Eleventh Distinction

Question 1. Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son

1. About the eleventh distinction I ask whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

That he does not:

Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.7: “the one proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son we call the Holy Spirit.”

2. Again, ch.8: “We say the Holy Spirit is from the Father, we do not say he is from the Son.”

3. Again, the same in his letter On the hymn the All Holy to the Archimandrite [Jordan] n.38, at the end: “Father and Word and Holy Spirit;” and he adds: “From the Father indeed; but of the Son, and not from the Son, but the Spirit of the mouth of God.”

4. Again, by the reasoning of the Greeks: nothing is to be held as an article of the faith save what is contained in the Gospel (which confusedly contains the faith), or at any rate in the Scripture of the New Testament; but it is not seen expressed in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son;   therefore etc     .

5. Again, love in us does not proceed from the word, because knowledge does not have causality with respect to volition; therefore likewise not in the prototype either.

6. Again, the will is posited as the third part of the image, Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.27 n.50; therefore it is not a principle of producing but a product. -Response: love is called ‘will’; but will ‘in potency’ pertains to the parent, although it does not constitute the parent, but quasi-arrives as a second fecundity in the Father.

7. Again, passive inspiriting is proper to one person in divine reality, therefore active inspiriting is too. - Proof of the consequence: for each seems equally perfect and equally incommunicable.

8. On the contrary:

In the Nicene Creed: “who proceeds from the Father and the Son;” and Athanasius in his Creed [Ps-Athanasius, Creed ‘Quicunque vult’]: “the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.”

I. To the Question

9. On this question the Greeks are said to disagree with the Latins, as the authorities from Damascene [nn.1-3] seem to indicate. But about this disagreement [the Bishop of] Lincoln [Robert Grosseteste] says (in a certain note on the end of the letter On the hymn the Thrice Holy [ms. in Magdalen College, Oxford, 192, f. 215rb]) that “the opinion of the Greeks is that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son but does not proceed from the Son, but only from the Father, although through the Son; and this opinion seems contrary to ours where we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But perhaps, if two wise men - one Greek and the other Latin - each a true lover of truth and not a lover of his own way of speaking, insofar as it is his own, were to inquire into this contrariety, it would eventually be plain to each that the contrariety is not truly real as it is verbal; otherwise either the Greeks themselves or we Latins are truly heretics. But who dares accuse this author, namely John Damascene, and blesseds Basil, Cyril, and other like Greek fathers, of being heretics? Who indeed will accuse again blesseds Jerome, Augustine, and Hilary and other like Latins of being heretics? It is likely then that there is not, under the said contrary words, an opinion of contrary saints; for the thing is said in many ways (just as here ‘of this’, so there ‘out of this’ or ‘by that’ of ‘from that’), in which multiplicity of contrary words perhaps, when it is more subtly understood and distinguished, no opposed opinion would appear.”

10. However it may be with these matters, from the time when the Catholic Church declared that this is to be held as of the substance of the faith (as is plain [in the Decretals of Gregory IX bk.1 tit.1 ch.1], ‘About the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith’: “We firmly believe”), one must firmly hold that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from both”.

11. For this there is the following sort of reason: that which first has a perfect productive principle before it is understood to have a product can produce by that principle, namely when the principle is so perfect that it does not depend on something passive nor can be impeded by anything; the Son has will, which is a principle productive of adequate love, and he has it as it is pre-understood to ‘the produced act of the will’; therefore he can produce it, therefore also he does produce it.

12. I prove the minor [n.11]: generation and inspiriting have a certain order, so that in some way generation is prior to inspiriting; in that prior stage there is communicated to the one generated all the divine perfection that is not repugnant to it, and so the will is communicated; therefore the generated then has will as prior ‘to what is produced by act of will’, because there is not yet understood any production made by way, or by act, of will.

13. Also, the assumption about the order of these productions [n.12], although it seem to be manifest from the order of the powers, is however proved from the fact that when first acts have an order in something - provided each is perfectly active - they will also have a like order in eliciting their acts. But I have added the phrase ‘perfectly active’ to exclude substantial form and quality in the case of corruptible things, where, although the substantial form is active, and the quality likewise, and the substantial form is prior to the quality, yet the quality has its act first; but this comes from the imperfection of the activity of the substantial form. Now in the Father intellect and will are perfectly active principles, and they have a certain order, because the fecundity of the intellect has constituted the Father but not the fecundity of the will. Therefore the fecundity of the intellect will in some way have its act before the fecundity of the will has its act.

14. Others prove this order of production to the product by the fact that, as understanding is to willing, so saying is to inspiriting.

15. But this proof [n.14] seems defective: for willing presupposes understanding, because the object, about which there is to be a love, is through this ‘understanding’ sufficiently present, and without this intellection it would not be sufficiently present to the will so that it might will; but through the act of speaking there is not present to the will precisely the object of which the love is inspirited, because, although the Father inspirits by the will as it is in him, yet he does not have the object formally present through generated knowledge (because he knows nothing by generated knowledge, as

Augustine says On the Trinity VII ch.1 n2), but by the intellection ungenerated in him does he have the object present to him, and this is the knowledge presupposed to the act of inspiriting; therefore there is not the like necessity for generation to be presupposed to inspiriting as there is for intellection to be presupposed to volition.

16. I concede that this instance [n.15] well proves that there is not altogether a like necessity, but there is an order between intellection and will for two reasons: one is because of the presence [of the object] already stated [n.15], the other is because of the order of these powers in operating, because these powers are such that one is naturally ordered to operate after the other. The first reason is not the reason for the priority of generation to inspiriting, but the second is; for just as, to the extent they are operative powers, there is some order between their operations, so there, to the extent they are productive powers, there is some order between their productions, although no order of necessity is required by the need to have such a presence of the object.

17. An example of this: if in fire heat and dryness are active causes, yet of a nature to elicit their acts in ordered fashion such that dryness cannot dry unless heat first heats, the order of necessity is not because the dryable object is, by the heating, made present to the dry so that it might be dried, but it is because of the nature of these active powers; and if in the prior stage in which the hot heats by heat it should communicate to the heated, or produce in the heated, not only the heat but also the dryness which it had, the heated would be dried by the same dryness as is in the heater, because in the instant of nature in which there is drying, there is one dryness in the heater and in the heated.

18. So must it be understood here, that in the moment of origin in which the Father produces by an act of will, there is the same productive principle in the Father and in the Son, and therefore the Son produces the Holy Spirit with the same production as the Father does.

II. To the Principal Arguments

19. To the authorities from Damascene [nn.1-3] it seems that a response can be made through that note of my Lord of Lincoln, about which we spoke [n.9]. However Damascene’s first authority [n.1] might, if he is speaking of the will and not of the Holy Spirit, be given an exposition: because it could then be said that the will, which is the principle of inspiriting, is ‘from the Father in the Son’ because the Father communicates it to the Son; and ‘it rests in the Son’, that is, it is not further communicated under the idea of fecund principle, although the same will is communicated to the Holy Spirit, in himself. But the literal meaning of Damascene in the same place [n.1] seems to be that he is speaking of the Holy Spirit, and not of the will by which he is inspirited.

20. To the reasoning about the Gospel [n.4] I say that the doctrine ‘Christ descended into hell’ is not taught in the Gospel, and yet it is to be held as an article of faith, because it is placed in the Apostle’s Creed. Thus are many other things about the sacraments of the Church not expressed in the Gospel and yet the Church holds them, handed down with certitude from the Apostles, and it would be dangerous to err about things which have not only come down from the Apostles but are also to be held by the custom of the universal Church. Nor did Christ in the Gospel teach all things pertaining to the dispensation of the sacraments; for he said to his disciples (John 16.12-13): “I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now; however when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will teach you all truth.” Therefore the Holy Spirit taught them many things which are not written in the Gospel; and thus have many things, some by writing, some by the custom of the Church, been handed down.

21. Likewise, diverse creeds have at diverse times been put forth against diverse heresies newly arisen, because, when a new heresy was arising, it was necessary to declare the truth against which the heresy was; which truth, although it was before of the faith, was yet not before as much declared as it is now against the errors of those who were denying it.

22. To the other point, about our word [n.5], I say that it is a mark of imperfection in the created image, because through our word the same nature as is in the mind is not communicated, and therefore not the liberty either, formally and simply. But to the divine Word is communicated the nature of the Father and the same will as is in the Father, and therefore the Word has the will as fecund with respect to the production of the Holy Spirit, because he is understood to have it first in order of origin before the Holy Spirit is inspirited.

23. To the final one [n.7], I say that it does not follow, because the divine nature cannot be had by one person in several productions, as will be plain in the following question [n.47], because in each production it would have the nature and in neither it would have the nature; yet one person can communicate nature in several productions, and several persons can produce a person in one production; and therefore if passive inspiriting is in one person alone, it does not follow that active inspiriting is in one alone.

Question 2. Whether, if the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, a real Distinction between him and the Son could stand.

24. Second I ask whether, if the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, a real distinction between him and the Son could stand.

I argue that it could not:

Because, according to Boethius On the Trinity ch.6: “the essence contains unity, relation multiplies the Trinity;”     therefore no person is distinguished from another which is not referred by relation to another; therefore if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son no real distinction from him could stand, because there would be no reference to him, - therefore , etc     .

25. Further, Augustine The City of God XI ch.10 n.1: “God is for this reason simple, that he is that which he has, excepting what is said relatively; just as the Father has a Son and is not the Son.” Therefore, if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, he would be the Son, because he would then not be said relatively to him.

26. On the contrary:

Augustine On the Trinity V ch.14 n.15: “It is clear that the Holy Spirit is not a son, although he exits from the Father, because he exits not as in some way born but as in some way given.”

I. On the Question itself

27. [Opinion of others] - Here it is saidThe Vatican editors say the opinion is found in an anonymous commentary on the Sentences, though they also note that the opinion is attributed by some to John of Berwick and William of Macclesfield. ¹ that the question is null, because a position that involves incompossibles cannot be posited nor sustained, for the refutation is included in it all at once, which is the ultimate discordance to which a respondent can be reduced; for when such a position is set down, no rule of disputation can be kept to (namely by conceding what follows and denying what is repugnant), for at once must the repugnance be conceded that is included in the position set down. Now the proof that the position is of this sort is that the supremely impossible is repugnant to the supremely necessary; whatever is in God inwardly is supremely necessary;     therefore what is repugnant thereto is supremely impossible. Therefore the position that supposes the Holy Spirit not to proceed from the Son is ‘supremely impossible’ because its opposite is supremely necessary inwardly (namely that he proceeds from the Son), and an impossible that includes incompossibles seems to be more impossible than an impossible that does not include such; therefore etc     .

28. [Against the opinion] - Against this position [n.27] is that the position seems to be an avoiding of the question. For the question is being moved so as to inquire what the first real thing is that distinguishes the Son from the Holy Spirit, whether filiation or active inspiriting only, - because if it is filiation, then, however much active inspiriting is per impossibile removed, there remains still a reason for distinguishing.

29. Further, although a position that, as soon as it is understood, includes contradictories cannot be admitted, yet that which, when understood, includes only one of the contradictories, and the other only through an accidental consequence or through topics extrinsic, seems it can well be admitted, because when such a position is set down rules of disputation can be kept to; for ‘what follows by an essential consequence’ can be conceded and what is repugnant can be denied; but if something ‘repugnant’ is inferred that follows from an extrinsic topic or by an accidental consequence, one must deny that it follows, because the proposition by which such a consequence would hold would be destroyed by the position. But now active inspiriting is not of the per se understanding of the Son, as he is a person, but is a quasi-property common to the Father and the Son; therefore, with this removed, then, in the positing of the Son in the being of Son, there are no contradictories posited by the first understanding of the proposed supposition [sc. that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son], but only one of them, namely that the Son is Son, and the other exists only as it were by accidental consequence and by an extrinsic topic, from the removal of the quasi-passion by removing the quasi-subject; therefore the position does not so include opposites that it cannot be admitted.The logical point being made here is hard to follow, even with the explanations provided by the Vatican editors. ²

30. Again, if something included essentially in something is posited as removed from it, which was yet not the reason for the inherence of any predicate, - one can well ask whether, with this or that removed, such a predicate would inhere or not; and however much the proposed supposition includes contradictories, it is yet not repugnant to this supposition that one part of the question is not determinately to be given; for example, if animality is removed from man - which however includes incompossibles -and the question is asked whether, with this removed, man can be distinguished from ass, a response that he can would seem determinately possible, because it does not belong to man to be distinguished from an ass by animality but by rationality. Therefore, even if active inspiriting were of the idea of the Son, yet one can still ask whether - with that removed - the Son may be distinguished from the Holy Spirit or not, because the question is only ‘whether the removed predicate was the precise cause of the distinction, or whether some other predicate was that was not removed’.

31. Further, it is one thing to posit something and, with that posited, to ask about some proposition, - and another thing to ask about the truth of some conditional, because to ask about some conditional commits one to nothing. Although     therefore the opinion [that the question cannot be posed, n.27] has some probability if one posited that the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son etc     ., yet it has none when the question is proposed (in the way I have proposed it) as follows: ‘whether, if the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, a real distinction between him and the Son could stand’. For there I am asking about a certain conditional, whether on ‘the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son’ it essentially follows that ‘he is not distinguished from the Son’, so that the opposite of the consequent cannot stand with the antecedent, speaking of the formal understanding of them.

32. Against this position [the opinion stated in n.27] there are also many authorities.

One is from Augustine On the Trinity V ch.6 n.7: “If the Father were not unborn, nothing would prevent him from having generated the Son,” - and yet this position concomitantly includes incompossibles, namely that the Father is unborn [sc. since the Father is by definition unborn, to suppose him not unborn is to suppose incompossibles].

33. And Richard [of St. Victor] On the Trinity ch.16: “If there were just one person, nothing would prevent him having the fullness of wisdom,” - although, however, on the fullness of wisdom or intellect there concomitantly follows a plurality of persons.

34. Thus too the Philosopher Physics 4.7.214a9-11 argues: supposing that there were some space, and it contained no body but sound or color, he asks whether it would be a vacuum; and he responds that if it was of a nature to receive a body, it would be a vacuum; if not, not. Therefore, with such a supposition in place, which however of itself posits incompossibles (because an accident - as sound or color - would be without a subject), one can ask about something whether it follows, namely by understanding it of natural consequence, - because although the posited supposition includes incompossibles, it does not however include all the incompossibles by natural consequence, but one of the contradictories can follow on it by natural consequence and the other contradictory not at all, save as on something or other impossible.

II. Response to the Question

A. Opinion of Others

35. Therefore, allowing of the question, there is one opinion that says that if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son he would in no way be distinguished from him, - and it has on its behalf two reasons.

36. One reason is this: relation in divine reality distinguishes either according to its quiddity or according to its being; not according to its being because thus it passes into essence;     therefore according to its quiddity. But according to its quiddity it only has a respect to its opposite, therefore it only distinguishes from its opposite; but, on the supposition of this hypothesis, there would not be in Son and Holy Spirit opposite relations; therefore etc     .

37. The second reason is this: if disparate relations could sufficiently distinguish persons, since there are two such relations in the Father - as active generation and active inspiriting -, the Father would be two persons. There is a confirmation for the reason in that these relations - active inspiriting and active generation - seem to have as great a distinction as do their relatives or correlatives; therefore the latter can distinguish just as can the former.

38. Anselm’s authority is adduced, in his book On the Procession of the Holy Spirit ch.2, but since each side adduces him on their own behalf and there is much disagreement about what his intention was, I do not for this reason wish here to dwell much on his intention.

B. Against the Opinion

39. Against this opinion are the reasons that are taken from two middle terms: the first middle is from the idea of what is formally constitutive, the second from the distinction of emanations.

40. [From the idea of what is formally constitutive] - The argument from the first of these is as follows: by whatever something is formally constituted in being, by that it is distinguished, because it is by the same thing that anything is a being and is one (with the unity fitting such an entity), and, if it is one, then it is not distinct from itself and is distinct from others; but the Son is constituted in ‘personal being’ by filiation,     therefore he is by it formally distinguished from every other person; therefore , after everything else, and especially ‘later’ filiation, per impossibile or per incompossibile has been removed, the Son will by filiation remain distinct in person from any other person. - The assumption is plain, because the Son is not constituted in ‘personal being’ by active inspiriting, because that is common to the Father and the Son; and there are not in him other positive properties besides passive generation and active inspiriting; therefore etc     .

41. A response is that something is not distinguished by what is formally constitutive from anything at all, but only from things with which it most agrees and from which it is not distinguished in any save that formal way. An example: man is distinguished by rationality, not from a stone, but from the species of animal, with which he most agrees and from which he seems to be in very few things distinct; but he is distinguished from a stone by animality, because a stone is inanimate, but this animality is not formally constitutive of man. - So is it said in the intended proposition, that the Son agrees with the Father in active inspiriting, and is in this respect distinguished from the Holy Spirit; but by his own proper formality (namely filiation) he is distinguished from the Father, with whom he most agrees; wherefore     etc .

42. Against this [n.41], and first that anything possessing a certain existence is, by a distinction that belongs to that existence, distinguished from anything else through something that is of the idea of that in which it has such existence. Therefore      the Son is distinguished as a person through something which is of his idea insofar as he is a person, but active inspiriting is not of the idea of the Son, but, once the Son is already posited, it is as it were an adventitious property. From this it is plain that the example adduced is not to the purpose, because, although man is not distinguished from stone first by rationality, yet he is distinguished by something that is of his essence, so that it would be discordant for him to be distinguished from a stone through nothing that is of his essence but through risibility. So it is then in the intended proposition.

43. Secondly in this way: what is constituted is distinguished by what is formally constitutive of it from everything else, even if per impossibile all things other than it were removed, because by it is it first distinguished - that is adequately - from everything not such; but anything that does not have that constitutive form is not such; therefore by that form is it distinguished from everything else that does not have it.

44. This reason [n3] is made clear by the fact that, although man is distinguished from a stone not only by rationality but also by animality, he is not distinguished by rationality first as well, that is, he is not adequately distinguished by rationality (because then anything distinct from a stone would be rational), but he is first distinguished in the genus of ‘body’ from a stone by ‘animality’; however, after by intellect removing from man whatever is other than rationality, he would yet by that alone be essentially distinguished from whatever is not rational, and so from a stone, which is not rational. Therefore it is not only what distinguishes adequately that distinguishes really but also what, merely if it were posited, would be incompossible with that from which it is distinguished.

45. For this reason, taken from what is properly constitutive [n.40], there is a confirmation in that, if the Father per impossibile did not inspirit but the Son did, the Father would still be distinguished from the Son and from the Holy Spirit by paternity, just as he is by paternity constituted in his personal existence.

46. [From the distinction of emanations] - From the second middle term, namely from the distinction of emanations [n.39], the argument is as follows: generation is distinguished from inspiriting, and this when per impossibile everything other than the idea of generation and inspiriting is removed, or at any rate when the fact is removed that active inspiriting would be from the Son, provided however that the distinction of the principles of generating and inspiriting would stand; therefore also, when all such is removed, the distinction between Son and Holy Spirit would stand.

47. The proof of the consequence is that it is impossible for one person to receive existence from two total productions; for a person receives existence from no production or distinction such that, if the production or distinction were per impossibile removed, the person would no less receive existence; but if it received existence from this production and from that - and from each completely, because each would be perfect - then, when either was removed, it would have existence completely through the other, and so it would receive being from neither and from each.

48. To this reasoning certain responses, as to the antecedent, are made, and because this matter will be treated of in distinction 13 [I d.13 n.7], I do not now enter on it. The conclusions of the above reasonings [nn.40, 46] I concede, and the intended proposition will become clearer when the distinction of the emanations has been made clear [d.13].

III. To the Principal Arguments

49. To the authority from Boethius [n.24] I concede that ‘relation multiplies the Trinity’, and yet it distinguishes not only from the opposite relation but also from any disparate relation with which it is formally not the same; because, just as in the genus of quality whiteness is distinguished not only from the other opposite quality [sc. blackness] but also from every other disparate one, because whiteness is not formally sweetness nor smell (and if any disparate quality were incompossible with another disparate one in the same supposit, not only would the nature be distinguished from the nature but there would also be required a distinction of supposits), so any disparate relation is distinguished from any other disparate relation, without any other incompossibility. There is a confirmation: active generation is distinguished from inspiriting as it exists in the Father, because the Son does not have an inspiriting more distinct from active generation than the inspiriting of the Father is distinct from it, because the Son’s inspiriting is the same as the Father’s. However some relations have not only a distinction but also an incompossible idea (or an incompossibility) in the same supposit, of which sort are the disparate relations of receiving the nature, because a person that received the nature in disparate ways would not have the nature in a single way.

50. To Augustine on The City of God I say that any person is that which he has, except that the relative has the correlative and is not it itself. But once the hypothesis in question is in place [n.24], the Holy Spirit would not have the Son as correlative and as inspiriter, and so it does not follow that the Holy Spirit would be the Son because he would not have the Son either as intrinsic or as correlative originator. But Augustine makes an exception when he says that that which is had does not have when it is had as a correlative; so Augustine does not take things otherwise than that what is had is had either in the way in which the Son is said to have deity, or in the way in which he is said to have a Father; one way is to have it formally or essentially, the other way is to have it correlatively or originally.

IV. To the Reasons for the Opinion of Others on the Question

51. To the reasons for the first opinion [n.35].

To the first [n.36] I say that the relation remains there both according to quiddity and according to being. For in whatever way it remains according to quiddity, in that way it remains according to the being of that which is ‘being toward another’, because the quiddity of relation cannot be without ‘being toward another’, because by understanding a relation without ‘being toward another’ one understands not a relation but something absolute, because - according to Augustine On the Trinity V ch.8 n.9 - if it is toward another it is not substance, and so if it is substance or toward itself, it is now not relation; for in whatever way the relation passes into essence, the being and the quiddity pass into it, because just as ‘being toward another’ - which is the being of relation - is truly the same as the essence, so also the quiddity of the relation is the same as the essence; for nothing is there which is not the same. Therefore both the being and the quiddity remain, because relation is not formally the divine essence, because, as Augustine says On the Trinity V ch.2 n.1: “he is not Word by that which he is wisdom;” but both pass into the essence because, along with the fact that they are not formally the same, they are truly the same, as has often been said [I d.2 n.410, d.4 n.10, d.5 nn.43-45, 117-118, 138].

52. When, therefore, you say ‘it is distinguished either according to its quiddity or according to its being’ [n.36], - I say that it is distinguished according to quiddity and according to ‘being toward another’. And when you say ‘thus it passes into essence, therefore it does not thus distinguish’ [ibid.], the consequence is not valid, because it passes according to identity, because true identity does not have to be formal identity, because the formal idea of that which passes is not formally the idea of the essence into which it passes; and therefore to this formal idea belongs what is proper to it; but it is proper to it to be distinguished really from every relation, both an opposite one and a disparate one incompossible with it, and therefore, along with the fact that it truly passes, it truly remains, as much as is sufficient for being really distinguished both from the opposite relative and also from a disparate relation incompossible with it.

53. To the second, when the two properties in the Father are talked of [n.37], the response is in distinction 2 question 3 [I d.2 nn.221-237]. For there need not be as much distinction or incompossibility of active productions as of passive productions, because it is incompossible for the same thing to be produced by, and to receive being from, two opposite productions [ibid. n.357]; but it is not incompossible for the same thing to communicate being to distinct persons by two active productions.