CHAPTER IV: QUESTION 30 THE PLURALITY OF THE DIVINE PERSONS

Articles one and two inquire whether there are several persons in God, and articles three and four inquire in what this plurality consists.

Article 1. In God there are several persons because there are several real subsisting relations opposed to one another. In the reply to the fourth difficulty, St. Thomas notes that each divine person is not a part nor is the divine reality the whole, because the Father is as great as the entire Trinity, as will become clear below,[321] when St. Thomas explains: "All the relations are one according to essence and being, and all the relations are not greater than one alone; nor are all the persons greater than one alone since the entire (infinite) perfection of the divine nature is in each of the persons."[322]

Article 2. In God there are not more than three persons. This truth is revealed in the form of baptism and stated in the creeds. The theological explanation is that the divine persons are constituted by mutually opposed subsisting relations. But these three relations are three in number. One of the four relations, active spiration, is opposed neither to paternity nor to filiation. This active spiration, therefore, belongs to the Father and to the Son. Passive spiration, however, cannot be attributed to the Father and to the Son for then the procession of love would precede the procession of intellection. The reader is referred to the reply to the first difficulty in the text. It should be noted that the fact that no opposition exists between active spiration and filiation is an implicit affirmation of the Filioque.[323]

Article 3. Whether anything is added to God by the numeral terms.

State of the question. Is there any positive significance when we say that God is wise, or any negative significance when we say that God is incorporeal? This is Cajetan's interpretation of the sense of this title.

Reply. The numeral terms do not add anything positive to God since they express not a quantitative but a transcendental plurality, which is not properly speaking a number. The transcendental multitude refers to the many of which it is predicated in the same way that transcendental unity refers to transcendental being. Transcendental unity merely predicates the indivisibility of being without adding any accident. We say not only that the scholastic school of thought is one among many theological schools but that it is also perfectly one and united. So also the Summa Theologica is not only one among many works written by St. Thomas but it is a work that is perfectly one because of the intimate connection between its parts. We refer the reader to the text.

Thus, as was explained elsewhere,[324] transcendental unity differs from the unity which is the principle of number, which is a kind of quantity. St. Thomas in concluding the body of the article says: "When we say that the divine persons are many, this signifies these persons and the indivisibility of each of them since it is of the nature of a multitude that it consist of unities." In his reply to the third difficulty, he says: "Multitude does not do away with unity; it removes division from each of those entities which constitute the multitude."[325]

This may be better understood when we see it verified in several instances. The numerical multitude of individuals does not do away with the unity of the species; the transcendental multitude of species does not do away with the unity of genus; the transcendental multitude of genus does not do away with the analogical unity of being, nor does the multitude of accidents in a suppositum destroy its unity. Similarly the transcendental plurality of persons in God does not destroy the unity of God. But if it were a numerical plurality in God, the divine nature would be multiplied in the three individuals, and there would be three gods.

The unity of God is a unity pure and simple, whereas the specific unity of many men is only a qualified unity, that is, a unity according to the specific likeness of these men, who together are a pure and simple multitude. Wherefore the plurality of the divine persons in the bosom of the simple unity of the divine nature is best compared analogically with the plurality of accidents, such as, for example, the plurality of faculties in one suppositum that is simply one rather than with the plurality of individuals in the same species.

Corollary. Thus there is in God a simple unity and a qualified plurality. The unity is the unity of the divine nature; the transcendental plurality is the plurality of the opposing relations. In a nature numerically one and the same this plurality arises from the opposition of relations of origin. Therefore it cannot be said that there are three gods, but we must say there is one God. Again, as we shall see in the following article, we cannot say that God is threefold, but we say He is triune in order to safeguard the simple unity which is at the same time substantial together with the plurality that arises from the opposing relations. Thus we say that God is one in three persons.

Article 4. Whether the term "person" is common to the three divine persons. It seems that it is not, since nothing is common to the three persons except the divine essence.

Reply. The term "person" is a common noun according to reason because that which is a person is common to the three persons, namely, the subsisting relation opposed to other relations. It is not, however, common to the three persons by a community of the actual thing as is the divine essence, which is one whereas there are three persons. If something were common to the persons actually, there would be but one person as there is one nature.

Even when applied to men, the term "person" is common by a community of reason, not indeed as are genus and species but as an undetermined individual, as some man, that is something subsisting of itself and distinct from others. Analogically this notion is common to the three divine persons since each divine person subsists in the divine nature distinct from the others. The term "person, " therefore, is common to the three divine persons by a community of reason but not actually, as St. Thomas explains in the reply to the third difficulty. It is common but not as genus is a common term, because the three divine persons have one being and are subsisting being itself, which is above all genus.