Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« From the notion of circuminsession is declared the unity of perfection of the divine persons, that 1° the fullness of perfection of each one, insofar as they are referred to one another by a relation of origin, requires that each have the others immanent to itself; whence 2° each one has the whole of perfection, even relative, of the three persons, not indeed as constituting but through necessary immanence; which unity of perfection is 3° declared from the real identity both of all and of each of the persons with the infinite divine essence ».

I. After the proper notion of the mutual inexistence of the individual persons in all, and of all in the individuals, has been declared, we can explain how this very mutual immanence belongs to the perfection of the individuals and of all.

The divine intellect, from its inmost necessary perfection, produces the consubstantial Word by understanding. The intellect thus considered is relative to its Word as a mind producing, and the Word is relative to the producer as proceeding from it: the former is the Father, the latter the Son. Hence the Father is indeed constituted formally, insofar as He is the intellect producing the Word (which is said abstractly: the Father is constituted by the relation of paternity identified with the essence); but by the same inmost necessity by which He produces the Word by understanding, He has His Word as the produced term immanent to His intellection; nor would He be producing by understanding, and so would not be the Father, without the Word immanent to Himself.

Most truly, therefore, the holy Fathers say that without His Word the Father would be without intelligence, without wisdom (ἄσοφον καὶ ἄλογον), not as if the Word were formally the intelligence and wisdom by which the Father is wise; for in that way wisdom is absolute, common to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, and insofar as it is in the Father it is the principle by which He produces the Word; but the most true sense of the Fathers is that intelligence and wisdom, as it is in the Father, necessarily has the Word produced as its term, and, this necessary immanent product being removed, there would not be intelligence either. (See the Fathers in Ruiz disp. 29. sect. 3; Petav. l. VI. c. 9. cf. s. Thom. opusc. contra Graecos c. 7.).

It belongs, therefore, without doubt to the perfection of the Father, not indeed as a constituting form but as the necessary term of His paternal intellection, that He have in Himself the Word, produced by Himself and immanent.

« For since this Word is placed in God by this, that God understands Himself by conceiving His intelligible Word, it must be that if at some time the Word of God was not, then God did not understand Himself. But always, when God was, He understood Himself, because His understanding is His being. Therefore His Word always was » S. Th. Compend. theol. c. 43. This matter, of great moment for some understanding of ours of the divine persons, we shall express in the words of the distinguished theologian Didacus Ruiz. « The Father has in Himself, he says, the whole Son and His filiation as the perfect term of the vital operation (by which He produces the Word by understanding), i.e., as the Word of altogether the same substance; and hence the Father has filiation within Himself as a perfection due to Him and His own, without which He would be defective (better: without which He would not be at all, because He would not be perfect)... For even a tree is perfected by the fruit united to it and remaining in it; the created intellect is perfected by the word of the mind produced through intellection and remaining in the intellect itself. Therefore a fortiori the Father is perfected by the Son, since He is the fruit vitally produced and quidditatively demanding to be united with His root or principle, and is the Word produced by the immanent action of the paternal intellect. Therefore the Father, for His own perfection, quidditatively demands within Himself and in Himself to contain the perfection of filiation, not as constitutive of His person but as the glory and ornament of His person » (better: as the term of His producing, that is, notional intellection) Ruiz disp. 30. sect. 6. n. 13. 14.

Conversely, the Word, the splendor of glory and the perfect expression of the paternal substance and the consubstantial image, proceeding without beginning and without end by internal necessity and always begotten as the term of the paternal intellection, in this very perfection of His comprehends and has immanent to Himself the speaking mind, that is, the Father, His principle; nor would He be the perfect Word without the immanence of His principle.

But it is evident that in the same way we must think and speak about the perfection of the will, that is, of the love in the Father and in the Son, whose necessary produced term is the subsisting love, the Holy Spirit. That love (as it is in the Father and in the Son), from its very inmost necessary perfection, expresses the subsisting love as its immanent term. Hence the holy Doctors, just as they say that the Father without the Word would be without wisdom, in the same sense say that without the Spirit

God would not be Holy. « What Deity, if imperfect? But how will it be perfect, to which something is lacking for perfection? For it is lacking, if it does not have holiness. But how will it have this, if it does not have the Holy Spirit? » Gregor. Naz. or. 31. al. 37. n. 4. Holiness, namely, of love (see Tract. de Deo th. XXIX), as it is in the Father and in the Son, has the Holy Spirit as its produced internal term ¹, and the divine love of the Father and of the Son without this term, i.e., unless the love is a spiration, is not in its perfection. It belongs, therefore, to the perfection of the Father and of the Son to have their Spirit immanent as the necessary term of their notional love, that is, of their spiration.

Conversely, by the same reason by which the Word has in Himself the Father immanent as His principle, and this immanence is required for the very perfection of the Word, in like manner the perfection of the subsisting love is that it have immanent to itself its principle, the Father, I say, and the Son.

II. Anyone can easily see how, from the principles handed down, there can be conceived and declared in the mystery of the most holy Trinity that most certain truth which Augustine, with the other Fathers, often proclaims, as in the conclusion of book VI. de Trin. « Here in corporeal things (from which Augustine there scrutinizes the vestige of the Trinity) one thing is not as much as three together, and two are something more than one thing: but in that supreme Trinity one is as much as three together, nor are two something more than one; but they are infinite in themselves » Aug. Trin. VI. n. 12. He himself declares the reason, continuing in the same place: « so the individual things are in the individuals, and all things in the individuals, and the individual things in all, and all things in all, and all are one. Whoever sees this, whether in part or through a mirror and in an enigma, let him rejoice in knowing God, and honor Him as God and give thanks; but whoever does not see it, let him strive through piety to see, not through blindness to calumniate ».

Those individual things and all things, which are said to be in the individuals and in all three mutually distinct persons, and all are said to be one, are understood by Augustine not only of the essence and the absolute attributes but also of the relative ones, i.e., also of the personal characters and hence of the persons themselves; for about these distinguishing characters, distinct among themselves, he had spoken in the immediately preceding context. The supreme reason, even in the relative things, why « all things are in the individuals and all are one, » is at last their real identity with the infinite and absolute essence. And so not only are « the individual things in the individuals, » and accordingly (speaking of the relative things) the individual constituting characters in the individual persons, that is, the individual persons in themselves (e.g., the Father a hypostasis by Himself and in Himself), but also « all things in the individuals »; and hence in the Father there are not only the constituting paternity but also the Son and the Holy Spirit, although not as formally constituting the Father but as the necessary internal terms of the paternal intellection and love; and likewise in the Son the Father and the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Spirit the Father and the Son. By this very fact they are « the individual things in all and all things in the individuals, » the individual persons in themselves and in the two other persons, and all in each one. Finally « all are one, » three persons, not indeed one person, not three as one; but three are one, one essence and one God.

This mutual immanence and identification, however, Augustine connects, as a declaratory reason, with that dogma, that « in that supreme Trinity one is as much as the three together ». Granted the truth of faith, that of the three, distinguished only by relations of origin, the essence, that is, the divine nature, is one in number, it is easily understood that there is one and the same absolute perfection, whether one person be considered, who is the one God, or the three be considered, who are one and the same God; for the essence, and hence the absolute perfection, is neither increased nor multiplied in the several persons nor diminished in each one: « one supreme thing, which is truly Father and Son and Holy Spirit, the three persons together and any one of them » Conc. Later. IV.

But a difficulty and a great diversity of opinions among theologians arises, when it must be declared how the three persons, formally according to the relative things by which they are really distinguished from one another, are not more of relative perfection than one person. Since the three are real persons, although distinct only insofar as they are three relatives to one another, and hence are three relative things, three relative beings (as most concede), how does it come about that the three relative things considered together are not more of relative perfection than one of the three?

In questions of this kind, before all things the greatest reverence must be preserved, which is owed to the mystery that is adored, and so the matter is to be conceived in such a way that the consideration, without importunate curiosity, modestly tends toward some more distinct understanding of God, who in His infinity is eminent above all created things and especially above all sensible and material things.

Then, indeed, the proposed difficulty can be declared from the principles about circuminsession in this way. The divine intellect in act, that is, the substantial divine understanding under the formal notion as producing the immanent consubstantial Word, is God the Father; and so the perfect Father is not, except as He simultaneously includes the Word immanent to Himself as the term of the notional intellection.

By the same reason the Father and the Son are not in their full relative perfection, except insofar as they include the Holy Spirit as the term of the notional willing or love ².

Conversely, to the relative perfection of the Word belongs the immanence of the Father as principle, and to the relative perfection of the Holy Spirit in the same way the immanence of the Father and of the Son. Hence the full relative perfection of the Father comprehends in itself whatever of relative perfection is in the two other persons; and so in turn it must be said of the individual persons that in the fullness of relative perfection they comprehend the relative perfection of the other persons. But the mode of comprehension corresponds to the property of the individual persons; for in each one one relative perfection is constituting, the others are present for the fullness of perfection as the internal terms of vital production or as the producing principle.

This very point we can reduce to this formula: the individual persons have formally the perfection by which they are constituted; the relative perfections of the other persons they have not formally, i.e., as constituting, but through immanence or correlatively. Therefore each person is not only the same whole absolute perfection which the three persons together are, because the divine essence is one; but also each person in the fullness of its relative perfection has the relative perfections of all persons in a manner fitting each person ³.

III. Although these things are so and the proposed consideration can be instituted not without fruit; nevertheless, just as circuminsession is ultimately reduced to the numerical unity of the essence in three distinct persons, so also this truth — that the individual persons are the whole infinite perfection, which can neither be increased nor diminished, of as much perfection as the three persons together are — this truth too, I say, is finally to be explained from the unity of the essence as from its own proper foundation, to which in this chapter the holy Fathers also appeal more frequently (cf. the Fathers in Ruiz disp. 30. sect. 2.; in Petav. de Deo l. VI. c. 7. n. 12. sqq.; de Trin. l. VIII. c. 9. n. 16.).

But the manner of declaring this very point among the various theologians is very diverse. Our explanation is deduced from the principles set forth in the Tractatus de Deo. One infinite Being, one thing (as the Fourth Lateran Council speaks) is at once absolute and relative. As it is absolute, it is and is called one infinite essence; insofar as it is relative, it is not nor can it be one relative (since there the relation is ad intra of one to another), but from the internal necessity of that essence and nature there are three relatives, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, distinct from one another under the formal ratio of relatives, who under the formal ratio of the absolute, as has been said, are both singly and all together one essence; « the same essence which in the Father is paternity, in the Son is filiation » S. Th. I. q. 42. a. 6. ad 3.

Therefore the same thing, existing at once as one absolute essence and as a threefold substantial relation, or as three relatives to one another, cannot be understood by us in one concept; but there is one concept, to which that thing responds as absolute (and this is and is called the formality or formal ratio of the absolute or of the essence), and there is another concept, to which the same thing responds as relative, whether confusedly or distinctly, as Father or Son or Holy Spirit or Trinity (under which concept it is and is called the formality or formal ratio of the relative or of the person). Hence there is a distinction of reason with a foundation in the thing between the absolute and the relative, between essence and person.

This distinction is with formal abstraction, by which we conceive the essence explicitly without the express notion of the person, although the ratio of the person is included implicitly in that conceived thing ⁴. But the distinction is not with objective precision (as we said in the Tract. de Deo Th. XIII. XXVI.); i.e., neither can the formal ratio of the person be so conceived that it does not include the ratio of the essence (in which most theologians agree); nor is the formal ratio of the essence to be so conceived that it does not include the ratio of the person. Concerning this latter point several theologians speak otherwise; we, however, convinced by arguments, follow many others, among whom are Gregory of Valencia in I. disp. 2. q. 13. punct. 1. and the one who declared these things more fully, Card. de Aguirre Theol. S. Anselm. T. I. disp. 26; disp. 31. sect. 4. seqq. cf. T. II. disp. 73. I do not say that the notion of the person is necessarily included in the notion of the essence; but I say that that objective ratio which is conceived by the notion of the divine essence (or of any absolute attribute) is such that it really includes, and, given revelation and faith, must be judged to include, the relative ratio and the persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But if one judged that the reality which is offered to the concept of the divine essence (or of an absolute attribute) were abstracted with objective precision, so that it does not include the persons, that would not be the concept of the divine essence, and this judgment would be altogether false.

From these principles follows the solution of the proposed question. If the ratio of the person, or the substantial relations, or the personal properties (which all signify the same) were really distinct from the essence just as they are mutually distinct from one another, and accordingly there would be a quaternity (as Abbot Joachim thought followed from the numerical unity of the essence and the Trinity of persons); then indeed the essence together with the personality, and a fortiori the essence together with the three persons, would comprehend more perfection than the essence alone by itself or the individual persons separately; but by this very fact neither the essence nor the individual persons, and consequently not all the persons together, would be the infinite Being comprehending the whole fullness of the divine Being ⁵, and therefore the very concept of God would be perverted.

But the divine essence, one and the same, is both the absolute and — without the addition of another perfection (for nothing of divine perfection can be or be conceived outside it) — is at once the relative Father, the relative Son, and the relative Holy Spirit: « one supreme thing, which is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the three persons together and each one of them ». Therefore, while I conceive the formal ratio of the essence or of the absolute, I do not indeed explicitly conceive the relative, yet I conceive that which from its inmost ratio is necessarily at once relative with a threefold substantial relation, and therefore is every perfection, both that which is explicitly conceived under the ratio of the absolute and that which is explicitly conceived under the ratio of the relative; which two ratios are distinguished only by our concept, one and the other, but in reality are one thing, as has already been said.

Therefore, conversely too, under the notion of the person, e.g., of the Father, I indeed conceive explicitly the relative, which in the notion of the essence was only implicit; but surely neither more nor less perfection is comprehended under this notion of the Father than under the notion of the essence, which holds equally of the notion of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, and hence holds as much of each singly as of all three together. Wherefore in the individual persons the absolute viewed together with the relative, or the essence together with the relation, is not something greater or more perfect than the absolute essence viewed by itself; nor is the essence viewed together with the three relations, which are really one with it, something greater or more perfect than the essence viewed by itself. Therefore, since the individual persons are really the divine essence, the three persons are not something greater than one viewed by itself.

Namely, the divine essence is the fullness of the divine being, incapable as of diminution so of increase, one and the same, identified both with each single and with all three substantial relations or persons, although the persons are not explicitly conceived under the notion of the essence but are comprehended implicitly. Hence the three persons are the same fullness with the explicit expression of the substantial relations; each person likewise is the same fullness with the explicit expression of one relative and with the comprehension of the two remaining persons, insofar as they are identified with the essence, and insofar as on that account by their formal ratio of relatives they pertain — not indeed as constituting but as immanent termini — to the perfection of each person. In which last ratio, as is evident, one returns to circuminsession.

All this was excellently expressed by St. Cyril of Alexandria. « That nature which is above all is simple and incomposite, dilated indeed by the properties of the hypostases and by the differences of persons and names (διαπεφυκυῖα, i.e., common to several persons) and tending into the holy Trinity (εἰς ἁγίαν τεταμένην τριάδα); yet by natural unity and all-embracing identity concurring into one something, namely into the name and thing of God: so that in each one the whole nature is understood, together with its property, namely the hypostatic one. For each one remains what it is in natural union with the others, also possessing that same thing in its own nature (ἔχουσα ταὐτὸν ἐν ἰδίᾳ φύσει); for the Father is in the Son and the Holy Spirit, and likewise also the Son and the Spirit are in the Father, and in one another » Cyrill. dialog. VII. T. V. P. 1. p. 641.

Now from what has been said answer is made in form to the difficulty proposed at the beginning, in which it was said: three relative perfections are really distinct from one another; but three perfections together are something better and more perfect than one of them. Therefore, etc. Resp. I distinguish the major: they are really distinct from one another as opposed relations, so that in one common essence, with which they are identified, they are one (i.e., so that the distinction is inadequate), I concede the M.; they are distinct without unity in a common essence (i.e., so that the distinction is adequate), I deny the M. Likewise I distinguish the minor: three relative perfections distinct both from one another and from the essence would be something greater (a quaternity being introduced and the infinity of the divine Being subverted), I concede the m.; three relative perfections distinct from one another through mutual opposition but identified both singly and all together with one and the same infinite essence are something greater and more perfect than one, I deny the m.

If it is further urged: the Father does not have the relative perfection which is the property of the Son, etc.; therefore, etc. I distinguish the antecedent: the Father does not have that thing, or rather is not that supreme thing which identically is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I deny the A. The Father does not have that thing under the formal relation of filiation, I subdistinguish the A.: he does not have it as constituting the Father himself, I concede the A.; he does not have it as it befits the Father, namely as his Word, as the immanent terminus necessary to his vital intellection, I deny the A. To this pertains what St. Bonaventure says: « there is unity of nature and plurality of persons, and there is as much in the unity as in the plurality, but not in so many ways » I. dist. 19. P. II. q. 1. ad 3.

Scholion. Some theologians, among them Suarez l. III. c. 10., distinguish in God absolute perfections and relative perfections in such a way that the former are indeed simply simple and in their formal ratio common to all persons, like the one numerically divine essence; the latter, however, they say are not simply simple perfections, and that they are contained in the divine essence itself not formally but only eminently, and therefore further that the individual relative perfections are in the individual persons formally, but all are in all eminently; and thus they think it is sufficiently explained how one person, no less than three together, is all perfection.

This manner of considering and speaking will perhaps be necessary, if objective precision of the divine essence from the personal properties is admitted, and these are conceived as a perfection superadded to the essence; but we can follow neither that precision nor this manner of considering.

« The perfect, outside of which there is nothing, » as the Scholastics are wont to define from Aristotle; namely, the perfect is that to which nothing of what befits it is lacking: perfection, therefore, is the fullness of what befits (see on these things Tract. de Deo th. XXIX.). All those things which, distinct in reality or in reason, constitute this fullness are called perfections, in creatures indeed as perfecting forms; but in God those individual things are really the fullness itself. For in creatures both all and each of the perfections are only an entity of some degree with the negation of further possible reality, i.e., they are limited in perfection, and to that extent, in comparison with the unlimited and (in this sense absolute) entity, they are perfections secundum quid. Therefore, because there no perfection includes the whole ratio of unlimited being, those perfections can be really distinct; and those which are not even really distinct can be conceived with objective precision from the others. Although, e.g., the intellect and the will in a created spirit, this nature connaturally subsisting and the hypostasis, this real essence and existence, are supposed to be really one thing and one perfection, yet the intellect, the nature, the essence are conceived without the will, subsistence, existence being included in the formal ratio and perfection so conceived, i.e., they are conceived with objective precision. But if the ratio or reality conceived were a reality in itself unlimited, including the whole perfection of being and hence also the perfection of will, subsistence, existence, such objective precision would be repugnant. Now indeed in God it is altogether so. Whatever of divine reality is conceived, it is entirely the fullness of infinite reality including the whole perfection and fullness of unlimited being, to which nothing can be added; for nothing is outside, i.e., nothing of perfection without imperfection, or (as they say) of simply simple perfection or of infinite perfection, can be conceived outside and beyond the ratio of that most full Being. Therefore nothing there can be abstracted with objective precision. For I ask, that which is said to be abstracted by a precisive concept, e.g., the formal ratio of paternity, does it have the ratio of divine being or does it not? and that formal ratio from which such precision is made, e.g., the essence (not only in the thing itself, but as it is in the concept), does it remain a divine being? If paternity so precised does not have the ratio of divine being, this is not divine paternity; for that is God, nor can it be conceived with such precision that it itself is not God, without the concept ceasing to be the concept of divine paternity. « We believe and confess that only God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is eternal, and that there are absolutely no things — whether they be called relations or properties or singularities or unities, or other things of this kind — present to God, which are from eternity and are not God » (Creed delivered to Eugene III in the Council of Rheims and approved by the Pontiff against Gilbert Porretanus. Harduin. VI. P. II. p. 1299.). Therefore, just as the essence cannot be precised from the relations, as even Suarez concedes, so we say that neither can the internal relations be abstracted with objective precision from the essence, insofar as it is known by faith. That which we conceive by express notion as the divine essence is at once the threefold substantial relation, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, no less necessarily from its inmost ratio than immutable eternity, wisdom, goodness and the other absolute attributes are. Wherefore just as the divine essence, as we know it even by the light of reason alone, cannot be conceived with the absolute attributes precised, without the notion of the divine essence being perverted; so the same essence, as we know it by faith, cannot be conceived with the substantial relations precised, without equally departing from the notion of the essence, such as it objectively really exists and is knowable to us through faith. Whence, just as the absolute attributes, so also the substantive relations or personal properties add nothing to the essence, as if they completed it toward the fullness of perfection; but they are the divine essence itself under one and another ratio or function. (See Tract. de Deo th. XIII.). Hence also, conversely, each personal property or substantive relation or person (which all signify the same, although in a different manner), for the reason that it really is the divine essence itself, is also the fullness of the divine being and infinite perfection; and because the individual persons are the same essence and fullness of being, under the ratio of perfection (in this proper sense of the word) they are not opposed to one another, but « the three are one. » Thus, therefore, « that supreme thing, » which God is, whether under the express ratio of the essence, or under the express ratio of one person, or under the express ratio of the Trinity, is one and the same fullness of infinite Being, and therefore one and the same perfection in the proper sense of this name.

I said: the persons are not opposed to one another under the ratio of perfection properly so called. For the notional intellection producing the Word is indeed a perfection, but not a perfection other than the absolute intellection, which is common to the three persons and is the essence itself; likewise the formal ratio of the Word, as it is the immanent terminus necessary to the paternal intellection, is surely a perfection, but not a perfection other than the absolute wisdom, which is common to the three; the same holds of the expressed terminus of the love of the Father and the Son, that is, of the Holy Spirit.

You will say: all these things only show that the absolute perfection is one, singular, and that of the three persons together; but they do not yet show how the relative perfections, which are three and distinct from one another, are not more perfection than one. I answer: a) all these things show that the three distinct relative perfections are called so improperly. For the individual relations or personal properties, insofar as they are themselves really the divine essence, are perfection in the proper sense of the fullness of the divine being; but this is not threefold but one of the three, and therefore one perfection in the proper sense. b) If the epithet relative restricts the name of perfection to signifying the relative property, then indeed in this sense there are three distinct relative perfections, and three are more than one, but they are not more perfection. For this phrase more perfection expresses an increase of perfection properly so called by the addition of one to another, which is absurd in divine things, since each one is the whole infinite perfection, because they are really the infinite essence itself. On the contrary, when several relative perfections are named in the said improper sense, not the addition of several to unity but the enumeration of distinct properties is expressed, which under the ratio of perfection taken in the proper sense are one, not by addition but by identity with the essence. c) The three relations, three relative things, three relative beings, three relative perfections, even if they are viewed in our inadequate concept, not insofar as they are one, and whence they properly have the whole ratio of perfection, but are viewed only formally under the express ratio of distinct things — still, thus one relation includes all the others, although in a different manner. For the notional intellection, formally as producing and relative to the Word, in this its relative perfection includes the Word, not indeed as constituting form but as immanent terminus: « the fullness of perfection is attended to in the speaker through the Word » (S. Th. contr. gent. IV. c. 45.). The same is the case in the relative perfection of the Word and of the Holy Spirit or the Spirated, as has been declared in the thesis.