Prima Pars
109. Summa I, Q.29 a.4: 'Person' in God Means Relation as Subsisting (Augustine, Boethius, and Univocal vs. Equivocal Names)
Class of 2008-01-10
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/109-summa-i-q-29-a-4-person-in-god-means-relation-as-subsisting/

[0:00] Okay. So now we know that the word person belongs to what? God. Yeah. Now. This is the key thing here. Now, to the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems now, what does this name person signify? Right? Does it signify relation? In particular, he's going to raise that question. To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that this name person does not signify relation, but substance in divine things.

[0:37] For Augustine says in the seventh book of On the Trinity, when we say the person of the Father, we do not say anything other than the substance of the Father. Right?

[0:52] I'd say to itself, person is said, not to what? The son. yeah. that's a text you could easily misunderstand without Thomas's help. Very interesting. Okay. And let's just say I'd say that that way of speaking there. Is an affirmative way of saying something negative, right? Okay. Just like we sometimes say, you know, accident exists in substance, right? We say substance exists in itself. Yeah. Is that to be taken affirmatively?

[1:36] No, it can't exist in itself. Yeah. Yeah. You mean exists not in another, right? So there's a a grammatically affirmative way of signifying something that's really negative in its meaning, right? Okay. Like one. Like one. Which is it's not divided. Something is one.

[2:04] Yeah, yeah. But well, you go back to the example of simple there already, right? Because simple means not composed, right? But the thing is here, it's more explicit, though. So, but like we we speak of statements and we say that some statements are known to other statements. Must be understood affirmatively, right? They really are known to other statements, right? Yes. But now the next question arises: Is every statement known to other statements?

[2:40] Well, because in that, case no statements would be known, okay? So there must be some statements that are known, not to other statements, right? But we speak of them as statements known to themselves. You'll find that in Latin all the time. Per se, nota, right? So now, if you say that these first statements are known to themselves, should that be understood affirmatively?

[3:08] Because then you're saying it is so because it is so. A woman's reason, as Shakespeare says. A statement cannot be the reason for itself, right?

[3:20] You can't prove a statement. You can't prove that it is so because it is so. Therefore, what are you going to say? It needs to be understood negatively, right? Okay. And Aristotle, when he takes up the eight meanings of "in" in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, he shows that nothing is really in itself, right? Quickly speaking. Sometimes you say, "I drank a glass of wine." Did you really drink a glass of wine?

[3:57] It was in the glass. of wine. Yeah. So the wine can be in the glass, but there's a real distinction between the wine and the glass in which it is, right?

[4:09] So is the glass of wine in itself, strictly speaking? Is the same thing inside of itself? But we say it, don't we, right? So Aristotle points out that we're speaking, but you've got to understand, it, right?

[4:25] The glass of wine that I drank is in the glass of wine, right? You drank the amount of the glass of wine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes, you know, we've got to spell this out a little bit to see. So, strictly speaking, nothing is in itself, right? So, accident is strictly speaking substance, but substance is something other than the accident, right? Health is in my body, but is my body health?

[4:49] No. When I say substance exists in itself, we speak that way sometimes. Per se ends, as he says, right? What does he say in that thing there? Existere per se, they were talking about earlier. Is it in itself? Substance? No, no, no. The same here. You say when they distinguish between absolute and relative, right? Relative is towards another, right? And what is substance? And what is absolute?

[5:21] Well, you could say negatively, not towards another, right? But they sometimes say, well, I'd say, right, to itself, right? But perhaps that should be understood negatively, right?

[5:37] So in Thomas's Latin there, when he distinguishes between absolutum and relativum, right? Relativum is always what towards another, right? Going back to Aristotle's prosti. They translate ad aliquem, right? By absolute is what? in itself or towards itself, right? But not towards another, right? Okay.

[6:08] Um. So he says, so he's quoting Augustine it's a great text. For when we say the person of the Father, we do not say anything other than the substance of the Father, right?

[6:23] For a person is said to itself, right, or absolutely, he's saying, right, not to the son, right. So Augustine, in, that text seems to be saying that what A person signifies not a relation but a substance, yeah. Okay. Now, when you get to Thomas and Euclid, you realize how important Thomas is from just that thing. Augustine, right?

[6:51] Moreover, quid in Latin? What? Asks about the essence or nature, right? But as Augustine says in the same place, must be the seventh book of the twenty-third. When we say that there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. Thanks. Text is some question that's a interpolation scripture, right?

[7:19] But we don't have to get involved in that question whether it is or not. And it is asked, quid tres, right? We respond, three persons, right? Therefore, this name, person, signifies essence, right? I suppose someone might come on and say, well, I would say there are three three natures, actually.

[7:41] This is really something about the word what. you know? There's nobody speaking, what does it signify other than the nature of the thing, right? But if it signifies the nature of the thing, than it signifying something absolute and not something what relative, right?

[8:01] Moreover, according to the philosopher, that's Aristotle, the fourth book of wisdom, there. That which is signified by a name is its what definition. But the definition of person is a what individual substance of a rational nature. Doesn't say an individual relation of a rational nature, does it?

[8:25] Therefore, this name, person, signifies substance. I'm even more convinced now of the false side of this. Moreover, person in men and angels, right, does not signify relation, right? But something absolute. There you see that use of the word absolute in Thomas, right? There's a lot of fuzzy use of the word absolute in English, right?

[9:08] But Thomas often, you know, contrasts absolutum and relativum, right? If therefore it signifies in God a relation, it would be said equivocally of God and men and angels, huh? I'm completely convinced, aren't you? Truth must be on that side, huh?

[9:43] That's amazing how convincing Thomas can make the opposite side. Now the moderns never do this, right? They set up strong men. For the most part, they come out their own position, right? They don't bother with stating forcefully the opposite. They call it the body of the earth. Yeah.

[10:15] No, but as I mentioned, you know, in a wrote my doctoral thesis, there comparing Descartes and Aristotle, and Descartes says some things or many things, but some things that are just the opposite of what Aristotle said. They're very fundamental, and he doesn't recall for us that Aristotle said exactly the opposite. A fortiori doesn't recall the reasons Aristotle gave for it. A fortiori doesn't show what's wrong with those reasons if there is something wrong with them.

[10:47] They gave you his opinion. When Aristotle rejects the position of Plato, say, or some other philosophy form about something, right, he will recall what this guy said, and you'll recall the reasons what he said, right. And sometimes you argue both against the position and against the arguments, right. I ask you, which way is more convincing? You know. Sometimes some of the more contemporary writers often they not only have they have some ignorance, I guess, like Descartes.

[11:33] But what's worse than ignorance is error. So what they do is they set up. It used to be this way, and the reason was because, and they give the wrong reasons. Yeah. And then they knock it down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Remember Berkeley there? in his fundamental works there. He says, you know, some people attributed, you know, the difficulty the mind has to things or to weakness of our mind.

[11:58] But I think, you know, because you insist upon principles we should not have insisted upon, right? This is kind of an unintelligible position because why do we insist upon principles we should not have insisted upon? If there wasn't some, you know, weakness of our mind or something, right? But he he's he's touching upon the two causes of difficulty that Aristotle gives in the second book of Wisdom, but not recalling that Aristotle said that, not recalling where Aristotle did say that, not giving any answer to that.

[12:26] we just, you know, said, some people thought this, but I say it's this, and then thud. But against this is what Boethius says in the book about the Trinity. That every name pertaining to persons, right? And I think he's speaking in the context of Trinity, right? Signifies relation.

[12:59] But no name more pertains to persons than this name, what person? Therefore, this name, person, signifies relation. So Wethius saves the day, huh? Now we've got to be able to defend what the great Boethius says, huh? A lot of times I I maintain you know Boethius is the greatest mind there in the church between Augustine and Thomas, you know, but he certainly stands out in many ways.

[13:26] I mean he had influence. He was influenced himself by obviously Augustine, and then he influenced Thomas, you know. Who's the greater mind, Augustine or Thomas? He's having visions of the Judgment Seat. One side is Saint Thomas, the other side is. Well, you know, it's like you know the

[13:56] contrast I was making. fun of my friend there, Warren Murray, for maintaining that Shakespeare was better than than Homer, right? And I was saying I would not be so presumptuous as to decide who is greater, right? And Warren was saying, well, I didn't mean that. Shakespeare's natural poetic gifts were greater than that of Homer, right? Huh? But he had the advantage of what the philosophers and the poets in between, right?

[14:22] I see. So the extant works of Shakespeare's are even greater than those of what Homer. I think you can see that, right? You see. Thomas has the advantage of Aristotle, as well as Boethius and the other people, and he speaks, you know, in some ways with a precision of speech, right? That is better than Augustine's, right? Okay. He also has the advantage of Augustine himself, right? So

[14:55] it might be, you know, following my friend Warren there. Better say that that Thomas's works you can learn more from him, right? Than from Augustine, right? In less time, huh? That's not to say that the natural gift of mind of Thomas was greater than that of what Augustine, right? Huh? In some of these biographies of Thomas of course, there's a account you know of Augustine referring to Thomas, right?

[15:27] And talking. But one thing I remember him saying, you know, was that you're more pure than I, am because he had lived a little more dissolved life. And Thomas had been chased from the beginning, you know. But but I think that's the safest answer to give, right? I think it was was a John the twenty second who who canonized Thomas and said you could learn more from you know a year of studying of Thomas than a lifetime of the church fathers.

[15:52] I think that's definitely true, you know. And there's all kinds of texts of Augustine that you could misunderstand, right? It's not, you know, even in the philosophical works, you know, where he's talking about the soul and so on. He'll quote a text of Augustine that seems to be opposed to the truth, and then he'll explain the way they'll kind of save the text of Augustine. And I think in both cases, something he is saving the text of Augustine what Augustine meant, right?

[16:19] That was that was misunderstood, huh? But again, the fact that Thomas will spell things out in a way Augustine doesn't, huh? I think Augustine, you know, appeals to people more because of his style, right? But Thomas's style is kind of bald in a sense, right? There's no, there's no. I mean, after all, Augustine was a teacher of rhetoric and into style and so on. All the alliteration you have in Augustine, huh?

[16:46] You know, when you go back to Latin, you know, I mean, the the the soul is more where it what amat quam animat the things will rhyme in the Latin, don't rhyme in the translation. And Thomas doesn't try to do that, right? If you look at Thomas's, you know, hymns like you know the the liturgy, you know, for the Eucharist and so on, and the adoration. Those are perfect words, right?

[17:13] And and they're very they're very good as a prayer to use. And after Vatican II, there you know they singled out, in the encyclical indulgences, the most important prayers they thought in the tradition of the church, right? In terms of the Eucharist, Thomas dominates that, and in a way that Augustine doesn't, right? So I mean, and the beautiful things, you know, as I said, the rhythmus says Thomas, right?

[17:39] I mean, he's not trying to write this in rhythmus he's trying to, in a way, make very clear. And Thomas, you know, talks there. There, there's a text there, was it in the commentary in the Psalms that we get. it distinguishes three styles, right? You know, and the style he's doing here is a very plain style, right? You see Thomas's Latin so simple even I can read it, you know.

[18:01] And if I read Augustine, it's more difficult to read Augustine. It's a more flowing thing, you know. Reading Augustine, what if reading Cicero or somebody, right? You've got to, got to become a master of Latin to really get it down.

[18:15] So I think the safe answer is to say that Thomas had the advantage of Augustine, right, as a teacher, but also a versifier, right. And you know, if you if you look at the, I think I think we neglect this sometimes, but go back to, Leo the Thirteenth's encyclical and Sacred Scripture. And I know there used to be an edition there. I have it at home there, where they they print, Leo the Thirteenth in cycle and the one on Jerome and then Pius the twelfth, you know.

[18:48] And Leo the Thirteenth is one to begin with because, he gives you the whole tradition of the church and what the church fathers contributed to understanding of scripture. Then what the scholastics did, right? And then what the moderns did, right? Huh? When you get into say, you know, was it Divino Afflante Spiritu there by, Pius the twelfth. He's dealing more with the problems of modern scholarship and what is good in there and what is bad in there and that sort of thing, you know.

[19:17] You're not getting the whole tradition of the church explaining scripture, huh? If you go back and read what he says there about the scholastics, right, and what they brought the church fathers didn't have. And he says Thomas, you know, most of all among them, right, huh? You know, the division of the text and showing the connection of one part of the text to the next and so on.

[19:39] None of that is is is explicit in the church fathers, huh? And so there's something that the scholastics contributed that no one before or after has contributed, and Thomas most of all, right?

[19:56] I know I pick up, you know, picking up some of the church Fathers you read them on this thing. It's kind of a homily, right? But they're they're off the text because of the fact that you're getting a homily in church, right? And they're applying to various things and so on and. It flows along very much, but it doesn't stick to the text, right? Apparently, and the way Thomas would do it when he was commenting on the Psalms or on the Gospels and so on.

[20:24] So we'll go back to to the 13th and see what is unique to each period. That's the difference in reading Saint Thomas on Scripture and reading Chrysostom. Saint Thomas, it's a lot of attention to cover a small section because there's so much. in it, whereas you could read pages of Chrysostom because he's preaching, and he's running all kinds of examples and he gives all kinds of practical, yeah, exhortation.

[20:54] Yeah, yeah. I think I mentioned, you know, not this trip out to the Gospels, but the previous trip I took along Augustine's *Trinitatis*, right? And I've read it before, but read through it again, you know. But there's an awful lot in there about the incarnation and other things that don't pertain to the Trinity, right? Like Thomas, you know. things Are kept separate, you know. But it's a little more like when you go back to, say, most people like Plato's dialogues more than Aristotle's treatises.

[21:26] But in a Platonic dialogue, you'll go from one thing to another, and it's kind of easier on the imagination, if not the mind, right? And but you have to balance what is said in this dialogue with something said in another dialogue about the same matter.

[21:47] And it's not like everything's got to say about the soul is in the dialogue, even in Phaedo say And by Aristotle, it's all laid out through the door there.

[22:15] So might be appropriate to begin with Plato, but you don't end there. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Sure. So we're up to the body of the article, of Article Four, right?

[22:38] Answer: It should be said. And notice how much longer is the body of this article than the previous article. Answer: It should be said that about the signification or meaning of this name, person in divine things, there is engendered a difficulty, right? And that that it is said plurality, right, in the plural about the three, right? So we can say that there are three persons in God, right?

[23:10] Apart from the what nature, the essential names, you can't say that there are three gods there. Nor also is it said ad aliquid; it's not said ad aliquid, just as the names which signify relation.

[23:30] You have a problem, right? Because if the name is said absolutely and not as relation, then are there three things that differ absolutely in God? Then you're going to be in real trouble, right? If you say it signifies relation, it doesn't. You got a problem here, right?

[23:52] Whence, to some it seems, that this name, person, simply from the what power of the vocabulary itself, the word itself, signifies the essence in divine things, just as this name God, right? And this name what wise, huh? But on account of the objections of the heretics or the attacks of the heretics, it was accommodated, right? Okay. From the ordering of the what council, and in my text of the footnote there, Council Nicaea, as Thomas says expressly in the potentia, that it is able to stand for what relation, as if the word is kind of stretched, right, and and applied to something.

[24:51] And especially in the plural, or with a name that what divides, right? As when we say three persons, right? Then it can't signify three absolute things. Or other is a person of the Father and other of the Son, right? That's partitivo, right?

[25:14] But in the singular, it can be taken both for something absolute and for something relative, right? It's a very complicated explanation. But this is not seen, Thomas says, to be a sufficient Reason right,

[25:31] because if this name person, from the strength of its own meaning, does not have except that it signifies only the essence in God, right? From this that it is said that there are three persons, there would not be what quieted down the calumny of the heretics, but would occasion would be given for an even greater what? Yeah, calumny. Strangest that would calumny there.

[26:07] And therefore others say that this name person in divine things signifies together the essence and the relation, right? Of which some say that it signifies the essence directly and the relation obliquely, because person is said this is not one of kind of false etymologies. Per se una, right? Okay, if you run together these three words, it made persona out of it, right? Because unity pertains to what the essence, huh?

[26:49] But what is said per se or by itself implies relation obliquely, right? Why? Because the Father is understood to be by himself because he is what distinct by relation from the Son, huh? Some, however, say the reverse that signifies directly the relation and the essence obliquely, because in the definition of person, nature is placed in the oblique, yeah. So it's said to be an individual substance of irrational nature, right?

[27:28] So directly it signifies what? Yeah, but indirectly the what? Nature, right? And these exceed more closely to the truth, huh? Now, Tom's got to unravel all this, right? To the evidence, therefore, of this question, it should be considered that something is of the meaning of the less common, the less universal, that nevertheless is not of the meaning of the more general. For example, rational is included in the meaning of man, right?

[28:12] But nevertheless, it's not of the meaning of what? Is that clear enough? That distinction he's pointing out. Okay. So something is in the meaning of what? Odd number that's not in the meaning of what? Number, right? Okay.

[28:32] Okay, something is the meaning of dog that's not in the meaning of what animal. Okay, so something is in the meaning of person, or excuse me, the meaning of person as as found in God. Maybe that's not in the meaning of person in general, right? Okay, you see that distinction?

[28:52] Okay. Hence, it is one thing to ask about the meaning of animal, right? Another to ask about the meaning of the animal that is man. Okay. Likewise, it is one thing to ask about the meaning of this name person in common, which you did in articles one and two, right? And another about the meaning of divine person, right? Something will be found in the meaning of a divine person that's not found in the meaning of person.

[29:24] That's why divide the first two articles against the last two, right? You had to divide into two or three, right? To understand. Okay. For person in general, you're saying this, right? You don't say person in common, but person general signifies an individual substance of a rational nature, as has been said, right?

[29:52] Yeah. Okay. An individual, however, is that which is in itself undivided or undistinguished, right? But is distinct from what other things, right? So a person, therefore, in whatever nature, right, signifies that which is distinct from others in that nature, right? Just as in human nature, it signifies these fleshes and these bones and this soul, right, which are the principles that individuate man, right?

[30:37] Which, however, are not of the meaning of person, in general, right? But they are nevertheless of the meaning of a human person, right? And that's why Saint Peter is not in heaven. Okay. Because Saint Peter's name is the person, and his flesh and bones aren't there. Saint Peter's not in heaven, right? I mentioned how in the Canon that is his interview with Pius the twelfth, right, before the definition of the Assumption, right.

[31:10] He made that point, right, that if Mary's body not been assumed in heaven, Mary would not be in heaven, and that's supposed to have impressed the adult Pius the twelfth.

[31:23] So notice, in the meaning of person in general, is that it's distinct from other things in that nature, right? Okay, but of the nature or the definition rather, or the meaning of human person is what distinguishes one human person from another, right? That's something added to it, right? Okay. So likewise, in the meaning of divine person is what distinguishes one divine person from another, right? And that's not in the meaning of person in general, right?

[32:01] But in general, just the idea that distinguishes one from the other in that nature, huh? Okay. The distinction however, in divine things is not except by relations of origin, right? That's why we talked about origin to begin with, or procession, and about the relations that are tied to this origin, right? Okay. But now Thomas is going to make a very interesting point here. But relation in divine things is not, as it is in us, right?

[32:35] As an accident inhering in a subject. Okay, like my being a father is something that exists in me towards someone else, right? But my being a father is not me. Okay, but in God, God and the relation are the same thing, right? But it is the divine essence or nature of substance itself, whence it is subsisting. That is to say, existing by itself, right? Just as the divine essence subsists, right?

[33:14] So it's not like the relations in what creatures, which are accidents, right? Existing in their substance, huh? But there can't be any multiplicity in God, right? So the relations in God are God Himself. And as you'll find out later on, in no way do they differ from God, but they essentially differ from each other. Okay.

[33:41] So just therefore as the deity, meaning the divine nature, is God, right? So the divine what fatherhood is God the Father, who is a divine person.

[33:56] Now, what does person signify divine? This is a key word in bold in my text, Divine person therefore signifies signifies a relation as what subsisting, right? Okay.

[34:16] Now that why this second position he said before is more closer to the truth, right? Because signifies directly relation, and this subsisting idea, In obliqua, right? Okay. And this is to signify relation per modum substantiae, right? Which is in hypostasis subsisting the divine nature, even though what subsists in the divine nature is not other than the divine nature. Now I was mentioning before

[34:56] there's another text of Thomas I think, in his sentences where he says that because the relations in God are the divine substance, right? You have these four ways of speaking. Because it's a little complicated, you can signify the divine substance

[35:17] by way of relation, or you can signify the relation by way of substance, or you can signify substance. By way of a substance or relation, by way of a what? Relation. Relation, yeah. Okay. Now, if you speak of father, you're signifying relation as relation, right? If you say God, you're signifying a substance as a substance, right? But now, if you say a person, you're signifying a relation as a what?

[35:51] As a substance, right? Per modum substantiae, right? Now later on, you run into things like the uh the power to generate, right? Well, these are absolute or relative, right? But signifying something absolute by way of what? Relation, yeah. So you have those four things, right? But that's a little more. Thomas doesn't give all the right here, but you know, you gotta realize that you have something strange here, right?

[36:24] You have these relations, but they are the divine substance, right? So sometimes you you you signify the substance in so far as it has something relative about it, right? And therefore, you signify the substance per modum, you'd say in Latin, right? By way of a relation, right? And sometimes you signify what is really relation per modum substantiae by way of substance. Those are two odd ways of signifying, right?

[36:53] And you can signify something absolute, absolutely, right, and something relative, relatively, right. Decent, okay? So a name like father and son are signifying relation as a relation, in that relation. Person, since it's signifying something that distinguishes in the divine nature, right? It must signify what? A relation, right? But it signifies the relation the way relations are in God, right? Where they are something substantial and not an accident like the man.

[37:25] So signifies a relation by way of what? A substance, right? Do you see a little bit of that? It's a very subtle thing. See, that's going to solve the difficulties, right, about this name.

[37:42] And according to this, it is true that this name person signifies relation in recto, which I mean the kind of direct relation, right? And the essence in what?

[38:00] Not, however, a relation in so far as it is relation, right? But in so far as it signifies per modum hypostasis, and therefore as a what? Substance, right? Okay.

[38:16] Likewise, it signifies the essence directly and relation obliquo, insofar as the essence is the same thing as the hypostasis, right? For hypostasis, which is individual substance, right, is signified in divine things as distinguished by a what relation,

[38:44] and thus relation signified in the manner of relation falls in the what definition of person in oblique, right, and according to this, it can be said that this meaning of the name person was not perceived before the calumny of the what heretics, huh? Is this the point that Augustine makes, right? Heresy is necessary, he says, for theology to develop, right, because the heretics deny something of the faith, and so the church fathers are forced to defend that and to make certain distinctions and to see things that they would not have seen without this, huh?

[39:29] The same thing happens in philosophy, you know, where a mistake forces one to defend, you know, the truth, and you sometimes see something as a result of the mistake, right, that you wouldn't see otherwise, huh? As Aristotle says in the second book of wisdom, right, that we're indebted to others not only for the bits of truth that we got from them, right, but also even for their mistakes, which, in argue against, we developed our mind, huh?

[39:58] That's very true. About you look at the works of Augustine there, and so many of them are contra so and so against so and so, right? You see, and so Augustine, there's something, you know, as Vatican II says, something ad hoc about that, right? You're defending this article of faith which is being denied by this heretic, and you're getting to deeper understanding of that article of faith.

[40:20] It's not until you get to maybe the scholastics that you start to bring this together as a whole, right? That's the nature of human mind to to see a part of the truth before you see the whole truth, right? So Augustine, you know, as the church say, you know, on grace, the mind of Augustine is the mind of the church, right? But why did he develop the doctrine of the grace, right?

[40:41] It's because of the heretics, right? And Thomas says, in looking at Augustine's works on the grace, he speaks more carefully in the later works than the earlier works because he sees more of their mistakes, right? And he's trying to apply to them.

[40:55] And so this is a very interesting example here, right? There's a very key word here, person, obviously you talk about about God, right? And this, you know, we're baptized. this one was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit.

[41:10] He's a marvelous priest, that Father Vito. He gives very good sermons, you know. He never preached here because he was only. Yeah. I think it's the first time we saw him since he was ordained, and he's been ordained for six, eight years. Father Vito, we've seen him last few few months ago from San Francisco. Were you here? No, maybe you weren't back. Maybe last spring. I think it was last spring.

[41:34] You weren't back then. He used to come here as a seminarian. He was a holy apostle. He used to come around the street all the time.

[41:43] I think our day we had some again. Yeah, one time he one one time he got there and did a little sermon of deal the great, you know. Yeah. Tell you he's very very uh very good. Deal the great, you know, on the on the Kenyonson.

[42:00] So according to this, it can be said that this meaning of this name person was not received before the coming of the heretics. So you see a little bit of what those first people were saying, right? It's not as if the name has been accommodated, but something in the meaning of the name was not understood until the heretics were answered. Um. Whence there was not in use this name person except as one of the what. Other absolutes, right?

[42:32] But afterwards was accommodated this name person. Does use the word accommodatum? This name person to standing for something relative from the what suitability of its meaning.

[42:49] That it stands relative not only from use, right? As the first opinion said, now he's correcting a little bit, but also from its very what meaning, right?

[43:03] Now let's go back to the text method again before we look at the reply. For Augustine says in the seventh book about the Trinity that when we say the person of the Father, we do not say something other than the substance of the Father, right? For person is said ad se, meaning absolutely, right? Not ad filium. You

[43:30] see, Father is said ad filium, right? But the person of the Father not said. Now, Thomas is very subtle here. To the first, therefore, it should be said that this name person is said ad se, right? None at all term,

[43:48] because it signifies a relation, not per modum relationis, but per modum what substantiae, which is an hypostasis. Now, is maybe to say a little more simply, he said it signifies relation as something subsisting, right? Now, to subsist is what characteristic of substance, right? So it signifies relation as something substantial, right? And according to this, Augustine says that it signifies essence, right? In so far as in God, the very essence of God is the same with the what hypostasis, right?

[44:35] So as we'll learn later on when he makes his comparative study, right? There's no real distinction between God and the Father. There's no real distinction between God and the Son. There's no real distinction between God and the Holy Spirit. They're identical. There's distinction in meaning, but there's no distinction in reality. But there's a real distinction in reality between the Father and the Son, right? Because the Father is toward the Son and the Son is towards the Father.

[45:10] The real distinction of the Holy Spirit from both of them because he's towards them, huh? They're breath. And according to this, Augustine says that it signifies essence. In so far as in God the essence is the same with the hypostasis, because in God does not differ what is and that by which it is.

[45:42] Now the second objection is taken from strange use of the word quid there, right? Because normally, especially in philosophy, quid we're thinking of what a thing is. It's nature, right? To second, it should be said that quid sometimes asks about the nature which the definition signifies, as when it is asked what is man, right? And we respond, a mortal rational animal, right? Goes back to definition of Porphyry, right?

[46:11] Sometimes, though, it what asks for the suppositum, right? As when we ask quid natio de mari, right? I mean, that's the more colloquial in Latin, right? And we answer a fish, right? And thus, when we ask quid tres, we ask the persons, right? Okay. Now, that's a bit part of the Latin way of speaking, but in English, you know, when I say what is a man or what is a dog or what is a cat or what is a triangle, I'm asking for the nature of the thing, substance thing, right?

[46:44] Is that the only way we use the word what in English? You hear a strange sound. What was that? See, that's a bit more like this other use of the word quid there in Latin, right? Okay. You heard

[47:06] that. Now, the third objection is taken from the philosopher, right? And there, Aristotle says that what is signified, what is meant by a name, is its definition, and then quotes the definition of person here. Therefore, this name person signifies substance. And Thomas says to the third, it should be said that in the understanding of an individual substance, that is something what distinct or not communicable It is understood in divine things what relation, right?

[47:50] So you're talking about in the meaning of person in general is that it's something that's distinct, right, and not multipliable in that nature, right? Something incommunicable, right? But of a divine person, what is it that makes one person distinct from another? Well, it's the relation that distinguishes one person from another, right? Therefore, of the meaning of a divine person is added, right? What it is that actually distinguishes one divine person from another, and that's something that is a relation, fatherhood or sonhood, right?

[48:28] And therefore, in that sense, the name "divine person" as distinction person signifies relation, right? Okay. It signifies it per modum substantiae, right? As something subsisting by itself, right? Unlike relations in creatures which signify accidents, right?

[48:52] So you keep you keep the specific meaning of relation that is toward another, but you drop the idea of being an accident that you have in the categories. So Aristotle has relation there, you know. It's one of the categories of accident, right? And you don't you drop the genus, right? Common aspect, but you keep the what's specific to it towards another, right? God the Father is toward the Son, right?

[49:19] You see the way Thomas is spelling out. Do you know what Augustine really means? Should mean, but Augustine himself would speak about. You know, there's a whole book there about the relations, distinguishing the persons, right? So it's not true to say that divine person signifies something absolute, period, right? Because something absolute doesn't distinguish. It's something relative, right? But then there's this odd thing that you can signify something relative per modum substantiae, okay?

[49:56] You know, you know, when Aristotle's talking in the categories, he's distinguishing the categories. When he first distinguishes them, he does so using for the accidents the concrete names.

[50:15] And later on, he gets into that category. He may use the abstract name, right? Well, if you take health, let's say, and healthy, take an example there. Which signifies an accident here? In both cases, health and healthy signify an accident. Well, which signifies an accident more per modum accidentis? You might say the word health or the word healthy. Yeah. You see, but the word health seems to kind of signify.

[50:47] Yeah, yeah. So not this distinction is something you know out of the blue here, right? You see, and Aristotle says you know when you talk about health, you know does health really exist? You know, see, and you know it doesn't seem to exist in the way that the healthy does, right? You see, and sometimes I find people you know, well, you know, I one colleague is is kind of hung up on this idea, you know, but you know that there's no such thing as science, right?

[51:18] You know how we in articles and thing you know sciences this or sciences that. Well, there's no science, you know. Science with a capital S. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's only scientists, right? And they don't all agree, right? And now you kind of exaggerate this, you know. You know, because I think the way that you can say, you know, some things like this, but but

[51:46] in a sense, you're kind of making science kind of something subsisting by itself, right? Science, yeah, yeah. Science has proven. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So science is a person that can do something that proves something, right?

[52:08] You see the point? I mean, the kind of distinction there is is not altogether useful only here, but it comes up other places, right?

[52:22] And so Aristotle distinguishes the categories. He'll say what it is, how much, how. Use that in a concrete way of speaking, huh? And that's important because they distinguish the accidents by

[52:41] how they are put substance, right? Because quantity is a measure of substance, or quality is a disposition of substance, and so on. Now the fourth objection, right? Person in men and angels doesn't signify relation, but something absolute. If therefore in God signifies relation, it would be said equivocally of God in men and angels, right? Now Thomas makes a very good point in logic at the beginning of the reply to the fourth objection.

[53:19] To the fourth, it should be said that a diverse definition of the less common does not make equivocation the more common. Okay. Now, you know, I know from experience as a teacher there, how sometimes even students will get mixed up in something like this, right? See, when you say the word animal of dog and cat, do you mean the same thing?

[53:47] Yeah. But sometimes you have a student will say, no, when you say that a dog is an animal and a cat is an animal, you don't mean the same thing. You see? As if because the meaning of dog is not the same as meaning of cat, therefore the meaning of animal when you say a dog is an animal, a cat is an animal is not the same.

[54:06] But it is the same, right? You see me? You see? But you have to point it out to the students, not not to you, just students, but to the college, right? Thomas is making that point, right? A diverse definition of the less common does not make equivocation the more common. Although there is its own definition of what horse has its own definition and ass has its own definition, right?

[54:32] Nevertheless, they have the same meaning, right? Univocantur in the name of animal, because the common definition of animal belongs to both, right? See? But that is a fundamental distinction, and I know some people, you know, if I say an odd number is a number and prime number, even number is a number, it's never mean the same thing. See? It doesn't mean the same thing.

[55:02] As if the fact that odd number and even number don't mean the same thing, therefore number instead of them doesn't mean the same thing.

[55:10] Whence it does not follow, although in the meaning of a divine person, right, is contained relation, right, and this is not contained in the meaning of a angelic person or human person, it doesn't follow that the name person is said what? Equivocally. Yeah. Yeah. Although neither also what univocally right because nothing is univocally said of God and creatures as has been said above right of course there's there's an exception to that right because when God became man then man is said univocally of God and man right but that requires the

[56:01] when you're saying animal of a dog and animal of a man you know Well again yeah yeah yeah but no no there's another thing to take into account that when I talk about names equivocal by reason right sometimes a name said univocally of two things is kept by one of them right as its own name right and a new name is given to the other right so you know I'd say to students how many fingers do I have and they say five fingers right then you say how many fingers I have well four fingers and a what thumb so one of the fingers gets its own name and the other ones for most people I mean the scientists you know they keep the common name

[56:51] finger right because there's something about this one finger that makes you able to hold a glass can of beer as I'd say and so something unique about it stands out like a sore thumb right not a sore finger but a sore thumb right so

[57:10] when fingers kept for these four as their own name and this one is given a new name then then you have certain equivocation there right so sometimes animals kept for the beasts right as their own name and man is given his own name and therefore we don't say that man is a what animal right

[57:37] and sometimes you know you find that the plant is kept for the little things and tree gets its own name because something unique about that plant way above the other plants looking down upon them right and shading them so

[57:59] Whence it does not follow that although in the meaning of a divine person is contained relation not only in the meaning of angelic or divine or human person that the name of person is said equivocally although neither is entirely said univocally right that's another little thing that I talk about when I talk about definition right and when we first talk about a name being said univocally, we say, well, a name is said of many things univocally and said with the same definition in mind, right?

[58:38] And that's a good way of beginning. But then the question is, since the name is composed of names, right? Is it not possible that a name, the one of the names in the definition, might be what? Yeah. See. And I give example. I used to when I teach on that thing when I talk about statement. I give the definition of statement that it's a speech signifying the true or the false, right?

[59:08] Well, now when you say statement of a regular statement, like man is an animal, when you say it of the if-then statement and the either-or statement, does true mean the same thing, right? See. That's actually what I was after with regard to using the definition of animal as applied to man and animal as applied to dog. You might be using words in the definition in an equivocal sense.

[59:42] Yeah, but I don't think that's true though in the case of animal, right? See. But there is a kind of equivocation if you limit the word animal to beast, right? Because because then in a sense it's almost like you're saying animal means a a living body with sensation and and no reason, right? You see, it's like you're kind of implying that. But because man has reason, he gets a new name, man, right?

[1:00:12] But because he has reason, his sense life seems to me the sense life of man differs from the sense life of animal. Yeah, it does. Yeah, but you give the genus animal, you're not talking about that difference between the sense life of man and the beast.

[1:00:28] Even though it is different, right? When you descend, right? See. Just like when you talk about about person, you're saying here when you say person of of you, let's say, and of God the Father, in both cases you mean something that's distinct from other things in that same nature, right? You see. But you're not you say person in general there of both of us. You're not yet talking about what it is that distinguishes you from me, what distinguishes God the Father from God the Son, right?

[1:00:58] So when we call man an animal, I mean, you know, a living being with senses. We're not thinking of his senses. What they what they have distinct from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But this is my guy. This is how the distinction was. I was saying, you know, if I'm distinguishing between statement, let's say, and definition, right, and logic, and I'd say, well, they're both a speech, right?

[1:01:29] They're both vocal sound that has parts that signify by themselves, right? But the difference is that a definition is speech signifying what a thing is, and a statement is speech signifying the true or the false. So that's the way the two of them differ, right? But then, when you examine this definition given a statement, when you say statement of the simple statement and of the compound statement, true and false will mean exactly the same thing, right?

[1:02:04] Therefore, right? This still not being univocally said in the three, right? But in comparison to definition, that seems to separate them all from it, right? So Thomas is saying something like that here, right? But he's making a more general point that we'd still say that each of them is what an individual. substance of a rational nature, right? The same way I can still say of each of the three statements.

[1:02:33] Each of them is what speech signifying the true or the false, right? It separates them from the definition, huh? So now we know what a person is, or we know what a divine person is a little bit, right?

[1:02:52] So what does divine person signify, huh? Well, you can say going back to the common definition, signifies something distinct, right? In the divine nature, right? But to be more precise, what is it that makes something distinct

[1:03:11] Well it's a relation of origin, right? And so it signifies a relation. It signifies relation as something subsisting. Therefore, it signifies a relation per modum substantiae to use the Latin there, huh? Okay. A little bit like you say word health, right? Signifies an accident, but it kind of signifies it as what something subsisting, right, huh? Okay. Or do the comparison, right? You see a little bit of that sort of thing, right?

[1:03:49] Well, healthy signifies an accident more per modum accidentis, right? As an accident, huh? And so Thomas says, you know, well, healthy or Aristotle says healthy seems to be more real than health, right? Okay.

[1:04:10] Then later on when Aristotle takes up the category of quality, he uses the abstract word, right? And he makes it equality divided into habit, disposition, and power, and sensible quality, and so on, and shape, and so on. So this health

[1:04:41] exists, not by itself, right? Floating in a form somewhere. Yeah, yeah. That's what that's typical. I so it strikes me as typically German when somebody uses this. They don't say healthy, they say health. It's just the abstract. We just have to stop here for twenty here. Let's look at the next two. The next two are put together, right, the thirty and thirty-one, because the thirty is talking about the the number of the plurality of persons, right?

[1:05:15] And then some things following upon will be in the the next question, right? So.