Prima Pars
114. Summa I, Q.31, Articles 1–2: Is There a Trinity in God, and Is the Son 'Other' (Alius) Than the Father?
Class of 2008-01-31
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/114-summa-i-q-31-articles-1-2-is-there-a-trinity-in-god-and-is/

[0:00] In the name of the Father, the Son, and, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, enlighten. Amen. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order luminar images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Incidentally, just go back to that distinction I was pointing out last time. There, another example. When we say Deus Illuminatio Maior, right?

[0:32] And in the beginning of John's Gospel, you know, he says, and this was a light, lightens every man, right, comes into this world, and so on. This is said of the Word, right? Now, in which of the two ways is that being said of the Word? So you say the Word was made flesh, right? And that the Word is a light, the light that every man comes into this world.

[0:54] Are those being said of the Word in the same way? Because is it only God the Son who enlightens every man comes into this world? You have in the in the creed, you know, God from God, light from light, right? True God and true God. So the Father is light as well, just as much as the Son, right? So if the light illuminates, then the Father illuminates as much as the Son, but it's appropriated to the Son because the Son proceeds by way of God understanding Himself, right?

[1:31] Just as the teacher tries to illuminate you by his words, we're illuminated by the Word. But that's an appropriation that Thomas will talk about later on when he gets into the comparative consideration, in why it's justified. But when you say the Word was made flesh, well, that's not an appropriation. It's only the Word that was made flesh. The Father did not become man, and the Holy Spirit did not become man.

[1:56] So those two different ways of what speaking, right? When we say Deus Illuminatio Maior, you know, God enlighten it's something that the whole Trinity does, huh? Which brings us to the question here in the first article, but there is a Trinity in divine things, huh? So let's look at objections again here. To the first, one proceeds thus. It seems that there is not a Trinity in God.

[2:27] Now, this is an argument by what, either-or argument, huh? And sometimes an either-or argument will what? Proceed by eliminating all the possibilities, huh? So it says every name in God either signifies the substance of God or a relation. But this name Trinity does not signify the substance of God, because then it would be said of each person. So just as the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, so the Father would be would be Trinity and the Son be Trinity.

[3:03] Well, that's obviously not correct. Nor does it signify relation, because Trinity doesn't say something towards another, does it? Therefore, the name of the Trinity should not be used in divine things. Doesn't have any meaning.

[3:25] Second objection. Moreover, this name Trinity seems to be a collective name, since it signifies a multitude. But such a name is not suitable in divine things, for the unity implied by a collective name is the least unity. What God is most of all, what we saw before. In God, however, there is the maxima, the greatest, the most unity. Therefore, this name Trinity is not suitable in divine things.

[4:05] Thomas says it is an element of truth in saying it's a collective name, but he'll say point out some other things. Now the third objection is a little more strange here. Everything that is three is what threefold, yeah. But in God, there's no triplicity like there's no triplicity in him, Since triplicity is a species of inequality, right? Therefore, neither is there a Trinity. Okay, so we'll find out later on the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit are all equal.

[4:38] There's no inequality there in God. So if we say the Father and the Son are double, see, that would imply some inequality, right? Because the double is more than what's double.

[4:57] Moreover, whatever is in God is in the unity of the divine essence or nature, because God is His own essence or nature. If therefore the Trinity was in God, it would be in the unity of the divine essence, and thus in God there would be three essential unities, which is heretical. Okay.

[5:24] Now this last objection is kind of strange in a way too. Moreover, in all things which are said about God, the concrete is said of the abstract, for the deity or the divine nature is God, right? And the fatherhood is the Father. So in God, there's no distinction between the have'er and the had, right? Except in our way of speaking, but not in God. So if we say God has wisdom or God has justice, we don't mean that God, what He has, are something distinct, right?

[5:58] But God is His own wisdom, right? He is His own what justice and so on. We can't avoid those two ways of speaking. That was a question about, in the one sense, no name fits God, right? Because one name signifies what justice seems to signify—that by which something is just, right? And so, if God was just justice, he wouldn't be just, but if he's just, then he has justice, then he's composed, right?

[6:29] So we can't avoid that way of speaking, and we have to negate the imperfection of our names and say, okay, we can say God has wisdom, but that doesn't mean that the haver and the had are two things. huh But. Whatever God has, he is strange person, huh? A strange, strange, strange one.

[6:56] But the Trinity cannot be said to be threefold, right, or three, because there should be nine things in God, which is erroneous. Oh, it's kind of strange. A little sense of humor, there, Thomas. I understand objection. So I don't know whether Thomas is pulling my leg or not. You know, like when he talks about, you know, Saint John the Baptist says, talking about Christ, he must increase and must decrease, right?

[7:24] And Thomas says, well, Christ will be stretched out on the cross, increased, and he'll have his head cut off. I said, no. Such a humor as that, you know.

[7:39] I don't know how his how his audience reacted to that. That sort of point, now. His humor is a little too subtle for most people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But against this is what Athanasius says: that one ought to venerate unity in Trinity, right? The one nature in the Trinity, and the Trinity, the three persons in the unity. So now you know what to venerate, huh? So Thomas is a sharp reply to this.

[8:15] The answer: it should be said that the name of the Trinity in divine things signifies a determined number of persons. So just as one lays down that there is a plurality, there are many persons in God, right? So also we're not to use the name of what Trinity, because what plurality signifies in an indeterminate or indistinct way, right? This name Trinity signifies distinctly or indeterminate way. So that's clear enough, huh?

[8:56] Surprise, he's not going this, but a little bit of you know, even the little things he's careful about, right? Now, what does this name signify, right? Substance or relation? It seems to signify neither one. So, does it have any meaning? Thomas says a little discourse about this. To the first, therefore, it should be said that this name Trinity, according to the etymology, right, the origin of the vocabulary, seems to signify the one essence of three persons, according as Trinity is, as it were, what the unity of three things, trium unitas huh.

[9:42] That's kind of a maybe Isidorean etymology, I don't know. But according to the proper meaning, I suppose, of the vocabulary, it signifies more the number of persons, right, of one essence. So, it's not signifies... much the unity of them, but the number of persons, right?

[10:10] An account of this, we are not able to say that the Father is Trinity, because he is not what three persons. It does not, oversignify the very relations of the persons, but more the number of persons related to each other. And hence it is that secundum nomen it is not what, refer to another, right?

[10:40] A little different distinction, but related to this in one way before. He said, "What does the word person signify in God? Right? Because the word person grammatically is not towards another, is it? Like Father or Son towards another, but a person signifies in God nevertheless what emulation, right? But not per modum, not by way of relation, right?

[11:10] But here he's saying the Trinity signifies the number of persons, and therefore the way it's signifying the person, but not as such, right? And because it signifies the number, it's not signifying what as a relation.

[11:25] Now the second objection was saying, "Hey, we can't have any collective names of God because that detracts the unity of God. " To the second, it should be said that a collective name implies two things, to wit, a plurality of, and how do you translate that? suppositorum huh Of, subsisting things, right? Okay, and a certain unity, to wit, of some order, right? For a population or people is a multitude of men comprehended under some order, right?

[12:05] Now, as regards the first of these two things, this name Trinity belongs with collective names, huh? It has a likeness to that; something common with them, right? Because there is a what a multitude there, right? But as regards to the second, it differs, because in the divine Trinity there is not only a unity of order, as Augustine will say, and Thomas will say there's the order of one from another, right?

[12:36] The order of origin, right? But also with this there is also the unity of what essence, yeah. So Thomas is always seeing a difference in these names, right? Just like when you say the word God of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, is that a universal? Strictly speaking, but it has a certain likeness to the universal, right? But it differs from it. It's not like man said of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, where they have three men.

[13:11] Something like that. But God is not common to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit in the way that man is common to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, because then they'd have they'd be one God only in what reason, and not in reality, right? Just like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle are one thing man in reason, right? But not in reality, not one man. But the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are one God.

[13:39] So you got to be careful. Now the third one was talking about inequality, right? To third should be said that the Trinity, the word Trinity, signifies or is said absolutely, right? Now when Thomas used the word absolutely, a lot of times uses it contrast with what? Relative, yeah. So he's saying that Trinity is said absolutely and signifies like the number of persons, right? Well, number is said absolutely, right?

[14:18] If you go back to the distinction, some of you around we were talking about the categories, right? And when Aristotle, or rather Thomas, was distinguishing quantity and quality, relation, right? They use the word absolute for quantity and quality by relations towards another, right? It's the same way of speaking here. So he's saying Trinity is said absolutely, it signifies the number of persons. Okay. But triplicity, right, signifies a ratio.

[14:54] Thomas uses the word proportion for ratio. I criticize him for doing that. Do you know? I follow, follow Euclid. It signifies a ratio of inequality, right? For it is a species of unequal proportion, right? Just as is clear through Boethius, huh, in his book on arithmetic. So don't don't knock arithmetic. Boethius got a book on arithmetic as well as Euclid, right? There's some other people in there too.

[15:29] And therefore, there is not in God triplicity, but there is a what? Trinity, right? Something, huh? So the Father and the Son, we'd say, are what? Two persons, right? But you wouldn't want to say the father and the son are what double or the father.

[15:58] Double would be said what relatively towards another, right? While the father and the son are two persons, is said what absolutely not towards another, right?

[16:14] Is four is is four double or half? Yeah, you got to say towards what, right? It's double towards two and half towards eight. But four is something what absolutely right?

[16:40] So my daughter has how many grandchildren? I'm tracking this now. My daughter has eight. My son has got six. Yeah. So eight and six are said absolutely right, and fourteen is said absolutely. But if I say you know that my daughter has more than my son, right? Or four to three. Yeah, your son is two years. Yeah. Yeah. Something like three, four. Yeah. It means these different proportions.

[17:09] Well, then you'd be talking about the ratio, right? The one to the other, right? And so she ends up with sixteen and he ends up with twelve. It's still the same ratio, but not the same absolute absolute number, okay?

[17:25] So you got down that distinction between absolute and towards another. I don't say might not use the word absolute in some other sense, but that's a very common one. Very common one. Now the what fourth objection, Whatever? Whatever is in God is in the unity of the divine essence, because God is His own essence. If therefore the Trinity was in God, there would be it would be in the unity of the divine essence, and then there'd be three essential unities.

[18:02] To the fourth, it should be said, Thomas says, that in the divine Trinity is understood both what number and the persons numbered. But when when therefore we say Trinity in unity, we do not place number in the unity of the essence. As if it were three. Yeah. But the persons numbered we place in unity of the nature. Just as the persons or the individual substances of some nature are said to be in that nature.

[18:47] I'm seeing Thomas in the text there in the Summa Contra Gentiles, But he refers back to Boethius in the book of the Two Natures, and gives kind of a little different definition of person. The definition of person in the Summa here is what individua substantia rationalis naturae. But there he quotes Boethius as saying res subsistens in intellectuali natura, or, something like that. A thing subsisting in a what rational intellectual nature, right?

[19:25] So here I see we're expressing just as the supposita, right, individual substances of some nature are said to be in that what nature, right?

[19:40] But a converso, we say unity in Trinity, as a nature is said to be in its what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that way of speaking is is very common. in Thomas but and in I think the church fathers too, that you subsist in a sort of nature, right? But then that nature is said to be what in you, right? Another way. Now, when he say, you know, in the creed, there, not creed, but in the sign, he say, "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen."

[20:24] What does the word "name" mean? Because what does that signify there? That's kind of the way we begin our prayers and other things. The essence. What? The essence. Yeah, yeah. Because the name there is singular, right? In nomine, Latin nomine Patris. So you raise objections there, why do you say in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit? Why don't you say in the names of?

[20:50] Because there's three names there, right? Well, in a sense, without being that explicit, it's hinting at the fact that there's what. Yeah. One nature. Yeah. In the one nature, right? Of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It goes back to Aristotle. says, that the name signifies what a thing is, right? So the name, first of all, signifies a nature, right? So that's the way it's being taken there, right?

[21:15] Yeah. So much better than than simply saying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yeah, professing the the unity and of the three, right? Okay. A little bit like like that thing that in the etymology of the word there, right? Trium unitas, right? The unity, the one nature of the three persons, one nature individually, right? In number, not just one nature in kind, like the one nature of Socrates.

[21:50] Plato and Aristotle. No, it's the one nature individually or in person. So a lot of times you say this for a long time. You say, "What does that mean? Why do I say in the name of?" I think people usually stop and think about that, right? Why is name there singular and not plural, right? Referring to some name other than the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, because those are three names, right?

[22:23] So what's what's that other name? Well, it's maybe God, right? You see. In the Maronite tradition, when we make the sign of the cross, in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one true God. That's what they say. Yeah. Yeah. It's already it's implied when you say name, though, right? Just making it spelling that out.

[22:58] Okay, the fifth one is talking about well, why can't you say Trinitas is trina right? I could say that the wise is wisdom right in God. When it is said Trinitas is trina, by reason of the number implied is signifying the multiplication of the same number itself.

[23:19] But when I say trinum by itself, it implies a distinction in the what individual substances of that which is said. And therefore, one cannot say that the Trinity is what trina because then you end up with this nine things. Because it follows the Trinity with three that there were what three individual substances of the Trinity right? Trinity. Just as when it is said that God is three, it follows that there are three what?

[23:51] Yeah, yeah. Supposita is a little bit like hypostasis in what? Greek etymologically, and therefore it signifies. Hypostasis, if you wanted to write to try to, you know, Because supposita doesn't seem to translate in English very well. Hypostasis is in English, but it comes from the Greek, right? Okay.

[24:32] What? They didn't even bother translating it into English. They just say the supposita. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're one of the ones for this. Very helpful.

[24:52] Okay, so there's a Trinity then in God, huh? I guess so. If you still have some doubts, you can according to my text here, look in sentences, distinction twenty-four, question two, article two, right? But the questions in the sentences come up as comes up in the text of your Lombard, right? So it doesn't have the same order that the Summa has, huh? Okay, we're up to the second article now, huh?

[25:27] Whether the Son is alius, huh? If you know a little bit of Latin, alius means what? Masculine, yeah. Okay. And so it's different when you say alius and if you say aliud, right, huh? Okay.

[25:48] So you got to be kind of careful, right, huh? Mm-hmm. And so you have to kind of follow this in Latin a bit. To the second, one proceeds thus: It seems that the son is not other from the father, right? But in English, you can't capture that meaning without the the case.

[26:15] Um, for other is a relative of diversity of substance, right? If therefore the son is other than the father, it seems that he is diverse, huh, of a different nature from the father, which is against August Augustine in the seventh book of the Trinity, where he says that when we say three persons, we do not what wish to be understood, by what a diversity, right? Okay. Moreover, whoever are other from each other, in some way differ from one another, right?

[26:59] If therefore the son is other than the father, it follows that he's different from the father, which is against Ambrose in the first book on faith, where he says the father and the son are one in Godhood and deity. Nor is there there a difference of substance, nor any what diversity, right? And there you have the word what substantia there, right, huh? Which Latin signifies usually the nature, right?

[27:37] Moreover, from another you get the word alienus right? But the son is not alien from the father, for Hilary. Now, Hilary is a great authority in the Trinity, in the seventh book of the Trinity, that in the divine persons there is nothing diverse, huh, in nature, nothing alien, nothing what separable. Therefore, the son is not other from the what father, right?

[28:12] The fourth one gets down to the alius and aliud, right? Moreover, alius and aliud signify the same thing, but they differ only by the what consignification. Of the genus, huh?

[28:31] So Aliud is what, masculine, feminine, or what? Neuter. Neuter yeah I guess. Albert, the great! He has an explanation of the word neuter, and it comes from ne uterus huh? Not neuterus. Anything in the uterus would be male or female, but this is neuter-ius therefore. That's what explains the word neuter, right? Nice concrete guy, this guy's Albert and Thomas. Now, against all this nonsense, is what Augustine says in the book on faith to what?

[29:06] Peter. One is the essence of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. In which is not Aliud, right? There you got in the new, right? The Father, Aliud the Son, Aliud, the Holy Spirit, right? How do they translate that in English, by the way?

[29:32] Augustine says: there is one essence of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost. In which the Father is not one thing, the Son another, and the Holy Ghost another. Yes, they don't know how to do it exactly.

[29:46] Although personally, right, as persons, Alius Pater, right? Alius Filius, Alius Spiritus Sanctus, right? So if you just used Alius, you don't see what the heck he's talking about.

[30:02] Now it's a beautiful quote that Thomas uses a lot. Answer: It should be said that from words put forth in a disordered way, heresy is incurred, right?

[30:18] As Jerome says, right? And therefore, when we speak about the Trinity, One ought to proceed with caution and what modesty, right? But as Shakespeare says, All my reports go with the modest truth. Nor more, nor clip, but so. So you've got a the truth is something modest, huh?

[30:46] As Augustine says, because as Augustine says, and this is a beautiful quote I use a lot in the beginning of Trinity. Nor anywhere, right, does one make a mistake with more danger. Nowhere is it more dangerous to make a mistake. when you're talking about the Trinity, right? Nor with more labor, more difficulty, you know, something is what sought. Nor is anything found that is more what fruitful, right?

[31:21] That's beautiful. It's a beautiful text. I mean, you can't improve upon Augustine's, huh? Way of saying things sometimes. Aristotle says we should try to say some things better than our predecessors, and other things as well as they said it. As you say, you can't improve upon it, right? You know,

[31:46] like Kierkegaard says, you know, no one's going to write a better opera than Mozart's Don Giovanni, right? He wants to. you know, Mozart's got to write Don Giovanni over again, but that's it. But you see something like the way you know the way or the way Shakespeare says something you know. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince. and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

[32:10] You can't improve upon that, huh? Okay. So I think Aristotle's words are interesting, right? We should try to say some things better than our predecessors said them, you know, because they they said them. Maybe they said false things. Maybe they didn't say it so well. And some things as well as they said them. It's marvelous. So both of these quotes here, the quote here from Jerome is marvelous, and the one here from Augustine.

[32:42] So now we're in the treatise on the Trinity. So listen to what Augustine says, right? No places are more dangerous to make a mistake than when you're talking about the Trinity. You can see what happened: Arius and other people got involved, and Sabellius and the rest of these guys. Nor is anything sought with more labor than here the Trinity. But and this is the thing, nor is something found, that's more fruitful, right?

[33:12] That's really marvelous. Used to have you know I'd say on my birthday you know I'd a few days on my birthday start reading the Trinity reading the Trinity right and that'd be my birthday present to myself. Now it's

[33:34] necessary in those things which we say about the Trinity to avoid two what opposite errors, right? Temperately proceeding between the two, right? That's another quote I was giving from Shakespeare about modesty, right? All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so. It's in between two what? Extremes. Yeah. I usually explain that in terms of saying what. There's two ways of departing from the truth.

[34:07] One is to say that what is is not. And the other is to say that what is not is. Now, when you say that what is not is, you're adding to the truth, right? And when you're saying what is is not, you're subtracting, right? So Shakespeare says, "All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so right." Or as Falstaff said, "If they say more or less than the truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness."

[34:43] He's the biggest liar himself. The Shakespeare will say very beautiful things by a man who doesn't exemplify it. You know, doesn't practice what he preaches. Brevity is the soul of wit very true, but it's said by the old fool who says speaks too much.

[35:12] To wit, in our time of the Trinity, the heir of Arius, right with the Trinity of persons. Has a trinity of what substances, right? So the Father has one substance, and the Son has another substance, less than the Father, and the Holy Spirit has even yet another substance, right? So is he saying that what is is not, or what is not is?

[35:41] What is not is, yeah. He's got two substances that aren't there. What is not, or what are not? He's saying are, right? In the error of Sabellius, right? Who laid down with the unity of the essence, the unity of the persons. So Sabellius said that the Father became man, right? And when he became man, he got the name Son. And then he maybe sanctified us and got the name Holy Spirit, right?

[36:14] Which means the same guy going by three names, huh? And so is Sabellius saying that what is is not, or what is not is? What is is not. Yeah. Okay.

[36:30] Now it's interesting how, then the other main mystery of the faith, the incarnation, right? Then you have the reverse. You have one person with what two natures, right? So in the case of the, you had the same two kinds of mistakes, right? But there are some who say that because you have two natures, you've got two what persons here, right? And so they're saying that what is not a second person there is.

[37:01] And others say no, you've got one nature because you've got one person, and they're saying what is is not, right? But just kind of reverse what is the Trinity, huh? Kind of curious the way God is has arranged this thing. So, but in both cases you have to proceed moderately, right? But then as Thomas so often explained, the two mistakes can't what explain each other, right? If there's really three persons and three natures in God, right?

[37:33] Why would anybody think there's one person and one nature? And vice versa, if there's just one person, one nature, why should anybody think there's three persons and three natures?

[37:46] But if the truth is in the middle there, right? If there's one nature and three persons, you can see how a person can make the mistake of thinking there are three natures because there are three persons. Or the mistake of thinking there's one person because there is one nature, right? And the same with with with Christ becoming man, right? Because there are two natures there, you could think well maybe there's two persons then, right?

[38:08] Or because there's one person, they must have coalesced and made one nature. The Word became flesh, one nature. So it's kind of a sign that you're mistaken, that you can't explain your mistake without his mistake, right? But the man who has the truth, who's in the middle, he can explain the two mistakes and why they're made. That's another sign of his having the truth.

[38:38] So we got to be very careful about how we speak, right? From this great quote of Jerome, from words disorderly put forth, heresy is incurred, right?

[38:51] So to avoiding therefore the error of Arius, we ought to avoid in talking about God the name of diversity, right? And the name of what difference, huh? Lest we take away the unity of the essence or nature.

[39:16] But we are able to use the name of distinction on account of the relative what opposition, right? I said that before. How the word distinction is more appropriate there than the word division, right? And now you say the word distinction is more appropriate than the word diverse or different, right?

[39:36] You know, from logic, there difference there is what used in talking about a genus being divided into its species, right? So in this one kind of whole, right, the genus, the universal whole, right?

[39:55] And so division there kind of implies you have whole and part, so distinction is a better word to use. So if anywhere in sacred scripture, in authentic sacred scripture, right, we find diversity or difference of persons found, right? One ought to take diversity or difference in that text for what distinction, huh?

[40:23] Lest ever one take away the simplicity of the divine essence, one ought to avoid the name separation and what division, because that implies it's a whole composed of parts, right? Which is a whole and parts.

[40:42] Lest one take away equality, one should avoid the name disparity, right? Which I guess concerns the what inequality, see how I'm saying. Lest one take away the likeness, one should avoid the name alien, right? And discrepant.

[41:08] For Ambrose says in the book about faith that in the Father and the Son there's nothing discrepant. But one divinity, and we've already seen, according to Hilary, in the divine things there is nothing alien, nothing what separable right. So you better watch your words now. P's and Q's, right?

[41:41] But to avoiding the error of Sabellius, we ought to avoid what the name singularity, right? Lest we take away the communicability of the divine what nature. Hence

[41:59] Hilary says in the seventh book of the Trinity, to predicate Father and Son a singular God is sacrilegious, right? A little harder to understand that.

[42:15] We ought to avoid the name unique, I guess, lest we take away the number of what persons. Hence Hilary in the same book says that from God is excluded singular. Understanding singular or of the what unique.

[42:39] We can see nevertheless that unique son, because there are not many sons in God, right? We ought not to say that he's a unique God, unique God,

[42:55] because the godhood is common to the many, many persons. We should avoid also the name of confused, huh? Lest we take away the order of nature from persons. Now Thomas Thomas ... talk about that phrase of Augustine of ordo naturae, right? And that's the order what of one from the other, right? So the Son is from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son.

[43:26] So she needs the word confused, right? Because you'd be denying, right, this order of origin of nature. Hence Ambrose says in the first book about faith, neque confusum est quod unum est? Nor is that confused which is one, right? Is it the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit are mixed up in the divine nature, right? Instead of one being from the other. Nor is it able to be multiple, which is indifferent, right, in its nature.

[44:00] We ought also to avoid the name of solitary, lest we take away the consortium of the three what persons. For Hilary says in the fourth book of the Trinity, for us neither what solitary nor diverse should God be confessed to be, right?

[44:24] But this name "alius," taken in a masculine way, right? Masculine, something does not imply except a distinction of what? suppositum. When suitably, one can say that the son is what other from the father, but I say you can't translate in English very well, right?

[44:53] Because is another individual substance of the divine nature, just as he is another person and another what? Hypostasis, right? Okay. Now the first objection said that "alius" is a relative of diversity of substance, right? And therefore, if you say the son is "alius" from the Father, you're going to say that he's diverse from the father, right? Okay.

[45:27] So Thomas says, to the first, therefore it should be said that alius, because it is a certain particular what name, holds itself on the side of the what individual substance.

[45:42] Whence, in its reason, there suffices, or for its reason, or definition, there suffices a distinction of substance in the sense of what hypostasis or person. There you have the equivocation of the word substance we spoke about before. But diversity requires a distinction of substance in the sense of essence or nature. And therefore, we cannot say that the son is diverse from the father, although we can say he's another person.

[46:17] How's that? Maybe you should say another, huh? I suppose you could say the son is, in English, you could say he's other than the father, I suppose. But but another, maybe that's that's the way we could be. Gotta be careful here, though, huh? Some words disorderly put forth by breakfast heresy is incurred. You have a person, you have that alius and then you have a whole other.

[46:50] First Trinity is coming. Yeah, yeah. We said you can see alia persona, doesn't he says it in the text here? Okay. Sicut est alia persona in the end of the body of the article, right? Yeah. Yeah. Alia suppositum didn't even do it. Don't see alia by itself, and you're getting in trouble. Okay.

[47:19] Now the second one is saying that whoever are other from each other, but are in some way different, right? And then this is not to be used according to Ambrose. To the second, it should be said that difference implies a distinction of what form, right?

[47:41] I notice in English, you know, we use the word form for species, right? So you have the genus divided into species by differences, right? So you have a different species or form,

[47:55] and then you'd have different nature, right? So government, we'd say democracy is one form of what government. Government is a genus, and democracy is one of the species. Abraham Lincoln said it's government of the people, which is true of every government, but by the people, for the people, right? So that separates it from other governments, by the people, for the people. So you have different form. But there's only one form in divine things.

[48:22] As is clear through that which is said in Philippians chapter two verse six. That's a famous text, there. He says he was in the form of God, and it was not, you know, wrong to say he's equal to God, right? But then he took on the form of a slave, right? Became man, so, so humbled himself. So form there means a sense of what? Nature, right? You see that in the chapter on nature there in the fifth book of wisdom.

[48:51] Aristotle talks about it. Scripture is speaking the way Aristotle's explained, right? And therefore the name of difference, since it implies a what? Difference of form, and therefore a difference of nature, does not properly belong to divine things, as is clear through the authority brought in, which is Ambrose, right? One of the four major doctors of Western Church, I guess. Damascene however, this is you've got to be careful.

[49:25] is it? Damascene however, uses the name of difference in divine persons, according as the relative property, right, like fatherhood, is signified by way of a form. So you can say the father differs from the son by fatherhood, right? And the son from the father by sonhood. So it's like a form, and therefore you could kind of stretch use the word difference, right? So,

[50:01] whence he says that they do not differ from each other, the hypotheses according to substance mean the nature of the thing, but according to determined what? Properties. But difference, he says here, is taken for what? Yeah. So yeah, I watch these guys, right? You see those Greeks. Yeah. Well, I told you I was I was scandalized when I first was reading the text of the Greeks there, and Saint Basil says that the father is the idea of the son.

[50:32] Well, in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle takes the word arche, beginning, and then the word aitia, cause, right? And every beginning, every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause. Beginning is more general, right? But cause, strictly speaking, you shouldn't say the father is the cause of the son, because then the son would be an effect of the father. Yet, you know, and that's his language, isn't it?

[50:55] Greek Basil. Yeah. And so. I think he studied Aristotle too. Yeah, yeah. So I'm, he's, they came with friends in Athens, didn't they, when they studied there? So you'd have to say, said aitia is taken for arche, cause for beginning, right? Sure. And these

[51:25] difficult things, you know, like like the text that they often quote, and no one knows the father except the son, and vice versa, right? Does that mean the father doesn't know himself? You know, he has to explain this way of speaking. You know, but you can see how it's a difficult way of speaking, right? So, so there's no proper way. I mean, you can't say that father is the cause of the son.

[51:46] There's no pro I mean, No, you shouldn't. You shouldn't say that. No, no. Then they'd be they'd be diverse in substance, right? In essence, yeah. One has existence from the other. Yeah, but he does proceed from the son. Does proceed from the father? That's what we call the principle. Yeah. Now we'll get into that when we get to the father there, because if you looked under the the father, yeah, there will be a.

[52:18] Yeah, in fact, under person proper, where it belongs to the father to be beginning. Don't see a cause though. Reference to the the persons. That'll be the first article there. So.

[52:32] So that fifth book of wisdom Aristotle is kind of important, you know. See Basil, I think he studied Aristotle at some point because his book on six days of creation, his sermons, I was talking about the other day. He he he talks about the four causes, but he doesn't make reference to Aristotle. He takes quotes from scripture. Yeah. To distinguish the four causes, it's kind of interesting.

[52:54] So, I mean, I think he was familiar with it to an extent. But he had the same word there. Idea. So. Precisely. Point out the same time that this thing with proportion and ratio.

[53:15] Yeah, yeah, I even overdoes. No, it became kind of you know established customary for the speaking. So Thomas, you know, a lot of times, yeah. I try to get people to say you know the eight books of natural hearing, but I always say you know the physics, you know, because they don't know what I'm talking about, you know. So so you you kind of forced you realize what custom knows.

[53:40] Shakespeare says, "Custom is a tyrant, " right? And forces you sometimes to speak in the way you know is not the best way to speak, but the only way that people can understand you because they're accustomed to using words in this way, accustomed to naming things in this way. So you got you got you got real struggle there, right? Yeah. Between what's more reasonable and what's more customary, you realize that force of custom is very hard to overcome.

[54:12] Okay. Now the third objection against Upminster. And that's trying to say that alienum, right, comes from alius right, Alien, right. But the son is not alien from the father, right? Who's that alien?

[54:32] Thomas says to third, should be said that alienum is what is extraneous and what unlike. But this is not implied when one says alius at least masculine. And therefore, we say the son is alium from the father, but we do not say that he is what alien.

[54:59] That's the word that Karl Marx made very popular, alien, right? Man, alienated, nature. See books by the Jesuits out. Book on the alienation here in Marx.

[55:16] Okay, now this fourth objection is very important for the what you're doing in Latin here. Moreover, alius and aliud signify the same, right? They differ only by the consignification of the genus.

[55:33] If therefore the son is other from the father, it seems that the son is aliud from the father, right? Okay, now you get. That's why I say it's you know thankless task of translating because there's no way to translate some of these things really right.

[55:49] To the fourth, it should be said that the neutral genus, right, that's the genus he's referring to, is inform, right, Unformed, as it were, right. But the masculine is formed and distinct and similar what, feminine, right? And therefore, suitably through the neutral genus, right, is signified the common what, nature. But through masculine and feminine, some individual substance, right, determinate in the common nature. Whence also in human things, if one asks quis est iste, you get the word quis there, right?

[56:39] We answer Socrates, right, which is the name of a suppositum, right. If, however, one asks what is this, we answer a mortal and rational animal, right. Goes all the way back to what, Porphyry, right?

[57:00] And therefore, because in divine things there is a distinction by persons, but not by nature essence, we say that the father is alius from the son, right. But not what, yeah. In e converso converso, we say that they are unum, because they have one nature. But not what unus.

[57:29] So learn your Latin, gentlemen. You have most trouble with this text, text of Article Two, huh? So should we take a little break here before we do the third article?