The Summa of Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas volume 1
1. Is there reason to speak of equality between divine Persons?
2. Is the person who proceeds equal in eternity to the person from whom he proceeds?
3. Is there an order between the divine Persons?
4. Are the divine Persons equal in greatness?
5. Are they inside each other?
6. Are they equal in power?
Article 1 — Is there reason to speak of equality between the divine Persons?
Objections:
1. Who says equality, says identical quantity on both sides, according to Aristotle. Now there is no quantity among the divine Persons. No continuous quantity, first: nor intrinsic, or magnitude; nor extrinsic: place or time. Nor is it the discrete quantity, or number, that will give rise to an equality here, because two people are more than one. Therefore, no equality between the divine Persons.
2 . It has already been said: the divine Persons are of unique essence. And we thus signify the essence as a form. However, having the same shape establishes a relationship of similarity, and not of equality. Let us therefore speak of similarity between the divine Persons, but not of equality.
3 . Equality is always reciprocal: in other words, we are equal to our equal. But the divine Persons cannot be said to be equal
to each other. S. Augustine writes in fact: “The image which reproduces its model to perfection is indeed equal to it; but he is not equal to his image. ” Now the image of the Father is the Son. So the Father is not equal to the Son. Therefore, there is no equality among the divine Persons.
4. Equality is a relationship. But there is no relationship common to all people; on the contrary, it is through their relationships that they are distinguished from each other. Equality therefore does not suit divine Persons.
On the contrary , S. Athanasius says in his Creed: “The three co-eternal Persons are equal to each other. ”
Answer:
The equality of the divine Persons is a necessary conclusion Indeed, according to the Philosopher, there is equality when there is no difference in more or less. And precisely, among the divine Persons, one cannot posit the slightest difference in terms of more or less. It is Boethius who says it: “Those do not escape the risk of dividing the divinity, who add more or less, like the Arians, who tear the Trinity by introducing degrees, and make it one plurality. ”
Here's why. Unequal things cannot have the same quantity, numerically the same. Now, in God, quantity is nothing other than essence. It follows that, if there were the slightest inequality between the divine Persons, they would not have a single essence, in other words, the three Persons would not be one God. This being impossible, we must admit the equality of the divine Persons.
Solutions:
1 . Quantity is of two kinds. The quantity of mass, or dimensional quantity, only exists in corporeal beings; it obviously has no place in the divine Persons. Virtual quantity measures the perfection of a nature or form; it is what we are talking about when we speak of a thing “more or less hot”; we mean that it is more or less perfect in this type of quality which is heat. Now, we can consider virtual quantity first in its root, that is to say in the very perfection of form or nature; in this sense, we will speak of spiritual greatness, as we speak of great heat, because of its intensity or perfection. S. Augustine said: “For things which are great otherwise than by mass, to be greater is to be better”; and we know that “better” designates a more perfect. Secondly, we can consider virtual quantity in the effects of form. Of these effects, the first is being, because everything has being according to its form; the second is the operation, because every agent acts by virtue of its form. The virtual quantity will therefore be verified both in being and in operation. In being first, in the sense that things of a more perfect nature have a greater duration; in the operation too, in the sense that more perfect natures are more powerful to act. And this is precisely, according to St. Augustine, how the equality between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is understood: “It is that none of them precedes the other in eternity, does not surpass him in greatness, nor surpasses him in power. ”
2 . When the comparison concerns the virtual quantity, equality implies similarity, with the addition that it excludes any difference of degree.
In fact, all things which have the same form can be said to be similar, even if they participate unequally in this form; We thus say that air is similar to fire in its heat. But we cannot say they are equal if one participates in this form more perfectly than the other. Now the Father and the Son not only have one and the same nature, but they have it as perfectly as the other: therefore we say, not only against Eunomius, that the Son is similar to the Father, but also, against Arius, that he is equal to the Father.
3.Equality and similarity can be expressed in God by two kinds of words: nouns and verbs. When we use names, it is really about equality and mutual similarity that we are talking about between divine persons: the Son is equal and similar to the Father, and vice versa. The reason is that the essence does not belong to the Father any more than to the Son; also, just as the Son has the greatness of the Father, in other words is equal to the Father, so also the Father has the greatness of the Son, in other words is equal to the Son. But in creatures “there is no reciprocity of equality and similarity,” says Dionysius i. We clearly say that effects are similar to causes, insofar as they possess the form of their cause; but the converse is not true, because the form is in the cause primarily, in the effect secondaryly. As for the verbs, they mean equality with movement. And if it is true that in God there is no movement, at least there is a sort of “receiving”. Therefore, because the Son receives from the Father that which makes him equal, we say that the Son is equal to the Father, and not the other way around.
4 . In the divine Persons, thought will find nothing more than the essence in which they commune, and the relations which distinguish them. Now, equality between persons implies these two aspects: distinction of persons, first, because no one is equal to themselves; unity of essence, then, because if people are equal to each other, it is because they have the same size and essence. Moreover, it is clear that, from oneself to oneself, there is no real relationship; no more from one relationship to another. For example, when we say that paternity is opposed to filiation, the opposition is not a relationship which would occur between paternity and filiation. Otherwise, in both cases, we would multiply the relationships to infinity.
Therefore equality, and likewise similarity, is not, in the divine Persons, a real relationship to be distinguished from personal relationships; it includes in its concept both the distinct relationships of people and the unity of essence. Hence this word from the Master of Sentences: here “the denomination alone is relative”
Article 2 – Is the person who proceeds equal in eternity to the one from whom he proceeds?
Objections:
1.The Son, for example, is not co-eternal with the Father. Arius, in fact, listed twelve modes of generation (all tainted by some inequality). As a type of the first mode, he cites the genesis of the line by the point: in this mode, equality in simplicity is lacking. Second mode: the emission of the sun's rays; here, no equality in kind. Third mode: the impression of a mark by the seal; here, no consubstantiality, no effective power communicated either. Fourth mode: the inspiration of good will by God: no more consubstantiality. Fifth mode: the accident which proceeds from the substance; but the accident is not sustainable. Sixth mode: the abstraction of a form outside its matter (thus meaning extracts the species from the sensible thing); here, there is no equal simplicity and spirituality on both sides. Seventh mode: the excitation of will by thought; but this process is accomplished over time. Eighth mode: change of figure (thus bronze becomes statue); this is a material mode. Ninth mode: the movement produced by a motor; here there is cause and effect. Tenth mode: the genesis of species from the genus; such a mode is repugnant to God, because we do not attribute the Father to the Son as we attribute a genus to his species. Eleventh mode: artistic creation (the external box proceeds from the box designed in thought); we still have effect and cause Twelfth mode: the birth of the living (thus man is born of his father); here, the principle precedes the effect in time.
In short, it emerges from this investigation that, whatever way one being proceeds from another, equality is lacking between them, equality of nature or duration. Therefore if the Son proceeds from the Father, it will be necessary to admit either that he is inferior to the Father, or that he is posterior to him, unless he is both.
2 . Everything that comes from another has a principle. But that which is eternal has no principle. The Son is therefore not eternal, nor is the Holy Spirit.
3 . What becomes corrupt ceases to be. Therefore what is generated begins to be; because it is for this very reason that we generate it: so that it may be. Now the Son is begotten by the Father. Therefore he begins to be, and is not co-eternal with the Father.
4 . If the Son is begotten by the Father, either he is always begotten, or we can designate the moment of his generation. Let us assume that it is always generated. As long as a thing is in the process of generation, it is imperfect; we see this clearly for successive beings such as time, movement, which are in perpetual becoming. It would follow that the Son would always be imperfect: an unacceptable consequence. It is therefore that there is a given moment, which is the moment of the generation of the Son; and before this moment, the Son did not exist.
In the opposite direction, S. Athanasius says: “The Persons are all three co-eternal to each other. ”
Answer:
That the Son is co-eternal with the Father is a necessary thesis, as the following consideration will show. Being from a principle can be posterior to its principle either because of the agent or because of the action. As for the agent, let us further distinguish the case of the voluntary agent and that of the natural agent. The voluntary agent has the choice of time; as it is in his power to choose the form to give to the effect, as we said above, it is also in his power to choose the time in which to produce the effect. For the natural agent, there is also an anteriority of the principle in relation to the effect, when the agent, not possessing the perfection of his natural power of action from the first time, only achieves it at the end of 'some time. On the side of the action, what can prevent the effect would not exist from this same moment, but only at the end of the action.
Now, it is clear from our previous statements that the Father generates his Son not by will, but by nature; that furthermore, the nature of the Father is perfect from all eternity; finally that the action by which the Father produces the Son is not successive; otherwise, the Son of God would be generated progressively, that is to say from a material generation linked to movement: an impossible thing. Thus the Son of God is indeed co-eternal with the Father, and the Holy Spirit co-eternal with both.
Solutions:
1 . S. Augustine said it: there is no created mode of procession which can perfectly represent the divine generation. It is therefore necessary to form an analog representation from multiple modes, one replacing in some way the defect of the other. This is how we read in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus: “The name of Splendor reveals to us that the Son co-exists with the Father and is co-eternal with him; that of Verb shows us that it is a birth without passivity; that of Son insinuates to us his consubstantiality. ” Of all these similarities, however, it is the procession of the word emanating from the intellect which constitutes the most formal representation; but the verb is posterior to its principle only in the case of an intellect passing from power to act, a condition absolutely foreign to God.
2 . Eternity excludes any beginning or principle of duration, but not any principle of origin.
3 . All corruption is change; this is why what becomes corrupt begins to no longer be or ceases to be. But eternal generation is not a change, as we have said enough.
4.In time, we distinguish the indivisible, that is to say the instant, and that which lasts, that is to say time. But, in eternity, the indivisible instant itself always subsists, as we said previously. Now, the generation of the Son is accomplished neither in a temporal instant, nor in the duration of time, but in eternity. This is why, if we want to signify this present presence and permanence of eternity, we can say with Origen that the Son “is always born”. However, it is better, with S. Gregory and S. Augustine, to say: “He is always born”; in this expression, the adverb “always” evokes the permanence of eternity, and the perfect “is born” evokes the completed perfection of what is generated. Thus we do not attribute any imperfection to the Son, and we avoid admitting, like Arius, “a time when he did not exist”.
Article 3 - Is there an order between the divine Persons?
Objections:
1. There is only the essence, the Person, or the notion in God. But whoever says “order of nature” does not evoke essence, nor a person, nor a notion. There is therefore no order of nature in God.
2 . As soon as there is an order of nature, there is a first, at least in nature and in reason. But, according to S. Athanasius, “there is neither before nor after” in the divine Persons. It is therefore that there is no order of nature between them.
3 . Who says order, says distinction. But the divine Nature does not involve any distinction. It therefore has no order either. So there is no order of nature here.
4 . The divine nature is the essence of God. But there is no “order of essence” in God. So no more order of nature.
On the contrary , a plurality without order is confusion. Now, there is no confusion in the divine Persons, says S. Athanasius. So there is an order there.
Answer:
Order is always taken in relation to a principle. And as there are principles of all kinds, for example, in position, the point; in knowledge: the principles of demonstration; and each cause in its line, there will be as many different orders. In God, we speak of principle according to origin, and without priority, as we saw above. There must therefore be an original order, without priority. S. Augustine calls it “an order of nature, an order according to which one proceeds from the other, and not is prior to the other.”
Solutions:
1 . “Order of nature” here evokes the notion of origin, but in general and without specifying.
2. In creatures, even when effect and principle coexist strictly according to duration, the principle precedes the effect in nature and reason, at least if we consider the reality which is principle. But, if we consider the very relations of cause and effect, of principle and derivative, then it is clear that the correlative relations are simultaneous in nature and in reason, since one enters into the definition of the other. Now, in God, the relationships are themselves the persons who subsist in one nature. Consequently, neither nature nor relationships can here give rise to a priority between persons, not even to a priority of nature and reason.
3 . “Order of nature,” we say; not because nature itself has to order itself, but because, between the divine Persons, the order is taken according to their natural origin.
4 . “Nature” implies some aspect of principle, but “essence” does not. And this is why the original order is called an order of nature, rather than an order of essence.
Article 4 — Are the divine Persons equal in size?
Objections:
1. The Son does not have the same greatness as the Father. He himself says in Jn 14:28: “The Father is greater than I. ” And the Apostle (1 Cor 15:28): “The Son himself will be subject to him who submitted all things to him. ”
2 . Fatherhood is part of the dignity of the Father. But fatherhood does not suit the Son. The Son therefore does not possess all the dignity of the Father. He therefore does not have the same greatness as the Father.
3 . As soon as there is whole and parts, several parts make more than one or a lesser number of these parts; so three men make a greater total than two men or just one. But it seems that in God there is a universal whole and parts; because, under the general term of relationship or notion, several “notions” are included. And since in the Father there are three of these notions, and only two in the Son, it therefore seems that the Son is not equal to the Father.
On the contrary , we read in the epistle to the Philippians (2, 6): “He did not believe that it was an usurpation for him to be equal to God. "
Answer :
It must be recognized that the Son is as great as the Father. Indeed, the greatness of God is nothing other than the perfection of his nature. On the other hand, for there to be paternity and filiation, it is necessary that, through his generation, the son manages to possess the nature of the father in perfection, as the father possesses it. Among men, it is true, generation is a change which moves the subject from potentiality to action; also the son is not from the beginning equal to the father who begets him; it is through suitable growth that it achieves this equality, barring an accident attributable to a defect in the generating principle. But it is clear, from what has been said above, that in God relationships of true and proper paternity and filiation are established; and it is not possible to admit a failure of the virtue of God the Father, in his generative act, nor that God the Son reached his perfection through successive development. We must therefore conclude that, from all eternity, the Son is as great as the Father. This is why S. Hilaire writes; “Put away from this birth the miseries of the bodily condition; put aside the initial process of conception, the pains of childbirth and all human necessities; every son, by his natural birth, enjoys equality with his father, since he is the living similarity of his nature. ”
Solutions:
1. These words concern Christ considered according to his human nature, in which, in fact, he is inferior to his Father and is subject to him; but considered in his divine Nature, he is equal to his Father. This is what S. Athanasius says: “Equal to his Father according to his divinity, inferior to the Father according to his humanity. ” Or as S. Hilaire says: “By his situation as Donor, the Father would be greater; but because of what is given, the divine, indivisible Being, the beneficiary is no less great”, and, in his Book on Councils, he explains that “the submission of the Son is his natural piety ”, which consists of recognizing that he takes his nature from the Father. “But the submission of all others is their infirm condition as creatures. ”
2. Equality is a relationship of magnitude. Now the greatness of God is the perfection of his nature, as we have said, and it arises from the essence. This means that in God equality and similarity concern the essential attributes, and that we cannot speak of inequality or dissimilarities with regard to relative distinctions. S. Augustine says thus: “Ask “who” is such a thing? Nobody is asking a question of origin but asking “what” it is, and of what “size”, that is what interests equality. ” Therefore, if paternity is a dignity of the Father, it is to the extent that it is the essence of the Father: dignity is in fact an absolute attribute which pertains to the essence. And, as the same essence is paternity in the Father and filiation in the Son, so the same dignity is in the Father his paternity, and in the Son his filiation. It is therefore true that the Son has all the dignity of the Father. And we cannot deduce: “The Father possesses paternity, therefore the Son possesses paternity”; because we are moving from the absolute to the relative. The Father and the Son have the same and unique essence or dignity; but in the Father it involves the relative condition of donor, and in the Son the beneficiary who receives.
3 . Although the predicate “relation” is true of each divine relationship, it is not in God a universal whole, since all these relationships are one according to essence and being. This is a condition opposed to that of universal, the parts of which are distinct according to being. It is the same with the person, as we have already said: in God, it is not a universal. Therefore, all divine relations do not make a total greater than a single one of these relations; and not all persons make something greater than one, since each person possesses all the perfection of the divine Nature.
Article 5 — Are the divine Persons in each other?
Objections:
1. Of the eight modes of existing in another, listed by Aristotle, none is suitable for the case of the Father and the Son; It’s pretty clear when you go through the list in detail. The Son is therefore not in the Father, nor the Father in the Son.
2 . What comes out of another is not in him. But from all eternity the Son came forth from the Father, according to the prophet Micah (5, 1): “The going forth dates from the beginning of the days of eternity. ”So the Son is not in the Father.
3 . When two terms oppose each other, one is not in the other. Now the Father and the Son are relatively opposed to each other. It is therefore not possible that one is in the other.
In the opposite sense , we read in St. John (14, 10): “I am in the Father and the Father is in me. "
Answer :
There are three things to consider in the Father and the Son: essence, relationship and origin. And under these three heads the Father and the Son are mutually one in the other. Indeed, let us consider the essence: the Father is in the Son, since the Father is his essence, and he communicates it to the Son without the slightest change: the essence of the Father being in the Son, it follows clearly that the Father is in the Son. And since the Son is his essence, it also follows that the Son is in the Father, where his own essence is. This is what S. Hilaire said: “The immutable God follows, so to speak, his nature when he generates an immutable God. In this, therefore, it is the subsisting nature of God that we recognize, for God is in God.” Let us now consider the relationships: it is obvious that each of the opposing relatives enters into the notion of the other. Finally let us consider the origin: it is still clear that the intelligible verb does not proceed outside, but that it remains in the intellect which says it; likewise, the object expressed by the verb is contained in this verb. And we would reason similarly for the Holy Spirit.
Solutions:
1. What happens in creatures does not give a sufficient representation of what happens in God. Thus the reciprocal immanence of the Son in the Father and of the Father in the Son escapes all the modes identified by the Philosopher. However, the mode which comes closest to it is the immanence of the effect in its original principle; with this difference, of course, that in creatures there is no unity of essence between the principle and what proceeds from it.
2. The “exit” of the Son emanating from the Father is understood in the manner of an interior procession, that of the word which leaves the “heart” while remaining there. In God, this “exit” therefore only evokes a relative distinction, without the slightest distance or division of essence.
3 . It is not by essence, but by their relations that the Father and the Son are opposed, moreover without prejudice to the mutual immanence between relatively opposed terms, as we have just said.
Article 6 — Are the divine Persons equal in power?
Objections:
1 . We read in St. John (5, 19): “The Son can do nothing of himself, he only does what he sees the Father doing. ” But the Father can act on his own. He is therefore more powerful than the Son.
2.He who commands and teaches has greater power than he who obeys and listens. Now the Father commands the Son, as it is said in St. John (14:31): “What my Father has commanded me, this I do. ” The Father also teaches the Son, as it is said (Jn 5:20): “The Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does. ” Likewise the Son listens, according to this other word (Jn 5:30): “I judge according to what I hear. ”So the power of the Father is greater than that of the Son.
3 . It belongs to the omnipotence of the Father to be able to generate a Son equal to himself. S. Augustine says thus: “If the Father could not generate his equal, where is his omnipotence? ” But the Son cannot beget sons, as we saw previously. The Son cannot therefore do everything that falls within the omnipotence of the Father; in other words, he is not equal to him in power.
On the contrary , we read in St. John (5, 19): “Whatever the Father does, the Son also does the same. ”
Answer:
It must be said that the Son is equal to the Father in power. Because the power to act follows the perfection of nature. We see this clearly in creatures: the more perfect the nature we possess, the greater the active virtue. However, we have shown above that the very notion of paternity and divine filiation requires that the Son be equal to the Father in greatness, that is to say in perfection of nature. It follows that the Son is equal to the Father in power. The same reason applies to the Holy Spirit compared to the Father and the Son.
Solutions:
1 . By saying that the Son “can do nothing of himself,” we are not denying the Son any of the power of the Father; for we immediately add that “whatever the Father does, the Son does also.” This only shows that the Son derives his power from the Father as he derives his nature from him. As S. Hilaire says: “So great is the unity of the divine Nature that the Son, when he acts by himself, does not act of himself. ”
2 . When it is said that the Father “shows” the Son and the Son “listens” to him, let us simply understand that the Father communicates his knowledge to the Son, as he communicates his essence to him. And we can relate to this explanation the command of the Father: by begetting his Son, he gives him from all eternity knowledge and will of what he will have to do. Or, and preferably, we will relate these expressions to Christ in his human nature.
3. As the same essence is in the Father his paternity, and in the Son his sonship, so it is by the same power that the Father begets and the Son is begotten. It is therefore clear that whatever the Father can, the Son can also. However, we will not deduce from this that the Son can generate; this would again be to move unduly from the absolute to the relative. In God, in fact, generation means relationship. The Son therefore has the same power as the Father with a different relationship: the Father has this power as a giver, which is expressed by saying that he can generate; the Son, for his part, has him as a beneficiary who receives, and this is expressed by saying that he can be begotten.