C. Third Opinion

56. [Exposition of the opinion] - In a third way the position is otherwise,a that the divine persons are absolute.

a [Interpolation] A third opinion agrees with the reasons and authorities adduced against the second opinion, and this posits...

57. And lest it seem novel and out of the way, a certain older doctor’s saying is adduced who distinguishes ‘something said in twofold way according to substance.’ For he speaks thus [Bonaventure, Sentences I d.25 a.1 q.1]: “One must understand that - as Richard of St. Victor says [On the Trinity IV chs.6-7]—‘being said according to substance’ is double: in one way by indicating substance according to common nature, and thus ‘man’ is said according to substance; or by indicating substance as a certain supposit, as in the case of ‘a certain man’. To say substance in the first way (namely as the quiddity) is to say a ‘what’, and in the second way it is to say a ‘whom’.” He says further that “the name of essence or substance (or of quiddity) is said according to substance because it indicates the common nature, but person is said according to substance because it indicates a definite and distinct supposit; for the common nature is not multiplied nor is it related, - and therefore what it calls substance according to common nature is in this way said to be ‘for itself’ because it can in no way be said according to relation;a but a supposit (or hypostasis) is of a nature to be multiplied and to be compared to another, and so to be related; and what is thus said according to substance in no way impedes - by reason of the superadded relation - its being said according to relation. And this is what Richard of Saint Victor means.”

a [Interpolation] “and in this way indeed it is divided from the opposite”

58. The same doctor alsoa says - in the question ‘Whether the properties distinguish the persons’ - that ‘in the way that they are dispositions they do not distinguish the persons, but in the way that they are origins’; which statement - even if he himself perhaps not so understand it - can be expounded as that the origins do not distinguish the persons formally but as it were by way of principle; just as motion in creatures, and especially if the motion be in the mover and not in the moved, would not distinguish the terms of motion formally but effectively, which pertains to the genus of efficient cause, - in the way also that, if human nature were posited in one man and could not be multiplied save by generation, one could say that generation multiplies men, not indeed formally (as if men were distinguished formally by generations as they are generations), but as it were effectively, because generation is reduced to the genus of efficient cause. One could speak thus in the case of the issue at hand, that the divine nature is not communicated to the supposits save by origin, and thus it is that the persons are distinguished in nature by their origin as it were by a principle, reducing this to the principal source itself, which distinguishes not formally but in a way corresponding to what distinguishes effectively in creatures.

a [Interpolation] And if the objection be made: how will then the common opinion of the authors be saved who say that the persons are distinguished by relations - in answer to this can be taken a certain saying of the same doctor, for he says...

59. Accordingly then the position would be that the divine persons would be constituted in personal existence - and distinguished - by absolute realities and as it were by way of principle, and the ‘produced persons’ would not be formally distinguished by origins; but the things constituting the persons would be absolute not in the first way but the second way, because although they would not formally be relations, yet the things constituted by them would be relatable. This could be a way of stating the position.

60. [Proofs] - Now the solution given by this position is not only proved by the four ways touched on against the second opinion [nn.32-55], but also by certain other persuasive points.

First indeed becausea primary substance is substance most of all, according to the Philosopher in Categories 5.2a11-14, - and this is not a mark of imperfection; therefore it seems that in this way one could posit that primary substance in divine reality, namely the person, to which it most belongs to subsist, that this is ‘to exist per se’. But relation does not seem to be able formally to constitute something subsistent, nor consequently to constitute primary substance.

a [Interpolation] Again, according to this third way there is an argument, fourth [cf. nn.45, 51, 52], as follows:

61. There is a confirmation too for this reason, that secondary substance states the whole ‘what it is’ of primary substance, - therefore in primary substance there does not concur any quiddity distinct from the quiddity of secondary substance; therefore neither does the quiddity of relation, which is distinct from the quiddity of essence, pertain to the idea of primary substance.a

a [Interpolation] There is a confirmation because, since secondary substance does not include anything that is not formally substance, therefore neither does primary substance - which is most of all substance - include it, because substance does not come from non-substance.

62. There is a confirmation too in that if it is necessary - in things that exist toward something in divine reality - not only to posit quiddity, namely not only paternity but this paternity, and that too under the idea of incommunicability, and to posit that all these things belong to it insofar as it exists toward another and as it is not formally that which is for itself, - that if so, why can this not hold of that which is for itself, namely that what it is to be incommunicable is not had through that which is formally ‘what exists toward another’?

63. And this is ultimately confirmed efficaciously, as it seems, by the fact that in created substance, although it is a mark of imperfection to be limited to one subsistence or to one most perfect existence, which is in no way determinable or contractible and which cannot be anything of something else, yet the fact that nature itself can have ultimate existence, because of its being of a nature to be contracted by something else, this is not a mark of any imperfection, because this is conceded to substances and denied, because of their imperfection, to accidents; therefore it seems that divine nature ‘as it is for itself’ will have of itself ultimate actual existence and ultimate unity without limitation to a single being of subsistence.

64. Then too one can set down an example, because just as if the intellective soul were first to perfect or constitute the heart in the being of supposit and just as if the animated heart were able, second, to produce the hand in the being of supposit, there would not be anything distinct in the nature of the animated whole save by their origins, and yet formally they would be certain absolute things one of which is produced by another; yet in them there would truly be relations of producer and produced; for relations are not less preserved - on the contrary they are more preserved, it seems - if one posits certain absolutes that can be related, than if any such absolute things are not posited.a

a [Interpolation] Through these two statements - the first about the double absolute, the second about origin distinguishing as it were in a way corresponding to an effective, not a formal, principle in creatures - many authorities can be expounded that seem to be the contrary.

65. Response is made to what has been touched on here about primary substance [namely that relation cannot constitute it, n.60] that relationa has here the force of constituting a primary substance or a supposit of secondary substance. The fact is confirmed by this, that what is scattered about in lower things is united in higher things, and that therefore, although ‘to exist toward’ and to subsist belong to a thing in the case of creatures through something different, yet they can both belong to God or to the divine persons through something the same.

a [Interpolation] Response is made to this fourth reason, which proceeds from the idea of primary substance, by saying that relation here has the force of an incommunicable property of primary substance, and therefore...

66. Against this an argument is made as follows: I ask what force you mean, whether the force of an efficient or of a formal cause? If of an efficient cause, it will as it were cause there a certain absolute reality that will formally constitute there a primary substance, - and thus the point at issue is conceded, namely that primary substance is constituted by some absolute reality; and, along with this, there is added one other impossibility, that relation could cause that absolute person. If in the second way, namely formally, since no form has the force of constituting anything formally save such a thing as is of a nature to be something by such form (as whiteness does not have the force of constituting anything save what is white and what is included in white), the consequence is that relation - which is essentially a disposition ‘toward another’ - does not have the force of constituting anything ‘in itself’. The confirmation [n.65] seems to have no validity: because it is for this reason that such union is brought about in God, namely because of the infinity of the divine essence, which includes unitively in itself every perfection simply and also every reality compossible with itself; but a property is not infinite formally, and so there is no need for every reality to be united in it (and especially not that reality which seems to be formally repugnant to it or unable to be included in it), as if it were stating a greater perfection formally, or not a lesser perfection, than the essence does.