor proves in various ways at the places cited above: First indeed, essential intellection and volition are common to the three Persons: but the notional acts, or active processions, are not common to them, as is evident: therefore, etc. — Then, if those acts of understanding and willing were productive of the Persons from themselves, it would follow that each of the divine Persons would proceed from each, indeed even from themselves: for since those acts are essential, they are truly in each person, and thus would produce in each person. Finally, if those acts were productive and were lacking to some divine Person, it would follow that that Person is not blessed: for the divine Persons are beatified through the essential acts of understanding and willing. Therefore it must be concluded that the divine processions do not consist in those acts.

Some Thomists reply, that a twofold act of understanding and willing can be distinguished in God, one indeed essential, the other notional: that by the former the divine Persons are not produced, but by the latter.

On the contrary. This reply directly militates against St. Thomas; for in the first part, q. 31. art. 1. ad 2., he says: Nothing of those things which pertain to the intellect is said personally in divine matters, except the Word alone: and ad 3. To understand imports only the relation of the one understanding to the thing understood, in which no notion of origin is imported, but to speak imports principally the relation to the conceived Word. He does not therefore admit that twofold intellection, of which one is essential and the other notional, indeed he distinguishes intellection from diction, and says that the former is unproductive, but the latter productive. — Then, if the notional intellection were distinct from the essential one, it would be most of all through a relation; for notional things are not otherwise distinguished in God from essential and common ones, except because the former express a relation, but the latter do not so: but a relation is not sufficient to constitute any intellection formally or virtually distinct from the essential one; because every intellection is a vital act and a perception of the object, about which it is occupied, inasmuch as it is an object. But the divine relation is neither a vital act nor a perception of an object, but is only the term of the divine nature constitutive of the person, nor is it occupied about the object inasmuch as it is an object, but only regards it inasmuch as it is its term: therefore, etc. — Finally, in God there cannot be posited several Deities, of which one is essential and another notional: therefore neither several intellections and loves. The consequence is evident from the parity of reason: for Deity cannot be multiplied for this reason, that it is formally infinite; but it implies a contradiction that there be several infinite things of the same notion, because the infinite comprehends every perfection whatsoever that can be thought within its own genus: but intellection and love in God are no less something infinite in the notion of intellection and love, than Deity in the notion of Deity: therefore if there cannot be a twofold Deity, a twofold intellection cannot be admitted in God.

Others reply, that the divine processions taken actively are indeed the very acts of understanding and willing, not indeed absolutely, but with this modification, that intellection, inasmuch as it is in the Father, is the expression of the Word, but not in the Son and the Holy Spirit; the same is to be said of the divine love. As if they would say: essential intellection and love, as they are in some persons, have a term, but in others not; which indeed they explain and confirm by the example of the intellect and the will, which are the principles of these processions and persons; for although the intellect and the will are in all persons, yet they do not principiate and produce in all. Therefore, they say, just as the intellect and the will are communicated to several persons, without their carrying along with themselves procession and principiation, why should not the same be said of that essential intellection and love.

On the contrary. Either that modification adds something to the real essential intellection and love, or nothing: if it adds nothing; therefore there is no reason why in one person it should produce a term, but not in another: for the same thing remaining altogether the same is always apt to do the same, as the Philosophers commonly say. If it adds something, it is either something essential, or notional. Not the first, because the same difficulty recurs; for essential things are common to the three persons: nor the second, for nothing is notional besides the constitutive relations of the persons; but a relation, as we have said, is neither formally intellection, nor the same formally with intellection; for the whole being of a relation is to be had toward another; but the whole being of intellection is to perceive the object and to represent it; which two are formally distinct. Add that if that modification adds to the essential intellection something which is really or formally distinct from it, then intellection will not be the production of a term as it is essential intellection, but only as it is notional intellection; but it is false that two intellections are to be distinguished, of which one is essential and the other notional: therefore, etc. To the confirmation I say that there is no parity; for the actual production of heat is one thing, and actual heating another, because its whole essence is in second act, that is, in the actual production of heat: if therefore the actual production of the persons were the very essential intellection and volition, it implies a contradiction that they should be in some person and not produce a term in it.

The rest reply, that intellection and volition are the productions and processions of the persons, not as acts, but as the actions of speaking and of breathing forth.

On the contrary. Intellection is something formally distinct from diction: therefore they are not one and the same, and are badly confused by the Adversaries. The antecedent is proved: for intellection is something absolute in divine matters, but diction is something relative; or, which is the same, diction is something notional, but intellection something essential: but it is clear that essential things are distinguished from notional ones, and behave in divine matters in the same way analogically as with us substance and accident, or the essential and the accidental. Then, to speak is opposed relatively to the spoken, namely to the Word which is spoken: but to understand is not opposed to the Word itself; otherwise it would be really distinguished from it: therefore to speak and to understand are not one and the same. Finally: Paternity itself is formally diction, but that cannot be intellection, as we have already said: therefore intellection and diction are not formally one and the same.

Some reply, that diction is not indeed formally intellection, but truly really: but this is nothing else than openly passing over to the opinion of Scotus, who judges that diction is to be distinguished from essential intellection only formally, just as also from the essence; and so only the dispute about the name will remain, by which namely the Thomists call really intellection what we formally call diction. — Nevertheless in this also they seem to deviate much from the truth, for if the real identification of diction with intellection should suffice that diction be called intellection, then volition will be the procession of the Son, for volition, or love, is really diction: and then the essence also will be a production of itself, for the essence also is really diction.

Some reply 2. that to speak is indeed other than to understand, but only as the including is other than the included. For just as man is other than animal, because namely he includes animal and adds to it something else, namely rational; so by parity the notional act, besides the order which the essential act expresses to the known object, adds an order to the term produced through itself; for the divine intellect, they say, simultaneously understands the object by producing the term, and produces the term by understanding the object.

I answer. that the divine Speaking does not include the essential intellection, just as man includes animal; because man adds some notion and a perfective difference to animal, namely rationality: whence rationality is a certain animality, just as the fissure of the feet is footedness, as Aristotle says in lib. 7. Metaph. But speaking does not include anything of intellection in its concept; otherwise the speaking person would understand more, because it would have some intellection which the person who does not speak does not have, and so one would be wiser than the other, which implies a contradiction. — Secondly, speaking, as has been proved, is formally an action: but intellection is not an action, but an operation: therefore the one does not formally include the other, for they are of disparate and entirely different genera. — Finally, that which speaking would add over and above intellection would either be within the line and notion of intellection, and thus it would be something essential and consequently common, just as intellection itself is; or it would be something distinct, and so something notional, and thus speaking will truly be a formality distinct from the essential intellection, which is what we intend.

The 2nd Conclusion is proved. If the production of the divine Word were formally the essential intellection, it would follow that the Father does not communicate the perfectly blessed essence to the Son, nor that the Father is blessed before the production of the Son: but the consequent is absurd: therefore so is the antecedent. The consequence of the major is clear: because beatitude consists rather in an act of the will than in an act of the intellect; for beatitude is fruition, which is formally an act of the will: but intellection precedes the act of the will, and so precedes fruition itself, in which beatitude formally consists: therefore if the divine Word were produced through intellection, the Father would be conceived as producing him before he was blessed, and thus the Son would receive an essence not yet perfectly blessed. If these things are so, either the Son is blessed thereafter, and thus he has something not received from the Father; or he is not blessed, and so he will not be God, who is beatitude itself. — Nor does it matter that the Thomists reply that beatitude does not consist formally in an act of the will, but of the intellect; for although this were true, which we have nevertheless demonstrated to be false in Philosophy, yet the aforesaid argument still always presses them. For from this it also follows that something notional would be prior to something essential, the contrary of which is the received view among the theologians. The consequence is clear: because the production of the word, if it takes place through intellection, will be prior to the essential love; for intellection precedes love. It is confirmed: for if intellection is the actual production, for whatever instant there is essential intellection, there will also be the production of the Word: but intellection necessarily precedes the essential love: therefore it follows that, if the Word is produced through the essential intellection, its production precedes that love, and so something notional is prior to the essential things, which is repugnant.

Thirdly, the same Conclusion is finally proved. If the Word were the term of the divine intellection, as intellection is, it would follow that the Father is formally understanding by the Word, and thus formally wise with a begotten wisdom: but the consequent is against the holy Fathers and Doctors: therefore, etc. The consequence of the major is clear: because the Father is formally understanding; but one who is formally understanding understands by the intrinsic term of his intellection, when intellection claims such a term for itself; for this is why the Thomists affirm that the Word is produced by us through intellection, so that through it the object is understood. The minor will be clear below, and is sufficiently proved through St. Augustine lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 7.:

In that Trinity, he says, who dares to say that the Father understands neither himself, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, except through the Son? For if there only the Son understands, so that the intelligence belongs both to himself and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, we return to that absurdity, that the Father is not wise of himself, but of the Son, nor has the wisdom of the wise begotten, but the Father is said to be wise by that wisdom which he begot. For he who is not intelligence, neither is he able > to be wisdom; nor, if by this the Father does not understand of himself, but the Son understands for the Father, will the Son indeed make the Father wise.

The Thomists object 1. the various authorities of the holy Fathers, by which they seem to suggest that we, by understanding and thinking, speak in the heart and produce the word of the mind; from which they gather a similar production of the divine Word: first of all Saint Augustine lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 10. says: The word which sounds outwardly is a sign of the word which shines within, to which the name of word more properly belongs; and what Sapientiae 2. says: They said within themselves, thinking not aright; Matth. 9. They said within themselves, this man blasphemes, which speaking is at once explained when it is added: When Jesus had seen their thoughts; likewise cap. 15. He thought within himself, saying; and Luke 5. They began to think, saying. From which St. Augustine concludes: Certain thoughts, therefore, are locutions of the heart: and further on: Within, when we think, locution and vision are one... For the thought formed by the thing which we know is the Word which we speak in the heart. He asserts moreover in the same place that this must be transferred to the divine Word, saying: Whoever can understand this, namely that we speak a mental word by thinking, can now see through this mirror and in this enigma some likeness of that Word, of which it is said: In the beginning was the Word. With him agree St. Fulgentius, lib. 1. ad Monimum cap. 7.: So, he says, is the Word with God, as the word is in the mind, as the counsel is in the heart: for when the mind has the word within itself, it certainly has it by thinking, because to speak within oneself is nothing other than to think within oneself: and also St. Anselm in Monologio, cap. 28. This very locution, he says, can be understood as nothing other than the intelligence of the same Spirit, by which it understands all things; for what else is it for him to speak some thing to himself in this manner of speaking, than to understand? Although immediately in the same chapter and the following 29. he restricts this locution, so that it is the begotten Word itself. Again cap. 34.: It is the same, he says, to the supreme Spirit to know as to understand, or to speak: and cap. 16. about the middle: To think a thing of which we have memory, this is to speak it in the mind.

I answer. that the holy Fathers, by these and similar ways of speaking, mean nothing other than that we speak and converse mentally when we think something, whether that thought is meanwhile that action by which the word of the mind is produced, or the formal reception of that word in the intellect. Which they did not weigh so exactly, with the sole exception of Augustine, who, inquiring into these things more subtly, also gave the Subtle Doctor the occasion to distinguish the production of the Word from simple thought. And so the other Fathers, judging that it suffices for the explanation of this mystery that, just as we, when we think, form within ourselves an image of the thing thought, which is called the word of the mind; so God the Father, by conceiving his essence, forms a Word consubstantial with himself, which conception of the Word they improperly call thought and intellection; so that they confound simple thought with the true internal speaking. Which impropriety of speech St. Thomas also noted, 1. part. q. 31. art. 1. ad secundum and ad tertium, and it is openly gathered from St. Anselm himself in the cited place; for cap. 58. he says: Just as the Father is understanding and the Son is understanding and the Holy Spirit is understanding, so the Father is speaking and the Son is speaking and the Holy Spirit is speaking. By which he openly confounds speaking with simple intellection; for it is certain that the Son and the Holy Spirit are truly understanding, as the Father is, namely by essential intellection, but they are not speaking with the productive speaking of the Word. But as to Saint Augustine, I say that he is to be understood of speaking and locution as it were in facto esse, so that, just as the Word outwardly uttered is called by these words, locution, speaking, utterance, word, as synonyms, although properly locution and speaking are the expression or production of the Word and as it were the Word in fieri; so internal locution is sometimes taken for the knowledge, as it were in facto esse, which thought, so taken, is the Word itself produced: whence Saint Augustine, after the words cited above, adds: The thought formed by the thing which we know is the Word.

You will object 2. Every operation of the intellect is understanding; but speaking, or conversing mentally, is formally an operation of the intellect: therefore speaking, or conversing mentally, is understanding.

I distinguish the major. it is understanding, either radically, or formally, I concede; formally only, I deny: and so every operation of the intellect can be called intellection radically and denominatively, because it proceeds from the intellective potency, but not formally, as if it were truly intellection and formal thought; for the intellect has a twofold operation, namely the speaking productive of the Word, and the intellection, which in creatures is the very formal reception of the produced Word.

You will press. if that action which we call speaking is not formally intellection, it will not be from the intellect formally, or inasmuch as it is intellect, but only inasmuch as it is a productive potency, and thus the divine Word will proceed from the intellect only as it were materially, that is, from a principle which is really only intellect, but not formally: but the consequent is false; for if the Son does not proceed from the intellect inasmuch as it is formally intellect, it follows that by force of his procession he cannot properly be called the Father's mental Word, nor proceed from the memory of the Father, nor be wisdom from wisdom and vision from vision, as Saint Augustine speaks in book 15, chapters 7. and 13.; therefore, etc. The major is proved: for the intellect is not formally intellect, except inasmuch as it unfolds itself into the act of understanding, which is the act adequate to the intellect, inasmuch as it is intellect.

I distinguish the major. it will not be formally from the intellect, inasmuch as it is intellect, or inasmuch as it produces an act which is formally intellection, I concede: inasmuch as it produces an act which is intellection at least radically, I deny.

I likewise distinguish the proof. the adequate act of the intellect is intellection, either formally, or radically, I concede; formally only, I deny.

Add. that the argument can be turned back upon the Adversaries; for intellection, as intellection is formally, is not speaking; but they themselves admit that the divine Word does not proceed from the divine intellection, inasmuch as intellection is formal; for this is common to the three divine persons; but only inasmuch as it is modified in the first supposit and is called Speaking: therefore the aforesaid argument fights more against them than against us. Nor does it follow from this that the Son is not rightly called the Word, nor wisdom and vision from vision, etc.; rather, he has his appellation of Word from the fecund memory of the Father, by whom he is produced through speaking, and he is more rightly named the Word than if he were made through intellection; for thus he would have to be called not a word uttered, but only a thought, or intellection, of the Father: but the appellation of Word is followed by the other aforesaid denominations of his, which are synonymous with the Word.

You will object 3. The divine processions are not only productions of persons, but also communications of the nature and of the essential acts; for the procession ought to contain in fieri whatever the term produced through it contains in facto esse: but the produced Word contains the nature and the essential acts: therefore its procession must also contain the divine nature and the essential act of understanding, and so it must be none other than the divine intellection itself.

I answer. that indeed the divine procession contains in fieri and as it were communicates the essence and the essential acts; but I deny that it follows from this that it must therefore be that formal act of understanding; for by this reasoning the production of the Son could also be called an act of willing; for in the Son there is not only the divine Essence and the essential act of the Father's intellect, but there is also the essential act of his will: if therefore, in order that the Son have that act of the Father's intellect by force of his procession, it is necessary that the act itself be formally included in his procession, it will also be necessary that the act of the will be formally included in it, since he has the whole essence and the essential things by force of his procession. The same can be said of the Holy Spirit. The essential things are therefore not communicated to the Son because his procession is an essential act, but because the essence itself is the other co-principle of this offspring and production. Add that, if the Adversaries' inference were true, it would also conclude that the divine Essence is formally included in speaking, because the Son, by force of his procession, has the divine Essence no less than the divine intellection; but no theologian admits this consequence: therefore neither ought he to admit the antecedent.

They object 4. If intellection were presupposed to speaking and were something common to the three persons, it would follow that the Father does not know himself in the Word more than the Word itself and the Holy Spirit would be said to understand themselves in the Word: but this is against the common assertion of the theologians, who say that the Word represents the essence to the Father; whence it comes about that he is called his image: therefore, etc. The consequence is clear, because if the Father understands by an essential intellection, which is not formally speaking, the other persons will already be his equals; since they too understand the divine essence by the essential intellection and thus will know in the Word, etc.

I distinguish the consequence. that the Father would not be said to know himself in the Word more, by reason of the operation, I concede; by reason of representation, I deny; for when it is said that the divine Father knows himself in the Word, the sense is not that through the production of the Word he knows his essence, otherwise he would be wise with a begotten wisdom, which was said above to be false from St. Augustine; but the sense is that the Father has given to the Son the power of representing that essence as his own Word, not indeed as the Word of the other Persons. Therefore, just as the created word expresses the object to the speaker himself; so in the divine things, although the Word is not in the one speaking after the manner of an informing form, as it is in creatures, it nevertheless has from him a peculiar habitude, whereby it comes about that it is said to represent the divine essence more to him than to the other persons.

They object 5. The Subtle Doctor therefore distinguishes speaking from the essential intellection, namely lest the Word be said to proceed through the essential operation of understanding common to the three persons: but the same difficulty recurs if one admits an act in the divine intellect distinct from the essential intellection; therefore he falls into Scylla while wishing to avoid Charybdis. They prove the minor: that action formally distinct ex natura rei from the essential intellection is, in the notion of action, an absolute act, just as intellection itself is; therefore in the notion of action it is common and essential, just as intellection itself is. The consequence is clear; the antecedent is proved: that action, in the notion of action flowing from the intellect, is not formally a relation; for this is neither productive, nor does it go forth from the intellect after the manner of an action, since it is the term of the divine nature constituting it in the notion of person: therefore such an action under the concept of action is something absolute, just as intellection also is; for in God whatever is not relative is absolute and belongs to the essential things, and so it follows from the opinion of Scotus that the Father produces his Word through an absolute act common to the three persons — why then could he not concede the same of the very essential understanding itself, lest actions be multiplied in God in vain?

I deny the minor. and also the major of its proof: for the divine Speaking is in reality that constitutive formality of the first supposit; and so the very relation of Paternity: not indeed inasmuch as it is considered under the precise notion of a relation referring one thing to another, nor as it is that very divine operation by which the first supposit communicates its existence and its essential things to the second supposit, to which it is therefore referred as the generating to the begotten: whence the generative action in the divine things can be said to be formally a relation according to its adequate entity, although it is not formally a relation according to its inadequate entity and diverse connotation; for one and the same constitutive formality of the first supposit receives various appellations, because of the diverse connotation of the terms and its various offices; for first it constitutes the first person subsisting incommunicably; then it constitutes the principle able to produce, as that which; thirdly it bestows the active potency unto generation, or speaking; and finally it constitutes the Father as actually and as it were praedicamentally related to the Son.

Third conclusion. — Truly the divine Word proceeds through speaking, and the Holy Spirit through active spiration.

This is the opinion of the Subtle Doctor, at the places cited in the prior Conclusion, and the truth of this follows from the preceding; for if the Word and the Holy Spirit do not proceed through formal acts of intellection and essential love, whether considered formally or as modified, it follows that they must necessarily proceed through the acts of speaking and breathing forth, for no others can be devised in the divine things.

Moreover the Conclusion is proved by the Doctor in 1. d. 2. q. 7. n. 15. first indeed by the authority of St. Augustine, who everywhere teaches that the Word, both divine and ours, is produced by the fecund memory, not indeed by the intelligence: but the fecund memory is productive through speaking, not through intellection: therefore, according to the opinion of St. Augustine, the divine Word truly proceeds through a speaking distinct from intellection. The major is clear, namely that the Word, both divine and ours, must proceed from the fecund memory. St. Augustine indeed has this expressly lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 10. where he speaks thus of the word produced by us: When we beget the Word it is necessary that the Word be born from that very knowledge which we hold in memory; for the thought formed by the thing which we know is the Word which we speak in the heart. But he had said a little before that from this likeness of our word the production of the divine Word can be uncovered. In this mirror, he says, and in this enigma, some likeness of that Word is seen, of which it is said: In the beginning was the Word. And that both words, the divine as well as ours, proceed from the fecund memory, he indicates openly enough in the same place, c. 11.: Our word, he says, that which has no sound, is not just anyhow like in this enigma to that Word of God, which is also God, since thus this one too is born of our knowledge just as that one was born of the knowledge of the Father. — The minor is likewise evident; for the intelligence is concerned with the object to be perceived, but the fecund memory with the Word to be produced; the former is held in the simple vision of the object, the latter in the production of its term; the former alone is the operation of the divinity by which the divine persons comprehend their essence and themselves: the latter is the speaking and production by which the Father generates the Son entirely equal to himself, by force of his procession and production. Whatever could be objected against this Conclusion has already been solved in the preceding and will be solved in the following.

You will ask, whether the act of understanding is presupposed to the act of speaking in the divine things? — The Scotists commonly affirm it, both because the Subtle Doctor seems manifestly to assert this in 1. dist. 2. qu. ultima, as has already been observed in the first Note: and because the essential things are prior to the notional, but understanding is something essential, while speaking is something notional: and finally, because it belongs to the notion of a perfect principle that it first have its ultimate perfection before it produces: but understanding and willing seem to be the ultimate perfections of the Deity, and therefore the divine person must first be understanding and willing before it produces the Word from the fecundity of the nature. But it happens otherwise in creatures, where speaking precedes understanding, since the created intellect is not formally understanding except through the reception of the Word produced by speaking itself.

Nevertheless some protest, to whom our Baronius subscribes, Apolog. 2. act. 4. about the end, affirming that in the Father speaking is prior to intellection and volition, because, he says, speaking is the constituent of the Father, and nothing is prior in anything than that by which it is constituted; for nothing can be in something before that thing is, nor can it be before it is constituted in being, nor can it be constituted except through its constitutive principle, and so nothing can be in the Father before the Father is constituted in his being of Father. But he is not constituted in that being except through speaking, which, as is supposed, is the active generation itself. Whence he concludes that, although absolutely in God understanding is prior to speaking, nevertheless in the Father, as in the Father reduplicatively, speaking is prior to understanding, just as, although animal is prior to rational, nevertheless, as it is in man, rational is prior to animal; whence, since the Father is constituted in the being of Father through speaking, it is necessary that he speak before he understands, because it is prior for the Father to be than to understand. — But the other Scotists protest, with Rada, in the first part, Controversia 12. art. 3.: first, because according to the Subtle Doctor the Father is blessed before he generates: but beatitude is either in intellection, or in volition, or in both: therefore the divine Father understands his essence before he speaks and produces his Word. Then, because whenever some things observe a necessary order among themselves, they necessarily observe the same order wherever they are found: but understanding in itself is prior to speaking: therefore also in the Father intellection precedes speaking. Nor does the example of the animal help; for it is false that in man rational is prior to animal, for both concur to the constitution of man, animal indeed as the superior predicate, rational as the interior predicate; so, by parity, understanding and speaking together constitute the Father, understanding indeed as the superior predicate, speaking as the ultimate predicate, and therefore the latter presupposes the former. Finally, because whatever follows upon a notional predicate is not communicated to the other persons, for it is the proper character of the divine person: but the divine understanding is communicated to several and passes to all the divine persons: therefore it does not presuppose speaking, by which the latter is a notional predicate, but precedes.

Quaestio IV: An, et quae processio sit in divinis generatio

By divine faith it is certain that generation is to be admitted in the divine realities. For the Scriptures of both Testaments proclaim this, by which the divine generation itself is expressly asserted. Thus Psalm. 2.: This day have I begotten thee. Psal. 109.: From the womb before the day star I begot thee. At the end of Isaiah: Shall I, who make others bring forth, myself not bring forth? All those texts also confirm it, especially those of the New Testament, by which the Son is attributed to God; for filiation most certainly entails generation. All those divine oracles also urge it, by which Christ the Lord is pronounced to be the Son of God, and He Himself constantly calls God His Father. And so no place for doubting the truth of the divine generation has been left. But a great and grave difficulty remains to be resolved: whether each divine procession, both of the Word and of the Holy Spirit, is to be called a true generation; or whether only the emanation of the Word claims for itself the name of a true and perfect generation. Wherefore

Note 1. It was the opinion of the ancient Fathers that some generation is indeed to be admitted in God, by which he who begot is truly and properly the Father and is so called, and he who was begotten truly is and is named the Son. But how that generation takes place, and for what reason the only one of the produced divine Persons is called the Son, they judged should not be more carefully investigated. For it is unseemly, says St. Athanasius, Orat. 3.:

to inquire how the Word exists from God, or how He is the splendor of God, or how God begets, and what is the manner of God's generation. For insane would he be who should dare such things, when he strives by his own discourse to set forth a matter that is inexplicable and proper to the divine nature, and known to God Himself alone and to His Son.

With him agrees Nazianzen, Orat. 1. De Filio:

How was He begotten? he says (for I repeat the same thing indignantly), let God's generation be honored with silence. It is abundantly great for you to know that He was begotten. But in what manner He was begotten, I should not grant even to the Angels themselves to understand, much less to you. And if I should declare how? That the Father is He who begot, and the Son He who was begotten. What is above these things is covered with a cloud and escapes your dullness.

Irenaeus had gone before him, c. 48., who says that this is so far unknown that neither the Angels, nor the archangels, nor the Principalities, nor the Powers know it, except the Father alone who begot, and the Son who was born. Therefore, since His generation is ineffable, whoever strive to recount generations and processions are not in their right mind, promising to recount things that are ineffable. — The same was the opinion of the Latin Fathers; for St. Ambrose, lib. 1. De fide cap. 5., says that it is impossible to know the secret of that generation. And again, it is permitted to know that He was born; it is not permitted to discuss how He was born; to deny the former is not permitted to me, to inquire into the latter is a fear. And in the same place he calls this inquiry the torments of questions. St. Augustine subscribes to him in many places, but especially lib. 3. Contra Maximinum cap. 14. and 15., De Trinitate cap. 27., and Tract. 99. in Ioannem, where he says: that there is a difference between proceeding and being born, it is long to discuss by inquiry, and rash, when you have discussed, to define, etc. — Nevertheless it is pious and useful, by disputing humbly and soberly, to seek the reason of the difference by which the generation of the Word is distinguished from the procession of the Holy Spirit, provided that that very disputation rest primarily on Faith, and secondarily appear clearer by natural reason, which serves faith as a handmaid, and that the disputation be undertaken with this design, that it be made manifest that the objections of the heretics against this mystery are vain and sophistical. Whence St. Justin the Martyr rightly, in the exposition of the faith on the Trinity, after he had shown that in no way can we penetrate to the divine Essence, nor its mysteries, adds: we ought not, however, to desist entirely from seeking it; but let each one, according to his portion of the knowledge received from the Lord, strenuously examine the matter, certain that he will not indeed perceive it exactly, but that he will profit through a contemplation of this kind by approaching more closely to Him.

Note 2. The generation of living things can be distinguished as threefold; for it is taken, first, for the production of any living thing whatsoever, whether meanwhile such production is made by a living thing or not, whether by a cause of the same nature as the effect or by a different one; and thus the production of animals from putrid matter, by the benefit of the Sun or of fire, can be called generation. Thus the formation of Adam from the clay of the earth and of Eve from the rib of Adam himself can obtain the name of generation, for the term of such productions is a living substance. Second, the name of generation is taken more strictly, namely for the production of a living thing from a living thing, in which sense, taken thus, it is customarily described: The origin of a living thing from a living thing, through a conjoined principle of life, into a likeness of nature. This description involves four elements required for generation. 1. That it be an origin of a living thing, because birth pertains only to living things. 2. From a living principle, so that the productions of living things by fire, the Sun, and other causes devoid of life may be excluded from the perfect acceptation of generation. 3. From a conjoined principle of life, that is, that that by which the begotten is produced was at some time conjoined to the living begetter; for the begotten is made through seed cut off from the living begetter. For this reason the production of Adam cannot be called generation, because although it is made by the living God, it is not made through a cutting off and communication of the divine substance. 4. Into a likeness of nature, not indeed of the individual; for the begotten is sometimes seen wholly unlike its begetter in perfections, both substantial and accidental; but into a likeness of nature either generic, namely an animal from an animal, as is the generation of a mule from a horse and a she-ass, or specific, as is the generation of a man from a man. Third, finally, the generation of spiritual living things, taken most strictly, can be described: The origin of an intelligent living thing from a living thing with an intelligent life, through a conjoined principle of intelligent life. By which the generation of all men is comprised, and the production of animals and plants is excluded. That this description of generation agrees with the production of the divine Word the Doctor proves in 1. dist. 5. qu. 2. num. 3.

Note 3. A twofold difference can chiefly be assigned between the act of the intellect and that of the will. The first is that every act of the will is free, at least with an essential freedom, which consists in the order which the act bears to a principle determining itself to the act in an electing and delighting manner. But the act of the intellect is not free, but natural; which naturalness consists in this, that the act proceeds from a principle determined by its nature to the act — a distinction which the Doctor establishes in 1. dist. 10., as will appear more fully below, when we shall expressly treat of the free procession of the Holy Spirit. The second difference is that the act of the intellect has the character of an image and likeness representing its object, which is the principle of the same act together with the intellect itself. For through the object, or through the species received from the object as its seed, so to speak, the intellect is rendered fruitful for conceiving the mental word, which is the image of the object. But the act of the will does not have that character of an image and likeness representing its object, but has the character of an inclination and propensity toward the object, as St. Thomas observes, 1. p. q. 27. art. 4. This propensity of love is explained by the likeness of union, or of a bond, by which the lover is said to be conjoined to the beloved, or to be in him and to be borne toward him as by a certain weight; whence St. Dionysius, cap. 4. De Divinis Nominibus, calls love a unitive power; with whom St. Augustine agrees, lib. 8. De Trinitate, cap. 10: What is love, he says, but a certain life coupling two things, or seeking to couple, namely the lover and what is loved? And lib. 13. Confessionum, c. 9: My weight is my love; by it I am borne wherever I am borne. St. Bernard also subscribes, serm. 83. in Cantica, where he says of Charity: Truly this is the contract of a spiritual and holy marriage; I have said too little: it is an embrace, plainly an embrace, where to will and to nill the same makes one spirit out of two, etc.

These things having been thus premised, chiefly these three are to be resolved in the Question. 1. That the production of the divine Word is a true generation. 2. That the procession of the Holy Spirit is not to be called generation. 3. The cause of this difference is to be investigated, and the genuine reason brought forward why the procession of the Son, not so that of the Holy Spirit, is called generation.

First conclusion. — The procession of the divine Word is truly and properly called generation.

This is of faith, as regards both parts; for this is openly defined in the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Toledo, etc., in those confessions of faith by which the second Person of the divine Trinity, the Son, is asserted to be begotten and born of the Father from eternity, not, however, made or created.

It is likewise gathered from the various places of Sacred Scripture by which, as we said above, not only is it proved that there is a true generation in the divine realities, but also that very generation is attributed to the procession of the divine Word; thus Psalm. 2.: Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee, which text St. Paul, Epist. ad Hebraeos, explains of the eternal generation of Christ the Lord. Moreover, from that Psal. 109.: In the splendors of the Saints, before the day star I begot thee. This divine Oracle is not to be interpreted of the temporal nativity of Christ the Lord, as some maintain; for how would He be said to have been begotten before the day star, who was born only in the midst of times? but of that very divine generation, whose eternity, character, and principle are inscribed by that very Oracle. The character indeed, when He is said to be begotten in the splendors of the Saints, by which it is signified that He was begotten through the fecundity of light, that is, of the divine intellect made fruitful by the knowledge of the Deity; whence also in the Nicene Creed He is rightly called light from light. But the following words, before the day star, explain the eternity: that is, not only before the production of every creature, but also before their eternal ordering and the decree concerning their creation. Hence that divine Wisdom, Prov. 8., says of herself: I was ordained from eternity, before He made anything from the beginning; the depths were not yet, and I was already conceived. Finally, the principle of that origin and nativity is designated by the following words, from the womb I begot thee, namely from the fecund memory, by whose act the Father communicates His substance to the Son. Whence some not without reason think that a mystery lies hidden in these words, namely that the divine Father, on account of the supreme perfection of generation, discharges the office of both Father and Mother. Of the Mother indeed, as this particle indicates, from the womb: but of the Father, as that phrase I begot thee signifies. Whence Synesius learnedly and wisely calls Him Father-Mother, that is, one discharging the parts of Father and Mother in the production of His Son.

It is also proved by reason: that procession is truly and properly to be called generation to which the three conditions required for perfect generation apply; but all of them belong to the true production of the Word. For first, the procession of the divine Word is the procession of a living thing from a living thing: namely of the Son having life in Himself communicated to Him by the living Father, according to that saying of Ioannis 5.: As the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself. Here indeed St. Augustine, Tract. 22. in Ioannem, distinguishes two ways of having life: the first is from oneself, which belongs to the Father alone; for just as He is, so He has life, not only in Himself, that is, subsisting, but also from Himself and not from another. The second is to have life subsisting in oneself, and not from oneself; and this belongs to the Son having life from the Father. — Second, it proceeds from a principle living with the life of intelligence. For God is a Spirit, whose to live is to understand. But the Word proceeds through the intellective power, or through the fecund intellect, and so is truly and properly said to proceed from a principle living with the life of intelligence. — Moreover, the same procession is from a conjoined principle. For the productive principle of the Word remains conjoined to Him, since the Father pours into Him His whole nature and substance, which is signified by these words, from the womb. For, as St. Augustine says, lib. 2. Contra Maximinum:

Therefore He is said to be born from His womb, because God begot God from Himself, that is, from His own substance, just as, when He was born from the womb of the Mother, a man begot a man, that we might understand that in both generations the substances of him who was born and of those from whom he was born are not diverse.

This truth Victor, Bishop, also luculently weighs in this way in the profession of faith to Huneric, which stands in Tomo 1. of the Bibliotheca Patrum.

We profess therefore, he says, that the Father begot the Son from Himself, that is, from that which He Himself is, sempiternally and ineffably — not from without, not from nothing, not from another matter — but that He was born of God; and he who was born of God is nothing other than that which the Father is.

The Council of Toledo 11. also agrees, saying: For neither from nothing, nor from some substance; but from the womb of the Father, that is, from His substance, is the same Son to be believed to have been begotten, or born. — Finally, the same procession is into a likeness of nature, and the most perfect one; for to the Colossians, in the first chapter, the Son is called the Image of God; and to the Hebrews, in the first chapter, He is called the Splendor of the Father and the figure of His substance. Indeed, not only is it into a specific likeness, as is the perfect generation of living things, but also into a numerical and identical one. For the divine Father communicates His nature, numerically the same, to His Son by eternal generation; whence the Son Himself rightly pronounces, Ioan. 2.: I and the Father are one — not indeed by unity of Person, as has been said, but by unity of substance and Divinity.

You will say 1. The procession of the divine Word takes place through the intellect: but the intellect from its own notion is not generative; indeed it is non-generative; for neither Angels nor men procreate beings like themselves through the intellect: therefore the production of the divine Word is not a generation.

I distinguish the minor. the intellect is not generative in creatures, I concede; in divine realities, I deny. For since the created word is only accidental, and is by no means consubstantial with the fecund intellect producing it, and so its conception is not univocal, it follows that it is a generation neither properly nor really, but only by similitude and intentionally, insofar as it produces a term which is indeed an image of the object, but an imperfect one, on account of the limitation and finiteness of the producing intellect, by reason of which it does not have the power of eliciting a wholly adequate and perfect likeness of the object. But it is otherwise with God; for since the divine intellect is infinite and unlimited, it cannot but produce a Word adequate in all things to its own fecund intellect, that is, to the intellect conjoined with the divine essence, its primary object, and consubstantial with it; and so the production of the Word is a generation not only by similitude, but also truly and really.

You will say 2. In order that some production obtain the name of true generation, it must produce a term similar to the producer by force of the action by which it produces it: but the eternal Father does not achieve this in producing the Son, for the Word produced by Him does not become similar to Him in nature by reason of the productive action, namely of diction; but by reason of the object concurring with the intellect to that production, of which object the produced Word is the expression and likeness.

I deny the minor. and to its proof I say that although two things concur to constitute the fecund memory, namely the intellect and the object, nevertheless the intellect itself, since it is the agent, or producer, is said to form the likeness of the object while it produces the Word; and so that production is to be attributed more to its own action than to the concurrence of the object.

You will insist. In order that the divine Son be truly assimilated to the producing Father, He would have to participate in all His proper characteristics, and so He would have to have Paternity; for this is the proper characteristic of the Father, which constitutes Him in the being of Father: but this is not obtained; rather He has a constituent not only disparate, but opposite, namely Filiation: therefore so far is He from being similar to the producing principle, that He is altogether dissimilar, and so He is not truly begotten.

I distinguish the major. He would have to have the proper characteristics of the Father that are essential and compossible with Filiation, I concede: those that are notional and incompossible with Filiation, I deny. For it is not necessary for perfect generation that the begotten be assimilated to the begetter in all things and in everything. For it is certain that a son among human beings has not only a filiation opposed to paternity, but also a supposit and an individual difference by which he is really and personally distinguished from the producing principle. Therefore, in order that the divine Word be truly said to be similar to its productive principle, it is not necessary that it obtain all its characteristics, but it suffices that it have with it the same essence and the same essential perfections.

You will say 3. The production of the divine Word would for this reason be said to be truly a generation, because Scripture affirms that He was begotten by God: but from this it is not lawful to gather that He is truly begotten and produced from the substance of the Father and through the communication of that same essence: therefore neither is it lawful to affirm His production to be a true generation. The major is evident from what has been said. The minor is proved, since the same Scripture pronounces not only the Word, but also men, to be begotten by God: Deuteron. 32.: Thou hast forsaken the God who begot thee. Which certainly does not signify that men were produced from that substance of God, nor that their production is a true generation.

I deny the minor. and to its proof I say that the word of generating in Sacred Scripture, as also among the Philosophers, is used in a threefold way, namely more broadly, more strictly, and most strictly, as was observed in Note 2. Whence the production of men can be called generation taken in the broader sense, insofar as it is the origin of a living thing from a living thing into at least an accidental likeness of nature. But the production of the Word is called generation taken in the most strict sense, since it takes place through the divine nature communicated to Him, which is derived to Him through a naturally productive principle, namely through the divine intellect; wherefore He is one and true God with the Father. For the truth of nature keeps its property, says St. Hilary, so that

what is from God is God, and the nativity is neither a change nor a diversity, while the Son subsists neither in an external nature, nor as a God dissimilar to the Father, nor does the Father acquire anything foreign to Himself through the nativity of the Only-begotten, but rather has granted it, imparting all things that are His own without loss.

Or as he adds, lib. 11.:

The nativity of God is neither from elsewhere, nor something else; for if it is from elsewhere, it is not a nativity; but if it is something else, it is not God. But since God is from God, through this, God the Father is to God the Son both the God of His nativity and the Father of His nature, because the nativity of God is both from God, and in it He is begotten in the nature by which He is God.

Second conclusion. — Only the production of the Son, not likewise that of the Holy Spirit, is a true generation.

This also is of faith, determined in the Councils of Toledo 1. and 11., as well as in the Nicene a little after the middle, where it says: One unbegotten God and Father, one Son begotten from Him, God, the Word. Just as He is not another God, unbegotten, with the God and Father, so neither is the Son co-begotten, nor prior, nor posterior, different from God His only-begotten Son. Secondly, this same thing is confirmed from all the

Creeds, first indeed the Apostles', where Christ is called the only-begotten Son of God; and also the Nicene, by which we believe in Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of God. Likewise in the Creed of St. Athanasius received by the Church, where only the Son is said to be begotten; but the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

It is also confirmed by the Sacred Scriptures; for if the procession of the Holy Spirit were a generation, it would follow that the Holy Spirit is a begotten Son. But this openly runs counter to the Sacred Scripture, in which the divine Word is for the most part proclaimed the one and only-begotten Son of God; thus Ioan. Ep. 1. c. 1.: The Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him to us. And 3. cap.: So God loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son; and again: Because he does not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. Nor does it matter that John, in the first chapter, declares that he saw the glory of the divine Word as of the Only-begotten from the Father; for that 'as' does not diminish the glory, but rather denotes truth and equality according to the Hebrew manner of speaking, lest, if he said: 'so great was His glory, as befitted the only-begotten Son of God'.

All the holy Fathers entirely confirm it by the same argument, who expressly pronounce that the Holy Spirit is not begotten. Thus St. Basil, lib. 3. Contra Eunomium, toward the end: The Holy Spirit, he says, is neither unbegotten nor begotten, because the Only-begotten is one. Nazianzenus has the same, oratione quinta de Theologia: Nor is the Spirit the Son, he says, because He is from God; for the Only-begotten is one. Athanasius also subscribes, Dialogo 3. De Trinitate: He is called, he says, only-begotten, because He alone was begotten from the essence... For neither is it written: 'The Spirit was begotten from me', but 'He proceeds from me'. This very truth is confirmed from what was said in the preceding Conclusion, and will appear more fully from what is to be said in the following Conclusion, in which we shall set down the genuine reason why the procession of the Holy Spirit is not to be called generation.

You will say 1. The Son of God is for the most part called the First-born in the Sacred Scriptures: therefore He has another begotten after Him, namely the Holy Spirit, and so the procession of the Holy Spirit will also have to be called a generation.

I answer. to the antecedent, that someone can be called First-born in two ways, namely negatively and positively. Negatively indeed, when some other first-born is denied, no comparison being made to those who come after, or no attention being paid to whether there are any born later. Thus Christ, not only as God, but also as man, is called first-born, both from the Father and from the Mother, because He has none born before Him, although He also has none born after Him. Thus Matth. 1. the sacred Virgin is said to have brought forth her first-born Son. But positively he is called first-born who indeed has none before him, yet has other brothers younger in birth; in which sense Christ cannot be called first-born.

You will insist. Not only does Sacred Scripture affirm that the Son of God is first-born negatively, but also positively: therefore there is no solution. The antecedent is proved from St. Paul, ad Rom. 8., where the Son of God is called the First-born among many brethren: therefore, etc.

I answer. Someone can be said to be firstborn positively in two ways, namely properly, or metaphorically. Properly, when those born later are brothers who have the same nature as the elder brother, communicated by the same parents. For this reason Christ the Lord cannot be called firstborn, neither according to temporal nor according to eternal generation, because neither God the Father nor the Virgin Mother begot other later sons in this way. Metaphorically, however, one is called firstborn when later brothers are improperly generated and called, and they are brothers not indeed by nature, but by adoption. In which sense Christ is called firstborn among many brothers, for he has many begotten later through the grace of adoption, whom for that reason he is not ashamed to call brothers, says the same Apostle, ad Hebraeos 2.

The Council of Ephesus explains this very truth lucidly in cap. 4, saying: The Son of God is so named in comparison with adoptive sons, and Only-begotten by the exclusion of another natural son. Whence Augustine, in lib. De Fide et Symbolo, cap. 1, has this: According to that by which he is Only-begotten he has no brothers; according to that, however, by which he is firstborn, he deigned to call brothers all of us who, after his firstfruits, are born in the grace of God through the adoption of sons.

You will object 2. If anything persuades us that the divine Word alone is the Son of God, it is especially because, as we have said, he is affirmed as Only-begotten both by Sacred Scripture and by the Councils: but from this one may not infer that he does not have other brothers begotten also truly and properly: therefore, etc. The minor is proved from that passage of Proverbiorum 4, where Solomon says he is the only-begotten of his mother, although he nevertheless had four brothers. For 1. Paralipomenon cap. 3 says that four sons were born to David in Jerusalem from Bathsheba, who, in 2. Regum cap. 5, are called sons of David: therefore, from the fact that the divine Son is called Only-begotten, it does not for that reason follow that he properly does not have brothers.

I answer. Solomon is not said to be the only-begotten of his mother absolutely; but before his mother, or the beloved in the face of his mother, as the seventy Interpreters render it, because he was loved by her with such affection as if he had been an only and only-begotten Son; but in this sense the Son of God cannot be called Only-begotten, because the Holy Spirit is loved by the Father just as much as the Son. It is necessary, therefore, that he be called Only-begotten for this reason, that he is begotten by the Father by one true generation.

You will say 3. Whatever exists is either begotten or unbegotten: but the Holy Spirit is not unbegotten, for only the divine Father is such: therefore he is begotten. Hence the Eunomians and Macedonians attacked the Divinity of the Holy Spirit with this dilemma: either the Holy Spirit is God begotten, or unbegotten. If he is unbegotten, there will be two Gods without origin and unbegotten. If, however, he is God begotten; either begotten by the Father alone, like the Word, and then there will be two twin brothers: or the Holy Spirit will be a Son later by birth than the Word: or the Holy Spirit is begotten by the Son alone, and thus he will be the grandson of the Father and the Father will be the grandfather: or finally he is begotten by the Father and the Son, and thus it will come about that one parent is male and father, the other indeed female and mother. Nazianzen in his Orat. De Theologia and Athanasius in his Epist. ad Serapionem report and refute this argumentation.

I answer. "Unbegotten" is used by the Fathers in two ways. First, insofar as it means the same as that which is produced by no principle; in which sense only the Father, not indeed the Holy Spirit, is called unbegotten. Second, more strictly, for any thing which does not proceed through generation properly so called; in which sense the Holy Spirit is called unbegotten by some holy Fathers, improperly, however, for as St. Augustine says in Serm. 3, within the Octave of the Epiphany: The Holy Spirit is nowhere said to be either unbegotten or begotten, lest if he were called unbegotten, like the Father, two Fathers would be understood in the holy Trinity, or if he were called begotten, like the Son, likewise two Sons would by equal reasoning be judged to be the holy Trinity. With this the eleventh Council of Toledo agrees in its confession of faith, saying: Here also the Holy Spirit is neither called unbegotten nor believed begotten, lest if we should say unbegotten we should speak of two Fathers, or if begotten, we should show that we proclaim two Sons.

Third conclusion. — The proximate and immediate reason why the procession of the divine Word is generation, but not the procession of the Holy Spirit, is that the Word proceeds and is produced naturally and not voluntarily, while the Holy Spirit is produced voluntarily and not naturally.

This is the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor, which he teaches in many places, but most of all in 1. dist. 10 n. 13 and dist. 13 n. 20, saying:

That generation is taken in one way for substantial generation, or in another way specially for the production of a living thing from a living thing, and in this way an animal is said to be generated and not fire; and there the natural inclination, or natural form, which is the principle of generating, commonly concurs on the part of the agent, and in this last way generation seems to be in the divine persons.

Alexander of Hales teaches the same in 1. part. q. 33. membr. 1, as does also the Seraphic Bonaventure, who in many places, especially in 1. d. 6. q. 2, says: If the will is the principle with the nature communicating, thus is the procession of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds after the manner of love, yet similar in nature: if, however, nature is the principle with the will communicating, thus is the generation of the Son, who is produced as altogether similar and after the manner of nature: and in the Compendio Theologico lib. 1. cap. 7 he affirms that the Son's proper mode of proceeding is after the likeness of nature. Nor does it matter that in dist. 13. art. 1. q. 2. ad 3 he assigns this difference, namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds as love, the Son indeed as image: for this reason is only mediate; the immediate reason, however, why the Son is the image, or the expression of likeness, is, he says in dist. 38. art. 1. q. 2, in the body of the article, because he goes forth after the manner of nature, and thus after the manner of the Word and of the species and after the manner of an expressed likeness.

Proof of conclusion 1. By the authority of St. Augustine, who in lib. 5. De Trinit. cap. 9 and 11 asks why the Holy Spirit is not the Son, since he nevertheless goes forth from the Father. And he resolves it saying: For he goes forth not as born, but as given. Which is the same as if he said that the Holy Spirit is therefore not the Son, because he does not go forth naturally, as the second person, who goes forth as born, that is, after the manner of nature; he proceeds as given, namely, voluntarily and after the manner of the inclination of the good will, or after the likeness of love, which is the first among the gifts that proceed from the will of the giver. But if you ask the same Augustine why the Son goes forth as born, and the Holy Spirit as given; he does not keep the reason silent, as Vazquez less truly says that he judged this opinion as it were improbable; rather he replies in lib. 9. De Trinit. cap. 12 that the reason of this difference is that the Son proceeds through the intellect, whose office it is to search out, and by finding, as it were, to bring forth. For inquiry, he says, is the appetite of finding, which amounts to the same if you say of discovering: but the things that are found are, as it were, brought forth; whence they are similar to offspring, where, if not in the knowledge itself? for there it is, as it were, expressed formally. He adds, however:

For a certain appetite precedes the mind's bringing forth, by which we will to know that thing; by seeking and finding, the knowledge itself is born as offspring: and on this account that appetite by which knowledge is conceived and brought forth cannot rightly be called the bringing forth and the offspring, and the same appetite by which one longs for the thing to be known becomes the love of the thing known, while it holds and embraces the pleasing offspring, that is, the knowledge, and joins it to the begetter.

As if he would say that no other reason is to be assigned for why the Word is the begotten Son than because he proceeds through the intellect, whose office it is to search out the truth and to act naturally, as all agree, and not voluntarily: while the Holy Spirit proceeds through the will, whose office it is to act voluntarily and not naturally.

To this can also be reduced another reason for this difference, which St. Augustine himself brings forward in lib. 15, cap. 27, where he asserts that the second Person is the Son because he proceeds from one person alone; the Holy Spirit, however, is not the Son because he proceeds from two: For, he says, if he himself were also called Son, he would surely be called the Son of both, which is most absurd; for no one is the Son of two except of Father and Mother: but far be it that we should suspect anything of that sort between God the Father and God the Son. He submits this reason, however, as a posteriori. For from the fact that the Son proceeds from one person it is gathered that he proceeds naturally and through the intellect; and consequently that he is the Son; from the fact, however, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from two Persons it is inferred that he is produced voluntarily, not naturally.

This also seems to be the open opinion of St. Athanasius in his Epist. De Decretis Synodi Nicaenae, saying: For what is naturally born from something and is similar in nature, and is not adopted from elsewhere, nature acknowledges it as a Son, and the word bears that force of signification. From these things this argument is formed: all other Sons are produced naturally: therefore the second person of the divine Trinity is also for this reason called Son, that he is really produced naturally, that is, through the intellect naturally determined to act.

Again, true generation is the origin of a living thing from a living thing after the manner of nature and of likeness: whence the word nature seems to have been first derived from being born, and imposed to signify the actual origin of a living thing from a living thing, which is now called nativity: therefore that procession is to be called generation which is judged to be the work of nature: but the production of the Word is judged to be the work of nature, because it is through the intellect, which is called a natural agent and is opposed to the agent through the will, through which the procession of the Holy Spirit occurs, which is therefore called voluntary, not natural: therefore, etc.

Finally, it is plainly established that voluntary and non-voluntary production are supremely opposed; it is likewise established that voluntary productions are nowhere called generations, otherwise creation and the fashioning of artifacts would have to be called generation, which no philosopher would have admitted. Therefore, since the production of the Holy Spirit is voluntary and occurs through the will, while the production of the Son is not voluntary but natural, because it occurs through the intellect, for this reason it can truly be called generation.

It is confirmed. All the other reasons for this difference which are customarily brought forward by the Authors either fall short, or are to be reduced to ours as to the immediate and primary one: therefore the proper and genuine reason why the second person is called begotten, but not the third, is that the former proceeds naturally, the latter voluntarily. The antecedent is proved. There are especially four distinct reasons and opinions of the Authors by which they strive to prove that the procession of the divine Word is a true generation, but not that of the Holy Spirit. Of these the first indeed is brought forward by Richard of St. Victor in lib. 6. De Trinit. cap. 18, whom not a few of the moderns follow, namely, that the Word is therefore called begotten because he receives a fruitful nature for the production of another divine Person, and so is similar to his principle in the divine nature, insofar as it is nature, which consists in the fruitfulness productive of another supposit; since indeed the Holy Spirit does not receive this fruitfulness by the force of his procession, he is therefore indeed said to be similar to his productive principle in the divine essence, insofar as it is essence, not however insofar as it is nature.

But on the contrary. From this it would follow that the divine Word is not properly a Son, because he would not be perfectly similar to the Father in nature; for the Holy Spirit, they say, is therefore not similar in nature with the Father, because he does not have the power of spirating, which the Father has: but the Word does not have the power of generating, which the Father has: therefore the Word is not perfectly similar to the Father in nature, and so neither is he a Son.

It is confirmed. For perfect similarity in nature, insofar as it signifies fruitfulness, requires that not only the essence be shared, but also the same mode of fruitfulness: but the Son does not share the same mode of fruitfulness: therefore he does not have similarity in nature.

Secondly, if the Son must be similar to the Father in fruitful nature, it follows that the created Son is a Son in a more perfect way than the uncreated Son, because the created Son is more similar to the created Father in fruitful nature than the divine Son; for the former has the same mode of fruitfulness productive of another son, while the latter does not.

Finally, if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, nor did the Son have the spirative and productive power of him, the Son would not for that reason cease to be a Son: therefore he is not precisely a Son because he has the spirative power. Whence also none of the Latin Fathers disputing with the Greeks, in order to prove that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, ever used this argument, namely, that if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, the divine Word would cease to be a Son. If, however, the notion of Son were constituted by this, that he is assimilated to the Father in the spirative power, they would without doubt have used this argument. Since they did not do so, it is an argument that they judged the aforesaid reason of the difference between the two processions to be worthless.

The second opinion affirms that the Word's procession is therefore generation because he receives the divine nature primarily, as it is divine; the Holy Spirit only secondarily. So Suarez in lib. 11. cap. 3; and it rests on a double foundation. First, that the divine nature according to its primary and most proper difference is intellection; whence since the divine Word proceeds through the intellect, he receives intellection primarily. Second, because every agent assimilating a patient to itself assimilates it according to the form through which it acts; since, however, the Son, he says, proceeds through the intellect, he is also assimilated to the Father in intellection, which, since it is nature in God, also produces something similar in nature.

Against the first. It is false that the divine essence is formally constituted by intellection, as we proved when treating of the constitutive difference of the Godhead. It is equally false that the divine Word is produced through the intellect. Finally it is false that every agent produces something similar to itself according to the form through which it acts; otherwise it would follow that a man generating a man would primarily produce the generative power. Add that the Holy Spirit is primarily and per se God: therefore he primarily and per se receives the divine nature, just as the Word does. It is confirmed, because the divine nature no less essentially requires the person of the Holy Spirit than the person of the Son: therefore it is communicated as primarily to the Son as to the Holy Spirit.

The third opinion is that of almost all the Thomists, who assert that the Word's procession is therefore generation, but not the Holy Spirit's procession, because the Word proceeds into the likeness of nature by the force of his procession, but not the Holy Spirit.

Against it. For this reason the Word would be said to proceed into the likeness of nature, because he proceeds through the intellect, whose office it is to produce the image and likeness of the object. But this likeness, since it is only intentional, does not suffice for perfect generation, which requires likeness in nature; otherwise, as often as a painter expresses someone's image, so often would he be said to generate him: therefore that likeness which is made through intellection does not suffice to constitute true generation.

Again, when it is said in the definition of generation that it is a vital procession tending from its nature toward a term which by the force of the procession must be similar to the producer, this is understood with respect to that which is said to generate vitally: therefore that likeness ought to be understood with respect to the intellect, for the object does not concur vitally. But it is false that the intellection, or the word, is similar to the intellect, for in created things the intellect is a substantial faculty, while intellection and the word are accidents: therefore that likeness which is produced through the intellect does not of itself suffice to constitute the formal notion of generation.

Finally, although the intellect, as such, should of itself produce something similar to the producer, it would not however follow that it produces something similar to the producer in nature; otherwise every intellect could produce in this way. But no intellect produces in this way except the divine intellect: therefore if some intellect produces a term similar to itself in nature, this does not belong to it insofar as it is an intellect, but insofar as it is divine and most perfect. But the intellect, insofar as it is divine and most perfect, has no greater power of producing something similar in nature to the producer than the divine will: therefore for this reason the procession of the Word through the intellect is not more to be called generation than the procession of the Holy Spirit through the will. The minor is evident, for the will insofar as it is divine produces a divine Person not only similar, but also in every way equal to the producer, no less than the divine intellect itself.

They reply. That the divine will is not as assimilative as the intellect, for the reason that the divine intellect is assimilative, both insofar as it is an intellect, that is, according to its generic notion, because every intellect produces and expresses the likeness of the object, and insofar as it is a divine intellect, because as such it produces a person altogether similar and equal to the producing principle. The divine will, however, is not assimilative according to its generic notion, or insofar as it is a divine will.

But this reply is worthless, because the likeness which is required in perfect generation is considered only with respect to nature, especially the specific nature: therefore, that the intellect is in its genus more assimilative than the will does not contribute more to generation, if the will is assimilative in nature, as the divine will is.

The fourth and final opinion is that the Word is therefore the Son, but not the Holy Spirit, because although the divine nature is communicated to both by the force of the procession, and consequently each proceeds as similar to his producing principle, nevertheless the Holy Spirit does not proceed after the manner of an image, which is required for the notion of Son and of generation.

Against it. This opinion explains the obscure by the more obscure; for it does not appear more evidently why the second person is the image of the first person than why he is the Son, unless perhaps because he proceeds as similar to the producing principle by the force of his procession: but so it is also with the Holy Spirit, as was just said: therefore, etc.

Again, when the Son is called the image of the Father, it is understood either that he is similar to him in nature, or that he ought to bear back and express his special characteristics. If the first, the Holy Spirit will be a Son as much as the Word, for he is equally similar in nature to the producing principle as the Son himself. If the second, however, it cannot be maintained, for although a begotten man does not bear back the proper characteristics of the begetter, he is nonetheless counted as his Son: therefore for the true notion of generation nothing else is required than that the begotten be assimilated to the producer in nature; and so, since the Holy Spirit has this likeness no less than the Son, it follows that this reason does not suffice to distinguish those divine processions.

I confess, however, that these two last reasons serve to make known that distinction, as it were a posteriori, since by reason of his procession the divine Word has this special feature, that he is the perfect likeness and image of the Father; For the Son is a brief, compendious, and easy declaration of the Father's nature, says St. Gregory of Nazianzus in Orat. 4. De Theologia. For everything that is begotten defines its begetter with a certain tacit voice, or, as St. Basil speaks in homil. 16, the Word is the image of the begetter, showing the begetter wholly in itself. Whence St. Athanasius, in his Epistola De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi: if, when you name the image, you would by this very fact be judged that it is the Son.

Nor does the Doctor dissent, since in 1. dist. 10. quaest. unica n. 13 he says: That the Holy Spirit is not produced as similar by the force of his production, and it is true, because he is not the image of the Father, as the Son is, who by the force of his production proceeds as similar to the Father.

But this reason is only a posteriori; for the Son therefore proceeds as similar and insofar as image, because the principle from which he arises, namely the intellect, is a natural potency, and so since nature is borne toward the production of its like, when it can, and since the divine intellect is infinite, and so capable of producing a term perfectly similar to itself, hence it is that it is naturally determined to its production.

↑ Top of work

Tractatus I: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Index I: Index haereticorum adversus adorandum Trinitatis mysterium insanientium

Appendix I: Appendix conciliorum Trinitatis mysterium asserentium et explanantium

Disputatio I: De existentia, origine, et principiis divinarum personarum

Articulus I: De existentia trium divinarum personarum in unitate essentiae

Quaestio I: An, et quomodo Trinitas, et aequalitas personarum in unitate divinae essentiae probari possit adversus Judaeos

Quaestio II: An mysterium Trinitatis detegi, et probari possit ratione naturali a philosophis

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo supposita divina revelatione probari possit divinae Trinitatis mysterium adversus repugnantes philosophos

Quaestio IV: An revera tres tantum sint divinae personae realiter distinctae, et unicus Deus

Quaestio V: An Filius et Spiritus sanctus revera sint Deus, et Patri aeterno consubstantiales

Appendix I: Appendix. An unitas trium divinarum personarum consubstantialitatis vocabulo a sanctis Patribus recte explicata fuerit

Articulus II: De origine, et processione divinarum personarum

Quaestio I: An sint reales in Deo personarum processiones

Quaestio II: Quot sint divinae processiones, et qualiter invicem distinguantur

Quaestio III: Quid, et quales sint divinae processiones

Quaestio IV: An, et quae processio sit in divinis generatio

Articulus III: De principiis, objectis, et terminis divinarum emanationum

Quaestio I: Quaenam sint immediata principia emanationum divinarum

Quaestio II: Cujusnam objecti cognitionem, et amorem divinae processiones praesupponant

Quaestio III: Qui, et quales sint divinarum processionum termini

Quaestio IV: Quomodo fiant divinae processiones, an libere vel naturaliter

Disputatio II: De proprietatibus constitutivis, distinctivis, et notificativis divinarum personarum

Articulus I: De personis, hypostasibus, et subsistentiis divinis

Quaestio I: An, et quomodo ratio personae Deo conveniat

Quaestio II: An, et quibus proprietatibus divinae personae in esse personali constituantur, et distinguantur

Quaestio III: An sint in Deo tres subsistentiae relativae personales, et una absoluta

Articulus II: De relationibus divinarum personarum constitutivis

Quaestio I: An omnes relationes divinae ad intra sint reales

Quaestio II: Quaenam relationes sint divinarum personarum constitutivae

Quaestio III: An relationes originis sint formaliter infinitae, et perfectae

Articulus III: De notionibus divinis

Quaestio I: An, quot, et quales sint divinarum personarum notiones

Disputatio III: De divinis personis in particulari

Articulus I: De praecellentiis primae divinae personae

Quaestio I: An, et quomodo nomen Patris primae personae conveniat

Quaestio II: An, et quomodo primae personae conveniat nomen, et ratio Ingeniti

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo Pater dicatur Principium, Causa, Auctor, et Fons in divinis

Articulus II: De propriis secundae personae characteribus

Quaestio I: An nomen, et ratio Verbi soli Filio divino conveniat

Quaestio II: An, et quomodo Verbo divino competat ratio Imaginis

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo ratio Sapientiae Filio divino conveniat

Articulus III: De persona Spiritus Sancti

Quaestio I: An revera Spiritus Sanctus a Patre Filioque procedat

Appendix I: Appendix. De additione particulae Filioque ad Symbolum Nicaenum

Quaestio II: Utrum Spiritus Sanctus distingueretur realiter a Filio, si ab ipso non procederet

Quaestio III: Quinam sint proprii, et appropriati sancti Spiritus characteres

Appendix II: Appendix. De missione divinarum personarum