Single Question

[Point A]

2, 16 - About the fourth distinction I ask whether this proposition is true ‘God generates another God’.

It seems that it is:

God generates God; either himself God or another God; not himself, Augustine On the Trinity I ch.1 n.1; therefore another God.

Second thus: the one generating is distinguished from the one generated; but God generates God; therefore God generated is distinguished from God generating, and consequently God generates another one.

Third thus: God generates another; either then another God, and thus the proposition is obtained, - or another non-God, which is false, because thus the one generated would not be God.

Fourth thus: God generates another possessing deity, therefore he generates another God. The consequence is plain from Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.55: “‘God’ means one having divine nature, ‘man’ human nature.

On the contrary:

“There is no other God” [Tobit 13.4.]

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one” [Deuteronomy 6.4]

One must say that this proposition is not true. The reason for which is that there adequately responds to any entity some thing or someone; but divine essence is a singular entity and in no way multipliable, as is plain from what is said below [IC d.4 q.2]; therefore there determinately responds to it some thing or someone. But in a thing which is a ‘this’ no otherness falls as such; therefore since one cannot there say ‘another entity’ or ‘another deity’, one could not there say ‘another God’, for ‘God’ in the manner of a concrete term responds adequately to deity.

One must understand, then, that just as in creatures there is a difference between ‘Socrates is other than humanity’, and ‘he is other by humanity’, or ‘he is other in humanity’, so also, with respect to deity or God, ‘other’ implies negation of identity. Hence ‘other’ means non-same.

When therefore ‘other’ is placed first, negation is posited universally with respect to the predicate, which is understood to be universally negated from the subject; and so this proposition is false ‘Socrates is a thing other than man’, but this is true ‘Brownie (or a donkey) is a thing other than man’. And therefore this proposition is simply false of the person of the Father ‘the Father is other than God’ or ‘he is another God’. I say the same of the other divine persons. - But when in the second way there is taken ‘Socrates is other by humanity’, there is likewise universal denial with respect to anything not participating humanity, and it constitutes a true proposition: as ‘Socrates is other than a stone by humanity’, likewise ‘God the Father is other than a stone by deity’; but it makes a false proposition with respect to those things that do participate it; hence this proposition is false ‘Socrates is other than Plato by humanity’, and likewise ‘the Father is other than the Son by deity’. But in the third way, when it is said ‘Socrates is other in humanity’, one must understand that in this manner of locution ‘other’ implies two things, namely distinction between the things that are compared together and community of that in which they are compared, along with distinction and enumeration of it in them; hence when it is said ‘Socrates is other than Plato in humanity’, there is introduced a distinction between Socrates and Plato and an agreement of both in humanity, and the phrase introduces a distinction and a numbering of humanity in them. So since deity in divine reality is not numbered in the supposits, therefore this proposition is false ‘the Father is other than the Son in deity’.”

To the first argument one must say that this proposition is true ‘God generates God’; for terms taken concretely supposit for supposits. And when it is said ‘either himself God, or another God’ [n.2], I grant neither, but I say that neither himself, nor another. But if you argue ‘either he generates the same God or another God’ (for, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 10.3.1054b17-23, ‘same’ and ‘diverse’ are said of everything, and are reduced to contradictories), one must say that he generates the same God, - not however himself, because it is the fallacy of figure of speech, by change of ‘qualified what’ to ‘this something’; for when I say ‘he generates the same God’, there is no reciprocation, which however there is when ‘himself God’ is said.

To the second one must say that in that argument and like ones - where the relation of the middle term varies - there is the fallacy of accident. For when it is said ‘the one generating is distinguished from the one generated’, the otherness is taken with respect to the supposit, along with opposite relation, but when it is said ‘God becomes other than God’, it is taken absolutely, not along with relation.

To the third one must say that God generates ‘another’. But one must not concede the other proposition, that ‘another God, or another non-God’; for ‘other God’ and ‘other non-God’ are not contradictories, but these are ‘other God’ and ‘non-other God’; - and so one must grant this proposition ‘he generates a non-other God’.

But if you say ‘on a negative about the finite predicate - with constancy of subject - there follows an affirmative about the infinite predicate, and so if he generates a non-other God, therefore he generates another non-God’, one must say that this rule does not whole of complex predicates, as the Philosopher says in Prior Analytics 1.46.52a18-21; hence those two propositions about a stone are false ‘a stone is white wood’ and ‘a stone is non-white wood’, just as also these two ‘God generates another God’ and ‘God generates another non-God’.

To the fourth one must say that when it is said ‘God generates another possessing deity’ only in the supposit is otherness implied, but not in deity, - and so when otherness is included in deity, more is concluded than was in the premises, and so there is the fallacy of the consequent. For the conclusion can only be thus: ‘what possesses deity is God, God generates another possessing deity, therefore God generates another who is God’, not ‘another God’. Or one could say that there is there the fallacy of figure of speech, by change of ‘this something’ to ‘qualified what’.