Divine Relations and Divine Persons

Boethius says that in God what is and whereby it is are the same. The Father is the Father bythe divine relation of paternity; the what is the Father;the whereby is the relation of paternity; these are thesame. In God, the subsistent real relations are the same as the Persons. Even the relation consequent upon spiration is identified with the Father and with the Son without involving the identity ofthese two divine Persons as persons.

But, though the divine relations are the same as the divine Persons, in our human way of understanding we distinguish the Persons one from another by the divine relations. It is the very notion of paternity in contrast with filiation that makes us aware of the distinct Persons of Father and Son.

We cannot think of Father except as one generating orbegetting, nor of Son except as one generated or begotten. Therefore we cannot remove the divine relations from our idea or concept of the divine Persons without removing the Persons themselves and thus nullifying our idea of the Trinity.

It has been said that, in our human way of understanding, the thought of generating precedes the thought of paternity; that is, in technical words, “notional acts precedethe relations.” Generating as a “notional act” is our mental grasp of an operation; paternity is a relation. The saying, “notional acts precede relations,” means that our grasp of the operation carries us on to the grasp of the operator. But this saying is not correct. It is not true that”generating precedes paternity in the order of human understanding.” On the contrary, the human mind is aware of aperson acting before it is aware of his action; or rather, the operator is there before we are aware of his operation. Hence, the Persons (that is, the subsistent relations which are the same asthe Persons) precede the “notional acts” by which we conceive of the Persons as acting. Thus, the relation of paternity(which is the Father) precedes our notional act of generating. We reverse the saying that “notional acts precede the relations,” and say, “the relations precede the notionalacts.”