Philosophy 224

1
Philosophy 224

• Many Persons?
• Part 2

2
Thomas Aquinas

• Aquinas was born in 1225 in Roccasecca, Italy. At
  the age of five, he was entered in the
  Benedictine abbey at Montecassino. It was there
  that he was introduced to the recently
  rediscovered works of Aristotle, and to the new
  mendicant order of the Dominicans, which he
  eventually joined.
• He spent most of his adult life working on behalf
  of the order and the Church as one of its
  predominant theologians, defending his
  increasingly influential Aristotelian-oriented
  theology from critics and the church from
  heresies of various sorts.
• He died in 1274.

3
Summa Theologica

• Aquinass major work was a collection of
  questions on the major philosophical and
  theological issue of his time.
• Each of the articles of the Summa Theologica is
  focused on answering a specific question.
• Aquinas insists that clear questions can be
  answered in two ways - in the affirmative or in
  the negative.
• An answer to a question is not complete until it
  considers both sides.
• Step 1 Ask the question (the issue to be
  considered).
• Step 2 State the objection(s) and give the best
  arguments for it. The objection is the position
  on the question opposite to the one that Aquinas
  is out to prove.
• Step 3 State the position to be argued for and
  give the best arguments for it.
• Step 4 Refute each of the arguments objection(s)
  by a strong counter argument. These are called
  replies to the objections.

4
Question 30

• Question 30 concerns the doctrine of the trinity.
  In the previous question, Aquinas had defended
  Boethiuss account of personhood. Aquinass own
  contribution is to focus on the relational
  character of the trinity. Now he pursues four
  questions raised by his approach
• Are there several persons in God?
• How many?
• Can we employ the concept of number in relation
  to God?
• What is the unity of Gods personhood?

5
Several Persons? Objections.

• There are a number of positions on this matter
  that Aquinas is interested in rebutting.
• God cant admit of multiple persons, because to
  do so would be to attribute multiple substances
  to God.
• Personhood not defined by plurality, but the only
  differentiation possible in God is a plurality of
  relations.
• Plurality is not a concept that can meaningfully
  be attributed to God.
• The conceptual structure of divine simplicity
  requires us to deny that God has parts (separate
  persons).

6
Several Persons? Replies.

• The key to Aquinass rebuttal of these position
  is to once again affirm the specific relational
  character of Gods persons. Cf. 55c1.
• To the first objection, Aquinas replies with the
  distinction between essence and substance made by
  Boethius.
• To the second, Aquinas identifies Gods
  relational properties with hypostasis, and argues
  that they thus serve as the basis of personhood.
• Simplicity and unity do not exclude relations.
• Number can be understood absolutely (as in God)
  or relatively (as in things).

7
How Many? Objections.

• More than three, for there are more than three
  relational properties of God (paternity,
  filiation, common spiration and procession).
• Objective properties of God should all be
  identified with a person, but there are more OPs
  than 3.
• Indeed, inasmuch as God has an infinite number of
  interior operations God must have infinite
  persons.
• Since the individual persons themselves admit of
  interior operations they are themselves the
  source of other persons.
• Everything that admits of numerical determination
  is measurable, but God is immeasurable.

8
How Many? The Crux.

• Aquinas is a strict trinitarian, so he is
  concerned to rebut these various arguments.
• His argument relies on an account of what makes
  distinctions between subsistent relations really
  distinct from each other (56c2).
• The key is that real distinction can only be
  accounted for in terms of relative opposition,
  Therefore two opposite relations must needs
  refer to two persons and if any relations are not
  opposite they must needs belong to the same
  person (Ibid).

9
How Many? Replies?

• There are 4 relations, but spiration is not
  really distinct from the others, sometimes
  accompanying paternity, at others filiation.
• Once again, intelligence and nature are not
  really distinct relations.
• There is a bad analogy here. Human and non-human
  operations are composite in nature (thus
  admitting of degree), but Gods is simple, so no
  degree.
• The operations of the persons of God are not
  distinct nor separable from those of the other
  persons.
• There is no difference in magnitude or measure in
  the persons of God.

10
Can we use numbers? Objections.

• The issue here turns on the appropriateness of
  characterizing God with numerical operations. The
  position he is criticizing says that such use is
  appropriate.
• If God is best understood as a unity, and unity
  is the basis for number (iteration) than numbers
  express Gods essence.
• What ever is said of creation is said in a more
  perfect manner of God.
• If numbers can be said of God only negatively,
  paradoxes of thought result.

11
Can we use numbers? Replies.

• The difficulty with the position argued for in
  the objections is that it seems to issue in
  paradoxes of thought plurality abolishes unity
  and unity abolishes plurality. Aquinass
  resolution of these issues rests on a distinction
  between number as a formal reality and number
  understood as quantity. The latter is truly
  predicated of things, but not the former. The
  opposite is true of God.
• Slippage between unity and the quantity 1.
• Formal multitude ? quantitative multitude.
• Paradoxes are apparent, not real.

12
Where is the Unity? Objections.

• The unity in question concerns whether we can say
  of the trinitarian God that the three moments are
  truly all persons.
• What links the three moments is essence, but
  personhood is a function of hypostatic
  substantiality, not essence.
• Person is not general, but only what is general
  is common.
• The unity has to be either logical or real, but
  neither seems to be true. If real, the three
  persons would be one person if logical, the
  person would be a general predicate.

13
Where is the Unity? Replies.

• Aquinas's response to all of this is to reduce it
  to a verbal ambiguity. The term person always
  refers to an individual hypostatic substance, but
  we can speak of a community of such substances
  and when we do we use the term person as a
  general property.
• The principle of unity of the community is
  distinct from features truly predicated of all
  members of the community.
• The individual person is not common, but person
  can be said commonly.
• The dispute between the real and logical is a
  feature of things with different essences, but
  God has only one essence.