Chapter XIV. Question 40

THE Persons IN COMPARISON WITH THE RELATIONS

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ANY commentators (e.g., Billuart) present the doctrine of this question as a commentary of question 29, article 4, namely, whether a divine person is constituted by a relation, to which the reply is in the affirmative: a divine personality is a relation as subsisting and incommunicable. The same doctrine is now taken up again to be considered synthetically and not analytically, as earlier.

First ARTICLE

WHETHER A RELATION IS THE SAME AS A PERSON

St. Thomas recalls that an incommunicable relation as subsisting is the same as a person, which is something subsisting and incommunicable. Moreover, in his reply to the first objection he shows that personal properties, like paternity and filiation, are not really distinct from the persons because as God and the Deity are the same (God is His own Deity), so the Father and paternity are the same. In God the abstract is not distinct from the concrete because there is no matter in God; on the contrary, humanity is only an essential part of the concrete man, who besides has individuating notes. God, however, is pure form without matter, and He is His own being and His own act. Properties that are not personal, such as active spiration, are not really distinct from the persons to whom they are attributed, because the simplicity of God excludes every real distinction except where there is opposition of relation.

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WHETHER THE PERSONS ARE DISTINGUISHED BY THE RELATIONS

St. Thomas replies affirmatively, as above in question 30, and also refutes the opinion of Alexander of Hales, attributed to St. Bonaventure, according to which the persons are constituted by the active and passive origins, for example, the Father is constituted by active generation and not by the relation of paternity.

To this St. Thomas replies that a person should be constituted by something intrinsic to the person itself that is stable and permanent in actual being. But the active and passive origins are rather extrinsic to the persons and they are conceived as in the state of becoming. Moreover, an active origin, like active generation, cannot formally constitute the person which it presupposes, since it is the Father who generates. Hence, according to our mode of conception it is better to say that the divine persons are constituted by the subsisting relations. Thus the Father signifies the First Person, and the generator is the property of this person.

Objection. That which presupposes a distinction cannot be the first principle of the distinction. But relation presupposes the distinction of the things that are related, since to be related means to have a reference to another. Therefore relation cannot be the first principle of distinction in God.

Reply. I concede the major. I distinguish the minor: a relation that is an accident presupposes the distinction of the supposita, I concede; a relation that is subsisting, I deny, because such a relation constitutes the persons and brings the distinction with it. So the reply to the third difficulty. Moreover, in proof of the minor it should be said that a relation has a reference to the correlative that is prior, this I deny; to the correlative that is simultaneous in nature, this I concede.

I insist. This was examined above. The relation which follows on active generation cannot constitute the person who generates. But the relation of paternity follows active generation since it is founded on active generation. Therefore the relation of paternity cannot constitute the person of the Father.

Reply. I distinguish the major: the relation as actually referring to the terminus, or that which in the exercise of the act refers to the Son (follows the person), this I concede; the relation which in the signi- fied act modifies the divine essence (follows the person), this I deny. And I contradistinguish the minor.

Thus the first angle constructed in the triangle is a geometric figure even before it actually has a reference to the two other angles. So we can conceive whiteness in itself as that by which (at quo) before we conceive it as modifying the wall (ut quod). Similarly habitual grace is conceived in itself before it is conceived as expelling sin; essence is conceived first in its formal act (2% actu signato), as that which is capable of existence, before it is conceived as in the exercise of the act as having reference to a produced existence.

This distinction is not futile or without an analogy, but it must be said that relation, which is a predicamental in creatures, has a substantial esse in only in God and only in God can it constitute a person. Relation constitutes a person in God inasmuch as it is incommunicable and subsisting, and it constitutes a relative personality inasmuch as it is a relation.

In the third article of this question St. Thomas insists on the identity of the persons with the relations by which they are constituted, and he shows that the intellect cannot abstract the relations from the persons. This is contrary to the opinion attributed to St. Bonaventure. In explanation St. Thomas distinguishes between total abstraction, or logical abstraction, in which the entire universal (as genus or species) is abstracted from the particular, as, for example, animal from man, and formal abstraction, in which form is abstracted from matter, as, for example, when the form of the circle is abstracted from all sensible matter.

With respect to God we cannot use total or logical abstraction because God is not in any genus; hence we cannot abstract the relations from the persons. Nor can we by formal abstraction abstract the personal relations from the persons, for example, paternity from the Father, because there is no matter in God. The Father is His paternity and if we abstract the paternity nothing remains of the Father. On the other hand the form of the circle can be abstracted from all sensible matter, for example, from wood or stone.

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WHETHER THE NOTIONAL ACTS ARE UNDERSTOOD PRIOR TO THE PROPERTIES

St. Thomas disagrees with the opinion of Alexander of Hales, attributed to St. Bonaventure, according to which the notional acts, for example, generation, constitute the persons in such a way that active generation is antecedent to paternity according to our method of conception.

Reply. In St. Thomas’ view the notional acts taken actively, such as to generate and to spirate, presuppose the persons from which they proceed as already constituted, and the persons are constituted by the subsisting relations, as was said above. Hence active generation, or enunciation, proceeds from the divine intellect as modified by the relation of paternity. And yet these notional acts are the bases of the relations inasmuch as the relations actually have a reference to their termini. In our method of conceiving these things the matter is rather obscure with regard to the active origins; this obscurity, however, does not arise with regard to the passive origins since a passive origin, such as passive generation, according to our method of conception precedes the filiation for which it is a basis.

Toward the end of the body of the article St. Thomas replies that a relation (for example, paternity) as a relation actually referring to the Son presupposes active generation; but active generation presupposes the person who generates and the personal property, paternity, as constituting the person. Here there is indeed a mystery but no contradiction. Similarly, in an equilateral triangle the first angle constructed, while it is alone, is a geometric figure but it does not yet refer to the other two angles not yet constructed.

The reader is referred to the article in the Summa.

In question 27 we have examined the difficulty presented by the Latin theory with regard to the proximate principle quo of the divine processions. We concluded that this principle is the divine intellect and will, not in themselves, but as they are modified by the relations of paternity and active spiration.”

Nevertheless the relation of paternity as actually and actively terminated in the Son presupposes active generation. In this most difficult¹ expression of the mystery we find something similar to the principle that causes are mutually causes of each other but in different genera. By reason of this principle, for example, the ultimate disposition for a form precedes the form in the order of material cause and afterward follows the form as a property in the order of formal cause. If we have difficulty in expressing this mutual relationship between the material and formal disposition of corporeal beings, it is not surprising that we should find it difficult to express the mutual relationships between the divine relations, such as paternity, and the notional acts, such as active generation.

Generation presupposes the Father and is the foundation for paternity, but not under the same aspect. The matter is somewhat similar to the form which presupposes the disposition and also affords the basis for the disposition inasmuch as the disposition is also a property. An example is the ultimate disposition for the rational soul, whatever it may be, whether it is a movement of the heart or something similar. When this property is destroyed by death, the soul separates from the body, because this property is seen under two aspects at the same time: it is a property and a disposition for the production and conservation of the form in the matter. If this is a mystery in the order of sensible things, we do not wonder that it is difficult to express how these things are in God.

First corollary. As stated in the reply to the first difficulty, both these statements are true: because He generates He is the Father, and because He is the Father He generates. In the first statement the name “Father” is taken as designating the relation alone, or the simple reference to the terminus; in the second statement the name “Father” is taken as designating a subsisting person.

Second corollary. The relation of active spiration, since it does not constitute a person but is merely a reference to a terminus, is posterior in our minds to the notional act of spiration, which is attributed to the Father and the Son.

Footnotes

1. Cf. De Regnon, op. ctt., II, 494. ↩