Exclusive Words About the Divine Persons (ST I q.31 a.4) and Why Natural Reason Cannot Know the Trinity (q.32 a.1)

Orientation #

“We have one more dictio exclusiva to go” — the class opens on q. 31, a. 4, which he says was begun before (prev. lecture), then begins q. 32 and ends at a break before a. 2. The previous class treated a. 3 (solus joined to an essential name) and started a. 4; the next treats q. 32, a. 2 on whether notions are to be posited in God.

The class, in order #

1. The four objections of q. 31, a. 4 (“whether a exclusive diction”) #

Point: the question is whether an exclusive word (only, alone) can be joined to a personal term when the predicate is common to the three persons.

• Obj. 1: John — Christ speaking to the Father, “that they might know you, the only true God”; therefore the Father alone is the true God.
• Obj. 2: Matthew 11:27, “no one knows the Son except the Father” — “no one knows … except X” seems equivalent to “X alone knows”; but knowing the Son is common to all three.
• Obj. 3: an exclusive diction does not exclude what is of the understanding of the term it is joined to — neither the part nor the universal. “Socrates alone is white” does not entail his hand is not white, or man is not white. But one person is in the understanding of the other (Father in the understanding of Son). His gloss: this is general about relations — “A is double of B, therefore B is half of A” is not really an argument; “Paul Berquist is my son because I’m his father” — they are known together. So “the Father alone is God” would not exclude the Son.
• Obj. 4: the Church sings in the Gloria “you alone are most high, Jesus Christ.”

2. Sed contra and a caution about wording (“has two things in expounding”) #

Point: “the Father alone is God” expounds into two statements — the Father is God, and no one other (alius, masculine) than the Father is God; the second is false, since the Son is other than the Father and is God.

• His aside: “the Father alone is God” and “the Father is the only God” feel different — the first seems more false. Compare “I’m only a man” (acceptable) vs. “I alone am a man” (false: no one else is a man). “Still got to be kind of careful” even with “the Father is the only God.”

3. The body: categorematic vs. syncategorematic, alius vs. aliud (“lays down solitude about the Father”) #

Point: the statement has many senses; in its proper sense it is false.

1. If solus posits solitude about the Father — taken categorematice — it is false. Distinction (recalled from before): “the Father is alone” says something of the Father (that he is with no one else); “the Father alone is God/wise” says how the predicate belongs to the subject. Alone here is not a predicate but a mode of predication — as with “every man is good,” “no man is good”: you are talking about how good is said of man.
2. Taken syncategorematice (he hates to translate it: “a thankless task,” as he told his brother Richard translating the Posterior Analytics commentary), again many senses:
   • If it excludes from the form of the subject — “the one with whom no one else is the Father is God” — it is true. This is Augustine’s exposition in De Trinitate VI: we say “the Father alone” not to separate him from Son and Spirit, but to signify they are not the Father with him. But this sense is not the customary way of speaking, unless something is understood implied; “that’s really stretching the thing.”
   • In its proper sense it excludes from consortium in the predicate: false if it excludes alius (another, masculine — the Son is alius from the Father, likewise the Spirit); true if it excludes aliud (another thing).
3. Since solus properly regards the subject, it is more for excluding alius than aliud; so one ought not to extend such speech, but expound it piously if found in authentic Scripture.

• Aside on the word fate: Augustine asked what one means — if that the stars control our wills, false; if some aspect of divine providence, “hold your opinion, but change your” words. Likewise we do not say “three substances in God” even if one means individual of a rational nature, because substance tends to mean what a thing is — it would sound like three natures, three gods.

4. The four replies, with Scripture’s difficult ways of speaking (“about the whole Trinity, as Augustine expounds”) #

• Ad 1: “you, the only true God” is said of the whole Trinity (Augustine, De Trinitate VI); or, if of the Father’s person, it does not exclude the others because of the unity of essence, since solus excludes only alius.
• Ad 2: when something essential is said of the Father, Son and Spirit are not excluded because of the unity of essence. Further, nemo here is not “no man” (one could not except the Father), but is taken distributively for any rational nature. His parallels: Paul naming Father and Son and omitting the Spirit — Thomas says the Spirit, as bond of Father and Son, is implied; “the Father alone knows the Son” should make you stop and think — doesn’t the Son know himself? since knowing himself pertains to God’s nature, it is understood of the others; “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” — three names yet one name, i.e., the name of God, the one nature; “all Jerusalem went out to John the Baptist” though later the Pharisees were not baptized — all for many.
• Aside on hope and fear: “his mercies upon those who fear him” — why not hope, which corresponds to mercy? Thomas: hope without fear is presumption, fear without hope despair; some psalms mention both, others one, and the other is implied. Anselm’s meditation to gain fear of the Lord seen in a bookstore; Socrates in the Phaedo — in philosophy hope of finding the truth must be balanced by fear of making a mistake, else you either err easily or give up.
• Ad 3: the exclusive word does not exclude what is in the understanding of the term if they do not differ as individuals — as part and universal (“Socrates alone is white” excludes neither his hand, which is part of him, nor man, since this man is white). But the Son differs from the Father as a person; he is not a part of him; so “the Father alone is wise” does seem to exclude the Son.
• Ad 4: the Gloria does not say the Son alone is most high, but “you alone are most high, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father” — the objection takes the first part by itself, like quoting the psalm as “Scripture says there is no God.”

5. The place of q. 32 (“about the knowledge of the divine persons”) #

Point: of ten questions on the persons (before five on comparative consideration), four are on persons in general: one on what person means, two on plurality (one basic, one on what follows), and now the fourth, on knowledge of the persons. Four articles: (1) whether the persons can be known by natural reason; (2) whether notions are to be attributed to them; (3) their number — “there’s going to be five”; (4) whether it is licit to think diversely about them. He divides them 1 against 3, since the last three are all about notions (“Thomas is not being pedantic like I am”).

6. q. 32, a. 1: the objections and sed contra (“through this number, to wit, number three”) #

Point: it seems the Trinity can be known by natural reason. Aside: Thomas is named after the doubting Thomas — he begins by doubting even what the Church teaches, then comes around.

• Obj. 1, from the philosophers, who knew God only by natural reason:
  • Aristotle, De Caelo et Mundo (properly “about the universe”: the Greek word means heavens or universe; the Latin caelo means only heavens, so et Mundo is stuck on): through the number three we magnify the one God.
  • Digression, “three is enough”: Physics I — change is between opposites, but reading 11 shows a third thing is needed, else change is a contradiction (Heraclitus: hot and cold the same because one becomes the other; without a subject, heat itself would become coldness). Three dimensions: only three lines at right angles to one another, no fourth. Aristotle’s sign from language: we say “both” of two, “all” first of three. Vatican II: Scripture, tradition, magisterium — none stands without the others. Music: concertos and Mozart’s trios in three movements; the Baroque trio. Rhetoric: three means of persuasion — image of the speaker, moving the emotions, arguments. Beginning, middle, end. Did Aristotle know the Trinity? “It makes me a little stop and kind of wonder.” Incas: knew the circle as perfection (Thomas on Aristotle: nothing can be added to a circle, unlike a straight line; wedding rings) and, some say, would not degrade it into a wheel.
  • Augustine, Confessions VII: in the books of the Platonists he read, not in these words but altogether the same, “in the beginning was the Word…”
  • Gloss on Romans 1 and Exodus: Pharaoh’s magi failed in the third sign, i.e., knowledge of the Holy Spirit — so knew two.
  • Trismegistus: the monad begot the monad and turned back on itself with heat/love — generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit intimated. “So you all convinced now?”
• Obj. 2: Richard of St Victor — for every explanation of truth, necessary arguments are not lacking. Some argue from the infinite goodness communicating itself infinitely; some from the fact that there is no joyful possession of a good without consortium; Augustine from the procession of word and love in our mind, which Thomas himself followed above. His illustration: when my reason thinks what itself is, a thought of reason proceeds in my reason (Shakespeare’s definition: ability for large discourse, looking before and after); realizing what reason is, I love it — Augustine, “intellectum valde ama” [garbled in recording]. “That’s like the Trinity, isn’t it?”
• Obj. 3, different in kind: it is superfluous to teach what reason cannot know; divine tradition is not superfluous; so reason can know it.
• Sed contra: Hilary (of Poitiers, quoted often by Thomas here), De Trinitate II — man should not think his intelligence can follow the sacrament (secret) of the generation of the Word; Ambrose — impossible to know the secret of generation, the mind fails, the voice is silent. But the persons are distinguished by origin (generation and procession — the latter harder to know); what has no necessary reason cannot be known; so the Trinity is not knowable by reason. He: “I can’t give any necessary reason” why there must be three.
• Student: it seems a current trend — no reason can be given, so the mystery is just not touched. He previews the answer: reason knows God only through effects of the divine power, which is common to the three.

7. The body: only what pertains to the unity of essence (“only from creatures”) #

Argument:

1. Natural reason knows God only from creatures, as effects lead to a cause (shown above).
2. So reason knows about God only what necessarily belongs to him as beginning of all beings.
3. The creative power is common to the whole Trinity; it pertains to the unity of essence, not the distinction of persons.
4. Therefore reason can know what pertains to the unity of essence, not what pertains to the distinction of persons. “That’s the only reason that Thomas gives that I can recall, even elsewhere.” Those who try to prove the Trinity by reason derogate from faith in two ways: (a) its dignity — faith is of unseen things exceeding reason (Hebrews 11:1, substantia of things hoped for, argumentum non apparentium; 1 Cor 2:6, wisdom not of the princes of this world — Thomas: the philosophers — but of God in mystery); (b) usefulness in drawing others — non-cogent reasons give unbelievers occasion to laugh, thinking we believe on such grounds. His maxim: “a bad defense of the truth is worse than a good attack upon it.” Things of faith are to be proved only by authorities, with those who receive them; for others, it suffices to defend that what faith says is not impossible.

• Recalled: in philosophy the argument from authority is weakest (Pythagoras said so), in theology strongest. Summa contra Gentiles: with heretics one argues from Old and New Testament, with Jews from the Old, with Mohammedans (Averroes, Avicenna) from neither — there Thomas shows the arguments against Trinity or incarnation are insufficient. Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 2: one who wholly resists the Sacred Writings is far from our philosophy; one who looks to their truth, we use their canon against him.

8. Ad 1: appropriations, not persons (“did not know the mystery”) #

Point: the philosophers did not know the persons per propria (fatherhood, sonship, and — “for want of a better name” — procession; 1 Cor 2, princes of this age = philosophers per the gloss), but knew essential attributes appropriated to the persons: power to the Father (Creed: “Father Almighty, Creator” — is the Father alone almighty? no), wisdom to the Son (God knowing himself), goodness to the Spirit (tied to the will). Appropriation to be treated later.

• Aristotle: not a number three in God, but the ancients used three in sacrifices and prayers for its perfection (beginning, middle, end — completeness), fitting for the altogether perfect God.
• Platonists’ verbum: not a person begotten, but the ideal ratio according to which God makes all things, appropriated to the Son — like the Demiurge of the Timaeus making things to a pattern.
• Failing in the third sign: either because they deviated from goodness, appropriated to the Spirit (Romans 1:21, did not glorify him); or because the Platonists posited a first being, Father of all (Homer’s Zeus, father of gods and men), then under it a paternal intellect containing the reasons of things (Macrobius, Dream of Scipio; Avicenna’s first being producing a mind), but no third substance. We do not posit Father and Son differing in substance — the error of Origen and Arius following the Platonists (“Thomas is very hard on Origen sometimes”).
• The monad generating the monad (he here says “Proclus” [ed.: the objection named Trismegistus]) refers to the production of the world: the one God produces the one world for love of himself and brings it back. Philosophers knew God as beginning and end (Aristotle: God the end of the universe); this circle underlies both Summas (God in himself, as beginning, as end), especially the division of the Contra Gentiles — but beginning as maker not matter, end as last good not destruction (“dust thou art…” is the material way).

9. Ad 2: two kinds of reason (“sufficient reason proving it”) #

Distinction: a reason that sufficiently proves a root (natural science: the heaven’s motion is of uniform velocity) vs. a reason that, the root once laid down, shows the effects congruent (Ptolemy’s eccentrics and epicycles save the sensible appearances but perhaps another position would too — circles on circles until someone tried another way). His example: Einstein’s man watching a clock face imagining a mechanism that would explain it, without knowing that is how it is built. “One reason kind of forces the mind; another — it could be this way, but I don’t know.” Unity of God is proved the first way; the Trinity is manifested only the second way. Each argument fails: infinite goodness is manifested even in creation from nothing, and need not produce something infinite — creatures receive it according to their way; joyful possession needs a companion only where one person lacks perfect goodness — like saying God created because he would be lonely; the similitude of our understanding does not prove, since intellect is not univocal in God and us (my thinking need not be exactly God’s). Augustine on John: through belief to knowledge, not the reverse.

10. Ad 3: why revelation of the Trinity was necessary (“necessary for us in two ways”) #

(a) For right opinion about creation: God made all by his Word — excludes producing from necessity of nature (Avicenna, Spinoza); the procession of love — shows he created not from need but for love of his goodness. Genesis 1: “God said, let there be light” (the Word), “God saw that it was good” (approval of love). (b) Principalius, for right opinion about salvation, perfected by the incarnate Son and the gift of the Spirit. Order: the Trinity is presupposed to the incarnation (the Word became man is in its definition), even though quoad nos we begin with Christ’s human nature — Peter’s confession (“the Son of the living God”), a French priest’s book “Who Do Men Say That I Am”; John’s prologue reverses, from the Word to “the Word was made flesh”; man is an animal led by the sensible to the intelligible. Children begin at the crib; his little son thought the priest was Christ. John 20 near the end gives Peter’s profession again, with the noun Jesus; Peter and John together at the tomb. Break.

His words #

• dictio exclusiva; exclusive diction — only, alone joined to a term
• categorematice — solus posits solitude of the subject (“the Father is alone”)
• syncategorematice — solus says how the predicate belongs to the subject; he refuses to translate it
• alius vs. aliud — another (person, masculine) vs. another thing
• consortium in the predicate — union in the predicate; what “alone” excludes
• expound in a pious way — how to read such a phrase in authentic Scripture
• nemo — not “no man” but distributive for any rational nature
• notions — ways of identifying or distinguishing the persons in our knowledge
• de Caelo et Mundo — book about the universe; natural hearing [ed.: Physics]
• sacrament of the generation — the secret
• per propria — by their proper features (fatherhood, sonship, procession)
• appropriated — essential attributes assigned to a person (power, wisdom, goodness)
• ideal ratio / ideal species — the Platonists’ verbum
• monas — Greek for one
• save the sensible appearances — what a congruent (not sufficient) reason does
• principalius — more chiefly
• order quoad nos — towards us, beginning from the sensible

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 31, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 32, prologue and a. 1 (whole article) Mentioned
• John 17 (“the only true God”); Matthew 11:27; the Gloria; Augustine, De Trinitate VI; Aristotle, De Caelo; Aristotle, Physics I, reading 11 (change, three principles); Augustine, Confessions VII; gloss on Romans 1 and Exodus; Trismegistus; Richard of St Victor, De Trinitate; Hilary, De Trinitate II; Ambrose; Hebrews 11:1; 1 Cor 2:6; Summa contra Gentiles; Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 2; Romans 1:21; Plato, Timaeus; Homer; Macrobius, Dream of Scipio; Genesis 1; Plato, Phaedo; Vatican II on Scripture, tradition, magisterium; Aristotle, Rhetoric; Augustine on John; John 20 (inferred) “these things are written that you might believe”

His questions #

• Is “the Father alone is God” the same as “the Father is the only God”? Not quite — the first seems more false; but be careful even with the second.
• What is the difference between “the Father is alone” and “the Father alone is God”? The first says something of the Father (categorematic); the second says how the predicate belongs to him (syncategorematic).
• When Scripture says the Father alone knows the Son, doesn’t the Son know himself? Yes; since knowing himself pertains to the nature, it is understood of the others by unity of nature.
• Would you divide the four articles into two twos or one and three? One and three: the first is on natural reason, the last three on notions.
• Can you draw a fourth line at right angles to three? No; three dimensions is all there is.
• Does Aristotle’s use of three mean he knew the Trinity? Obviously not; the ancients used three for its perfection, which fits the perfect God.
• Is the Father alone almighty, or Creator? Is the Son alone wise? No — these are appropriations of essential attributes.
• Why does God reveal something reason cannot know? For right opinion about creation (by Word and love, not necessity or need) and, more chiefly, about salvation.
• Which comes first, the Trinity or the incarnation? In understanding, the Trinity is presupposed; quoad nos we begin with Christ’s human nature.