Summa I q.39: Persons Compared to the Essence – Overview and Article 1 (Is the Essence the Same as the Person?)

Orientation #

He recalls that the treatise on the Trinity is divided into three parts (processions, relations, fifteen questions on the persons), that the fifteen divide into ten and five, and that “the absolute consideration of persons, which we just finished” gives way now to the comparative consideration in the last five questions (prev. lecture). He does not say what comes next time. The previous class closed questions 37–38 (Love, Gift) with a roadmap of the treatise, and the next continues q. 39 on the distinction of persons and unity of essence.

The class, in order #

1. The proemium of q. 39: persons compared to four things (“rule of three and two”) #

Point: the comparative consideration asks how the persons stand to the essence, the properties (relations), the notional acts, and each other.

• Why the notional acts matter: if “generating” were really something other than the Father, “you’re going to have more than three things there in God.” Example: “me and my son and my generating my son, there are three different things”; is it so with Father, Son, and the Father generating the Son? No.
• Thomas divides the first three (persons compared to something other, at least mentally, than the notion of person) against the last (persons compared to each other). “That’s accordance to the rule of three and two. Thomas is not so pedantic as to point this out all the time.”

2. Survey of the eight articles (“speech is subject to the thing”) #

Point: he walks through what each article of q. 39 will ask, anticipating answers where he can.

• a. 1: whether essence/nature/substance is the same as the person. There is a real distinction between Father and Son; is there one between Father and divine nature? “In anticipation, you might expect the answer will be no.”
• a. 2: whether one can say three persons “of one nature, one substance, of one essence.”
• a. 3: whether essential names are said of the persons in plural or singular. Father is God, Son is God, Holy Spirit is God (follows from a. 1); but “I’m a man, you are a man, he’s a man… we’re three men,” and what is said of really distinct things is said in the plural—yet not “three gods.” Hilary’s rule, which he quotes repeatedly: speech is subject to the thing; you must know what the thing is to see how something can or cannot be said of it.
• a. 4: whether notional adjectives, verbs, participles can be predicated of essential names taken concretely: “God generates,” “God breathes.” John 1:1, “the Word was towards God”—God there stands for the Father; if God can stand for the Father there, why not say God generates? The creed says “God from God, light from light.” Hard to see how to speak.
• Jerome (he first says Hilary, then corrects to Jerome): “Ex verbis inordinate prolatis” heresy arises. Anecdote: someone who “cracked up in the church” and said Mary should be called Mother of Christ, not Mother of God, and had things thrown at her. Speaking wrongly “is going to influence your thinking.” Shakespeare on “stumbling in your own words.”
• a. 5: whether they can be said of essential names taken in the abstract: “the divine nature is generated”? “I would guess not… We’ll see what the master says.” But “God from God” you could say.
• a. 6: whether names of persons can be said of abstract and concrete essential names: “Holy Spirit is God,” but “God is the Holy Spirit”? “Wait till Thomas says.” One should never discuss the Trinity “without Thomas in front of you,” as one shouldn’t discuss a work of art except in its presence.
• a. 7 and a. 8 divide against the earlier ones: appropriation. a. 7 whether essential attributes (wise, good, powerful) can be appropriated to persons—“there’s a danger in that.” Boundary cases: “the Word was made flesh” is not appropriation, only the Word became flesh; “the Holy Spirit will overshadow you,” attributing the incarnation to the Holy Spirit, is appropriation (a work of the whole Trinity); “I believe in God the Father… Creator of heaven and earth” is appropriation. So the Church does appropriate, and Thomas will defend it. Things learned as a child were said some without, some with appropriation.
• a. 8: the particular appropriations of Augustine and Hilary: power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, goodness to the Holy Spirit (“not too hard”); stranger ones, unity to the Father, equality to the Son, connection/union to the Holy Spirit.
• Aside: read Thomas too fast and “you get mental indigestion,” or as Father Boulay said, “mental constipation”; “wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast; wisely and slow, they choke that eat too fast.”

3. Student question: four things or three? (“questions of predication”) #

A student notes he listed four terms (essence, property, notional acts, comparison) but spoke of three. Answer: divide the first three (persons compared to essence, properties, notional acts, none of which as such are names of persons) against the last (persons to each other, e.g. one person sends another). Then, over the eight articles, the first two go together and the last two go together; in the Sentences Thomas puts the last two and the first in one question. The four middle articles are “questions of predication,” the key thing in logic.

• Digression on logic: it belongs to logic to consider the way this is said of that, because logic considers things as they are in the mind, and it is in our reason that one thing is said of another. The first book in Latin is the Predicabilia (from “being said of”), the second De Predicamentis; the book on places speaks of the four predicata; all share the root. One of the first things learned is that a name is said of many univocally or equivocally, by chance or by reason—used in every other science. But the Trinity brings ways of saying one thing of another “that the philosopher did not anticipate, because he knew nothing about the Trinity,” so theology needs special considerations.

4. Article 1, objection 1: one individual per immaterial nature (“enough wood”) #

Point: this is “the fundamental article… underlies everything else”; the first objection draws on Thomas’s own doctrine of angels (“Thomas always thinks absolutely what he thinks before he thinks what he thinks”).

1. Wherever essence or nature is the same as the person or suppositum, there is necessarily only one individual of that nature, as in all separated substances: no two angels share a nature; two angels differ like circle and square, two men like two circles.
2. Why? No matter, hence nothing continuous. Euclid’s first theorem: two circles of the same radius, differing only in number because “one is here and one is there”; already the two endpoints used as centres differ only so. In wisdom [ed.: metaphysics] one learns that matter subject to continuous quantity is the source of multiplication of individuals of the same kind: many identical chairs because “you have enough wood,” many identical windows because “enough glass.” In immaterial substances, no matter, so no many of one kind.
3. Anecdote of his old teacher Kasurik: seeing your first angel you’ll think “this is God” and he’ll say “no, I’m not God”; seeing the second, you won’t count them—he’ll be so different from the first.
4. Plato, despite the mistake of a world of forms of man, dog, cat, horse, saw that there is only one form of each kind: an immaterial kind is sui generis.
5. So Father, Son, Holy Spirit are immaterial; if there is no distinction between them and the divine nature, “you should have only one person”—this is how people arrive at one person, one nature. Things the same in re cannot be multiplied one without the other; but in God one essence and three persons; therefore essence is not the same as person. “Something to chew on… Don’t tell it to your mother.”

5. Objection 2: affirmation and negation of the same thing (“sugar is sweet, salt is not sweet”) #

Point: “very powerful too”—a second-figure syllogism: the person is distinct, the essence is not distinct, therefore not the same.

• This is how we syllogize about God’s substance: what is composed has ability [ed.: potency]; God has no passive ability, is pure act; affirm of one, deny of the other.
• Even God cannot overcome it: someone says “I know something God doesn’t know: that two is half of three.” Cajetan on the will of God (read that morning): God’s will is not of what is impossible per se—no square circle, no man without reason (a man can be without using reason).
• Parallels: dog is four-footed, man is not, therefore…; sugar is sweet, salt is not, salt is not sugar. Applied: divine nature is not generated, the Son was generated, therefore the Son is not the divine nature. “This changes everything.”

6. Objection 3 and the sed contra (“suppositum, which means placed under”) #

• Obj. 3 (weaker, from how we speak): nothing is subject to itself; the person is subject to the essence—hence suppositum (placed under), Greek hypostasis (standing under); therefore person is not essence. Comparison: form is in matter, matter under form, and the nature is like the form.
• Sed contra: Augustine, seventh book on the Trinity: when we say the person of the Father, we say nothing other than the substance of the Father.

7. The body: relations are the divine nature (“one thing or three things”) #

Point: to one considering divine simplicity the answer is manifest; the difficulty arises because the persons are multiplied while the essence retains unity.

1. Shown above: divine simplicity requires that in God essence and suppositum be the same; suppositum in understanding substances is nothing other than person.
2. Boethius (the third authority after Augustine and Hilary, and “very much following Augustine”): relation multiplies the Trinity of persons in God.
3. Gilbert de la Porrée (“not so terrible because he got off,” corrected by councils and confessed) laid down that essence differs from person because the relations are “assisting,” considered only as towards another and not as things themselves.
4. On “thing”: are Father, Son, Holy Spirit one thing or three things? A student: one nature, three persons. Taken absolutely, one thing; taken as relations, three. Aristotle in the Categories: substance, quantity, quality, relation and the other six are not things in the same sense, so nothing prevents one thing in one sense, three in another. Gilbert would not call them things.
5. Relations in creatures exist accidentally, as something added; in God there are no accidents, so the relations are the very divine nature. Hence in re person and essence are not something other.
6. Two ways of speaking about God: “God has wisdom, justice, mercy… whatever God has, He is”; “there is wisdom in God… whatever is in God is God.” Our mind is adapted to matter-form composites (matter has a form, form is in matter), so we must negate the real distinction when using these forms of speech of God.
7. Yet the persons are really distinct—because relative to each other. Aristotle saw relatives as one kind of opposition, and opposition is the beginning of distinction. Father is towards the Son; but the Father is not father of the divine nature, so not towards it. John 1:1 again: “towards God,” not “towards the divine nature”—“that would get you into a mistake”; God stands for the Father. If the Father were father of the divine nature, “we’d be in an even worse position.”
8. Person signifies relation per modum substantiae, as subsisting in the divine nature (recall: “one of those mixed things”); what subsists in the divine nature is the divine nature.
9. Conclusion: relation compared to essence “non differt re… ratione tantum”—not two things, one and the same; “we need two thoughts because we can’t express in one thought what this is.”

8. Digression: two thoughts of one thing; knowing the simple in a composed way (“the center of a circle”) #

Point: two thoughts about one reality is not unique to the Trinity.

• Divine understanding and divine love: two things in me, one in God; yet there is order in my thoughts (because God understands, He has a will—rather than emotions, tied to body and senses).
• Homely image: God’s simplicity as the centre-point of a circle; one radius-end called the creature’s understanding, another the creature’s love; the centre is the end of this line and of that, two thoughts about one point, “one point even in my imagination,” unlike the two really distinct outer points.
• We know the simple in a composed way (two compositions in “God understands,” “God loves”); saying “God’s understanding is God’s love” negates the composition and does not attribute it to the thing. God, conversely, understands the composed in a simple way. What both show: the way you understand and the way things are need not be the same.
• Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, Book V (the work Benedict singles out in his address on Cassiodorus and Boethius): God knows time eternally, we know eternity through time. Definition of eternity, “tota simul et perfecta possessio vitae interminabilis”: tota simul negates before and after, interminabilis negates beginning and end—we understand eternity negatively through time.
• Asides: the Consolation is a dialogue with Lady Wisdom (sapientia feminine; a commentator says women console better; his grandchild Sophia is nicknamed Lady Wisdom); Boethius makes Aristotle a true follower—Aristotle and Plato split on whether the way you know must be the way things are for there to be truth; agreement is required, but “you can say it in a way other than they are.”
• Application: distinction and order of the divine attributes is in our thought; in the Trinity distinction and order of one from another are in the things; appropriation uses the one to focus the other.

9. Close: the opposite relation and Sabellius (“one essence… and three persons”) #

Relation compared to its opposite relation has, by the opposition, a real distinction. Sabellius denied the real distinction, distinguishing the one person only by works: Father because He created, Son because He became man, Holy Spirit because He sanctifies—a student links this to “modalism, which you just learned about today.” “And thus there remains one essence, nature, substance, and three persons.”

His words #

• “absolute” consideration vs. “comparative” consideration of the persons; the ten and the five questions.
• “notional acts”: to generate, to breathe [ed.: spirate].
• “rule of three and two”: Thomas’s division of the four comparisons.
• “speech is subject to the thing” (Hilary): what is said depends on what the thing is.
• “Ex verbis inordinate prolatis” (Jerome): heresy arises from words put forth disorderly.
• “appropriation”: attributing to one person what is the work of the whole Trinity.
• Predicabilia, De Predicamentis, predicata: the logical books named from “being said of.”
• “wisdom”: the science in which matter subject to quantity is found to be the source of multiplication [ed.: metaphysics].
• “sui generis”: one of a kind; the immaterial kind.
• “ability” [ed.: potency]; “pure act.”
• “suppositum”: placed under; “hypostasis”: standing under; the individual substance, in understanding substances the person.
• “assisting” relations: Gilbert de la Porrée’s account.
• “whatever God has, He is”; “whatever is in God is God”: the two negating rules of speech.
• “per modum substantiae”: person signifies relation in the manner of substance.
• “non differt re… ratione tantum”: relation vs. essence differ in thought only.
• “tota simul et perfecta possessio vitae interminabilis”: Boethius’s definition of eternity.
• modalism: Sabellius’s position, named by a student.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 39, proemium (paraphrased through the eight articles).
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 39, a. 1 (objections, sed contra, body, read and translated).
• Augustine, De Trinitate, Book VII (sed contra quotation).
• John 1:1, “the Word was towards God” (quoted twice).

Mentioned

• Hilary (on speech subject to the thing; appropriations).
• Jerome, “Ex verbis inordinate prolatis.”
• The Creed (“God from God, light from light”; “God the Father… Creator of heaven and earth”); Luke’s “the Holy Spirit will overshadow you” (inferred).
• Aristotle, Categories (the ten categories not things in the same sense; relatives as opposition); the logical books Predicabilia, De Predicamentis, and the book on places.
• Euclid, Elements I, Prop. 1 (inferred), the equilateral triangle construction.
• Plato, the world of forms.
• Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, Book V; Boethius on the Trinity (relation multiplies the persons).
• Cajetan on the will of God (read that morning).
• Benedict’s address on Cassiodorus and Boethius.
• Thomas, commentary on the Sentences (grouping of these questions).
• Shakespeare (stumbling in words; “wisely and slow”).
• Summa Contra Gentiles III, ch. 5: reported by the text-matching system as present; the transcript does not name it and no clear reading of it can be identified.

His questions #

• Is the Father, the Son, and the Father generating the Son three different things, as I, my son, and my generating are? No; hence the notional acts must be compared to the persons.
• Can you say the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit are three gods? No—though what is said of really distinct men is said in the plural.
• Is “the Word was made flesh” an appropriation? Is “the Holy Spirit will overshadow you”? The first is not (only the Word became flesh); the second is (the incarnation is a work of the whole Trinity).
• Can you say the divine nature is generated? He guesses not, deferring to Thomas (a. 5); but “God from God” can be said.
• How do the two circles of the first theorem differ? Only in number, because one is here and one is there—matter subject to quantity.
• How is it possible to have many chairs exactly the same in this room? Enough wood.
• Are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit one thing or three things? One nature, three persons: one thing absolutely, three as relations; “thing” is not said in the same sense (Categories).
• Why are the persons really distinct from each other but not from the divine nature? They are relative to each other (relation is an opposition); the Father is not the father of the divine nature.
• Are divine understanding and divine love two things in God? No; two thoughts about one thing, as two lines end at one centre-point.
• What do “God understands the composed in a simple way” and “we understand the simple in a composed way” show in common? That the way you understand need not be the way things are.