Summa I q.41 a.3–4: The Son Begotten from the Father's Substance, Not from Nothing; Does God Have Power to Generate?

Orientation #

He says “we’re in the third article of question forty-one” and refers back to what “has been shown above” (that fatherhood, sonship and birth are properly in God; that the essence does not generate). He does not name the previous class. Verified sources: the class treats ST I q. 41 a. 3 in full and begins a. 4; the reply to the third objection of a. 4 and a. 5 are not reached. The next class takes up the third objection on power and article 5 on whether the power of generating signifies relation or essence.

The class, in order #

1. Prayer, guardian angels, and where we stand (“we’re in the best knowledge”) #

The point: theology of the divine persons is the highest knowledge; what follows will be a step down.

• Aside: how will one greet one’s guardian angel? Dante in purgatory recognizes souls by their airy shape but cannot embrace them; angels have no bodily way to show affection.
• Ordering: knowledge of the soul is better than of the body, because the soul is better; of the angels better than of the soul; of God better than of the angels — so “we’re in the best knowledge.”
• After this comes a descent to the humanity of Christ: “the Father is greater than me” is explained by his human nature; as man he is less than himself as God; among the divine persons “we’ll find out an equality.”

2. Article 3, the objections: is the Son generated from nothing? (“put that in the pipe and smoke it”) #

The point: if from nothing he would be created; if from something, from what?

• Obj. 1 (the dilemma): either from something other than the Father — then something alien is in the Son, against Hilary, De Trinitate VII (nothing in them diverse or alien); or from the Father himself — but that from which a thing is generated, if it remains, receives the predication of what is generated (man remains and becomes white, so “man is white”); so either the Father does not remain or the Father is the Son. Therefore from nothing.
• Obj. 2: that from which is a beginning; the Father’s essence cannot be a material beginning (no matter in God), so it would be an active beginning — the essence generates, disproven before, since then there would be a real distinction between Son and nature.
• Obj. 3: Augustine — the three persons are not from the same essence, because person and essence are not other; the Son is not other than the Father’s essence; so the Son is not “of” the essence of the Father.
• Obj. 4: every creature is from nothing, and Ecclesiasticus 24 has generated Wisdom say “I went forth from the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before every creature” and then “from the beginning and before the ages I was created.” “A hard way of speaking” — like the Eucharist teaching being found hard. Similar texts for the Holy Spirit: Zechariah 12 (creating the spirit of man — “pretty easy,” not the Holy Spirit) and Amos (forming the mountains and creating the spirit). He is “not quite so worried” about these but still about “creature.”
• Aside on knots: Aristotle uses “knots” in two places — Poetics (a good plot ties and unties knots; inferior poets tie better than they untie) and Metaphysics III (dialectical arguments on opposite sides tie the mind in a knot). Philosophers likewise tie minds in knots better than they untie them; like a child bringing a knotted lace to a parent. “I hope he can do it.”

3. Sed contra and body: generation vs. making (“from the substance of the Father”) #

The point: the Son is not from nothing but from the Father’s substance, with the whole nature communicated and distinction only by origin.

• Sed contra: Augustine, De fide ad Petrum — the Father from his own nature, without a beginning, generated a Son equal to himself.
• Argument: (1) fatherhood, sonship, birth are truly and properly in God (shown above). (2) True generation differs from making: the maker makes from exterior matter (the artist makes a stool from wood); a man generates a son from his own substance. (3) As the created artist makes from matter, God makes from nothing — not that nothing becomes part of the thing, but the whole substance is produced, not just the form as we do, nothing presupposed (to be shown below). (4) So if the Son were from nothing he would stand to the Father as an artifact to the artist — “sonship” only by likeness. Aside: Dickens calling David Copperfield his favourite child; but one cannot treat opinions as children to defend no matter what. (5) But 1 John (end): “his true Son, Jesus Christ.” Conclusion: the true Son is not from nothing nor made, but only generated — almost the creed’s genitum non factum.
• Sons by creation are sons metaphorically, by likeness to the true Son: hence he is unigenitus (John 1:18, “the only begotten… in the bosom of the Father”) and yet “firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8) by likeness of adopted sons.
• Difference from human generation: a part of the man’s substance passes into the one generated (“a chip off the old block”); the divine nature is impartible, so the Father communicates not a part but the whole nature; distinction remains “only according to origin”: the Son has the whole nature from the Father, the Father is he from whom he has it — distinct by origin, one and the same nature in number.

4. Reply to obj. 1: “de” means a consubstantial generating principle (“this preposition de… it’s not ex”) #

The point: “born of (de) the Father” signifies the consubstantial generating beginning, not a material principle.

• The objection restated with his example: cold becomes hot and you do not say “the cold is hot” (cold does not remain); water becomes hot and water remains, so “the water is hot.” The objection wants the Father to be like cold (not remain) or like water (be predicated of the Son).
• Reply: what is produced from matter comes about by transformation of that from which into another form; the divine essence is unchangeable and receives no other form. So the principle is generating, of the same substance and same in number.

5. Reply to obj. 2: three uses of “de”; the formal sense (“de always denotes consubstantiality”) #

The point: “from the essence of the Father” is to be read as the essence being a formal principle communicated to and subsisting in the Son.

• First exposition, of the Master (Peter Lombard): it designates the relation of an active beginning — “from the Father in essence”; he cites Augustine, De Trinitate XV (as if to say more expressly “from the essence of the Father”). Thomas: not sufficient, since the creature is also from God but not from the essence of God — it is from nothing.
• Second way, “some kind of subtle distinction between de and ex”: de always denotes consubstantiality — we do not say the house is de aedificatore, the builder not being a cause of the same substance. Three consubstantial principles: active (the Son is de Patre); material (the knife is of iron); formal, where the form subsists and does not come to another (an angel is of an intellectual nature). The Son is de essentia Patris in the third way, insofar as the Father’s essence, communicated by generation, subsists in the Son.
• His working of the three: matter — none in God; active — the essence cannot be the father of the Son; so formal. “Intellectual nature” is neither the matter the angel is made of nor its active principle but “the formal thing.” “Hard to see, but you have to see the distinction of those three meanings”; “if you don’t see distinction, you’re going to stumble.”
• Exchange on examples: he tries “a cube is from six squares” — a student says constructed by, he doubts it is a maker or even matter, “more in terms of the form”; unsure the comparison helps. Better: “healthy from medicine” (active cause) vs. “healthy from health” (formal). English has only “from” for ex and de, so the distinction must be got another way. St Paul: “in the form of God… took the form of a slave” — the nature is what is communicated.
• Why “from the nature” rather than “the nature generated”: if the nature generated the Son, there would be a real distinction between Son and nature; there is a real distinction Father–Son, none between any person and the nature; the difference is in our thoughts (what “Father” expresses is not what “divine nature” expresses), though they are the same thing. “From” there does not mean matter, nor that the nature is father of the Son (that would need relative opposition).
• Student: “Can you say the divine nature is the formal cause of the Son?” — “No, no, no.” We understand it as signified in the manner of a form of the Son, abstractly; but in God there is no real distinction between what is signified as form and what has the form.

6. Reply to obj. 3: “from the essence of the Father” vs. “from the divine essence” (“from words disorderly put forth”) #

The point: the first phrase adds “the Father,” with respect to whom a distinction is saved; the second adds nothing on the side of the essence, so it is not said.

• The essence as the Father’s is distinct from the Son, not as essence. In English “this is from that” implies distinction; so “the three persons are from the divine nature” would imply a distinction between persons and nature — false or heretical. One would not even say the Son is from the divine essence, let alone the three persons.
• Thomas’s familiar line: ex verbis inordinate prolatis haeresis oritur. Nestorius (unnamed: “that guy”) said “Mother of Christ” not “Mother of God”; Protestants uneasy with “Mother of God” — but God does not have a mother in that sense.
• Student: does the creed use ex (ex Maria Virgine)? He thinks so — “very fleshly.”
• Aside: St Catherine’s on Sinai claims the burning bush; there the bush is read as Mary and the flame as Christ’s divinity, which did not consume her; the fathers’ reading he knew has bush = human nature, flame = divine nature, neither swallowing the other; he thinks both are in the fathers. A student: the Eastern liturgy for the Annunciation puts in Mary’s mouth “how will I not be consumed?”

7. Reply to obj. 4: “created” wisdom (“the way of the divine generation is insinuated”) #

The point: three readings of “I was created.”

• (a) Created wisdom, which God pours into creatures (Ecclesiasticus 1:9-10: he created it by the Holy Spirit and poured it on all his works). Reminds him of the second definition of nature (Cassiodorus / the canonists, he is unsure): something of the divine art in things whereby they are moved to their end; Aristotle — if the shipbuilder’s art were in the wood so it built itself, you would have nature. Shows the excellence of divine art; computers a poor attempt (“has a mind of its own”). Not unsuitable that one passage speaks of generated and created wisdom, since created wisdom is a partaking of uncreated.
• (b) The created nature assumed by the Son: “I was foreseen to be joined to human nature.”
• (c) Applied to the divine generation itself: in generation what is generated takes the nature of the generator (its perfection); in creation the creator is unchanged but the created does not receive his nature. So “created” gives the unchangeableness of the Father, “generated” the unity of nature — Hilary, De Synodis. Parallel he draws: we say “God is good” for perfection and “God is goodness itself” for simplicity, neither adequate alone. Animals give true offspring of the same nature (dog, cat, man) but with change in the parents; angels do not generate; in God real communication of nature with no change. Joke: some think God created because he was bored, like a hobby.
• Holy Spirit texts: the created spirit — the word names first a material colourless substance (wind, air, breath), then is carried over to immaterial substance (soul, angel, God). “Not as difficult.”
• Similar way of speaking: Christ said to be “predestined God” — a man predestined to be God. “Case you get out of that one.”
• Aside: his bright student at St Mary’s who came daily with an objection, all of which he had read in Thomas; “I always thought I was going to get you.”

8. Article 4: is there power for the notional acts? (“power signifies nothing other than the beginning”) #

The point: since there are notional acts, there must be power for them.

• Setup: if there is generation and breathing in God, must one speak of the power (ability) to generate and to breathe?
• Obj. 1: every power is active or passive (Aristotle’s first distinction in Metaphysics IX); no passive power, God being pure act; no active power, since active power in its first meaning is to make, and no person is made — “did the Father make the Son, then the two got together and made the Holy Spirit?”
• Obj. 2: power is said with respect to the possible; the persons are necessary — “I am who am” (aside: “Be all you can be”).
• Obj. 3: the Son proceeds as word (conception of understanding), the Spirit as love (will); power in God is said with respect to effects, not to understanding and willing — because power is a beginning, and a power to understand would imply a real difference between God and his understanding, whereas creature and God are really distinct.
• Sed contra: Augustine against Maximinus the heretic — if the Father cannot generate a Son equal to himself, where is his omnipotence? Aside: the point comes up in the disputed questions De potentia, his favourite.
• Body: (1) power signifies nothing but the beginning of some act; (2) the Father is the beginning of generation, Father and Son of breathing; (3) every one generating generates by something; so the power of generating (that by which he generates) is in the Father, the power of breathing in Father and Son.

9. Reply to obj. 1: power to generate, not to make (“got to move the word”) #

The point: power for notional acts is said with respect to a person proceeding, not made.

• Father has no power to make the Son but to generate him; Father and Son no power to make but to breathe the Spirit. Making in the first sense transforms matter; creation is a kind of making without matter, by the divine art — we are God’s artifacts, but the Son is not an artifact, he is God.
• Student: so power is just “beginning of some act,” more general than cause? He agrees that is where Thomas reasons from.
• Aristotle Metaphysics IX begins with ability regarding motion, then extends it (ability to understand, to love, which are not motions) — “you have to kind of move the word.” Metaphysics III asks whether anything comes to be without motion, which he would not raise unless something did. The third cause is defined as “whence first there is a beginning of motion” — the mover; the maker (who forms) is attached to it, not the same; the creator, who produces matter and form, is a third under that kind of cause.
• Monsignor Dionne: moderns “can’t move the word” — e.g. “infused” virtues, stuck at pouring wine in a glass (“what do you think the soul is, a bucket for grace?”).

10. Reply to obj. 2: senses of “possible” (“two able to be half of four”) #

The point: the possible opposed to the necessary follows passive power, absent in God; but the possible as contained under the necessary applies — as it is possible for God to be, so for the Son to be generated.

• Parallel objection on creation: before creation, were things able to be? If not, God could not create them; if so, something out there was able to be them. Two solutions: able by God’s power, not by some matter; or “able” means no contradiction in their being.
• Aristotle’s example: two is not able to be half of four as wood is able to be a chair (passive ability, not necessary, open to either); yet if not able, then impossible. So “able” there means no contradiction — a sense not opposed to being necessarily so. Three-way division: the impossible (not able to be), the necessary (not able not to be), and between them what is able to be and not be; the possible opposed to necessary is the third. Some deny there is such a thing; Aristotle shows their difficulties (book of Wisdom).
• Student: “can it happen that two is half of four?” — it has to; but another sense of “happen” is what could be and not be. Perhaps the necessary gets a new name because it adds “must be” to “able to be” — “I don’t know.” Same with “possible”: in one sense opposed to necessary, in another the necessary is possible; found in Metaphysics V.
• “People are most often deceived by mixing up the senses of a word”, especially common words like “able”; fail to distinguish and “you’re already in deep trouble.”
• He closes: he anticipates the difficulties to come “here in theology.”
• Not reached: the reply to the third objection of a. 4.

His words #

• notional acts; to generate and to breathe (spirate)
• book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics]; third book (dialectical questions), fifth (senses of words), ninth (power)
• the Poetic Art [ed.: Poetics]: tying and untying the knots
• making vs. generating: the maker from exterior matter; the generator from his own substance
• genitum non factum: generated, not made
• unigenitus: only begotten; “firstborn” of adopted sons by likeness
• impartible: the divine nature has no parts; the whole nature communicated
• distinction only according to origin
• de vs. ex: de always consubstantiality; three consubstantial principles — active, material, formal
• “healthy from health” (formal) vs. “healthy from medicine” (active)
• ex verbis inordinate prolatis haeresis oritur: from words disorderly put forth heresy arises
• second definition of nature: the divine art in things moving them to their end
• power (ability) [ed.: potency]: the beginning of some act
• “move the word”: extend a word beyond its first meaning (motion to understanding; maker to creator; “infused”)
• possible: (i) able to be and not be, opposed to necessary and impossible; (ii) no contradiction in being, contained under the necessary

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q. 41 a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1–4)
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q. 41 a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1–2)
• Ecclesiasticus 24 (Wisdom: firstborn before every creature; created before the ages); Ecclesiasticus 1:9-10
• Zechariah 12; Amos (creating the spirit)
• John 1:18; Romans 8 (firstborn among many brothers); 1 John (end: his true Son)
• Augustine, De Trinitate XV; De fide ad Petrum; Contra Maximinum (all as quoted by Thomas)
• Hilary, De Trinitate VII; De Synodis (as cited by Thomas)
• Peter Lombard, exposition “from the Father in essence” (Sentences, inferred)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics III, V, IX; Poetics; Physics II definitions of causes and nature (inferred)
• Thomas, De potentia
• Dante, Divine Comedy (Purgatorio)
• Dickens, David Copperfield
• Nicene Creed (genitum non factum; ex Maria Virgine)
• St Paul, “in the form of God” (Philippians, inferred)
• Cassiodorus / the canonists on nature; Monsignor Dionne

His questions #

• If the Father generated the Son from nothing, what would he be like? A creator; the Son would be an artifact, a son only by likeness.
• If from something, what was that something? The substance of the Father — the whole divine nature, not a part.
• When “the Son is from the essence of the Father,” which of the three uses of de is meant? Neither matter (none in God) nor active (the essence is not the Son’s father) but formal, as the angel is “of an intellectual nature.”
• Can you say the divine nature is the formal cause of the Son? No; it is signified in the manner of a form, but there is no real distinction between form and what has it.
• Could you say the three persons are from the divine essence? No; “from” implies distinction and nothing on the side of the essence saves one; you would not even say it of the Son.
• Did the Father make the Son, and then the two make the Holy Spirit? No; the Father has power to generate, not to make; Father and Son to breathe, not to make.
• Is two able to be half of four? Not as wood is able to be a chair; yes in the sense that there is no contradiction — a possible contained under the necessary.
• Before creation, were things able to be? Two answers: by the power of God, or in the sense that there is no contradiction in their being.