A. On the Enjoyment of the Wayfarer as to its Possibility

31. About the first I say that it is possible for the wayfarer to enjoy the divine essence without enjoying the person, and this is even possible in the case of ordered enjoyment. My proof for this is that according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2: “if essence is said relatively it is not essence, because every essence which is said relatively is something after the relative has been removed;” from which he concludes: “wherefore, if the Father is not something for himself, he is not something which can be said relative to another.” The divine essence, then, is some conceivable object in whose concept relation is not included, therefore it can be thus conceived by the wayfarer; but essence thus conceived has the idea of the supreme good, therefore it also has the perfect idea of enjoyability; therefore one can also enjoy it in an ordered way.

32. A confirmation of this reason is that one can deduce from purely natural facts that the supreme good is one, and yet from those natural facts we do not conceive God as he is Triune; therefore about the supreme good thus conceived one can have some act of the will, and not necessarily a disordered act; therefore one will have an ordered act of enjoyment about the essence and not about the person as we now conceive the person. The converse, however, is not possible, namely that one might enjoy in an ordered way the person without enjoying the essence, because the person includes the essence in the idea of itself.

33. Second I say also that the wayfarer can enjoy in an ordered way one person without enjoying another. My proof is that with respect to the three persons there are three distinct articles of faith; therefore one person can be conceived to whom one article corresponds, and then in that person the idea of the supreme good is conceived; one can therefore enjoy the person thus conceived without enjoying another.

If you say the person is a relative notion, therefore it cannot be conceived unless its correlative is conceived, I reply: although the knowledge of a relative requires knowledge of its correlative, it is nevertheless not necessary that the knower and enjoyer of one relative know and enjoy the other relative, because it is possible to enjoy God insofar as he is Creator without enjoying the creature that is nevertheless the term of that relation. - Likewise, although the Father is said correlatively to the Son and therefore cannot be understood insofar as he is Father without the Son being understood, yet he is not said relatively to the Holy Spirit insofar as he is Father; therefore it will be possible to conceive the Father as Father and to enjoy him without conceiving and enjoying the Holy Spirit.