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.