Monarchy of the Father

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thinkandmull said:
The status of principle without principle is PART OF the relation of Fatherhood. So this relation is not the same as the essence that this principle shares. See?
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Fatherhood (paternity) is not the entire distinction. All are interrelated.

Father is distinguished and known by relations of paternity and spiration.
Son is distinguished and known by relations of filiation and spiration.
Holy Spirit is distinguished and know by relation of procession.

So paternity, filiation, and procession are the distinguishing personal properties. These are the relations of opposition which are essential, but there is a difference (in manner of thinking) in the persons without importing composition.

Aristotle (Categories/Metaphysics) category ta pros ti ‘things toward something’ do not import composition.
 
Isn’t the Father’s position unique in the Trinity? Therefore His side of the relation is not part of the essence of Divinity. Aquinas could have been clearer on this when he says relations are the essence. Maybe he clears this up in Q 32 Art 3 reply 4. That “dignity” belongs to the Father, not the essence.
 
And yet he says in q 32 art 2 reply 2 “we can say that paternity is God, and that paternity is the Father”. I’m confused 🤷
 
thinkandmull said:
Isn’t the Father’s position unique in the Trinity? Therefore His side of the relation is not part of the essence of Divinity. Aquinas could have been clearer on this when he says relations are the essence. Maybe he clears this up in Q 32 Art 3 reply 4. That “dignity” belongs to the Father, not the essence.
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thinkandmull said:
And yet he says in q 32 art 2 reply 2 “we can say that paternity is God, and that paternity is the Father”. I’m confused 🤷
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God is simple, so there is only the essence. The persons are of the essence, but there is a real difference in the relations of opposition, which do not import composition. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are not outside of the essence and yet there is a real difference. This is correct per Aristotle categories.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in what you refer to: “substantive terms, whether personal or essential, can be predicated of the notions”. Note, from A3 that “A notion is the proper idea whereby we know a divine Person.” Predicate is to base or established on.

See Summa Theologica, particularly Q29, A1:“But relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really but only in our way of thinking: while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.”
 
So everything which is included in the “principle with no principle” is the essence given to the Son, although the Son is not the principle with no principle?
 
If “paternity is God” than in all truth the Son is Father, accept in His relation to the original Father?
 
thinkandmull said:
If “paternity is God” than in all truth the Son is Father, accept in His relation to the original Father?
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The Catechism quotes the Council of Florence:246 The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)”. The Council of Florence in 1438 explains:
"The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration. . . . And, since the Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son."75
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So what does Aquinas mean that paternity is God AND the Father?

“the divine simplicity requires that in God essence is the same as suppositum.” Q 39 Art 1

If the Father is the same as the essence, than the Father is the Son…
 
thinkandmull said:
So everything which is included in the “principle with no principle” is the essence given to the Son, although the Son is not the principle with no principle?
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The Son has the same, identical divine nature as the Father since the Father communicated his divine nature to the Son. Accordingly, since the Son is God, he is in a sense a principle with no principle, for God is the first being and first principle of all things. However, Jesus revealed that he is the eternal Son of the Father and that he came from the Father. And since a father does not come from a son but a son from a father, the Father is the principle and begetter of the Son.

St Thomas says that the relations and persons are the same as the essence for there are not three gods but one God. That the Son is of the same substance, essence, and nature of the Father does not necessarily imply that the Son is the principle with no principle of the Trinity. Otherwise, we would have no distinction of the persons in the Trinity. However, we believe that God is three persons of one essence.
 
thinkandmull said:
So what does Aquinas mean that paternity is God AND the Father?

“the divine simplicity requires that in God essence is the same as suppositum.” Q 39 Art 1

If the Father is the same as the essence, than the Father is the Son…
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That conclusion is not what is given by St. Thomas Aquinas, rather:
  • relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really (or essence is not really distinct from person)
  • the persons are really distinguished from each other.
 
I guess a springboard idea to see this is the thought that a Person of the trinity has the full substance, not an equal copy or part. So know I see why this is called a mystery!
 
So when one writer says “the Father is wholly divine yet divinity is not wholly the Father” he is actually incorrect
 
thinkandmull said:
So when one writer says “the Father is wholly divine yet divinity is not wholly the Father” he is actually incorrect
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Divinity would be* incomplete* without the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Catechism has:255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: “In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance.” 89 Indeed “everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship.” 90 “Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son.” 91

89 Council of Toledo XI (675): DS 528.
90 Council of Florence (1442): DS 1330.
91 Council of Florence (1442): DS 1331.
 
So then why does Aquinas have an article saying that people could disagree with him about the Notions of the Persons?
 
thinkandmull said:
So then why does Aquinas have an article saying that people could disagree with him about the Notions of the Persons?
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Re: Summa Theological, Part I, Q32, A4.
May we lawfully have various contrary opinions of these notions?

There he states: “The notions are not articles of faith. Therefore different opinions of the notions are permissible.”

The notions are not the persons.

There are five notions (“A notion is the proper idea whereby we know a divine Person.”) he gives are:

  1. *]innascibility,
    *]paternity,
    *]filiation,
    *]common spiration,
    *]procession.
 
That I don’t understand.

**Nor this: **

In God the notions have their significance not after the manner of realities, but by way of certain ideas whereby the persons are known… [yet] also on account of the real identity, substantive terms, whether personal or essential, can be predicated of the notions; for we can say that paternity is God, and that paternity is the Father.
 
thinkandmull said:
What there is NOT dogma?
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  1. *]innascibility - one of the notions of persons, not a relation
    *]paternity - a personal relation
    *]filiation - a personal relation
    *]common spiration (active) - a personal relation
    *]procession (passive spiration) - one of the notions of persons, and a relation

    The following Trinitarian dogmas are infallible, as listed by Ludwig Ott in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.

    De fide    :

    1. *]In God there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Each of the Three Persons possesses the one (numerical) Divine Essence.
      *]In God there are two Internal Divine Processions.
      *]The Divine Persons, not the Divine Nature, are the subject of the Internal Divine processions (in the active and in the passive sense).
      *]The Second Divine Person proceeds from the First Divine Person by Generation, and therefore is related to Him as Son to a Father.
      *]The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from the Son as from a Single Principle through a Single Spiration.
      *]The Holy Ghost does not proceed through generation but through spiration.
      *]The Relations in God are really identical with the Divine Nature.
      *]The Three Divine Persons are in One Another.
      *]All the ad extra Activities of God are common to the Three Persons.

      Sent. certa. - infallible but has not been formally elevated yet to the level of De Fide:

      1. *]The Son proceeds from the Intellect of the Father by way of Generation.
        *]The Holy Ghost proceeds from the will or from the mutual love of the Father and of the Son.
        *]The Father sends the Son: the Father and the Son send the Holy Ghost.
 
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