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III. To the Principal Arguments
59. To the arguments. To the first [n.1] I say that that definition of nature proves that the Holy Spirit is not produced as a ‘similar’ by the first rule and by the force of his production,116 and it is true that he is not the image of the Father as the Son is, who by force of his production proceeds as a similar to the Father.
60. To the second [n.2] a response has been made diffusely elsewhere, in distinction 2 question 4, and in the question where the question is asked ‘whether there can be several productions in divine reality’ [I d.2 nn.327-344].
61. To the third [n.3] one should say - as was said in distinction 2 in the question ‘On productions’ [ibid.] - that the accidental differences of power, namely active and passive, are not differences of productive power. For. generally, what is produced by such a principle is that of which such a principle is productive, whether in that in which it is (if it is of a nature to receive it), or in another, or in nothing. If in nothing, because nothing is of a nature to receive it, then it is produced as per se subsistent, if the productive power is perfect with respect to something per se subsistent; so it is in the intended proposition: the will by which the producer produces neither acts by producing in the supposit in which it is, nor does it by producing make something in another, but it produces a term that stands in itself, as a person, which is not received in anything subjectively. - But there is a response in another way in distinction 6 [I d.6 nn.10-15], where it is said that production is not formally intellect, and where it is said how the intellect can be a principle not only of understanding but even of saying as well.
62. To the final argument [n.4] I say that for an act of loving - or for an act of love - the loved thing must be pre-known (this is said by blessed Augustine On the Trinity [n.4]), but it is not necessary that the love itself be pre-known, - to wit, if some honorable good is offered to me, it is not necessary that before I am able to have the act, namely the act of loving that good, I should, to be sure, pre-know the act; so in the intended proposition: the divine essence - the love of which is inspirited - must be preknown to the Father and to the Son so that they might inspirit, but there is no need to concede that, in the instant of origin, the Holy Spirit - who is inspirited love - should be pre-known to the Father and to the Son, although in the instant of eternity the whole Trinity is always known to any person in the Trinity, because, in distinguishing between instants of origin, one is not distinguishing between duration and duration, but only distinguishing what origin which person is from. It could in another way be said that, in the prior moment of origin, before the Holy Spirit is understood to be inspirited, the Father and the Son know the Holy Spirit, and do so intuitively, although not as existing in himself, because they know the divine essence, which is the reason for knowing intuitively any intelligible object whatever, - just as the Trinity knows the creature, and intuitively, before it is produced, because the Trinity’s own essence, which the Trinity intuits, is the reason for most perfectly knowing everything else, and, as a result, it is the reason for knowing intuitively anything knowable, even if none were in itself existent.117