{"id":221,"date":"2007-12-17T05:12:14","date_gmt":"2007-12-17T05:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/archives\/221"},"modified":"2007-12-19T05:22:23","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T05:22:23","slug":"hog-what-does-it-mean-to-say-the-father-is-ungenerated-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/hog-what-does-it-mean-to-say-the-father-is-ungenerated-scott\/","title":{"rendered":"HoG: “What does it mean to say the Father is ungenerated?” (Scott)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"paternity.jpg\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Is there any Son who does not cause His Father to become a Father and vice versa?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Here I wish to briefly summarize what I take to be Henry\u2019s position on the question: is the Father constituted by the (personal) property of being ‘ungenerated\u2019 <\/strong>(ingenitum<\/em>)? Henry\u2019s discussion of this comes from his Summa Quaestionum Ordinariarum<\/em> 57.1.<\/p>\n

Henry engages in a lengthy discussion of ways the word \u2018ingenitum<\/em>\u2019 (not generated) or \u2018innascibile<\/em>\u2019 (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 \u2018ungenerated\u2019. 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?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Henry rejects predication of the property \u2018ingentium<\/em>\u2019 to the Father by negation and by privation; instead he opts for predication of a positive property<\/strong>. What then is this positive property that the Father has\/is?<\/p>\n

Henry starts by saying that the fundamental personal property of the Father is \u2018paternity\u2019<\/strong>, i.e. the actor who generates his Son. \u2018Paternity\u2019 is the (positive) property that constitutes the Father. Henry claims that the Father is the Father because he generates the Son<\/strong>; he is not Father \u2018prior to\u2019 or without regard to his Son. Next, given this positive property, Henry claims that paternity implies that the (divine) Father is \u2018not from another\u2019<\/strong>. Unlike with human Moms and Dads who themselves have a Mom and Dad, the divine Father does not himself have a \u2018parent\u2019 who brings him into existence.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018not from another\u2019, i.e. he is not \u2018from the Son\u2019. On the one hand, there is no Father without the Son; on the other hand, the Son does not cause the Father<\/strong>. This is a prime instance of Henry\u2019s \u2018nested distinctions\u2019<\/a><\/strong> (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 \u2018not from another\u2019. The Son doesn\u2019t given the Father the Father\u2019s capacity to generate the Son. Rather, the Father generates the Son and in this very generative act his (the Father\u2019s) \u2018existence\u2019 is not dependent on the Son\u2019s existence, but rather his identity as \u2018Father\u2019 does seem to be dependent on there being a Son.<\/p>\n

Returning to the discussion above about the positive property of \u2018paternity\u2019 and the implied property \u2018ingenitum<\/em>\u2019, Henry\u2019s point is that we first need to posit the positive property of \u2018paternity\u2019 and then we can infer the property \u2018not from another\u2019. Henry holds that if for the sake of argument we took away the positive property of \u2018paternity\u2019 from the Father, then we\u2019d also be taking away the Father\u2019s \u2018not being from another\u2019 or what is called the Father\u2019s \u2018innascibility\u2019. Henry is clear: innascibility presupposes paternity, and paternity does not presuppose innascibility<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This is a strong tension in Henry\u2019s 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<\/strong>. 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<\/strong>. He is worried that speculation about the Father as ungenerated may lead to a pagan (i.e. Jewish or Muslim, in Henry\u2019s view of things) notion of God who is the supreme agent constituted absolutely and not relatively<\/strong>. [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.<\/em>] 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\u2019t want us to construe this without presupposing the correlation Father-Son.<\/p>\n

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’.<\/p>\n

So, as is sometimes the case with Duns Scotus who mis-reports Henry of Ghent\u2019s position on a given matter<\/strong>, Henry does not teach that the Father\u2019s innascibility is a bare negative property without reference to a positive property<\/strong>; rather Henry teaches that the property ingenitum<\/em> 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<\/em>) this first divine agent generates the Son (SQO<\/em> 57.1, Badius 1520, vol. 2, f. 119vC).<\/p>\n

[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)\u00a0 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.] <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  “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\u2019s position on the question: is the Father constituted by the (personal) property of being ‘ungenerated\u2019 (ingenitum)? Henry\u2019s discussion of this comes from his Summa Quaestionum… Read More »HoG: “What does it mean to say the Father is ungenerated?” (Scott)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4,14,9,13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-posts","category-heresy-orthodoxy","category-history","category-philosophy","category-theologians","category-theories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}