Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« Taking as presupposed the notion of hypostasis and person, from what has been demonstrated concerning the real identity and virtual distinction between the absolute and the relative in God, it is declared that the divine persons are formally constituted by relations. For if 1° the essence and the relations are compared with one another, relation alone distinguishes those having one common essence, and on that account relation is the same formal reason of the divine hypostasis or person; but if 2° the substantial relation is regarded more fully, the divine relation itself, inasmuch as it is identified with the substance, is the divine person. Further, 3° in the comparison of origin and relation, on account of the identity of the thing, the divine persons can be understood as constituted equally by origins and by relations; there is, however, a reason in our mode of conceiving why they are said to be formally constituted rather by relations than by origins ».

I. First of all, it is altogether necessary here to keep before one's eyes what has been most amply demonstrated in the Treatise on the Incarnation (sect. III. c. 3.) concerning the proper notion of hypostasis and person in comparison with substance or nature. Hypostasis is « an individual substance », insofar as the apposite word individual determines substance not only as singular in opposition to universal (of which sort are genera and species), not only as an integral substance in opposition to a part (of which sort is body or soul in man), not only as a substance whole in itself contradistinguished from a substance which, although singular and whole, is made after the manner of a part the nature of another hypostasis (of which sort is the human nature of Christ); but substance is called individual also insofar as it is wholly in itself incommunicable in opposition to a real communication or identification with several things really distinct among themselves. In the first three ways, even by the light of reason the Godhead, that is, the absolute divine essence, is understood to be essentially an individual substance (πρώτη οὐσία); namely, of itself, from its intimate absolute perfection, it is this one substance, distinct, indeed infinitely diverse, from all others which besides it are or can be (undivided in itself, divided from all others, as the notion of individual is wont to be explained). In this sense we saw in th. IX. n. II. that quite a number of the Fathers said that in God there is one hypostasis of first substance; and in the same sense we shall show below (th. XXIV.) that some scholastic theologians taught one absolute subsistence in God. But that this one absolute essence, one in number, is at the same time three distinct among themselves, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit — this we know by revelation alone; for it has been revealed that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, three distinct, are one God. By this very fact the quiddity by which God is [God], namely the Godhead, that is, the absolute essence, is really common to three distinct among themselves, who both singly and three together are one God, inasmuch as they are one infinite essence that cannot be multiplied. Hence, with this revealed truth presupposed, we understand that the absolute essence under this formal reason of the absolute is not an individual substance in that sense in which an individual substance is conceived in the fuller notion of hypostasis; for neither under that formal reason of the absolute is the essence incommunicable, but rather it is the nature of the Father in such a way that it is at the same time the nature of the Son, who is other than the Father, and at the same time the nature of the Holy Spirit, who again is other than the Father and the Son. On the contrary, however, under the formal reason [of the relative], insofar as the same essence is this relative, e. g. the Father, it is an individual substance; for the divine substance itself has the formal reason of the relative, whence the relation is substantial, as we have seen; and this relative, the Father, identified with the divine essence, or (as we are wont to speak in our mode of conceiving) having the divine nature, is under this formal reason of the relative one in himself and distinct from all others of the same nature (from the Son and the Holy Spirit), and so is an individual substance in the sense of incommunicability. This very incommunicability, or, under a positive concept, this being wholly in oneself (totality in oneself), is the formal reason by which a singular and integral substance is understood to subsist in itself, or, what comes to the same thing, is understood to be a hypostasis (see altogether the Tract. de Incarnat.).

In created things the matter is evident; for the quiddity of man, namely humanity, considered as common or communicable to many, is not a hypostasis but is a common nature; and this not only because humanity considered in that way as a species is not a singular substance, but by the very force of its community it would not have the notion of hypostasis, even if universal humanity were objectively one really existing thing (as some philosophers and even theologians, albeit in error, judged); the hypostasis, however, is this man Peter, whose quiddity is the human nature, and who is distinct from all others of the same nature; or the hypostasis is this singular humanity in the concrete, identified with this man Peter.

After this manner and according to this analogy, in the divine [realms] the essence, insofar as it is regarded under the formal reason of the absolute, under which reason it is really common to three distinct among themselves, is understood as a common nature and not as a hypostasis; but insofar as the same essence under the formal reason of the relative is this one Father in a necessary eternal relation to the Son, and under this formal reason of the relative is distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit, in this way the Father is and is understood as a hypostasis, and consequently (by reason of the intellectual nature) as a person. The same is to be judged of the Son under the formal reason of the Son, relative to the Father and distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit, and likewise of the Holy Spirit (or the spirated one), who under the formal reason of the spirated or proceeding one is relative to the Father and the Son and is distinct from both. For since God is one, and consequently one divine essence that cannot be multiplied, the distinction of the three among themselves cannot be under the formal reason of the absolute, according to which the three are one; but it is necessarily only under the formal reason of the relatives, which reason is manifested by the revealed names themselves of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Therefore the divine person is the divine essence itself under the formal reason of the relative ad intra, under which reason there are three distinct among themselves; not, however, under the formal reason of the absolute, under which reason it is one undivided essence or nature. In this sense Augustine disputes. « Every essence which is said relatively is also something apart from the relative.... If He were not a man, that is, some substance, there would not be one who would be called relatively lord.... Wherefore if the Father also is not something in respect of himself (if He is an abstract relation including nothing of the absolute), there is altogether no one who is said relatively to something.... The Father and the Son, both substance and both one substance (absolute)... And when these two are said, that is, begotten wisdom, in the one of them by the very fact that it is begotten, the Word and the image and the Son are understood, and in all these names the essence (absolute and common) is not shown, because they are said relatively; but in the other, which is wisdom, since it is also said in respect of itself, for it is itself wise, even the essence is shown.... Wherefore it is not because the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, or that the one is unbegotten and the other begotten, that therefore they are not one essence, because by these names their relative [properties] are shown. Both, however, are at the same time one wisdom and one essence, where to be is the same as to be wise (each is absolute and therefore one without multiplication or real distinction); but both are not at the same time the Word or the Son, because to be is not the same as to be the Word or the Son, as we have already sufficiently shown that these are said relatively » (i. e. the formal reason of the absolute Being is virtually distinguished from the relative formal reason of the Father and of the Word or Son, so that under the reason of the relatives they are really distinguished among themselves, while under the reason of the absolute they are one Being, one essence, one wisdom) s. Aug. Trin. VII. n. 2. 3.

With this doctrine now presupposed, we can conceive the divine person and the constitution of the person in two ways: first, indeed, more complexly and according to our mode of understanding, with a certain sort of composition, and then more simply and, as far as can be done by us, by withdrawing from that composition in concept. In either way, however, the divine persons are understood to be constituted by relations.

II. Since in the divine person there is a twofold formal reason virtually distinct — namely, the reason of the absolute essence and the reason of the relative — each of which corresponds to a twofold inadequate concept of ours, according to our mode of understanding all things by composition we can conceive the person as this one, under the reason of the relative distinct from others of the same nature, who has the nature, or of whom the divine nature is [his] as a metaphysical form (ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων Phil. II. 6); thus the relative is conceived in recto, the absolute in obliquo. Or, what comes to the same thing, we can conceive the essence as affected, as it were, by a relation, whether of paternity or of filiation or of procession, and thus formally, as affected by such a determinate relation, it is this one distinct from others by the relation, or it is a distinct subsistent; thus the essence is regarded in recto, the relation as affecting in obliquo. From the very infinity of the essence and the simplicity of the divine person it is evident that the relation is not some reality distinct from and superadded to the essence, nor that the essence is properly a form or really distinct from the relative; but we apprehend only a most simple thing under the twofold reason of the absolute and the relative, to each of which one and the same thing truly corresponds, and we join this twofold reason after the manner of a composition according to notions previously had from creatures. This mode of conceiving John, the theologian of the Latins, declared thus at the Council of Florence: « But we say that the essence (οὐσίαν) and the person or hypostasis are the same in reality, but differ according to our mode of understanding, so that the person consists of the essence and the properties. Now therefore, since they are distinguished by intelligence and reason, the essence indeed is communicated to the persons, but the persons are in no way communicated to one another, and this comes about from the force of the relation..... But according to the doctors both Greek and Latin, it is relation alone which multiplies the persons in the divine productions, which is called the relation of origin, to which only two things pertain, from whom another and who from another » ibid. sess. XVIII (Harduin. T. IX. p. 202. 203.). See the holy Fathers who consider the persons in this way, in Didac. Ruiz de Trin. disp. 86-90; Petav. de Deo l. II. c. 3; Trin. l. IV. c. 10.

Now if we speak according to this mode of understanding of ours about the constitution of the divine person, the divine person is understood indeed as a relative informed, as it were, by the essence, or as the essence affected, as it were, by the relation; but the person is not merely a relation conceived so abstractly and with a distinction of reason from the essence. Rather the person is formally [a person] insofar as it is this one subsistent, i. e. incommunicably wholly in itself and distinct from others of the same nature, not, however, something common to many; wherefore, since it is incommunicable and distinct and therefore subsistent only under the formal reason of the relative, while the essence and whatever is absolute is altogether one thing common to the three distinct and in no way distinguishing, the divine person is rightly said to be formally constituted by the relation. For although, as I have said, in this mode of conceiving the divine person is not relation alone, still the distinguishing reason and hence the formal reason of the person ¹ is not the absolute but relation alone; the Father is not distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit by reason of the divinity or the essence but by reason of paternity alone; by this very fact, therefore, paternity is the formal reason constituting the person.

Cardinal Bessarion explained these things clearly in the oration delivered to his Greeks at the Council of Florence. « Because in any plurality in which there is something common there is also something distinctive, in this Trinity also of divine persons, which agree with one another in the unity of essence, that [thing] must be sought which distinguishes them. And since that is not the essence — for in it they agree supremely — and in the divine [realms], besides the essence and the relations and the diverse mode of processions, which the Latins call origin, nothing else can be understood, it remains that either origin or relation or both distinguish the divine persons. But since relation and origin, although they differ according to the mode of understanding, inasmuch as origin is signified after the manner of an act, as generation, but relation after the manner of a form, as paternity, nevertheless do not differ in reality; therefore the divine persons are distinguished indeed in both ways, but first and principally according to the mode of understanding through the relations, through which also the divine persons are constituted » ² (Hard. T. IX. p. 347). See S. Th. 1. q. 29. a. 4.

III. But although these things are so, still that distinction of ours between the divine essence and relation, and that composition, as it were, of the divine hypostasis from both reasons, is only according to our inadequate concepts and imperfect mode of understanding, although the distinction has a foundation in the thing, which in itself most simple is at once the absolute and the relative. Indeed, although we conceive the relation without expressly conceiving it as substance, nevertheless the thing conceived under the notion of the divine relation is essentially substance; and therefore, in the truth of the matter, the divine relation cannot be conceived with an objective precision from the essence (see th. XV. n. III.). For the person, the Father, is the divine essence not indeed under the formal reason of the absolute, but insofar as the essence, as an intellection, has from its intimate necessary exigency the reason of the relative to the Word produced; and the same is to be judged of the Word and of the Holy Spirit. Cardinal Pallavicinus noted this matter excellently. After he has spoken of the mode of conceiving the divine person as substance in recto with the relation in obliquo, or as the relative in recto with the essence in obliquo, he adds: « besides, this doctrine holds only of the second intentional concept, i. e. insofar as that simple [thing] is conceived by us which on the part of the object responds to this notion, divine person, now by way of the enigma of created essence (through the idea of essence derived from creatures), now by way of the enigma of created relation. But first intentionally (i. e. if the thing itself is conceived as it is objectively), since the divine relation cannot prescind even objectively from identity with the essence, certainly the divine person says the integral concept of the relation (i. e. the relation itself is at the same time the divine substance and therefore a substantial relation) as something simple and perfect » Pall. Curs. theol. 1. VIII. c. 54. n. 412.

According to these notions the constitution of the divine person through the relation can be conceived a little differently. Provided only that the names are rightly understood from the principles laid down, the divine person is nothing other than the real divine relation. I do not say [that it is] nothing other than a relation, but I say nothing other than a divine relation. For the divine relation is not an accident nor something abstracted from the divine substance, but it is the divine essence or substance itself, substance, I say, not indeed under the formal reason of the absolute but under the formal reason of the relative; inasmuch as, as we have often already enunciated this fundamental principle, the most simple divine entity itself has at once both the reason of the absolute (under which it is and is called one communicable essence) and the reason of the relative, and indeed of three relatives distinct from one another under this formal reason. Thus, however, the essence under the formal reason of a substantial relation is the divine person; under the reason of one determinate substantial relation it is one person, under the reason of another determinate substantial relation it is another person: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The whole declaration, namely, regresses to the defined principle of faith from which it set out: « the essence (under the formal reason of the essence) is not generating nor begotten nor proceeding, but (under the formal reason of the relative) is the Father who generates, and the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds ». Wherefore, since the divine person is nothing other than the divine substantial relation, or the relation identified with the essence, or the essence under the formal reason of relation, certainly the divine person is rightly said to be constituted by a relation ³.

You will hardly find this mode of conceiving, which is closer to the thing itself, better explained anywhere else than in s. Thomas 1. q. 28. a. 2; Potent. q. 8. a. 2; 1. dist. 33. q. 1. a. 1.; to which places we have already also appealed above in th. XXII. n. II. There the Angelic [Doctor] shows that the relation in God is in reality the divine essence itself, although we conceive the same thing under the twofold diverse reason of the absolute essence and of the relative, that is, of the relation, because the significate through the abstract and through the concrete is the same in God ⁴. The doctrine, namely, of 1. q. 28. a. 2. is this. A relation according to its real being in creatures is an accident, and thus inheres in the substance, which indeed it has in common with all accidents. But according to its proper reason, by which it is such an accident distinct from the other genera of accidents, a relation says a respect to another term. And so in creatures too every real relation, besides the respect to another, is also something absolute, insofar as it inheres in the substance. But a relation which in no way inheres is conceived only as a respect to another, while in the thing itself objectively it is nothing real, and so it is a relation of reason only, as right or left in a column. Now in God the relations are real, as is certain by faith; for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit really are. The divine relations are therefore some thing with a respect to a term. But they cannot be an accident nor some thing superadded to the essence; for in God, on account of the highest simplicity, there is no accident, and to the infinite essence, which as the fullness of being comprehends every reason of perfection, no reality can be superadded; therefore the relations are necessarily in reality the divine essence itself. But the essence under the formal reason of absolute essence does not say a real respect to an immanent term; for under that reason it is altogether one and undivided; therefore that same most simple thing which has the reason of the essence has from its intimate nature also the reason of the relative. « Whatever in created things (he says) has accidental being, insofar as it is transferred to God, has substantial being; for nothing is in God as an accident in a subject, but whatever is in God is His essence. Thus, therefore, from that part by which a relation in created things has accidental being in a subject, a relation really existing in God has the being of the divine essence, being altogether the same for it... And thus it is manifest that a relation really existing in God is the same as the essence in reality, and differs only according to the reason of the intelligence (with a foundation in the thing), insofar as in the relation a respect to its opposite is imported, which is not imported in the name (and formal reason) of the essence. It is clear, therefore, that in God the being of the relation and of the essence is not other, but one and the same » S. Th. ibid.

Wherefore there are not there two things or at least two reasons objectively precisely distinct, the absolute and the relative, which concur to compose one thing; but one highest thing, which we conceive under the reason of the divine relation, e. g. of paternity or in the concrete of the Father, is in reality at the same time the absolute essence; just as conversely the same thing, while it is conceived under the reason of the essence, is at the same time the three relatives and each of them, who are distinguished among themselves not under the reason of the essence but under the reason of the relatives. But our concept of the relative, derived from creatures, does not express at the same time the absolute, just as the concept of the absolute does not express at the same time the relative; therefore that twofold reason, which the highest thing has in its eminence according to the function both of the absolute and of the relative, is conceived by us under a twofold inadequate notion. Nevertheless, just as that which we apprehend under the notion of an attribute, e. g. of divine wisdom, is on the part of the thing the absolute being itself, infinite in every line of perfection, and consequently the true God, so that which we apprehend by an inadequate notion under the reason of the relation, e. g. of paternity, is on the part of the thing at once both paternity and the absolute being, and the true God subsisting in the absolute nature.

Answering the objection that, according to Augustine, « every thing which is said relatively is also something apart from the relative », s. Thomas speaks thus: « As in created things, in that which is said relatively, not only a respect to another is to be found, but also something absolute, so also in God; but nevertheless in a different way in each case. For that which is found in a creature besides that which is contained under the signification of the relative name is another thing (namely, the substance in which the relation inheres as an accident); but in God it is not another thing but one and the same (at once absolute and relative), which is not perfectly expressed by the name of the relation, as if comprehended under the signification of such a name. For it was said, when the divine names were being treated, that more is contained in the perfection of the divine essence than can be signified by any name. Whence it does not follow that in God besides the relation there is something else in reality (another thing than that which responds to the notion of the divine relation), but only considering the reason of the names » (only that one thing is conceived under diverse reasons, which diverse reasons, conceived by us, are to be expressed also by diverse names) S. Th. ibid. ad 2.

Further, the Angelic [Doctor] considers in the divine relation these two [things]: that it is both substance and a relation to another. Insofar as the relation is identified with the essence, it is a substantial relation: insofar as it is referred and has a respect to another relative term, it is this one distinct from the other relatives of the same essence. And so the divine relation itself, identified with the essence, and under both reasons of the absolute and the relative one most simple thing, is understood to be the subsisting divine person. « The relations in the divine [realms], he says, although they constitute the hypostases and thus make them subsisting, nevertheless do this insofar as they are the divine essence (insofar as they are substantial relations). For a relation, insofar as it is a relation (abstractly regarded), does not have [that by which] it subsists or makes [something] subsist; for this belongs to substance alone. But the relations distinguish insofar as they are relations (not under the formal reason by which they are the common essence, but under the formal reason of a relation to the other term); for thus they have opposition » S. Th. Potent. q. 8. a. 3. ad 7. Namely, since the hypostasis is an individual substance, or this one substantial [being] distinct from all others, even of the same essence, a twofold reason is required for the hypostasis: substantiality and distinction; whence unless the divine relations were at the same time substance, that is, the divine essence, the very foundation of the hypostasis would be lacking; unless they were formally relations, under which sole reason they are opposed and distinguished, the formal reason of the hypostasis would be lacking ⁵. Hence further he says: « in the divine [realms] the relations are subsistent; therefore, according as they have opposition to one another, they can distinguish the supposits (or they themselves, as substantial and subsistent, are distinct supposits 1. q. 40. a. 3); nor yet is the essence distinguished, because the relations themselves are not distinguished from one another, according as they are really the same with the essence » (they are not distinguished under the formal reason of the essence) ibid. 1. q. 39. a. 1. ad 1. Cf. Card. Cienfuegos disp. V. sect. 3. § 1; Franc. de Lugo disp. XI. c. 3. n. 8.

From this doctrine, therefore, of s. Thomas, the divine relation itself — not indeed under the common concept of relation derived from creatures, but formally as divine relation ⁶, i. e. as a substantial relation, or one identified with the essence, and therefore as subsistent — is understood to be the divine person; absolutely, therefore, the divine persons are constituted by the divine relations. It is, however, self-evident that the name of constitution is taken here in that metaphysical sense in which the concrete significate is said to be constituted by the whole formal reason of itself, which is signified in the abstract, as God is said to be constituted by the Godhead, man by humanity; the name is not, however, taken in the physical sense, in which one third thing is said to be constituted out of two distinct concurring [things], as a man is constituted from soul and body. Cf. Ruiz disp. 86. sect. 4. n. 5. seqq.

IV. To complete the doctrine we here add a question which pertains more to the manner of speaking than to the matter itself: whether and in what way the divine persons can be said to be constituted by origins just as by relations. Certainly, if one attends to the identity of origin and (real) relation in God, it is of no great importance in which of the two ways we speak. Insofar, however, as one attends to the different manner in which we conceive origin and relation, the persons are understood to be constituted more properly by relations than by origins. Origin in the divine, as far as the present matter is concerned, is said both as active origin (to beget and to spirate, that is, generation and active spiration, which also are and are called notional acts⁷ cf. Suarez 1. VI. c. 1. n. 2. 3) and as passive origin, as it were (to be begotten and to be spirated, that is, nativity and procession)⁸; so that origin is the same as production in the active and passive sense, that is, the producing and the being produced of the divine persons. Since we are speaking of the constitution of the persons, setting aside active spiration, which does not constitute a person, as we shall declare later, there come into consideration here generation (active origin), nativity and procession (the twofold passive origin).

1°. Now what we have said — that origin and the corresponding relation in the divine are really altogether the same — is easily understood. The divine intellect is not a potency distinct from act, but from its inmost nature is pure act and substantial intellection; hence the intellect also, insofar as it produces the Word as its internal term, is not a potency passing into the act of producing the Word, but is a pure substantial act of intellection, from its nature (and in this sense essentially) productive of the Word. Whence this eternal necessary producing or begetting, whose immanent term, equally necessary, is the Word, is not a transient action, but is the very substantial, eternal, immutably abiding and subsisting intellection relative to its Word. Just as, therefore, the divine relation of paternity is not something abstract, but is this very substantial understanding productive of the Word and therefore from its nature related to the Word, so active origin, which is nothing other than this understanding productive of the Word, is the very eternal, immutably abiding relation of paternity to the Word as its immanent term.

Conversely, as is already clear from the formal notion of the producing intellection just described, the eternal being produced, or being begotten, of the immanent Word is not something transient; rather, from its inmost exigency it is a necessarily and eternally abiding being produced by the paternal intellection. For just as the substantial divine understanding, considered absolutely, is the one undivided divine essence, but taken relatively and as it were actively, insofar as to understand is to express one's Word in understanding, it is the subsisting Father distinct from the Word expressed or produced; in like manner the understood that is immanent in God, considered absolutely, is the divine essence, but in a sense as it were passive, insofar as the understood is said to be expressed by the paternal intellection, it is the Word distinct from the producing Father⁹, which is intrinsically constituted by the relation to the producing Father insofar as it is produced, and is constituted by passive origin insofar as it is conceived to be produced by an eternal act. In short, because in the Word the being eternally produced and the eternally being produced are one and the same, and the former founds the relation while the latter expresses origin, therefore, just as the Father, so also the Son can be understood to be constituted no less by eternal origin than by relation. The same things are to be repeated if one considers the eternal being produced and having been produced, that is, the eternal origin and relation of the Holy Spirit, who as immanent term is eternally spirated and has been spirated through the common love in the Father and the Son. See the Holy Fathers in Ruiz disp. 84. sect. 2.

2°. Nevertheless it is established, as we said in the second place, that the divine persons are understood to be constituted more aptly by relations than by origins, if one considers the manner in which we apprehend relation and origin by distinct concepts. For, as Bessarion argued in the Council of Florence (Hard. IX. p. 347), « relation and origin, although they differ according to the mode of understanding — since origin is signified after the manner of an act (κατὰ τὸν τῆς ἐνεργείας τρόπον), as generation (ἡ γέννησις), whereas relation is signified after the manner of a (permanent) form (κατὰ τὸν τοῦ εἴδους τρόπον) — do not however differ in reality; therefore the divine persons are distinguished indeed in both ways, but first and principally, according to the mode of understanding, by relations ». Namely, to explain the matter in the words of Didacus Ruiz disp. 87. sect. 5. n. 5, « according to the correct mode of understanding a thing abiding in its accomplished state, that is, in its produced being, what is constitutive must be conceived as a permanent form and as it were in accomplished being, already having fixed being, not as a way and tendency toward that being. This condition, however, does not belong to origin; for it is conceived as a way tending toward being and as it were a becoming¹⁰, for it is the very being actually produced. Therefore origin cannot formally and intrinsically constitute the produced person, but only relation ». These things indeed are understood immediately only of passive origin; for the first person is in no way produced. Nevertheless the reason adduced — that origin, in our mode of understanding, by which alone it is distinguished from relation and according to which this whole question is treated, is not conceived as a permanent form — holds equally for active origin, as it is generation. Rightly, therefore, for the same reason the first person also is conceived to be constituted by relation and not by origin, according to that mode in which we apprehend origin as something flowing and distinct in reason from relation. « The Father must be constituted by a fixed and permanent form, such as paternity is, not however by the formality of a flowing way tending toward some term to be constituted (such as generation is conceived to be) » Ruiz ibid. n. 7. cf. S. Th. 1. q. 40. a. 2; Suarez 1. VII. c. 6. n. 12.

But setting aside this distinction between a permanent form and an act conceived after the manner of a flowing thing — a distinction which, as it were by way of a subsequent correction, stands in need of correction, lest it contain error — the same point can be set forth in another way. The distinction between origin and relation is transferred from created things to God, so that we may in some way conceive the procession and real distinction of the persons. In created things, however, relation does not indeed constitute the person, but still we do not conceive the incommunicability and distinction of one person from another without relation; origin, on the other hand, enters in no way into either the constitution or the concept of the incommunicability of a created person; therefore, if we distinguish origin and relation in the divine person according to the analogy of the created person, we conceive the person as constituted more aptly by relation than by origin. This explanation is Cardinal Pallavicini's: « It must be found out what that fundamental concept is from which, most formally, incommunicability in the divine persons is drawn according to our mode of knowing — whether the concept of relations or of origins... As regards truth, both are the same in the divine and so constitute the persons, and neither in us pertains to the substance and constitution of the persons; wherefore on these heads they are equal. Nevertheless this does not stand in the way of the aptness of this puzzle (namely this concept of relations, which is derived from creatures as distinct from the concept of origins), such as can be had by us. For among creatures we cannot conceive incommunicability and distinction itself without a relative concept, whereas the origins, neither really nor according to concept, pertain in creatures to constituting the incommunicability of the persons; and therefore the concept of relations is the more accommodating » Pallav. Curs. theol. 1. VIII. c. 54. n. 414.

Corollary. From what has been set forth in this thesis it follows what is to be thought about the priority of reason between the notional acts or origins, on the one hand, and the persons or personal properties, on the other. This question, like the preceding ones, can again be taken in two ways; namely, either it is asked about the thing itself as it is in itself, insofar as it can be understood by us, or about the order among the notions as it were partial, by which we in our imperfect way are wont to conceive the same thing through the manifold distinctions derived according to the analogy from creatures.

1°. According to that former consideration, it is most easily understood that there is no priority, not even of reason, between the notional act and the personal property. For eternal active generation and paternity; likewise nativity, that is, the eternal procession through generation, and filiation; and again the eternal procession through spiration and the having been spirated — these, on the side of the thing, are altogether the same, without any distinction and therefore without any priority. These things stand firm from what was said in the thesis about the identity of divine origin and relation. In particular, as regards the first person, about whom the greater difficulty usually exists: he is not prior in reason as Father, and consequently not prior in reason as a constituted person who should then in a later sign beget; for the Father, and consequently the person, is constituted by the very eternal necessary relative act of generation; or, to speak still more precisely, this very necessary substantial act — the substantial intellection, I say, from its inmost nature eternally producing and having as produced the immanent Word — is itself the Father. And so, conversely, generation is not prior in reason and paternity afterwards in a later sign; for the Father himself, under the formal notion as Father and as this person, begets, and through this very eternal necessary relative act of generation he is a distinct person, namely the Father; it is not some indeterminate person that precedes, which should then by the act of generation be constituted the Father and this determinate person. Didacus Ruiz says the same in other words (disp. 91. sect. 2. n. 1.): « paternity and generation under a full and explicit concept are simultaneous, so that neither can be understood as prior in reason to the other. Understand the same of filiation compared with nativity, and of the relation of the Holy Spirit compared with its passive origin, namely with procession ».

Provided the declared real identity of the notional act, that is, of origin, with the personal relation is duly kept before one's eyes, the emptiness of the objection will easily appear, by which someone would wish to prove the person of the Father prior in reason to the notional act of generation, or on the contrary the act of generation prior to paternity. For it is wont to be said on the one side: actions belong to supposits; therefore it is repugnant that an act of generation be conceived without a person being pre-understood as prior in reason; and if it were not so, not a person but the nature would be the one begetting, contrary to what was defined in the Council of the Lateran (cap. Damnamus). On the other side it is objected: the first person cannot be understood under the formal notion of Father except because he begets; therefore active generation is necessarily pre-understood, and from it paternity, that is, the formal notion of Father, is understood.

We answer: in both of these objections the concept of the person of the Father is first taken inadequately and in confusion, to which the explicit notion of paternity is then added; and in this manner of considering, instituted according to the analogy found in created persons, we do not deny that the object represented by the inadequate concept can be viewed as prior in reason, and the same object represented under the explicit notion of paternity as posterior in reason — about which we shall speak shortly. Now, however, we are speaking of the person of the Father and of the notional act according to their perfection, insofar as, with faith shedding light, we can understand them as they are in themselves on the side of the thing. Thus, first of all, the intellection producing the Word is not an elicited action of some supposit, as intellection is in creatures; but the divine intellection is a pure substantial act which, formally as from its necessary perfection it is relative to the eternally produced Word, is God the Father; whence that relative act is not as it were inhering in some pre-understood person, but is itself this determinate divine person, distinct from the Word and from the Holy Spirit.

To the former objection, therefore, we say: not only is it not repugnant that the substantial relative act be conceived without a person being pre-understood as prior in reason, to which it inheres or from which it is elicited; but rather that imperfect manner of conceiving it, according to the analogy of creatures, as an elicited act, stands in need of this correction, that the substantial relative act itself be understood to be the divine person. Hence, further, it is indeed the person under the formal notion of person, that is, under the formal notion of a distinct relative, and not the nature under the notion of the absolute and common, that begets; but the divine person is not a supposit eliciting an act distinct from itself, but (as I have said) the substantial relative act itself is the person.

From these things too the answer to the other objection, contrary to the former, is manifest. Active generation as it is in God is a relative act always complete from an inborn necessity, having as its internal term the eternally produced Word. Whence that complete act of generation is not prior in reason in such a way that paternity follows from it; but rather that relative act itself, entirely without priority of reason — indeed with the mind's consideration of both at once — is paternity. It can indeed be said: the Father is because he begets, and conversely he begets because he is the Father; not as if the one were to be conceived before the other, but because the one concept includes the other as its formal notion, just as the defined includes the definition, and conversely the definition includes the defined.

2°. Although these things are so, we can nevertheless, according to the analogy of creatures, view the person, the relation, and the notional act in confusion; and, comparing the formalities thus conceived with one another, we can indeed conceive the one as prior in reason to the other.

First, as regards the proceeding persons, that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit: if being begotten, that is, nativity, and being spirated, that is, passive spiration, are viewed, as St. Thomas speaks, as a way to the person — whereas on the contrary the person, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is the term and the person itself — then without doubt the origin (being begotten and being spirated) is conceived as prior in reason, and the begotten and spirated person as posterior in reason.

Then, as regards the person of the Father, about whom the present question especially turns, we can conceive the begetting person in such a way that the first person, that is, the unbegotten, is first conceived in confusion without the explicit concept of paternity, and this person is understood as posterior in reason as begetting: thus the confused notion of the person is prior in reason, the notional act posterior. In another way again we can view paternity merely as a relation, prescinding from the fact that the divine relation is itself the divine substance and therefore a person. Whence, because in creatures the relation of paternity follows upon generation, according to this analogy we can conceive in God generation as the foundation of the paternal relation, and so as prior in reason to paternity thus inadequately viewed.

This analogical manner of conceiving, although imperfect and in need of correction — lest we judge that in reality the person first exists and then the act of generation, by which the Father is at length constituted — must nevertheless be noted, because on it rests a frequent and quite convenient usage of speech, and because the Scholastics almost always institute from it their comparisons between the persons and the origins of the persons. See S. Th. 1. q. 40. a. 4. and especially de Potent. q. 10. a. 3. Cf. Suarez 1. VII. c. 7. n. 11; Ruiz disp. 91. sect. 2.