Prima Pars
133. God Is Three Persons, and Appropriating Essential Attributes to the Persons (Articles 6–7)
Class of 2008-04-24
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/133-god-is-three-persons-and-appropriating-essential-attributes/

[0:00] To the sixth one proceeds thus. It seems that the persons are not able to be said of the essential names, the concrete names. So it can be said that God is three persons. or, he is the what a trinity? Huh? Wasn't I saying that?

[0:25] The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, and the one God is three persons. Wasn't I saying that? He says you can't say that. Well, this is an objection, sorry. Maybe he'll change his mind before he gets. Thomas has always changed his mind halfway through, right? Like stream of consciousness.

[0:54] And see some some some simple, solid, only good sense picking up the book and trying to read it, and says, "Why is he always? Yeah, why is he always start by

[1:06] saying one thing and then end up saying just the opposite? What makes you stop in what thinking? It was what is it the great Heraclitus says? Huh? The opposite is useful.

[1:27] So it's good to have opposition in thinking, huh? Because if you're mistaken, you might discover your mistake, right? But even if you are correct, you're answering these objections or these things makes you what understand better the truth, right? Enables you to defend it too.

[1:48] I was first teaching at St Mary's in California, I had one very good student. You know, he'd come in every day in class. He'd have objection, and he reached for it like that, you know, and stated objection like that. And then as I, you know, with the greatest of ease, answered his objection. I'd see it like this, you know, like this, you know. Need to be posed, you know.

[2:10] It happened every day. Every day I'd go in there. I said, "Of course, I've heard all these objections. You probably have heard all these objections, and more objections than the students could even cope with, you know. " So I've heard that a million times, you know, and so said to you one time after the classes or after the course. I mean, you know, I thought I always going to have you today, you know.

[2:31] Always an answer. The other joke about the guy who was. Teaching the seminary there, you know, just giving the old stuff over and over again, you know, and never answering questions or objections like that, and finally somebody, you know, could not be ignored, and so he had to say yes, and stated his question and objection. I looked back at his notes, you know, it doesn't say.

[3:16] Education, what crimes are committed in my name? So, for this is false that man is what every man, because for none of its subjects can be verified. I am a man. Am I every man? No.

[3:42] For neither is Socrates every man, nor is Plato every man, Anyone else? And likewise, this God is what, Trinity. Yeah, for a Trinity. It can is not able to be verified for any of the what, yeah, the the persons, yeah, for for the Father is not a trinity, nor is the Son, nor is the Holy Spirit, but the Father is God, so if we can say God is a trinity, then the Father must be trinity.

[4:18] You know. I was going to get on that. Moreover, the what less universal, right? The inferiors are not said of the superiors except by a what Accidental predication, That's when we say that an animal is what man, right? You can't say an animal such as a man, otherwise every animal would have to be a man, right? For it happens to an animal to be man, right? It doesn't happen to a man to be an animal, right?

[5:03] But this name God has itself to the three persons as something common to what the inferiors, huh? Things come under it, as Damascene says, huh? So we we think of the more universal as standing above, right, and the less universal as being below. Doesn't mean inferior to in the

[5:28] in sense of goodness, right? Therefore, it seems that the names of persons cannot be said of this name God except what accidentally, huh? Against this is what Augustine says. In his sermon on faith,

[5:52] we believe the one God to be what? Trinity, right? Of the divine name, a little strange. Of maybe of the divine name, Trinity. Yeah.

[6:15] Thomas says, "I answer. It should be said that just as has been said, although personal names or notional adjectives, those are things like what generate and so on, right? Generating are unable to be said of the essence. Nevertheless, the substantive ones are able, on account of the real identity of the essence and the what? Persons.

[6:47] For the divine essence is not only the same really with each, with one person, but with what? All three. Whence one person and two and three are able to be said of the what? Essence.

[7:09] So, as if we say that the essence is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and because this name God has as such that it stands for the essence, therefore this is true that the essence is three persons, just as this is true that God is what? Please read. it. Okay. Now

[7:46] back to the first objection there. Man is not every man, right? Man is not three men. So, okay. The first therefore should be said as has been said above that this name man, as such, stands for the person, and from something joined to it, it has that it stands for the common nature, and therefore this is false that man is what? Every man. Every man. Because it cannot be verified for any one of those things standing under it.

[8:31] But this name God per se, as such, has that it stands for the what? Divine nature for the essence. Whence, although for none of the supposita of the divine natures is true, God. is the same. Is a Trinity? Is nevertheless true for the what essence, which not paying attention to Porretanus again in trouble, negated it.

[9:12] Comes out in the fourth letter in Consul, I think. He gets into trouble, doesn't he? In other places. That's kind of a subtle thing he's saying here.

[9:54] He's saying that God, the name through itself or by itself, has more that it stands for the divine what essence or nature than the name man does stand for the human nature.

[10:13] Why is he saying that? Bring it back here to Article Four, ad Three. Let's look at the reply there, making this distinction that to the third, it should be said that in another way, has this name God to standing for a person, and this name what man, right?

[11:14] Why? Because the form signified by this name man. Do you have it back? We're back in thirty-nine here, Article Four, ad Three. Okay. Because the form signified by this name man, that is humanitas, or human nature, is really, in, things divided in the diverse what subjects, right? Therefore, as such, it stands for the what persona.

[11:55] Even if nothing is added, that determines it to the person, which is a distinct what subject. For the unity or the community of the human nature is not in things secundum rem, but only according to consideration. Unless you're a platonist right? you think you got the human nature up there in the world of forms by itself, right? Okay.

[12:28] But it's only in our mind, huh? That say you guys got something common. You're all two-legged animals, right? And the idea of a two-legged animal, right? And it's common to all of you, but it's only secundum considerationum, he says. My mind vaguely.

[12:49] See what you have in common. whence this term man does not stand for the common nature, unless. I just standing again, right? Unless, on account of the requirement of something added, as when it is said that man is a what species, right?

[13:18] That old classical argument: man is a species. Socrates is a man. Socrates is a species, right? We can see there that there's something what

[13:33] that man doesn't usually stand for. We usually think of man as a species. No. We think of man in the way that he is said of individual men, right? Okay. But the form signified by this name, God, to wit, the divine nature, is one in common secundum rem, huh? Not secundum considerationum, right? In the thing itself, it's one.

[14:06] You know, you know, some of the late philosophers there in the modern age, there, you know, they get all hung up on on uh but gee whiz. How can you talk about man because there is no man? It's just individual men, right?

[14:24] And then what happens to our science, which is about man, right? Not about the individual men and all these problems, right? But you're getting to this difference, huh?

[14:36] Okay. So the but the divine name, the name, the nature rather, the form signified that it's named God. No, so using the word "forma" therefore, what nature, right? Now, Scripture sometimes speaks that way too, and says when He was in the form of, yeah, took on the form of a slave, right? And form refers to nature, right? But the form signified by this name God, to wit, the divine essence, is one in common, secundum rem, in the things.

[15:13] Whence, by itself, without any addition, right, it stands for the what? Common nature. But from something joined to it, its standing for is determined to some person.

[15:37] Whence, when it is said God generates, by reason of the relative, the notional act, right, it stands this name God for the person of the Father, right? But when it is said God does not generate, nothing is added that determines this name to the person of the what? Son.

[16:02] Whence is given to be understood that generation is repugnant to the divine nature. The divine nature is not generated. But if there is added something pertaining to the person of the Son, the speech would be true, right? As if it were said that the generated God, right, the engendered God, does not generate.

[16:28] Whence also it does not follow—that's the objection that he's applying to. But we may have to go through all the rest of this. That's the distinction that he's making use of in this later what? Article, right?

[16:44] That's why he says you can't really say that man is every man. But you can say God is what? Three persons, son. Because of this.

[17:15] We're doing the first objection, right? The first objection, wasn't it? Yeah. To the first, therefore, it should be said that has been said above. This name man, by itself,

[17:32] has to stand for the what person? But from something joined to it, it has that it stands for the common nature. And therefore, this is false: that man is every man. Because it's not able to be verified of any one standing under it, right? But this name God per se has that it stands for the essence.

[18:07] Because there's one nature there, secundum realm, right, and not just by consideration. Whence, although for none of the supposita of the divine natures is true that God is a Trinity, is nevertheless true for the what divine nature? Yeah. So you wouldn't say the Father is the Trinity. Yeah. Wouldn't say the Son is the Trinity. The Spirit is. Yeah. That's what he said. Yeah. You said the Father is God, if you don't say.

[18:37] the father is the trinity. Yeah. Yeah. Which, not observing or paying attention to, non attendens Poritanus created it huh Poor Poritanus huh. He was not obstinate though.

[19:04] Okay Now the second objection. Okay. Here, Thomas is making a distinction between the way in which God is said of the three persons and the way universal is said of particulars, right?

[19:29] And and vice versa. To the second, it should be said that when it is said that God or the divine essence is the Father, it is a predication by identity, right? Not, however, as of an inferior of its what superior, because in divine things there is not the universal and the what singular.

[19:57] Because universal is only one subject of what consideration, and universal is said of many that differ in their being. But the being of God is what the same as the divine nature, and the divine nature is common to the three, so it's the same being. So it's not strictly speaking universal and singular, though something similar to that, right? Okay.

[20:23] Whence, just as this is per se the Father is God, so also that the God is is Father, and in no way per accidens. So when we say that the universal and the particular, we say is an animal a man? See, if you say is a man an animal, you say yeah. A dog an animal? Yeah. Per se, right? A dog as a dog, a dog for being a dog is an animal.

[20:57] But now is an animal a dog? No. Depends on the animal. Yeah, yeah. But we say what could be. See, but you don't say it belongs to an animal such to be a dog. Is seven a number? Yeah. Seven as such. Yeah, seven to being per se to being seven. Yeah. But is a number as such seven? To being a number, it's it's seven. Well, it could be, but there is something accidental, right?

[21:31] Now. Is that the way it is? You know, the Father and God. He could be. He could be the Father. And you must be the Father, right? So he's saying, Thomas says. Say the Father is God, and to say God is the Father, both of them are what per se. Neither one is accidental, right? So, what did Plato say in the book of the Sophist? Huh? Want to see the diaries?

[22:08] Like to quote that, you know. Likeness is a slippery thing. So there's a likeness there between what God being said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and man being said of Socrates and Plato. and Aristotle. There's a likeness there, right? And therefore, you might what be step up them because that likeness, huh? Shakespeare's what play that's named for error and what comedy of errors, right?

[22:40] And the errors are due to what? Mixing up. Yeah, the likeness, though. They're identical twins, so to speak. Two pairs of identical twins, right? And they get mixed up, and then you have all this confusion and comic situations, huh? Take a little break now before we do another article. Those articles have been quite appropriation no more, no more appropriate to us. To the seventh one proceeds, we are at the seventh, one, we?

[23:13] are, To the seventh one proceeds, it goes forward. Thus, it seems that essential names should not be what appropriated to the persons. For what can verge or lead into error of faith ought to be avoided, right? In divine things, for as Jerome says, from words put forward disorderly, heresy is incurred.

[23:47] But those things which are common, but to appropriate those things which are common to the three persons or to one of the three persons,

[23:57] but to appropriate those things which are common to the three persons to one of them would seem to what verge upon an error of faith, because it could be understood that either only to that person do they belong, right? Or at least that they belong more to him than to the others, right? So if you appropriate wisdom to the son, then either he alone is wise, or he's wiser than the other two, right?

[24:24] Therefore, essential attributes ought not to be appropriated to the other persons. Of course, scripture is filled with all these appropriations, right? So you have to throw out Scripture, you know, which is meant to what to be suitable for our instruction. St. Paul tells us, huh?

[24:45] Moreover, the essential attributes signified in the abstract, signified in the manner of a form, but one person does not have himself to another as a form,

[25:01] since a form from the one of whom it is a form is not distinguished and what subject, right? Therefore, the essential attributes, especially or most of all, signified in the abstract, ought not to be appropriated to the persons. We talked before, didn't we, about the four causes and how they kind of are applied to God, right? So although we don't really have the mover cause or the maker cause, yet something like that, right?

[25:36] A little bit in God, because one person generates another, right? So Aristotle talks about that third kind of cause. He gives as example the father. Okay, not being God the father, but the human father, right? Just something like that, right? But there's nothing like what matter or like what end or purpose there in God. And this one here is saying, well. What about form, right? Isn't this going to exclude something like form?

[26:14] Moreover, what is proprium or private is before what is what appropriated. But what is private is of the notion of what is what appropriated. It's the same word there, right?

[26:33] But the essential attributes, in the way of understanding, are before the persons, as the common is before the what private, huh? Not exactly clear. Aristotle says in the physics,

[26:51] you don't really have the universal term. Therefore, the essential attributes ought not to be what appropriated, huh? See what he's saying there. You're making what proper in the definition of the appropriated, and therefore you're making the private in the definition of the common. Well, that shouldn't be. No, but against all this nonsense is what the apostle, he's Saint Paul now, one Corinthians one, Christ, the virtue of God and the wisdom of God, huh?

[27:35] So here, even the abstract name is being appropriated to what One person. to one person, right? No, Thomas is going to try to justify what you find in Scripture, right? And he's going to descend to that way of speaking Scripture, right, while thinking about it. Why is it appropriate that Scripture should do this, right? I answer: It should be said that to the making known, the manifesting of faith, it is suitable to appropriate essential attributes to persons.

[28:20] For although the Trinity of persons is not able to be what proven by demonstration, Thomas said in previous articles we read, right, that the philosophers really weren't able to arrive at this, right.

[28:41] Nevertheless, it is suitable that it be declared to some things that are more what manifest and known to us. But the essential attributes are more known to us by reason than what is private to the what persons. And a sign of this is that from creatures from which we. Take our knowledge.

[29:13] that from creatures we're able, by certitude, with certitude, to arrive at a knowledge of the essential what attributes. Like Aristotle knew that God was saying earlier, simple and what perfect. He knew that God was one, right? At the end of the twelfth book of Wisdom, he shows that God is one, right? Then he quotes Homer: "The rule of many is not good; let there be one." Even the poets see something in this.

[29:46] But the philosophers, or we, from creatures, were not able to arrive at a knowledge of the what personal properties has had been said above.

[29:59] Thus, therefore, just as what the likeness of the footprint, huh, or the image found in creatures, we use to making known the divine persons, huh, so also we make use of the what essential attributes because they're more known to us. Now you know that I like Shakespeare's definition of reason, right?

[30:28] And so, following my master there, Shakespeare, my reason has thought out the definition of reason. Shakespeare gives us there, right? So there proceeds from my reason a thought of what my reason is. And when I understand clearly and distinctly what my reason is, why do I love it? This ability that I have for large discourse, looking before and after, right? When I realize what all those words mean and therefore fully what reason is, huh?

[31:06] I really love it, huh? Intellectum valde ama, as St. Augustine says, right? And this is an image of the what Trinity, right? So from the Father, like my reason, there proceeds a thought, right, of himself, and then seeing how good he is, there proceeds love, right.

[31:30] This is not the same thing now as appropriation, but he's saying just as we make use, or as Augustine does, right, helps us to understand a bit the Trinity through the image of it in us, and even through the what footprint, right? And I go all the way back to Homer there, and what he did with the plot, right? Beginning, middle, and end, right? Because the footprint of the Trinity is found where you find a what beginning, middle, and end in creatures.

[32:05] And the beginning is the footprint of the Father. The middle is a footprint of the what. Son. and the end is the footprint of the what? Yeah, so you got these footprints there. Okay, so just as we manifest to some extent, Augustine goes into that because this thing is so removed from us, so inaccessible to us, right? He tries to help us a little bit, you know, even though he realizes that these what footprint and even the image is so far removed from God, right?

[32:39] So just as the likeness of the footprint or the image found in creatures we use to a manifest manifestation of the divine person, so also we use the what essential attributes, and this manifestation of the persons through essential attributes is. Called appropriation, right?

[33:05] Now, how is this done? Thomas says this kind of very subtle. Now he goes on to say, the divine persons are able to be made known to the essential attributes in two ways. In one way, by way of what likeness, huh? Just as those things which pertain to the understanding are appropriated to the Son, like wisdom, who proceeds by way of what understanding, God's understanding Himself,

[33:43] he proceeds as the Word, the thought of God, right? In another way, by way of dissimilitude, huh? as power is appropriated to the Father, as Augustine says, because among us fathers are accustomed, on account of their old age, to be what infirm, right?

[34:15] Lest we suspect something of that in God. So we appropriated, say, wisdom to the Son by way of likeness, because he proceeds per modum intellectus, but also because sons, young sons, and creatures tend to be foolish, huh? In studying English literature, there's a saying, you know, to play the young man,

[34:44] and it means to play the fool. So you know, by way of contrast, right? Huh? Okay. So it's kind of interesting. Appropriation is both by reason of likeness and by reason of what? Yeah. And the Holy Spirit is called what? You know, breath, huh? Because he proceeds by way of love, right? But you know, people are hot-headed and so on, tend to you know do things they shouldn't do.

[35:14] So we appropriate goodness to him by way of likeness, because goodness is the object of love, and also because most of our what spirit, you know, is driving us into wrong things, huh? Spirited, or you know, rushing into where they shouldn't. Fools rushing. So we appropriate goodness to him by way of opposition as well. That's by way of what likeness, huh? That's very subtle, that that distinction.

[35:47] When you mentioned beginning, middle, and end, did you say Augustine mentioned that one, or was that your own thought? Well, Thomas does sometimes. I think it goes back to Augustine too, probably, but but the idea of the the footprint of God, right, huh? Right. Is found wherever you can see something of a beginning, middle, and end in the creature, right? Okay. So the beginning is not from anything else, but something proceeds from it, and that's something like the Father, right?

[36:19] He's not from anyone else, but there's something from him, right? The Son is a bit like the middle, because the middle is from something after something, and something is from it.

[36:34] So the Son is a little bit like the middle, and the Holy Spirit is a bit like the end, because the end is from something, but nothing proceeds from it, right? So it's kind of a distant, a more distant likeness there. That's kind of kind of beautiful, huh? That a beginning, middle, and end,

[36:57] which is what you know the great Homer said said a plot should have, right? So that's called the footprint. There's various ways you can find that footprint, even in in water and other things.

[37:23] So you know in material things, the substance has a form, which is like the thought, right? And then there proceeds from this some kind of inclination towards certain operations, which is like the Holy Spirit, or like love, right? Where you have an inclination towards something. So, so

[37:49] Thomas does two things then to buy the article, right? He first says why this is what appropriate, right? And we're being led from what is more known to what is what less known. Of course, even the order here, the Summa, you can see you take out the essential attributes before you take out the Trinity, right? And but likewise, you can see it from the fact that the essential attributes can be arrived at, but it's very difficult to do so.

[38:22] But they can be arrived at by natural reason, and even Aristotle arrived at them. But the Trinity, not even Aristotle, the philosopher could arrive at this, huh? Yeah. So we use the more known to manifest the less known, right? Thomas talks about this too, you know, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, where more explicitly you divide what can be known by reason as well as by faith. In the first three books, what can be known only by faith, in the fourth book, right?

[38:51] And Thomas points out that the way you're going from what is more known to us, right, to what is less known to us. So what can be known by both faith and reason is more known than what can be known only by what faith, right?

[39:11] So contrary to what some people think, the moral law, right, can be known by by reason, natural reason as well as by faith, and so those things are very well known to us.

[39:24] Well, the Trinity is not known by both. Thomas answers the first objection, saying that the essential attributes—you got to understand what you're doing here—the essential attributes are not thus appropriated to persons, that they are asserted to be what private to them, right? But rather they are what appropriated to making known or to manifesting in some way the persons, either by way of likeness or by way of what unlikeness, as has been said.

[40:06] Whence no error of faith follows, but more a manifestation of the what truth. But you got to know what you're doing, right? Just like you know, even you know with metaphors, uh, there's a certain manifestation of the truth, right? But you got to know what you're doing, and these things are not being said properly of God, right? Okay, this is a different thing than metaphor, obviously. But depend on how you're what you're saying and how you're saying it, whether you can say it that way or not.

[40:42] Okay. Now the second objection is saying, well, the essential attributes, especially when they're taken in the abstract, like wisdom, right, seem to signify a form and so on, and one person is not the form of another, right? To the second, it should be said, if in this way were appropriated the essential attributes to the persons, that they were what private to them. In other words, if the Son alone is what wisdom, right?

[41:26] It'd follow then that one person has himself to another in relation to form. In other words, wisdom signifies that by which right one is wise. So is the Father wise by the Son? Well, he says Augustine excludes this in the seventh book of the Trinity, showing that the Father is not wise by that wisdom which he generated, as if the only the Son alone is wisdom, right?

[42:04] So thus the father and son together are able to be called wise, so that only the son and the father and son together could be said to be wise, not over the father without the son. Okay. But the father, the son is said to be the wisdom of the father, because he is wisdom from the what? From the father.

[42:34] For both per se are what? Are wisdom, right? And both together are one wisdom. Whence the father is not wise by the wisdom which he what generates. So he wasn't wise until he generated the son, right? He wasn't wise except because he generated the son. But the wisdom which is his own what essence. So that's why we have to be careful, with the other thing you know, I mean, does the the Father love the Son by the Holy Spirit?

[43:14] You know, and see what that means, right? It can be said in some way, right? But doesn't mean, um, uh, in a way analogous to what is being denied here about being wise to the Son, right? Now the third objection was saying, well, the essential attributes are what before in our understanding of the person, right? But is an appropriation included in the word itself? Proper. Like I get a little bit stuck here, right?

[43:58] What type of is a distinction here? To the third, it should be said that although an essential attribute, according to its own what motion, is before the person in our way of understanding, right? Nevertheless, in so far as it has the what notion of being appropriated, nothing prevents what is private to the person to be before what is what appropriated. Just as color is something that comes after a body, because body is a substance, right?

[44:41] Color is an accident, of quality. So it's posterior to the body insofar as it's a body. Nevertheless, it is naturally before what a white body insofar as it is what what. Got that?

[45:00] Aristotle talks about that in the fifth book of wisdom. I don't think we're going to get this next one. So this is where he's going to take Augustine and Hilary and so on and the magnificent appropriations they make, right? That help us to understand the Trinity better, And get all of that help next time. I won't be here next week, but the following week I'll be back.

[45:39] Okay, Come back on the Tuesday not next week. obviously, but the week following that. May eighth. What? May eighth, I think. Right. Next week's May first. Yeah, I won't be here next week, but the following week I'll be back. So May eighth, you'll be here. Yeah. May eighth That's the old feast of Saint Michael. on the Roman calendar Yeah.