“Is there any Son who does not cause His Father to become a Father and vice versa?”
Here I wish to briefly summarize what I take to be Henry’s position on the question: is the Father constituted by the (personal) property of being ‘ungenerated’ (ingenitum)? Henry’s discussion of this comes from his Summa Quaestionum Ordinariarum 57.1.
Henry engages in a lengthy discussion of ways the word ‘ingenitum’ (not generated) or ‘innascibile’ (not able to be born) can be predicated of the Father, whether negatively, privately, or positively. The upshot of these distinctions is to ask about the precise nature of this property ‘ungenerated’. Is it saying what the Father is not (negation), or is it saying the Father lacks some further property and is potentiality to receive some new property (privation), or is it saying there is some positive property the Father really is constituted by?
Henry rejects predication of the property ‘ingentium’ to the Father by negation and by privation; instead he opts for predication of a positive property. What then is this positive property that the Father has/is?
Henry starts by saying that the fundamental personal property of the Father is ‘paternity’, i.e. the actor who generates his Son. ‘Paternity’ is the (positive) property that constitutes the Father. Henry claims that the Father is the Father because he generates the Son; he is not Father ‘prior to’ or without regard to his Son. Next, given this positive property, Henry claims that paternity implies that the (divine) Father is ‘not from another’. Unlike with human Moms and Dads who themselves have a Mom and Dad, the divine Father does not himself have a ‘parent’ who brings him into existence.
There is a tension here. The Father is the Father because he generates the Son. So, the ‘Father’ (or also called ‘the first divine supposite/agent’) makes himself the Father by doing something (generating his Son). And, the Father is not caused by the Son being generated, because the Father is ‘not from another’, i.e. he is not ‘from the Son’. On the one hand, there is no Father without the Son; on the other hand, the Son does not cause the Father. This is a prime instance of Henry’s ‘nested distinctions’ (as R. Friedman discusses). Henry wants it to be the case that there can be no Father without a Son and that the Father as agent-cause is an agent-cause ‘not from another’. The Son doesn’t given the Father the Father’s capacity to generate the Son. Rather, the Father generates the Son and in this very generative act his (the Father’s) ‘existence’ is not dependent on the Son’s existence, but rather his identity as ‘Father’ does seem to be dependent on there being a Son.
Returning to the discussion above about the positive property of ‘paternity’ and the implied property ‘ingenitum’, Henry’s point is that we first need to posit the positive property of ‘paternity’ and then we can infer the property ‘not from another’. Henry holds that if for the sake of argument we took away the positive property of ‘paternity’ from the Father, then we’d also be taking away the Father’s ‘not being from another’ or what is called the Father’s ‘innascibility’. Henry is clear: innascibility presupposes paternity, and paternity does not presuppose innascibility.
This is a strong tension in Henry’s thought. On the one hand, he wants the existence of the Father to be prior to the Son (by nature, not by time), on the other hand, he wants the identity of the Father as Father to be a correlative with the Son. As Aristotle teaches us, correlatives presuppose one another. Henry clearly wishes to make the Father existentially prior (by nature) to the Son, yet he also clearly wishes that the identity of the existentially prior (by nature) person to be by correlation with the Son. The upshot is that he wants the person called Father to be existentially prior to the person called Son, yet in order to understand the Father as prior you first must posit his correlation with the Son. In other words, Henry is firm that you cannot set aside Christian revelation and posit an absolutely first divine actor. He is worried that speculation about the Father as ungenerated may lead to a pagan (i.e. Jewish or Muslim, in Henry’s view of things) notion of God who is the supreme agent constituted absolutely and not relatively. [Addition: On Henry’s Classical Christian theist view, when we speak of a divine person, we speak of some absolute property and some relative personal property; divine persons are not merely constituted by an absolute property (divine essence), but are also constituted by a relative property (i.e. paternity, filitation, active spiration, and passive spiration). If we say a divine person is only constituted by absolute properties then if we posit three persons we posits three gods, which is tri-theism. The only way to avoid tri-theism is to follow Augustine’s and Boethius’s strong claims about the relative properties, in addition to the absolute of the divine essence, of divine persons in order to safeguard divine simplicity, divine unity and the trinity of persons.] Clearly, Henry is worried about heresy if we consider the Father as ungenerated as an absolute property, rather than as a relative property (i.e. based on the correlation Father-Son). Henry takes it as a mark of Christian theology that divine persons are by definition are (c0r)relative to one another (i.e. correlatives: Father-Son; active spiration-passive spiration). Thus, although he sees the merit in saying the Father is ungenerated, he doesn’t want us to construe this without presupposing the correlation Father-Son.
In the end, Henry says that predicating ‘being ungenerated’ or ‘being ingenerate’ is a dignity of the Father (and not a dignity of the Son). Rather, he thinks because the Father is Father, it is proper to him that he is ‘not from another’. But the Son having the property ‘being from another’ does not have this property ‘not from another’–it is not of the Son’s ‘dignity’ (perfection?) to have this property. What is a dignity (perfection) of the Son is ‘to be from another as one who is generated’.
So, as is sometimes the case with Duns Scotus who mis-reports Henry of Ghent’s position on a given matter, Henry does not teach that the Father’s innascibility is a bare negative property without reference to a positive property; rather Henry teaches that the property ingenitum presupposes the positive property of paternity. Still, Henry concedes that even if we (rightly) have in mind this positive relative property of the Father (paternity), we can say that ‘being ungenerated’ is a positive property of the first divine supposite/agent whether or not (per impossibile) this first divine agent generates the Son (SQO 57.1, Badius 1520, vol. 2, f. 119vC).
[Addition in response to Dale’s comments: keep in mind previous posts about Henry’s acct. of the ‘material constitution’ of divine persons. A divine person is constituted at minimum by two kinds of properties, an absolute property (non-relative) and a relative property. The absolute property is the divine essence and it is what accounts for why a person is a divine person and for why the three persons are all divine; persons are divine not by a similarity relation nor even by equality of being divine. If the divine persons were ‘equally’ divine, then (acc. to Henry) when we compare the divinity of the Son to the divinity of the Father, we are only saying that the Son’s divinity lacks being greater or lesser than the Father’s. Thus, the Son’s divinity is merely a double privation of (1) lacking being greater, and (2) lacking being less than the Father’s divinity. Henry thinks mere equality of divinity does not state a positive property, but merely a double privation; again, the double privation (‘equality of divinity’) identifies privative properties and does not express some positive property as such. Henry identifies this view of the ‘equality’ (as double privation) of divinity btwn. divine persons as a Semi-Arian acct. of the Son’s divinity. Instead, if we wish to be Catholic about this, we need to posit a positive property, namely the divine essence that is a shared positive property; the Father has this property, the Son had this property and the Holy Spirit has this property. (cf. SQO 70.1) So, no, Henry does not think that the divine essence has some sort of special or peculiar identity with the Father and that the other divine persons lack. On Henry’s ‘generic view’, the Father’s being ingenitum does not imply that the divine essence is somehow more proper to the Father than to other divine persons (pace Henry’s criticism of the ‘semi-arian’ position), rather, the Father’s being ingenitum means the Father is not efficient causally dependent on the Son, but vice versa, the Son is efficient causally dependent on the Father. Of course, the has necessary existence b/c the Son is constituted by the divine essence that has the property ‘necessary existence’ (necesse esse) So, the Father is the efficient cause of the Son, and in order for there to be an efficient cause of the Son, there must be an actor who can perform the function of being an efficient cause. Thus, we need to say that the Father is not dependent on another by efficient causality. However, if the Father were dependent on another by efficient causality, we would seemingly enter into an infinite regress. In order to stop this infinite regress, we need to say that the Father is ‘not from another by efficient causality’ and that the Son is from another by efficient causality. Of course, if we look at the formal cause, then we’d look to the divine essence as that form (formal cause) by which the Father generates the Son/Word. More on this after my Christmas vacation.]
Thanks Scott, I’ll give what you’ve written a ponder – I think it’ll help me to get things a lot more organised in my mind.
Greetings Mark. You are perhaps right to worry about ‘production’ language. Medievals did too. At various points Henry uses ‘proceeds from’, ’emanates from’ and ‘is produced from’. All are important and each has its own history in Christian theological reflection on the Trinity. There are good reasons for each, and each should be seen as generally synonymous, at least that is what a scholastic would have you believe. The notion of ‘production’ when talking about the Father producing the Son and the Father and Son producing the Holy Spirit is a very very technical use of the verb ‘to produce’.
Important qualifications: divine simplicity: Henry denies that God has temporal parts; God is eternal and God is immutable. So, when we say that some divine person produces another divine person, this must be understand as an eternal unchangeable and necessary ‘situation’ if you will. There is no time when the Father does not have/produce the Son. In fact, in one place Henry argues that there cannot be 2 or more divine Sons b/c the Father eternally produces the Son; if at some time the Father didn’t produce the Son(1), then the Father could go ahead and produce another Son(2). But the Father is always producing the Son, so there is no opportunity, as it were, to produce another Son.
Another crucial qualification is that each divine person is identical with the numerically one divine essence. Henry goes at lengths to deny that the Son is ‘equal’ in divinity with the Father b/c Henry construes this as a semi-arian position that he thoroughly rejects. All divine persons are identical with the numerically one divine essence. By positing that DE is numerically one, Henry has a way to avoid an inappropriate kind of subordination of the Son to the Father b/c the Son and Father are each identical with the numerically one divine essence. So, there is no ‘grade of divinity’ comparable btwn. the Son and the Father, on Henry’s view b/c they have the very same, numerically one, DE.
Henry is in no way unique in saying DE is numerically one. We could look to Athanasius or the Cappodocians for this explicit teaching. Of course, as JT and I have gone back and forth about, Athanasius had a peculiar way of thinking about the numerical unity of DE (derivation view) and the Cappodocians had a different way of thinking about the numerical unity of DE (generic view). JT may post on this soon.
If you wish to deny that the Father ’causes’ the Son, then you need to give an account for why the Father and the Son are really distinct from one another. Presumably, you might go with Aquinas’s opposed relations account that claims that if there is an opposed relation (Father-Son) it follows there must be two really distinct supposites (per se existing entities). And, consequent to this opposed relation acct. you may say that the Son proceeds/emanates from the Father as the intellectual Word.
But, as mentioned in my first post, Henry doesn’t think the opposed relations acct. is the fundamental acct. for explaining the real diversity of divine persons and that this real diversity is a diversity of three and only three divine persons. On the opposed relations acct., there doesn’t seem to be any reason to posit a second opposed relation after having posited the first opposed relation. For there is no apparent _causal_ connection btwn. the first opposed relation (Father-Son) and the second opposed relation (active spirator-passive spiration). Whereas on Henry’s model, there is a causal connection btwn. the opposed relation of Father-Son to active spirator-passive spiration in that the first opposed relation is explained in terms of an intellectual production and the second opposed relation is explained in terms of a volitional production that necessarily requires knowledge prior to it.
I think I’ll post later on Henry’s general outline of the connection btwn. the causal connection of intellect (simple knowledge, Word) and will (simple love, Zeal).
Ok, so before I comment on this I should probably qualify it with the fact that I’m no philosopher or theologian and so am likely to be a little out of my depth here.
It seems to me that the principal question when talking about the generation of the son is how to distinguish between the way in which he exists and the way in which a creature exists. If we say he was caused by the Father in some sense then that seems to me to be pretty much equivalent to the relation of a creature to God (albeit a pretty darned awesome, and eternally existent one – these qualities to me seem inadequate to bring him back up to the level of the father).
I think the language of “proceeds from” comes a lot closer to not creating this problem – why? because whilst it acknowledges a certain kind of outward/extension relationship between the son and the father the language talks in a way that very neatly avoids giving priority to either. It’s a relational term, but it doesn’t leave the father as the sole or primary active agent in the relationship. The father is left with a role as a kind of inner/unextended participant in the relationship, and both maintain their identities by their relationship to each other.
Does this make sense? My problem is that I can’t seem to find a way of adequately saying that the relationship is one of generation or derivation without subordinating the son’s being to that of the father.
Or, how about this: all our scholastic boys say there is no prime matter (PM) in God, otherwise God would be a changeable creature. PM is character-less. It has no positive character other than a bare capacity for change. This is what allows for creatures to have one of two contraries at a given instant, it is what allows accidental change, and it is what allows substantial change. Further, creatures are constituted by 2 per se principles: PM and a (or a few) substantial forms. On this model, PM is a substrate for a substantial form; PM is what makes a substantial form this individual substantial form (principle of individuation is PM… signed by quantity if you are Aquinas).
Henry denies that God is constituted by PM (so defined above) and denies that God is constituted by several substantial forms (whereas he thinks humans have the substantial forms of rational soul and bodily soul). Rather, for God there is only one substantial form, namely DE. Further, there is no substrate for DE, namely PM. So, there is no material (matter0 substrate in God. But in the God-case, there is in fact some distinguishing forms, called personal properties (PP). Henry construes a PP as founded on DE. He thinks DE functions like a substrate for PPs. How? Well, DE can’t be a substrate like PM, b/c PM is what individuates/distinguishes a substantial form of kind K from another substantial form of kind K. But DE is not what individuates/distinguishes this divine person from that one. So DE is not a substrate like PM.
How then is DE like a substrate? Well, Henry says it is a foundation for PPs. And he says DE is numerically one. At this point, it seems to me that Henry says there is only 1 divine subject, and not three. Still, I am not certain whether he like Scotus thinks DE is a real extra-mental universal (not just a mental entity applied to individuals). He probably doesn’t b/c Henry would likely think this to be Platonism, rather than an Aristotelian immanent universal.
So, it isn’t entirely clear to me precisely how DE is a substrate; but what is clear is that PPs ‘individuate/distinguish’ divine persons, and DE is not multiplied, but is numerically one in the three divine persons.
What is clear is that DE does give character to divine persons, i.e. unity of persons, divinity of persons, powers of persons, attributes of persons etc.. So, if we take the word ‘form’ broadly to mean some principle that gives positive properties to an entity, DE surely fits this bill, and maximally so. So, really, it is just an issue of explaining how DE and PP fit together. My guess, as Cross rightly points out, is that DE and a PP have per se unity, which is analogous to the per se unity of a human person’s two per se principles: form and prime matter (signed by quantity). So, one apparent reason that DE is called a foundation for PP is b/c DE and PP have per se unity in particular divine persons. But why say DE is the foundation and not PP? A guess is that Henry focuses on the numerical unity of DE, and if it is to be numerically one, this entails numerically one subject? IN other words, Henry perhaps is quite against an account of universals that posits them a numerically one and instantiated in more than one subject? Another reason is that his acct. of productive acts being based on essential acts likewise suggests one (psychological) subject rather than three. Perhaps not, I need to think about this more thoroughly and read some more…
So, on your model of form and matter; form gives all the characteristics, and matter gives no characteristic?
If we stick to the example of a bronze statue– does the bronze contribute any character to the composite statue? It seems clear enough that it does; and if it does provide some positive characteristic, then it is form-like, even if functioning as a substrate for some individuating/individual-like form.
Sorry turbo, but I doubt you’ll ever convince me that matter could ever be form or vice versa.
Good good.
Now, onto the next issues: how to reconcile saying DE is like a form and like a substrate.
To start: we can speak of the usual description of a substrate as some principle that ‘stands under’ or that out of which some composite is made. The bronze in a bronze statue is the usual example that Henry gives (following Aristotle). In this example, the substrate is not prime matter (entirely characterless stuff that is ‘pure capacity for change’-whether substantial change or accidental change). Rather, the matter is bronze, which is an element2. An element1 is, in the ancient mind, earth, air, water or fire. But bronze presupposes some mixture of these four elements. Some, upon an Aristotelian physicist analysis, bronze has (lots of) character, and it functions as a substrate.
On the other hand, a form, esp. substantial forms are full of character and constitute a telology. A form is an ordering principle; it orders the proximate matter; it arranges material parts into functional parts with powers and capacities. The human soul organizes these bones and this flesh into an organic whole.
Now, we could say that ‘these bones, and this flesh’ are matter (like bronze) out of which some human person consists/is made. The matter is fully of character, with quantitative dimensions, density, etc., and qualities (color, etc.).
So, when Henry says DE is quasi-matter or a substrate, we must take this to mean a substrate that is full of character (rather than the characterless prime matter). After all, Henry has already told us that DE includes the power of intellect and will, and that whatever supposite is constituted by DE has these powers.
Thus, it seems to me that DE is form-like insofar as it has characteristics (powers, necessary existence, etc.), and it is quasi-matter like insofar as its constitution with a personal property. After all, we don’t say that ‘paternity’ is what ‘gives’ the Father the power to think or love; rather, we say it is ‘having’ intellect and will. And the Father has intellect and will in virtue of being constituted by DE. So, DE is very much like a form–for forms are what give character to entities.
So, DE considered in itself is form-like, but considered with regard to a personal property it is quasi-substrate/quasi-matter.
How is that?
I just re-read a comment above. In comment 13, I said:
I made a bad error here, so that’s probably where the confusion came. It should read:
And the rest of my comments should be adjusted accordingly.
Okay, I think I’m tracking with you now (I think this last post of yours is much clearer). We don’t disagree here very much.
1. All I’ve been trying to say (perhaps not well) is that
(1) The Son requires both
(i) an efficient cause (the Father) and
(ii) a formal cause (the DE).
Which entails that
(2) (i) or (ii) alone is not sufficient, so
(3) (i) and (ii) are each necessary and jointly sufficient.
But you’re saying that too, so we agree on that much.
2. I agree with you that a derivation view involves claiming that
(4) The DE is identical with the Father in a stronger way than the DE is identical with the Son and Spirit,
while a generic view involves claiming that
(5) The DE is equally identical to the Father, Son, and Spirit.
3. I also agree that Henry usually pushes for a generic view (although I’m not sure he always clearly or consistently does this).
4. The only place I disagree here is as follows. You say that for Henry,
(6) the DE is like a form.
I disagree with that. It’s true that Henry sometimes construes the DE as a form, but he does not do this all the time. There are places where Henry claims that
(7) the DE is like matter/subject/substratum.
And so I think we’ll only be fair to Henry if we take account of both 6 and 7 (irrespective of whether or not Henry can consistently maintain them both).
Also, 6 and 7 are each compatible with a derivation view or a generic view, so neither 4 nor 5 entails that Henry should hold either 6 or 7. Henry could hold either 6 or 7 and still maintain either 4 or 5.
5. Your points about the DE having the property of not being from another essence — while the Father has the property of not being from another suppositum — is very helpful.
It appears we actually do have a disagreement here then.
Henry explicitly says that DE formally constitutes the Son, and that it is in virtue of this formal constitution that the Son is divine. DE is the formal cause and the Father is the efficient cause of the Son’s divinity.
As you know, Henry says a lot more than just that the Son is a ‘perfect copy’ of the Father–this is relatively loose jargon for more technical claims. What it does express is the mode of subsistence that the Son has/is.
Henry, of course, says that the Father communicates DE to the Son.
The issue at hand is whether DE has an identity with the Father that is asymmetrical with the identity of DE and the Son, and with the identity of DE and the Holy Spirit. From what I can tell, the only reason Henry uses the phrase ‘the Son is generated from the substance of the Father’ is to say that the Son is (formally) generated from the divine essence; given that DE does not exist by itself (as a Platonic Form), it must be exemplified in some particular entity (the Father). So,when we say the Son is generated, the Son not generated from some Form that subsists by itself, but is ‘in’ some particular (the Father). DE constitutes the Father, and by generating the Son, the Father communicates DE to the Son.
The only difference btwn. the Father’s ‘relation’ (of reason) to DE and the Son’s ‘relation’ (of reason) to DE is that no efficient cause is required for the Father to be formally constituted by DE (only a formal cause is required, namely, being constituted by DE), whereas for the Son, both an efficient cause (Father) and a formal cause (DE) are required.
So the question remains, what follows from saying that the Father does not require an efficient cause to be constituted by DE (i.e. what follows from the Father’s having the property ‘innascibility’?)? On my reading, b/c Henry says that we cannot think of or understand the Father’s innascibility (I) w/o already conceiving of the Father as generative/actually generating the Son. (I) is not an absolute property, but a relative one based on the Father’s power to generate the Son. Henry says (I) is a ‘dignity’ of the Father (I take ‘dignity’ here to indicate a perfection for a given nature, e.g. ‘being a Father’, and not a pure perfection.)
What makes this more clear to my mind is that Henry says there is an essential property of DE that is ‘not from another’. And he says there is a notional property of the Father ‘not from another’. I take it that Henry implies two properties of the Father, a notional property (a ‘dignity’) that is ‘not from another supposite’ and an essential property (common to any person who is constituted by DE) that is ‘not from another essence/substance’. Since the Son and Holy Spirit have the essential property ‘not from another essence/substance’, I take it that they are identical with DE, as is the Father.
So, what is entailed from saying the Father is ‘not from another supposite’? Does it mean the Father has an identity with DE in a way asymmetrical with the Son and Holy Spirit. If ‘yes’, then Henry has a derivation view; if ‘no’, then Henry has a generic view. Since Henry says DE formally constitutes all three divine persons and it is DE that formally makes the Son and Holy Spirit divine and not the Son’s and HS’s efficient causal dependence on the Father that makes them formally divine, it is hard to see that Henry clearly holds a derivation view, and makes more sense that he holds a generic view.
[FYI: in writing the above it finally occurred to me Henry’s implied distinction btwn. the Father’s essential property ‘not from another’ and notional property ‘not from another’. The essential property is ‘not from another essence’, and the notional property is ‘not from another supposite’. Perhaps this has been obvious all along, I think so.]
Well, even if these cats do say such things, I’m not convinced it’s a wise move. “Being a perfect copy of the Father” (call this relation R1) is not the same as “being produced by the Father” (call this relation R2). Only R1 — or something like it — is sufficient to explain the Son’s divinity. Or, to put my point another way, R2 is not sufficient to explain the Son’s divinity because it applies just as equally to creatures as it does to the Son and Spirit.
But in any case, it sounds to me in this last post you’re saying that for V and Z, R1 is what makes the Son divine, and that’s in line with my point.
(I could put this in scholastic speak. You mentioned that the DE is the proximate cause of the Son’s divinity. I say that ‘proximate cause’ could be ‘proximate efficient cause’ or ‘proximate formal cause’. The first is not sufficient, the latter is.)
JT: Also, Miroslav Volf (following Moltmann) thinks that b/’c the Son is from the Father, the Son is divine. I suppose the qualifier here is that the Son is ‘equal’ to whatever the Father is; if the Father is divine, then the Son being a perfect copy of the Father means the Son also is divine. The aim on this view is to de-emphasize or rather just deny that there is any such thing as a numerically one divine essence that is common to the divine persons. By denying that there is any such thing as DE, Volf (following Z and Moltmann) thinks he can say the Son is divine b.c the Father generates him. SO, I take it that it is the peculiar status of the Son to the Father that makes him divine-namely, as the Son of the Father. Creatures on the other hand, are not perfect copies of the Father and are contingent. So even if creatures were necessarily created, they would still be creatures b/c they do not perfectly imitate/copy the Father, unlike the Son.
The case of the Holy Spirit is a bit harder. I think Volf is ambiguous about the kind of emanation that the Holy Spirit is. He sticks with the language of ‘spiration’–so we don’t quite know what this means. This, in contra-distinction from e.g. Henry and Scotus who clearly state the HS proceeds by an (productive) act of will (love).
So, Volf’s (and Z’s) line or reasoning was what made me say that on a derivation view, it is simply the being generated by the Father that makes the Son divine, rather than Henry’s and Scotus’s and most others’ view that the Father communicates DE to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, and it is DE that is the proximate cause for the Son and HS being divine.
I’m not sure if that a robust derivation view would want to say S is divine because of his relation to F. If so, then all creatures would be divine too, since they’re related to F too. I would think a derivation view would want to say that S is divine because he possesses F, and F is divine. Or at least this is an argument that Henry and Scotus seem to buy.
(Although someone like Zizioulas might disagree and go with the relation thing. Z might say some x is divine purely in virtue of its relation to F, and that’s why all creatures are, in principle, divinized.)
Nice response to 2. Although, as you know a per impossibile argument here naturally will give you an impossible conclusion (that the SOn has DE contingently). So, this doesn’t persuade me as much as another argument might.
Nevertheless, you are certainly right to say that the Father being an efficient cause is (in part) what brings about the Son having DE.I don’t question that at all. What I am looking for here is an answer to the question, what makes the Son divine? Clearly, it is being constituted by DE and not (precisely speaking) his relation to the Father. Of course, the Son is necessarily related to the Father, etc. but on the question of what makes the Son divine it is not properly speaking the relation to the Father (derivation view) but his being constituted by DE (generic view). Does this sound right?
1. I’m happy to say that Henry has conflicting passages. That seems to me right. He clearly does go after a generic view sometimes, and other times he seems to go after a derivation view (far more explicitly than any other scholastic I’ve read). In any case, my point was just that there are times when Henry sounds like he’s suggesting a derivation view, and that Scotus and Ockham certainly interpreted him in that way, even if he may not have necessarily meant that.
2. Not sure I follow your comments about the Son having necessary existence in virtue of possessing the divine essence. Here’s why.
The divine essence is something that exists necessarily, but that doesn’t mean that any x which possesses the DE would also necessarily exist. After all, Jesus possessed the DE contingently, and Jesus did not exist necessarily. Likewise, the Son might, per impossibile, possess the DE contingently too, and then the Son would not necessarily exist. Merely possessing the DE is not a sufficient condition here.
It seems to me that the Son would exist necessarily only if he were caused to possess the DE necessarily. And of course, that’s what the Father does: the Father causes the Son to exist and possess the DE necessarily. So the Father’s efficient causality would be a necessary condition here.
3. As for your last point, we may be saying the same thing. Many of the scholastics, being good Aristotelians, think that natures are posterior to and dependent upon the supposita that exemplify them (‘rose-ness’ depends on roses). Thus, if there is a nature, then it will be exemplified by at least one suppositum.
That applies in the divine case too, so if there is a divine nature (which cosmological arguments show), then there would be at least one God which possesses that divine nature. I can’t think of any scholastic who thinks otherwise. Can you think of any scholastic who thinks of the divine essence as just a free-floating nature which is not exemplified by any suppositum? I can’t think of any myself.
I like your newspaper analogy. The newspaper came to my door, but I don’t know who delivered it. Likewise with the trinity. There is a nature, and it is exemplified by at least one suppositum. I may not know who that is, but there must be at least one suppositum.
Anyways, my point was that this suppositum acquires its identity (as ‘the Father’) only in virtue of begetting the Son. So we can’t call it ‘Father’ until we have the Son.
I think we might be saying the same thing here. What do you think?
JT: I am not saying that Henry does not use the language ‘from the substance of the Father’-that clearly is used by Henry. But my hesitation to interpret this as meaning the derivation view arose when I found passages where Henry is saying this and qualifies it by saying, ‘the Son is produced from the Father’s substance, or rather, the divine essence as it is in the Father’. I don’t have the particular locale at hand, but I’ll get it when I get back from vacation. This sort of qualification, ‘or rather…’ suggests to me that Henry does not wish to say that the divine substance/essence is identical with the Father in a way that it is not identical with the Son and Holy Spirit. By ‘in a way’, I don’t mean the modal properties ‘actually generating, being generated, and being spirated’, but rather is the divine essence proper to the Father and derivatively attributed to the Son? On this qualification, Henry seems to halt the Athanasian derivative view (as discussed by R. Cross).
Furthermore, Henry has other passages where he says that the divine essence is formally predicated of the Son (and Holy Spirit). Consequently, b/c the Son is formally the divine essence, the Son from this very fact has necessary existence. Notice that in this claim Henry is not saying the Son has necessary existence in virtue of the Father as a complex of DE+PP (paternity), but entirely in virtue of formally being constituted by DE. On the derivative view, we’d say that the Son has necessary existence b/c the Father is the efficient cause of the Son. But from the passages I have in mind from Henry, he makes the precise claim that it is the Son’s formally (he does say ‘formaliter’) having the divine essence that he has necessary existence.
Given these two sorts of passages, I am persuaded that Henry does not outrightly hold to the derivation view, but either holds the generic view, or like Athanasius, Henry just has conflicting passages–where some suggest the derivation view and others the generic view. Cross does indicate that Athanasius seems to posit both views and didn’t try to answer ‘which’ was the right one to go with.
It seems to me that with these qualification above, it is safer to say Henry holds ‘a’ generic view and not a derivation view. After all, uses the words, ‘from the substance of the Father’ does not necessarily _mean_ the divine substance/essence is asymmetrical btwn. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In fact, when Henry says, ‘or rather, the divine essence in the Father’ it seems to suggest that this is what Henry wishes us to take him to mean when he says, ‘from the substance of the Father’. Why? Well, Henry wants to say that the Son proceeds from the divine Father, not from the ninja Father, or Homer Simpson–‘from the substance of the Father’ for Henry is just a way to identify the essence (formal cause) and actor (efficient cause) in question who ‘produces’ the Son.
Does this make sense? Does this persuade you JT?
Also, what does a proof for the existence of God prove? Or rather, which divine person is thought to be proved to exist? Do we know for certain Aquinas and gang thought it was the Father who is proved? I have my doubts. The only plausible reason to my mind is that the essence of the creator of all things is ‘from no other’, and if the divine Father is constituted by the property ‘from no other’, this may suggest the divine creator/actor who is proved is the Father. But I am hesitant to attribute this to scholastics (unless someone can point to an explicit passage for me). Why? B/c the properties in question are diverse in kind; one is an essential property and the other is a personal property. These are not the same kind of property, so we cannot and should not see them as synonyms. Thus, I take medieval proofs for God’s existence to aim to prove at least one first cause (efficient, formal and final causality) responsible for creation and yet the proof itself remains agnostic about the peculiar personal properties. What is proved is a confused concept = medieval speak for an ambiguous concept. We don’t know or express precisely who it is we have proved (i.e. the personal property that picks out this person versus that person), but we do know there is at least one who is creator of all things. It is like trying to proof that someone delivered the newspaper to my front door, but I don’t know who, I don’t know the personal distinguishing properties of that person who delivered the paper, nonetheless I am certain someone delivered the paper. Likewise, with the proofs for God’s existence, we know someone created all things, but we don’t yet express or know just who this is.
Concerning Paternity and Innascibility, would Henry’s response be that we are not really talking about the common properties to which the two refer, but rather we are discussing two (quasi-)properties of the Father which happen to be best summed up with those phrases? In this way, it would seem that the Father’s Paternity would logically precede his Innascibility. If this isn’t what Henry is doing, is it a possible strategy open to him? Would it fit with his view of divine predication (at least the way I understand it, where a term means two different things of God and creation, it just appears to be one “from a distance”)?
Dale wrote:
I think the medievals tend to understand the situation as follows. Cosmological arguments establish that there is a perfect divine essence. And if there is a perfect divine essence, then it must be expemplified by at least one suppositum. Thus, the divine essence is expemplified by one suppositum. That’s the Father. So that’s why the Father exists, and yes, divine simplicity means that the Father (and his existence) and the divine essence are entirely identical.
But this suppositum’s identity qua Father only obtains in virtue of the Father’s relation to the Son. The same would be true of any other Father. Your existence does not depend on your being a Father, but your identity as a Father does.
Not sure if that helps any.
A few comments:
1. There was a comment about the Nicene/Constantinoplean view with respect to the derivation and generic view. As I understand it, the Nicene creed says the Son is generated ‘from the substance of the Father’, and this was interpreted more or less along the lines of the derivation view. By the time of Constantinople, the Capps had come along and defended a generic view, and then the phrase ‘from the substance of the Father’ is dropped from the creed in support of the generic view. So as I understand it, there’s a big difference between Nicea and Constantinople.
2. Scott: Henry explicitly defends the phrase ‘from the substance of the Father’. And he does this in exactly the same place that he suggests a material constitution view. As far as I can tell, Henry holds a derivation view. I have further evidence to suggest this too: Scotus and Ockham both discuss Henry’s view as if he thought this. They both make numerous comments to this effect. So even if Henry didn’t intend this (although his material constitution discussion seems to affirm the derivation view pretty explicitly), later thinkers certainly read him this way.
3. I’m with Dale on the innascibility and paternity thing. Being-a-father (paternity) is one thing, and not-being-a-son (innascibility) is another. I see no reason why one would logically presuppose the other in any way. Suppose I always existed and was never begotten by my Father. I’m an all eternal transformer or something. That’d be excellent. Anyways, here I’m not a son because I was never begotten. But this fact does not entail that I beget a son myself. I might beget a son, or I might not, but that in no way depends on me being not-a-son (innascible).
4. To Dale’s comment: there is no possible world W where the father F wouldn’t produce the son S. Yes, I think the medievals would have agreed to this if they had possible world machinery. But they get darn close to the possible world stuff. They all explicitly discuss the question of whether it is possible that the Father might not have produced the Son (and the Spirit). And they all say no: the Son (or the Spirit) is produced necessarily, not contingently. It is not possible that the Father might not have produced the Son (or the Spirit).
Dale: your last two paragraphs opens up a whole vista of questions. Suffice it to say, Henry’s view to my mind is what Richard Cross identifies as the ‘generic view’ in an article of his (I’ll get the reference if you aren’t familiar with this label.) On the generic view, when we say the Son proceeds from the Father, we means that the Father (Divine essence+paternity) generates the Son (divine essence+filiation). On this view, the name ‘God’ is not said exclusively of the Father and derivatively of the Son and Holy Spirit, rather, whatever person is constituted by the divine essence is by identity divine. So, the Father communicates to the Son the divine essence-and that is what makes the Son to be divine. Of course, since the Son is also constituted by the property ‘being generated’ (filitation) he is really related to the Father as one generated by the Father, and so is the Son.
On this view, the divine essence is a shared property and is not an asymmetrical property when compared to the Father’s ‘having’ it, and the Son and Holy Spirit ‘having’ it. Henry more or less rejects (quietly) those passages of Athanasius that say the Son is generated ‘from the substance of the Father’.
Typo: ‘I confess this particular topic is not one I’ve spent enough time with…’
Yeah; Henry is a bit confusing here. Although, I confess this particular topic is not one I’ve not spent enough time with to have the sort of certainty that I know precisely what he has in mind.
My guess is this: Henry says that any personal property is relative, not absolute. So, if we say F has the personal property of ingenitum, this must be understood as a relative property and not as an absolute property. But, if we consider ingenitum by itself, it is not clear on its own whether or not relative or absolute. Of course, if we gloss it as meaning ‘not from another’, it would seem to be a negation of the relation ‘from another’. However, Henry does not wish to construe ingenitum as a pure negation, but rather as some positive property that constitutes the Father or at least as a property that essentially depends on a positive property (paternity).
In one passage Henry just starts off saying that the first divine person is ingenitum/innascible, and then this divine person produces the other divine persons. So, this property ingenitum as it turns out is an intrinsic mode of the positive property ‘generating another’ (paternity). I have yet to see Henry use this turn of phrase ‘intrinsic mode’ but it does seem to express what he has in mind.
If we contrast this with the human case, human fathers do not have the intrinsic mode of ingenitum, rather, human fathers in fact are ‘from another’. So, in the divine case Henry wishes to qualify the intrinsic character of the divine Father by qualifying the property ‘generating another’ by the intrinsic mode (essential characterization) of ingenitum.
How is that?
Hi Scott,
I hope to jump in on the longer, more heavyweight discussion some time soon. But here, just a few philosophical reactions:
I guess he wants to say that, in modern lingo, the Father and Son logically imply each other’s existence. And yet (in some sense) the Father is the cause of the Son, but not vice-versa.
Fair enough. But I’m now scratching my head about a few things. You say
Does this require that he says f’s existence is one property, and his fatherhood is another? It would seem so to me. His existence doesn’t depend on s’s existence, but his fatherhood does. I reckon that Augustine and other sticklers about simplicity would deny this, but Henry must have a weaker concept of simplicity.
Another puzzler:
So: being origin-less implies being the origin of something? As a piece of conceptual analysis, that’s a howler. But from what you say above, I take it that Henry thinks all it means to say that Father is origin-less is that he’s the origin of the Son. Well, OK Henry – use words how you want. But one would think that ingenitum meant not being derived from anything else.
This notion that “paternity” by itself constitutes the Father is a hard one. Back pre-Augustine, it seems to me that they identified God and the Father – notice in the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds, “Father” and “God” seem to be co-referring terms. Same with the New Testament. The Son and Spirit, they then argued, are “of the substance” of the Father, i.e. of God – whatever that means. So the concept of the Father is as rich as the concept of God. In contrast, Augustine needs supremely thin “persons” for his strategy for reconciling trinitarianism and monotheism to work. Henry is still wrestling with this unhappy model.
Re: the idea that we need to avoid an antitrinitarian “absolutely first” Father: Could the issue not be cast like this? There is not a possible world in which f does not generate s. (That is, in all possible worlds, f generates s.) This precisely, it seems to me, what Jews and Muslims deny. However, some of the early Fathers are quite unclear about this, as they simply aren’t thinking of Father and Son as being, or as being “constituted by” properties which logically imply one another.
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