134. Word as the Son's Personal Name and Relation to Creatures

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

• Word as Personal Name vs. Essential Name: Why ‘Word’ properly signifies the Son’s procession and origin from the Father, not the divine nature common to all three persons
• The Distinction Between God’s Understanding and Ours: How God’s being and understanding are identical, making God’s thought subsisting and personal rather than accidental
• Intellectual Procession: The Son as the thought or word proceeding from the Father’s understanding
• Word’s Relation to Creatures: Whether and how the Word expresses and produces creatures while remaining primarily ordered to the Father
• Immanent vs. Transitive Actions: The distinction between actions that remain in the agent (understanding, willing) versus those that produce external effects (creating)

Key Arguments #

Article 2: Is Word the Son’s Own Name? #

Objection 1: Word Cannot Be Personal Because Thoughts Are Not Persons

• Our thoughts are accidents inhering in the soul, not subsisting persons
• The Son is a subsisting person, so how can he be a word?
• Response: In us, being (essentia) and understanding (intelligere) are distinct. In God, they are identical. Therefore God’s thought is not an accident but pertains to his very nature and must subsist as a person (hypostasis). The Word is substantiale—substantial and existing in a hypostasis.

Objection 2: Word Implies Improper Procession (Prolatio)

• If the Son is a word, he proceeds from the Father by prolatio (being carried forth), which leads to the heresy of Valentine
• Response: The Word proceeds from the Father but remains within him, like our interior thought proceeding from understanding yet remaining in us. This is not the heretical prolatio that implies the Word leaving the Father’s nature.

Objection 3: Multiple Properties Problem

• If Word is the Son’s proper name, it signifies a property distinct from ‘Son’
• This would mean more than five notions in God
• Response: Word and Son signify the same property—the nativity or generation of the Son. Different names express this one property in different ways: ‘Son’ shows he is of the same nature as the Father; ‘Splendor’ shows co-eternity; ‘Image’ shows similarity; ‘Word’ shows generation in an immaterial way.

Objection 4: The Son Also Understands

• The Son understands, so doesn’t he also produce a word?
• Wouldn’t there be two words, one from the Father and one from the Son?
• Response: The Son understands as God understands (essentially), not by producing a word. He understands as the thought proceeding (not as the principle from which thought proceeds). The procession differs from understanding only by relation to the principle—the Father.

Objection 5: Hebrews 1:3 and Multiple Words

• Hebrews 1:3 says the Son carries all things by “the word of his power”
• Basil treats the Holy Spirit as the word of the Son
• Wouldn’t this make Word common to multiple persons?
• Response: This is figurative language. ‘Word’ here means ‘command’ or signifies the effect of power. The Spirit is called word of the Son only improperly and figuratively, insofar as the Spirit manifests the Son.

Article 3: Does Word Imply Relation to Creatures? #

Objection 1: Personal Names Don’t Imply Relation to Creatures

• Names connoting effects in creatures are said essentially, not personally
• Word is said personally, so it cannot imply relation to creatures
• Response: In the definition of a divine person, the nature is included obliquely (indirectly). As ‘point’ is defined as ’end of a line’ (where line is obliquely included), the Word includes the divine nature obliquely. The personal relation (to the Father) does not imply relation to creatures, but the nature included in the definition does.

Objection 2: Temporal Relations vs. Eternal Word

• Names implying relation to creatures are said in time (Lord, Creator)
• Word is said eternally, so it cannot imply relation to creatures
• Response: Relations following transitive actions (those passing into external effects: creating, governing) are said in time. Relations following immanent actions (those remaining in the agent: knowing, willing, choosing) are not said in time. The Word follows God’s eternal knowledge, so it is eternal, yet it still can imply relation to creatures.

Objection 3: Procession Problem

• If Word implies relation to creatures, wouldn’t it proceed from creatures?
• Response: God’s knowledge of creatures does not proceed from creatures but from God’s essence. Therefore, the Word expressing creatures does not proceed from creatures.

Objection 4: Many Words Problem

• If Word implies diverse relations to creatures, there would be many words
• But there is only one Word
• Response: The name ‘Idea’ is chiefly imposed to signify relation to creatures, so there are many ideas (corresponding to diverse ways creatures can be like God). The name ‘Word’ is chiefly imposed to signify relation to the one speaking (the Father), so there is only one Word, though it expresses all creatures.

Important Definitions #

Verbum (Word): In God, the interior thought or conception (cogitatio) that proceeds from the Father’s understanding of himself. It is:

• A personal name (signifying the Son’s origin from the Father)
• Subsisting (existing as a hypostasis/person, not merely as an accident)
• Expressive of the Father and all creatures
• Productive of creatures (in that creation follows the divine Word according to which all things are made)

Processio (Procession): The going forth of one divine person from another while remaining within the divine nature. The Word’s procession is intellectual procession—thought proceeding from understanding.

Imago (Image): Related to Word; both express the Son’s likeness to the Father and his generation. Image emphasizes the similarity; Word emphasizes the immaterial nature of generation.

Nomen personale (Personal Name): A name that distinguishes one divine person from others by signifying their origin or relation of origin (e.g., Father, Son, Word).

Nomen essentiale (Essential Name): A name signifying the divine nature common to all three persons (e.g., God, Being, Wise).

Actio immanens (Immanent Action): An action that remains entirely within the agent and perfects the agent (e.g., understanding, willing, loving). Such actions do not require external effects and can be eternal.

Actio transiens (Transitive Action): An action that passes into external matter and produces an external effect distinct from the action (e.g., creating, making, governing). Such actions are said in time when their effects are temporal.

Cognitio (Knowledge): God’s eternal understanding, which is identical with his being. God knows all things—himself and all creatures—in one eternal act.

Examples & Illustrations #

The Fundamental Difference: God’s Thought vs. Our Thought #

In us:

• My thought of a triangle is not me; it is an accident (a quality) in my soul
• My thought of myself is not myself; it is a concept about myself
• Even my understanding of reason is not reason itself—it is a definition of reason, which is distinct from reason as a power
• Therefore, my thoughts do not subsist as persons

In God:

• God’s being and God’s understanding are identical (not distinct as in us)
• Therefore God’s thought is not an accident but pertains to his very nature
• God’s thought must subsist because whatever is in the nature of God subsists
• Therefore God’s thought is a subsisting person—the Son

Prolatio and the Heresy of Valentine #

Berquist briefly mentions the heresy of Valentine, which involved understanding the Son’s procession as prolatio (being carried forth), implying the Word literally leaves or separates from the Father. Thomas and Augustine are careful to distinguish the Word’s eternal procession (which remains interior to God) from any such heretical separation.

Immanent Actions in the Divine Processions #

Understanding (first immanent action):

• God eternally understands himself
• From this proceeds the Son (by intellectual procession)
• This procession is called generation

Willing/Loving (second immanent action):

• God eternally wills/loves himself
• From this proceeds the Holy Spirit
• This procession is called spiration

Examples in human experience:

• I can understand without any external effect (pure immanent action)
• I can choose/will without any external effect (pure immanent action)
• But I can also make or create (transitive action producing external effect)

Transitive vs. Immanent Actions and Temporal Language #

Transitive (said in time):

• God is Creator (only after creating the creature, which is in time)
• God is Lord (only after creating what he governs, which is in time)
• These relations follow upon God’s creative action, which produces temporal effects

Immanent (said eternally):

• God eternally knows all things (even those he chooses not to create)
• God eternally chooses or wills (even before creating)
• God eternally loves creatures
• These relations follow upon God’s knowledge and will, which remain within God and are eternal

Practical example: “Chosen me before the foundation of the world”

• God chose me eternally (choosing is an immanent action)
• But God created my soul in time (creating is a transitive action)
• Therefore, I am eternally chosen but temporally created

The Carpenter and the Poem #

Berquist reflects on how the carpenter knows how to make the chair before making it, not through making. The knowledge precedes and directs the making. Similarly, God’s Word expresses and directs all creation.

Berquist also mentions his own poem: “God the Father said it all in one word. No wonder when that word became a man, he spoke in words so few and said so much. He was the brevity and soul of wit.”

Why Many Ideas but Only One Word #

Ideas: Correspond to the diverse ways creatures can be like God

• The way a dog can be like God differs from the way a tree can be like God
• The way an angel can be like God differs from the way a human can be like God
• The way a seraphim can be like God differs from a lower angel
• Therefore, there are many ideas in God’s knowledge

Word: Corresponds to the one principle from whom all proceeds

• God speaks all creatures in one eternal utterance
• God understands all things in one eternal act
• Therefore, there is only one Word
• Yet this one Word expresses the Father and all creatures

Questions Addressed #

Q: How can God’s thought be a person when our thoughts are not? A: Because in God, being and understanding are identical. God’s thought is not an accident; it is subsisting being itself. What subsists in the nature of God must be a person (hypostasis).

Q: Does the Word proceed from the Father only by prolatio (being carried forth)? A: No. The Word proceeds from the Father but remains within him, just as our interior thought proceeds from understanding yet remains in us. Prolatio in the sense of the heresy of Valentine (separation from the Father’s nature) is not what is meant.

Q: If Word and Son both signify the Son’s generation, aren’t they the same name? A: They signify the same property (generation), but express it in diverse ways. ‘Son’ emphasizes his being of the same nature as the Father; ‘Word’ emphasizes his being generated in an immaterial way.

Q: Doesn’t the Son also produce a word since he understands? A: The Son understands as God (essentially), not by producing a word distinct from his understanding. He is the thought proceeding, not the principle producing thought.

Q: Does the Word imply a relation to creatures? A: Yes, secondarily. The Word is chiefly expressive of the Father, but because God in understanding himself understands all creatures, the Word is also expressive of creatures. However, this does not mean the Word proceeds from creatures or that there are multiple words.

Q: If the Word expresses creatures, is it productive of creatures too? A: In a certain sense, yes. God’s understanding expresses things, and God’s creative power produces things according to that Word. But the Word itself is expressive of things eternally, while the production is temporal. Things that God chooses to create, the Word is both expressive and productive of; things God knows but does not choose to create, the Word is merely expressive of.

Notable Quotes #

“The word alone is taken for the son.” — Augustine, cited by Thomas on the propriety of Word as the Son’s name

“In the beginning was the word” — Gospel of St. John 1:1, cited as clearest scriptural authority

“For God to be and to understand are the same thing.” — Thomas Aquinas on the fundamental difference between God and creatures

“Whatever is in the nature of God subsists.” — Principle cited by Thomas and Damascene, showing why God’s thought must be personal

“He said, and they were made.” — Psalm 32, showing how the Word is productive of creatures

“The word of God is substantiale.” — Damascene, affirming the Word’s subsistence in a hypostasis