HKB
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Often appears with: the nature and attributes of God · reason and the intellect · language, naming, and meaning · divine persons · voluntariness · suppositum · power of spiration · power of generation · paternity · origin · order of intelligence · no passions in god
Usually: detachment (4) · argument (3) · commentary or gloss (1) · list or catalogue (1) · skepticism (1)
“In the divine persons distinction is founded on origin. But origin can be properly designated only by certain acts.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“For power only means the principle of act. So, as we understand the Father to be principle of generation; and the Father and the Son to be the principle of spiration, we must attribute the power of generating to the Father, and the power of spiration to the Father and the Son:” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
The passage explains that divine persons are distinguished by properties in their mode of signification, while notional participles and verbs signify notional acts tied to a suppositum rather than the essence.
not merely in reality, but also in the mode of signification; as the form exists in its subject. Thus the properties determine and distinguish the persons, but not the essence. Reply Obj. 3: Notional participles and verbs signify the notional acts: and acts belong to a *suppositum.* Now, properties are not designated as *supposita,* but as forms of *supposita.* And so their mode of signification is against notional …
The text argues that properties do not presuppose notional acts as a generic order would; relation follows an act in the order of understanding when relations constitute hypostases, but generation presupposes the Father’s personal property as person.
the hypostases and persons remains; as, for instance, if the fact of the Father's being unbegotten or spirating be mentally abstracted from the Father, the Father's hypostasis or person remains. If, however, the personal property be mentally abstracted, the idea of the hypostasis no longer remains. For the personal properties are not to be understood as added to the divine hypostases, as a form is added to a pre-exi…
Aquinas begins Question 41 on persons in relation to notional acts, listing six inquiries about attributing notional acts to persons, their voluntariness, their terms of origin, divine power, its meaning, and multiple persons as terms.
Further, active generation is to paternity as nativity is to filiation. But filiation presupposes nativity; for the Son is so called because He is born. Therefore paternity also presupposes generation. *On the contrary,* Generation is the operation of the person of the Father. But paternity constitutes the person of the Father. Therefore in the order of intelligence, paternity is prior to generation. *I answer that…
He holds that notional acts must be attributed to divine persons to mark origin, explaining that in God action and relation are the same in reality but differ in how they signify, not implying passions.
substance, except what pertains to the relation." But action is one of the ten genera. Therefore any action attributed to God belongs to His essence, and not to a notion. Obj. 2: Further, Augustine says (De Trin. v, 4,5) that, "everything which is said of God, is said of Him as regards either His substance, or relation." But whatever belongs to the substance is signified by the essential attributes; and whatever bel…
In answering whether God has power regarding the notional acts, Aquinas argues that power means the principle of act, so the Father has power of generation and the Father and Son power of spiration, not as effects on a made person.
that whereby the generator generates. Now every generator generates by something. Therefore in every generator we must suppose the power of generating, and in the spirator the power of spirating. Reply Obj. 1: As a person, according to notional acts, does not proceed as if made; so the power in God as regards the notional acts has no reference to a person as if made, but only as regards the person as proceeding. Re…