Chapter XV. Question 41

THE Persons IN COMPARISON WITH THE NOTIONAL ACTS

AWWW BBV BB BB BBBBBVee BBB BB BBBBBeBBBeBeBeBeBeeeBeHEBEe

N this question we consider expressly the notional acts, generation and spiration, which are called notional because they denote persons. In this question six articles are proposed for our profound and diligent consideration: 1. whether notional acts can be attributed to the persons; 2. whether the notional acts are necessary or voluntary, and then whether God has power with regard to these acts.

First ARTICLE

WHETHER NOTIONAL ACTS ARE TO BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE PERSONS

State of the question. The difficulty arises 1. because, since God is not an accident, every act pertains to the essence and cannot therefore be attributed to the persons; 2. because St. Augustine seems to confirm this difficulty when he says: “Everything that is predicated of God is predicated either according to His substance or according to a relation,” ’ hence there is no place for notional acts; 3. because it is a property of an act to imply passivity or passion, but nothing passive is found in God, for example, passive generation is something imperfect and not to be attributed to God.

Reply. Nevertheless the reply is in the affirmative, namely, notional acts are to be attributed to the persons; indeed it is necessary to do so in order to signify the order of origin in the different persons.

The first part of this reply is of faith according to the Scripture as we shall see immediately. 1. The testimony of Sacred Scripture is clear: “The Lord hath said¹ to Me: Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” ° This text, as we have said above, is given added force by the New Testament: * “the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father.” * Our Lord also said: “For from God I proceeded, and came.” 5 The first part of this text is accepted in tradition as referring to the eternal procession. The councils quoted these words of Scripture in this sense. In the argument sed contra St. Thomas quotes the words of St. Fulgentius, “It is a property of the Father that He generated the Son.”

2. The theological reason is as follows: In the divine persons distinction is attendant on the origin.® But origin cannot be conveniently designated except by some act. Therefore generation is properly attributed to the Father and spiration to the Father and the Son. This reasoning is clear, but the difficulties posed in the state of the question must still be solved.

Reply to the first difficulty. How is it that an act like generation, which is not a relation, does not pertain to the divine essence? The reply is that if this were an act ad extra, like creation, it would pertain to the essence, but generation and spiration are acts ad intra belonging to the procession of a person from a person and therefore are attributed to the persons.

Reply to the second difficulty. It is insisted that in God there is nothing besides essence and relation, and therefore the notional acts must be reduced to the relations. But to generate is more than a relation. The reply is rather profound. The notional acts are distinguished from the persons not really but only by reason, because if the idea of action is purified of all created modes, action within God (ad intra) is nothing more than a relation. In the created order transitive action, like active generation, is a movement or mutation as coming from the agent, and the passion is the movement as it is in the recipient. When we prescind from the motion, as no matter is in God, action implies nothing more than the order of origin, according to which it proceeds from a principle to the terminus. Since, then, there is no motion in God, active generation is nothing else than the condition or reference of the Father to the Son, and active spiration

is nothing else than the condition or reference of the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost. According to our method of knowing, which is based on the knowledge of creatures, we distinguish active generation from the Father and thus we have two terms, but there is no real distinction. It would be better to speak of quasi-active generation and quasi-passive generation, and also quasi-spiration. With regard to our concept of creation we must also purify the idea of transitive action since creation is without becoming because there is no preexisting subject. In creation we have causality properly so called, but the Father is not the cause of the Son but only His principle. St. Thomas says: “Creation is not a change (mutatio) except to our way of thinking . . . for if we prescind from motion and the pre-existing subject we have only the various references (Aabitudines) in the Creator and in the creature.” 7

So in the Trinity, if we remove the idea of motion, active generation implies nothing more than the order of origin.

Reply to the third difficulty. The other insistence still remains: How can there be in God passive generation, which implies imperfection ? The reply is as follows: action, inasmuch as it implies the origin of motion, of itself results in passivity (passio), since action is motion as coming from the agent and motion as it is in a recipient. But such action is not found in the divine persons. When we prescind from the motion, we do not find that passivity (passiones) except in the grammatical sense and according to our method of signification, as when we say that the Father generates and that the Son is generated. This means that the Son is generated not according to a transition from passive potency to act as in human generation but in the sense that the entire uncreated divine nature and subsisting and unreceived being itself are communicated to the Son by the Father. Hence the expression, “the divine nature is communicated,” is more proper than, “the Father produces the Son,” since active production savors of causality, and passive production savors of the transition from potency to act.

In God, then, to be generated is not less perfect than to generate, and to be communicated is not less perfect than to communicate. Analogically, in the equilateral triangle the angle that is constructed first is not more perfect than the other two, and the three angles have a superficies which is numerically the same. In the beginning this superficies is the superficies of the angle that is first constructed and it is not communicated to this first angle; then this same superficies is communicated to the second angle and, if the second angle is equal to the first, the third angle is equal to the first two, and the third angle receives the same superficies, which is not caused in it but is communicated to it. It is wonderful that between things so remote as the Trinity and the triangle there should be an analogy so intelligible and so clear. In all created things we can find a trace of the Blessed Trinity.

WHETHER THE NOTIONAL ACTS ARE VOLUNTARY

State of the question. The sense of the question is whether the Father voluntarily generates the Son and whether the Father and the Son voluntarily spirate the Holy Ghost.

As is clear from the texts cited from the Fathers at the beginning of this treatise, the difficulty arises because on the one hand we cannot say that the Father freely generates the Son, for then the Son would be a creature, as the Arians taught; and on the other hand we cannot say that the Father involuntarily generates the Son as if forced to do so. From the words quoted in the argument sed contra we see that St. Augustine was aware of this difficulty: “The Father generates the Son neither by His will nor by necessity (by force).”

Reply. St. Thomas solves the difficulty by a distinction between the concomitant will and the antecedent will, which latter is subdivided into necessary and free. It should be noted that the antecedent will is in opposition to the concomitant will and to the consequent will but not in the same way. With respect to the consequent will, the antecedent will is inefficacious; ° with respect to the concomitant will it may be efficacious. St. Thomas’ division may be reduced to the following.

8 With regard to the consequent will, the antecedent will is so called inasmuch as it is founded on the first consideration of good taken absolutely and not on the second consideration of the same good to be produced here and now. For example, for the merchant caught in a storm it is a good thing to save his goods taken absolutely, but here and now it may be a good thing to throw his goods overboard. The good does not exist except here and now and hence is not affected by the antecedent will as distinct from the consequent will.

as nature: that is, as a natural and necessary principle. Thus man naturally wills hap-

Antecedent, . ; as an effective rs general. . pial as free: as a principle acting inon differently as to a judg- The will ment. Thus God freely wills creatures. Concomitant, In this way I will to be a man and not as an I am pleased to be a man, but the fact effective that I am a human being does not principle depend on my will.

Having made this division, we draw three conclusions.

1. The notional acts, to generate and to spirate, are voluntary by a concomitant will. Thus the Father voluntarily generates the Son, just as He wills Himself to be God; the Father does not generate the Son involuntarily nor do the Father and the Son spirate the Holy Ghost unwillingly.

As we read in the reply to the first objection, St. Hilary wrote: “The Father does not generate the Son induced by a natural necessity. He is not forced to generate the Son.” *° Such was also the declaration of the Council of Sardinia, and St. Augustine rightly says, “The Father generates the Son not by the necessity of force.” ™

2. The notional acts are not voluntary by an antecedent will as free, because what proceeds in this way from the free will is able not to be, and the notional acts are not able not to be. Otherwise it would be possible for the Son and the Holy Ghost not to be. St. Thomas might have been content with this explanation, but in the body of the article he recalls the roots of liberty explained earlier 1? in the question, “Whether God freely wills things other than Himself.” He explains that, whereas the form by which a natural agent acts is one (the natural form), it follows that in the same circumstances such an agent always produces the same effect (by the principle of induction), since it is determined to one effect. On the other hand, the form by which the will as free acts is not one only but consists of many reasons in the

10 De Synodis, I, 25. 11 In the argument sed contra. 12 Summa theol., la, q. 19, a.3- intellect and many possible judgments, and therefore in the deliberation there is an indifferent mistress of judgments and also of choice. Therefore what is freely willed can be either one or another. But this cannot be in God or in the processions, otherwise it would be possible for the Son and the Holy Ghost not to be and then they would be creatures, as the Arians thought.

3. Active spiration is by an antecedent will as nature; generation, however, which, as enunciation, proceeds not from the will but from the intellect, proceeds prior to the will. God therefore understands the generation before He wills it. Spiration proceeds from the antecedent will because the Holy Ghost proceeds as love; consequently He proceeds by the will, namely, as the terminus of that volition by which the Father and the Son naturally and necessarily love each other. In this same way man naturally loves happiness in general, at least by a necessity of specification; in this way also the blessed love God by an act of the will which is entirely spontaneous but also necessary, an act of the will that is not inferior to liberty but above it, because the will of the blessed is invincibly drawn to God’s goodness when they see Him clearly.’* In this beatific love there is no liberty of specification or freedom of exercise and yet this love is most spontaneous; it is therefore an excellent example of the non-free and spontaneous active spiration. Thus the Holy Ghost proceeds not after the manner of nature, because He is not begotten, but from the will as nature.

Scotus, who in this question seems to follow St. Bonaventure and Richard of St. Victor, held that the procession of the Holy Ghost is an act that is free by an essential freedom. To this the Thomists reply that this essential liberty cannot be a liberty by necessity or a liberty of indifference for then it would be possible for the Holy Ghost not to be and then He would be a creature. The term, “essential liberty,” then, can be understood only as liberty by compulsion, which is simply the spontaneity of natural and necessary volition. The difference is really only nominal, because the Thomists readily admit such spontaneity, as in the beatific love, which is not in any way free yet is most spontaneous. Scotus found himself obliged to say that active spiration, although free by an essential freedom, was necessary inasmuch as the Holy Ghost is necessarily spirated and necessarily exists, but he did not wish to call the spirating will natural."

WHETHER A PERSON PROCEEDS FROM SOMETHING OR FROM NOTHING BY THE NOTIONAL ACTS

This article explains the words of the Creed about the Son, who is begotten but not made from nothing, in opposition to the Arians, who taught that the Son was a creature. St. Thomas showed that the processions, generation and spiration, are emanations and not creations from nothing. This is the difference between being begotten and being made: he who is begotten is from the substance of the generator. For even in human generation the son is from the seed of the father, although here we have a multiplication of natures; in divine generation the Son is of the substance of the Father, but here the entire indivisible divine nature is communicated to the Son without multiplication of the nature. That, however, which is made, for instance by a mechanic, is not of the substance of the workman, but it is produced by a transformation of matter, or if it is made without any pre-existing subject it is said to be made from nothing. This explains why the Scriptures speak of the Son of God not only in the broad sense, as an adopted son, but as “His own Son,” ?* and as “the onlybegotten Son.” *®

FourtH ARTICLE

WHETHER IN GOD THERE IS potentia WITH REGARD TO THE NOTIONAL ACTS

State of the question. It is asked whether there is a potentia of generating and spirating in God. Following St. Augustine, St. Thomas replies in the affirmative because potentia is nothing else than the principle of some act, and in this instance the potentia is active. As he says in the reply to the second difficulty, passive potentia cannot exist in God, nor can there be any power which is necessarily opposed for then the potentia would be passive.

A difficulty is raised in the third objection. Potentia is predicated of God with respect to certain effects (in this way we speak of God’s omnipotence); but power is not predicated of God with respect to

the divine operations, divine intellection and will, because God is pure act. Therefore in God there is no intellective faculty but only intellect subsisting per se, nor is there a volitional faculty. Indeed, the divine persons are not effects of God, and therefore we cannot speak of the potentia of generating or spirating in God.

Reply. According to St. Thomas’ reply the potentia of generating is not properly the principle of active generation but the principle of the begotten person, just as the creative power is not the principle of the creative action, which is not an accident in God, but the principle of the created effect.

As Billuart points out, these notional powers, that is, the powers of generating and spirating, are not virtually distinct from the acts because there is no foundation in God for conceiving Him as being in potency to anything since He is pure act.

Thus in God the intellect is not virtually distinct from intellection since God’s intellect is intellection subsisting per se, vénots vonoews. Similarly God’s will is not virtually distinct from His love, by which He loves Himself necessarily, and loves other things freely. This unique act of love is the indifferent mistress of those goods which are able not to be.

WHETHER THE POWER TO GENERATE SIGNIFIES THE RELATION AND NOT THE ESSENCE

Reply. The power of generating signifies directly the divine nature and indirectly the relation of paternity. This is another way of saying what was said at the beginning of this treatise in the question on the processions, namely, the proximate principle quo of the processions is the divine nature itself as modified by the relations of paternity and spiration. In the present article this principle quo is called the notional power of generating or spirating.

St. Thomas offers proof for this for the power of generating, which is more easily understood than the second power: In the created order every agent produces what is like to itself according to the form by which it acts inasmuch as it determines its production according to its own proper determination. Thus a cow generates a cow, a horse generates a horse, and everything that generates produces something like itself according to its species or nature. Hence in the one who generates, the nature is the principle quo of generation; thus Socrates generates as a man and generates a man. If Socrates generated as Socrates he would generate Socrates. Therefore the active principle of generation is directly the nature of the generator and indirectly it is the personality of the generator, for when Socrates generates, the principle quo of generation is human nature as it is in Socrates; so also in God the principle quo of generation is the divine nature as it is in the Father. Similarly the superficies of the triangle is communicated to the second and third angles as it is in the first angle. Particular attention should be given to what St. Thomas says at the end of the body of the article: “In created things the individual form constitutes the person of the generator, but it is not that by which the generator generates, otherwise Socrates would generate Socrates. Hence paternity cannot be taken as that by which the Father generates, but it must be understood as the form that constitutes the person of the generator, otherwise the Father would generate a Father.”

According to St. Thomas, then, the personality of Socrates is the individual form, namely, that by which something is what it is, or the first subject of attribution.*’ But this individual form of Socrates is not matter marked by quantity, or the individuating conditions, since it is called the individual form; nor is this form Socrates’ existence, which is a contingent predicate in Socrates."®

WHETHER A NOTIONAL ACT CAN TERMINATE IN SEVERAL PERSONS

In other words, it is asked whether several persons can be generated or spirated in God, as one man can beget several sons.

Reply. The reply is in the negative.

1. In God being and possibility are not different. Therefore if it were possible to have several sons of God, there would actually be several sons of God; and this conclusion would be heresy.

2. Such plurality of sons could arise only from matter, which does not exist in God. It would also presuppose several numerically distinct generations. This is impossible because generation and spiration

17 Cajetan, Commentary on Illa, q.4, a.2. 18 This text ought to be quoted in support of Cajetan’s doctrine on personality; cf. ibid, are acts naturally determined to one terminus and the terminus is, as it were, an adequate fruit (result). Thus the Son is the perfect Son, in whom the entire filiation and the entire divine nature is contained without multiplication. We should note what St. Thomas says in this sixth article (as everywhere else): “The forms of one species are not multiplied except according to matter,” and therefore a form that is not received in matter cannot be anything but one.

Recently some Thomists have said that God could miraculously make several angels in the same species, that is, many Michaels multiplied without matter. According to St. Thomas this is impossible because we are dealing here with a metaphysical principle in which there is no place for a miracle.’® It is not merely a natural law but a metaphysical principle that an act that is not limited in itself is not limited or multiplied except by the potency or real capacity in which it is received. Therefore a form is not multiplied except by matter, or by an order to matter, and it is this order to matter that remains in the separated soul. In this metaphysical principle, if it is really metaphysical, that is, absolutely and not only hypothetically necessary, there is no exception by way of a miracle.

19 Summa theol., la, q.50, a.4. Cf. the Commentary of John of St. Thomas and of Gonet, De unitate intellectus (ed. Lethielleux, 1875), p. 465.

Footnotes

1. De Trinitate, V, chap. 4, 5- 285 ↩