Question 31 - Terms Referring to Unity and Plurality in God

Why this Question Matters.

Aquinas has established that the persons of the Trinity are subsisting relations, the relations being derived from the scriptural data concerning processions. He now moves on to discuss what we can say about various aspects of the Trinity. The character and focus of this question may, at first reading, appear to be slightly odd. However, it reflects the keen interest that medieval philosophy took in the functioning of language and in the relationship between language and the traditional areas of philosophy. (In these concerns, medieval philosophy shows a fascinating similarity to many aspects of the linguistic philosophy of the twentieth century). The choice of subjects for the articles of this question reflects some of the most important and lasting controversies in the Middle Ages about the use of language when applied to God. Aquinas’s immediate concern in this question is revealed in the body of the second article: “heresy arises from words that are used incorrectly” (quoting St. Jerome) and “There is no other place where error is more dangerous, where questions are asked more rigorously, or where anything more fruitful is found” (quoting St. Augustine). So then, what can we say about God as Trinity and what must we avoid saying?


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Aquinas has shown that we can attribute a plurality of persons to God; in this article he demonstrates that we can be more specific and attribute the name “Trinity” to this plurality of persons. The argument is very straightforward: the name “Trinity” simply signifies determinately what the word “plurality” signifies indeterminately. The bulk of the article is devoted to answering a number of linguistic objections to this attribution.

As an example, the first objection suggests that names must either signify the substance of God or a relation within God. The word “Trinity”, taken as a name, can’t signify the substance because this would attribute the substance of God individually to each person (leading to tri-theism). However it can’t signify a particular one of the relations because it clearly is not a referential word. Although Aquinas admits that etymologically the word “Trinity” would appear to refer to the single essence of the three persons, as it is used in the context of God it refers to the number of persons in the single essence. The objection has set up a false dichotomy.

A2: The question of whether we may say that the “Son is other than the Father” had a lengthy pedigree in medieval times; it almost became a standard scholastic exercise. The fundamental dichotomy is that we want to be able to say it in order to distinguish between these two persons of the Trinity, but we must beware of the possibility of it expressing the idea that the Father and the Son are different in the sense of being substantially different. Aquinas uses this background to chart a terminological course between the Arian error of dividing the substance of God and the Sabellian error of conflating the persons. In thinking about Arianism, Aquinas teaches that we must avoid words like “diverse”, “different”, “separate”, “divided”, “disparate”, “alien” or “discrepant” because all of these are too suggestive of various erroneous positions. However, we can use the word “distinct” especially if we note that it is referring to the relations. He comes up with a similar list when considering Sabellianism. Essentially, Aquinas is attempting to build a list of allowable words and their definitions in order to avoid the sort of misunderstandings that arose frequently in the past.

In addition Aquinas applies the principle of expositio reverentialis by saying that when we come across an orthodox authority who uses language imprecisely we must recognize that we have to understand that language in an informal sense, substituting correct formal terminology as we read.

Having considered such terminology, Aquinas concludes that it is reasonable to say that the Son is other than (alius) the Father because the word implies only a distinction of supposita rather than of substance. It’s worth noting that in the reply to the fourth objection Aquinas is so precise as to say that alius (i.e. the masculine grammatical gender) refers to the supposita and therefore acceptable whereas aliud (i.e. the neuter grammatical gender) refers to the common essence and therefore cannot be used.

A3: The next article tackles the linguistic question of how the word “alone” can be used when talking about God’s essence. In order to address this question Aquinas introduces the grammatical ideas of categorematic and syncategorematic terms: a term is categorematic if it can stand as the subject or predicate of a proposition. So in the phrase “a white elephant” the term “white” (acting as a predicate) signifies something absolutely with respect to the subject “elephant”. On the other hand, a syncategorematic term is one that is not categorematic. Words like “of” and “and”, “all” or “none” are usually (always?) syncategorematic. A word like “alone” can act in both ways: compare “Socrates is alone” with “Socrates alone is writing”: in the first proposition “alone” is functioning as a predicate describing the fact that Socrates is on his own. In the second proposition Socrates need not be alone; we simply learn that Socrates is the only one writing.

Aquinas observes that we can use “alone” syncategorematically when speaking of God’s essence (“God alone is eternal”, for example) but not categorematically (“God is alone” for example). To do the latter would contradict the conclusion reached in the previous article.

A4: Having dealt with the question of how the word “alone” may be used in propositions about the divine substance, Aquinas now asks the same question of propositions about the divine persons. If we take the proposition “The Father alone is God” then we can immediately see that a syncategorematic reading does not work as it attributes solitariness to the Father (against the teaching of Article 2). Even when we read it syncategorematically, we have to be aware of different possible meanings. The correct meaning is equivalent to “He, being the only one who is Father, is God”. Aquinas points out that this is such a subtle use of grammar that it is dangerous and that such phrases should not be left to stand on their own but should have explanations attached. Aquinas provides precisely such explanations for a number of common examples in the replies to the objections.


Handy Concepts

• Aquinas is guided again in this question by the need to sail between the twin Trinitarian errors of Arianism and Sabellianism.
• Aquinas practises and preaches the doctrine of “expositio reverentialis”: we must read orthodox authorities with sympathy and reverence, realizing that although the terminology may be misleading, or the ideas insufficiently developed, the kernel of the ideas presented is correct and what the authority writes should be built upon rather than demolished.
• A term is categorematic if it can stand as the subject or predicate of a proposition. Otherwise it is syncategorematic. Words such as “alone” can only be used syncategorematically of the substance and persons of God and even then should be used with care and glossed precisely.

Difficulties

• Why does Aquinas not refer to the idea of transcendental multiplicity in the first article?
• This question may appear to be reserved only to grammar nerds, but the underlying principle that sloppy use of language can make a complete hash of theology is a vitally important one.

Question 30 - The Plurality of Divine Persons

Why this Question Matters.

God is one and yet God is three. In this simple statement of Trinitarian faith lays one of the greatest mysteries of Christianity. That it is true is a matter of faith and, Aquinas believes, it cannot be demonstrated on purely metaphysical grounds. Still, we can ask whether it can be considered coherent. Aquinas has identified that scripture reveals to us that there are real subsisting relations within the Godhead and that we can identify these with the “persons” identified in the creedal statements of the Church. Aquinas now focuses on the question of plurality in the Godhead with respect to the persons: is there plurality? How many persons are there in the Godhead? In what sense can we even think about using number when it comes to the persons of the Godhead?


The Thread of the Argument

A1: In the light of the Christian teaching on the unity and simplicity of God, the first question to ask is whether it makes sense to talk about a plurality of persons in God. Of course the Christian Tradition, here illustrated by the Athanasian Creed, insists upon such a plurality and Aquinas aligns his teaching with this. As the notion of “person” corresponds to a relation subsisting as a reality in the Godhead and as there are a plurality of such relations, then it makes sense to talk of a plurality of persons in God.

The reply to the first objection sees Aquinas continuing his explanation of the possibilities for confusion in the Greek and Latin terminology. The second objection asks why, when the absolute properties of God (such as goodness and wisdom) do not lead to differentiation, relations do lead to such distinctions. Aquinas recalls the fundamental difference between absolute and relative properties: the very being of relations is founded in their pointing to something else; they exist in opposition. It is this that creates the multiplicity from relations. Continuing this theme, for the third objection Aquinas points out that a plurality of absolute things (such as goodness, wisdom) does not create plurality in God because of His simplicity. But relations, because of their pointing-to-the-other, do not create the type of composition of thing-and-property that would contradict simplicity. Finally number, by its very definition, would seem to create parts-within-a-whole. Aquinas replies that, at the very least, we can attribute number as an intellectual construct to God because such a construct exists in the intellect rather than in the thing itself. He postpones until Question 42 Article 4 a discussion of why number existing in things (as when we count parts of a whole) does not pose a challenge when we apply it to the Trinity.

A2: Having accepted that we can reasonably talk about persons in the Godhead, we must continue the enquiry of Question 27 Article 5 and Question 28 Article 4 and check that Aquinas’s Trinitarian theory gives us the “right” number of persons. Aquinas argues that the real distinctions among the persons arise from their being in relational opposition to one another; therefore all he has to do is to count the genuine relation oppositions. The technical difficulty arises from the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (the famous filioque clause of the creed). Unless care is taken over the relational opposites associated with the Holy Spirit, there will be some double counting.

The relations to sort out are the spiration and the procession (the latter in the sense specialized to the Holy Spirit). First Aquinas points out that procession cannot be associated with the Father and/or the Son, since if this were so the relations of paternity and sonship (based on intellectual procession) would be founded on the procession of the will. Therefore procession is associated with the Holy Spirit and spiration is associated with both the Father and the Son. In the reply to the first objection, Aquinas goes a little bit further and explains that whilst paternity, filiation and procession are personal properties (i.e. they constitute the persons), spiration is not as it neither belongs to a single person nor constitutes a single person.

A3: When we talk about plurality or number in the Godhead we are faced with one of the central mysteries of the Trinity: how can there be just one God (who is absolutely simple) and yet there be these three “persons” in the Godhead. So far, we may have been unconsciously assuming that we apply the concept of number univocally to God and to creatures; but is this valid? What does it mean to apply number to God? Do numerical terms imply some reality in God?

Aquinas observes that the notion of plurality arises in two ways. On the one hand, material things can be divided into subsets and from this we associate number with quantity. On the other hand there is a transcendental notion of plurality that arises from dividing being into the one and the many. This latter is the only sort of plurality that makes sense for immaterial things. Aquinas claims that previous authors have become muddled on this issue by attempting to apply the first notion of number to God. Aquinas rejects this line of thinking, suggesting that if it is followed one can only make sense of numerical claims about God in terms of metaphor.

Aquinas therefore considers number as applied to the Godhead in terms of the transcendental notions of unity and multiplicity. Aquinas has already applied the transcendental notion of unity (convertible with being) to God’s essence in Question 11 Article 1: When we say that God is one, we are positively affirming that His being is an undivided reality. Here Aquinas applies transcendental multiplicity to the Godhead: what this affirms is that each person is undivided and that each person is not some other person. Put in this way, Aquinas claims that we can then affirm number to the Godhead as a reality and not just as a metaphor or simply as an intellectual construct. Moreover, as Aquinas lays out in his reply to the third objection, unity does not exclude multiplicity but rather excludes division. Similarly, multiplicity does not exclude unity but rather division between the realities out of which the multiplicity is formed.

A4: The final article in this question is a somewhat technical exploration of how the notion of “person” can be considered common to the three persons. That there might be a problem is explored in the objections: for example, only essence is common to the three persons, therefore personhood cannot be common to them. Similarly, if “person” is common to the three then it is either a real or conceptual commonality. If it is only a conceptual commonality then there is really only one person; if it is a real commonality then this would seem to set up “person” as being a universal with God possessing particularity, or genus and species, with respect to this universal (see Question 3 Article 5).

Aquinas points out that when we talk about creatures such as men, the name “person” is common to them, but it is a different sort of commonality than that implied by saying that they share the same essence. It is not a real commonality, but the type of commonality that it is has been something over which various authors have disagreed. Aquinas argues that this commonality is a commonality of concept, pointing towards the notion of an indeterminate individual (such as we refer to when we say “a man” without any particular man in mind). Even with this vagueness, in the example of “a man”, we point towards a common nature, together with a particular mode of existing as a per se individual. Now when we use the term “person” (as opposed to “a man”) things are slightly different: we are pointing towards a reality that subsists in a particular nature. This is what is conceptually common to all of the divine persons.

In answer to the objection against conceptual commonality, Aquinas points out that even when we consider creatures, commonality of personhood does not set up commonality of genus or species, so the objection fails. Moreover, things are simply different when we consider the divine: the persons share a common being whereas creatures particularizing a universal have different beings.


Handy Concepts

• “Persons” in the Godhead correspond to subsisting relations and therefore we can talk about a plurality of such persons.
• Spiration is a real relation in the Godhead but does not belong to or constitute a person; therefore the four real relations in the Godhead correspond to three persons.
• In considering number and plurality to arise out of the division of being into the one and the many, Aquinas is following Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
• The discussion of number as applied to the Godhead had rumbled on for many years during the middle ages. A good discussion of the background to Aquinas’s treatment can be found in Chapter 7 of Emery’s “The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas”.

Difficulties

• In the sed contra of Article 2, Aquinas quotes the famous Johannine Comma as an authority in favour of the tri-personality of God. Although the canonicity of this writing is disputed, it can still be considered at the very least as an ancient authority.
• Aquinas’s reduction of the four real relations in the Godhead to the three persons may seem a bit of an ad-hoc sleight of hand to accommodate the filioque. However, one might note that the problem doesn’t simply go away if one insists that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, and even might be considered worse if this were the case. Having two real relations (paternity and spiration) associated with the Father would seem to associate two persons with the Father!
• In the de potentia (Q.9 A.5) Aquinas writes that “The plurality of persons in God is an article of faith, and natural human reason is unable to investigate and adequately understand it.” We emphasize again that Aquinas is not trying here to derive this truth of faith from reason but is trying to show that it is at least rationally coherent.
• The difficult notion of transcendental multiplicity is discussed at more length in Aquinas’s de potentia Q.9 A.7.

Question 29 - The Divine Persons

Preamble

Aquinas has now established that there are real relations in God and that, as a consequence of divine simplicity, these relations are substantial. He has also identified the connections between the notions of procession and relations. Having dealt with these highly abstract concepts, Aquinas now devotes Questions 29-38 to an understanding of the idea of “persons” within the Godhead, connecting this notion with those of procession and relation, and providing a detailed discussion of each person. In Questions 39-43 he will then discuss in more detail the relations between the persons of the Godhead.


Why this Question Matters.

Aquinas is now aiming at a metaphysical elucidation of the classical Christian affirmation that God is three persons (Gk. hypostases) in one substance (Gk. ousia). The next step in this process is for him to address the question of what is meant in this context by a “person”. Aquinas has available to him a number of different definitions of personhood current in medieval theology; the one he favours is that of Boethius: “The person is an individual substance of a rational nature”. One of the major strengths of this definition is that it applies not only to human persons but can also be applied, by analogy, to angels and to divine persons; it is an expansive and inclusive definition. However, Aquinas has to explain carefully what the terms of the definition mean as it is easy to misunderstand what it is driving at. Having established a metaphysical definition of “person” he then has to discuss the various Greek and Latin terms used in Trinitarian theology, as to avoid later confusion. Finally, Aquinas delves into how the notion of person applies analogically to God: from this discussion will emerge the critically important idea that the persons within the Godhead are the subsistent relations identified in the previous two questions.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Aquinas first addresses the suitability of Boethius’ definition of person. He observes that if we consider substances in general (i.e. the genus of substance) then we quickly recognize the fact that we can identify individual substances. Individual substances have the property that they subsist in themselves: they do not require some other substance to specify their being. Contrast an individual substance like a ball with the whiteness of the ball: the ball subsists in itself, but the whiteness (which we are quite entitled to call this whiteness) depends for its being on the ball. Aquinas identifies such substances as primary substances or hypostases. Further, there is a more perfect mode of particularity to be found amongst those substances that are rational; they are in control of their actions. These rational individual substances are what we call persons.

The objections to this article mostly focus on technical issues involved with the definition. For example, if we are taking “substance” in the definition to refer to primary substance, then it would seem redundant to refer to an individual substance. Aquinas replies that the addition of the word “individual” is justified because it adds the property of “not being assumable by another”. Although this may seem odd, Aquinas is thinking of the special case of individuated human nature in Christ: from the definition of Chalcedon we know that Christ is not a human person; His personality is that of the second person of the Trinity. Similarly one might object (on Aristotelian grounds) that the definition should use “essence” instead of “nature”. Aquinas replies that the sense in which “nature” is being used here (slightly different from Aristotle’s use), which is the essence of each particular thing, is better appropriate that the more general term “essence”. The reply to the fifth objection looks forward to Aquinas’ teaching on the soul: a separated substance (such as the soul of a human after death) is an individual with a rational nature but is not a person. Aquinas replies that the soul is a part of a human person and therefore cannot be identified as being a primary substance. It may be an individual, but it is not an individual substance.

A2: Terminology has always provided an obstacle to the understanding of Trinitarian theology. Even when the Doctrine of the Trinity was approaching its definitive conciliar form there was confusion between different theological schools that were using the same words to mean subtly (and sometimes not so subtly!) different things. Therefore, it is always a good idea, before embarking on Trinitarian speculation, to have a session devoted to the defining of terms. In the objections to this article Aquinas gathers together arguments and counter-arguments to suggest that a person, an hypostatis, a subsistent and an essence are really the same things. In a twist of scholastic humour, Aquinas gathers arguments for and against this position from a single author, Boethius, who is also the author from whom he has acquired his definition of person!

In his reply, Aquinas identifies two senses of the word “substance”. In the first sense, the substance of a thing tells us what that thing is: it is a thing’s what-ness or its quiddity. In this sense, substance is the same as the Greek ousia and can be identified with essence. (As an example of this use, in the creed we affirm that the Son is consubstantial with the Father; consubstantial is translating the original Greek term homoousios).

The second sense of the word “substance” is a bit more complicated, but basically refers to an individual thing within the genus of substance. As such, it can be described in a number of different ways. It can be referred to as a suppositum, which is a logical term referring to the thing that underlies some attributes (so, for example, the ball is the suppositum that underlies the property of roundness). Secondly a substance can be called subsistent insofar as it exists as a thing-in-itself and not in another (so the ball subsists but the roundness does not, as it exists in the ball). Thirdly, a substance is a thing-with-a-nature (the ball exhibits the nature of what it is to be a ball). Fourthly, a substance is called a hypostatis or substance in that it underlies its accidents (so the ball underlies the whiteness of the ball).

All that is left to Aquinas now is to specialize these words to the genus of rational substances.

A3: The Athanasian Creed explicitly attributes personhood to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but one might ask whether this is a reasonable thing to do. Aquinas replies by saying that subsisting in a rational nature is the most perfect thing in the created world and by the teaching of Question 13 Article 3 it is therefore quite reasonable to attribute personhood to God. We do, of course, have to remember that such an attribution is by way of analogy and that the personhood attributed to God is attributed in a far more excellent way than it is to creatures. Aquinas’s answer to the question set in this article is quite straightforward; the bulk of the interest comes in his replies to the objections.

First of all, one might object that scripture gives us various words and formulations to describe God and that we should not go beyond these. Aquinas admits that “person” is not said of God in scripture but he claims that what personality describes is used many times of God. Moreover, if heretics are to be refuted, then new ways of expressing the ancient faith are quite appropriate. In a similar line, one might object to the very word “person” because its etymological derivation is quite inappropriate to God. But this is to fall into the etymological fallacy; because a word originates in one way this does not imply it necessarily retains such a meaning (especially when it is being used, as here, in a technical sense).

In the reply to the third objection, Aquinas adds an important qualification to what he said about hypostatis in Article 2. In the created world, a substance is called a hypostatis insofar as it underlies its accidents: but in God there are no accidents, so surely we cannot apply the notion of hypostatis to God. Aquinas replies that, when applied to God, we are not thinking of hypostasis in this way but in terms of signifying a subsistent entity. He also relates some history of the terminological arguments in the early Church: as the Greek term “hypostasis” used to be translated as the Latin “substantia” (that is, “substance” or “essence” rather than the later understanding of “subsistence”), confusion arose as the Latins thought the Greeks were attributing three essences to God.

Objection 4 collects together some terminological problems. A rational nature would seem to imply discursive cognition, which is not true of God (Question 14 Article 7); individuation would seem to imply individuation by matter, again not applicable to God; God does not have any accidents, so how can we call Him a substance? Aquinas answers the first and third of these by pointing out that rationality can be thought of in a much wider sense and that substance refers, more fundamentally, to per se existence. In answering the second objection, Aquinas introduces the important idea of individuation as incommunicability. An individual is one for whom it makes no sense to attribute its properties to something else. So, for example, it would make no sense to attribute my thoughts to some other person.

Aquinas’s answers to objections 2-4 emphasize the importance of understanding that in Trinitarian theology terms are borrowed from the metaphysics of created reality and are given subtly modified technical definitions when applied to divinity. Failure to realize this will lead to failure to understand the analogical way in which personhood is applied to God.

A4: Aquinas leaves the hardest problem until last! How are we to understand personhood when it is applied to God? How does the analogy with created personhood work? The fundamental problem lies with our use of the word “person” in everyday language: when I talk about “that person, John”, I am referring to a concrete individual, to a primary substance. When I talk about a “group of people”, I am pointing to a plurality of individuals; the concept of relation doesn’t seem to enter into view at this point. Aquinas recognizes this and recalls that some theologians (including St. Augustine) took the word “person” as signifying the essence in God. They took the relational aspects defined by conciliar decree as a sort of ad-hoc “add-on” intended to confute heretics. Aquinas is not satisfied with this explanation, arguing that it simply leaves the door wide open for further misconceptions.

Another way of looking at the use of the word “person” when applied to God is to consider that it simultaneously points to both substance and to relation. The question remains as to which is primary: does “person” signify substance primarily and relation indirectly, or does it signify relation primarily and substance indirectly? Aquinas is happy with neither of these approaches but affirms that the second is closer to the truth; still, more work needs to be done.

To do this, Aquinas notes that we have to distinguish between what we signify when we talk about a “human person” (“this flesh and these bones and this soul which are the principles that individuate a man”) and what we signify when we talk about a “divine person”. When we talk about divinity, we remember that there are no accidents in God: the divine relations subsist in exactly the same way that the divine essence subsists. Therefore Divine Paternity (relation) is God the Father (person) is divinity (essence). Therefore, “divine person” signifies a relation as subsistent. For Aquinas, when we are talking about divine personhood, relation and essence are tightly interwoven and although we might assign priority to one, we have to remember that such identification is wrapped around with provisos.

So, Aquinas notes that his solution is, in a sense, consistent with the two previous ideas about relation and essence suggested above. However, it is important to note that he has welded the two ideas of relation and essence together much more closely than the previous theological solution would have it. It is true that “person” signifies relation directly and essence indirectly but we must note that it signifies “relation” as an hypostatis when we are talking about divinity. Similarly, it is correct to say that “person” signifies essence directly and relation indirectly but we must remember the proviso that this is insofar as hypostasis and essence coincide.


Handy Concepts

• Aquinas adopts the definition of Boethius: “The person is an individual substance of a rational nature”. It’s a good definition from his point of view as it is (i) accurate and (ii) amenable to a strategy of analogical predication.
• Individuals are characterized by their self subsistent existence. They are also characterized by the property of incommunicability.
• It is important to grasp the technical meaning of the terms used in Trinitarian theology and to recognize that their analogical use when applied to divinity can mislead us if we are not careful.
• Personhood in God corresponds to subsistent relation. Later on we will see that, in a sense, we should say that God is Father not because he has brought forth a Son; rather He has brought forth a Son because He is Father.
• In article 4 Aquinas challenges St Augustine and corrects him. It’s interesting to note the way in which he does this: he has the confidence to take on an argument of one of the greatest of the Church Fathers but he also has the humility to do this is in a very gentle way. Augustine is correct insofar as he is using the theological language available to him, but Aquinas sees the need, and has the ability, to develop what the saint has done. This is a recurring pattern in Aquinas’s work.

Question 28 - The Divine Relations

Why this Question Matters.

In the previous question, Aquinas identified as foundational to the explication of the Trinity the scriptural affirmation of processions within the Godhead. The fundamental points were made that these processions are immanent to the Godhead and that mistaking these immanent processions for the economic activity of the Trinity was at the root of the two important ancient heresies of Arianism and Sabellianism. Aquinas is now faced with the task of putting metaphysical flesh on the bones of this traditional interpretation of scripture. The basic tool that he has available to him is that of the category of relation. The strategy is quite straightforward: the processions within the Godhead define relations; as there are no accidents in God, these relations must be substantial rather than accidental; these relations are the persons within the Trinity. Aquinas will lay out the foundations for this strategy of persons-as-relations in this question and will complete it and elucidate the detailed consequences in the subsequent questions. All the while, he will navigate between the heresies of Arianism, Sabellianism and Tritheism.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Aquinas is immediately faced with a fundamental problem in applying the category of relation to the processions in the Godhead. In the Categories, Aristotle identified relation as an accidental category. We know there are no accidents in God; hence such a category is inapplicable to God. This problem was well known by the time of Aquinas and had led to a realization that Aristotle’s notion of relation (set out in the Categories) had to undergo development and modification if it was to apply to the divine substance. Therefore Aquinas’s first question: “Are there any real relations in God?” is an entirely natural one to address. The objections home in on the obvious problems: there can be no accidents in God and it looks as though the relations involved here are actually “relations of reason” rather than “real relations”. The sed contra points out that if paternity and sonship are not real relations then God is not the Father or the Son in reality but only as a construct of our minds; an obvious lapse into a form of Sabellianism. In his reply, Aquinas observes that it is only in the category of relation that we find terms that express what is conceptual as opposed to real. Sometimes the relations between things are of the very nature of the things involved; sometimes, though, they are simply because of our understanding of the world. The processions in God are of the former type, because what proceeds from the Father has the same nature as the Father; this is paradigmatically a real relation.

A2: Having established that there are real relations in God, Aquinas now spells out the consequences of this by asking whether these relations are identical with His nature. One might doubt that this is so because in the normal course of events relations are something different from the substances in which they inhere. One might also point out that if God’s nature is fundamentally relational, this would seem to make His nature dependent upon something other than itself, which is clearly wrong. The sed contra points out that anything that is not the divine nature is a creature and yet, in the liturgy, we worship these relations as co-equal to God.

Aquinas briefly discusses two aspects of the accidental categories when we are talking about created things: their inhering in a subject (that is, their being is a being-in) and their specific character (or their essence). In the accidental categories other than relation, the specific character of an accident also inheres in its subject. So the accident of height inheres in a subject and is to do with the subject alone. For the accident of relation, though, things are different: the relation inheres in a subject but its specific character is associated with being directed to something outside the subject. One possible mistake to make here (which St Thomas ascribes to Gilbert de la Poirée as the reason for the latter’s condemnation by the Synod of Rheims) is to take account only the essence of a relation whilst neglecting its being-in a subject. If one does this, then a relation appears to be something that is not intrinsically associated with a subject.

Once one has realised this double aspect of the accident of relation, then the consequences of transferring this notion from creatures to the divine substance is that the being of a real relation can no longer be accidental, it has to be substantive. Therefore a real relation in God has the being of the divine essence and is therefore the same as the divine essence.

It might be objected at this point that in identifying the being of the real relations in God to be identical with His essence we have collapsed the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit into one another. But we have to remember here the dual aspect of relations: they have a being-in a subject (which has here been identified with the divine essence) but they also have a specific character to do with going-out-to (or pointing-to) something (its “relational opposite”). So the being of the relations are the same, but their pointing-to their relational opposites differ. This fact is taken up explicitly in the next article.

A3: It would appear that since the relations in God are identical to His substance, then they cannot be distinct. Similarly, one might view the only real relation in God to be that of procession (or origination); any two examples of such could not be really different, but only conceptually so. Aquinas’s answer is disarmingly simple: if we attribute something to a thing then we attribute to it everything that is contained in the definition of the attribution. In the case of relation, the definition doesn’t only include the being-in of the relation but also the pointing-to of the relation. It is by the latter that the relations within God are distinct. Therefore we can quite happily affirm that when we think of the being of God, then unity follows on this being; when we think of the relations in God, distinction follows.

A4: Having established that there are real relations in God, now is the time to count them. Aquinas has already implied that there are four: those associated with Fatherhood, Sonship, Spiration and being-Spirated. The objections list a number of putative examples which would seem to suggest a multiplication of relations even as far as infinity. Equally one might object that Fatherhood and Sonship (respectively Spiration and being-Spirated) go together as a pair and should therefore only be counted once, giving us less than four.

When Aristotle discussed relations in the Metaphysics (as opposed to the Categories) he identified that relation is either founded on quantity or upon action (or being acted upon). As there are no quantities in God, the real relations in God must be founded upon action. Therefore the real relations in God are founded upon the internal processions in God (because the external relations with creatures do not define real relations in God). Therefore, from the investigations of Question 27, there can only be two opposite relations each corresponding to the two immanent processions within God. The procession of the Son from the Father gives us the relations of Paternity and Filiation; the Procession of the Holy Spirit gives us Spiration and being-Spirated). These pairs of opposed relations are genuinely distinct as each member of a pair has a different pointing-to. The examples of possible other relations presented in the objections fail, as they each boil down to a misunderstanding of God in His single act of being.


Handy Concepts

• Following the tradition that he inherited, the fundamental metaphysical tool that Aquinas uses to build his theology of the Trinity is the notion of relation. Although the category of relation is not the most immediately given datum of revelation (that place belongs to the processions), Aquinas sees it as inevitable that any orthodox theology of the Trinity will necessarily be resolvable to one of relation.
• The real relations in God correspond to the procession revealed in scripture.
• In the created world, relations do not only have their being in some subject, they also have a going-out-to or pointing-to their “relational opposite”. We can distinguish between their being and their specific character. This twofold aspect of relations becomes critical for distinguishing the persons in the Trinity, when we generalize the notion of relation to the divine substance.
• In using relations in this way, Aquinas has explained the unity of the substance (their being-in is the same) as well as the distinction of the persons (their pointing-to is different).
• There are four real relations in God because that is what scripture reveals to us.
• The connection between the real relations in God and the person of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will be made in the next question.

Difficulties

• It was well known by the time of Aquinas that Aristotle’s conception of relation as set out in the Categories needed to be developed in order to deal with the divine substance. (Indeed, Aristotle himself carried on developing the theory in the Metaphysics.) It is reasonable to ask whether the theory of relation was adequate by the time Aquinas applied it in his Trinitarian theology. Some would argue that his conception of relation was inadequate; others would say that it’s been downhill all the way since his time.

Question 27 - The Procession of the Divine Persons

Preamble

It used to be standard practice to divide the summa into a number of “theological treatises” and on that account, we are now moving from the “Treatise on the One God” to the “Treatise on the Blessed Trinity”. It’s now less fashionable to make such a hard and fast division, and more in keeping with the times to emphasise the unity in the work as a whole and the intimate connections between the different parts. There’s truth in both approaches: to cut the summa up into pieces risks losing the unity that is undoubtedly there; but equally we must note that the character of the work changes at certain key points, which Aquinas himself often signposts. At this point in the summa, Aquinas tells us that we are now to turn from considering the oneness of the divine essence to those things that pertain to the Trinity of persons in God.

It is important to note that, although this is not a hard division, we are moving from the realm of “natural theology” (where metaphysics can conclusively demonstrate facts about the existence and being of God) to the realm of “revealed theology” where facts about God are discerned by reason applied to the data of revelation. Aquinas firmly believed, in opposition to a number of prominent theologians of his time, that the truths of the Trinity cannot be demonstrated by means of metaphysics; they are purely truth of revelations. This does not mean that he believes that metaphysics has no role to play; on the contrary, the role of metaphysics is to show that arguments against the truths of faith are not proofs. Metaphysics can be used to show that the truths of the faith can be explained in a rationally coherent way consistent with other scientific (in the widest sense of the word) truths.

One consequence of this is that there may be many ways of approaching and expressing the truths of the Trinity; unfortunately not every way of approaching the Trinity, however attractive it may be, is rationally consistent in this way with the truths of faith and of reason. Aquinas will spend much of his time in this part of the summa showing how it is possible to misunderstand the data of revelation and how this has led people into error throughout the ages.

Aquinas’s presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity does not arise out of thin air. He is indebted to the Fathers of the Church who came before him and especially to St Augustine (in the West), the Cappadocian Fathers (in the East) and the some of the documents of the early ecumenical councils. However, it is also true to say that Aquinas produces a creative synthesis out of the tradition that is handed on to him that goes deeper and further than that tradition.


Why this Question Matters.

One of the most fundamental questions in the consideration of the Trinity is: where to start? What are we to make of the data of revelation; what in it is most foundational for Trinitarian theology? The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is revealed in scripture but, as is well known, it took some centuries before the Church was able to elaborate and define what it meant by the claim that God is one substance in three persons, by an extended reflection on the meaning of scripture. St. Thomas starts his teaching on the Trinity by identifying that the most fundamental notion that scripture gives us is that of an “immanent procession” in the Godhead. We are quite used to the creedal claim that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son”; what Aquinas notes is the scriptural teaching that, in sense, both the Son and the Holy Spirit “proceed” from the Father and that the “procession” of the Holy Spirit has a double meaning (which he will elaborate in later questions). In this question, Aquinas starts his meditation on the Trinity by elaborating the notion of “procession” and by introducing two ancient and fundamental heresies (Arianism and Sabellianism) that demonstrate how misunderstanding the idea of procession can lead to theological shipwreck.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Following his standard practice, Aquinas first of all asks whether it makes any sense to talk about “processions” in God. The idea of this question, of course, is to understand the correct meaning of the word in this context and to point out how it can be misunderstood. In everyday life, “procession” usually means something like “a going out from”. The objections build on this observation to claim that such a notion of procession is incompatible with the divine essence. There is no motion in God, so there cannot be a “going out”; if something “goes out”, it is different from what it goes out from, but there is no diversity in God; if God goes out from God, it would seem that the first “God” referred to cannot be a first principle. The sed contra observes that scripture tells us about this “going out” from God; what then does it mean?

In his answer, Aquinas introduces a distinction between what we now call the “immanent” and the “economic” processions in the Trinity. To do this, he introduces us to the Arian heresy, which took the Son to be first among the Father’s creatures and the Sabellian heresy which took the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be different modes of existence of the one God. He does this because he identifies the root of their mistakes to lie in their identification of procession purely with “economic procession”. This latter refers to the going out of the Son and the Holy Spirit into the created world from the Father. Aquinas claims that what the Arians and the Sabellians missed was the fact that this economic procession is founded in an “immanent procession", a procession that goes on within the Godhead itself. To help us visualize this idea, he gives us the analogy of the intellect understanding something; such an understanding, in a sense, both goes out from the intellect but also stays within the intellect itself. The intellect may present such understanding to the will so that (economic) action may follow upon this immanent understanding. Later on, Aquinas is going to push this analogy further; here he hints at by introducing the phrase “the word in the heart” to describe such a process of understanding. That Aquinas intends the reader to make the connection with the opening of St John’s Gospel should be clear.

The answers to the objections should be clear; the objections make the same mistake of identifying the economic processions of this world with the immanent processions within the Godhead. However, the reply to the third objection hints at a future theme. We’ve already seen that creation goes forth from God’s creative knowledge; itself a kind of procession. It is no coincidence that Aquinas will consider creation immediately after his teaching on the Trinity, as he sees the creation as an act of the whole Trinity.

A2: Having established the fundamental nature of procession within the Godhead, Aquinas immediately turns to the tasks of specializing this notion to the cases of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and of relating procession to the other words that scripture and tradition use to describe the relations between the persons of the Trinity. In this article, he looks at the description of the Son as “begotten of the Father before all worlds” (as the Nicene Creed puts it); the notion of “begetting” or “generation”. Applying the notion of “generation” to the Son might appear troublesome: we use the word “generation” to refer to the coming to be (and decay) of material things, this would clearly not work as far as the Son is concerned. Similarly, if Aquinas is going to push his analogy of procession with the conception of an idea (or word) in the mind of God, then how does he explain that we simply don’t apply the word “generation” to this mental process? Finally, if something is generated from another thing, it receives its existence from the latter. But if the Son is fully God, then He must be self sufficient existence and not receive His being from another.

Aquinas points out that “generation” can be used with a very wide meaning corresponding to a general notion of coming into existence and going out of existence but that it can also be used to refer to a process whereby something living comes into existence with the same nature as that that generated it. It is this latter use that carries over by analogy to the case of the Son being “generated” by the Father.

Replying to the objections, Aquinas points out that the first objection is founded upon the wider meaning of the word “generation”. The second objection is trickier. When we form an idea in our minds, that idea does not have the same nature as our minds, so in this sense the analogy fails. However, God’s act of understanding is His very being; hence the Son that is generated in this sense does have the same nature as the Father. Finally, and trickiest of all, one has to accept that the analogical use of the word “generation” has its limits. When we are talking about the generation of the Son, we have to understand that whilst He is generated by the Father, He doesn’t receive existence into some subject but rather He receives His existence as from some principle. The concern here is to avoid any notion of “subordination” in the Trinity (that the Son and the Holy Spirit are in any sense inferior to the Father) whilst recognizing that there are relations of order in the Trinity (so that the Father can be said to be the principle of both the Son and the Holy Spirit).

A3: Aquinas has connected the fundamental notion of procession with the generation of the Son and now he turns to the procession of the Holy Spirit. There are objections to the idea of more than one procession in the Godhead: if two, then why not three and four and so on? There is only one nature of the Godhead to be communicated, so how can there be more than one procession communicating that nature? The third objection is an excellent example of Aquinas anticipating an objection to the solution that he is going to propose: the procession of the Son corresponds to the going forth of a word in the intellect of God; the only other similar possibility would seem to be that the procession of the Holy Spirit corresponds in some way to the will of God. But in God, the Will and the intellect are the same thing, therefore there cannot be two processions.

Aquinas does indeed turn to the will of God as the solution to this question. In our minds, the intellect proposes something to the will as a good and the will is drawn by its nature to this good: there is a coming forth of love, immanent to the will, towards that good. By analogy, the immanent procession of the Holy Spirit corresponds to the procession of love towards the word in the intellect of God. The first objection is met as there is naturally within the Godhead, this structure of intellect and will, and no more. However, Aquinas will devote Article 5 of this question to a further consideration of this issue. The second objection is met by observing that what is true in the created word is not necessarily true of God. In God, any procession would be a means of communicating the divine nature.

The third objection goes to the heart of the difficulty of the doctrine of the Trinity; it challenges any notion of there being “structure” within God, as everything in God is in some sense “convertible”. Aquinas, of course, spent a lot of time showing that we can talk about things like intellect and will in God and that these notions, though imperfect, have some correspondence with reality. So here he is not going to give up so easily! Nothing can be loved by will unless it is conceived in mind so these processions, although they are related in being the same substance, are distinct as processions.

A4: Having established that it is fitting that the procession of the Son be called generation, Aquinas now has to face the awkward consequence of his argument that one might also call the procession of the Holy Spirit generation as well. This would be rather embarrassing, as Christian tradition (here Aquinas quotes the Athanasian Creed) holds that generation is unique to the Son. To answer this, Aquinas points out that intellect and will differ from one another in the following way. The intellect understands something when there is a likeness of the thing in the intellect for it to ponder. The will wills something not because the something is present in likeness but because it tends towards that thing. Therefore the procession that corresponds to the intellect carries within itself the very notion of likeness and thus corresponds naturally to the notion of generation (whence like comes from like). The procession corresponding to the will, on the other hand, carries with it the notion of tending-towards. We don’t have a particular name for this procession immediately to hand, but scripture indicates that we can liken this to the breathing of a spirit and so we can call it “spiration”.

A5: Returning to the first objection to Article 3 above, Aquinas now shows why there are only two processions in the Trinity. Given the way that Aquinas has explained the notion of procession, he seems open to the objection that over and above intellect and will we might attach a procession to God’s power or to His goodness. Similarly, we observe that created minds have many more than one single idea and therefore surely God must have many ideas, each of which would correspond to a procession. To meet these objections Aquinas returns to emphasize the fact that we are considering immanent processions in this question. We will see later that many things do proceed from the Godhead externally but as for immanent processions, he observes that in spiritual beings (and therefore by analogy in divine beings) there are only two actions that remain within the agent, those of intellect and will. Consequently there can only be two immanent processions that correspond exactly to these.


Handy Concepts

• The fundamental data of revelation concerning the Trinity lies in the notion of immanent procession within the Godhead. Although our experience in the world is of the action of the economic Trinity, we do not have to work backwards from this (as we did when we inferred God’s existence from his action in the world) to the immanent Trinity as the latter is revealed directly in scripture.
• Two of the “great” early Christian heresies were rooted in a misidentification of the economic Trinity with the immanent Trinity. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
• The procession of the Son corresponds to the idea of a word in the intellect; the procession of the Holy Spirit corresponds to the loving movement of the will towards that word.
• The procession of the Son can fittingly be called “generation”.
• In the case of the Holy Spirit, the word “procession” is overloaded. The word is used in common with the procession of the Son but is also used as a particular name for the procession of the Holy Spirit (which can also be called “spiration”).

Difficulties

• The idea that we can use the methods of metaphysics in order to discern truths contained purely in revelation (as opposed to natural theology) may seem troubling, if not repugnant. Aquinas was well aware of this objection and gives an extended apology for his approach in the opening two questions of his commentary Boethius’s “On the Trinity”.

Relations

One of the important metaphysical concepts that Aquinas makes use of is that of a “relation”. He uses the concept in Ia q.13 in talking about how we are related to God and how God is related to us. When he comes to consider the Trinity, the notion of a relation becomes central. Aquinas will develop an exposition of the Trinity that maintains metaphysical coherence between the idea of God as “one” and God as “three” by identifying the “hypostases” (or “persons”) within God as “subsisting relations”.

This article is intended to give a brief overview of how medieval philosophers thought about relations as an aid to understanding how Aquinas uses the notion.

There is a superb article on “Medieval Theories of Relations”, by Jeffrey Brower, over at the online “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy”.

In many ways, this article simply condenses and simplifies what is said there, so if the reader finds what is written here intriguing, puzzling or simply infuriating, relief may be had by going on to read Brower’s article.


We’re thoroughly used to using the notion of a relation in everyday language. For example:

• “James is taller than Richard.”
• “This potato is heavier than that tomato.”
• “Hannah is my daughter.”

These examples seem quite benign, but when one starts to consider the metaphysics underlying such expressions of relation one is rapidly exposed to some surprising difficulties. For example, it would seem quite reasonable to think that “James is taller than Richard” expresses an objectively real fact about the world rather than simply being a consequence of how our minds organize their thoughts about the world. This being so, it would seem that a relation has to be some sort of real thing in the world as opposed to something that only exists in the mind. Where then does this relation exist? What is it? Does it have form and matter?

Medieval philosophers started their thinking about relations from Aristotle’s treatment in the Categories (which we mentioned in our Introduction to Metaphysics). In this work, Aristotle divided what we can express about things into two classes: substance and accident. Aristotle characterises substance as that which cannot be predicated of anything or said to be in anything – “primary substances”; or as that which can be predicated of something but cannot be said to be in anything – “secondary substances”. On the other hand, accidents are predicated of things in the sense of being (or inhering) in things. There is a primary division between being in a subject (accident) versus not being in a subject (substance).

So, for example, when we say that “that cat is white”, we are predicating something (whiteness) of some thing (“that cat”). The whiteness inheres in the cat as an accident, whereas the phrase “that cat” points to that particular cat rather than being predicated of it, and certainly does not inhere in the cat. So in our sentence, “that cat” points to a primary substance and “white” is an accident inhering in that particular cat. Similarly, in the sentence “that animal is a cat”, “that animal” points to a primary substance and “cat” is a secondary substance, a universal.

In the Categories, Aristotle went on to divide up the class of accidents into nine subclasses. One of these subclasses is what we are considering here, the notion of “relation”. Aristotle’s original Greek described “relation” as “pros ti” (“towards something”) and this description gives us an important clue about the metaphysical opportunities and problems associated with relation. The other eight accidental categories are all naturally associated with a thing-in-itself: we can happily say that “the ball is big” (the category of quantity) or “the ball is in the sandpit” (the category of place) but when we come to talk about relations involving the ball, we need something else there as well: the thing that enters into the relation with the ball: “the ball is bigger than the ant”.

When we think of our original examples, a sentence like “James is taller than Richard” seems to involve a number of aspects. First of all, each of the participants in the sentence has a particular height; the relation between the heights of James and Richard is said to be founded in the heights of each individual. Next, there is a comparison between the heights that dictates whether the relation holds or not. Finally there are the questions of where this relation exists as an accident and the sense in which we can say that the existence of this relation is real.

In the Categories, Aristotle held that a relation is not a separate thing to which the participants in the relation are jointly attached but is really explained by the foundational accidents involved. This idea bears a sort of similarity to Aristotle’s approach to universals; universals are instantiated in their exemplars, there is no Platonic third realm of universals where they have a totally separate existence. However, for Aristotle, relations (as universals) are still real entities with their own existence.

In the Middle Ages, although philosophers followed Aristotle in teaching that relations are real entities explained by foundational accidents, there was a dispute between those that held that relations amounted to no more that these foundational accidents (“reductive realism”) and those who held that although relations were founded on these foundational accidents, relations were sui generis accidents (“non-reductive realism”). These latter (including Aquinas) held that we should distinguish between such a thing as the accident of height and the accident of pointing-towards other heights founded upon the accident of height.

There’s a major distinction to be made between some modern approaches to relations, where they are considered to be things that hold between two or more things and the Aristotelian (and medieval) approach in which they inhere in one thing pointing towards another.

Medieval philosophers were also willing to recognize a distinction between propositions and situations that define real relations (so called “relations according to being” or “relationes secundum esse”) and propositions and situations that simply express relative terms (“relations according to speech” or “relationes secundum dici”). In other words, a distinction was made between what serves to relate things and what simply stands in some relation. For example, if we were to come across a decapitated body with its head by its side, we might say “this is a head” and “this is a body”. “Body” and “head” would appear to be relative terms related to each other, but do “this is a head” and “this is a body” express real relations? The problem is that if so this would appear to identify substances with relations, but according to Aristotle relations are accidents. The solution is to recognize that these relative statements are describing parts of substances and not relations. If we were to go on and say “this is the head of that body” we would now be expressing a relation between two substances whose accidental situation indicates that they originally came from one substance. Aquinas refers to this distinction in Ia q.13 a.7 ad1.

Let’s consider another problem: think about the relation of “equality”. “James is the same thing as James” seems to express an obvious fact about reality. If this relation is a real thing, which we’ll call “R1”, then we can immediately observe that “R1 is the same thing as R1”. This is itself a real relation which we’ll call “R2”. We can then apply this reasoning to R2 to get R3, and so on. We soon see that our simple notion of the relation of equality implies an infinite sequence of “real things” associated with one apparently simple relational statement! This would seem the sort of hopeless mess that would have William of Ockham rubbing his hands in glee. The way out of this conundrum is to observe that when we say “James is the same thing as James”, we’re not really saying anything about James. We could quite happily substitute the word “James” with any “x” that named a substance and we’d still have a true statement. Statements like this do not express real relations (“relationes reales”) but what the medieval philosophers called “relations of reason” (“relationes rationes”). In this example, we notionally posit a relation founded on the unity of the substance concerned.

There are also problems in other directions and Aristotle seems to have identified some of these problems in his Metaphysics, suggesting that he himself knew that the treatment in the Categories would not ultimately be sufficient for all circumstances. Much of the medieval debate about relations amounts to a debate about how to relate the theory of relations given in the Categories with that advanced in the Metaphysics and then how to square this resolution with the data of revelation about God.

As we saw, our original examples given above seem to be based on accidents in both the objects appearing in the relations concerned. “James is taller than Richard” depends upon a fact about James’ height and a fact about Richard’s height and a comparison between the two. However, this need not be the case.

• “Richard is thinking about Fiona.”

This sentence seems to express a relation between Fiona and Richard that only depends upon some fact about Richard (that he is currently thinking about Fiona). There would seem to be nothing about Fiona that is involved in this relation. (If one argues that “Fiona is known by Richard” is the underlying fact about Fiona that grounds this relation, one should consider that this is just another way of saying “Richard knows Fiona”).

• “I have arrived at a position to the right of the column”.

Similarly, this sentence provides another example where it is a fact about me that founds the relation rather than any fact about the column. In both of these examples there is a profound asymmetry. Medieval philosophers dealt with these examples by using the idea of a “relation of reason” that we saw above. They considered that even if there were no case for considering one side of the relation being real (or extra-mental) we should consider it as if it were so, projecting the mental relation onto the subject concerned. In examples such as these, there is both a real relation and a relation of reason involved. Philosophers such as Aquinas were quite happy to consider that certain relations did not introduce something in extra-mental reality. The discussion in Ia q.13 a.7 gives a clear example of Aquinas exercising these concepts of real relation and relation of reason simultaneously.

• “I am thinking about those two chairs.”

This sentence would seem to set up a relation between two chairs (as well as a relation between me and the two chairs). But surely this relation expresses no facts inherent in the chairs themselves. Here we have an example where the relations involved are purely those of reason.

Finally, we come to the examples that motivated much discussion in the middle ages about the nature of relation and about whether the notion of relation put forward by Aristotle was adequate when dealing with the metaphysics of theism.

• “God the Son is the son of God the Father.”
• “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.”

We already know from Aquinas that when we talk about God, we often talk analogically. Does this apply here, when we talk about relations involving God? Or are these statements literally true, and if so, how are we to understand them?

If we take the statement “Jesus is the Son of God” as being true, then it appears to set up a relation between God the Father and the God the Son. If we were to consider this relation to be purely one of reason, then we would fall into the heresy of Sabellianism (the idea that the distinction between the persons of the Trinity is purely notional). If we were to suggest that the relation is real in the Son and a relation of reason in the Father, then we would be falling into the error of Arianism (that the Son of God is a creature) because the reality of the relation in the Son would correspond to an accident in the Son which would imply that the Son was a creature. If the relation were real in both God the Father and in God the Son then we would seem to have set up accidents in both of them, contrary to the doctrine of divine simplicity.

Aquinas’s solution is simple and bold: when we consider relations concerning the divine persons, those relations can correspond to substances rather than accidents. Aquinas will spend much of Questions 27-43 of the first part of the summa developing the idea that the persons of the Blessed Trinity are subsisting relations within the Godhead.

Question 26 - God's Beatitude

Why this Question Matters.

This is the last question “concerning what belongs to the unity of God’s essence”, the so-called “Treatise on the One God”. Aquinas has already reflected on beatitude as the last end of rational creatures; but now it is time for Him to consider how we might pre-eminently attribute beatitude to God Himself.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Aquinas needs to define what he considers beatitude to be, so that he can overcome objections that suggest beatitude is to do with the accumulation of goods or is to do with being the reward for merit (which would make no sense for God). He states that beatitude is the “perfect good for an intellectual being” where that being is capable of grasping its own satisfaction with the good it possesses; is capable of doing well or badly; and is master of its own actions. From this definition, it is clear that beatitude belongs especially to God.

A2: When we think about God, although He is entirely simple, we can think about Him under different aspects. We can think about Him from the point of view of His essence or from the point of view of His will or of His intellect. How should we be thinking of Him when we consider His beatitude? One might consider beatitude, as it is to do with the good, to be to do with essence; similarly, as beatitude is to do with an end, one might also consider it under the aspect of the will. However, Aquinas insists that God’s beatitude is associated with His intellect. Everything with intellect desires to be blessed and the most perfect thing in an intellectual creature is the intellect by which it grasps all things. Hence the beatitude of an intellectual creature lies in intellectual activity. In God, being and understanding are really identical, but we can understand them in different ways. So it is appropriate for us to think of God’s beatitude in terms of His intellect.

A3: We might be inclined to simply identify the beatitude of those who are blessed with God Himself. Aquinas takes care to distinguish between intellect thought of as having an object to understand and intellect as the thing that does the understanding. In the first sense God is indeed beatitude as He is the object of the understanding intellect. But in the second sense, we should understand beatitude as something actually created in those who are blessed.

A4: Finally, Aquinas asks whether God’s beatitude encompasses all beatitude. As beatitude is a kind of perfection and God’s perfection includes every other sort of perfection (Question 4 Article 2) the answer is a straightforward “yes”. Anything desirable in a beatitude pre-exists in God’s beatitude. Aquinas takes this opportunity, at the end the “Treatise on the One God”, to offer a brief hymn of praise to God’s glory.

Question 25 - God's Power

Why this Question Matters.

Having talked about God’s willing and His knowledge, together with things such as His providence that arise from them, it is quite natural for Aquinas to discuss God’s power; that by which God acts as an agent. We commonly call God infinitely powerful and also omnipotent, but what do these mean? A common objection to the notion of omnipotence is that it implies contradictions: if God is omnipotent what is to stop Him from creating a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it? Aquinas’s strategy is to pursue a careful line of enquiry as to what these terms mean, turning the common objections on their heads.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Aquinas begins his discussion of the power of God by asking whether there is power in God. This does seem a very curious question but the very first objection against the thesis indicates the need for the precision that Aquinas will bring to bear throughout this question. The Latin word potentia, which is here translated as “power” can also be translated as “potentiality” and, as we have seen, God is pure actuality with no admixture of potentiality. This play on words indicates the need to distinguish between two kinds of potentia: a passive power that corresponds to the ability to be acted on by an agent, and an active power facilitating acting as an agent on other things. Clearly God has no potentia in the first sense but has it pre-eminently in the second sense. A number of objections are made that are each based on confusion about God’s simplicity. For example, power is a source of action (or actuality) but God’s actuality is his essence but His essence has no source. Aquinas replies that power, in the context of God, should properly be thought of in terms of the source of effects rather than of actions and this approach frees us from the contradiction. Similarly, as God’s knowledge and will are the cause of all things, the notion of power seems to be redundant. As before, Aquinas is willing to distinguish between what is real in God and what is conceptually useful for us in talking about God.

A2: We commonly think that there can be no limit to God’s power both in terms of amount and extent but this would seem to lead to problems when God applies His power to the created world. Any infinite power would seem to bring about an infinite effect; in particular, infinite force acting on a body would accelerate it to infinite velocity. But these are impossible. God’s active power clearly has to be infinite, as God’s essence is infinite (Question 7 Article 1), so the apparent contradictions must lie in confusion about How God’s power acts in creation. The confusion is twofold but basically arises from pushing the analogy of action within creation with God’s action too far. If a body were acting on another body with infinite power then we do indeed reach a physical nonsense. However, God is not a body nor does He act as a univocal agent. When the first body acts on the second its power is ordered entirely towards the single end of moving the second body. It has no “choice” in how it acts on the body; its action is strongly coupled and subordinated to the end of moving the second body. When God acts in creation He acts as a non-univocal agent whose power is not subordinate to any of its effects as an and. He chooses the end He wishes to achieve and uses as much of His power as is appropriate.

A3: Having dealt with the question of the infinitude of God’s power, Aquinas now turns to the question of the extent of God’s power: is God omnipotent? The problems that Aquinas has to face in this article are made clear in the objections: surely omnipotence means “being able to do anything”? But if God is omnipotent then he can act upon Himself; He can sin; He can create a weight that He cannot lift! Moreover, if God can do anything, then it would seem that what there is in the world and how it all fits together is entirely down to God’s will; there can be no notion of necessity in the world at all. Aquinas confesses that God is omnipotent but immediately admits that what omnipotence amounts to is non-trivial to determine. Aquinas’s solution is that God can do anything that is possible. What then does “possible” mean? According to Aristotle, one of the meanings of “possible” relates to what is possible to a particular power (this is called relative possibility). I can lift a fifty kilogram weight, but I cannot life a hundred kilograms. We might think that what is possible to God is simply the sum of all that is possible to created powers, but this seems far too restrictive. Neither can we say that God can do what is open to God’s power, as that would be circular. Aristotle’s second meaning of “possible” relates to what is absolutely possible. In this sense something is possible if it doesn’t involve an inherent contradiction. Put another way, a state of affairs is absolutely possible if it can have being. Nothingness is the only thing that contradicts being, so whatever simultaneously implies being and non-being cannot be absolutely possible and is beyond the remit of God’s omnipotence. Aquinas coins a neat way of putting it: “the best thing to say, however, is that they cannot be brought about, not that God cannot bring them about”.

A4: Having determined that God’s power stretches to all that is non-contradictory, Aquinas asks whether He can make the past not to have been. In other words (given article 3), is the mutability of the past inherently contradictory? In Question 10 Aquinas discussed time, aeviternity and eternity and it was clear there that understanding the relationship between a being that exists “in eternity” and beings that exist “in time” is a tricky philosophical problem. If one thinks of the analogy where God “looks” down on the four dimensional space-time universe, grasping all of it in one go, then it would not be too difficult to imagine that God may fiddle with what is in the past (as far as we are concerned). However attractive this analogy may seem, it can be misleading and Aquinas claims that to be able to change the past is inherently impossible. We feel perfectly at ease with the idea that saying Socrates is both seated and standing is a contradiction; Aquinas claims that to say Socrates was seated and was standing (simultaneously) is also a contradiction. If this little argument is not enough, the authority of Augustine and Aristotle are called on to bolster the argument.

A5: Since God foresees and pre-ordains what He actually brings about it would seem that God is unable to bring about what He does not bring about. In other words, God is constrained in what He brings about by what He actually brings about because of the way that He brings it about. Aquinas has already pointed out in Question 19 Article 3 that God’s will is not constrained by any natural necessity, so the fact that things have come about from God in the way they have is not a constraint on God. God was perfectly free to create the universe in whatever way He pleased. Similarly it is not correct to think of God’s plan of wisdom and justice as constraining Him. The confusion seems to lie in the fact that God brings all things to be in His single act of being; because we think of His single act of being under a number of different conceptual guises (His being, His essence, His power, His justice, His providence and so forth) we are liable to think of these different aspects constraining each other. We have to be careful not to allow these different conceptual approaches to God to obscure the single underlying reality. A further useful distinction to make that allows us to think coherently in terms of these conceptual distinctions without falling into the trap of thinking that their mutual inter-relationships constrain God, is between the Absolute Power of God and the Ordained Power of God. The absolute power of God refers to His radical freedom to bring about whatever He wills to bring about. His ordained power refers to His power to bring about whatever He has pre-ordained to bring about by reason of His just will.

A6: Having shown that God, by His absolute power, is not constrained in what He brings into being, we might ask whether He can make things better than He does. Aquinas answers this question by making a number of distinctions about how things could be made better. If we think of a particular thing then, as far as its essence goes, God cannot make it any better than it is because to do so would be to change its essence and therefore make it something different. He can, of course, make something different instead of what He has actually made. Although God cannot improve the essence of something without changing what it is, He can make its non-essential characteristics better; so a human can become wiser or more virtuous, for example.


Handy Concepts

• God’s power refers to His active power rather than to any notion of passive power or potentiality.
• God’s omnipotence reaches to everything that is consistent with being. This is sometimes formulated as the “Principle of non-contradiction”, that something cannot simultaneously be and not be.
• We distinguish between the Absolute Power of God and the Ordained Power of God. The former refers to His power to bring about whatever He wills, the latter to His power to bring about what He wills.

Difficulties

• In Article 3 Aquinas claims that God can only do what is inherently possible, in the sense of not involving a contradiction. He also states this in the form of saying that a state of affairs cannot simultaneously be and not be. Later thinkers such as Descartes claimed that part of God’s creative activity involves determining what the laws of logic themselves are. Therefore Aquinas’s “Principle of non-contradiction” is itself under God’s power. God could have made creation with different logical rules. This point of view is related to later medieval developments in the idea of the absolute power of God. As Aquinas himself observed, this idea is rationally incoherent, as our minds are subject to the laws of logic and anything outside this cannot be thought about: it is not to hard to turn the assertion itself into a contradiction (as far as our laws of logic are concerned!)
• The argument in Article 4 that the past cannot be changed depends on something in the past having a sort of absolute existence. To assert a different past is therefore to assert a simultaneous being and non-being, because the event in the past has real being. But what happens if one attempts to argue that God “changing” an event in the past involves that event never having had existence? It would seem that to do so, one would have to leave any coherent notion of philosophical realism behind.

Question 24 - The Book Of Life

Why this Question Matters.

Several times in scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the New, reference is made to the “Book of Life”. Clearly this book has something to do with the ultimate destiny of individual humans. In the article Aquinas clarifies the meaning of this term and reconciles some different accounts of its meaning found in the Christian tradition.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: As the “Book of Life” has something to do with the ultimate destiny of individual humans, a good question to ask is if this “book” is identical to predestination. Aquinas answers that, primarily speaking, the “Book of Life” is God’s knowledge of who He has predestined to eternal life and that the terminology of a “book” is a metaphor with the human activity of recording facts in books. However, Aquinas is willing to concede that the term “Book of Life” is open to more than one meaning. In particular, it can also refer to the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible inasmuch as the latter record those things that lead to life and it can also refer to the divine force which enables all to remember their deeds inasmuch as they lead to life. So although the “Book of Life” is about predestination there is a conceptual distinction between the two.

A2: One may also ask whether the “Book of Life” refers only to the elect predestined to glory or whether other things (such as God’s life or the life of all of nature) are recorded there. Aquinas insists that the “Book of Life” refers to those destined to glory because it is primarily to do with election to something beyond the natural. Neither God’s life, nor the course of the natural world involve election beyond what is natural to them, therefore they are not the subject of the “Book of Life”. In replying to the last of the objections, Aquinas observes that the life of grace is not in itself the end of life, but rather a means to the end. So one is only elected to the life of grace insofar as one is elected to the life of glory; conversely the fact that one is at some time granted grace does not imply that one is therefore predestined for glory. Those who ultimately fall from grace are said to be conditionally elected and their names are written in the book of life conditionally rather than absolutely. Aquinas will return to this point in the third article.

A3: It would seem that if one’s name is written in the “Book of Life” then it cannot be erased from there, as the election to eternal life is infallible. Aquinas recognizes that sometimes something is said to be done when it becomes known; therefore one might argue that one can say that a person is entered into the “Book of Life” when their grace becomes known and their name erased when it is clear that they have fallen from grace. Having said this, Aquinas still insists that human opinion is of secondary importance here; the “Book of Life” concerns objectives facts rather than human opinions. However, continuing the thread of argument in the reply to the final objection in Article 2, he recalls that the “Book of Life” is to do with elevation to the supernatural order and that therefore the “Book of Life” also contains the names of those who are conditionally elected. It is almost as if the “Book of Life” contains two sections: those unconditionally elected to glory and those conditionally elected. The names in the first part cannot be erased, but those in the second part can.


Difficulties

• It seems a little curious that Aquinas makes no mention of the other books referred to in Apoc. 20: 11-12 out of which the deeds of all (predestined and reprobated) are recalled.

Question 23 - Predestination

Why this Question Matters.

The predestination of the elect to glory is one of the great mysteries of the Christian religion. Consideration of predestination in general leads to a range of difficult questions: Why do some go to heaven and some to hell? If God is all-powerful why does He not redeem everybody? How can it be just that the elect are chosen irrespective of their merits? How does predestination differ from predetermination? If predestination is true, why should we not all be fatalists? Aquinas sees predestination as a special case of God’s providence which itself originates in God’s will. In this article he brings all the resources that he has developed in the previous questions concerning God’s will to bear on the question of predestination. In doing so, Aquinas set the parameters for discussion of predestination and the co-operation of primary and secondary causes for the next seven centuries.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: In this introductory article, Aquinas recalls that providence is the ordering by God of created things to their end and that everything falls under His providence. He goes on to identify that the destiny of a creature may simply be proportionate to its created nature or it may exceed its nature. For rational creatures, this latter is eternal life which consists in the vision of God. If the destiny of a creature is to exceed its created nature then it has to be lifted up to such a destiny by God. Such a destiny pre-exists in God and this planned sending of the rational creature to eternal life is called predestination. Therefore predestination is a part of the providence that applies to some humans and angels. Predestination is therefore not predetermination which implies a necessity of the end.

A2: Aquinas has identified that predestination is that part of providence to do with the sending of some rational creatures to eternal life. He now asks whether those predestined to eternal life carry a mark of their destiny within themselves. Here he seems to be thinking in terms of a parallel to the baptismal seal on the soul. Despite this attractive parallel, Aquinas denies that the predestined are identified in such a way. Predestination is part of providence and as such exists in the mind of God. However, recalling the distinction made in Question 22 Article 3 between provenance and governance, Aquinas distinguishes between “active” part of predestination that exists in the mind of God and its “passive” part that exists in the predestined: the predestined carry out the plan of predestination as a “calling” that can be attributed to them.

A3: Predestination is the sending of certain rational creatures to their eternal destiny in the divine vision. If some, but not all, rational creatures are sent to such a destiny, does this not imply that the remainder are sent to a rather less fulfilling destiny in a similar fashion? There are two questions wrapped up together in this article: does God reprobate some rational creatures to eternal damnation and is such reprobation a parallel to predestination so that there is a so-called “double predestination” (to heaven and to hell)? Aquinas’s answer to these troubling theological questions has become the standard account: God does reprobate some rational creatures but their reprobation is not a parallel to predestination. Predestination is a part of providence and, as was pointed out in Question 22 Article 2, the workings of providence may allow for failures. Therefore predestination is to do with those who are destined to eternal glory whereas reprobation pertains to those who will fall short of this goal. Aquinas notes that reprobation is not simply to do with God’s foreknowledge of those who will fail but also involves the intention to permit the reprobate to fall into sin and to impose the consequent punishment. In reply to the objections, Aquinas points out that although God loves all rational creatures and wills certain goods to all of them, He does not thereby will every good to all rational creatures. Dealing directly with the objection that reprobation must be to a person rejected like predestination to a person predestined, Aquinas answers that causality differs between the two cases. Predestination causes both the future gift of glory and the present gift of grace in the predestined. Reprobation does not cause anything in the present; that is, it is not the cause of sin which is to be attributed to the free will of the reprobate. It is the cause of the abandonment of the sinner by God and of the eternal damnation that is the just penalty for the sin freely willed by the reprobate. But if someone is reprobated by God, how can he be held accountable and punished for what he cannot avoid? Aquinas answers that lacking the gift of grace does not take anything away from the rational creature that he previously had; he remains responsible for his inability to avoid sin and is therefore justly punished.

A4: The fourth article asks what may seem to be a curious question: are the predestined elected (that is, chosen) by God? At first it may seem unclear what the question even means! A guide to what is going on in the article is found in the answer that Aquinas gives: predestination logically presupposes election, and election logically presupposes love. He wants to make a contrast between election (or choice) and love in us with that in God. We are spurred to love someone by a pre-existing good in that person; we choose that person because of that good and then we love them. So in us, a good precedes election which precedes love. The important point is that this order is reversed when it comes to God. God’s love for someone creates the good in them; so that God’s love for that person singles them out (or elects them) and creates the good (predestining them to glory). From Question 20 Article 3, we know that although God loves all of creation, he also loves some more than others. This inequality implies choice of some over others.

A5: One of the most puzzling questions about predestination is this: why are some predestined to glory and others not? An obvious answer might seem to be that God has foreknowledge of those who would be meritorious in response to the gift of grace and of those who would not be, and restricts the gift of grace to those who will. So, if we put it formally we might ask: is foreknowledge of merit a cause of predestination? This might appear a very appealing position to take, not least because it avoids the awkward conclusion that God would otherwise appear to be arbitrary and unjust. However, it must be pointed out that this solution has it own problems. After all, God creates the beings whose reactions He foresees, so it would seem that the problem of arbitrariness is simply pushed back to His creative decisions: why would God create some who would react well to grace and others who wouldn’t?

Aquinas starts his considerations of this question with a reminder of the conclusion of Question 19 Article 5 that it impossible to assign a cause of God’s act of will from the point of view of the act of willing itself. All we can do is to explain those relationships between acts of will where God wills one thing to exist for the sake of another. Aquinas is usually respectful of opinion with which he disagrees, but here he is willing to describe as “crazy” those who might be foolish enough to consider merit to be a cause of the very act of predestining. The questions that are valid concern whether there can be any relationship between merit and predestination and if so, what? The idea that those meritorious in a previous life are predestined in this life is rapidly dismissed. Similarly dismissed is the Pelagian argument that the first movement towards God in a human is made by the human themselves.

Aquinas now turns to the question of God’s foresight of the merits of those predestined. He immediately points out a central weakness in the thinking of those who propose this position: there is an incorrect separation between God acting as first cause and human free will acting as secondary cause, as if they were two independent modes of causality. The correct position is that secondary causes act concomitantly with the first cause; if we grasp this then we realize that human acts of freewill are themselves part of predestination. “God’s providence produces effects through the operation of secondary causes, so what comes from freewill comes from predestination.”

However, instead of finishing there and dismissing the question with a firm “no”, Aquinas goes on to make a subtle distinction. If we look at the predestination of an individual as a whole process, then we simply cannot assign a cause to it other that God’s particular act of goodness. However if we look at the internal structure of predestination (again following the lead of Question 19 article 5) we can see that we can attribute causal relationships between the components of predestination. A later effect of predestination may be considered a final cause of an earlier effect, for example. In this restricted sense, we can say that God preordains glory to someone because of his merits, but we must simultaneously say that He preordained that He would give him the grace required for him to merit that glory.

The third objection to this question is based on the argument from injustice: if God arbitrarily chooses some for predestination to glory (not based on any feature of those chosen or not chosen), then this is fundamentally unjust and so cannot be said of God. Aquinas’s reply to this objection is a long reflection on God’s goodness, which essentially concedes that we have reached the point where rational explanation gives way to mystery. God’s predestination is based on God’s goodness and Aquinas argues that the fact that some are chosen for glory whereas others are reprobated for punishment simply reflects that we have to consider the common good of creation as a whole: “God permits certain evils to be effected lest many goods should be impeded”. It appears that it has to be so for the greatest good of creation as a whole. However, when we turn to the question of why any particular individuals are predestined or reprobated, explanation runs out. Aquinas makes an interesting parallel concerning the composition of natural objects: why does God choose this particular bit of prime matter rather than any other bit of prime matter to be informed to become this particular rock? The reason lies in God’s will and is not open to our view. As to whether this is unjust, Aquinas points out that the gift of grace is exactly that: a gift that is owed to no-one. It cannot be considered unjust that God chooses to give a gift to some but not to others.

A6: Predestination, emanating from God’s will, might seem to be infallible. But equally, one might imagine circumstances where one of the elect happens to die suddenly whilst not in a state of grace. Aquinas reiterates that the order of providence and therefore that of predestination is infallible. However, this does not impose necessity on the course of events. As was argued before (Question 22 Article 4), God arranges contingent causes to bring about effects contingently and necessary causes to bring about necessary things. If someone is predestined, then in a hypothetical sense they could lose that predestination, but actually they cannot.

A7: Are there a fixed number of the predestined? Aquinas answers that there are and that this fixed number is made up of specific elect individuals rather than simply being a fixed number of vacancies to be filled up by unspecified individuals. This follows simply from what he has said in the previous article. As so often when there is a straightforward answer to the question, Aquinas probes deeper. He points out that it is not simply the case that God knows how many of the elect there are, but that His knowledge of this number is (through His determination) creative of that number. To illustrate this, Aquinas points out that in construction projects there are certain elements that are essential to the construction (knowing how many rooms there are to be, for example) and there are certain elements (the exact number of bricks, for example) that are incidental to the project. Something analogous pertains to the universe: there are elements within creation, the exact details of which don’t really matter; there are also other elements that do matter. One of those things that matters for the purpose of the universe is those rational souls that attain the beatific vision; hence God has planned their exact number and their identity in creating the universe. Aquinas will not speculate as to the number of the elect.

A8: Finally, Aquinas asks whether the prayers of the holy can contribute to predestination. The answer might seem to be an obvious “no” because whether or not someone is elect is determined in God’s will. However, Aquinas’s answer is much more subtle than that and gives us an important insight into how Aquinas regarded prayer. We can generalize from the context of predestination: what effect can prayer have on God’s will? Aquinas deals first with the simplistic approach that prayer is simply superfluous by observing that scripture admonishes us to pray, therefore it cannot be entirely irrelevant. He goes on to dismiss the contrary position that God’s predestination is changed by prayer again by appeal to scripture. To answer the question, Aquinas observes that as far as the very act of predestining itself is concerned, prayer has no effect. But if we consider the internal structure of predestination (following the lead of Question 19 Article 5 yet again) then we can see that God provides secondary causes that work together to effect the fulfilment of God’s primary-causal act of predestining. Prayer is one of these secondary causes; therefore it is quite appropriate to pray that someone may be predestined and that the predestined pray for themselves, for these prayers are all part of the matrix of secondary causes that God has ordained to bring about the purpose of the first cause.


Handy Concepts

• Article 1 provides some of the material concerning the effect of grace in elevating rational creatures beyond their natural powers that became so important in the twentieth century arguments over the supernatural.
• Aquinas makes extensive use of the argument in Question 19 Article 5 concerning the attribution of causes to God’s will. The act of willing itself is beyond causal analysis, but the internal structure of the effect of the act of will may be so amenable.
• Despite Aquinas demolishing the idea that predestination may be associated with God’s foreknowledge of merit in the elect (Article 5), the idea came back in the form of the scientia media of Molinism. A good punch-up was had at the end of the sixteenth and into the start of the seventeenth century between the Jesuit supporters of Molinism and the Thomists concerning such relationships between grace and freewill in general. The Congregatio de Auxiliis was formed by the pope in order to decide between the warring factions, but no conclusion was reached save for an order to the parties to stop accusing each other of heresy. The decision was reserved to the Holy Office and we are still awaiting their decision today.
• In the reply to Objection 3 in Article 4, Aquinas revisits the notion of God’s antecedent will and His consequent will (which we saw in the reply to the first objection in Article 6 Question 19). Antecedently and relatively speaking, God wills all to be saved; according to His consequent will and simply speaking, it doesn’t necessarily work out that way. Later in the summa, when Aquinas comes to the topic of grace, he will discuss how this works in more detail and he will lay the foundations for the doctrines of efficacious grace and sufficient grace that follow from these aspects of God’s will.

Difficulties

• Article 3’s distinction between predestination and reprobation may seem an artificial construct to avoid the notion of double predestination. Indeed, Calvinists rejected this distinction and affirm that God does predestine the elect to glory and the rest to hell.
• In article 5, Aquinas concedes that we cannot know why God elects some but not others. He makes a strong argument that such election is not unjust, but perhaps the flavour of unfairness remains. The nature of God’s love for the reprobated remains one of the great mysteries.
• The argument of Article 7 depends on some elements of the creation being so key to the good of creation that God specifies them exactly and that other elements are not so important. For these latter, God knows them but his knowledge does not specify them exactly. For example, God specifies that there are enough of a species of animal for that species to flourish, but he does not specify the exact number of that species, leaving the latter to the playing out of secondary causes. This is another example of God creating necessary causes for some things and contingent causes for others.