Prima Pars
Lecture 149: Relations and Persons in God: Identity and Distinction

Transcript
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Now next time we're going to go into what? The third question, huh? Let's look at a premium there just for a second before we break up here. Notice we're saying that there's three, that the persons in God are distinguished by what? Relations of what? Origin, yeah, yeah. So if you go back to the... What? Glory in your word there. So you go back to the premium at the beginning of 59, right? In the consideration of these 15 questions dealing with the persons, right? Ten were considering the persons absolutely and then five, imperative consideration, right? So he says, after those things which have been treated about the divine persons absolutely, it remains to consider about the persons in comparison to the essence, right? And that's the question that we just went through, right? You can see why appropriation belongs to that, right? Because you're saying, can you appropriate something that pertains to the essence of God to the persons? And you can, but it doesn't mean that that... You can't understand what that means, right? And why are you doing that? So that's just part of the consideration. But the fundamental question was whether the person was the same thing as the divine nature and the answer was yes, okay? Now the next thing, you're going to compare it to the properties and to the what? That means relations, right? And then there's going to be a third question comparing it to what he calls the actus notionalis, like to generate or to breathe, right? Well, is the act of generating something different from the father, really? My act of generating my children is something really different from me. Just like my walking is something really different from me, right? My walking is not my legs, is it? My seeing is not my eyes. So is the father generating something really different from the father? Well, if I only get to that question, right? You know, that's how thorough Thomas is, all right? He compares the persons to the divine nature, the divine essence first, and that's what these eight-art rules are about. Now he's going to compare them to what? Divulations or properties, right? And in the premium here, it's the beginning of question 40. He says, then we're not to ask about the persons in comparison to the relations or the properties, right? And about these four things are asked. And the fundamental question is, whether the relation is the same thing as the person, right? Just like he asked in the previous question, whether the divine substance or divine essence or divine nature was the same thing as the person, right? And then, secondly, whether the relations distinguish and constitute the persons, right? And third, whether abstracting by your understanding the relations and the persons that remain, these persons or hypostasis distinct. And then, whether the relations, according to our way of understanding, presuppose the acts of the persons or the person. There will be a multiple answer to that, as you'll find out. It'll be different for the father and the son and so on. But for, as Shakespeare says, you know, reason is the ability to look before and after, right? In what sense is the father before generating? In what sense is the father after generating, in our way of understanding? In other words, does he generate because he's the father? Or is he the father because he generated? Well, tell us I have a self-answer to that, right? So, we'll start next week, huh? Thank you. Thank you. In the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and bloom in our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly St. Thomas Aquinas and Jelly Doctor. Pray for us. And help us to understand all that you've written. Our Lord, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. Now why did God make Thomas Aquinas so much more intelligent than us? He would be more intelligent. And the reason Thomas gives, himself, right, is not about this. The wise being, one creature, but in the other. So we could be like God, not only being good, but being the cause of goodness in others, right? And so the earth, we have to have inequality, for one is superior to the other, right, and can illuminate the other one. So Thomas illuminating us, right, imitates God. The Father of Lights, as St. James calls him on. I think he says, in other places, for similar things, it's not only that a man can learn, but teach another thing. Yeah, yeah. That's more like God, right? So, we're at the 40th question here now. Let's look at the premium. Then one asks about the persons in comparison to the relations or the properties. And four things are asked or sought. First, for the relation, it's the same thing as the person. Secondly, for the relations, distinguish one from another, right, the persons, and constitute the persons. Then, whether, abstracting by the understanding, the relations of the persons, do the hypostasis, remain distinct. And fourth, with the relations, according to the understanding, presuppose the acts of the persons, or the, what, reverse. Got to be a mixed answer, as you'll see. So let's go to the first article. Whether the relation is the same as the person. The first one goes forward thus. It seems that in God, the relation is not the same thing as the person. For whatever things are the same, when one is multiplied, the other is multiplied. But it happens that in one person, there are many relations. As in the person of the father, there is fatherhood and common breathing, right? And also, there is one relation in two persons. As the common breathing is both in the father and in the, what, son. Therefore, the relation is not the same thing as the, what, person. It's an interesting objection. Thomas has a very long reply to that, as you can see. Moreover, nothing is in itself, according to the philosopher in the fourth book of physics. But the relation is in the person. And it cannot be said by reason of identity, because thus it would also be in the, what, essence. And the essence would be distinguished, right? It's not a lot. Therefore, relation or propriety or property and person are not the same thing in God. Moreover, whatever things are the same have themselves such that whatever is said of one is said of the other. But not whatever is said of the person is said of the property. For we say, for example, that the father generates. But we do not say that the fatherhood is generating. So you seem to be affirming something of one that you deny of the other. That gives us syllogism in the second figure. And therefore, not the same thing, right? Therefore, the property is not the same thing as a person in God. Now it's going to settle the matter if that's all we had before us, right? If the rest of Thomas' text had been lost, huh? Misled by Thomas. Against all this, in God, what is and that by which it is are the same thing. As you have from with this in the book but the father by fatherhood is father, right? That's co-est, right? By which he is. That's the same as what he is. I couldn't read this. Therefore, the father is the same thing as his what? Fatherhood. And for the same reason, the other properties are the same with the what? Person, huh? Now what's going to do with this? I am sure it should be said that about this some have opined diversely, right? Have thought in different ways, different things. For some said that the properties are neither the persons nor in the persons, huh? Who were moved from the way of signifying that relations have. Which do not signify as in something but more as towards something. This is the big difference between relation, let's say, and quantity and quality, right? Because when you try to understand quantity, it's the what? Size of substance, huh? So its particular notion or definition is in reference to its subject, right? And quality is the disposition of substance, right? Well, relation is not defined as something of what it's supposed to be in but towards something, right? Whence they said that relations were assisting as has been expounded above, huh? Gilbert of Poitonus, huh? But because relation, according as it is a thing in God, is the very essence, the essence, however, is the same thing as a person as we saw, it's necessary that the relation be the same as the, what, person, huh? That's what he's saying there, huh? Relation is a certain thing in God, right? Now, so let's see again in this article and they imply whatever is said to be in God is God, right? And you can also say whatever God is said to have in himself, right, is God, right? Okay? This is not true about us, right? So logic is in me but am I logic? Geometry is in me, right? Or some health, I guess, is in me. Still a little bit of health. Am I health, though? See? So what I have like health or geometry and so on, right? Is not me, right? What is in me, right? But because God is altogether, what? Simple. Whatever he said to have in himself or whatever is said to be in him is God, right? So he says relation according as to a certain thing in God is the very divine essence but the essence is the same thing as the person. Therefore the relation is the same thing as the person, right? Now he says some others considering this identity, right, said that the properties are persons but not in the persons, huh? Because they did not place properties in God except in the way of speaking as has been said above. But it's necessary to lay down properties in God as we showed above, right? Nations in God. which however signify in the abstract as that by which something is, right? That's what it signified. And therefore a certain forms of the, what? Person. So just as I am said to be healthy by health, right? So the father is said to be a father by his fatherhood. And the son the son by his, what? Sonship. That's the way it signifies, right? When since it is of the notion of a form that it be in that of which it is the form like health is in the healthy, right? Geometry in the geometry and so on is necessary that the properties be in the person and for them nevertheless to be the persons, right? Just as we say in the way of speaking, right? By signifying that the essence of divine nature is in God, right? In the way of speaking, Which nevertheless, what? Is God, right? It's like we could say there's wisdom in God too, right? But God is wisdom. There's truth in God, but he's truth itself, right? So, let's look at this first objection again, right? It seems, you know, if you identify the relation with the person, right? Well, that some persons have more than one relation, right? And vice versa, right? Sometimes one relation, like common breathing, breathing belongs to two persons, right? So Thomas is going to explain. Now, actually, it's one of the relations that constitutes a person, but some other distinctions he's going to bring out here. To the first, therefore, it should be said that person and property are the same in the things themselves, right? In reality, but they differ in their thought. Whence it is not necessary that one being multiplied need what? Other being multiplied, right? But it should be considered, and Thomas is going to make a very subtle, point out a very subtle distinction. It should be considered, however, that on account of the divine simplicity, there's considered a two-fold real identity in God of those things which differ in what? Creative things, huh? Because the divine simplicity excludes the composition of form and matter. And back in the question on simplicity, we had an article that there's no composition of matter and form in God, right? Now, because the divine simplicity excludes the composition of form and matter, it follows that in God the same is the, what, abstract and the concrete, as what? Yeah, the God, deity, meaning the divine nature, right? Divine essence, and God, right? That they're really the same, right? Because, you know, in me or you, human nature is like a, what, form, right? In this flesh and blood and bones, right, huh? Right, okay? So, there's a composition of form and matter, right? But there's not any of that in God, right? So, I am not by human nature, although I have it. But God is, is divine nature, huh? But now, we have another article in the simplicity of God, that there's no composition of what? Substance and what? Accident, right? Like in me, there's a composition between this man and the science of geometry, right? And they're not the same thing, right? One is in the other. Because, however, the divine simplicity excludes the composition of such an accent, it follows that whatever is attributed to God is his essence, huh? An account of this, wisdom and virtue, or power, are the same in God, right? Because both are in the divine, what? Essence. So, he's putting out two different compositions in us, right? The composition of my body and soul, right? And the composition of my substance and my, what? Accidents, huh? And I used to have fun with Descartes there, right? Because Descartes identifies the substance of material things with their quantity, huh? And so I joked that Descartes never grew up. It wouldn't be the same substance when he had different quantity, right? But if he grew up, he's something more basic than his various, what? Sizes, right? And his size is not what he is. And even the man in the street, you know, if he asked him, is what a dog is and the size of a dog the same thing? Aristotle enumerates categories in the book called The Categories. He calls the first category Usia, right? Which we translate Substantia. But in the book about places, the topics as we call it in English, he gives the same list of categories but the first one he calls Tieste. What is, huh? So what a dog is is not the same as the size of a dog, is it? And even the man in the street would kind of recognize that distinction between substance and what? Quantity, huh? Yeah. Well, I used to make use of that because when Aristotle takes up the virtues, right? The first two virtues he talks about are courage and temperance, right? And these are very basic because they regard your very, what? Substance, your body, right? So courage is about things that could destroy your body and therefore things you can kind of naturally flee and you might flee when you should stay and fight, right? Temperance is about things that are pleasing to your body and preserve your body, right? And therefore you're actively more attached to them than you should be, right? But then the next virtue he takes up is, what, liberality and, what, munificence, which are concerned with wealth and material goods. And we speak of a man kind of substance, right? As if, you know, these things are very closely related to your bodily well-being. Not in the same way that, you know, as much as courage and temperance are, but because these things are what you use to buy what you need and so on, right? Okay. So, and according to this two-fold definition of identity, a property in God is the same with the person. For the personal properties, these are the properties that, what, constitute the person. I said it constitutes the person. Like fatherhood is said it constitutes the father. Not inashability, and not, what, common breathing, right? And sonhood is said to, or sonship is said to constitute the, what, son and not breathing, right? Okay. For he says personal properties like fatherhood and sonship are the same with the persons for the same reason by which the abstract is the same with the, what, concrete. Okay. For they are those very subsisting persons. So that fatherhood is the father himself and sonhood or sonship is the son himself, right? If I want a better name, for his possession, right, is the Holy Spirit himself, right? But the properties that are not personal are the same with the persons according to another reason of identity, huh? By which everything that's attributed to God is his, what, essence, huh? Okay. And that's denying the composition of what? Substance and accident in creatures, huh? Thus, therefore, common breathing is the same with the person of the father and with the person of the son. Not that it be the one person subsisting per se, but just as there's one, what, essence in two persons, so there's one, what, property. That's a very subtle distinction Thomas is making, huh? You didn't think about that back in the question on the simplicity of God, right? But there's a separate article to deny that there's a composition of form and matter of God. Unlike us, where there's a composition of body and soul, right? In death, Socrates says, there's a separation of the soul from the body. And there's another composition of us, which is out of substance and what? Yeah. And that doesn't make something this per se one. So white man is not one thing, really, right? In the way that man is one thing, right? So that's a different kind of composition, right? But both of those compositions are denied in God when you understand the simplicity, right? And so when you say that the Father is his fatherhood, essentially denying the composition of matter and form. Just like when you say that God is what? God and divine nature are the same thing, right? But the other relation, the other thing, when you say that what? and that God is the same thing, and that God is the same thing, and that God is the same thing, and that God is the same thing, and that God is the same thing, and that God is the same thing, and that God is the same thing, And there's no, that the common reason of saying is the same thing as the father and the son. That's like denying the, what, accident and what? Substance, that distinction, huh? That's a very subtle thing, right? See, I got no philosophy. In Aristotle, there were always the stigmas between these two kinds of composition, right? And he knew that in God they were, what, that distinction was not found, right? You were reading the Gospel, I mean, the Epistle of St. James and T. Mass now. And the text there where every perfect giving and gift, you know, comes down from the father of lights, right? Now, the lights there is plural, if I remember correctly. So, how would you divide the lights that he's the father of? Would you divide them into two or three? Yes. The light for the eye of the body, huh? If you have that light from the eye of the body, you wouldn't see me, right? It would be kind of bad, right? And then the light for the eye of the soul. But then the light for the eye of the soul is divided into two or three. Yeah. So you have the natural light of reason, right? Whereby we can know a lot about God, although it's very difficult, but a philosopher like Aristotle got to know a lot about God and what we learned about God before we got to the Trinity. Aristotle knew about God. Then you have the light of faith, where you see more than you did by just the light of reason. And so all that's treated in the Trinity is seen because of the light of faith. But most of all, we'll know God through the light of glory. Although, as Thomas points out, the light of glory is a light in a different sense. It's not to illuminate God as if he draws them lightly accessible, but it's to dispose of our reason so it can receive God as the form by which it sees God. So that in the Beatric vision, God is both what we see as he is and that by which our reason sees him as he is. Because we can't see him as he is except by him as the form of our mind. And that's something quite above the nature of our mind to have God as the form by which we see or understand. And therefore, he has to be raised up. And this supernatural disposition is called the light of what? Glory, right? So he's the father of lights. I was going to say at the beginning of our prayer, you know, father of lights. Light and that's enough. I'm very impressed with that, right? But what's marvelous about it too is, you know, I mean, although light can sometimes be used for something other than the mind, you know, it's most of all used for the mind when you talk about the soul, the reason rather. And so it says every perfect gift coming down, right? It's from the father of lights that emphasizes how great a gift is, the natural light of reason and the light of faith and ultimately the light of what? Glory, where it says in the Psalms, in your life we shall see light, huh? Okay, so, Thomas has illuminated us, right? What do you say about an accident or something? Thomas is saying that there's many, but he emphasizes two compositions in creatures. The composition of matter and form and substance, like the composition of body and soul and you and me. And then the composition of substance and some accident, right? And both of these compositions are denied about God. We had separate articles for them, remember? In the question, was it three, I guess it was, right? The simplicity of God. And now he's saying by reason of the first denial, right? We say, for example, in God, that God and the divine nature are the same thing, right? In my case, we say that the father and the relation that constitutes him as his person, fatherhood, are the same thing, right? There's no distinction between the abstract and the concrete. But then, by reason of the second negation, the negation of the second composition, we say that the, what, God, let's say, and his wisdom are the same thing, right? Or God and his understanding are the same thing, right? Or his being and his thinking are the same thing, right? And the reason why we say that the thought of God is God is because his being and his thinking are the same thing. So the thought that he has in his thinking also is the same as his being, right? And therefore, it is God, right? That thought. And likewise, these other, right, relations that don't constitute the person, like common breathing, right, they are the same as the person's, right? By denial, in a sense, of a, what, composition of substance and accident, right? You liken it to that, huh? Because the relation that constitutes a person is like your substance, so to speak, right? And this other one is something that belongs to you in addition to that, right? But because there's no distinction between substance and accident and God, so there's no real distinction between the Father and common breathing of the Son. But yet they're not one person because they have one relation, because that relation is not the one that constitutes that particular person, right? So that's a very subtle reply, right? And you can see it's longer than you apply to their objections. And I was noticing that, it's nearly that first page there in Ignatius Kellogg has something from Benedict, right? Before he was Pope, right? But lectures on the Trinity, right? Among other things, yeah. So I can just see what he says there, you know? I don't know how much it's on the Trinity, but it says a lot about the Trinity. This is before he's Pope, though, of course. They've got here two or three pages of just things. When he was so fallible, you mean? I noticed that, you know, I said, Cotter Ritzinger, who is now, you know? So they're careful with the way they present it in the catalog itself. I don't see the way they read it. Now, the second objection says nothing is in itself, right? That seems to be like the axiom, right? Just like the axiom that I'm always quoting. Nothing is before or after itself. So in Thomas, you know, I was talking about if a thing doesn't exist, it can't bring itself into existence. It can be a cause of itself and it can be before itself. But nothing is before itself, right? There's a similar axiom. Nothing is in itself, right? But the relation is in the person. And it cannot be said there is an identity because if that was so, you could say it's the same reason that it's in the essence, huh? Then you'd have this essence being distinguished, right? Therefore, relation or property, the person not the same in God. Well, he's putting out, to the second it should be said that properties are said to be in the divine essence by way of identity only. But in the persons they are said to be by way of identity, not only by being, what? The same secundum rem in the thing itself, but also as regards the, what? Way of signifying, which is that of being a form in a, what? Suppositum, right? The underlying subject. So, you could say that the properties or relations are in the persons in a somewhat different way, right? Or in a way in which they are not in the, what? Divine essence. They're not in the divine essence as a form and an underlying subject, yeah. Right? Okay. But they're in the persons not only as being the same secundum rem in the thing, but they're said to be in them as a form and it's what? Underlying subject. And therefore the properties of the divine essence are in the divine essence. ...properties both determine and distinguish the persons, but not, however, the what? So there's a different way in which it's in both. That's not an overwhelming or, you know, a sudden invention to get out of difficulty, right? As I said, Aristotle, in the fourth book of natural hearing, the physics, distinguishes eight senses of what? In, right? And having learned those eight senses and knowing the order of them, in Thomas's commentary, when he orders them, I've seen, you know, other philosophers, right, constantly mix up these senses. And it's got a lot of mileage out of those eight senses. So I'm very used to the idea of distinguishing between the way in which this is in that and that is in that. And it's a different way of being in it. You know, the first philosophers, like Alex Hegerus, they said you can't get something out of nothing. If you get something out of something, it's got to be in there. I know I say in class, you know, can you get money out of my pocket? Well, if there's some money in my pocket, you can get money out of my pocket. If there's no money in my pocket, you can't get any money out of it, right? So everything that comes to be out of matter must be in there. Okay? But if it's in there, right, how do you fit all these things in there? Or make them, you know, small? And he actually has to eventually make them infinitely small in there, right? Okay? But no, see, in a way he's confusing the way something is actually in something and the way something is in something only in what? A little tea, right? And the first three senses of the end, in this room, right? A part in the whole, a tea in my mouth. And the third sense of the genus and species, something is actually in something, right? Then the next sense, species and the genus, form and matter, right? These are only in their ability, in their passive ability. And then later on, I've got you in my power, right? See? Well, that's another sense of end, but again, power rather than actuality. So, it's very important to know the senses of end. But here Thomas is giving a distinction, right? Between the way in which these relations are in God and the way they're in a, what? Person, huh? And they're in both of them by way of identity, right? But they're in the persons only as a form is said to be and its underlying, what? Subject, right? Senses of end, right? Master of end, as I mentioned. Aristotle doesn't order the eight senses he gives. They're in the fourth book, but Thomas says, we'll order them in the way Aristotle taught us in the fifth book of wisdom. And he orders them perfectly, right? That's absolutely marvelous what he does, right? And there's some real surprising things that he does in there, right? And you're kind of surprised by the fact that he puts species and genus before form and matter. Because you say, form and matter, isn't that more sensible than species and genus? Well, of course, if you follow the order, you'll see that species and genus is more like the third sense than form and matter. Because it's like, what, part and whole. But, apart from that, I always say to people, you know, suppose you have a piece of clay in the shape of a sphere and you mold it into a cube. What has changed, the clay or the shape? What would the average person say? Yeah. But actually, it's not true. See? But the clay, the shape, is the genus, the sphere and cube. And so he's imagining as if the genus is changing one species to the other. Well, it's actually clay losing one form and acquiring another one. It's just, you know, matter losing one form and acquiring another form. So it's really form and matter rather than genus and species. But the guy's falling back upon the earlier sense. Okay? See? And sometimes you speak, you know, of the temperature going up or going down, right? As if the genus is going from one species to the other. You know? So you realize Thomas is, I don't think anybody could have done that except for the rest of himself, obviously. But, I mean, Thomas is just a master of the word in, right? Where did he do that? In the fourth book of physics, the natural in. Oh, in St. Thomas' commentary. Yeah, yeah. Aristotle, he takes up place, right? Things are in place and so on. And Aristotle, you know, wants to take up the word in there because of that. He distinguishes the eight senses of in, right? But he doesn't order them the way he does senses of these words that are critical by reason in the fifth book of wisdom, the metaphysics. So, Thomas says, we'll order them in the way Aristotle taught us in the fifth book. And this is actually marvelous what he does. I mentioned how when I was first teaching logic and I got thinking about this expression to think out, right? And it's important to think things out, right? But then I realized you could distinguish the senses of thinking out by the senses of in and out in the thing. So to think out, say, a division of a genus into species and to think out of definition had different senses of in and out. To think out of conclusion. It's another sense, right? To think out of conclusion goes back to the seventh sense of in or out. I bet you in my power. And then to think out, but the division of a genus into species goes back to what? The fourth sense. The species in the genus. But to think out of definition goes back to the third sense. So, what I admire about Aristotle and Thomas among other things is that they take the words we all use like in and out and they, what, realize that these words are equivocal by reason and they distinguish the central senses and they even, what, or the senses, right? And therefore, they're very helpful to us in philosophy and in, what, theology, right? So, Thomas is distinguishing two different ways that something is in something, right? Now, the third objection. Whatever things are the same have themselves such that whatever is said of one is said of the other, right? But we say that the father generates but we don't say that fatherhood generates, right? We say the son is generated. We don't say that sonship is generated, right? But Thomas is going to solve this by going back to the way these words signify, right? Because father signifies as a person, right? And fatherhood signifies as a form by which you are a father, right? So it's the person who does something, right? You might do it by that form he has but it's not, strictly speaking, the form that does it but the, what, person. So the reason is the way it's signifying, right? You say the father generates you don't say that the fatherhood generates. So he says, to the third should be said that participles and notional verbs signify notional acts, right? Relative acts. But acts are of, what? Underlying substances, right? Individual substances. But properties do not signify as supposità or individual substances but as the forms of such, right? And therefore the way it's signifying signify as impugnant that it part, that parsibles and notional verbs be predicated of the what? Make sense? So, does the geometry teach you or does geometry teach you? I'm going to do the Pythagorean theorem now. Would it be a geometry teaching you or a geometry teaching you? What would you say? Is it, would a geometry teach you or a geometry teach you? Does geometry teach you or geometry teach you? No, geometry. Geometry. Geometry. Okay. Or geometry. Trying to distinguish your opinion. The geometry. Yeah. And we say the geometry teaches you, right? Not geometry. You could say maybe the geometry teaches you by geometry, by having that form, right? But you wouldn't speak of the geometry as teaching you, would you?