I. To the Question

3. To this question I say that principle is not said univocally of principle taken essentially and notionally, - and this when speaking of the relation that is per se signified by this name ‘principle’, and taking principle as it is a principle, for ‘that which is actually principle of something’ (or for the principle ‘which’ not ‘by which’). And the reason is that principle essentially taken only states a relation of reason (not a real relation, because there is no real relation of God to creatures, as will be plain from the following question [d.30 nn.48-51]), but as it is taken inwardly, notionally or personally, it does state a real relation; but to a real relation and a relation of reason there is nothing common that is the same, something that is common really in the one case and in reason in the other, because to that which is such in a certain respect and to that which is simply such, insofar as it is such, what is taken in them in a certain respect and simply is not a common univocal; but a real relation is simply a relation, and a relation of reason is a relation in a certain respect, because just as ‘to be in reason’ is to be in a certain respect, so to be referred in reason or to be compared by reason is to be referred or compared in a certain respect; therefore there is no principle univocal to them.

4. Now if we speak of principle inwardly, as it is personal and notional, it does seem that there could for them be the idea of a common principle univocally; in the way it is possible for what it means to be ‘a relation of origin’ to be univocally common to paternity and filiation, and in the way it is possible for what it means to be ‘production’ to be univocally common to generation and inspiriting, as was touched on above in distinction 23 n.9 about what is univocally common to the persons insofar as they are persons.