The Speculative Theological Development of the Dogma of the Trinity — Section 4: The Trinitarian Properties and Notions

SECTION 4: THE TRINITARIAN PROPERTIES AND NOTIONS

1. The Trinitarian Properties

By a “Property” theologians here understand any distinctive peculiarity by which one Divine Person differs from another.

a) Properties are divided into two classes: personal properties (proprietates personales, ἰδιώματα ὑποστατικά), and properties of persons (proprietates personarum, ἰδιώματα τῶν ὑποστάσεων). The first class comprises the three subsistent Relations, each of which appertains to but one Divine Person, and thus forms a truly distinctive peculiarity of that Person. They are: Paternity, Filiation, and passive Spiration. The second class, besides these properties of the first class — for every proprietas personalis eo ipso is also a proprietas personae — comprises two or three others respectively. For besides Paternity there is also peculiar to the Father, as a distinctive personal note, innascibility (innascibilitas, ἀγεννησία); and He furthermore shares with the Son the property of active Spiration (spiratio activa). The different Personal Properties may consequently be grouped together as follows: Three — paternitas, spiratio activa, and innascibilitas — as peculiar to the Father; two — filiatio and spiratio activa — to the Son; and one — spiratio passiva — to the Holy Ghost. Hence there are six properties in all. If, as would seem preferable, spiratio activa is dropped,¹ there remain only four.

The only one of these Properties to require an explanation is the innascibility (ἀγεννησία) of the Father. Is not the Holy Ghost, too, unbegotten?² And if He is, how can innascibility be said to be a Property peculiar to the Father? Yet the Fathers and theologians insist that the First Person of the Divine Trinity alone is innascibilis, taking innascibilitas strictly in the sense of a personal Property. By calling Him ἀγέννητος, they mean to say not only that He is unbegotten, but that He is the First Person, the original source (ἀρχὴ ἄνευ ἀρχῆς, ἄναρχος), because He alone is persona a se, who springs from none other, and in whom the other Divine Persons have their principle, source, and root (ἀρχὴ τῆς ἀρχῆς, πηγὴ πᾶσα τῶν ἄλλων). Hence ἀγεννησία, as predicated of the Father, is more than a mere negation of generari. It is synonymous with Unoriginateness. The Father had no beginning, He is the First Principle. This is the patristic teaching. St. Basil, e. g., says: “But that which is derived from none other, has no principle; and what has no principle, is ingenerate (ἀγέννητον).”³ This teaching is confirmed by several councils. Thus we read in the creed drawn up by the Eleventh Synod of Toledo, A. D. 675: “Et Patrem quidem non genitum, non creatum, sed ingenitum profitemur; ipse enim a nullo originem ducit, ex quo et Filius nativitatem et Spiritus Sanctus processionem accepit: fons ergo ipse et origo est totius divinitatis — We profess that the Father is not begotten, nor created, but ingenerate; for He derives His origin from no one, while from Him the Son receives His nativity, and the Holy Ghost His procession; therefore He [the Father] is the fountain-head and source of the whole Godhead.”⁴ Though the Holy Ghost, as the last Person, terminates the evolution of the Blessed Trinity, He has no claim to a distinctive personal note, since “inspirability” is not a perfection.⁵

b) There is another difficulty. If the Trinitarian Properties are distinctive prerogatives of the Divine Persons separately, how can the Three be called co-equal? “In hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil maius aut minus, sed totae tres personae coaeternae et coaequales,” says the Athanasian Creed; that is, “In this Trinity none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another, but the whole Three Persons are coeternal together, and coequal.”⁶ How can this be, if any one Person enjoys a prerogative which the other two lack?

To escape this difficulty, many theologians — among them Scotus, Cajetan, Billuart, Molina — blandly deny that the divine Properties are “perfections” in the strict sense of the term. Most others, however, agree with St. Thomas, that these Properties, though not absolute, are at least relative perfections, and as such must not be confused. The perfection of Paternity, for instance, is not identical with the perfection of Filiation.⁷ But how can the possession of relative perfections by any one Divine Person, exclusive of the other two, be harmonized with the Church’s teaching that the Three Persons are absolutely coequal? Let us remember, in the first place, that in essence each of the Three Divine Persons is absolutely and really identical with the Divine Nature. This absolute identity cannot but extend to the relative perfections possessed by each. Hence, whatever of true perfection there is in the Divine Essence, is participated in by all Three Divine Persons severally and in consort. While it is true that no one Person can, without sacrificing His identity, surrender His peculiar prerogative to the others, it is also certain that each Person, besides His own, also possesses, equivalently, though not formally, the relative perfections of the other two. Paternity as a perfection is surely not inferior in value or dignity to Filiation, and Spiration is of equal importance with either. Hence the Son loses nothing by not being the Father, and so forth. The Father, per contra, could not be Father if the Son were not the Son, and the Son could not be the Son if the Father were not the Father. To this must be added another important consideration. By virtue of their mutual immanence or inexistence (περιχώρησις),⁸ the Three Divine Persons communicate to one another quasi-formaliter even their relative prerogatives or Properties. The Father bears within Himself the Son and the Holy Ghost as the intrinsic terminus of His notional understanding and love; while, conversely, the Son and the Holy Ghost share in the relative perfection of Paternity by virtue of their immanence in the Father, that is, — so far as the Hypostatic differences between the Divine Persons allow.⁹

2. The Divine Notions

As the term itself indicates, a Notion¹⁰ is that by which one Person is distinguishable from another. St. Thomas defines it as “id quod est propria ratio cognoscendi divinam personam.”¹¹ Inasmuch as we distinguish each Divine Person by His Properties, there must be as many Notions as there are Properties. Those theologians, however, who, by eliminating active Spiration, have reduced the number of Properties to four, posit five divine Notions, as we shall proceed to explain.

a) St. Thomas, in treating of this matter,¹² starts from the axiom: “A quo alius et qui ab alio.” Applying this principle to the Three Persons of the Godhead, he distinguishes the Father (1) by the fact that He is a nullo alio, that is to say, innascibilis, unoriginate; (2) by the further fact that He is the principium a quo alius per generationem (= paternitas); and (3) that He is the principium a quo alius per spirationem (= spiratio activa). Similarly the Notions of the Son are Filiation (filiatio) and active Spiration (spiratio activa), whereas the one distinctive Notion of the Holy Ghost is passive Spiration (spiratio passiva). The subjoined scheme will make our meaning clearer:

PATER	FILIUS	SPIRITUS S.
a) innascibilitas	a) generatio passiva	a) spiratio passiva
b) generatio activa	b) spiratio activa
c) spiratio activa

Hence there can be no more than six Notions. Since, however, spiratio activa is common to both Father and Son, theologians usually reduce the number to five.

In drawing up a list of divine Notions we must observe the same rule which guided us in distinguishing the divine Properties, viz.: Negative marks of distinction cannot be counted as Notions; else the list of divine Notions would contain twelve, to-wit:

PATER	FILIUS	SPIRITUS S.
a) non generatur	a) non generat	a) non generatur
b) sed generat	b) sed generatur	b) non generat
c) non spiratur	c) non spiratur	c) non spirat
d) sed spirat	d) sed spirat	d) sed spiratur

b) Only such negative marks are really and properly Notions as signify a positive prerogative (dignitas, ἀξίωμα), e. g., ἀγεννησία, or non generatur, on the part of the Father. The “infecundity” of the Holy Ghost in particular (non generat and non spirat) cannot be reckoned among the Notions that distinguish Him from the two other Divine Persons, because He “terminates and crowns the fecundity of the Divine Nature and seals the unity of the other two Persons,” and His infecundity is “therefore no complement of the notio spirationis passivae.”¹³ From the same point of view it is easy to perceive the falsity of the Scotist contention that ἀπνευστία, inspirabilitas (from non spiratur), is a distinctive Notion of the Son. The dignity of the Second Person is sufficiently determined by generatio passiva, while His inspirabilitas is virtually included in the prerogative, which He shares with the Father, of breathing the Holy Ghost. In the case of the Father ἀπνευστία or inspirabilitas is excluded for this further and special reason, that the First Person of the Divine Trinity is the First Principle, or principium sine principio. A doubt remains as to whether non generatur should be attributed as a special Notion to the Holy Ghost, seeing that He is called ingenitus (ἀγέννητος) in the Creeds. But the Third Person derives His origin not from Generation but from Spiration, and hence the non generatur is virtually contained in the spiratur, that is, passive Spiration. The case is different with regard to the negative Notion non generat on the part of the Father, for agennesia, as predicated of the Father, and of the Father alone, means precisely that He stands unoriginate at the head of the other two Persons, and that these derive their origin from Him, not He from them.

Thus, according to the common teaching of theologians, there are in God:

1. One Nature (or Substance);
2. Two Processions;
3. Three Hypostases;
4. Four Relations; and
5. Five Properties and Notions.

Readings

On the subjects treated in §§ 3 and 4, cfr. Nottebaum, De Personae vel Hypostasis apud Patres Theologosque Notione et Usu, Susati 1852; C. Braun, Der Begriff Person in seiner Anwendung auf die Lehre von der Trinität und Inkarnation, Mainz 1876; Heinrich, Dogmatische Theologie, Vol. IV, §§ 245–249; J. Uhlmann, Die Persönlichkeit Gottes und ihre modernen Gegner, Freiburg 1906; Billuart, Summa S. Thomae: De SS. Trinitatis Mysterio, diss. 2–6; St. Thomas, S. Theol., Ia, qu. 28 sqq.; Idem, Contr. Gent., IV, 11 sqq.; Wilhelm-Scannell, A Manual of Catholic Theology, Vol. I, pp. 312 sqq.; F. J. Hall, The Trinity, pp. 221 sqq.

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Footnotes

1. S. Thom., S. Theol., Ia, qu. 32, art. 3: “Communis spiratio non est proprietas, quia convenit duabus personis.” ↩

2. “Pater a nullo est factus nec creatus nec genitus (ἀγέννητος),” says the Athanasian Creed; “Filius a Patre solo est, non factus nec creatus (ἀγέννητος), sed genitus (γεννητός), Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio, non factus nec creatus nec genitus, sed procedens — The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten; the Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten; the Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 39.) ↩

3. Contra Eunom., I, 15 (Migne, P. G., XXIX, 547). On the term ἀγέννητον, cfr. Newman, Select Treatises of St. Athanasius, Vol. II, pp. 347 sqq. ↩

4. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 275. ↩

5. Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., Ia, qu. 32, art. 3, ad 4: “Cum persona importet dignitatem, non potest accipi notio [= proprietas] Spiritus Sancti ex hoc, quod nulla persona est ab ipso; hoc enim non pertinet ad dignitatem ipsius, sicut pertinet ad auctoritatem Patris, quod sit a nullo.” ↩

6. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 39. ↩

7. This is the teaching of the Jesuit theologians Suarez, De Lugo, Ruiz, Vasquez, Tanner, Franzelin, and of the Thomists Gotti, Sylvius, Contenson, etc. Cfr. St. Thomas’s Opus. contr. Errores Graecorum, c. 7: “Patet quod non posset esse Pater perfectus, nisi Filium haberet, quia nec Pater sine Filio esset.” ↩

8. See the fuller discussion of the divine perichoresis later in this treatise. ↩

9. For a more detailed discussion of this question, see Tepe, Instit. Theol., Vol. II, pp. 383–392, Paris 1895. ↩

10. From nosco. The Greek technical term is γνώρισμα. ↩

11. S. Theol., Ia, qu. 32, art. 3. ↩

12. Ibid. ↩

13. Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. I, p. 837. ↩