Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« The name person signifies a subsistent in a rational or intellectual nature. Hence, 1°. person does not indeed, from its mode of signifying, express a relation, but in God, on account of the thing signified, it supposits for relatives, and therefore persons are to be predicated of God in the plural; with this doctrine the discussion of s. Augustine (Trin. VII. c. 4. seqq.) is very well reconciled. 2°. For this reason, no absolute subsistence is to be admitted in God, if the name subsistence be taken in the fuller and, from ecclesiastical usage, proper signification ».

I. From what has been said in the preceding thesis there can first be settled that question which, after s. Augustine (Trin. 1. VII. c. 4. seqq.), s. Thomas 1. q. 29. a. 4; Potent. q. 9. a. 4; 1. dist. 23. a. 3. and most other Scholastics discuss: what the name person properly signifies in God, and how it comes about that a name which is said not relatively to another but with respect to itself, and hence seems to signify something absolute, is nevertheless said of God in the plural.

1°. The name person signifies a subsistent in a rational or intellectual nature, distinct from others even of the same nature; hence if it is transferred to God, it signifies a distinct subsistent in the divine nature. Moreover, it is established by revelation that the subsistents in the divine nature are three, distinct from one another under the formal ratio of relatives, who, however, under the formal ratio of the absolute are altogether one undivided essence.

Hence, in those three distinct subsistents two things are to be considered: a) each one is something really distinct from the others, and thus incommunicable, and consequently subsisting in itself; this is expressed by the name person. b) It is to be considered that they are thus distinct and subsisting in themselves only under the formal ratio of a substantial relation. This ratio of the relative is not explicitly expressed by the name person; for neither does it, from its mode of signifying, designate the relative. Thus, by the name divine person there is formally signified the distinct subsistent in the divine nature; this distinct subsistent, however, in God is in reality a relative, although the ratio of the relative is not expressed by that name from its mode of signifying (as I have said). It can be said most briefly: the name person in God formally signifies the distinct subsistent, materially signifies the relative; or also: it signifies the distinct subsistent, it supposits for the relative (cf. supra p. 27.).

«The proper ratio of a name is (says s. Thomas) what the name signifies; but that to which the name is attributed, if it be rightly taken under the thing signified by the name, as the determinate under the indeterminate, is said to be supposited for by the name (as by the name man Peter can be supposited)… But it must be known that something is signified in two ways: in one way formally and in another way materially. Formally, indeed, there is signified by the name that for which the name was principally imposed, which is the ratio of the name, as this name man signifies something composed of body and rational soul. Materially, however, there is signified by the name that in which such a ratio is realized; as this name man signifies something having a heart and a brain and parts of this sort, without which a body cannot be animated by a rational soul. According to this, therefore, it must be said that this name person, taken commonly, signifies nothing other than the individual substance of a rational nature. And because under the individual substance of a rational nature there is contained the individual substance, that is, the incommunicable and from others distinct substance, of God as well as of man as also of angel, the divine person must signify the distinct subsistent in the divine nature, just as the human person signifies the distinct subsistent in the human nature; and this is the formal signification both of the divine person and of the human person… But the distinct incommunicable subsistent in the divine nature cannot be anything except a relation, because everything absolute is common and indistinct in divine things… It is clear, therefore, that person taken commonly signifies the individual substance of a rational nature, but the divine person by formal signification signifies the distinct subsistent in the divine nature; and because this cannot be anything except a relation or a relative (which in God are the same), therefore by material signification it signifies a relation or a relative » S. Thomas Potent. q. 9. a. 4. cf. I. q. 29. a. 4.

Therefore, although also in God the name person is in some sense said with respect to itself, and is not said relatively to another, nevertheless that which is designated by this name is not something absolute but something relative.

To be said with respect to itself is taken in a twofold sense: either so that the formal ratio of the absolute is signified, in which sense essence, wisdom, goodness and all absolute attributes are said with respect to themselves; or something is said with respect to itself so that it is signified to be in itself incommunicable and hence subsisting, without the formal ratio of the relative being denied of it; in this sense the divine person is said with respect to itself and is such. For indeed the Father is in himself this one incommunicably, and consequently really distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit (which holds the same for the second and third person); this, however, is under the formal ratio of the relative.

The difference, therefore, between the proper appellation of each one of the three distinct subsistents — between the names, I say, Father, Son, Holy Spirit — and the common name person is this: that those proper names express both the subsistent and the ratio of the relative, and indeed each one expresses one determinate subsistent and relative: one Father, not three Fathers, and Father of the Son; one Son, not three Sons, and Son of the Father etc.; whereas the name person, of itself and from its mode of signifying, signifies only the subsistent indeterminately, whence it can be said of each one, and because the subsistents are three, really distinct from one another under the formal ratio of subsistents, they can be numbered together in the plural as persons. But the formal ratio of the relative, or the relation of origin of one from another, as we have said, this name does not signify but supposits; and hence the Father is a person in himself, i.e. subsisting in himself, but he is not, nor can be called, the person of the Son; for that would signify that under the formal ratio of the subsistent the Father and the Son are one and the same, which is the Sabellian error. In brief, the name person in God does not signify something absolute, but a distinct subsistent subsisting in itself; the subsistents in themselves, however, in God are relatives and are three; therefore the name person in God does not indeed from its mode of signifying designate the relative, but on account of the thing signified supposits for the relative, and in the plural three persons are to be said.

2°. As to the substance of the matter, this same doctrine of s. Thomas seems to us to have been handed down by s. Augustine in the celebrated passage Trin. VII. n. 7-12. There Augustine asks why, since three divine essences neither are nor can be said, because God is one, yet three substances, i.e. hypostases, are said by the Greeks, and three persons by the Latins? The difficulty which the holy Father presses is as follows. In God, whatever is absolute and in this sense is said with respect to itself is altogether one and undivided; but the three distinct subsistents are only under the formal ratio of relatives to one another: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

But if now a created person is considered, it is something absolute, namely a singular substance of an entire rational nature wholly in itself; whence there are always as many persons there as there are singular entire rational natures subsisting connaturally, and the distinct persons each have also a numerically different essence. If, therefore, person were said of God in this sense, no less one person in number than one essence would have to be said; for there is one singular, entire, intellectual substance. Wherefore, says Augustine, when some common name was sought by which not now the one absolute in the three would be signified, but by which the three insofar as they are distinct would be numbered together, the name person was taken up not in that signification of the absolute, but to designate several subsistents distinct by relation, although the name itself of itself does not have the form of a relative signification, as the names Father, Son, Holy Spirit have ¹.

«While human poverty strove in speaking to bring forth to the senses of men what it holds by its capacity concerning the Lord God its creator in the secret chamber of the mind… it feared to say three essences, lest some diversity be understood in that supreme equality; again, that they are not three somethings, it could not say, because Sabellius, since he said this, fell into heresy. For most certainly it is known from the Scriptures… that the Father is, and the Son and the Holy Spirit; nor that the Son is the same as the Father is… It sought what it should call the three, and it said substances (hypostases) or persons; by which names it wished not diversity to be understood, but refused singularity; so that not only unity be understood there from the fact that one essence is said, but also Trinity from the fact that three substances or persons are said… And so let him say one essence, so as not to think that one thing is greater or better than another or in some part different; yet not so that the Father himself is the Son and the Holy Spirit, and whatever else is said of them mutually (relatively)… on account of which they also admit the plural number, as it is written in the Gospel: I and the Father are one. Or if it now pleases, on account of the necessity of disputation, even setting aside the relative names, to admit the plural number, so that it be answered with one name when it is asked what the three are, and to say three substances (hypostases) or three persons, let no masses or intervals be thought, no distance of however small a dissimilarity… so that there be neither confusion of persons, nor such a distinction by which something is unequal » Aug. ib. n. 9. 12.

Augustine, therefore, not only does not say — as Güntherus twisted this passage — that three Gods and three essences can be predicated, unless external reasons stood in the way; but rather he says that because God is altogether one and there is one essence, neither can three persons be said in the signification of the absolute, but only three persons be numbered, insofar as that which is designated by this name in God is relative (cf. supra p. 269. 270.).

We think also that, according to what we have said, what Petavius wrote in l. IV. c. 11. needs some mitigation, where he strove to refute the opinion of Augustine, which he himself interpreted as if the holy Father had simply taught that in God «person is said with respect to itself, not to another, which itself is to be said absolutely and according to essence or substance, not according to relation,» as Petavius speaks. Augustine indeed says: «as the substance of the Father is He himself

the Father is, not insofar as He is the Father, but insofar as He is; so also the person of the Father is nothing other than the Father himself; for person is said with respect to itself, not to the Son or the Holy Spirit; just as God and great and good and just are said with respect to themselves » l. c. n. 11. But in this very fact that it is said «the person of the Father is the Father himself», it is not denied that he for whom the name person supposits is relative to the Son and the Holy Spirit; but it is only said that by the name person there is signified a subsistent in himself, not however the subsistence of another, which is also clear from the added explanation of Augustine, in what sense person is said with respect to itself and not relatively to another: «what then, he says, does it please that we say the Father is the person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?» All of which at length are reduced to the sense of s. Thomas, the most distinguished interpreter of Augustine.

II. The question of the absolute subsistence of God, about which the Scholastics once disputed, is from what has been said so clear that among Catholics the controversy can almost only be about the name. Durandus in 3. dist. I. q. 2. a. 7. and some other old Thomists taught that «to subsist in divine things is something unique and absolute, belonging to all the persons by reason of the essence». For, they said, in divine things «the formal ratio of the supposit (hypostasis) is not per se subsistence but is something else; for the supposit is formally constituted by the relative property, but it subsists not by the relative property but by the essence or substance» ibid. Some others affirmed — among whom first Cajetan (in I. q. 39. a. 4; 3. q. 2. a. 2. ad 3.; q. 3. aa. 2. 3.) and afterwards Suarez (de Incarnat. T. I. disp. XI. sect. 3.; de Trin. l. III. c. 4; l. IV. c. 11.) — that in God there is one absolute subsistence and three relative ones. But the common way of thinking and speaking, confirmed by the consensus of the Fathers and Councils, is that three subsistences are said to exist in God under the formal ratio of relatives, not however some absolute subsistence common to the three persons. See Vasquez in P. I. disp. 125.; Gregory of Valencia de Trin. (T. I. disp. II.) q. 13. puncto 3.; Ruiz disp. XXXIV.; Franc. de Lugo Trin. disp. XI.; Petav. l. IV. c. 12. n. 1-4.

The name subsistence, in its proper signification consecrated by ecclesiastical usage through many centuries, has no other notion than that which we have stated; namely, a subsistent (from which subsistence is derived) is this one existing incommunicably in itself, and by this very fact distinct from all others even of the same essence or nature. Three things, therefore, are required for the proper ratio of subsistence: that it be a singular, entire substance; that it be not after the manner of a part, or after the manner of a nature held in another higher hypostasis (as the human nature in the Word); that it be not common or identified with several things distinct among themselves. In this sense, therefore, both etymologically and by the ecclesiastical usage of the Fathers and Councils, subsistence is altogether the same as that which in Greek is called hypostasis; for subsistence among the Fathers and ancient theologians is not taken in an abstract signification, but concretely in the same way as hypostasis. But if, as it prevailed among the Scholastics after Cajetan ², it is taken abstractly, subsistence will be that formal ratio of incommunicability in itself, under which substance is understood to be a hypostasis.

In whichever way you regard subsistence, no absolute, but three relative subsistences are to be predicated in God; for whatever is absolute there is one common thing, or identified with the three distinct persons; but the distinct persons are only under the formal ratio of relatives. By this very fact the absolute is not subsistent, i.e. incommunicable, under the formal ratio of the absolute, but under the formal ratio of the three relatives and of each one of them.

But if subsistence is taken in a twofold diverse signification: first more loosely, under only the two former notes, so that it be a singular, entire, existing substance, and not assumed after the manner of a nature by a higher hypostasis; then more strictly, with the added third note of incommunicability: thus indeed in that former, less full signification the divine absolute essence can be called subsistence, or (taking the name abstractly) an absolute subsistence can be ascribed to the essence, just as by several of the ancients, before the fourth century drew to a close, one hypostasis was predicated in God, i.e. one singular, most perfect, really existing absolute substance in three distinct persons (see supra th. IX. n. II. and de Incarnat. th. XXVI. XXVII.). Whence if it be said that in God there are one absolute subsistence and three relative subsistences, taking the name according to that twofold diverse signification, as Suarez explained his mind ll. cc., nothing indeed will be said that is dissonant from the truth as regards the thing itself; but without any fruit the name is deflected from its solemn signification to another sense; and thus, while it is used in an ambiguous sense in explaining one and the same mystery, clarity is certainly not served, but occasion is given for the perturbation of concepts not only in the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity, but also in the explanation of the mystery of the Incarnation.

But those who by that absolute subsistence understand something more than what has been said are without doubt deceived also as regards the thing itself. Thus Cajetan ll. cc. insists that, prescinding from the persons, there is and must be understood not only God but (as he says) this God, namely one having the divine nature; whence he thinks that God thus conceived is a supposit and a person, although not altogether completely, because he is something common to the three distinct persons. But in truth, whether God or this God be said, he is not other than the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the three persons together, and each one of them. And hence, granted the revelation of the three divine persons, the name God or this God signifies nothing other than the one divine nature, not multipliable, with a connotation of subsistence either indeterminately and confusedly, or of a threefold subsistence, or determinately of the subsistence of one of the three.

But in whatever way subsistence be connoted, it always has the formal ratio of the relative; the only difference is something in our mode of conceiving: in the second and third mode we expressly conceive subsistence as relative; in the first mode we can conceive it confusedly, without an express notion of the relative; nevertheless, even confusedly, according to the truth of the thing the divine subsistence cannot be conceived with the exclusion of the relative and under the express ratio of the absolute, since objectively and on the part of the thing it is not except under the formal ratio of the relative.

That Durandus affirms one absolute subsistence, and denies relative subsistences, took its origin from the perverse interpretation of the doctrine of S. Thomas, which we have described above, concerning substance as the foundation of subsistence. «Relations in divine things, says the Angelic Doctor, although they constitute the hypostases and thus make them subsistent, yet they do this insofar as they are the divine essence; for a relation insofar as it is a relation does not have that it subsist or make anything subsist, for this belongs to substance alone» Potent. q. 8. a. 3. ad 7. Whence Durandus and some others concluded thus: the absolute essence gives subsistence to the relations, but the relations do not give subsistence to the essence; and therefore one absolute subsistence common to the three is to be said, but there is no relative subsistence. But from what has been said it is clear that this inference is in itself absurd, if subsistence be taken in the fuller sense of incommunicability according to the usage of the Councils and the Fathers. As regards the doctrine of s. Thomas, this one thing is said with perfect truth: relations cannot be subsistent except insofar as they are substantial; and hence relations are subsistent, not because they are relations in the common signification, but because they are such relations, namely identified with the essence and therefore substantial.

In the more proper mode of conceiving and speaking, neither should the essence be said to give subsistence to the relations, nor the relations to the essence; for neither are the relations really distinguished from the essence, nor is subsistence a superadded reality, whether to the essence or to the relations; but the most simple and infinite essence, from internal exigency and through itself, is really the subsisting Father, Son, Holy Spirit; and in turn the relation, e.g. paternity, is through itself God the Father, filiation God the Son, the spirated (passive spiration) God the Holy Spirit. Therefore it will be said more properly that the one most simple essence has at once the formal ratio of the absolute and of the relative, so that under the ratio of the absolute there is understood the essence common to the three distinct persons, under the ratio of the relative it is the Father distinct from the Son, the Son distinct from the Father etc., and therefore incommunicably subsisting as Father, as Son, as Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, because essence and relations are distinguished by reason, and one is the function under the formal ratio of the essence, another under the formal ratio of the relative, in our inadequate mode of conceiving we can say: the essence gives to the relations that they be substantial, which ratio of substance is the necessary foundation for the ratio of subsistence; the relations give to the highest reality, which is the essence, incommunicability, which is the formal ratio of subsistence properly so called ³. Whence subsistence in the concrete signification is not the formal ratio of the essence alone nor the formal ratio of the relation in common alone, but is complexly a substantial relation or substantial relative; accordingly subsistence in the abstract signification is conceived as the mode in which the substantial relative is (see supra p. 330.).

Corollary. The name person does not signify a universal or an abstract note common in the proper sense to several individuals, but designates even in God indeterminately this one distinct from others, the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit; and hence it is not the name of a species comprehending individuals under itself, but is related as the denominations of a vague individual are: some one, some man. Against this the objection is inept that to these appellations the partitive someone cannot be added, although yet some person can be said. For first, it could very well be said: someone who is some man; then, although the vague individual already expressed indeterminately by the particle someone could not admit the repetition of this particle, yet the name that by itself designates the indeterminate individual, of which sort the name person is, can admit the particle. See S. Th. I. q. 30. a. 4.