Article 4 — Whether, if relation is removed by the intellect, the hypostasis remains in the divine

The fourth point of inquiry is whether, if relation is removed by the intellect, the hypostasis remains in the divine. (Parallel texts: ST I.40.3; In I Sent. 26.1.2; Compendium theologiae, ch. 61.)

Obj. 1: And it would seem that it does remain. For in the created world, everything is made to a likeness of what is in God. Now, if we make abstraction of the relations and properties of the human hypostasis, there still remain the hypostases. Therefore, the same applies to God.

Obj. 2: It is not for the same reason that the Father is someone and that he is the Father, for the Son also is someone and yet he is not the Father. Hence, if we remove paternity from the Father, he is still someone. Now, he is someone inasmuch as he is a hypostasis. Therefore, if by our intellect we remove paternity, the hypostasis of the Father still remains.

Obj. 3: Seeing that we understand a thing through its definition, we can understand anything when we remove what is not included in its definition. Now, relation is not included in the definition of a hypostasis. Therefore, with relation removed by the intellect we can still understand the hypostasis.

Obj. 4: Jews and gentiles understand that there is a hypostasis in God, for they conceive him to be something self-subsistent, yet they do not understand paternity, filiation, and like relations in him. Therefore, with such relations removed by the intellect, the hypostases still remain in God.

Obj. 5: That to which anything is added remains when the addition is removed; thus, man adds rational to animal (since man is a rational animal); therefore, if we remove rational, animal remains. Now, “person” adds a property to “hypostasis,” for “person” signifies a “hypostasis distinguished by a property pertaining to dignity.” Therefore, if we remove, in our intellect, property from the person, the hypostasis remains.

Obj. 6: Augustine says that the Word is begotten Wisdom. (Augustine, On the Trinity 7.2 (PL 42:936).) Now, “wisdom” presupposes the hypostasis and “begotten” presupposes the property. Therefore, if we remove from the Word that he is begotten, his hypostasis still remains, and the same applies to the other persons.

Obj. 7: If by our intellect we remove paternity and filiation, there still remain in God the one proceeding from another and one from whom he proceeds. But these denote the hypostases. Therefore, having removed the relations, the hypostases remain in God.

Obj. 8: Though the constituent difference be removed, the genus remains. Now, the personal properties, by constituting the persons, are in God as constituent differences. Therefore, if these properties be removed, the genus person or hypostasis remains.

Obj. 9: Augustine says that if we remove the fact that this person is the Father, it still remains that he is unbegotten. (Augustine, On the Trinity 5.6 (PL 42:914–15).) Now, “unbegotten” is a property that can have no other supposit than a hypostasis. Therefore, if we remove paternity, the hypostasis of the Father still remains.

Obj. 10: As the relations are properties of the hypostases, so are the attributes properties of the essence. Now, if by the intellect we remove an essential attribute, the divine substance still remains in the intellect; thus, Boethius says that, if by the intellect we remove goodness from God, it still remains that he is God. (Boethius, Hebdomads, Solution, ll. 88–148 (PL 64:1312–14).) Therefore, in like manner, if we remove the relations, the hypostases still remain in God.

Obj. 11: According to Boethius, it is proper to the intellect to separate things that are naturally united. (Boethius, Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge, bk. 1, cc. 10–11 (PL 64:82–84; CSEL 48:159–67).) Now, property and hypostasis are really united in God. Therefore, the intellect can separate them.

Obj. 12: It is possible to conceive what is in a thing after removing what it is in; thus, we can conceive a subject after an accident has been removed from it. Now, the divine relations are said to be in the hypostases. Therefore, after the relations have been removed by thought, the hypostases remain.

On the contrary, in God no distinction is possible except by the relations. Now, the hypostasis denotes something distinct. Therefore, the hypostases do not remain if the relations be removed. For because in God there are only two modes of predication, namely, substantive and relative, if the relations be removed, nothing remains to be predicated except substantively. But such things pertain to the essence, so the hypostases will no longer be distinct.

I answer that, as stated above, some have contended that in God the hypostases are not constituted or distinguished by the relations but only by their origin. (Q. 8, a. 3.) And they held relation to be consequent on the very origin of the person as terminating the origin, whereby the origin’s completion is designated, and in this way it pertains to a certain dignity. Therefore, since “person” seems to be a name of dignity, they said that the hypostases by the added relations are understood to constitute the persons; and thus, they held the relations to constitute the persons and not the hypostases.

In this sense, it is customary with some to call these relations “personhoods”; and consequently, just as with us, if we remove from a man that which pertains to dignity and makes him a person, his hypostasis remains, so too in God if we remove in our intellect these personal relations from the persons, they say that the hypostases, but not the persons, will remain.

Seeing, however, that as we have shown above that these relations both constitute and distinguish the hypostases, (Q. 8, a. 3.) we must hold the contrary opinion that, when these relations are removed by thought, neither the persons nor the hypostases remain. For if the constituents of something are removed, the thing itself cannot remain.

Reply Obj. 1: Neither relations nor properties constitute the human hypostasis, while we have shown that they constitute the divine hypostasis; therefore, the comparison fails.

Reply Obj. 2: It is due to the same thing that the Father is someone and is the Father—the same thing, I say, in reality and not only in reason, yet with a distinction of reason, either as that of generic and specific, or of common and proper. Thus, it is plain that from the same form a man is an animal and is a man (since one thing has not several actually distinct substantial forms), yet from his soul, inasmuch as it is a sensitive soul, he is only an animal, and from his soul as both sensible and rational, he is a man. Hence, a horse is an animal but is not a man, because its sensitive soul is not the same sensitive soul as that of a man; and for that reason it is not numerically the same animal. The same applies to the question in point. The Father is someone and is the Father on account of the relation, but he is someone on account of the relation taken generally, while he is this someone on account of this relation that is paternity. For this reason, again the Son, in whom is a relation but not the relation of paternity, is someone, but he is not this someone who is the Father.

Reply Obj. 3: The account of a thing may include something in two ways: explicitly, that is, actually, or implicitly, that is, potentially. The account of animal does not include the rational soul explicitly and actually, for then every animal would have a rational soul; but it does include it implicitly and potentially, because an animal is a sensible animate substance. Now, just as soul includes rational soul potentially, so does animate contain rational potentially, so that where the definition of animal is actually applied to man, rational must be included in the definition of animal explicitly, inasmuch as animal is the same as man. It is thus in the case in point, for a hypostasis, considered in general, is a distinct substance; wherefore, since there can be no distinction in God except by reason of relation, when I say, “divine hypostasis,” it must of necessity be conceived as distinct by reason of a relation. Hence, although relation is not included in the definition of the hypostasis that is a man, it nonetheless is included in the definition of a divine hypostasis.

Reply Obj. 4: Jews and gentiles do not conceive the essence as distinct except from things of another nature, and such distinction arises from the divine essence itself. We, however, conceive the hypostasis as distinct from that which is of the same nature, and from which it cannot be distinguished otherwise than by relation alone. Hence, the objection proves nothing.

Reply Obj. 5: The mode of definition differs in accidents and substances. Substances are not defined by something outside their essence; therefore, the first thing included in the definition of a substance is the genus, which is predicated essentially of the thing defined. But an accident is defined by something outside its essence, namely, by its subject, on which it depends for its being. Hence, in its definition the subject takes the place of the genus: for instance, the snub is a curved nose. Accordingly, just as if we remove the difference from the definition of a substance, the genus remains, so too if we remove the accident (which takes the place of the difference) from the definition of an accident, the subject remains. There is, however, a difference. For when the difference is removed, the genus remains, but not numerically the same genus; thus, if we remove rational, numerically the same animal does not remain (that is, the rational animal*)*. But when from the definition of an accident we remove that which takes the place of the difference, numerically the same subject does remain; thus, the same nose remains when we remove the curved or concave shape. This is because an accident does not complete the essence of its subject as the difference completes the essence of the genus. When, therefore, we say, “a person is a hypostasis distinguished by a property pertaining to dignity,” hypostasis is included in the definition of person not as subject but as genus. Therefore, if we remove the property pertaining to dignity, the hypostasis does not remain the same numerically or specifically but only generically, and as applied to non-rational substances.

Reply Obj. 6: When we say, “the Word is begotten Wisdom,” “Wisdom” stands for the hypostasis even though it does not signify it. Hence, it does not include the property in its signification, so it is necessary to add it: thus, I might say that “God is the begotten Son.”

Reply Obj. 7: He that proceeds from another and he from whom another proceeds do not differ from the filiation and the paternity, save as the common differs from the proper, since “son” denotes him who is from another by generation and “father” signifies him from whom another is by generation—unless perhaps we contend that “he who is from another” and “he from whom another is” denote the origin, while “father” and “son” denote the consequent relations. But we have already made it plain that the hypostases are constituted not by their origins but by their relations.

Reply Obj. 8: After the constituent difference is removed, the common genus remains, but not the same one as regards species or number.

Reply Obj. 9: Augustine does not mean to say that God the Father remains unbegotten if we abstract his paternity, except perhaps insofar as “unbegotten” would then denote a condition of nature and not a property of the person. His intention was to show that, if we abstract the paternity, unbegotten may still remain in general, since it is not necessary that whatsoever is unbegotten be the Father.

Reply Obj. 10: The account of goodness does not constitute the account of the essence; in fact, good is conceived as informing being. On the other hand, the property constitutes the hypostasis, so the comparison fails.

Reply Obj. 11: Although the intellect is able to separate certain things that are united, it cannot do so in every case; for it cannot separate things one of which enters into the account of the other, for it cannot separate animal from man. Now, property enters into the account of hypostasis; wherefore, the objection does not prove.

Reply Obj. 12: If one removes that which is in another as subject or place, that in which it was remains, but it is not so if we remove that which is part of a thing’s essence; thus, man no longer remains if we remove rational, and in like manner if we remove the property, the hypostasis does not remain.