Chapter 039 - Of Person as Compared with Essence

Although Person and Essence are one and the same in the Divinity, yet the Divine Persons are really distinguished from each other, because Personality signifies a Relation subsisting in the Divine Nature; which Relation, as compared with Essence, does not differ according to the thing itself, but only according to the conception. Compared with the opposite Relation, however, there is a real distinction in virtue of opposition; so the Essence remains One while the Persons are multiplied.

Now we name things Divine according to the mode of things created, not according to Their proper mode, which is impossible to us. Thus as in sensible things the nature of certain species is individualized by matter, so that nature stands as form, and the individual as the subject of the form, so in Divine things as regards the mode of signifying Essence. This is signified as the Form of the Three Persons; and as we say in creatures that a form belongs to the one whose form it is, so in the Divinity, in Whom multiplication of Persons does not multiply Essence, we say that One Essence belongs to Three Persons and that Three Persons belong to One Essence. And since Essential Names indicate the Divine Essence, partly as substantives and partly as adjectives, the substantive is predicated of the Three Persons in the singular number only, not in the plural; for a substantive indicates something by mode of substance, but an adjective by mode of accident inhering in the subject. Hence, in adjectives, we expect to find the singular or the plural number according to the subject; so we say Three are eternal or omnipotent, but, substantively, there is One Creator, One Omnipotent, etc.

And this word God, from its mode of signification, is used sometimes for Person, as when we say that God generates; and sometimes for Essence when we say that God creates, for the predicate belongs to the subject according to the conception of the form signified, which is Deity.

Abstract terms cannot represent Persons; for God and Deity have different modes of signification; and it is necessary for the truth of a proposition to observe both the thing signified and the mode of signification; and since it does not belong to the mode of signification of the Essence to supply Personal names, those proper to the Persons to be distinguished from Each Other cannot be attributed to the Essence. To do so would imply that what was distinct in Personality was distinct in Essence also.

But although Personal Names and notional adjectives cannot be predicated of the Divine Essence, substantives may, on account of the real identity of the Essence and the Persons. The Divine Essence, indeed, is not only really the same as One, but as Three Persons; hence One and Two and Three Persons may be predicated of the Essence; and we may say the Essence of the Father is the Son, is the Holy Ghost: and as God properly represents the Divine Essence it is equally true to say that the Divine Essence is Three Persons, or that God is Three Persons.

It is, moreover, suitable for the manifestation of the Faith that Essential terms be appropriated to the Divine Persons; for although the Trinity cannot be demonstrated, it may nevertheless be discovered to us by means of things which are more known; and those things which relate to the Essence are more known than the Personal properties, since the former may be known by natural reason, but not so the latter. Thus the Divine Persons are manifested to us by Essential Attributes in a twofold manner: first, by that of likeness, as when things belonging to the intellect are appropriated to the Son, Who proceeds as Word by mode of Intellect; and secondly, by that of unlikeness, as when power is attributed to the Father; fathers with us being often infirm through age.

According to our mode of understanding, the Essential Attributes have been suitably assigned by theologians to the Three Divine Persons as follows: Eternity to the Father, Who is from none, Beauty to the Son as the Image of the Father, and Fruition to the Holy Ghost. Or, Unity to the Father, Equality to the Son, and Peace to the Holy Ghost, as the bond of connection. Again, to the Father Power, to the Son Wisdom, to the Holy Spirit Goodness: while, if we consider God from the point of view of His works, to the Father is appropriated "from Whom," to the Son "by Whom," to the Holy Spirit "in Whom."