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a. About the Special Reasons and Responses
178. The argument on the first point is that the reasons are not conclusive and that the responses do not solve the problem.
179. [The special reasons are not conclusive] - I prove this in order:
For the first reason [n.165] rests on the proposition, ‘every absolute is act and consequently is something that gives being’.
180. The rejection of this is multiple:
First, because in the case of creatures, where the proposition most seems to be probable, not every act gives being, for then the human nature in Christ would give being, and it would not have the same being that it would have were it let go (which is against
Augustine, On the Trinity 13.17 n.22), because when let go it would have its own personhood, and personhood states incommunicable act.
181. Likewise, an act that gives being bestows operation, but the hypostatic property in creatures does not bestow operation. This is plain from Damascene Orthodox Faith 3.14, “We say that wills and operations are natural and not hypostatic; for if we were to grant they were hypostatic, those who will being one hypostasis and those who act another, we are compelled to say that the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity...”, where, from the fact the three divine persons do not have three operations, Damascene concludes that operation is not hypostatic, that is, does not come through a hypostatic property, and this he concludes of the property in general, whether it is absolute or relative.14
182. Besides, third: in everything that has being from something in some way, there is, besides what gives it being, something else, different from it in nature, which receives being (the thing is plain of a composite of matter and form, and of all other things composed of act and potency); therefore in the case of everything that has being through something that gives it being, there is something that is not an act giving being but a reason for receiving being - and so it seems to be in the supposit of nature, for, since the supposit has the being of nature and nature gives it being, the hypostatic property will be the reason for receiving being.
183. One can then say to the argument [nn.165] that, since there is a twofold idea of entity, namely quidditative and hypostatic, then, just as it belongs to quidditative entity to give being of itself, because it is of itself communicable, so it belongs to hypostatic entity not to be an act giving being, because, as ‘that in which’, it is of itself incommunicable. And although in creatures the individual property gives being, because it is a degree of some positive entity over and above the quidditative entity of nature, yet the property of a supposit does not state any entity over and above the entity of singularity, nay does not state anything positive (from the first question, nn.54-55); and even if it were to add some being, yet it would not be the reason for giving ‘being’ but only for giving ‘incommunicable being’, because ‘this existing nature’ - wherein is included nature and the entity of singularity - is the whole reason for giving being, and so anything understood to be additional to it, whether positively or privatively, whether something positive or a privation, whether absolute or relative, will not give being, because being is given totally by that which is already pre-understood. Therefore, although in divine reality the personal property is not merely negation but some positive property, yet, because the divine nature is of itself a ‘per se existing this’, it will contain the whole reason for giving being; and just as in creatures ‘this existing nature’ gives being totally, and not merely by the fact that the additional property is a negation (rather, if the additional property were positive, nothing would be taken away from ‘this per se existing nature’ to prevent it giving being totally), so neither in divine reality will anything be taken away from this nature - which is existent of itself - to prevent it giving being totally to the person, even if there is understood to be in ‘person’ a positive personal property.
184. In response to the argument [n.165] therefore, when the proof is given that ‘the personal property is act, since it is not there in potency, or is not in God virtually’, I say that it commits the fallacy of equivocation. For in one way ‘act’ is the difference opposed to ‘potency’, and in this way act along with potency divides the whole of being (even matter as well). In another way act along with potency constitutes some whole, the way the Philosopher speaks of act and potency in Metaphysics 8.6.1045a7-29; and here potency is not opposed to act because it does not remain along with act the way ‘this matter’ remains in the composite along with form. So this personal property does not exist only virtually in the divine essence (the way ass does, which is merely in potency there before act), and consequently this property is actually there, in the way that act is opposed to such potency. But it does not follow that ‘therefore it is an act that gives being’ - for there is required for this that it be formal act: because in this way matter might give being, since in the composite it is in act, not in potency before act.
185. The second reason too [n.166] seems defective:
First because the absolute in question is not related to the essence as perfection to perfectible, as was made clear about the relative property of person extensively in 1 d.5 nn.113, 118, 129-138, where it was said that person is not composed of essence and relation or property as of something quasi potential and actual, but rather that essence has more the idea of act. So although the property be understood as in some way posterior to essence, yet not for this reason is it a perfection of essence; for the order of origin and of perfection is there the same, and what is prior in origin is prior in perfection, as was then made extensively clear [1 d.5 nn.130-138].
186. Second, given that the property would in some way be related to the essence as informing it, yet it is not a perfection simply, because according to Anselm Monologion ch.15 ‘a perfection simply in anything is better being it than not being it’, and this is impossible about a hypostatic property, because such a property is by its own nature repugnant to anything contradictorily other than what it belongs to, and thus it cannot in anything else be better being it than not it, for it is contradictorily repugnant to anything else.
187. Thus as to the reason [n.166], then, it is plain that something false is assumed if the supposition is made that the absolute perfects the essence. Nor is the proof made valid by the fact that the absolute ‘in some way follows and does not precede’, because in divine reality - insofar as precedence can be posited there - act and form are first. Second, even given that one did get the result that it informs the essence, the conclusion would not be that it is a perfection of it simply; nor do the conclusions follow that are further inferred, namely that ‘the divine essence is not simply perfect’ or that ‘one person is not simply perfect in himself’.
188. Moreover, the argument [n.166] would conclude better against relation [sc. than for it], because it seems more probable that a hypostatic absolute is not a perfection than that a relation is not a perfection, because being a perfection belongs to no hypostatic property (either in creatures or in anything else), but being a perfection does belong to some relation as to the relation’s proper idea: for one relation is more perfect than another and yet none is a perfection simply, according to Augustine On the Quantity of the Soul ch.9 n.15, “we rightly prefer equality to inequality, and there is not anyone at all endowed with human sense etc.” who would not prefer equality to inequality [cf. 1 d.19 n.25]. And this is not just because of the base of the [geometrical] figure, for inequality can be founded on more perfect bases than some equality is; it is even clear that, if it were just because of the base of the figure, Augustine would be begging the question; for he is intending to prove the nobility of one figure over another (as of a circle over rectilinear figures), and he does so using equality and inequality; so if the excellence [of one figure over another] were only deduced from the base of the figure, or if the excellence of the figure were deduced from this, then he would be arguing in a circle.
189. If it be said that Augustine’s statement is true by reason of proximate and not remote bases, and that the proximate foundation of equality is quantity - this reply is false and nothing to the purpose of the minor [n.188]. For I ask: when it is said that ‘a quantity is equal or on a par with another quantity’, does this mean the relation or something absolute? If it means an absolute, then something can be understood to be equal without being equal to anything; and similarly, how will the perfection of equality in respect of inequality be got in this way? - and then in a triangle there must be two quantities. Or you may imagine some other way in which equality can be an absolute, more perfect than inequality in some way and different from quantity. - But if it means the relation, as seems manifest, then a relation will be per se founded on a relation; nay, it seems to mean the same relation as the relation of equality: for a quantity is equal to and on a par with a quantity.15
190. As to the statement of Anselm in the Monologion [n.167], the response is that he is speaking of quiddities, not of hypostatic properties. This is proved first by his examples of wisdom and truth on the one side and gold and lead on the other side.16 Second it is proved by reason, because that alone is a perfection simply which can be infinite in something, just as that which is of itself finite is better ‘not it’ in a thing than ‘it’; these features [sc. better not it than it, or better it than not it] belong to quiddity as to its ‘being finite’ or ‘being infinite’, but not to a hypostatic property, because a divine personal property - of whatever sort it is - is formally neither finite nor infinite; likewise, a hypostatic property is repugnant to everything else beside the one thing it belongs to; so for everything else it cannot be better than not it, rather not even for anything at all. Therefore Anselm is excluding relation according to quiddity from the whole range of quiddity, and then every absolute quiddity is either a perfection simply or limited; but the intended conclusion about hypostatic property [sc. it is a relation and not an absolute] does not follow from this.17
191. The third reason [n.168] has, in the case of all things essentially ordered and similarly in the case of all things not equally unlimited, a major that is false in form (although it may sometimes be true because of the matter); for in the case of no essential order does there have to be any multiplication because of the proper idea of prior and posterior, but multiplication of the posterior can stand without multiplication of the prior, although not conversely; similarly, when two things are compared to a third that is unlimited, the third does not have to be co-distinguished after the manner of the unlimitedness of the two things (an example: the intellective soul is compared with the parts of the body, because it is in some way unlimited with respect to them; the soul does not have to be distinct in distinct parts after the manner of the unlimitedness of the parts). The major then is, as to the issue at hand, false in two ways: first because the essence, in the way priority in person exists there, is in some way prior to the properties, but not conversely, according to them [cf. n.166] - therefore it is not necessary for the essence to be distinguished following the distinction of the properties; second because the essence is formally infinite, and the properties are not formally infinite - and therefore there is no need for what is formally infinite to be distinguished following the distinction of things that are not formally infinite.
192. Even if the major [n.168] were taken generally about any absolutes at all that circumstance the same thing, it still has a manifest instance against it in the soul and its power, because the powers of the soul are multiplied when the soul is not multiplied.
But if this instance could be got round by specifying that the major is about things that are of the same species (the way the first confirmation of the major takes it), not even then is the major universally true in the case of relations, as will be plain below in d.8 nn.21-29. Several things of the same idea existing in the same thing - even in the case of absolutes - is not a contradiction, if any of them is not an act adequate to what it is in.
193. When the major, then, is made clear through an induction [sc. the example in n.168], there is a fallacy of the consequent, because certain singulars are taken that are not similar to the issue at hand, namely singulars in which a distinction of the posterior does constitute a distinction of the prior, or in which there is a similar limitation on all sides and no unlimitedness of one in respect of the other; and from these singulars only a universal proposition that is false can be inferred, one where the conditions already stated [sc. the conditions required to make the inferred conclusion true, n.191] are lacking, just as they are lacking in the issue at hand.
194. But as for the final point added to confirm the major [n.169], that ‘there are not several things of the same idea in the same perfect thing’, it could be replied that, just as a thing perfect simply - being numerically the same - is communicable to several supposits of the same idea (such that this is not repugnant to it because of its perfection simply, but it does belong to it that it exist in several supposits of the same idea), so there belongs to it from the perfection of its nature that several things of the same idea can exist in it as supposits in a nature, and consequently that several hypostatic properties too of the same idea can exist in it; but this is not possible about the other things that are given in the example [n.169] (namely about the Father and the Word), because the perfection of what is simply perfect requires that any production have an adequate term, but does not in this way require that some hypostatic property be adequate to the nature in constituting a supposit.
195. The same point [n.194] can be made in reply to the first confirmation of the major [n.169], by applying this confirmation to the issue at hand, because there is a fallacy there of equivocation: for the major [sc. of the first confirmation, ‘several things of the same species cannot exist in the same thing’], if it were true, would have to be understood of things existing in something the way act exists in that which is informed by it. But in this way the minor [sc. ‘these absolutes, if they are posited, will be of the same species’] is not true; for the [hypostatic] property does not exist in the essence as informing it but as constituting a supposit in it.
196. However to both confirmations [n.169] it can be said that these [hypostatic] properties are not of the same idea formally, just as the individual properties in creatures are diverse primarily and not of the same idea. And if from this is inferred that they are of a different species, or that each of them has the idea of a quasi different species, and that therefore each would have to be determined to incommunicability by something else -this does not follow, just as it does not follow in the case of individual properties in creatures, where these properties are the ultimate determinations of the nature: although, in the case of creatures, these properties are not of the same idea in anything, yet none is a common and quidditative entity, but each is of itself a ‘this’.
197. The fourth reason [n.170] proceeds from a false imagination, namely that these properties are expressed by the essence as through an origin - which is not what was said. But, just as some concede that relations burgeon in the essence [cf. Ord. 1 d.5 n.131, d.26 n.28] (if however this is properly said), so it could be said and conceded (against them [sc. Henry and his followers]) that these properties - if they are absolutes -burgeon in the essence; and although each of them is in the same essence from which it burgeons (because the essence is in the three persons), yet one or other is not in the same person as that from which it is got by origin. Nor is there any repugnance in one person with one property having true origination from a person having another property, even though all these properties burgeon from the essence, not as origins, but in some other way - just as the others [sc. those who say the persons are not absolutes] have to say about origination through relation, because the Son burgeons from the Father by origin and yet filiation burgeons in some way in the divine essence or from the divine essence.
198. The fifth reason [n.171] is defective, because it seems more difficult to sustain origination by positing that the extremes are only formally relatives than by positing that they are absolutes. For if they are only relatives then to say that ‘person originates person’ will be nothing other than to say that a relative has a correlative; but a relative, once posited, seems to have a correlative without any further action. But if absolutes are posited, there does not seem to be as much difficulty in the way one supposit is generated by another, since in creatures - according to everybody - the supposits are absolute, and yet origination of one from another is not there denied.
199. So when it is argued [n.171] that absolute precedes relative and consequently precedes origination [cf. Ord. 1 d.26 n.58], I reply: it was said that origination belongs to the genus of efficient cause [supra nn.172-176] - and just as in the case of creatures the term does not exist by origination formally but as it were by effect (nor from the fact that it exists formally by effect does it follow that it precedes it), so could it be said in the issue at hand; nor does there seem to be greater difficulty in the priority of an absolute than in the priority of a relative, nor in divine reality more than in creatures.
200. [The responses do not solve the problem, n.178] - That the responses assigned by them [nn.172-176] do not solve the problem I prove thus:
First from the reasoning of Augustine [n.172]. Either Augustine is understanding by the formal object signified by ‘person’ something non-distinct in itself and distinct from another in essence - and then he no more has to concede that there are three persons than that there are three essences (or three things distinct in essence), which seems manifestly against his intention when he maintains that we use the word ‘substance’ in one way and the Greeks in another; the Greeks then are using ‘person’ or ‘substance’ for ‘first substance’, and they allow three substances in the way that we allow three persons [n.160]; therefore we are, according to Augustine, not properly conceding that there are three persons. Or he is understanding by ‘person’ something indistinct in itself according to incommunicable substance (and thus something distinct from another), and then that thing, according to what it formally signifies, is for itself, and the intended conclusion is gained [sc. ‘person’ is an absolute and not just a relative].
201. Against the next one [n.173]: I ask whether relation constitutes as it is formally the same as essence or not. If it does, two absurdities follow: first, that relation will not be relation, because, according to Augustine On the Trinity 7.5 n.9, ‘if substance is related to another it is no longer substance’, and so relation, if it is formally substance, is no longer related to another; second likewise, that whatever is constituted formally by something, as this something is an absolute, is itself formally absolute, and so the supposit constituted would be formally absolute. Or the supposit is constituted by relation insofar as relation passes over to the divine essence, or as it is the same, not formally but really, as the divine essence - and along with this goes that the supposit is constituted properly by relation as relation is relation, because relation cannot be considered in divine reality without its being the same really (whether it is a thing or a relation) as the essence. So if relation ‘in some way considered’ constituted the supposit per accidens, supposing it were so to constitute it, and if relation ‘when considered in every way’ is really (though not formally) the same as the essence, then from the fact that - as really the same as the essence - it constitutes the supposit, then the thing constituted is not prevented from being an entity per accidens; but relation cannot constitute as it is more than really the same as essence, because it cannot do so as formally the same.
202. Further, the statement [n.173] that ‘what relation leaves behind is an absolute’ seems to be repugnant to itself, because a form does not leave behind an existence other than itself (just as whiteness does not leave behind in the white thing any being other than itself by which the white thing is white); therefore the constituting property, if it preserves what is proper to itself, leaves behind what is proper to itself and nothing else. Likewise, how could an absolute be left from a relative property if the absolute precedes the relative property in the person?
203. Against what is replied next [n.174] about subsistent relation, that it is incommunicable, I ask: since one must first understand relation as a something before one understands it as subsistent, I ask how paternity is a ‘this’? It is not a ‘this’ of itself since it is not formally infinite, and so even more will it not be subsistent of itself; therefore it is not incommunicable of itself either. Against the other part, that ‘it is incommunicable insofar as it is divine’ [n.174], I argue as follows: when two things constitute per se some third thing, neither of the two gets from the other what accords with its own proper idea (as matter does not get from form the potentiality that belongs to it in causing the composite, and as form does not get from matter any of the actuality that belongs to it in composing the composite along with the matter; so too in the case of definition, genus does not get from the difference any determinable concept, nor does the difference get from the genus a specific act that is indivisible into things several in species); therefore if person is constituted from essence and incommunicable property, neither of these latter will have from the other what is proper to it; accordingly, therefore, just as the essence does not get communicability from the property, because (when one prescinds in thought from the property) the essence is communicable of itself, so the property will not get incommunicability from the essence, but will of itself, once the essence is per impossibile removed, be incommunicable primarily.
204. Further, essence as it is purely essence does not give incommunicability to the Father, because essence is of itself communicable; therefore it gives incommunicability to the Father as it is understood to have paternity virtually in itself, and so the same thing ‘as it is in the essence virtually’ will be the reason for itself ‘as it is formally such’!
205. Against the next one [n.275], namely that divine relations are primarily diverse, the argument is as has frequently been made [cf. Ord. 1 d.26 n.51], and one of the middle terms can be repeated: that then someone who knows one origination in divine reality, and who does not know whether that origination is filiation or inspiriting, would have a concept only about the word used [cf. 1 d.23 n.9]. Therefore the problems would be empty that are raised about generation in general and that are solved through their own middle terms before the question about productions in particular is raised [cf. 1 d.23 nn.19-16].
206. Against the next [n.176], namely that to relation, as it is relation, there belongs its being to some other distinct thing, because otherwise, if it is not to some other distinct thing, one would be able to say that paternity could be a real relation without the Son, on the supposition that the extremes of the relation would not have to be in some way distinct (just as would be true of identity too [sc. that identity could be said to be a real relation in divine reality without a real and sufficient distinction between the persons, 1 d.31 n.18]). Therefore ‘this’ paternity is related either to something else distinct by filiation alone or to something else distinct by a distinction prior to the one that would be from the Son. If in the second way, the intended conclusion is got [sc. person is distinct by something absolute prior to relation]. If in the first way, then to argue ‘paternity is not related to some other distinct thing, therefore it is not real’ is to argue ‘to this relation no real relation is opposed, therefore it is not real’; but this seems to be a manifest begging of the question, because the antecedent seems no more manifest than the consequent. Therefore no argument in the case of many relations could be made to the effect that they are not real on the basis of the premise that these relations are not between extremes really distinct, but there would be a general begging of the question.