B. To the Principal Arguments

21. To the arguments of the second question.

To the first [n.7] I say that if what is positive in a person be taken, then, because ‘personhood’ adds nothing positive beyond ‘this nature’, a created person is the same as ‘this nature’. But if personhood be completely taken according as it imports incommunicability, then ‘person’ is not altogether the same as ‘this nature’; just as an entity that is indifferent to some affirmation and negation is not altogether the same as the negation, or the same as itself along with the negation, so it is here; and therefore ‘this nature’ has enough distinction from ‘this non-dependent person’ that this nature is able to depend but not that this non-dependent nature is able to depend (taken in the composite sense). - The proof adduced for identity [of created person and nature] only proves that created person does not add any positive entity over and above ‘this nature’ - which I concede.

22. To the second [n.8] I say that person in the case of creatures states a ‘dignity’ materially by reason of the intellectual nature that it connotes, but not formally by reason of the incommunicability that it further adds - unless it be said that some negation is a mark of dignity, as was said in 1 d.28 nn.27-28 about ‘unbegotten’ in divine reality.