Summa I, Q. 40, Art. 1: Is the Relation the Same as the Person? (Divine simplicity, two kinds of identity, and the senses of 'in')

Orientation #

He refers back to “the question on simplicity” (“was it three? I guess it was”) with its separate articles denying matter-form and substance-accident composition in God, and to what was “expounded above” on Gilbert of Porretanus and on the necessity of laying down relations in God (prev. lecture not stated). He does not say what comes next beyond the four articles listed in the proemium. The previous class treated appropriation of essential attributes to the Persons (q. 39); the next goes on to q. 40 aa. 2–3.

The class, in order #

1. Why Thomas is more intelligent than us (“the cause of goodness in others”) #

Opening prayer, then the point: God made one creature better than another so that we could be like God not only in being good but in being the cause of goodness in others; that requires inequality, one superior illuminating the other. Thomas illuminating us imitates God, “the Father of Lights, as Saint James calls him.” A man can not only learn but teach another man — “that’s more like God.”

2. Proemium of question 40 (“Then one asks about the persons in comparison to the relations”) #

Four questions: (1) whether the relation is the same thing as the person; (2) whether the relations distinguish and constitute the persons; (3) whether, abstracting the relations by the understanding, the hypostases remain distinct; (4) whether the relations presuppose the acts of the persons or the reverse — “there will be a mixed answer, as you’ll see.”

3. Article 1: the three objections and the sed contra (“the rest of Thomas’s text had been lost”) #

Objection 1: whatever things are the same, when one is multiplied the other is; but in one person there are many relations (in the Father, fatherhood and common breathing) and one relation (common breathing) in two persons; therefore relation is not the person. “A very drastic objection” — hence Thomas’s long reply. Objection 2: nothing is in itself (the Philosopher, Physics IV); but relation is in the person, and not by reason of identity, for then it would be in the essence too and the essence would be distinguished. Objection 3: things that are the same have whatever is said of one said of the other; but we say the Father generates, not that fatherhood generates — affirming of one what is denied of the other, “a syllogism in the second figure.” He jokes: that would seem to settle the matter, as if the rest of the text had been lost — “misled by Thomas.” Sed contra: in God what is and that by which it is are the same (Boethius, De Hebdomadibus); the Father is Father by fatherhood; so the Father is his fatherhood, and likewise the other properties.

4. The body: two opinions and Thomas’s resolution (“whatever he is said to have in Himself”) #

Two errors. (a) Some said properties are neither the persons nor in the persons, moved by the way relations signify — not as in something but towards something; so they made relations “assisting” (Gilbert of Porretanus, expounded above). Distinction: quantity is the size of a substance and quality the disposition of a substance, each defined in reference to its subject; relation is not defined as in something but towards something. Answer: relation, as it is a thing in God, is the very essence; the essence is the person; therefore relation is the person. Rule he draws out: whatever is said to be in God, or whatever God is said to have in himself, is God — not true of us: logic, geometry, “still a little bit of health” are in me, but I am not logic or health. (b) Others, seeing this identity, said the properties are the persons but not in the persons, placing properties in God only in the way of speaking. Answer: it is necessary to lay down properties in God; they signify in the abstract, as that by which something is (as I am healthy by health, the Father is Father by fatherhood); it is of the notion of a form to be in that of which it is the form (health in the healthy, geometry in the geometer); so the properties are in the persons and nevertheless are the persons — as we say the divine nature is in God and yet is God, wisdom is in God and God is wisdom, truth is in God and he is truth itself.

5. Reply to obj. 1: the twofold real identity (“a very subtle point, a very subtle distinction”) #

Person and property are the same in reality but differ in thought, so multiplying one need not multiply the other. Then “a very subtle distinction”: because of the divine simplicity there is a twofold real identity in God of things that differ in creatures.

1. Simplicity excludes matter-form composition (an article in the question on simplicity); hence in God the abstract and the concrete are the same: God and deity/divine nature. In me human nature is like a form in flesh, blood and bones; I am not my human nature though I have it; God is his divine nature.
2. Simplicity excludes substance-accident composition (another article); hence whatever is attributed to God is his essence — wisdom and power are the same in God, both being the divine essence. In me, this man and the science of geometry are two things, one in the other. Application: personal properties — those that constitute the person (fatherhood the Father, sonship the Son; not innascibility, not common breathing) — are the persons by the first identity, as abstract with concrete: fatherhood is the Father himself, sonship the Son himself, procession (“if we want a better name”) the Holy Spirit himself. Non-personal properties are the persons by the second identity: common breathing is the same with the Father and with the Son, not as one person subsisting per se, but as there is one essence in two persons, so one property. Recap he gives later: the two compositions in us are body and soul (death is “the separation of the soul from the body,” Socrates) and substance and accident (white man is not one thing per se as man is). Saying the Father is his fatherhood denies the first, like saying God is his divine nature; saying common breathing is the same as Father and Son denies the second, like saying God and his wisdom, his being and his thinking, are the same — which is why the thought God has in thinking is God. The constituting relation is “like your substance, so to speak”; the other belongs to you in addition — but no substance-accident distinction in God, and Father and Son are not one person by sharing common breathing, since that relation is not the one constituting either person. “That’s a very subtle reply.” Asides: Descartes identifies the substance of material things with quantity — so “Descartes never grew up,” since a man is something more basic than his various sizes. Aristotle calls the first category ousia in the Categories but to ti esti (“what is”) in the Topics; even the man in the street knows what a dog is differs from the dog’s size. “A man of substance”: the first virtues Aristotle treats, courage and temperance, regard your very substance, the body (what could destroy it; what pleases and preserves it); the next, liberality and munificence, regard wealth, what you use to buy what you need — hence the phrase. Aristotle already distinguished these two compositions and knew they were not found in God.

6. Digression: the Father of lights (“in your light we shall see light”) #

From the Epistle of James read at Mass: every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights — “lights” plural. He has the class divide them: two, the light for the eye of the body and for the eye of the soul; the latter into three — natural light of reason (by which Aristotle knew what we learned about God before the Trinity), light of faith (by which the truths of the Trinity are seen), light of glory. Light of glory is light in a different sense (as Thomas points out): not to illuminate God but to dispose our reason to receive God as the form by which it sees him; in the beatific vision God is both what we see and that by which we see, which is above the nature of our mind, so we must be raised up. The text emphasizes how great a gift each light is; the Psalm: in your light we shall see light. Aside: the Ignatius catalogue offers Benedict’s lectures on the Trinity from before he was pope — “when he was still fallible.”

7. Reply to obj. 2: two ways of being “in” (“Thomas is a master of in”) #

“Nothing is in itself” is an axiom like “nothing is before or after itself” (which Thomas uses: a thing cannot bring itself into existence, for it would be before itself). Reply: properties are in the divine essence by way of identity only; in the persons by way of identity and also as regards the way of signifying, as a form in a suppositum. Hence the properties determine and distinguish the persons but not the essence. Not “a sudden invention to get out of difficulty”: Aristotle in Physics IV (“Natural Hearing”), taking up place, distinguishes eight senses of “in”; he does not order them, but Thomas in the commentary orders them “in the way Aristotle taught us in the fifth book of wisdom” — “absolutely marvelous”; other philosophers constantly mix them up. Anaxagoras: nothing comes from nothing, so what comes out of matter must be in it (money in my pocket: if none is in it, none comes out), so everything is in there, infinitely small — confusing being in actually with being in only potentially. First three senses (in a place, e.g. in this room; part in whole, teeth in my mouth; the third, genus and species [as he states it]) are actual; the next, species in genus and form in matter, are only potential; later, “I’ve got you in my power” — power rather than actuality. Clay sphere moulded into a cube: the average person says the shape changed, as if the genus (shape) passed from one species to another; really the clay lost one form and acquired another — form and matter, not genus and species. Same with “the temperature going up.” Surprising that Thomas puts species-in-genus before form-in-matter, though the latter seems more sensible; it follows because species-in-genus is more like part and whole (the third sense). “To think out”: thinking out a definition goes back to the third sense, a division of a genus into species to the fourth, a conclusion to the seventh (in my power). What he admires in Aristotle and Thomas: taking ordinary words, seeing they are equivocal by reason, distinguishing and ordering the senses.

8. Reply to obj. 3: the way of signifying (“does geometry teach you, or the geometer”) #

Participles and notional verbs signify notional (relative) acts; acts belong to supposita; properties signify not as supposita but as their forms; so by the way of signifying it is repugnant to predicate them of the properties. Examples: the geometer teaches you, not geometry — though perhaps by geometry; the strong man beats you up, not strength, though by strength. In us there is a real distinction (form and matter) between strength and the strong one; in God there is not, but the distinction in the way of signifying remains, so something can be said of one that cannot be said of the other though they are the same thing. Parallel from Physics III (read in another class): after defining motion Aristotle treats acting upon and undergoing; the act is the same — my kicking you and your being kicked are one reality, called kicking as from me and being kicked as in you — same reality, different definition. Parallel from Plato’s Parmenides (“a terrible dialogue, I wouldn’t recommend it”): Parmenides and Zeno speak as if being and one were two things partaking of each other; Aristotle in Metaphysics IV shows they are the same in thing but differ in definition — the one is undivided being; every being must be undivided (chop your head off, break up the chair, and it ceases to be); unity adds a negation of division, a being of reason. Often the problem is in Plato and the solution in Aristotle; Plato’s lectures are lost, so whether he got further we don’t know — and some dialogues suggest Aristotle’s objections already incorporated. Aside on Plato: in Physics III on the infinite, one reason people think the infinite exists is that time seems always to have been (Zeno: “a time before time” is a contradiction); Thomas’s commentary says this was the common Greek opinion and only Plato said time had a beginning (“in the beginning God created heaven and earth” — and time). Thomas holds natural reason cannot settle whether the universe is eternal. Thomas calls Plato and Aristotle the chief philosophers though he ranks Aristotle higher as “the Philosopher” — as Augustine and Thomas are the Church’s chief theologians, the Catechism quoting them most after Scripture.

His words #

• Father of Lights: James’s name for God; he divides the lights (body; reason, faith, glory).
• proemium: the preface listing the article’s questions.
• common breathing: [ed.: common spiration] the one relation in Father and Son.
• assisting relations: Gilbert of Porretanus’s view that relations are neither the persons nor in them.
• towards something / in something: how relation signifies vs. how quantity and quality do.
• twofold real identity: identity by denial of matter-form composition (abstract = concrete) and by denial of substance-accident composition (all attributed to God is his essence).
• personal properties: those that constitute a person (fatherhood, sonship, procession), not innascibility or common breathing.
• procession: his “better name” for the Holy Spirit’s constituting property.
• ousia / to ti esti: Aristotle’s names for the first category in Categories and Topics.
• man of substance: wealth as close to bodily well-being (liberality, munificence).
• light of glory: a supernatural disposition so that God is the form by which the mind sees him.
• secundum rem: in the thing itself, as opposed to the way of signifying.
• suppositum: the underlying subject in which a form is.
• Natural Hearing: [ed.: Physics]; “fifth book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics V].
• eight senses of in: Aristotle’s list, ordered by Thomas; actual vs. potential (“in my power”).
• equivocal by reason: words like in and out whose senses are distinguished and ordered.
• notional verbs / notional acts: relative acts such as generating, said of supposita not of forms.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 40, proemium and a. 1 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies), read and translated in full.
• James 1:17, “every perfect gift … from the Father of lights” (verse inferred), read from the Mass epistle. Mentioned
• Boethius, De Hebdomadibus (sed contra).
• Aristotle, Physics IV: “nothing is in itself”; eight senses of “in”; Thomas’s commentary ordering them.
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (ordering equivocal words); Metaphysics IV (being and one).
• Aristotle, Physics III: definition of motion, acting and undergoing; the infinite and time.
• Aristotle, Categories and Topics (ousia / to ti esti); the ethical treatment of courage, temperance, liberality, munificence (work not named).
• Aristotle, “the book on probable reasoning” [ed.: Topics]: longing to know whether the universe is eternal.
• ST I, question on the simplicity of God (“was it three?”), articles on matter-form and substance-accident.
• Plato, Parmenides; Psalm “in your light we shall see light”; Genesis 1:1 (inferred); Catechism of the Catholic Church; Descartes; Anaxagoras.

His questions #

• Why did God make Thomas Aquinas so much more intelligent than us? So we could be like God as causes of goodness in others; the superior illuminates the other.
• Is what a dog is and the size of a dog the same thing? No — even the man in the street recognises substance from quantity.
• How would you divide the lights the Father is father of — two or three? Two (body’s eye, soul’s eye); the soul’s into three: reason, faith, glory.
• What did you say in God the likeness to substance and accident is? The identity of non-personal properties (common breathing) with the persons, by denial of substance-accident composition.
• Suppose clay in the shape of a sphere is moulded into a cube: what has changed, the clay or the shape? The average person says shape; actually the clay loses one form and gains another (form and matter, not genus and species).
• Does geometry teach you, or the geometer? The geometer — perhaps by geometry; likewise the strong man beats you, not strength.
• My kicking you and your being kicked — two different realities? One reality with two definitions (Aristotle, Physics III).
• Are being and one two different things? Same in thing, different in definition; one adds negation of division.