A. Opinions of those who Hold that the Persons are Constituted by Relations

56. Here the affirmative part of the question is commonly conceded, but because of the difficulty of the first argument [nn.52, 67], a distinction is made about the relation that constitutes the first person.

1. First Opinion

57. In one way [from Aquinas], that ‘it can be considered as a property or as a relation; as a property it precedes generation, - as a relation it follows’; and then, according to what it constitutes, the second person need not be simultaneous with the first, although according to its being a relation - consequent, as it were, to generation - the second should be simultaneous with it.

58. Against this:

A property ‘as property’ is some entity, otherwise it would not constitute any being. Either therefore it is a being to itself or to another or neither; that some entity is singular, that is neither an entity to itself nor to another, does not seem intelligible; therefore this entity should be formally to itself, and then it will constitute an absolute person - or to another, and that ‘as a property’ it will be a relation; and then the difficulty is not avoided, even though there is one way of considering it as a property and another as a relation.

And the reason can be confirmed by an example, because although whiteness can be considered as whiteness or as a quality (and if it be considered as whiteness, that is according to its proper specific reason, - but if as quality, this is according to the idea of an ‘imperfect’ instance in its genus), yet whatever is constituted by whiteness is not constituted by any entity that is not a quality, because whiteness even ‘as whiteness’ essentially includes quality and is essentially quality, so that whiteness cannot constitute anything save in qualitative being. So does it seem in the issue at hand, about a relative property considered in this way and in that [n.57].

60. Further, he [Aquinas, Roger Marston] says elsewhere that ‘in divine reality there cannot be order’ (because neither in the case of the essence to the relations, nor in the case of the relations among themselves), ‘because relatives are simultaneous in nature’. - But if a property can be considered in the way in which it would not be a relation (and in this way it need not have a correlative simultaneous in nature), their argument would not be valid.

2. Second Opinion

61. A distinction is drawn in another way about relation, as it is relation and as it is origin; and the position is that it constitutes as origin (but not as relation), because the idea of origin in some way precedes and the relation is as it were founded in it; but the first person is constituted by the first relation there, by which it is distinguished [Roger Marston].

62. Against this it is objected that origin ‘as origin’ is not form; and not of the person to which it is, but as it were the way to it, - and then it is not of the first person as form but as it were presupposes it; but nothing constitutes anything in anything save insofar as it is its form.

63. But if this opinion is understood of distinguishing as it were by way of principle (corresponding to efficient cause in creatures, as was expounded in distinction 26 [n.58]), and not by way of formal principle, then this position could have truth, and this argument would not be against it.

3. Third Opinion

64. In another way it is said that just as the same action can be diversely understood - insofar as it is aptitudinal or insofar as it is potential, insofar as it is future, insofar as it is in act, insofar as it is past - so relations ‘founded on action’ can be diversely taken; so that relation is founded on generation as in some way past as it were, in other way as present as it were, in another way founded on it as future as it were, in another way founded on it as potential as it were, and further as aptitudinal.

65. But it is said that relation under the first idea constitutes a person; but the first idea is ‘aptitudinal idea’, because that follows on the other and not conversely; therefore generation in this sort of way constitutes the Father, and in this way it is signified by what is meant by ‘generativity’.

66. Against this:

The first person is not constituted by a property having something positive less perfectly than what is constitutive of the second person has it, because then they would not seem to be equally perfect in personal being; but the second person is constituted -according to them - by filiation as it is filiation; therefore the first person is not constituted by potential relation, which has a less perfect being from the nature of relation than the property of the second person has it. But the relation of the generative to the generable - which they posit to be first and constitutive - is a potential relation; therefore it does not constitute as perfect an actual person as the second does.

Proof of the assumption: no actual being requires a potential being, because a potential being is less perfect than an actual one, provided they are of the same idea; but the relation of the generative requires the generable, because it states a potential relation on the part of the Son; therefore the relation of generative in the Father is not an actual relation.

67. Further, against this opinion (and against the two preceding:

Relation, if it constitutes a person there, is only according to what exists in reality, - otherwise it would not constitute a real person; but there exists in reality only a single relation of the first person to the second, and it is only there under the most actual idea, however diversely it can be taken; therefore under the most actual idea it will constitute that person, and under that idea a relation in the second person will correspond to it (there is not anything in the second person save what is most actual). In vain therefore is a quasi potential or aptitudinal distinction from the idea of what is active sought for, because this distinction in conceivable modes does nothing for what is constitutive of the first person without the first person always requiring the second person along with it at the same time; and yet because of this difficulty, lest the first person be posited as having the second along with it at the same time, this distinction of actual and aptitudinal and potential relations is sought for, lest the Son be posited as preceding the generation of the Father. -In the same way one could argue against the first and second opinion, because the relation - however it is conceived - is there only a single one.

4. Against the Three Opinions together

68. Further, against all three opinions [nn.57, 61, 65]:

Because if the Father generates the Son by the fact that by the action of the Father the relation of the Son is in the divine essence, and if by his action - according to these opinions - paternity ‘as paternity’ is in the divine essence (because according to them paternity ‘as paternity’ then first exists when filiation exists as filiation, even if something first precede as origin, whether generativity or the property) then the Father will generate himself as Father by generation in just the way filiation is in the Son, which seems absurd.

69. Further, there is against all the opinions another difficulty; in what way will the essence be determined to the first person? For if from itself, then it does not seem common to the other persons, because whenever something is determined to something other than itself, whenever it does so, it has it, - and then the essence, whenever it exists, would have the personality of the first person; if it does so from another, this seems to be against the idea of the first person, because then he would seem to be originated, or seem in some way able to be posited in such subsistence by something.

70. Further, third: if it is determined of itself, I ask of what principle the essence has the reason when it determines itself to the first property? Not of matter (distinction 5 [nn.64-85]); not of form, because that which is the principle of form pre-requires that which is principle of the producer as from the formal and efficient cause; therefore the essence quasi productively determines itself, and so the first person will in some way be produced. Nor can it be said that the property is determined of itself, because it is impossible - in any way at all - for there to be two things altogether first, but every multitude comes to a stand at one thing; this here is only the essence as it is a sea; therefore there will be attributed to it the idea of some principle with respect to anything that is second.

71. If someone wants to say that the essence ‘as a this’ exists per se and thus acts per se (according to the first argument made in distinction 7 against Thomas [n.11]), he could say that ‘this essence’ communicates itself - quasi productively - to the first person, and in the first person communicates itself to the second, and in the first and second to the third, and thus there are three productions according to a triple principle, namely: essence as essence, as intellect, as will.

72. On the contrary:

Nothing produces itself - therefore there is a distinction between the essence and the first person. The reason is confirmed by the authority of the Master who - in distinction 5 [ch.1 n.58] - denies, because of this, that the essence generates or is generated; by parity of reason it seems one should deny that it produces ‘from itself’.

73. Again, this production is not generation, because ‘the Father is unbegotten’; nor is it inspiriting, as is plain, - and there are no others in divine reality.

74. Again, action is of a supposit; therefore the essence is a fourth supposit.

75. One could say that something belonging to the produced can well produce the whole, when that ‘something’ is first a per se being and in virtue possesses the rest of what concurs with it in the composite. There is no example, in the case of creatures, in substantial production (because there only matter pre-exists, which does not virtually have form), but there is very well an example in accidental production; wherever a subject has an accident actively, it produces the composite, - just as water, first made hot and afterwards left to itself, produces cold water. So one might say here that the essence, a ‘per se being’ in the altogether first moment - when relation is burgeoning - produces itself in a relative person, or more properly: communicates itself to it.

76. To the form of the reasoning [n.72]: the antecedent is conceded, insofar as ‘itself’ refers precisely to the same thing [sc. nothing produces itself], - and so the consequent is conceded, because ‘there is a distinction’ (that is, not a complete identity of essence with the related person, because it includes something in addition to the essence).

77. To the second [n.73]: this production can be called ‘generation’, and the production of the Word ‘saying’, - just as if fire were intelligent, it would generate by firey-ness and would say by intellect.

78. To the third [n.74]: form as ‘per se being’, that is not inhering as an accident (whether substantial form or quiddity) in a supposit, can be an agent; however it is not a supposit, because it is not incommunicable.

Thus the three reasons seem to escape [nn.72-74].

79. But there remain two authorities unsolved: the first, confirming the first reason, namely the authority of the Master [n.72] - the other in the second reason, that Augustine says the Father is unbegotten [n.73].

80. Because of the first authority one can say that in altogether the first moment there is not only ‘deity, a per se being’, but ‘this God’, and he produces himself as Father; and then this - the logic - is avoided ‘the essence produces’, although it produce in something in which there is nothing but essence. Thus the first way [nn.70-71] is corrected as to its sum.

81. Because of the second authority from Augustine one could say that the saints who suppose there is a first property in the essence, from wherever it burgeons (because they were not then investigating that), had a first supposit and were not speaking save of production of supposit by supposit; therefore they said that that person is unproduced ‘which is not produced by a supposit’ [n.19]. Likewise they said that the opposed relations of origin ‘could only be in distinct supposits’, - which is true if each relation belongs to a supposit but not if one belongs to another singular ‘per se being’ and not to a supposit, namely ‘to this God’. And the reason is that ‘a singular non-supposit’ can communicate itself, and so is not distinguished from the product; for because it is ‘a singular per se being’, therefore it can act, - because it is not a supposit, therefore it can be communicated; but a supposit never communicates itself, and therefore if it produces a supposit, it produces a distinct one, nothing of which it is.

82. How is this phantasy to be refuted, so dissonant to the sayings of the saints [Augustine, Anselm, nn.79-81]?

Although in divine reality all priority in nature is denied and only a priority of origin is commonly conceded (or a priority according to natural intelligence), yet there must in every way be some priority given to essence in respect of relation; both because it is the foundation (according to everyone), and because it is formally infinite but relation is not, - and because however they are distinguished they are not equally altogether first, nor is relation prior. Rightly then is the question raised [n.69] of whence essence determines the first property for itself - and since no other determining factor is found (because there is always the same question of whence the essence has it, unless one proceeds ad infinitum), one must stand at the fact the essence of itself precisely determines the first relation in itself as in a foundation. False then is this root claim that ‘nothing undetermined of itself to certain things determines itself of itself to any of them’, as is well maintained here, about the double indeterminate and the double primacy, of adequation and immediacy [nn.100-107].

83. But a doubt remains: what circumstance of the principle is indicated by ‘from’ or ‘of’ when it is said that ‘the essence of itself determines the first property for itself’? And if you would escape, because it does not state there the idea of any principle but excludes a principle that is a joint participant, that is no obstacle; for I ask how the essence determines, or by reason of what principle is it in respect of the property?

And the way here [nn.70-71] says that it is by reason of the principle of the producer, because without it there is no idea of formal or material principle, and because active form as ‘per se being’ per se acts (about which proposition see distinction 7 n.74), and because of the congruence of the triple productive principle [n.71] (from which congruence an instance was made in distinction 2 in the question ‘On Two Productions’ [n.304]); but the correction is made that ‘this God’ produces the Father, but not the essence properly speaking [n.80].

84. But against this way three reasons and three authorities were here before brought forward. All seem to escape in some way [n.78]. But because it does not sound right that the first person is produced, one can say that the essence determines the first property for itself by reason of formal principle, not indeed as in-forming but as quiddity is said to be the form of the supposit, and that a non necessarily causable quiddity formally determines some supposit for itself (the way the pagans would posit it about an absolute supposit, but we about the first relative); and the reason is that such a quiddity itself stops itself and is itself the quiddity of something.

85. Then to the arguments for the other way [n.83]:

To the first I say that every in-forming form is preceded by an efficient cause (and so the first efficient cause does not thus have the form), but not every quidditative form ‘giving being to a supposit’ is preceded by an efficient or producing cause, because here there is not a cause and a cause intrinsic to the composite that need to be united by the agent but there is perfect entity, which itself belongs in itself to being.

86. But if you object that ‘either the essence in-forms the property or conversely’, - a response was given in distinction 5 n.137: “Neither is the case, but there is perfect identity,” which identity does not have an efficient principle, but it has the quiddity, in idea of formal principle, of that with which it is itself first identical.

87. As to the second [n.83], seek the response in distinction 7 n.75.

88. As to the third: this way [n.84] well preserves congruence, because the essence as essence and as prior to every idea of power exists to give being formally, and thus it determines itself; but as it is such and such a power, to be principle belongs to it. Therefore there are two productive principles - a single one non-productive from itself alone, but giving of being formally to the first supposit.