146. Appropriation of Essential Attributes to Divine Persons

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Problem of Appropriation #

• Objection: Appropriating essential attributes to specific persons risks verging on heresy by suggesting attributes belong exclusively or primarily to that person
• Challenge: Scripture is filled with appropriations (e.g., “Christ, the wisdom of God”), so rejecting appropriation would require rejecting Scripture itself
• Key Issue: Essential attributes are common to all three persons; assigning them to one person seems to contradict this

Why Appropriation is Legitimate and Necessary #

• Foundational Principle: We proceed from what is more-known to what is less-known in our teaching
• Essential Attributes are More Known: By natural reason and from creatures, we can arrive at knowledge of God’s essential attributes (simplicity, perfection, unity, etc.)
• Personal Properties are Less Known: The distinctions between persons cannot be arrived at by natural reason alone; they require faith
• Pedagogical Function: Appropriation uses familiar divine attributes to manifest the less-familiar reality of the Trinity

The Distinction Between Meaning and Supposition #

• The name “God” signifies the divine essence but can stand for (be determined to) any of the three persons depending on context
• When we say “God generates,” the word “God” stands for the Father specifically
• When we say “God is three persons,” “God” stands for the divine essence common to all three
• This distinction is essential for understanding how predication works in theology

Two Methods of Appropriation #

By Way of Likeness (Similitude)

• Wisdom is appropriated to the Son because the Son proceeds by way of understanding, and wisdom pertains to understanding
• Goodness is appropriated to the Holy Spirit because goodness is the object of love, and the Spirit is Love

By Way of Unlikeness (Dissimilitude)

• Power is appropriated to the Father; among creatures, fathers grow old and infirm, so we appropriate power to God the Father to exclude any suggestion of weakness
• Sons tend to be foolish in literature and creatures, yet we appropriate wisdom to the Son by contrast to manifest his perfection

Addressing Objections #

Against the First Objection (appropriation leads to error):

• Essential attributes are not appropriated such that they are asserted to be private to the persons
• Rather, they are appropriated to manifest the persons either by likeness or unlikeness
• No error of faith follows; instead, there is a manifestation of truth
• Metaphors work similarly—they manifest truth when understood correctly

Against the Second Objection (abstract names signify form, and one person cannot be the form of another):

• If appropriation meant that only the Son possesses wisdom (making wisdom private to him), then one person would have another as form
• But this is precisely what appropriation does not claim; both the Father and Son together are wise
• The Son is called “the wisdom of the Father” because he is wisdom from the Father, not because the Father lacks wisdom
• Both the Father and Son together are one wisdom by their shared essence
• The Father is not wise by the wisdom he generates (as if the Son were his wisdom); rather, the Father is wise by his own essence

Against the Third Objection (essential attributes are prior to persons in understanding, so should not be appropriated):

• Although an essential attribute according to its own proper meaning is prior to persons in our way of understanding, insofar as it has the notion of being appropriated, nothing prevents the private property of the person to be understood before what is appropriated
• Analogy: Color comes after body as a substance, yet “white body” has a natural order where whiteness is understood in relation to the specific body
• Similarly, power appropriated to the Father still expresses the personal property of the Father as source

Key Arguments #

Why Essential Attributes Can Be Said of One Person More Than Others #

• Essential attributes belong to all three persons equally in reality
• But in our way of understanding and manifesting them, they illuminate one person more than another
• This is not false or misleading but rather a proper use of language to guide understanding from the known to the unknown

The Footprint of the Trinity in Creatures #

• Beginning, middle, and end found in created things reflect the Trinity
• Beginning (source without source) reflects the Father
• Middle (from something, something proceeds from it) reflects the Son
• End (from something, nothing proceeds from it) reflects the Holy Spirit
• Even in material things: substance (like thought/Father), form (like understanding/Son), and operation/inclination (like love/Spirit)

The Image of Trinity in Human Reason #

• From reason proceeds thought about reason itself
• When we understand reason clearly and distinctly, love follows (love of understanding)
• This threefold structure—reason, understanding of reason, love of that understanding—mirrors the Trinity
• Such images and footprints serve pedagogically to help us grasp what remains ultimately inaccessible

Important Definitions #

Appropriation (appropriatio): Taking something that belongs essentially to God and attributing it to one divine person by reason of a certain likeness, not to assert it is private to that person but to manifest the person through that attribute.

Supposition (suppositio): What a term stands for or refers to in a particular context. Distinguished from meaning. Example: “God generates” restricts the supposition of “God” to the Father, though “God” means the divine essence common to all three.

Concrete Names: Signify form as possessed by a subject (e.g., “God,” “man”). Can stand for persons because they indicate the nature as actualized in a subject.

Abstract Names: Signify form in abstraction from subjects (e.g., “essence,” “divinity”). Cannot properly stand for persons in the divine context because they abstract from the distinction of persons.

Notional Acts: Acts proper to the persons (generation, spiration) that determine the supposition of universal names to particular persons. The verb “generates” restricts “God” to stand for the Father.

Examples & Illustrations #

Appropriations from Augustine and Hilary #

• Wisdom to the Son: The Son proceeds by understanding (God’s self-knowledge); wisdom manifests this mode of procession
• Power to the Father: As source and principle, power is naturally associated with the Father; appropriating power also excludes any notion of weakness due to age
• Goodness to the Holy Spirit: Goodness is the object of love; the Spirit is Love proceeding from the Father and Son

The Problem of Universal Predication #

• We cannot say “man is every man” because no individual man is every man
• But we can say “God is three persons” because “God” stands for the divine essence, which is identical with all three persons
• The difference: human nature is common only in our understanding (secundum considerationem), but divine nature is common in reality itself (secundum rem)

Shakespeare and the Comedy of Errors #

• Error and confusion arise from likeness (identical twins) mistaken for the same person
• Similarly, there is a real likeness between how “God” is said of three persons and how “man” is said of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
• But the divine case involves real identity of nature, while the human case involves merely conceptual unity

Questions Addressed #

Why is appropriation necessary in theology? #

• Because the Trinity cannot be proven by demonstration or discovered by natural reason
• We must proceed from what is known by natural reason (essential attributes) to what is known only by faith (personal properties)
• Appropriation serves this pedagogical necessity

Does appropriation risk introducing error into faith? #

• No, provided we understand what we are doing
• Appropriation does not assert that wisdom belongs only to the Son or more to the Son than the Father
• Rather, it uses the similarity between the Son’s mode of procession (by understanding) and the nature of wisdom to illuminate our understanding of the Son
• The Fathers and Scripture employ appropriations legitimately throughout

How can abstract names be appropriated to persons if they cannot stand for them? #

• Abstract names signify attributes, not persons
• When appropriated, they manifest persons through their connection to those attributes
• The appropriation works by showing how a personal distinction relates to an essential attribute by way of likeness or unlikeness
• The attribution is real, but it operates at the level of manifestation rather than proper predication of the person itself

Why is the Father not wise by the wisdom he generates (the Son)? #

• Because wisdom here refers not to the person of the Son but to the essential attribute
• The Father and Son together are one wisdom by their shared divine essence
• Both are eternally wise; the Father did not become wise through generating the Son
• To say the Father is wise by the Son (as the only wisdom) would contradict the Father’s own possession of the divine nature

Notable Quotes #

“From words put forward disorderly, heresy is incurred.” — Jerome, cited by Aquinas on the care required in theological speech

“We believe the one God to be the trinity.” — Augustine, cited as Scriptural precedent for saying God is three persons

“The essential attributes are more known to us by reason than what is private to the persons.” — Aquinas, establishing the pedagogical principle behind appropriation

“Just as the likeness of the footprint or the image found in creatures we use to a manifestation of the Divine Persons, so also we use the essential attributes.” — Aquinas, on the epistemological role of appropriation