Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Note 1. Truly there is in the divine realities a true and real productive principle of the Persons; for where there is a true production and a truly produced term, there must also be a true productive principle. This, however, is commonly distinguished as twofold, namely, the principium quod, which is the person itself, the very supposit operating and producing; whence the common saying, actions belong to supposits. The other is called the principium quo, and it is that formal notion which immediately concurs to the action, that is, the power by means of which the supposit elicits its action. This, again, is twofold, namely, radical or remote, and formal or proximate, as is evident in illumination, or the diffusion of light. For light is the principium quo of illumination; but the illuminative power, which is substantial in the sun, is called the remote principium quo of the same illumination.

Note 2. It is certain that neither the divine essence nor the intellect and will are the principia quod of the divine Persons. For this role is claimed for themselves by the persons of the Father and of the Son — of the Father, indeed, with respect to the generation of the Son, and of the Father and of the Son with respect to spiration; for what really proceeds from something as from a productive principium quod is also really distinguished from it. But it is evident that the produced divine Persons are not really distinguished from the essence, nor from the intellect and will, but only from the producing persons. And therefore only those have the role of principium quod of the divine persons. The present difficulty, therefore, is moved only about the principium quo, namely, whether the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed immediately from the divine nature, or only remotely, that is, through the mediation of intellect and will.

Note 3. Since in the Father generating the Son, and in the Father and the Son producing the Holy Spirit, there are absolute and essential perfections, namely, the divine essence itself together with the attributes, modes and powers, or faculties of intellect and will; as also relative or notional ones, namely, the divine relations and personalities; hence, with regard to the resolution of the present Question, the opinion of the authors appears to be threefold and most opposed. For Durandus, in 1. dist. 5. qu. 2., affirms that the divine nature, precisely and formally, or virtually, distinct from the intellect and will, is not only the radical and remote, but also the proximate and immediate principium quo of the divine emanations. St. Thomas, in 1. dist. 11. qu. 1. art. 3., teaches that the emanations arise immediately from the relations themselves; for he says: Generation does not proceed from the essence insofar as it is essence, but insofar as it is Paternity; and if these two, namely essence and Paternity, differed in the divine realities, generation would proceed from both, but immediately from Paternity, and from the essence as from a first principle. But since elsewhere he asserts that essence and paternity are distinguished virtually, it follows that he maintains that generation arises immediately from Paternity, virtually.

Nevertheless, the opinion of the Thomists is now common, that the divine emanations arise immediately not from the essence, nor from the relations, but from the intellect and will, determined to the person of the Father and of the Son through the relations of Paternity and Filiation. That this may be made evident, let it be

Single conclusion. — The divine nature, as formally distinct from the intellect and will, is not the proximate and immediate principium quo of the divine processions, but the intellect and will claim this formal notion for themselves.

This is the more common and truer opinion received among theologians, and it is proved first by all those texts of Sacred Scripture in which the Son of God is called the Word. Thus Ioann. 1.: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, etc. And 1. Ioan. 5.: There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. Apoc. 19.: His name is the Word of God. But the Word is a term produced through the intellect and formed through the utterance, which is an operation of the intellect: whence St. Cyril, lib. 1. on John, cap. 5.: The Son, he says, is called the Word and Wisdom, because He is immediately and indivisibly from the intellect. With this Basil agrees, hom. 16. on John: Why Word? he says, that it may be shown that He proceeds from the mind. Athanasius also agrees, in the Epistle de sent. Dion. Alex. contra Arianos, saying:

The Word, as it were the Son of the mind: just as it is impossible that it should have existed before the mind, so it by no means existed without it, but together with it, and was brought forth from it; in the same way, too, the Most Great Father, being wholly mind, has His Son, the Word, as the interpreter and messenger of Himself.

Hence Athanasius concludes that Dionysius teaches that the Word is proper to the substance of the Father, and that by the same reason by which the Word is from the substance of the mind. With these Damascene agrees, lib. 1. De Fide c. 8.: The Word is the natural motion of the mind, according to which it is moved, understands and thinks, being as it were its light and splendor. By these oracles, then, of Sacred Scripture and of the Holy Fathers, it is clearly established that the Son of God is therefore called the Word, because He proceeds immediately through the intellect, whose office it is to speak the Word, as we have proved sufficiently, and more than sufficiently, above.

The same can also be inferred concerning the Holy Spirit, who is called charity and produced love, because He arises from the divine will. Thus 1. Ioannis 4.: Let us love one another, because charity is from God, which words St. Augustine explains of the Holy Spirit, lib. 15. De Trinit. cap. 17. Add that many things are attributed to the Holy Spirit, whether properly or by appropriation, which cannot come from nature; indeed, they are opposed to natural production; for He is a gift: but nothing less befits a gift than to be natural; for a gift is free, whereas what is natural is necessary. He is holy: but holiness, since it is worthy of praise, is the work not of nature, but of freedom; for on account of what is natural we are neither praised nor blamed, says Aristotle, 3. Ethic. cap. 1. Finally, He is love: but love is the offspring of the will, not of nature: therefore He proceeds immediately not from nature, but from the will.

Durandus replies. That the Son of God is indeed called the Word, and the Holy Spirit Love, but not properly, rather metaphorically, namely, through a certain proportion and likeness to created things; that is, just as the intellect is the first property of an intellectual nature and the will the second, so the Son is called the Word because He proceeds first, while the Holy Spirit is called love because He arises second and presupposes the origin of the Son.

On the contrary. This rejoinder smacks of the error of the Alogians, who, since they denied that the divine Word is a person distinct from the Father, also contended that it is only metaphorically appropriated to a divine person by Sacred Scripture.

Further, if it were allowed to explain the Word, so often used by St. John in the first Chapter, as spoken improperly and metaphorically, with equal audacity and rashness it will be allowed to assert that the names of God and of the Son are also said metaphorically and improperly, and likewise that the words, all things were made through Him, refer not to true creation, but to a metaphorical and apparent, or borrowed, one; and finally, that the words, the Word was made flesh, are used of a metaphorical incarnation. Since this is absurd and intolerable, and all other things must be taken in their proper sense, the name of the Word must likewise be taken properly.

Wherefore Cyril justly says, lib. 7. Thesauri cap. 1., almost at the beginning: John called the Son the Word, and he seems to have chosen this name as proper and most significative of the very being of the Son, etc. You see how this name signifies the very being of the Son according to nature?

Finally, it is certain that St. John undertook in that place to explain the Divinity of Christ against the Cerinthians and Ebionites, as all interpreters acknowledge. But who, unless estranged from the truth, would say that he uses improper and metaphorical words to explain the two principal mysteries of the faith, namely, the distinction of the divine persons and the incarnation of one of them? Whence the above-praised Cyril: In vain, he says, do we marvel at the Evangelist and, as it were, call him the Son of thunder for having thundered something great and proper, unless he had pronounced the Word as something proper, wonderful and unheard of.

It is confirmed. This response and the Conclusion are proved together: it is settled by faith that there are two, and only two, processions in the divine realities, of which the former is of the Son from the Father alone, the latter of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, so that the former is first, the latter second. For since the Son is the principle of the Holy Spirit, He must be produced prior in origin to the Holy Spirit. It is likewise evident that the first procession is generation, but the second is not so. But this diversity of processions and persons cannot be drawn from any other source than this: that the Son proceeds through the intellect, while the Holy Spirit proceeds through the will. Proof: for, given that the Son does not proceed immediately through the intellect, and the Holy Spirit through the will, no efficacious reason can be given why there are two processions. For if they arose immediately from the divine nature, someone could say that the divine nature poured out all its powers into one person, and thus there would be no place for the production of another divine person. Likewise, no reason could be brought forth why the production of the Son is from the Father alone, and that of the Holy Spirit from both; nor why the former is prior in origin and the latter posterior; nor, finally, why the former is generation and the latter spiration. Therefore the reason of all these things cannot be given and drawn from any other source than this: that the Son proceeds immediately through the intellect, and the Holy Spirit through the will: therefore, etc.

You will object 1. The Holy Fathers, some of whom call even the eternal Father the Word. Thus St. Ambrose, lib. unico De Filii divinitate cap. 50.: Whether you say light from light, or Word from Word, or Spirit from Spirit, or Lord from Lord, whatever you say of Him, yet believe the Father and the Son to be of one essence. Similarly Basil, lib. 5. Contra Eunomium cap. 11.: The Word of God, he says, is the Son, but the Word of the Son is the Spirit. For, says the Apostle, Hebr. 1., upholding all things by the word of His power, and since the Word of the Son is through God, etc. But from the fact that the Father and the Holy Spirit are called the Word, it is not lawful to infer that they proceed through the intellect: therefore neither is it lawful to gather from this that the procession of the Son is made immediately through the intellect.

I answer. That the Holy Fathers sometimes extend the name of the Word more broadly to an improper and unusual acceptation, so as to signify not only the operation of the speaker, which is in the Father, but also every action and communication appropriated to the Holy Spirit toward creatures; nevertheless, the aforementioned Fathers also use the name of the Word in its proper signification, so as to signify by it the divine Son; for St. Ambrose says in the same place: This is called the Word, because it proceeded from the proper mouth of the speaker, and the Father commanded or did nothing without it. And St. Basil, in the same place, about the middle, likewise signifies that the name of the Word is proper to the Son, saying: The Father is the begetter of the Son, as the mind is the Father of the Word, as the wise one who begot wisdom. And so from the aforementioned texts nothing at all may be urged against the truth of the Conclusion.

You will object 2. The Holy Fathers assert that the Son proceeds from the divine nature. Thus Saint Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinit. c. 20., says that the Word, through which all things were made, is the Son of God by nature. Likewise Damascene, lib. 1. De Fide cap. 8., calls the procession of the Son a work of nature. But it could not rightly be so called unless the Word proceeded immediately from nature, and not from the intellect: therefore, etc.

I deny the minor. For that is not the opinion of the praised Fathers; for they dispute there against the Arians, who said that the divine Word is a creature, and that therefore its procession arises not from nature, but from the divine will; and in order to refute this, the holy Fathers assert that it is a work of nature, that is, necessary and natural, not free and voluntary.

I distinguish. The procession of the Word proceeds from nature as from a proximate and immediate principle — I deny; from a remote and radical one — I concede.

You will object 3. If the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeded immediately from the intellect and will, this would be especially through understanding and willing: but this cannot be said. First, because the productions of the persons are notional acts, and not essential ones: but understanding and willing are essential acts, not notional ones. Second, because to whomever the act belongs by which a person is produced, to the same one it belongs to produce the person to which that act is terminated, just as to whom it belongs to generate, to him it also belongs to produce the Son: but understanding and willing belong to all the divine Persons: therefore to all of them it also belongs to produce the Son and the Holy Spirit. Third, because the productions of the persons differ really; for active generation differs from filiation: but understanding and willing do not differ really: therefore, etc.

I answer. That this argument of Durandus by no means fights against us; for we do not affirm that the processions are made through the essential acts of understanding and willing, but through the notional acts of uttering and spirating.

You will object 1. In the same way, with proportion kept, fecundity belongs to creatures and to God: but productive fecundity in creatures does not belong to them through intellect and will; for purely spiritual creatures do not produce others, as is evident in the Angels, although they are endowed with a most excellent faculty of understanding and willing; but corporeal and mixed creatures, such as man, consisting of body and spirit, generate their like not through intellect and will, but through another faculty: therefore the productive power of the divine Person belongs to God not by reason of the intellect, but proceeds immediately from the very fecundity of nature.

I answer 1. That the argument can be turned back against Durandus; for if fecundity must belong proportionally to God and to creatures, it follows that God could not communicate His substance and essence to another person, because no created spiritual person can communicate its substance to another, not only through intellection and volition, but not even through any fecundity of nature; and so, if that proportion is to be exactly kept, even the divine nature will have no fecundity of communicating itself. Which, however, Durandus asserts.

I answer 2. To the minor: fecundity in spiritual creatures is nothing through the intellect — I distinguish; fecundity that is productive of a substantial term — I concede; of at least an accidental term — I deny. For the production of the created word is a kind of spiritual generation, as we have said; for all knowledge is born from the object and the potency. But birth signifies generation. And the reason why through the created intellect only an accidental Word is produced is that, as the Doctor says in 1. dist. 3. q. 8., the created intellect is not productive of intellection except with the intelligible species partially concurring, which, since it is an accident, will be productive only of an accident, because no effect is more perfect than its cause. The divine intellect, however, concurs to the production of the begotten knowledge together with the divine essence, and these two are adequately substantial; wherefore it is no wonder if they are productive of substance.

From these gather 1. That the divine essence is, not indeed the proximate, but at least the remote and radical principium quo of the divine processions. This is evident first from the holy Fathers; for first of all Cyril, lib. 1. Thesauri cap. 7., says that the generative power is the essence of God. And Damascene, lib. 1. De Fide cap. 8.: Generation, he says, is of nature, not as of the one generating, but as of that by which it generates. With these St. Anselm agrees in Monologio, cap. 52. where, speaking of the Holy Spirit, he says: The Father and the Son do not send forth so great a good from their relations, which are many, but from the essence itself, which is one. Hence St. Dionysius, lib. De Divinis Nominibus c. 2., calls the Son and the Holy Spirit the gems and shoots of the fecund Divinity. Secondly, reason itself persuades this. For the radical principium quo of generation is that in which the one begotten is assimilated to the one generating: but that in which the divine begotten Son agrees with the generating Father is not a relation, but the divine nature: therefore this is the first and radical principium quo of the generation of the Word, not indeed considered simpliciter and absolutely, but insofar as it is modified and determined to the first supposit through the relation of Paternity.

Gather 2. That the proximate principium quo of the generation of the Word and of the production of the Holy Spirit is indeed the intellect and will of God, but insofar as they are modified and determined through the relations of Paternity and Filiation. First, because the intellect and will are proximate principles in the same way in which the divine essence is the remote principle of the divine processions: but the divine essence, as we have said, is such insofar as it is determined through the personal relations; for if it were such considered absolutely, it would follow that it is formally the principle of generation in the Son, and of generation and spiration in the Holy Spirit, since it is formally in them: therefore by the same reason the divine intellect and will are principles of the divine processions, insofar as they are also determined through the same personal relations. Second, because potencies do not have the notion of proximate principle except insofar as they are in supposits, whence actions belong to supposits: therefore the divine intellect and will will not be proximate principles except insofar as they are determined to the Person of the Father and of the Son. Finally, because St. Athanasius, in Dialogue 1. De Trinit., says: The Father generates by hypostasis, and Ambrose, lib. 4. De Fide cap. 4.: Generation, he says, is of the paternal property, not of potency. And St. Augustine, lib. 1. De Trinit. cap. 5., says: By this very fact the Father is called and is the Father, that He has a Son: therefore, since the Father does not have the Son except by force of the generative potency determined through Paternity, neither does He generate by a principium quo except one determined through hypostasis and the personal relation.