Article 2 — Whether relation in God is his substance

The second point of inquiry is whether relation in God is his substance. (Parallel texts: ST I.28.2; SCG IV.14; In I Sent. 33.1.1; Quodlibet VI, q. 1; Compendium theologiae, cc. 54, 66, 67.)

Obj. 1: And it seems that it is not. For that “no substance is a relation” is an immediate proposition, like “no substance is a quantity.” Neither, then, is God’s substance a relation.

Obj. 2: It will be replied that God’s substance is relation according to reality and not merely a relation according to reason or account. (See note at the beginning of q. 7, a. 11.)

On the contrary, an account to which nothing in reality corresponds is idle and vain. But nothing is vain in God. Therefore, it is not possible that relation in God differ from his essence by an existing account.

Obj. 3: The divine persons are distinguished by their relations: for relation alone multiplies the Trinity, according to Boethius. (Boethius, On the Trinity 1.6 (PL 64:1255).) If, then, the divine persons are not distinguished in substance, seeing that the relations add nothing real to the substance, but only according to account, it will follow that the distinction between the divine persons is only according to account, which is the heresy of Sabellius.

Obj. 4: The divine persons are not distinguished by anything absolute, because it would follow that they are distinct in essence, since what is said of God absolutely signifies his essence; for instance, goodness, wisdom, and so forth. If, then, the relations are the same thing as the divine essence, it will follow either that the persons are not distinguished according to the relations or that the distinction of the persons is according to essence.

Obj. 5: If relation is the same thing as God’s very substance, it will follow that, just as God and his greatness belong to the category of substance, since God is his own greatness, so likewise paternity will belong to the category of substance, such that whatsoever is said of God will be said in reference to his substance—which is contrary to the statement of Augustine that not all the things said of God refer to his substance, (Augustine, On the Trinity 5.4–5 (PL 42:913–14).) for relations are ascribed to God, such as that of Father and Son.

Obj. 6: Whatsoever is said of the predicate may be said of the subject. But if the relation is God’s very essence, it will be true to say, “the divine essence is paternity,” and with equal reason, “filiation is the divine essence,” and thus, it would follow that “filiation is paternity.”

Obj. 7: Whatever things are the same stand to each other such that whatever is said of the one is said of the other; thus, the Philosopher says: the slightest difference that we may assign will show that the things are not the same. (Aristotle, Topics 1.18, 108b1–3.) Now, we predicate of the divine essence that it is wise, that it created the world and so on, while such things, apparently, are not predicated of paternity and filiation. Therefore, in God, relation is not the divine essence.

Obj. 8: That which distinguishes the divine persons is not the same thing as that which neither distinguishes them nor is itself distinguished. Now, in God, the relation distinguishes whereas the essence neither distinguishes nor is distinguished. Therefore, they are not the same thing.

Obj. 9: One and the same thing cannot by its essence be the cause of contraries except accidentally. Now, distinction, the principle of which is relation in the divine, is opposed to unity, the principle of which is the essence. Therefore, relation and essence are not the same thing.

Obj. 10: If two things are the same with each other, where one is, there is the other. If, then, the divine essence is the same thing as the paternity, wheresoever is the divine essence, there will be the paternity. But the divine essence is in the Son. Therefore, the paternity is also, which is clearly false.

Obj. 11: In God, relation and essence differ at least in account. Now, where the account or definition differs, there is a different being, since a definition is speech indicating what a thing’s being is. Hence, in God, the being of the relation will differ from the being of the substance. Consequently, relation and substance differ in being, and therefore, really.

Obj. 12: According to the Philosopher, the being of a relation is to be “toward-another.” (Aristotle, Categories 1.7, 6a37–b11.) Therefore, the being of a relation and not the being of a substance consists in respect to another. Therefore, relation and substance are not the same in being, and we come to the same conclusion as before.

Obj. 13: Augustine says that something is said of God not substantively but relatively. (Augustine, On the Trinity 5.4–5 (PL 42:913–14).) Now, that which signifies the divine substance is predicated substantively. Therefore, in God, relation does not signify the essence, and the same conclusion follows.

Obj. 14: Augustine says that God is not God in the same way as he is Father. (Augustine, On the Trinity 7.6 (PL 42:943–46).) Now, he is God by the divine essence but Father by paternity. Therefore, the essence is not paternity; therefore, in God, the relations are not the divine substance.

On the contrary (1), whatsoever is in God is God, as Augustine says. (Augustine, On the Trinity 5.5, 5.16 (PL 42:913–14, 922–24).) Now, relation is in God, as paternity in the Father. Therefore, the relation is God himself and the divine substance.

Furthermore (2), every supposit containing things that are different is composite. Now in the person of the Father there is paternity and the essence; wherefore, if paternity and the divine essence are two things, it will follow that the person of the Father is composite; and this is clearly false. It follows, therefore, that in God relation is the very substance.

I answer that, given that there are relations in God, we are bound to say that they are the divine essence; otherwise we would have to say that there is composition in God and that the divine relations are accidents, since whatsoever inheres in something, besides its own substance, is an accident. It would also follow that some reality that will not be the divine substance would be eternal, and all these things are heretical.

Accordingly, to make the matter clear, we must observe that some of the nine genera that are contained under accident signify according to the account of an accident; for the account of an accident is to be-in; therefore, I describe those as signified through the mode of an accident which are signified as inhering in another, such as quantity and quality. On the other hand, toward-something is not signified according to the account of an accident, for it is not signified as something of that in which it exists, but rather as toward that which exists outside it. For this reason, the Philosopher says that knowledge, insofar as it is a relation, is not something of the knower but of the knowable object. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.15, 1020b26–31, 1021a26–b1.)

Hence, through taking note of the mode of signification in relative terms, some said that they are not things inhering in substances but, as it were, existing-toward the substance, because they denote a certain intermediate between the related substance and that to which it is related. From this it followed that in created realities relations are not accidents, since the being of an accident is being-in.

Hence, certain theologians of the school of Gilbert de la Porrée extended this opinion all the way to the divine relations and contended that the relations are not in the divine persons; rather, they are existing-toward them, as it were. And seeing that the divine essence is in the persons, it followed that the relations are not the divine essence, and since every accident inheres, it followed that they were not accidents. And in this sense they took the saying of Augustine quoted above, namely, that relations are not predicated of God either substantively or accidentally. But from this opinion it follows that relation is not some reality but is only something according to reason, since every real thing is either a substance or an accident.

For this reason, some of the ancients reckoned relation among the secondary understandings, as the Commentator remarks on Metaphysics 11; (Averroes, Commentary on the Metaphysics 11, comm. 19.) therefore, even the followers of de la Porrée are compelled to hold that the divine relations are merely according to reason. Thus, it would follow that the distinction between the persons would not be real, which is heretical.

Accordingly, we must reply that a thing may be inhering and yet not be signified as inhering, just as an action is not signified as in the agent but as from the agent and yet it is clear that the action is in the agent. In like manner, although relation is not signified as inhering, nevertheless, it must be inhering. And this is when the relation is something real, whereas when it is only according to reason, then it is not inhering. And just as in created realities it must be an accident, so in God it must be the substance, since whatsoever is in God is his substance. Therefore, the relations must be in reality the divine substance, yet they do not have the mode of substance, but rather receive a mode of predication differing from those things that are predicated of God substantively.

Reply Obj. 1: No substance that is in a genus can be a relation, because it is defined for one genus and is therefore excluded from another genus. The divine essence, however, is not in the genus of substance, but rather is above every genus, and comprises within itself the perfection of all genera. Therefore, nothing prevents what belongs to relation from being found in it.

Reply Obj. 2: The accounts of substance and relation differ, and something in the reality that is God corresponds to each; yet there is not a different reality for each, but one and the same reality. Moreover, it is most appropriate that one reality might correspond to the two accounts when the divine nature comprehends the reality itself perfectly; and thus, it is in the case in point.

Reply Obj. 3: Although the relation does not add some reality to the essence but only an account, yet the relation is a reality, just as goodness is a certain reality in God and yet it does not differ from the essence except in account; and the same applies to wisdom. Therefore, just as things that pertain to goodness or wisdom, such as understanding and so on, really belong to God, so too that which is proper to a real relation, namely, opposition and distinction, is really found in God.

Reply Obj. 4: The essential attributes not only signify that which is the divine essence but also signify it through a certain mode, inasmuch as they signify something as existing in God; and for this reason, a difference in respect of anything absolute would redound to a diversity of the essence. On the other hand, the divine relations, although they signify that which is the divine essence, do not do so through the mode of essence but through the mode of orientation toward another. Hence, the distinction that is viewed according to relations in the divine does not point to a distinction in the essence, but only to an orientation to another through the mode of origin, as explained above.

Reply Obj. 5: Although the relation is the divine substance, it does not signify through the mode of substance, as already explained; therefore, it is not predicated according to substance, because to be said according to substance pertains to the mode of signification.

Reply Obj. 6: This argument applies to the per se predicables. Now, a thing is predicated per se of something when it is predicated of it according to its proper account; but what is predicated not according to the proper account, but on account of the identity of the reality, is not even per se predication. Hence, when it is said, “the divine essence is the paternity,” paternity is not predicated of the divine essence on account of an identity in account, but on account of an identity of reality; and the same applies if the essence be predicated of the paternity, as already stated, because the account of the essence and that of the relation differ. Therefore, this argument falls into the fallacy of accident because, although there is no accident in God, there is a certain likeness to an accident, inasmuch as things that are predicated of one another accidentally, while differing in account, have but one subject.

Reply Obj. 7: According to the Philosopher in Physics 3, it is not things that are in any way the same that receive the same predicates but only things that are the same in account. (Aristotle, Physics 3.3, 202b8–15.) Now, the divine essence and paternity, although the same in reality, are not the same in account; therefore, it does not follow that whatsoever is predicated of the one is predicated of the other. It must be observed, however, that certain things follow the proper accounts of essence and relation, like the common existence follows the essence, and to distinguish follows relation. Whence, one of these removes the other, for the essence does not distinguish nor is the relation common. On the other hand, certain things imply a certain difference from the account of essence or relation not in their principal signification but in their mode of signifying, and these are predicated of the essence or relation, although not properly; such are adjectives and verbal substantives, like good, wise, to understand, to will. For suchlike terms, as regards the reality signified, signify the essence; yet they signify it through the mode of a supposit and not in the abstract. For this reason good, wise, creating, and the like are most properly predicated of the persons and of the concrete essential names, such as God or Father; yet they may be predicated, albeit improperly, of the essence signified in the abstract and not in the mode of a supposit. Still less properly are they predicated of the relations, because they befit the supposit in respect of the essence and not of the relation; for God is good or creative through having his essence, not through having a relation.

Reply Obj. 8: That which causes a distinction and that which neither distinguishes nor is distinguished can be the same in reality but not in account.

Reply Obj. 9: The unity of the essence is not opposed to the distinction of the relations; therefore, it does not follow that relation and essence are causes of opposites.

Reply Obj. 10: If two things be the same both really and in account, wherever the one is, there must the other be. But this does not necessarily apply when they are the same really but not in account. For example, the same instant is the beginning of the future and the end of the past, yet the beginning of the future is not said to be in the past, but rather that which is the beginning of the future is so said. In like manner, we do not say that the paternity is in the Son, but that which is the paternity, that is, the essence, is.

Reply Obj. 11: In God, there is no being save that of the essence, even as there is no act of understanding but that of the intellect, and therefore, as in God there is but one act of understanding, so too is there but one being. Therefore, it can nowise be granted that in God the being of the relations is something other than the being of the essence. Now, an account does not signify being but being something, namely, what something is. Therefore, two accounts of one reality do not demonstrate a twofold being of it; rather, they demonstrate that what that reality is can be said in two ways; thus, we may say of a point what it is as a beginning and what it is as an end, on account of the different accounts of beginning and end.

Reply Obj. 12: Since in creatures relation is an accident, its being is to be-in; whence, its being is not to be oriented toward another; rather, the being of this insofar as it is toward something is other than being oriented to another.

Reply Obj. 13: Relatives are said not to be predicated of God substantially, because they are not predicated through the mode of existing in a substance, but through the mode of being oriented to something else, yet not as though that which they signify were the substance.

Reply Obj. 14: On account of the different modes of signifying divinity and paternity, God is not said to be God in the same way as he is Father, as explained above.