111. Divine Procession and Generation: Internal Operations in God

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Procession (Processio) in God #

• Procession ad extra (external): characteristic of creatures proceeding from God; involves change from non-being to being and diversity of substance
• Procession ad intra (internal): characteristic of operations within God; remains within the agent and does not imply external change
• Divine procession is interior and unified with its source; the more perfect the procession, the more unified it is with what proceeds from it

Responding to Objections #

1. First Objection: Going forward signifies external motion/emotion, but nothing external exists in God

   • Reply: The objection concerns external procession. Internal operations like imagination and understanding are not local motions and do not require external effects

2. Second Objection: Whatever proceeds must be diverse from that from which it proceeds

   • Reply: What proceeds externally is necessarily diverse in substance. What proceeds internally by way of understanding is not necessarily diverse; the more perfect it is, the more unified it is with its source. The understanding becomes one with the thing understood

3. Third Objection: Procession seems repugnant to the notion of a First Beginning

   • Reply: External procession from something outside or diverse in substance contradicts being a first beginning. But internal procession, intimate and without diversity, is included in the notion of a first beginning

Generation as a Particular Kind of Procession #

• Thomas distinguishes two meanings of generation:

  • Generic meaning: change from non-being to being (involves matter and potentiality—not found in God)
  • Particular meaning (in living things): the origin of something living from a living principle conjoined to it, proceeding by way of likeness in the same species

• The procession of the Word is called “generation” in the particular sense because:

  • It proceeds from a living principle (God’s understanding/intellect)
  • It is an intelligible action, which is an operation of life
  • It proceeds by way of likeness: the conception of understanding is a likeness of the thing understood
  • It subsists in the same nature: unlike human thought (which is not our substance), God’s thought is God’s being
  • To be and to understand are identical in God, therefore the Word is God proceeding from God

The Problem of Received Being #

• Objection: If something is generated, it receives being from the one generating; but what is received cannot subsist in itself
• Reply: Not everything received must be received in a subject or matter. The whole substance of a creature is received from God without requiring a subject. What is generated takes being from the one generating, not as being received in matter or subject, but as having divine being proceeding from another without existing other from the divine being

Key Arguments #

The Analogy of Understanding #

• When a mind understands something:
  • An external object (e.g., a cat) acts upon the senses and intellect like a father
  • The mind is like a mother, receiving and conceiving the thought
• When a mind understands itself (e.g., reason understanding reason):
  • The mind is more like a father, generating thought of itself
  • This approaches the divine procession more closely than understanding external objects
• In God:
  • God understands God (not an external object)
  • God is the thought of God
  • The thought is divine being itself (not merely an accident as in creatures)

The Distinction Between Act and Potentiality #

• God is pure act; creatures move from potentiality to act
• A thing in a genus is characterized by the distinction of genus (like matter/potentiality) and difference (like form/act)
• In divine language, we drop the genus (which implies potentiality) and retain the difference (which refers to what is in act and God-like)
• Example: A definition is “speech making known what a thing is,” but God has no speech; he simply knows what things are in act

Generation: Generic vs. Particular #

• Worms generated in animals do not have the notion of proper generation because they lack specific likeness to their source
• For proper generation in living things, there must be procession by way of likeness in nature of the same species (man from man, horse from horse)
• In God, if there is a procession in a living thing whose life does not go from potentiality to act:
  • It excludes the generic notion of generation (change from non-being to being)
  • It can have the particular notion of generation (one thing proceeding from another in likeness of the same kind)

Important Definitions #

Generatio (Generation) #

Two senses:

• Broad sense: Any change from non-being to being; its subject is matter—inapplicable to God
• Particular sense: Origin of something living from a living principle conjoined to it, proceeding by way of likeness in the same species

Nativity (Nativitas) #

• A type of generation properly found in living things
• Distinguished from other processions (e.g., the production of worms) by the requirement of specific likeness

Conceptio (Conception) #

• The thought or concept formed by understanding
• In creatures: a likeness of the thing understood, but not of the same nature as the understanding itself
• In God: identical with the divine substance, making it properly called generation

Subsisting Relation #

• What proceeds in God has divine being and subsists in itself
• The Word (Son) is not merely a quality or accident but a subsisting reality

Examples & Illustrations #

Imagination and Thought #

• When I imagine a gold mountain or glass mountain, an image proceeds from my imagination
• This illustrates procession ad intra but imperfectly (the image is not itself imagination)
• When I understand something, a thought proceeds from my mind
• The thought is more like divine procession than imagination because understanding is more immaterial
• Limitation: My thought is not my being; I existed before I had the thought about reason

Reason Understanding Itself #

• Shakespeare’s definition: Reason is “the ability for large discourse, looking before and after”
• When reason forms a definition of reason, it has some likeness to the Father generating the Son
• The definition/thought is a likeness of reason
• Limitation: Unlike God, my being and my understanding are not the same; the definition is not reason itself

The House Builder #

• The house builder is the beginning of the house; in the notion of this beginning is included the conception of his art
• God as the first beginning of things is compared to created things as an artist to artificial things
• Just as the artist must have a thought about what he is making, so God must have thought of all things
• Knowledge does not determine the will to act; the will determines which effects are produced from the knowledge

The Medical Art #

• The medical art can heal or make sick, save life or end it
• The art itself does not determine which effect; the will determines this
• The same knowledge of opposites allows both effects
• This illustrates why reason alone cannot produce creation; the will must determine the act

Notable Quotes #

“I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14)

• Cited as the divine self-identification emphasizing pure being without change or becoming

“I today have generated you” (Psalm 2:7)

• Scriptural basis for calling the procession of the Word “generation”

“Intellectum valde ama” (Love the understanding very much)

• Augustine, cited as expressing how the understanding of what understanding is leads to love of this gift

“The understanding, according as it understands and acts, in this way becomes one with the thing understood”

• Aristotle, cited as authority for the principle that understanding unites knower and known

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was towards God, and the word was God”

• John 1:1, discussed regarding the translation of Greek logos as “thought” rather than merely “word”

Questions Addressed #

Q1: How can there be procession in God if procession implies motion and change? #

• Answer: Procession must be distinguished as either external (ad extra) or internal (ad intra). God has internal procession through understanding and willing, which remain within God and do not imply external change or motion. Internal procession is compatible with divine immutability.

Q2: If what proceeds from something must be diverse from it, how can the Word proceed from the Father without being diverse? #

• Answer: External procession necessarily produces diversity of substance. Internal procession through understanding does not necessarily produce diversity; the more perfect the procession, the more unified it is with its source. In God, to understand is to be, so the Word is not diverse in substance but is divine being itself proceeding from divine being.

Q3: Can the internal procession of the Word be called “generation”? #

• Answer: Yes, in the particular sense of generation found in living things. It is not generation in the generic sense (which involves change from non-being to being and matter). But it is generation in the sense of one living thing proceeding from a living principle of the same species in likeness, remaining within the same nature, subsisting in itself. Scripture uses terms of generation (conception, giving birth) to signify the procession of divine wisdom.

Q4: If the Word is generated and receives being from the Father, does it not depend on matter as its subject? #

• Answer: Not all received being must be received in a subject or matter. What is generated takes being from the one generating not as being received in matter, but as having divine being proceeding from another while remaining identical with the divine being. The perfection of the divine being contains both the Word proceeding and the One from which it proceeds.

Conceptual Context #

This lecture addresses the logical problem of how internal divine processions (understood as operations of understanding and willing) can be real and genuinely proceeding while preserving:

1. Divine simplicity and immutability
2. The notion of God as the First Beginning
3. The identity of God’s being and God’s understanding
4. The real distinction of persons in the Trinity

The solution depends on distinguishing generic from particular meanings, external from internal processions, and substance from relations—a key Thomistic methodological move for reconciling apparent contradictions in theology.