The Summa of Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas volume 1
1. Is the relationship the same as the Person?
2. Do relationships distinguish and constitute people?
3. If through thought we abstract people from their relationships, do distinct hypostases remain?
4. Logically, do relationships presuppose the actions of people, or vice versa?
Article 1 — Is the relationship identical to the Person?
Objection:
1. Of two identical terms, if one multiplies, the other multiplies at the same time. Now it happens that a single person has several relationships: the Father, for example, has paternity and common aspiration. Conversely, it happens that a single relationship subsists in two persons: thus the common aspiration exists in the Father and in the Son. The relationship is therefore not identical to the person.
2 . According to the Philosopher, “nothing is in itself. ” But the relationship is in the person; and it is not by simple identity, because in this respect it would also be in the essence. So relationship (or property) and person are not the same in God.
3 . When two things are identical, what is attributed to one is attributed to the other. But everything that is attributed to the person is not at the same time attributable to property. We do say that the Father generates, but we do not say that paternity generates or is engendering. Property is therefore not identical to person in God.
On the contrary , according to Boethius, there is no difference in God between what is and what he is through. Now it is through his paternity that the Father is Father. Therefore the Father is identical to fatherhood. And the same reasoning would prove that other properties are the same as other people.
Answer:
On this question, various opinions have emerged. According to some, properties are not people. These theologians were struck by the mode of signification of relations, which place their meaning not in a subject, but in relation to a term: hence the qualification of assistente or adjunct, given by them to relations, as we explained it above. But, considered as a reality of divine order, the relationship is the essence itself; and this essence is identical to the person. The relationship is therefore necessarily identical to the person, as we have shown.
According to others, who take this identity into consideration, the properties are indeed the persons, but they are not in the persons; in fact, these theologians only posit properties in God by way of speaking, as we have said. But we have shown that we must indeed posit properties in God; properties that we mean in abstract terms, as forms, as it were, of persons, while being the persons themselves. We say the same about the essence: it is in God, and yet it is God.
Solutions:
1. Identical in reality, person and property nevertheless retain a distinction of reason between them; this is why there can be multiplication of one without the other. Note, however, that divine simplicity presents us with a double type of real identity unifying in God aspects that we find distinct in the created. First of all, divine simplicity excludes the composition of matter and form; that is to say, in God the abstract and the concrete, for example, the deity and God are identified. Secondly, divine simplicity excludes all composition of subject and accident, that is to say that every divine attribute is the divine essence: and this entails the identity in God of wisdom and power, since the Both are the divine essence. However, this double type of identity is verified between person and property. On the one hand, personal properties are identified with people like the abstract with the concrete; they are in fact the very subsisting persons: the paternity is the Father, the filiation is the Son, the procession is the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, non-personal properties are identified with persons, according to this other law of identity which means that in God every attribute is the essence. Thus the common aspiration is identical to the person of the Father and to the person of the Son. Not that she constitutes a unique person who would subsist on her own; it is a unique property between two people, as we said above.
2 . Just by virtue of their identity, we say that the properties are in the essence. But when we say that they are “in” the persons, we assert, in addition to the real identity, the mode in which we signify them, which is that of a form in its subject. Also properties determine and distinguish persons, but not essence.
3 . Participles and notional verbs signify notional acts; and the actions belong to the agents. Now, we do not mean properties as supposits, but as the forms of supposits. It is therefore the requirements of the mode of signifying which prohibit the attribution of participles and notional verbs to properties.
Article 2 — Do relationships distinguish and constitute persons?
Objections:
1.What is simple is distinct in itself. But people are supremely simple. They are therefore distinct in themselves, and not by their relationships.
2 . A form is distinguished only by its gender; if white differs from black, it is based on quality. Now hypostasis signifies the individual of the genus substance. It is therefore not through relationships that the hypostases can be distinguished.
3 . The absolute is prior to the relative. But the primary distinction is that of divine persons. These are therefore not distinguished by relationships.
4 . What presupposes a distinction cannot be its first principle. Now, the relationship presupposes the distinction (of the correlative terms), since it contains it in its definition: the essence of the relative consists, it is said, in relating to the other. The first principle of distinction in God cannot therefore be relation.
In the opposite sense , Boethius says that only the relationship introduces a plurality into the Trinity of divine Persons.
Answer:
In any plurality where we find a common element, we must look for a distinctive element. And since the three persons commune in the unity of essence, we must necessarily look for something which distinguishes them and makes them several. Now, in these divine persons there are two things in which they differ: origin and relationship. Not that origin and relationship are really different, but their mode of signification is not the same. We mean the origin as an action: generation, for example; the relationship, as a form: fatherhood.
Some therefore, considering that the relationship follows the act, have thought that in God the hypostases are distinguished by the origin; that is to say, the Father is distinguished from the Son precisely because the one begets, and the other is begotten. As for the relations or properties, these are consequences manifesting the distinction of hypostases or persons. Thus, in creatures, properties manifest the distinction of individuals, a distinction provided by material principles.
But this opinion is not tenable, for two reasons. First of all, to grasp two things as distinct, we must grasp the distinction by something intrinsic to both, for example, in beings created, by matter or by form. Now, we do not mean the origin of the thing as an intrinsic element in it, but as a path which goes from one thing to another: thus generation presents itself as a path which starts from the begetter and results in the begotten. It is therefore impossible for these two realities, the begetter and the begotten, to be distinguished by generation alone; it is necessary to grasp elements in both that distinguish them from each other. Now in the divine person, there is nothing else for the mind to grasp than the essence and the relation (or property); and since the essence is common, it is therefore through their relationships that people are distinguished from each other.
Second reason. Let us not conceive the distinction of divine persons as the division of a common element, because the common essence remains undivided. The distinctive principles must themselves constitute the realities that they distinguish. Now, precisely, the relations (or properties) distinguish or constitute the hypostases or persons by being themselves the subsisting persons; thus paternity is the Father, filiation is the Son, since in God the abstract and the concrete are identified. But it is contrary to the notion of origin to constitute the hypostasis or person. Because the origin expressed in the active is signified as springing from the Person, which it therefore presupposes. And the origin being expressed in the passive, “birth”, for example, is signified as a path towards the subsisting person, and not as a constitutive element of this person.
It is therefore better to say that persons or hypostases are distinguished by their relationships, rather than by origin. If it is true that they are distinguished in these two aspects, it is nevertheless first and mainly by the relationships, taking into account the mode of signification. Hence it is that the name “Father” signifies hypostasis, and not only property; while that of “genitor” or “begetter” means only property. Indeed “Father” signifies the relationship of paternity which distinguishes and constitutes the hypostasis; while “begetting” or “begotten” means the origin or generation which neither distinguishes nor constitutes hypostasis.
Solutions:
1. People are the subsisting relationships themselves. Therefore when we say that they are distinguished by their relationships, we do not in any way undermine the simplicity of the divine persons.
2. Persons do not differ in their substantial being, nor in any absolute attribute, but only in that which qualifies them in relation to each other. So the relationship is enough to distinguish them.
3 . The more primary a distinction, the closer it is to unity; in other words, the less it must distinguish. The distinction of divine persons must be ensured by that which distinguishes the least, therefore by relationships.
4 . The relation presupposes the distinction of subjects, when it is an accident; but if it is subsistent, it does not presuppose this distinction, it brings it with it. When we say that the essence of the relationship consists of relating to the other, this “other” designates the correlative: but this is not prior to the relative, it is simultaneous with it by nature.
Article 3 — If through thought we abstract people from their relationships, do distinct hypostases remain?
Objections:
1. The concept included in another concept which adds a difference to it, remains intelligible when this difference is removed. Thus “man” adds a difference to “animal”; if we remove the difference: reasonable, the object of thought remains: animal. Now, the person adds a difference to the hypostasis; the person, it is said, is “the hypostasis distinguished by a property which concerns dignity”. If therefore we remove personal property from the person, the hypostasis remains.
2 . What makes the Father a Father does not make him someone. Indeed, it is paternity that makes the Father Father; and if it also gave him the ability to be someone, it would follow that the Son, for lack of paternity, would not be someone. If, therefore, by thought, paternity is taken away from the Father, he still remains to be someone, in other words a hypostasis. Thus, when we take away the person's property, a hypostasis remains.
3 . S. Augustine writes: “Unbegotten” and “Father” are not synonymous terms; even if the Father had not begotten a Son, nothing would prevent him from being called “Unbegotten”. But if he had not begotten the Son, there would be no paternity in him. We therefore see that, without paternity, the hypostasis of the Father remains under the determination of the Unbegotten.
In the opposite sense , S. Hilaire says: “The Son has only this in his own right: to have been born. ” Now, it is by his birth that he is Son. So if we set aside filiation, there is no longer any hypostasis of the Son. And we would do the same reasoning for other people.
Answer :
The abstraction carried out by thought is twofold. In one case, we extract the universal from the particular: from man, for example, we abstract animal. In the other case, we identify the form of the matter; thus the intellect abstracts the form of circle out of all sensible matter.
Between these two types of abstraction there is this difference: in the abstraction which releases the universal from the particular, the term from which one abstracts does not subsist in thought. From the object of thought: man, let us remove the difference: reasonable: there is no longer any man left in thought, but only the animal. But in the abstraction which reveals the form of matter, the two terms remain; when from bronze I abstract the shape of the circle, both remain separately objects of our thought: the “circle” object and the “bronze” object.
In God, undoubtedly, there is really neither universal nor particular; neither matter nor form. There is, however, some analog of these divisions in our way of expressing divine realities. Damascene thus says that in God “the common is substance; the particular is the hypostasis.” Therefore, if we speak of an abstraction analogous to that which frees the universal from the particular, when we put aside the properties, what remains in thought is the common essence, and not the hypostasis of the Father ( the hypostasis taking the place here of particular). But if we speak of an abstraction analogous to that which separates form from matter, then, when we put aside non-personal properties, we still grasp the hypostases or persons; thus, through thought we remove from the Father the property of unbegotten or that of spirant: the hypostasis or person of the Father remains in thought. But if we put personal property aside in thought, the hypostasis disappears. Indeed, let us not imagine that personal properties arise from the divine hypostases as a form arises from the pre-existing subject; rather, they bring their support with themselves; better, they are the subsisting person himself: paternity, for example, is the Father himself. The reason is that hypostasis, in other words: individual substance, designates what is distinct in God. Now it is the relationship, we said above, which distinguishes and constitutes the hypostasis. It follows that once personal relationships are discarded by thought, there are no more hypostases.
It is true that for some, as we said above, the divine hypostases are distinguished by simple origin, and not by their relationships; we would conceive the Father as a hypostasis simply because he does not come from any other; the Son, because he proceeds from another by generation. As for the relationships which are added as ennobling properties, they constitute in the capacity of person: hence their name “personalities”. So if, through thought, we set aside these relationships, we still have hypostases, but no longer persons.
But this cannot be done, for two reasons. First, it is the relations which distinguish and constitute the hypostases, as we have said. Then, every hypostasis of a reasonable nature is a person, as follows from Boethius' definition: “The person is "the individual substance of a reasonable nature." ” Also, to have a hypostasis which is not a person, it is from nature that we would have to “abstract” rationality, instead of “abstracting” its property from the person...
Solutions:
1. This that the person adds to the hypostasis, it is not “a distinctive property” without more, but “a distinctive property which concerns dignity”: this whole formula is to be taken as a unique difference. Now, the distinctive property concerns dignity, insofar as the excellence of “subsisting in reasonable nature” is implied. Also, once the distinctive property has been discarded by thought, there is no longer any hypostasis; this would only remain if we removed the “reasonable” difference from nature.
2 . It is through his paternity that the Father is Father, that he is a person and someone (that is to say a hypostasis). And this does not prevent the Son from being someone (or a hypostasis) any more than from being a person.
3 . S. Augustine does not mean that, without paternity, the hypostasis of the Father remains solely under the title of unbegotten, as if innascibility constituted and distinguished the hypostasis of the Father; this is not possible since unbegotten expresses nothing positive and is only a negation, by Augustine's own admission. In the alleged passage, unbegotten is taken in a very general sense: everything unbegotten, in fact, is not a father. Therefore, if we put paternity aside, there is no longer any hypostasis of the Father in God , distinct from other people: there is only the hypostasis of a God distinct from creatures, as the Jews can understand it, for example.
Article 4 — Logically, do relationships presuppose the actions of people, or vice versa?
Objections:
1. The Master of Sentences says: “God is always Father, because he always begets his Son. ” Where it seems clear that generation precedes paternity by reason.
2. Every relationship logically presupposes what it is based on; thus equality presupposes quantity. However, fatherhood is a relationship based on action, namely on generation. Therefore paternity presupposes generation.
3 . Between active generation and paternity, there is the same relationship as between birth and filiation. Now filiation presupposes birth, for God is the Son because he was born. Paternity therefore also presupposes generation.
In the opposite sense , generation is an operation of the person of the Father. Now it is paternity which constitutes the person of the Father. Therefore paternity is logically presupposed to generation.
Answer:
If we hold that the properties, instead of distinguishing and constituting the hypostases, only manifest the hypostases already distinct and constituted, we must then say purely and simply that, in the order of our thought, the relations follow the notional acts. And we can say purely and simply: “Because God generates, he is Father. ”
But if we admit that in God it is relationships which distinguish and constitute persons, we must then resort to a distinction. Indeed, we conceive and express the origin in God either in the active, or in the passive: in the active, we attribute generation to the Father, and we attribute spiration (understood as a notional act) to the Father and to the Son. In the passive, we attribute the birth to the Son, the procession to the Holy Spirit. Now, taken in the passive sense, the origins purely and simply precede by reason the properties of the persons who proceed, even their personal properties, because the origin, taken in the passive sense is conceived and signified as a path towards the person that the property constitutes. Similarly, the origin taken in the active sense logically precedes the non-personal relation of the principle person; that is to say, the notional act of spiration logically precedes the unnamed relative property which is common to the Father and the Son. But the personal property of the Father can be the subject of a double consideration. As a relationship, first of all; and on this account again, it logically presupposes the notional act, the relation being founded on the act. Then, as constituting the person; in this aspect, the relationship must be presupposed to the notional act, just as the person who acts is logically presupposed to his action.
Solutions:
1. In this sentence of the Master, “because he begets, he is Father”, the word “Father” is an attribute simply evoking the relationship of paternity; it does not expressly mean the subsisting person. With this last meaning, we would have to reverse the formula: “because it is the Father, he generates”.
2. This objection applies to paternity considered as a relationship, but not as constituting the person.
3. Birth is the path that leads to the person of the Son. In this aspect, it precedes filiation, even insofar as this constitutes the person of the Son. But active generation is conceived and signified as emanating from the person of the Father; also it presupposes the personal property of the Father.