Natural Theology

 A new special issue of the journal RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA has come out, an issue devoted to the topic of natural theology.

Here are the contents, which contain two essays of direct interest to scholars of Scotus and Scotism:

Alberto Frigo, "Radical natural theologies from duns scotus to christian wolff. Introduction."

Garrett Smith, "The Natural Theology of Nicholas Bonetus."

Alberto Frigo, "Même la Trinité: Descartes, Pascal et Saint-­Ange"

Gabriel Meyer-­Bisch, "Usages et fonctions du concept de «cité de Dieu» dans la première philosophie de Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Uses and functions of the concept of City of God in the early Leibniz’s Philosophy.)"


Pietro Terzi, "Involution and the Convergence of Minds. The Philosophical Stakes of Lalande’s Vocabulaire"

Olivier Boulnois, "La teologia naturale, Duns Scoto e la deduzione a priori della Trinità (Natural Theology, Duns Scotus and the a priori Deduction of the Trinity.)"

Édouard Mehl, "La Puissance et son nombre, d’Abélard à Kepler"

Jean-­Christophe Bardout, "Prouver sans démontrer. Malebranche et la Trinité"

Gualtiero Lorini, "«Diversa Theologiae naturalis systemata»: Christian Wolff’s Ways to God"

Enrico I. Rambaldi, Patrizia Pozzi

On the identity of Quiddity and Esse

Here's one for the Thomists:

Duns Scotus, Rep. IA d. 11 q. 2 (Wolter-Bychkov I, 420):

Idem enim est quiditas et esse.

Here it is in context:

To the first reason, when it says that relations would distinguish either according to quiddity or according to being, I do not understand nor see what philosophy asserts this. For quiddity and being is the same thing. Hence, each distinguishes, because the being of a relation is 'towards another' just as its quiddity is, for the same thing both remains and passes over [into the essence], both according to being and according to quiddity. What, then, is [this relation] formally? Remaining as 'being towards another'. For it is not towards, or in relation to itself, as Augustine says: "What makes him God is not the same as what makes him Father." At the same time, to pass over is for something to be really the same thing as something else, not to form a composition with the latter. And it is in this way that a relation in the divine passes into [essence], because [then] it is the same thing as the essence, not producing a composition with it. Hence, the aforesaid distinction of a relation is non-existent; for this is to distinguish something into two relationships, one of which is nothing.  For a relation compared to its foundation is a nothing, because then it is not a relation, but only in potency towards an opposite. Hence, a relation in every way in which it is a relation is 'towards another' and is some reality; however according to how one thinks of it as compared to the foundation, it is the mean, as it were, as it is compared to the term.

An Argument for the Distinction of Intellect and Will

An old one, perhaps.  This is one of the principal arguments from an anonymous question traditionally (since Ledoux's edition in the 1930's) attributed to William of Alnwick: utrum simplicitas divina compatiatur secum aliquam distinctionem ex natura rei previam distinctioni persone.

f. 87rb: Quandocumque sunt aliqua idem ex parte rei totaliter, quidquid convenit uni et alii; si ergo intellectus et voluntas sunt idem totaliter et ut precedunt distinctionem personarum, ergo intellectus vellet et voluntas intelligeret et cum intellectus intelligeret malum culpe voluntas vellet.

Translation:

Whenever there are things that are totally the same from the nature of a thing, whatever befalls one will also befall the other; if therefore the intellect and the will are totally the same and as they precede the distinction of [the Trinitarian] persons, therefore the intellect will will and the will will understand and when the intellect understands the evil of fault, the will will will it.

Ockham Quodlibet I.3

This question asks whether in God paternity is distinct from the Father. Ockham notes, "This question is not about names but about the reality." That is, logically speaking of course the abstract property "paternity" is distinguished from the concrete suppositum of whom it is predicated; but is there any distinction in reality?

Ockham notes that every distinction is either real or formal or rational. In the first case one of the two distinct things can exist apart from the other; in the third case the two distinct things are distinct only in the mind. In the second case, you have a formal distinction when you have things such that something is the same as one of the distinct things and not the other, as in: the Son is the essence and is not the Father, therefore the Father and the essence are formally distinct.

[An aside: recall that in Quod. I.2 Ockham made it clear that the accepts the formal distinction only for distinguishing the persons from the essence in God and nowhere else. Generally then he accepts only two kinds of distinction, real and rational. This is why they call it his razor! Compare with more luxurious accounts of distinctions. For instance, the Scotist Petrus Thomae in his own Quodlibet, q.7, gives a very different classification of distinctions. First there are distinctions of reason, founded only on a mental act, and then there are distinctions not dependent on a mental act, real distinctions. But real distinctions can be broken down into 1) Essential distinctions, between essence and essence, which can be known by separability in actual existence or by essential dependence, since nothing is dependent on itself; 2) Distinctions between thing and thing, rather than between essence and essence, which can be known e.g. by causal dependence; 3) Distinctions between reality and reality, known by whether one can be abstracted without the other; 4) Distinctions between thing and reality - the difference is that a thing has a reality belonging to it, while a reality must have a thing of which it is; 5) Distinctions between formality and formality, with multiple ways to recognize is; 6) Distinctions between formality and thing, known by the lack of adequation between the two, since one thing can have many formalities but not vice versa, or by the fact that the thing is principle and the formality something pertaining to it. Petrus Thomae has at least one other way of formulating the distinction tree, but you get the idea. Even though Scotus also recognizes the principle of parsimony, it's not called Scotus' razor for a reason.]

Anyway, Ockham says that you can't think as though the Father were constituted from the coinciding of the divine essence and active generation. There's not some property of paternity which makes the Father himself; rather the Father just is paternity in God. The Father can't be constituted by paternity, because he just is paternity, and nothing can constitute itself. Similarly the Son just is filiation in God, etc. There is a legitimate formal distinction between the Father and the divine essence and a real distinction between the Father and the Son. But those are all the distinctions there are in God which don't arise from our own thinking about him.

"Suppositum" defined

Two definitions of "supposit":

1) From Roy Deferrari's "Latin-English Dictionary of St Thomas Aquinas": "(2) That which underlies all the accidents of a thing, i.e. the individual substance of a certain kind which is the subject of existence and all accidental modifications which constitute the individual, synonym of hypostasis, subjectum, and substantia . . . - Kinds of suppositum in this sense are (a) suppositum aeternum seu increatum and suppositum temporale seu creatum, the eternal or increated and the temporal or created individual substance. - (b) suppositum completum ultima completione, the individual substance of highest completion . . ."

2) From Allan Wolter's Scotistic glossary: "The general name for a being that is per se in the third sense defined by Scotus. If the suppositum is of a rational or intellectual nature, it is called a person. Suppositum is a close Latin parallel to hypostasis, the term Greek theologians use to designate a divine person in the Trinity . . . Because of their interest in explaining the union of Christ's human nature and his divinity in the person of the Word, theologians were forced to develop some clear idea of what constituted a person, be he human, angelic, or divine. In this connection they went on to determine the analogue of person in a nonrational subsistent, and retained "suppositum" as a general designation for any full subsistent individual, be it rational or not. Boethius had defined a person as "an individual substance of a rational nature". Those who accepted this definition pointed out that "substance" was not to be taken in a categorial sense but as equivalent to a distinct subsistent, in the sense that Scotus seeks to clarify in discussing the various meanings of subsistent or per se being. Others stressed that "rational" was equivalent to "intellectual" in its most general sense, vis., as applicable also to the divine nature as well as to one which reasoned in the discursive manner characteristic of humans. Others, who unlike Scotus made matter the basis for individuality, had to qualify the term "individual". Richard of St Victor called attention to what seemed to be an even more serious drawback of the Boethian definition, namely, that, according to it, the divine nature itself would be a person in its own right. Hence he suggested an alternate definition, viz., that a person is "the incommunicable exisetence of an intellectual nature". "Existence" here seems to be simply the abstract form for "the existent" or "the subsistent". It implies that the subject characterized by it has substantial being (esse) in a transcendental or non-categorial sense, and that this being is complete and individual. It also connotes, says Richard, that this existent has this being in virtue of some property that indicates something of its origins, that is to say, it has this being of itself, or by creation, or by propogation, etc. In God the divine nature itself has such "existentia", for it has substantial being of itself. Now the three divine persons share this "existentia" commonly and hence indistinguishably, but each person also has his own incommunicable existence in virtue of which he is a discrete and unique individual. It is this incommunicable "existentia" in the divine intellectual nature that best defines what a divine person is. And more generally, it is the incommunicable existence of any intellectual nature that commonly defines a person, be he divine, angelic, or human. On this Richardian definition, which Scotus accepts and develops, a suppositum would seem to be the incommunicable existence of any nature, and a person would be an intellectual suppositum."

Contradiction in the Trinity?

Dr Vallicella has another post about the Trinity, here:

I don't assert, but I suspect that it's directed at least partially at me. He writes:

5. Is the doctrine thinkable (conceivable) without contradiction? . . . It is difficult to get some people to appreciate the force and importance of (5) because they are dogmatists who accept the Trinity doctrine as true simply because they were brought up to believe it, or because it is something their church teaches. Since they accept it as true, no question of its logical coherence arises for them. And so they think that anyone who questions the doctrine must not understand it. To 'set the objector straight' they then repeat the very verbal formulas the logical coherence of which is in question. "What's the problem? There is one God in three divine Persons!" They think that if they only repeat the formulas often enough, then the objector will 'get it.' But it is they who do not get it, since they do not understand the logical problems to which the doctrinal formulations give rise.

I suspect that this is directed at me, or at least that he thinks I'm one of these people. In his reply to my first letter to him he wrote As you no doubt will grant, the mere repetition of verbal formulas is not the same as an exposition of those formulas that shows them to be intelligible. After my response to his reply he wrote off the discussion as not worthwhile, then writes the above. I infer that he thinks my response was nothing more than a repetition of verbal formulas and that I don't understand the logical problem involved. Now I think that my response indicated no such thing. What I was attempting to do, at least, was to clarify the true sense that the verbal formulas hold, rather than a false and plainly contradictory sense. Now this is indeed different from directly showing that the doctrine is coherent. But, as I've already said, analyzing the doctrine must only come after getting the doctrine right. Now I suggest that the reformulations of the doctrine by Dr Vallicella and his sources distort it through the lens of a metaphysics not designed to accommodate it, so that the "logical problem" takes on the character of a petitio principii. I believe that the very way that Dr Vallicella presents the problem begs the question.

Now Dr Vallicella writes that "the gist of the Trinity doctrine is as follows:"

1. Monotheism: There is exactly one God.

2. Divinity of Persons: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Ghost is God.

3. Distinctness of Persons: The Father is not the Son; and the Holy Ghost is not the Father or the Son.

And he follows this up with:

The problem is to show how these propositions are logically consistent, that is, how they can all be true, but without falling into heresy. If you cannot see the problem, you are not paying attention, or you lack intelligence, or your thought-processes are being distorted by ideological commitments.

So, presumably, Dr Vallicella thinks that responses such as the one I gave are not worth responding since I fall under one or all three of these deficiencies. Well, I wouldn't presume to make claims about my intelligence, and if my thought-processes were being distorted by ideological commitments I may well fail to observe it, but the problem is certainly not that I am not paying attention, since I have been studying Latin Trinitarian theology for many years now.

Now it's not that I "cannot see the problem," since there is a prima facie difficulty. How is God both one and three? How are the three identical with the one but not with each other? But the logic of the solution is not very difficult, hardly more difficult than the formulation of the problem. The key is to properly define the terms and distinguish the kinds of identity involved. But once this is done there is no logical problem at all, because the doctrine does not affirm and deny the same thing and in the same respect:

2. Divinity of Persons: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Ghost is God.

It is orthodox to reformulate this as:

2a. Divinity of Persons: The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are identical with respect to the divine essence.

And now:

3. Distinctness of Persons: The Father is not the Son; and the Holy Ghost is not the Father or the Son.

It is orthodox to reformulate this as:

3a. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are distinct with respect to their personally constitutive relations of origin.

So: The divine persons are identical in one respect and distinct in another respect. This is very different from saying "3=1" or "~(things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to each other)".

As far as I'm concerned this dispenses with, at least, any obvious contradiction. The only way to make the contradiction reappear is by importing some such question-begging premise as the one I quoted in an earlier comment thread by Cartwright, from an article cited with approval by Dr Vallicella:

The heretical conclusion [tritheism] follows, by the general principle that if every A is a B then there cannot be fewer B's than A's.

Cartwright claims that this principle "is evident to the natural light of reason," but the examples he gives are not analogous to the case of the Trinity: "Thus, if every cat is an animal, there cannot be fewer animals than cats; if every senator from Massachusetts is a Democrat, there cannot be fewer Democrats than senators from Massachusetts. Just so, if every Divine Person is a God, there cannot be fewer Gods than Divine Persons." But these examples all presuppose a paradigm of the relation of essence to supposit which is explicitly denied in the doctrine of the Trinity, for reasons explained in my last post. In a quote from St Bonaventure I have already pointed out the difference between humanity in Peter and Paul, for instance, and divinity in the Father and the Son. In the first case Cartwright's principle is correct: If every apostle is a man, then there cannot be fewer men than apostles. But the multiplication of apostles involves necessarily the multiplication of individual instances of humanity. On the other hand since deity is not a common nature like humanity, the multiplication of divine supposits cannot be presumed to involve the multiplication of individual instances of deity. Furthermore it should be clear that the claim is not that "The Father is a God," and "The Son is a God, for this formulation, again, presupposes that "God" is a universal and "divinity" a common nature, a "multiply instantiable entity," which I have already denied.*

One may decide that the way that Catholic theology explains the relation of the essence to the divine persons, and their distinction from one another solely according to their personally constitutive relations of origin, is incoherent or otherwise unsatisfying. But in order to do so one must engage this problem and locate the contradiction somewhere further back than where Dr Vallicella does so.

As it stands Dr Vallicella's attempts to grapple with the Trinity are not as off the mark as Dawkins' flying spaghetti monsters or his absurd attempts to refute arguments to a First Cause by resorting to a childish infinite regress argument. The difference, however, is one of degree, not of kind. If Dr Vallicella's aim really is, as stated, to discover whether the doctrine is thinkable without contradiction, then he must attempt to think it as it is thought, without importing foreign premises.

*There is so little danger of Catholic doctrine falling into tritheism or affirming any multiplication of the divine essence that I would be more sympathetic to an objection claiming that the three persons could not be really distinct at all than to this one claiming that they are too distinct to preserve divine unity. After all the word person does not signify a substance at all, but a relation! And the divine persons are defined as internal relations in the one God. Just look at Aquinas, Summa I q.29 a.4: "Distinctio autem in divinis non fit nisi per relationes originis, ut dictum est supra. Relatio autem in divinis non est sicut accidens inhaerens subiecto, sed est ipsa divina essentia: unde est subsistens, sicut essentia divina subsistit. Sicut ergo deitas est Deus, ita paternitas divina est Deus Pater, qui est persona divina. Persona igitur divina significat relationem ut subistentem. Et hoc est significare relationem per modum substantiae quae est hypostasis subsistens in natura divina; licet subsistens in natura divina non sit aliud quam natura divina. Based on texts like this I could give more credence to an objection that there were not really three at all than to the objection that according to this doctrine God is not really one.

Reply to the Maverick Philosopher

Dr Vallicella has honored me by responding to my last post at his blog, here:

Here is most of the reply that I posted there:

According to him: You write that God is a nature, and that this nature is thrice instantiated in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But the reader may notice that I never wrote any such thing. It is clear that Dr Vallicella taken the word “nature” in the wrong sense, and read “instantiation” into it when this is doctrinallly inappropriate. Again, he writes, Your talk of instantiation suggests that God is a multiply instantiable entity whose instances are F, S, HG.

But I very much wish to deny this. It is central to monotheism that there is only one instance of the divine nature, and so whatever the multiplication of persons in God may be taken to mean, it cannot mean that there is more than one instance of God or individual God, which as he rightly points out compromises monotheism. As St Bonaventure says (In Sent. I.2.1): “It is impossible for there to be several gods, and if the meaning of the word ‘God’ is correctly received it is not only impossible but even unintelligible.”

So his use of “nature” to mean “multiply instantiable entity” suggests that the divine nature is a universal which is individuated in three instances. But the divine nature is not a universal, apt to be applied to or predicated of many, but a “form” which is singular by necessity. Theologians explain this necessity because of God’s simplicity (in order for a universal to be multiply instantiated it has to enter into composition with some individuating factors, but the divine nature is neither composible nor composed), God’s infinity (the divine nature is without limitation, but every case of instantiation involves a delimitation of one instance from all others), and so forth. Duns Scotus writes (in Reportatio I-A 2.3.3), “Whatever is of itself just a ‘this’ cannot possibly be multiplied, but whatever exists in the divine that is of one sort, is just of itself ‘this’ [i.e. is individual per se]”.

Every orthodox theologian, therefore, denies that in the Trinitarian productions – the generation of the Son by the Father or the spiration of the Holy Ghost by the Father and the Son – God produces another God, precisely because the divine nature cannot be multiplied. Again, Scotus (Reportatio I-A 5.1.1): “The essence neither procreates nor is procreated, and all the arguments that I find why it does not generate really come down to this. If this thing generates, then it procreates a real thing distinct from this essence. For no real thing generates itself. Therefore, it procreates some real thing that is not in the divine nature, because intrinsically there is no diversity there . . .”

If the divine nature were multiplied, there would be a plurality of Gods, and so a plurality of divine existences, operations, etc. But it’s intrinsic to the doctrine of the Trinity that the being or existence of the Father and the Son is one being. The operation whereby God creates the world is one operation, equally belonging to all three persons, not three cooperative activites. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not one God because they are each a (different) instance of the divine nature, but because they are each the same instance of the divine nature. Scotus once more (Reportato I-A 4.2): God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost “by a singularity which is shared, by which ‘this God’ is common to all three. And a singularity or haecceity similar to this is not to be found in creatures, because in creatures nothing is a ‘this’ except by the ultimate haecceity, which is completely incapable of being shared.”

That is, for creatures a supposit or hypostasis is only distinguished from another one of the same nature by the multiplication of the nature through an individuating difference. “Humanity” is not a singular individual nature by itself, but only by an additional instantiating factor. But “deity” is a singular individual nature by itself.

This is why the divine persons are said to be distinguished from one another only by their relations of origin. The Son has the very same deity that the Father has, which means he shares every single attribute belonging to the Father, except Paternity. In begetting the Father communicates his numerically identical essence and existence to the Son, and fails to communicate only his ingeneracy, the fact that he is unbegotten. St Bonaventure writes (In Sent. 1.4.1.1): Whatever the Son has, he has either freom himself or from another; but he has deity, and not from himself, for then he would be unbegotten, therefore he has it from another.”

So there is no individuting factor in the three divine Persons except their relations of origin, and these relations are within the single divine nature or essence rather than multiplications of it. Paternity and Filiation are ways in which the one God is related to himself. The divine persons as distinct from one another have only relative subsistence, as opposed to the absolute subsistence of the divine nature. Again, this is contrast to the state of things we’re familiar with, in which for there to be many human persons there have to be many humanities. St Bonaventure once more (In Sent. 1.4.1.2): “Father and Son and Holy Ghost are united in this name ‘God’, not from diverse causes [of individuality] but by reason of one deity or essence. [In contrast] there is a union of diverse causes, for example, when Peter and John are united in ‘man’, but by reason of diverse instances of humanity, because the humanity of Peter is one thing while that of John is another. . . . but Father and Son and Holy Spirit are united in one deity or essence but are distinct by reason of the plurality of persons.”

Any nature except the divine nature is a “multiply instantiable entity”, not individual through itself, and so the multiplication of hypostases, persons, or supposits requires the multiplication of the nature through some individuating factor in addition to the essence, whereby John’s humanity is specifically identical to but numerically distinct from Peter’s humanity. But, as I said before, the divine nature is necessarily individual through itself, and so in the multiplication of supposits in God the nature “deity” remains numerically as well as specifically identical, and the supposits or person are only distinct through their constituting relations.

Substance and Hypostasis in the Trinity

In my experience a lot of the problems in modern philosophy of religion come about from not taking enough care to get right the religious position the philosopher is analyzing. Part of this difficulty stems from the way terminology shifts across the centuries, so that the modern philosopher takes for granted an anachronistic understanding of key terms.

Dr Vallicella and others at Maverick Philosopher have been discussing the logical coherence of the doctrine of the Trinity, as well as giving links to contemporary philosophy of religion discussions of the topic. Here is one of the posts: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/01/some-water-analogies-for-the-trinity.html

More than once Dr Vallicella points out that God's substance can't be understood as matter, which is correct. But he fails to understand what "substance" means in trinitarian doctrine. He writes: "The sense in which water is a substance is not the sense in which God is a substance. Water is a substance in the sense of a stuff; God is a substance in the sense of a hypostasis (that which stands under) or hypokeimenon (that which is placed under), or as I prefer to say, an individual."

From the standpoint of traditional, classical Trinitarian theology, this is incorrect. God is a substance neither in the sense of stuff (hyle) nor in the sense of individual (hypostasis). Here's a representative explanatory snippet from St John of Damascus, showing the universal traditional use of the terms, from "De Fide Orthodoxa" c.48: "Substantia quidem communem speciem et complectivam speciem homoiodon (id est earum quae unum sunt specie) hypostaseon (id est personarum) significat, utputa Deus, homo; hypostasis autem atomon (id est individuum) demonstrat, scilicet Patrem, Filium, Spiritum Sanctum, Petrum, Paulum."

So "substance" here means something like "essence" or "being" (in the sense of ousia) rather than hypostasis; the whole doctrine of the Trinity depends on this distinction between the one nature, substance, being, essence, etc. on the one hand and the three individual persons or hypostases on the other. In most cases where there is one existing human nature (man), there is one individual hypostasis (Peter or Paul); in the case of the Trinity there is one divine nature (God) instantiated in three hypostases (Father and Son and Holy Spirit); conversely, in the Incarnation there are two existing natures (God and man), but only one hypostasis (Christ the Incarnate Logos). It is not good Trinitarian doctrine to say that there is one individual or hypostasis (God) who is identical to three individual persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

There's no point in discussing the coherence of a doctrine if the doctrine is not first clearly understood. But the doctrine turns into unintelligible mush if these crucial distinctions are not carefully preserved.

Does Aquinas confuse Person and Nature?

Summer. That time of the year when the Energetic graduate student throws off his bonds of seminar papers and teaching and is finally free to show the world just how dumb the Latins are, especially that moron Thomas Aquinas who makes so many foolish errors, led on, no doubt, by that fount of lies, Augustine.

While I was in Europe they were busy:

http://energeticprocession.com/2009/07/16/saint-cyril-on-divine-simplicity/#more-586

http://wellofquestions.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/aquinas-conflating-person-and-essence-in-god-redux/

http://www.nicenetruth.com/home/2009/05/problem-quotes-in-aquinas-listed-for-discussion.html

The basic problem seems to be that Aquinas actually says that a person is the same as the essence. Therefore he confuses them, and there is only one person.

The feature of Aquinas' position that our brethren in Christ fail to admit is that Aquinas also thinks that the persons are really distinct from each other. So we have an identity between person and essence and a distinction of the realiter variety between the persons. Sadly, Aquinas does not tell us what a real distinction is. It could be between two discrete things, but it can also obtain within one thing, such as the human person where body and soul are really distinct. This latter example seems to suggest that there is some notion of separability involved, which clearly cannot be the case between the Trinitarian persons, although we are looking at a real distinction within a single object. The real distinction results from the fact that persons are constituted by relations, and some feature of the generic character of a predicamental relation still remains, even in divinis, namely opposition and distinction. It is this opposition of relations towards each other that provides the real distinction between persons, which Aquinas even characterizes as things in their own right (of course, one would think that one fundamenta of the relation would be the divine essence, so properly the relation should be really distinguishing the person from the essence; but I am sure I fail to understand how Thomistic relations work...the Thomists will have to correct me on this. There is also the Scotist argument that real products cannot come from powers that are not themselves distinct).

To actually attempt to answer the argument regarding identification, however, one must consider Aquinas' notion of rationes in God. Basically, in nearly Scotist fashion, Aquinas thinks that if God and features in divinis such as personal properties, relations, attributes could be defined, none of them would be included in the definition of any other nor could they be predicated of each other. That things in God cannot be defined is apparent because definition entails the assigning of genus and species, which are related as potency and act. But, God has no potency-act composition. That we should treat something that cannot be defined as if it could is not so scandalous as it sounds, as Aquinas thinks that the categories themselves cannot be defined, although we assign a ratio to them and act as if they are (they are the ultimate genera, after all, and defining them would entail an infinite regress). So all these divine elements are really identical, but differ by ratione, that is none fall into the definition of the other. To take my defense of Thomas in a scotist line, I would add that the fact that they do not fall into the definition of the other is not due to the operation of an intellect, but is prior to such activity. So I do not think that Aquinas confuses person and nature because these retain distinct rationes which cannot be predicated of each other while being really identical.

I trust some real Thomists will come to my defense here, as these are precisely the issues which I think Aquinas is deficient and Scotus is brilliantly not.

I have appended some texts to shed some light on the notion of rationes, and may update this discussion later.

De potentia, q. 8 a. 2 ad 3

Ad tertium dicendum, quod licet relatio non addat supra essentiam aliquam rem, sed solum rationem, tamen relatio est aliqua res, sicut etiam bonitas est aliqua res in Deo, licet non differat ab essentia nisi ratione; et similiter est de sapientia. Et ideo sicut ea quae pertinent ad bonitatem vel sapientiam, realiter Deo conveniunt, ut intelligere et alia huiusmodi, ita etiam id quod est proprium realis relationis, scilicet opponi et distingui, realiter in divinis invenitur.

Scriptum, I d. 33 q. 1 a. 1 ad 3 (ed. Mandonnet, 767): “Sciendum est autem, quod ‘ratio’ sumitur dupliciter: quandoque enim ratio dicitur id quod est in ratiocinante, scilicet ipse actus rationis, vel potentia quae est ratio; quandoque autem ratio est nomen intentionis, sive secundum quod significat definitionem rei, prout ratio est definitio, sive prout ratio dicitur argumentatio.”

Scriptum, I d. 33 q. 1 a. 1 ad 3 (ed. Mandonnet, 767): “Dico igitur, quod cum dicitur quod est alia ratio paternitatis et essentiae in divinis, non accipitur ratio secundum quod est in ratiocinante tantum, sed secundum quod est nomen intentionis, et significat definitionem rei: quamvis enim in divinis non possit esse definitio, nec genus nec differentia nec compositio; tamen si intelligatur ibi aliquid definiri, alia erit definitio paternitatis, et alia definitio essentiae. In omnibus autem intentionibus hoc communiter verum est, quod intentiones ipsae non sunt in rebus sed in anima tantum, sed habent aliquid in re respondens, scilicet naturam, cui intellectus huiusmodi intentiones attribuit... et ita etiam ipsa ratio quam dicimus aliam et aliam in divinis, non est in re; sed in ratione est aliquid respondens ei, et est in re [sed...re: sed est in re aliquid respondens ei in = Parma ed.] quo fundatur, scilicet veritas illius rei cui talis intentio attribuitur: est enim in Deo unde possunt rationes diversae ibi convenire.”

Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 27 q. 1 a. 1 ad 3

Ad tertium dicendum, quod sicut attributa essentialia non sunt plures res, ita nec proprietates uni personae convenientes; sed sunt una res, quae est illa persona; sed tamen quia relatio manet in divinis etiam secundum communem rationem generis, manet etiam relationis distinctio, inquantum est relatio; et ideo potest dici quod sunt plures relationes, et una relatio de alia non praedicatur. Non sic autem est in essentialibus, quae non manent ibi secundum communem rationem generis; unde non distinguuntur secundum rationem alicujus communis, cujus ratio in Deo sit, si tamen accipiatur commune reale, ut significatur nomine primae impositionis; si vero accipiatur commune rationis, quod significatur nomine secundae impositionis, sic commune est omnibus quod sint attributa; et ideo quia dividunt unum commune rationis, secundum hoc non praedicantur de invicem. Non enim dicimus quod hoc attributum sit illud attributum; sed quod est aliud attributum ab illo. Sed quia non dividunt unum commune reale, ideo ratione divinae simplicitatis secundum quodcumque nomen primae impositionis de se invicem praedicantur, ut dicatur: haec res est illa res; vel etiam propriis nominibus, ut: sapientia est bonitas

On Illegal Moves

Many years ago when Lee Faber and I were in high school together we used to play chess. Good times were usually had by all, until one or the other got too wrapped up in the game and then started losing. More than once a game with Faber ended with him overturning the chess board in rage, scattering all the pieces. He may or may not have yelled, "How's that for checkmate, jerk!?" I may or may not have behaved in a similar manner on one or more occasions.

Later, back when I began college--still many years ago now--we stopped playing chess and moved on to the far eastern game Go, a much more complex, subtle, and nuanced game. In chess each player is trying to find the checkmate move or the path to checkmate at all times. Go is different: in Go if I can play a checkmate move that means that you have played a lot of boneheaded moves in a row. In a game with skilled players each side builds up his position step by step, carefully accounting for his opponents moves with each play and balancing his own position against them. In a good game the entire board remains balanced until the end, where finally one side proves to have been the (slightly) stronger.

So, when Faber and I grew up we abandoned chess and took up this new game. There was certainly a learning process to go through. It was a challenge to realize, and then to act on, the principle that the game is not about seeking death for the opponent, and that in fact this strategy usually ends up making one lose. And it's just possible that Faber and/or I may have overturned a board mid-game a time or two. But eventually we began to discover the pleasure of a game that was not so much about victory and defeat as about beautiful and elegant play--on both sides, ideally.

Grown-ups don't toss the board and call it checkmate. They don't demand to start over and then make the exact same moves all over again, acting as though the intervening moves never happened. They certainly don't claim to win based on the merits of insults directed at their opponents' mothers. Not, at least, if they want other grown-ups to play with them.

Scotus on the Filioque

On this question the Greeks disagree with the Latins. I have found, however, in a note of Lincoln [i.e. Robert Grosseteste] . . . that the Greeks really did not disagree with the Latins, because the opinion of the Greeks is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. In this way, therefore, two wise men, one Greek and the other Latin, not lovers of proper speech but of divine zeal, would perhaps find the disagreement not to be real, but one of words, for otherwise either the Latins or the Greeks would be heretics. But who wishes to say that Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Damascene, Chrysostom and many other excellent doctors are heretics; and for the other part that Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, Hilary, etc., who were the most excellent Latin doctors, are heretics? Perhaps modern Greeks have added to the aforesaid article from their obstinacy what the preceding doctors have not said or understood. This must be held, therefore, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, because the Church declares this. . . . . . one must say that many things were transmitted explicitly in the later creeds that were contained implicitly in the first ones. Hence, heresies were the occasion of expressing and explaining truths, and therefore, in the first creed it was not necessary to explain, because then there was no heresy. Afterwards, however, there was, and a new creed followed, and with as much authority as those before had. Hence there is no corruption of the first creed, but an explanation; nor did we make another creed, but a new one from it.

--Scotus, Reportatio I-A Dist. 11 Q.2, trans. Wolter and Bychkov.

Scotus on Why the Son Does Not Generate, etc.

Time to bring the discussion back to the top. I've been meaning to post this for the last two days, but my blogging time is limited. Anonymous Commenter mentions the "momentous pauses on the blog when an entry doesn't come about until days or even weeks later," for which I apologize. The explanation is simple: both Lee and myself are working on our dissertations, and real work has to come first. In fact mine is nearly done and I hope to have a finished draft in to my director by the end of the weekend, which means I've been doing a lot of boring footnote work rather than the spirited polemics we all love best. Speaking of which, apologies to any and all for the acrimonious tone which always seems to creep into these discussions. I'll try to stick to the arguments. Meanwhile we appreciate our (tiny handful of) loyal readers!

Mr Jones comments in the Cross thread:

The rest of what you say is fine. Here is the problem: . . . What your saying is that the Son inherits the principle property of causing a divine person because "what he has is only the Father's, i.e. the substance of the Father"? So if the Son inherits the principle property of causing a person, so should the Spirit since He inherits the same substance. By your gloss Principle and to be Father are not co-extensive, since the Son shares it. So it is not an exclusive personal feature. On my view, principle is the exclusive personal feature of the Father.

I agree that some clarification is needed here. At the same time Mr Jones' objection seems ambiguous at best. I would not admit that there is any "principle property of causing a divine person"--first because this again seems to be equivocating on "principle" as it's being used here; second because, as EP have themselves rightly pointed out in past discussions, "causing a divine person" is not a personal property in divinis. It is a fact that both the Son and the Spirit are "caused", but there is no real generic property of which generation and spiration are species.

The real problem, namely why the Son does not inherit generation and the Spirit spiration, since they both inherit the divine substance which is the principle of all action, needs more elaboration. For my purposes I will use Scotus' Reportatio I-A, which has the merit of being published alongside an English translation by Allan Wolter and Oleg Bychkov, sparing me the trouble of making my own translations. I make some slight emendations, however, in the snippets which follow.

I turn then to Dist. 7 Q.1, "Is the principle of producing in the divine a relation or the essence, or is [it] something absolute or relative?" This is a long question, but the money quote is this:

the divine essence is the formal principle of producing some person--moreover, sufficiently without any determination--but it cannot proceed to function unless the personal property concurs. And if the formal principle of producing something is understood in this way . . . I concede that the relation concurs with the essence to produce the Son, not to determine the essence which is determined of itself, but in order that the latter may come to be in proximate potency for acting, in which i can only be insofar as it is an individual subject and person.

I.e., the essence is the entire sufficient cause for what is generated being God. But in order for generation to take place the personal property of the Father--generation--has to "concur" with the essence. It is not the essence taken all by itself that generates, but the essence concurring with Fatherhood, i.e. the essence precisely as existing in the Father qua Father. Therefore when Mr Jones says "On my view, principle is the exclusive personal feature of the Father," I say we must distinguish between the principium quod and the principium quo.

The Son, then, does not generate, and for the same reason the Spirit does not spirate. Here is Scotus in Dist.7 Q.2 on why it is impossible for the Son to generate:

If the Son had the potency to generate, either he would generate by the same generation as the Father does, or by another. Not by the same; for if he did, the Son would generate himself, just as the Father generates him. Not by another generation, because there is no more than one production of a given sort in God because each is of itself just this, as was proved above in distinction 2, and also each production is suited precisely to its productive principle; therefore in no way does the Son have the potency of generating.

There can only be one generation and one spiration in God. If they were two generations, there would have to be something to distinguish them. But what would this be? There is no "principle of individuation" in God besides Himself. The Son cannot generate because, if he did, his generation would be identical with the generation of the Father, and thus what the Son would generate would be the Son, and thus the Son would generate Himself, which is contradictory and absurd. It is not contradictory and absurd for the Son to spirate, because the Son is not the Spirit. The Son receives his ability to spirate from the Father along with everything else pertaining to His Sonship. But the spiration of the Father and the Son is one spiration, not two, for there can only be one spiration in God. It is contradictory, however, for the Spirit to spirate, because what is spirated in God is the Spirit, and thus the Spirit would spirate Himself.

Also relevant is this bit later in Dist. 7 Q.2:

It must be said that this is not a precise expression: 'the essence is the principle of generation.' Indeed it is a truncated version unless it is specified 'the essence is the principle of generation for this one, namely the Father'; therefore it does not follow that there will be a potency to generate in the Son, indeed that is a fallacy of accident. For the essence is in the Son under such an aspect, under which the minor extreme, the potency to generate, is repugnant to him, as has been shown.

For divine generation both divinity and Fatherhood are required; in one sense divinity is the principle, since it is God which is generated, and in another Fatherhood is the principle, because it is the Father Who generates by His divinity; the Son does not have generating divinity but generated divinity. Similarly with the Spirit.

One final quote, from Dist. 12 Q.3:

This action of spiration can be considered in three ways: either in itself or towards another, or as it is in supposits acting. In the first two ways there is uniformity, just as if it were of one supposit. But in the third way, this action would not be uniformly from these supposits. For the Father has nothing that has been born, and whatever the Son has was received through generation. In this way, therefore, they would have the spiration action according to a certain order, and by reason of this a certain diversity could be asserted. And in this way one should understand the authorities; for I don't understand them in any other way.

There is only one spiration in God in itself. There is only one Spirit spirated. But there are two persons spirating, and the way they spirate is different, for the Father is the "principle" of spiration in this sense, that he spirates in virtue of his fontal plenitude, his being the source of everything in the Godhead, whereas the Son spirates in virtue of receiving everything He has from the Father. The Father spirates from Himself alone, then, whereas the Son spirates only through the Father and with the same spiration as the Father.

A very great deal more could be said, but perhaps this post is long enough. On final note. Mr Jones says "as far as explanation goes I don't find anything proffered by Bonaventure and Scotus that wasn't already covered by Alcuin and Ratramnus." I admit I don't know how to take this. Do Alcuin and Ratramnus really say what Scotus says in this post? If so I would be astonished. The increase in theologians' explanatory power from the beginning to the end of the thirteenth century alone is incredible, and also obvious to anyone to anyone who reads both early and late scholastics.

Cross on Scotus on Trinitarian Processions

The following remarks may be of interest to those who followed the last round of exchanges with the E.P. folks:

According to Scotus, Father and Son are one spirator of the Holy Spirit (as I have just noted, 'spirator' functions as if it were a substance-sortal here) . . . Because there is only one substance here, Father and Son are just one spirator. Thus, the general rule is that, when we count substances, we do just that: we do not count supposita as such. (Of course, created natures always coincide with supposita, although the way in which we would define what it is to be a nature will be different from the way in which we would define what it is to be a suppositum, such that the difference is spelled out in terms of a distinction between indivisibility/individuality and incommunicability.) Contrariwise, the Father and Son are indeed two spirantes (spirating persons, persons who spirate) . . . According to Scotus, there are two divine persons spirating the Holy Spirit, and we can thus talk about two spirantes. However, according to Scotus, for example, 'two Gods' would refer to numerically two divine substances, and 'two human beings' to numerically two human substances. Factually, there are (at least) two human beings; so 'two human beings' has a genuine reference. Yet there is necessarily only one divine substance; so 'two Gods' can never refer to anything other than objects in a counterpossible state of affairs--it can never refer to anything in any actual or possible world. 'Person', of course (or at any rate, 'suppositum'), does not, in an Aristotelian universe, pick out a natural kind.

--Richard Cross, "Duns Scotus on Divine Substance and the Trinity," Medieval Philosophy and Theology 11 (2003), 194-195.

Proclus, Scotus and the Trinity

The following is a highly interesting bit from Proclus, the platonic theologian. At the outset, I do not think that this is directly applicable to the Trinity. Obviously, Trinitarian processions are not from higher orders of being to lower ones. But if we drop this element from the passage, it bears striking resemblance to Duns Scotus' theory of Trinitarian processions (see the various posts in which Michael was disputing with the energetic easterners). Basically, what I have in mind is the idea that the Father, in generating the Son, transmits everything to him save for his own personal property. This includes the power of spiration, and guarantees that the productive principal of the Holy Spirit is the same for both Father and Son. 

Now Scotus does mention Proclus once or twice by name, albeit not in this context. The proposition of Proclus quoted below is quite similar to the first proposition from the Liber de causis (omnis causa primaria plus est influens super causatum suum quam causa universalis secunda), which Scotus probably did read.

Propositio 56 (ed. Dodds 55) "All that is produced by secondary beings is in a greater measure produced from those prior and more determinative principles from which the secondary were themselves derived.

For if the secondary has is whole existence from its prior, thence also it receives its power of further production, since productive powers reside in producers in virtue of their existence and form part of their being. But if it owes to the superior cause its power of production, to that superior it owes its character as a cause in so far as it is a cause, a character meted out to it from thence in proportion to its constitutive capacity. If so, the things which proceed from it are caused in virtue of its prior; for the same principle which makes the one a cause makes the other an effect. If so, the effect owes to the superior cause its character as an effect.

Again, it is evident that the effect is determined by the superior principle in a greater measure. For if the latter has conferred on the secondary being the causality which enabled it to produce, it must itself have possessed this causality primitively (prop. 18), and it is in virtue of this that the secondary being generates, having derived from its prior the capacity of secondary generation. But if the secondary is productive by participation, the primal primitively and by communication, the latter is causative in a greater measure, inasmuch as it has communicated to another the power of generating consequents."

St Thomas on Existence/Essence and Identity

Mr Jones at Energetic Processions offers the following from St Thomas:

“Therefore that thing, whose existence differs from its essence, must have its existence caused by another. But this cannot be true of God; because we call God the first efficient cause. Therefore it is impossible that in God His existence should differ from His essence.” - ST Ia. Q.3 A.4

“Therefore “suppositum” and nature in them are identified. Since God then is not composed of matter and form, He must be His own Godhead, His own Life, and whatever else is thus predicated of Him.” - ST Ia. Q.3 A.3

“The truth of this question is quite clear if we consider the divine simplicity. For it was shown above (Question 3, Article 3) that the divine simplicity requires that in God essence is the same as “suppositum,” which in intellectual substances is nothing else than person. But a difficulty seems to arise from the fact that while the divine persons are multiplied, the essence nevertheless retains its unity. And because, as Boethius says (De Trin. i), “relation multiplies the Trinity of persons,” some have thought that in God essence and person differ, forasmuch as they held the relations to be “adjacent”; considering only in the relations the idea of “reference to another,” and not the relations as realities. But as it was shown above (Question 28, Article 2) in creatures relations are accidental, whereas in God they are the divine essence itself. Thence it follows that in God essence is not really distinct from person; and yet that the persons are really distinguished from each other. For person, as above stated (29, 4), signifies relation as subsisting in the divine nature. But relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really, but only in our way of thinking; while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.” - ST Ia. Q.39 A.1

He doesn't here actually make an argument, but the implications, he thinks, are clear. In his comments he writes:

The whole thomistic tradition says that the persons of the trinity are identical to the divine essence. What does that amount to? Chicken scratch? Goody for you if you can prove that some Franciscans don’t make this mistake, bad for you that you commune with heretics that do. . . . Oh so when Aquinas says that essence and existence are identical in God it means they are not something other but actually the same thing, but when he says that one of the person’s of the trinity is identical to the essence that use of identity means something different. Okay…more Roman Catholic sophistry to document.

Respondeo: Yes, the identity of essence and existence in God and the identity of person and nature in God are not exactly the same. The quotes in Mr Jones' latest post show this clearly.

The identity of essence and existence, due to God's simplicity, is such as to make each of God's essential attributes really identical with each other and only notionally distinct (for Thomas, let's be clear, not for me). God's existence, goodness, eternity, are all really one and the same "item".

The identity of the persons with the essence is not the same. They are identical in the sense that there is in one sense one "item" and in another sense three "items". In no sense are there four "items": essence, Father, Son, and Spirit, such as there would be if any or all of the divine Persons were *really* distinct from the essence in any way. This is in fact precisely Thomas' denial of E.P.'s "God in general" accusation--the divine essence is not a universal property to which is added an individuating difference, i.e. Divinity+Paternity=God the Father. Thomas denies this. Rather, the Person who has God's Paternity=God. In that sense, God the Father (the supposit) is the same "thing" or "reality" (rem) as the divine existence/essence. There is no actually existing reality in God other than the divine ousia--God the Father is not something other than God, more, less, or different. There is no composition of personal properties with nature in God which would produce an additional something.

BUT the divine existence/essence and God the Father are NOT identical in the sense that referring to the single divine nature refers to a single divine supposit or person. God the Father is God (the existence/essence, ousia), God the Son is God, but God the Father is not God the Son. The Persons are really distinct from one another, not notionally. Because of this we have to say that the identity of the persons with the nature is not the identity of the = sign, as is the case (for Thomas) with God's essence and existence and essential properties.

God the Father cannot be really distinct from the divine essence because he is wholly God and in no way something other than God. There is no reality in God the Father which is not God. Nevertheless, it is not the case that, simply, Divinity=Paternity, the way that Divine Immensity=Divine Eternity, because God the Son is God, he has all Divinity, but he has no Paternity. There are two related but distinct senses of identity in play. All three Persons are identical with the essence (and with each other) in the sense that there is only one SOMETHING. There are, however, really three SOMEONES. All three persons are really distinct from each other, because the Father is not the Son is not the Spirit. To the extent, then, that Father/=Son, or Paternity/=Filiation, and yet Father=God and Son=God, there is a difference between the *kind* of identity Thomas postulates between the Person(s) and the essence and that between the existence and the essence/attributes.

I think this is clear enough in Thomas, although it could be clearer. And it is not my position--I don't think Thomas has the conceptual tools to adequately express the different kinds of identity he has in mind, which makes him a bit confusing and occasionally sounds almost contradictory--but I don't think it's heretical and I don't think it falls prey to Mr Jones' objections. Rather, I think he misunderstands and misconstrues Thomas, because he gives him the least possible sympathetic reading. He's looking for heresy and so he finds it. But everyone should know how easy it is to apply the same trick to any of the Fathers.

In any case, it's easy to call something sophistry when one makes no attempt to understand it on its own terms and shows no inclination or ability to think through difficult distinctions.

This will be my last response to Mr Jones.

The Photian Argument

Photius negat posse dari quid notionale commune duabus personis, sed ait quidquid non est commune tribus personis esse personale, et proprium unius tantum personae.

Gratis id negat, neque ullum est principium theologicum in quo fundari possit haec negatio. Praeterea etiam admittit Photius missionem Spiritus Sancti esse communem Patri et Filio, unde Patres cum Scriptura dicunt Spiritum esse proprium utriusque.

--Dalmau, De Deo Uno et Trino, sec.420.

All that the Father has which is not Paternity he gives to the Son. This includes the act of spiration, which cannot be identical to the divine essence, since the Spirit Himself does not spirate.

That the principle in question--that whatever is not shared by all three persons is a personal property--is false may be proved by the fact that the Son and the Spirit have in common originating from the Father, while the Father alone is unoriginate.

Thomas and Trinitarian Terminology

In a comment to the last post, Mr Robinson says:

I don't think I claimed the subordinating relation was one of concrete particular to abstract generality. It strikes me as odd to think that the scholastics in general thought of the divine ousia as an abstract object, let alone Augustine. Of course, you might want to look at what Aquinas has to say about the relation of the persons to the essence. One swallow does not make a spring.

I have several issues with this. 1) "The scholastics in general" and "one swallow does not make a spring" seems to indicate that Mr Robinson thinks that Scotus is in a serious minority on this issue. Unfortunately 2) having denied my representation of his view, Mr Robinson doesn't clarify what that view is, so it's unclear exactly what Scotus is in the minority on. 3) He directs me to "look at what Aquinas has to say about the relation of the persons to the essence." At what, exactly? I have to guess which text and which opinion of Aquinas' he takes issue with. I admit I don't know which he means. Presumably it has to do with his view that "the scholastics in general thought of the divine ousia as an abstract object" (I'm leaving Augustine out of this for now. Not enough time to get into that).

Of course it's pretty difficult to talk of what "the scholastics in general" thought about a difficult theological issue. When one reads a lot of them one notices that they tend to frequently disagree. What is clear, however, is that none of them "thought of the divine ousia as an abstract object". I hate to have to point this out, but they thought and wrote in Latin, and the slippery transfer between technical Greek words and technical Latin words among people who only spoke one or the other is a prime cause of misunderstanding. We shouldn't say anything about what Latin theologians thought about "the divine ousia" without being extremely careful to say just what we mean by "ousia" in Latin terms.

Thomas does so in a text in which he's discussing the relation of the persons to the essence, Summa theologiae, prima pars, Q.29 A.2, Utrum persona sit idem quod hypostasis, subsistentia et essentia. Thomas carefully distinguishes between a number of terms which might be used in place of it "ousia".

Substantia dicitur duplicter. Uno modo dicitur substantia quidditas rei, quam significat definitio, secundum quod dicimus quod definitio significat substantiam rei: quam quidem substantiam Graeci "usiam" vocant, quod nos essentiam dicere possumus. --Alio modo dicitur substantia subiectum vel suppositum quod subsistit in genere substantiae. Et hoc quidem, communiter accipiendo, nominari potest et nomine significante intentionem: et sic dicitur suppositum. Nominatur etiam tribus nominibus significantibus rem, quae quidem sunt res naturae, subsistentia et hypostasis, secundum triplicem considerationem substantiae sid dictae . . . hypostasis, apud Graecos, ex propria significatione nominis habet quod significet quodcumque individuum substantiae . . . Sed quia nomen substantiae, quod secundum proprietatem significationis respondet hypostasi, aequivocatur apud nos, cum quandoque significet essentiam, quandoque hypostasim; ne possit esse erroris occasio, maluerunt pro hypostasi transferre subsistentiam, quam substantiam.

Thomas does, therefore, conceive of "ousia" as "abstract" (I will not admit the phrase "an abstract object" unless what this means is clarified), if by "ousia" we mean the essence in the sense of quod quid erat esse, what is signified by the definition. But of course a definition is an abstraction! Is signifies what God is but not who God is, i.e. it points out what it means to be God but not any specific divine hypostasis. But this is no way implies that the divine essence or nature is conceived of as some "abstract object" somehow existing above or prior to any of the divine persons. Rather, a divine person simply is this subsistent supposit of the divine nature, the "who" (or, if you like the "this") whose "what" is defined by the essence. When we speak of the divine nature or essence we're speaking of God without speaking of any given person--but this does not imply that Thomas thinks the essence is any thing other than the persons. He certainly doesn't.

God in general?

It's been a long time since I've had an actual argument with the "Energetic Procession" folks, but thinking about their silliness still rankles me, I confess, especially when one of their dubious opinions is brought to mind by something I happen to be reading. One of these opinions is that the Latin tradition of understanding the Trinitarian Persons as subsistent relations subordinates the concrete Persons to an abstract "God in general" of the philosophers. Not so! As our Blessed Scot points out. "Intellecutus non convertitur nisi ut est in aliquo supposito, quia conversio ponitur actio, et actiones sunt suppositorum." I was struck by this remark in Ordinatio I dist. 2 pars 2 Q. 1-4 para. 285 when I came across it, but even more so by the following:

Ubi notandum est quod natura non se habet ad suppositum sicut universale ad singulare, quia in accidentibus etiam invenitur singularitas sine ratione suppositi, et in substantia nostra natura atoma assumpta est a Verbo, secundum Damascenum, non tamen suppositum nostrae naturae. Neque se habet natura ad suppositum sicut 'quo' ad 'quod', nam cuicumque 'quo' correspondet proprium 'quod' vel 'quis', ita habet proprium 'quod' vel 'quis' quod non contrahit ad suppositum, et sicut suppositum est 'quod' vel 'quis', ita habet suum proprium 'quo' quo subsistit et tamen concomitanter suppositum de necessitate est singulare,--et etiam, non potest esse 'quo' respectu alterius, quia est subsistens, non potens esse actus alicuius subsistentis; haec duo dicunt duplicem incommunicabilitatem.

"Whence it must be noted that the nature is not related to a supposit as universal to singular, since singularity is found even in accidents without them being a supposit [sine ratione suppositi], and in our substance an atomic [individual] nature is assumed by the Word, according to the Damascene, but not, however, a supposit of our nature. Neither is nature related to supposit as 'quo' to 'quod', for to any 'quo' [by which] corresponds its own 'quod' [what] or 'quis' [who], and so, as the nature is the 'quo', so it has its own 'quod' or 'quis' which does not contract to a supposit, and as a supposit is 'quod' or 'quis', so it has its own 'quo' by which it subsists and nevertheless at the same time [concomitanter] a supposit is necessarily singular;--and also, it is not able to be 'quo' with respect to another, for it is subsistent, not able to be the act of some [other] subsistent; these two bespeak a double incommunicability."

--Ordinatio I dist. 2 pars 2 Q. 1-4 para.378.

The Divine Nature which the three Persons share is not abstract but concrete and singular, as are each of the three Persons themselves. This Nature is not "prior" to the supposits, nor does it act, for only supposits act. The Persons act through their Nature; but the Nature is not without qualification absolutely identical to any or all of the Persons, for if it were identical to, say, the Father, it could not be identical to the Son without contradiction. But it is certainly not something other than the Persons. Hence the need for the formal distinction--matter for a later post.

The Finitude of Trinitarian Persons

Now that I have finished two of my three major papers for the semester I have gone back to studying for exams. In the middle of a detailed series of questions on the nature of the status of the accidents in the Eucharist following the conversion (in which Scotus argues that inherence is not part of the essence of an accident, and that therefore accidents inhere only by a further addition of inherence, which leads to a twofold distinction of accidents into accidens intrinsecus adveniens and accidens extrinsecus adveniens), I came across the following quote in which the subtle doctor argues for that the Trinitarian persons are finite. This view of course as far as I can tell is the standard view; having come from an almost non-creedal (at least in the traditional sense of creed...they were quite fond of the 'no creed but the bible' line although they held numerous extra-biblical doctrines) branch of Christianity I found this fact quite surprising, but it does make sense once one thinks about it. The persons are finite in the sense that one is not the other; they themselves are the boundaries of the others.

Incidentally, In all this reading on the Eucharist I have gotten quite the dialectical experience. I started with Thomas. But in the Leonine edition the text of Thomas is accompanied by that of Cajetan's commentary, most of which is simply an attack on Scotus and Durandus. Moving to Scotus, however, one finds that his text is printed next to 16th or 17th century commentaries, who spend a lot of time attacking Cajetan and the Thomists. So it makes for exciting reading.

In any case, here is what Scotus says about the Trinity.

Ordinatio IV d. 12 q. 2 (Wadding XVII 574-5):

"...nulla enim perfectione formaliter infinita caret aliqua persona divina, quia tunc non esset simpliciter perfecta; sed quaelibet caret aliqua relatione originis; ergo nulla relatio est formaliter infinita, et hoc patet ex ratione perfectionis simpliciter, quia secundum Anselmum Monol. 15 'Est illud quod in quolibet melius est ipsum quam non ipsum' non autem potest relatio esse simpliciter nobilior suo opposito, quia relativa sunt simul natura."

translation: For a person does not lack some formally infinite perfection, because then he would not then be absolutely perfect; but whichever person does lack a relation of origin. Therefore no relation of origin is formally infinite, and this is clear from the definition of perfection unqualifiedly, because according to Anselm in chapter 15 of the Monologium "[perfection] is that which it is better to have than not to have"; relation, however, cannot be unqualifiedly more nobler than its opposite, because relatives are simultaneous in nature

Guilelmus de Alvernia

Today's snippet from the middle ages comes from William of Alvernia, bishop of Paris (d. 1249). The editors of the Vatican edition believe Scotus has him in mind when he refers to some ancient doctors in support of his position on whether or not the Trinitarian persons are consituted by something absolute or relative. But I'm not posting on that topic yet. Rather, this is with respect to comments by certain energetic easterners who like to attack metaphysics and philosophy generally, and the west specifically for somehow holding that one can move beyond the persons to the essence. This is from his tractatus De Trinitate, notionibus et praedicamentis in divinis [cf. vat. ed. 6.12*]:

Cap. 39. Hoc autem non dubitetur, in summa illa Trinitate nihil omnino prioritatis aut posterioritatis posse esse, comparatione ipsius essentiae altissimae, ut videlict prior sit ipsa Trinitas, ipsa communis tribus personis essentia, aut e converso; neque, similiter, inter quamcumque ex personis et ipsam essentiam altissimam possibile est esse ordinem huiusmodi. Impossibile est quippe inter duo, quorum utrumque est spoliatissimum, esse ordinem prioritatis aut posterioritatis: quod enim spoliatissimum atque nudissimum est, nihil potest habere prius se, nisi per modum causae fortasse; personis autem illis tribus nullo modo causa essentia altissima, neque illa ab illis vel ex illis est. Hoc igitur certum habeatur. Quare non per modum causeae praecedere potest eas essentia illa, nec per modum simplicioris aut spoliatioris, quoniam et haec et illae simplices et spoliatissimae sunt in ultimo, et alius modus processionis reperiri non potest.

Here's a rough translation: Let this however not be doubted, that in that highest Trinity there can be entirely nothing of priority or posteriority, in comparision to that most high essence, as namely the Trinity is prior, itself the common essence for three persons, or the other way around. Nor, likewise, can there be an order of any kind between any one of the persons and the most high essence. For it is impossible that between two things, of which each is entirely simple [lit. "most stripped down" or "deprived"], there is an order of priority or posteriority. For what is most simple and most bare can have nothing prior to itself, unless perhaps through the mode of cause. but the most high essence is in no way able to be a cause to those three persons, nor is it by them or from them. This therefore should be held certain. Wherefore not through the mode of cause is the essence able to precede them, nor through the mode of more simple or bare, since both this essence and those persons are both simple in the highest degree, and no other mode of procession can be found.