Summa I, Q. 42, Articles 5–6: The Father and Son in each other and equal in power (with a digression on dividing things in two or three)

Orientation #

He says “we’re in forty-two now, up to Article Five,” and refers back to “the order of this from that, which we explained last time more at length” (prev. lecture). He ends: “Let’s take a little break before we go on to the last question.” Verified sources: the class treats ST I, q. 42, a. 5 and a. 6.

The class, in order #

1. How the six articles of q. 42 divide (“divided into two or three parts”) #

Point: a. 1 (can one speak of equality in God at all, since equality first suggests quantity) stands against aa. 2–6, which consider three kinds of equality; but two of the three get an attached article.

• Three equalities: in duration or eternity (a. 2), in greatness or magnitude (a. 4), in power (a. 6).
• a. 5 attaches to a. 4: one main reason the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father is that the Father is the same as the divine nature, which is numerically the same in the Son — so being-in is tied up immediately with equality in magnitude.
• a. 3 (order of nature in the divine persons) attaches to a. 2: the order “this before that” is rejected in God; the order “this from that” keeps one of the differences but drops the genus (prev. lecture). In Aristotle’s Categories the first sense of before and after is in time; eternity negates that first sense, “where the word before and after begins,” and where one could be without the other.
• So: 1 | 2–3 | 4–5 | 6.
• Aside: Thomas does not spell this out because, as he says of Aristotle in the Peri Hermeneias commentary, he is studens brevitate; the student has to unfold the master.

2. Article 5, the objections (“eight ways of being something in another”) #

Point: three convincing-sounding objections that the Son is not in the Father.

1. Aristotle in Physics IV (“Natural Hearing”) lays down eight ways of being in another, and, discurrenti, running through each, none applies: (1) in place, “in this room” — pertains to natural bodies; (2) part in whole; (3) genus in species (difference reduced to this) — is the Father the genus of the Son as animal in man? no; (4) species in genus — as man in animal, seven in number? no; (5) form in matter — no, God is pure act; (6) whole in its parts — God has no parts; (7) in the power of the mover or maker; (8) in the end, “I left my heart in San Francisco” — God has no purpose, he is the purpose of all things. He notes Aristotle does not order the eight there; Thomas orders them in the way Aristotle shows in Metaphysics V (“fifth book of wisdom”).
2. Nothing that goes forth from something is in it; the Son goes forth from the Father from eternity — the prophet: processus eius a principio, “from the days of eternity” (a way of speaking that starts from creatures). Like going forth from your mother: you are no longer in her.
3. One of two opposites is not in the other (virtue and vice); Father and Son are opposed relatively.

• Sed contra, “against all this nonsense”: John 14, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.”

3. The body: essence, relation, origin (“three things to be considered”) #

Point: three things are to be considered in Father and Son — the essence, the relation, the origin — and according to each, one is in the other.

1. By essence: the Father is his own essence (an earlier article comparing the persons to the divine nature: no real distinction, else composition in God, who is altogether simple); he communicates his essence to the Son without any transmutatio; so since the essence of the Father is in the Son, the Father is in the Son, and since the Son is the divine nature, he is in the Father in whom his nature is. Hilary, De Trinitate V: the unchangeable God “follows his own nature,” generating an unchangeable God; “in God, God is inside.”
2. By relation: one relative opposite is in the other in the understanding — you cannot understand double without half. “Four is double of two because two is half of four”: is that really an argument? “I’m taller than you, therefore you’re shorter than me.” Aristotle had said this; “these guys really understood relatives.”
3. By origin: the going forth of the understandable word is not to something outside; it remains in the one saying it. When I produce a thought it stays in my mind, an image stays in my imagination — not like making a chair. So “in the beginning was the Word” is read two ways: “beginning” as of duration (signifying the Word’s eternity), or applied to the Father: in the Father was the Word.

• The same reasoning holds for the Holy Spirit.
• Aside: reading Metaphysics V on “necessary” this morning — after explaining the word, Aristotle draws corollaries: the first being is necessary through itself, therefore cannot be composed, therefore altogether simple; “marvelous.” Thomas likewise begins the divine substance with simplicity before perfection; Aristotle’s chapter on “perfect” will give the ways God is perfect, different from the ways creatures are.

4. Reply to the first: nearest to the seventh sense (“in the principio originante”) #

Point: creatures do not sufficiently represent what is of God, so none of the eight ways holds; but it approaches most the seventh, being in the originating principle.

• Aristotle defining the mover cause, “whence first there is the beginning of motion,” resembles saying the Father is the beginning of the Son. Yet it falls short because created things lack unity of nature between beginning and what is from it: “I don’t have the same nature in number that my father had,” only in species; the Son has the Father’s nature numerically.
• Digression on Aristotle’s method: he gives only “the central senses” of a common word; others are led back to them. Thomas asks in Physics IV, “what about in time?” — led back to in-place, since place is an extrinsic measure of the body (the two-cup glass), time measures motion and things subject to it; not to part-and-whole, “quite different.” Same with “beginning” in Metaphysics V: beginning of the road, of the motion over it, of the time it takes — they correspond; and with before and after: as Framingham is before Boston, the trip Worcester–Framingham is before Framingham–Boston, and its time before. Categories defines before in time explicitly; before in motion and in magnitude reduce to it. So other senses are joined to the side of the central ones, with a forward movement from first to eighth: “it’s very subtle what Aristotle does.” Hence “in the Father” is led back to the seventh sense “a bit, but it’s not the same exactly.”

5. Replies to the second and third (“as the thought goes forward from the heart”) #

• Second: the Son’s going forth is not like the creature’s going forth from God, but a going forth that stays inside — the thought proceeds from the heart and remains, the image from the imagination and remains. So the procession in God is only by distinction of relations, not by any essential distance (aside: “that’s what Balthasar likes to speak about, distance”).
• Third: Father and Son are opposed by relation, not by essence or substance — the main reason for their being one in the other (why a. 5 is attached to a. 4); and of relative opposites one is in the other: you cannot understand Father without Son.

6. Digression: dividing the articles of faith (“the rule of two or three or both”) #

Point: from “Father can’t be understood without Son” he explains his own division of the articles of faith, then generalises to a rule of division.

• Thomas gives two divisions for the articles on the divinity: three (Father, Son, Spirit) or one (their unity). He takes “the middle position,” two: the distinction of Father and Son (one knowledge, like double and half; Thomas says one need not take up the name Son separately once Father is taken up), and the distinction of the Holy Spirit from them (“the breather and the breathed”), matching the two processions.
• Total: divinity six, humanity six, twelve, “the name of the apostles” (a playful attachment, “kind of beautiful”). Divinity: one on the divinity of God, two on the distinctions, three on the effects — creation, sanctification, glorification.
• Humanity of Christ, two ways: from Psalm 8, articles of descent (becoming man/emptying, death, descent into hell) and of ascent (resurrection, ascension, second coming) — he merits the ascent by the descent, “he who humbles himself should be exalted”; or from the Te Deum, three: becoming man, death on the cross, then what the merits obtain — descent (beatific vision, goods of soul), resurrection (goods of body), ascension (exterior goods, “a good place”) — and third, coming to judge.
• Creeds: Nicene-Constantinopolitan divides by three (Father, Son, Spirit, with appropriations like creation); Athanasian by two, divinity and humanity of Christ — Thomas uses this in the Compendium of Theology from John 17: eternal life is to know the Father and him whom he sent; belief is a praelibatio, foretaste, of eternal life. “I don’t think you can say one is correct and one incorrect.”
• The rule “of two or three or both”: Aristotle praises Homer for the plot with beginning, middle, end (three), but later divides it into tying and untying the knot (two), and both illuminate. Categories lists six kinds of motion bare, “absolutely incredible”; Physics V divides change into three, one into three, one of those into two = six. Categories lists ten genera; Thomas reaches ten by twos and threes in the Physics III commentary (action and passion) and Metaphysics V (being according to figures of predication). John divided into two, Matthew into three; for Mark and Luke “the rest is silence.” Psalms: Thomas rejects other divisions and adopts Augustine’s threefold one, matching the three-part division of the Our Father’s petitions. He keeps “a little reticence”: the reason is partly on the side of things, partly of our mind.

7. Article 6, objections and sed contra (“equal to the father by power”) #

Point: the third equality, in power; three objections then the decisive text.

1. John 5: the Son can do nothing a se, from himself, except what he sees the Father doing — “the subordinate artist”; but the Father can act from himself. (He checks the translation: “of himself” — but it’s a se.)
2. Greater is the power of one who commands and teaches than of one who obeys and hears; the Father commands (John 14, “as the Father has given a command to me, so I do”), teaches (John 5, shows him everything he does), the Son hears (John 5, “as I hear, so I judge”; “my teaching is not my own” — “really true about me, but is it true about him?”).
3. “The extended one”: Augustine, Contra Maximinum — if the Father could not generate one equal to himself, where is his omnipotent power? But the Son cannot generate a son; so not everything of the Father’s omnipotence can the Son do.

• “I’m convinced, aren’t you? Take a nap.” Without this dialectic first “your mind will run forward too fast”; against Friar Laurence, “wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
• Sed contra, John 5:19, “very important”: whatever the Father does, the Son does similiter, likewise. If the Son were a tool, one would not say whatever Michelangelo does his chisel and hammer do in the same way — in some way they do it, but being moved, not equally.

8. The body: power follows perfection of nature (“follows as the night the day”) #

1. Power of acting follows the perfection of nature: in creatures, the more perfect a nature the more power and activity.
2. Shown above: the very notion of divine fatherhood and sonship requires the Son be equal to the Father in magnitude, i.e., in perfection of nature.
3. Therefore equal in power; same for the Holy Spirit with respect to both.

• This shows another reason why equal magnitude is treated before equal power: he reasons from the one to the other. Thomas will not “leave the cistern open” — he closes it by replying.

9. The replies: per se, not a se (“acts per se… does not act a se”) #

• First: “cannot a se” subtracts no power, since at once is joined “whatever the Father does the Son does likewise”; it shows the Son has his power from the Father, from whom he has his nature. Hilary, De Trinitate IX: this is the unity of the divine nature, that the Son acts per se but does not act a se. “Very subtle distinction”: not a tool (then not per se), but not from himself, since nature and power are from the Father; Thomas holds onto the Scripture text and its “in the same way.” “I find myself kind of boring… but in this case I find this very interesting.”
• Second: the Father’s showing and the Son’s hearing mean only that the Father communicates knowledge as he communicates the divine nature, which is the same as divine knowledge; the command likewise: from eternity, in generating him, he gave him the knowledge and will of things to be done. One could refer it to Christ’s human nature, “but that’s the easy way out.” The Son “hears” because he is the Word proceeding from the Father: the Father spoke, the Son heard — Scripture’s “beautiful ways” of touching the generation.
• Third: the objection changes quid into ad aliquid. As the same essence is fatherhood in the Father and sonship in the Son, so the same power is that by which the Father generates and the Son is generated; whatever the Father can, the Son can; it does not follow he can generate, since generation signifies only a relation in God, in the manner of an act. Same omnipotence, but the Father has it as giving (“able to generate”), the Son as receiving (“can be generated”). Notional acts are not really different from the relations (seen before); power is not in the category of relation, so a difference of relation is not a difference of power — “very subtle,” involving much seen before.

His words #

• “Natural Hearing” — Aristotle’s Physics.
• “fifth book of wisdom” — Metaphysics V.
• studens brevitate — Thomas on Aristotle: studious to be brief.
• discurrenti — running through; the broad sense of discourse, going from one thing to another.
• processus eius a principio — the prophet’s text for the Son’s eternal going forth.
• transmutatio — changeover; excluded from the Father’s communicating his essence.
• principio originante — the originating beginning; the seventh sense of “in.”
• “central senses” — his name for the senses Aristotle gives, to which others are led back.
• praelibatio — foretaste; belief as foretaste of eternal life.
• “rule of two or three or both” — his rule of division.
• a se vs. per se — from himself vs. by himself; the Son acts per se, not a se.
• similiter — in the same way (John 5:19).
• quid / ad aliquid — what vs. toward-something; generation is ad aliquid in the manner of an act.
• “notional acts” — not really different from the relations though signified as acts.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, ST I, q. 42, a. 5 (objections, sed contra, body, replies).
• Thomas, ST I, q. 42, a. 6 (objections, sed contra, body, replies).
• John 14 (“I am in the Father”); John 5:19 and John 5 (a se; shows him everything; as I hear so I judge); John 14 (command).
• Hilary, De Trinitate V and IX (as quoted by Thomas).
• Augustine, Contra Maximinum (as quoted by Thomas). Mentioned
• Aristotle, Physics IV (eight senses of “in”; in time); Physics V (division of change); Physics III with Thomas’s commentary (action and passion).
• Aristotle, Categories (before and after; six kinds of motion; ten genera).
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (“necessary,” “beginning,” “perfect,” being by figures of predication).
• Aristotle, Poetics (plot; Homer) (inferred).
• Thomas, commentary on Peri Hermeneias; Compendium of Theology; commentary on Psalms; ST I on divine simplicity and on the persons compared to the essence.
• Psalm 8; the Te Deum; Nicene-Constantinopolitan and Athanasian Creeds; John 17.
• Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Friar Laurence) and Hamlet (“the rest is silence”) (inferred).

His questions #

• Why attach article 5 to article 4? Because the Father is the same as the divine nature, numerically the same in the Son — equality in magnitude.
• Is the Father in the Son in any of Aristotle’s eight senses of “in”? In none; it approaches the seventh (in the originating principle) but falls short for lack of unity of nature in creatures.
• “Four is double of two because two is half of four” — is that really an argument? No; you cannot know one relative without the other.
• If the Son goes forth from the Father, how is he still in him? As the thought goes forth from the heart and remains in it; distinction of relations, not distance.
• How many articles of faith on the divinity, three or one? He takes two: the distinction of Father and Son, and of the Spirit from both.
• Why is equal magnitude treated before equal power? Because power follows the perfection of nature, so equal power is reasoned from equal nature.
• How can the Son do nothing a se and yet do all the Father does? He acts per se, not a se: his power is from the Father, as his nature is (Hilary).
• If the Son cannot generate, does he lack the Father’s omnipotence? No; generation signifies a relation in the manner of an act; a difference in relation is not a difference in power.