Question 6

QUESTION VI.


Whether the Trinity can be consistent with supreme immutability.

Next it is asked whether the Trinity can be consistent with supreme immutability: and concerning this, two things are asked.

The first is whether the divine being is immutable. The second is whether the Trinity and supreme immutability are simultaneously compatible.

ARTICLE I.


Whether the divine being is immutable.

Concerning the first, we proceed as follows. That the divine being is immutable is shown thus:

1. First, by authority, Malachi 3: I am God and I do not change: the Gloss says: "He says this lest it be thought that there is any mutability in God." The Psalm: You shall change them, and they shall be changed, but You are the selfsame; the Gloss says: "immutable."

2. Likewise, the same is shown by reason thus. The divine being is absolutely and universally first: but the immutable is prior to the mutable, because the mutable must be reduced to the immutable: if therefore it is universally and principally first, then it is universally immutable.

3. Likewise, the divine being is the ultimate, toward which all other things tend as toward the highest end; but in the highest and ultimate end all other things find rest: but in nothing can other things find rest unless it is entirely immutable in itself: therefore the same as before.

4. Likewise, the divine being, as the philosophers say, and reason demonstrates, is absolutely and in every way necessary: but everything that has any variation falls in some way from necessity with respect to that according to which it is changed: therefore if it is necessary, it is also immutable.

5. Likewise, the divine being is most perfect: but nothing most perfect advances or declines: but everything that is changed either acquires something or loses something: therefore the divine being can in no way be changed.

6. Likewise, the divine being is most simple, therefore it has nothing of an adventitious nature; but in everything that is changed, either something arrives or departs: therefore mutability is not consistent with simplicity: therefore its opposite must hold: therefore it is immutable.

7. Likewise, the divine being is immeasurable: but everything that is changed is either changed to a better state, or a worse state, or an equal state; but what is immeasurable cannot be greater nor lesser nor does it have any equal: therefore it is absolutely immutable.

8. Likewise, the divine being is eternal, as is clear from the preceding; but in every change there is in some way a before and after; but this can in no way exist in eternity: therefore there is no change; it remains therefore that it is entirely immutable.

9. Furthermore, every change is either toward being, or from being, or within being, because everything that is changed either receives being, or loses being, or passes from one being into another, that is, from one mode of being into another; but God is pure being itself, since He exists through Himself and is pure act: therefore He can be changed in none of the aforesaid ways: nor can any other way be given: therefore He is immutable.

10. Furthermore, every change is either according to substance, or according to accident; but God is not changed according to substance, since He is incorruptible, nor according to accident, since nothing at all is accidental to Him: therefore He admits of absolutely no mutability.

But to the contrary: 1. Wisdom 7: Wisdom is more mobile than all mobile things: it is clear that he speaks of uncreated wisdom: therefore if wisdom itself is most mobile, it seems that the divine being is most mutable among all mutable things.

If you say that this is said by way of cause: then it is objected: that which is mobile by way of cause and according to form is more mobile than that which is so in only one of these ways.

2. Furthermore, gradation is observed in creatures according to greater mobility, because the highest element is more mobile than the lowest, and the first heaven more than the other spheres, and the glorified body more than the heaven, and spirit more than the glorified body: but what pertains to nobility should be attributed to God; therefore etc.

Furthermore, this same thing is shown by reason according to a sevenfold way.

3. And first from the standpoint of comparison. Everything to which something comes anew in time is mutable: the divine being is of this kind, because in time He is called lord, He is called refuge, He is called king: therefore He is mutable.

If you say that "in the category of relation there is no motion"; to the contrary: Ambrose argues thus: if the Father became father from being non-father, He would have been changed, and yet father denotes a relation: therefore this does not resolve the matter.

4. Furthermore, names of this kind either signify something that is God, and thus they do not begin in time: or something created, and thus they are not said of God: or they posit nothing, and thus they are no more said of God than of anything else: or something coming to God: but this necessarily posits motion: therefore etc.

5. Furthermore, this is shown from the standpoint of action. Everything that becomes an agent from being a non-agent passes "from rest into act"; but everything of this kind is in some way changed and altered: but God is of this kind: therefore etc. If you say that this is on the part of the creature; it is objected against this: because God does not produce because the creature is produced: but rather conversely: therefore the reason for this passage must first be posited in God.

6. Furthermore, every agent that acts by multiple actions, such that now by one, now by another, is necessarily changed: but God is of this kind, because now He produces, now He conserves, now He spares, now He punishes, and one of these actions is not another: therefore there is some change in God.

7. This same point is shown by the argument from mission. Every true mission and descent is a true change; but the Son of God according to the Scriptures was sent into the flesh and descended from heaven, and this cannot be according to the human nature: therefore He was changed and is changeable according to the divine nature.

8. Likewise, the Son of God is something according to which He is man; but it is impossible for something to become such from not-such without a change in it, as white from not-white: therefore it follows much more strongly in those things that express substance: therefore if the Son of God was made man, it is necessary that that hypostasis was changed.

9. Likewise, this same point is shown by the argument from inhabitation. Everything that begins to be in something and ceases to be in it is changed at least accidentally: but God by grace begins to be in the penitent and ceases to be in the sinner, and by essence begins to be in a generated nature and ceases to be in a corrupted one: therefore etc.

10. Likewise, if something is inseparably in something, when the latter is moved, it is necessary that the former be moved, because, as the Philosopher says, "when we are moved" etc.; but God by essence is in every creature and is in no way separated from it: therefore it is necessary that He be moved when it is moved.

11. Likewise, this same point is shown by the argument from power as follows. He who was able to do something before which he cannot do now has a changed power: but God, before He created the world, was able to create it, and now He cannot: therefore etc.

If you say that to be able to create is not a what-type ability; against this: it follows: whatever the Father can do, the Son also can do; but the Father can create: therefore the Son also can.

Furthermore, this does not resolve the issue, because the same consequence follows if any kind of sign whatsoever—whether qualitative, quantitative, or otherwise—is taken. — If you say that the inference should be: He can have created: similarly it is truly said of a blind man that he can have seen.

12. Likewise, whatever God can do is possible: but if whatever He was able to do He still can do, then whatever was possible for God is now possible; but this is false regarding what is impossible per accidens, which according to the Saints and doctors is impossible for God: therefore the same as before: therefore the divine power is changed.

13. Likewise, this same point is shown on the part of knowledge: because he who ceases to know something that he knew, or begins to know something, undergoes some change in knowledge; but God knew that the world was to be created, and now He does not know this, since it is entirely false: therefore etc.

14. Likewise, it necessarily follows: if God knows something, it is true: therefore if whatever He knew He still knows, then whatever was true is still true: but this is false: therefore so is that from which it follows: it remains therefore that the divine knowing is changeable.

15. Likewise, this same point is shown on the part of the will. "The will is the proximate and immediate cause of things," as Augustine says; but when the cause is posited, the effect is posited: therefore the divine willing does not precede in duration the producing itself: therefore when He began to produce, He also began to will: therefore etc.

16. Again, he who wills something and can not-will it is necessarily changed: but God wills to save some wayfarer: therefore either He can not-will it, or He cannot. If He cannot: then that person cannot be damned, or the will of God will be frustrated; if He can not-will it; but he who can pass from willing to not-willing can be changed: therefore etc.

17. Again, it is impossible that an agent acting according to will, whose operation conforms to will, by willing one of two contraries should produce the other, and conversely: but God now puts to death, now gives life, and does many other incompossible things: therefore it is necessary that His will now wills one thing, now the contrary. But every such will is changed: therefore the divine willing is mutable: but this is the same as being: therefore etc.

If you say that this is by reason of the effect: this is nothing, because God does not will something because it comes to be, but rather the converse: it remains therefore that the ground of mutability principally comes from the divine will.

CONCLUSION.


The divine being is altogether immutable.

I respond: It must be said that without doubt the divine being is altogether immutable: and this indeed must be maintained, although we cannot perfectly understand it; whence all agree in maintaining it. For all who rightly understand, not only the Saints but also the philosophers, maintain that the divine being is immutable, because it is most simple, immense, and eternal.

For inasmuch as it is most simple, it is immutable according to form: inasmuch as it is immense, immutable according to position: inasmuch as it is eternal, immutable according to time: but all motion and change, according to Augustine and Hugh, is reduced to one of the aforesaid differences: and therefore the divine being can in no way admit of change or motion.

And further, inasmuch as it is simple, it is immutable from itself: for it has nothing that is not its own essential being, which indeed "is not an accident, but a subsistent truth," as Hilary says. Inasmuch as it is immense, it is not mutable in another or by another: for nothing else can transfer it, since it is everywhere whole. Moreover, inasmuch as it is eternal, it is not mutable with another, because it itself remains fixed, while other things succeed one another.

Finally, because it is most simple, therefore it is not changed by comparison nor by operation, because neither of these denotes anything diverse or accidental to it, by whose arrival or departure the divine being would be composed or changed. Because it is immense, it is not changed either by mission or by indwelling, because such mission or indwelling occurs neither through any circumscription nor through any transition of place, but through presence and manifestation. Because it is eternal, it is not changed either by will or by power or by knowledge, for the reason that whatever it can do, knows, and wills, it eternally can do, knows, and wills: whence just as there is no mutability in eternity, so neither in knowledge, will, and power.

In every way, therefore, as is apparent from what has been thoroughly examined, it is necessary to hold that the divine being has immutability; and this all affirm.

But just as in order to understand eternity it is necessary at the same time to understand God as simple and immense, so in order to understand immutability it is necessary at the same time to understand God's supreme simplicity, eternity, and immensity. For because he is simple, nothing is accidental to him; because eternal, nothing comes to him, nothing departs; because immense, every property of dignity befits him; and therefore by himself, without anything accidental or newly arriving, he can produce and not produce, will and not will, foreknow and not foreknow, answer and not answer, as befits his supreme nobility. And just as he can do many things, though he is one; and temporal things, though he is eternal; and finite things, though he is infinite; and composite things, though he is simple: so also variable and mutable things, while he himself perseveres immutable.

And this is what Hugh says in the first part of On the Sacraments: "Let it be firmly held what is naturally implanted in every rational soul, namely that God is immutable. For he cannot be increased, because he is immense, nor diminished, because he is one, nor changed in place, because he is everywhere, nor in time, because he is eternal, nor in knowledge, because he is most wise, nor in affection, because he is most good." From which it is apparent how and why we understand God to be immutable in his being.

For the understanding of the objections, however, it should be noted that those things which are said of God in respect of the creature signify the divine essence and connote something in the creature: and this can be in two ways: in act or in habit. On the part of the principal signified, they are God himself, who neither changes nor is multiplied nor begins nor ceases. On the part of the connoted or co-understood, they express something created or creatable: and on that part there is inception and cessation and variation, but differently according to the diverse mode of connoting. For when that which is said of God connotes the created in act, then it can begin and cease, be present and not have been present without change on the part of God, but not without change on the part of the created; as is evident when we say that God conserves something. But when it connotes the creatable in habit or in aptitude, then there cannot be inception, yet there can be cessation, and it can also be present and not be present without change of God and of the creature. And the reason for this is the connotation of the future: the future however never begins to be future, as Anselm says, but it does cease to be future when it becomes present. —And again, a contingent future can fail to be without change, because it posits nothing in act in the thing. — From these things, therefore, it is evident, if one grasps it, that two opposites can be attributed to God without any change in himself; but some are such that a change of the creature is required, as in temporal things, while in others not at all. However it is understood, therefore, it is necessary to posit that the divine being is altogether immutable.

Hence the arguments showing this are to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected to the contrary, that wisdom is more mobile than all mobile things: it should be said that something is called mobile in three ways: either through efficient causality, or through representative exemplarity, or through inherent variation. In the first and second ways wisdom is called most mobile, because this pertains to perfection: but not in the third, because this pertains to incompleteness.

Or it can be said that because a mobile thing according to position is made present to many places by its very motion, and that which is moved more swiftly is more swiftly presented to more places; hence it is that since divine wisdom is most present to all things, it is called most mobile among all mobile things, not because it passes from one thing to another, but because it is present to all things. And this is what Dionysius says in On the Divine Names, chapter nine: "That God is moved must be devoutly understood not according to conveyance, or mutation, or alteration, or modal or local motion, not rectilinear, not circular, not from both combined, not intelligible, not animate, not natural, but that God acts upon substance and contains all things and provides for all things totally, and that he is present to all things by encompassing all and by provident processions and operations toward all existing things."

2. To that which is objected, that a gradation is observed in creatures according to greater mobility, etc.: it must be said that certain things belong to creatures according to more and less, such that of themselves they do not imply imperfection, such as unity, truth, goodness: and in such things the highest degree must be attributed to God, to whom every perfection belongs. But certain things signify some dignity together with imperfection, such as mobility, which signifies a certain actuality with conjoined potentiality, and such things, by reason of the conjoined imperfection, cannot and ought not be attributed to God, neither at the limit nor short of the limit, according to the proper sense of the term.

3. 4. To that which is objected on the part of the comparison, that something accrues to God from time: it must be said that in such things, as was touched upon in the solution, one must understand the principal signification and the connotation; and the principal indeed signification is on the part of God, and thereby eternal and immutable: but the connotation is on the part of the creature, and therefore temporal and mutable. That these things are therefore said to begin or to cease, this is not on the part of that which is posited in God, but on the part of that which is posited in the created effect.

And through this is clear that which is objected, that names of this kind signify something which is God, and something which is from God: and by reason of the first they are predicated, not by reason of the second; and by reason of the second they begin and cease, not by reason of the first: because for some copulative whole to be temporal or contingent, it suffices that it have temporality or contingency in some part of itself.

5. 6. To that which is objected concerning action, that from a non-agent an agent comes to be: it must be said that there is an agent that acts by itself, and there is an agent that acts through something other than itself. The first agent cannot be changed in acting, because nothing accrues to it, nothing departs from it through action, since its action is the same as itself. But concerning the other agent, which differs from its action, the aforesaid proposition holds true. God, however, is an agent in the first way, not the second, because by reason of his supreme simplicity he is his own action.

And if you object: if he is his own action, just as he does not begin to be, so he does not begin to act: it must be said that he does not begin to act by reason of the intrinsic act itself, which is the same as himself, but by reason of the extrinsic effect, which pertains to the side of the creature, which begins and is multiplied according to the variety of creatures.

And through this the response to the following objection concerning the plurality of actions is clear. For that there are posited in God many incompossible actions, this is not by reason of a plurality of intrinsic acts, but by reason of a plurality of effects and connotations. For the intrinsic act, since it is God, is one and immutable and eternal; but the extrinsic effect, since it is created, is manifold and mutable and temporal, taking time in a broad sense; and this introduces no change regarding the divine being.

7. 8. To that which is objected concerning mission, that every mission and descent is a change: it must be said that mission in divine things is not taken there properly, but metaphorically: nor do they signify anything else in God than the emanation of one from another and manifestation in a created effect. Whence since God is always everywhere present, namely the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to essence, power, and presence; because nevertheless He dwells in the heavenly things through glory and appears through open illumination, when He begins to appear in lower creatures, He begins as it were to be present from not being present; and therefore He is said to be sent and to descend, not by reason of any innovation or novelty on His part, but only by reason of the showing and manifestation exhibited to us and made in us.

And if one objects then that the Son of God was made man anew, and man signifies something that is in Him: it must be said that man is predicated of the Son by reason of the union of two natures in one hypostasis: and therefore, since union is spoken of in the manner of a relation and can be attributed to someone anew without a change made in him, but only on account of a change made in the other extreme, as is evident in right and left: hence it is that the Son of God was made man anew without change of the eternal person, from the sole change of the assumed nature, which was simultaneously formed and united to the Word: and just as the Word is not changed in the formation of that nature, so neither in the assumption of the formed nature.

9. 10. To that which is objected concerning indwelling, namely that God through grace begins to be in the penitent: it must be said that something is said to be in another in two ways. Either such that it in some way depends on that thing and through it is contracted and delimited — and that which in this way begins to be in something is changed by that inception and is moved according to the motion of that in which it exists, as is evident concerning the existence of the universal in the particular, of form in matter, of the located thing in a place, and of an accident in a subject. But God is so in the creature through essence and influence that He does not depend on the creature, nor is He confined or delimited in it; and therefore, that He begins to dwell in someone is not on account of a change made in Him, but only in the creature or in the mediating influence, by reason of which God is said to dwell anew in the creature, namely by infusing a new grace. — Similarly, although He is in the creature, He is nevertheless not moved according to its motion, as those things of which the Philosopher says that "when we are moved, the things that are in us are moved," because He does not depend on the creature, nor is He confined or delimited in it. Whence, just as a ray is in the air, yet is not moved according to the motion of the air; just as the soul is whole in every part of the body, yet is not moved according to the motion of any part, because it is not delimited in any particular part: so also must it be understood in the matter at hand. And through this the response to the present objection is clear. — And if one objects that it does not seem intelligible that something should be in another inseparably, yet not be moved according to its change: it must be said that we can understand this if we simultaneously understand God as most simple and immense. For because He is immense, He is so within that He is also without; because He is most simple, He is in no way distant from Himself, however great the local distance and separation may be among the things in which He exists. And hence it is that however much the things in which God exists may be understood to change, in no way — neither in reality nor in the understanding — is God thereby posited as mutable. For in every motion and change it is necessary to understand approach and withdrawal, and through this some distance between the extremes — which can in no way be posited concerning the divine being, neither per se nor per accidens, since it is at once infinite and simple. And therefore the imagination of the phantasy is here deceived.

11. 12. To that which is objected concerning power, namely that God cannot now do whatever He could do: it must be said that someone is said not to be able to do what he could do in two ways: either on account of some defect introduced on the part of the producing power itself, or on account of a change of condition on the part of the possible itself. For that which is possible and true can be made impossible through a change in the thing; just as that I have not read, before I read, is true, but after I shall have read, it has become impossible, which is called impossible per accidens: which also, as Augustine says against Faustus, is impossible for God, because that ability is not of power, but rather of impotence, since it is against the supreme truth, namely, to make what was, after it was, not to have been. Since, therefore, the divine power always perseveres uniformly, whatever things, and of whatever quality, and in whatever way, and of whatever quantity He could do, He can also do now, so far as concerns Himself: but because many true things have become false, and possible things have become impossible: hence it is that, so far as concerns those things themselves, He cannot do whatever He could do, because not whatever things were possible are possible, and this not through a change regarding the efficient power, but regarding the possible effects.

And through this the response to the following objection concerning the impossible per accidens is clear.

And if you object that the divine power in no way depends on the possible, since He can produce all things from nothing: it must be said that this is not on account of dependence, but on account of connotation: because, when it is said that God can do something, it is simultaneously implied that that thing is possible for Him, and consequently, that it has nothing repugnant to the divine power, wisdom, and goodness, such that it could not be produced into being, with every nobility of the divine power preserved.

13. 14. To that which is objected concerning knowledge, it must be said that when God is said to know something, this can be understood in two ways: either because He has cognition of it, or because He judges it to be true. In the first way, the knowing of God does not connote the existence of truth in the thing known; and in this way, whatever He knew He knows, because He has knowledge of everything of which He had knowledge from eternity. In the second way, it connotes truth regarding the thing known: and in this way, He does not know whatever He knew, just as He does not do whatever He did; and this not on account of a change on the part of the knower, but only on the part of the thing known.

And through this the response to that which is consequently objected concerning the truth of the thing known is clear: because the divine knowing posits truth in the thing known according to one acceptation, not according to another, as is clear through the distinction previously given.

15. To that which is objected on the part of the divine will: it must be said that a proximate and immediate cause is spoken of in three ways: either with respect to substance, or disposition, or act: by reason of substance, between which and the effect no other mediating causing substance falls; by reason of disposition, to which no new disposition is added for producing the effect; but by reason of act, because it is conjoined to the act itself. But the divine act is taken in two ways, namely as within and as effecting something without. The divine will is therefore the proximate and immediate cause of things to be produced by reason of substance and disposition and intrinsic act, but not by reason of exterior efficiency except for that time for which it wills. And the divine will has this because it is at once most omnipotent and most free: and therefore, although from eternity it willed to produce the world, because nevertheless it did not will that the production of the world should be from eternity, but only in time: hence it is that it produced in time, no change having been made in the will, and the effect began without the cause beginning. And that which is objected concerning the proximate and immediate cause is understood of that which is a proximate and immediate cause according to the threefold reason stated above.

16. To that which is objected, that God, who wills something, can not-will it: it must be said that the divine willing connotes a respect and order to some future thing, and that future thing can be or not be without change, as was said before in the principal solution: hence it is that with respect to contingent futures God can be called willing or not willing, no change whatsoever having been made in the one willing.

17. To that which is objected, that God is an agent according to will in such a way that His operation is configured to His will, etc.; it must be said that an agent according to will is twofold: one, whose will is determined to some particular thing willed, such that it does not simultaneously and at once bear upon the universality of its effects, but now wills this, now that—and in this agent according to will, what is objected holds true. The other is an agent according to will whose will bears upon everything that wisdom has disposed by dictating; and such an agent, just as it disposed simultaneously all things that are produced successively, so that the disposition itself does not vary according to the variation of things to be produced, so also the will, which is entirely consonant with that disposition, remains unchanged. Whence, just as the divine art and divine counsel, according to which diverse things are made and commanded, always remains unchanged in itself, so also the divine good pleasure always remains unchanged, although those things that proceed from it are changed—for the reason that it simultaneously and at once and eternally and immutably regards all things that are eternally produced, just as also art, reason and exemplar, word and wisdom and other similar things: in which no variation occurs on account of change made in things outside, with respect to which there is in God absolutely no dependence, although all things depend upon His wisdom and will and power as upon a cause most noble, most stable, most sufficient, primary, and supreme.

ARTICLE II.


Whether trinity and supreme immutability stand together.

Next it is asked whether trinity and supreme immutability stand together. And that they are incompossible appears as follows.

1. It is impossible for a species to exist without a genus; but generation or production is a species of motion or change: therefore where there is generation, there is change; but trinity does not exist except because one person proceeds from another through generation: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, generation in creatures signifies relation and signifies change, and more essentially and principally signifies change than relation; but it cannot be posited in the supreme Trinity without relation, otherwise it would not signify true distinction: therefore by equal or stronger reason it cannot be posited without change.

3. Likewise, it is impossible for there to be or to be understood any corruption without change: but generation or production is directly opposed to corruption, because just as the latter tends toward non-being, so the former tends toward being: therefore it is nowhere without change: therefore neither in the divine persons.

4. Likewise, if something follows upon something, then with the same addition it still follows in both cases; but it follows: there is generation in time, therefore change in time: therefore by equal or stronger reason, generation in eternity entails change in eternity: therefore it does not stand together with immutability.

5. Furthermore, Augustine says that it follows: if the Holy Spirit could be begotten, He could be changed. Therefore in the divine persons, to be begotten entails to be changed, and therefore it cannot stand together with its opposite. But its opposite is supreme immutability. Therefore, etc.

6. Furthermore, if there is production in the divine persons, it is either by necessity or by will. If by necessity, then there is not supreme liberality nor power there. If by will, then what is produced can fail to be produced, and therefore fail to exist, and thereby be changed. Therefore the same as before.

7. Furthermore, what is repugnant to something on account of an imperfect state is much more strongly so according to a perfect state. But in creatures there is only a half-full immutability, and yet in perpetual and incorporeal substances there cannot be multiplication through the production of like from like. Therefore neither can there be in God.

8. Furthermore, what is repugnant to the cause is repugnant to the effect. But the reason why generative power was given to things is "on account of their being far distant from the First and on account of corruption." Therefore, if supreme immutability is repugnant to corruption, then also to production through generation. The minor is proved through the Philosopher.

9. Furthermore, it is impossible that God should produce something from another's substance without the change of that substance. But God has as much power over other things as over Himself or concerning Himself. Therefore neither can He produce from His own substance without the change of His own substance. Therefore, if the Trinity is through production, etc.

10. Furthermore, nothing recedes further from the notion of mutability than something, and therefore also the production of a thing from nothing more than the production from something. For nothing is in no way mutable. But it is impossible for something to be produced from nothing without its mutability. Therefore likewise from something.

11. Furthermore, according to the order of understanding, form is simpler and prior to supposit, and nature to person. But it is impossible for any form to be produced from something without the change of itself and of that from which it comes. Therefore by equal reasoning it is impossible for a supposit or person to be produced without change.

12. Furthermore, as part relates to part, so whole relates to whole. But if the Father were to produce the Son from a part of the substance, the substance would necessarily be changed according to that part. Therefore, since He produces from the whole, the substance itself must necessarily be changed according to the whole. Therefore, etc.

On the contrary: 1. The production of person from person in the Trinity is compatible with supreme simplicity, as is clear from the preceding arguments. But where there is supreme simplicity, there is invariability and immutability in every way. Therefore the Trinity and the emanation befitting it are not repugnant to immutability.

2. Furthermore, the emanation of person from person is compatible with supreme actuality. But where there is supreme actuality, there is immutability in every way, because "motion is the actuality of a being in potency," and everything mutable is in some way possible. But what is compatible with the antecedent is necessarily compatible with the consequent. Therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, in supreme eternity there can be no variability, because every motion involves a before and after, either in time or in nature; but the trinity of persons and their production is compatible with eternity: therefore with supreme immutability.

4. Likewise, "in the category of relation there is no motion"; but it is relation that constitutes the trinity and plurality of persons, according to what Boethius says: "Relation multiplies the Trinity"; therefore it is impossible on this account to posit change or motion there: therefore it is compatible with supreme immutability.

5. Likewise, in that in which being produced and having been produced are simultaneous, there is no before and after, neither in duration nor in nature nor in reality: but this is found in every change: therefore, etc.

6. Likewise, it is possible for God to produce a creature without any change in himself, because he produces by himself: therefore similarly the Father can produce a person without change to his person or nature: therefore by equal reasoning the Son can also be produced without change: therefore production does not compel anything there to be changed.

7. Likewise, God understands himself without any change in himself; but by understanding himself he speaks, and by speaking he generates the Word: therefore without any change he generates the Word, and by equal reasoning spirates the Holy Spirit: therefore, etc.

CONCLUSION.


The trinity of persons is compatible with supreme immutability.

I respond: It must be said that the trinity of persons, which exists in the divine through the emanation of one from another, is compatible with supreme immutability.

And the reason for this is twofold, namely supreme eternity and supreme simplicity. Supreme eternity does not allow any change to exist there; supreme simplicity does not allow anything changeable to exist there. If therefore the trinity exists with simplicity and eternity; and where there is eternity, there is no change, and where there is supreme simplicity, nothing is changeable: and with these removed, all mutability is taken away: necessarily the trinity and supreme immutability coexist.

And this is evident as follows. For where there is eternity, nothing is beginning, nothing is succeeding: therefore no inception, no succession, no failing. But every change is either from non-being to being, or from being to non-being, or from one mode of being to another mode of being; but change toward being is not without inception, change from being is not without failing, change in being cannot be without some kind of succession, because it is not without variation. Therefore eternity excludes every change; but eternity is compatible with the trinity: therefore in the excellence of the Trinity there is no change by reason of eternity.

Nothing mutable is present by reason of simplicity. For there is there the highest simplicity of nature and of person and of both compared to each other. On account of the simplicity of nature, there can be no division in that from which production comes: on account of the simplicity of person, there can be no composition in what is produced; by reason of simplicity in both, there can be no separation from the productive principle. From this, therefore, it is gathered that nothing there is mutable, neither he who is produced, nor he who produces, nor that from which he is produced. For from the fact that there is no casting off of what is had on the part of the principle, nor introduction of anything new on the part of what is produced, nor division of the undivided on the part of the foundation from which production is understood to occur, neither materially nor causally, but substantially; there is nothing that can be changed.

If, therefore, the highest Trinity is understood in the highest simplicity and eternity, it is necessarily fitting that it be equally understood as consisting in every manner of immutability.

Furthermore, since actual immutability together with the highest simplicity and eternity posits the highest actuality, and the highest actuality is through the full turning of the same upon itself by understanding and loving, and understanding includes the Word, and love includes the Bond: just as it is not only not repugnant to the immutability of the first principle to understand and love itself, but rather is consonant with it, so it is not repugnant, indeed it is consonant, to generate the Word and to spirate Love. For both belong to it immutably and always in act. Therefore, if immutability is rightly understood, it not only does not exclude, but includes the most blessed Trinity: and this because the supremely immutable must necessarily be simple, eternal, and actual according to the fullness of unbounded and perfect actuality.

Hence the arguments that are on this side must be conceded.

1. To that, therefore, which is first objected to the contrary, that where there is generation, there is change: it must be said that this is true in creatures, where generation is the passage from being in potency to being in act, where also consequently there is change, because what is generated is disposed otherwise now than before. But it is otherwise in the divine, because there the generation is one of every manner of actuality, both on the part of the principle and the terminus and the production itself and that from which the production occurs. Hence because there is no acquisition of new being there, and yet there is a reception of true and actual and sempiternal being; therefore, although there is true production, there is nevertheless no true change there.

2. To that which is objected, that generation implies change and relation: it must be said that those things which are in creatures, if they are posited in the Creator, ought to be posited according to that which they have of completeness, not according to that which they have of incompleteness. Motion and change always imply incompleteness, but relation implies in most cases a complement, especially that relation which signifies origin among the most noble things without any dependence: and in this manner in that eternal production.

3. To that which is objected, that corruption cannot be understood without change: it must be said that it is not similar, because corruption denotes the loss of being, which indeed cannot be understood unless it comes after being previously possessed; and on this account it necessarily includes change, which can only exist in a thing that is mutable and variable on account of the defect that it denotes. But generation is the giving or receiving of being through consubstantiality; and this can pertain to the most noble and most actual being, because it denotes no defect, and on this account it does not necessarily include change, as corruption does. For corruption is not opposed to such generation, but only to that which exists in a creature, which indeed corruption in a certain way follows and in a certain way precedes. "For the generation of one thing is the corruption of another," as the Philosopher says.

4. To that which is objected, that generation in time posits change in time, and therefore generation in eternity implies change in eternity: it must be said that that mode of inference holds where there is no qualifying determination that draws apart; but it is not so in the present case, because generation in eternity is of a different mode than generation in time, as has been said: it does not come about from a being in potency, as does that which is measured by time. And therefore it does not follow that if motion accompanies the latter, it also accompanies the former; indeed, rather the opposite follows.

5. To that which is objected, that if the Holy Spirit were generated, He would be changed: it must be said that that argument follows, not because to be generated is to be changed, but because, when what need not be is posited, what need not be results. For if it is posited that the Holy Spirit, who receives being through spiration, which really differs from generation, were to receive being by way of generation, it is necessarily posited that He would pass from one mode of emanating to another really different mode; and thus it is necessarily posited that He would be changed, not because those modes of originating or emanating denote motions or changes, but because the transition from one to another cannot be understood without motion. And since change is not admitted in the divine being, hence it is that it is impossible for the person who is produced through spiration to be generated. And hence it is that although the Father generates and spirates, He is nevertheless not changed, because these two stand simultaneously with respect to the person of the Father, namely to spirate and to generate, nor is it necessary to pass from one to the other. But these two modes cannot simultaneously belong to the same produced person; and on this account, if per impossibile it is understood to be posited with respect to any of those persons, by the same impossibility motion is also posited, because the mode of being produced is posited to vary.

6. To that which is objected, namely that production in the divine is either by necessity or by will: it must be said that, as will appear more clearly in the question concerning necessity, there it is in a certain way by necessity and in a certain way by will. For it is not by the necessity of coaction, but of immutability: not by a will that chooses, but by a will sempiternally accepting, according to which the one producing is well-pleased with himself in the most noble production and is also delighted. And therefore it does not follow that there can be there any variation of mutability or restriction of power, because at once he who is produced is produced necessarily, freely, and powerfully.

7. To that which is objected, that the immutability of a creature excludes generation, as is evident in the Angel, and therefore also in God; it must be said that this does not hold, because a creature in generating cannot give its whole substance, on account of the fact that it falls short of supreme simplicity and actuality and communicability; therefore it is impossible that anything be generated from its substance without it being changed. But it is otherwise in the matter at hand, as has been said above, because the one generating in the divine does not give to the one generated a part of his essence, but gives the whole essence, most simple and perfect.

It could nevertheless be said that even a spiritual creature has an intrinsic generation, which indeed is that of the word from the mind, which among all created things most fully bears the likeness of eternal generation.

8. To that which is objected, that the cause of generation and corruption is to be far distant from the First: it must be said that this is not the whole reason. For man, if he had remained in the state of innocence, would never have been corrupted, and yet he would have generated. Whence generation is rather from the supreme perfection and fecundity and actuality of the first principle itself, than it is for the supplementing of the defect of corruption of the productive principle itself. Therefore the Philosopher speaks of the cause of generation according to the state of deficient nature, not generally and according to the mode of that most complete generation, which is the origin of all production. For the generator of the species constituted all these things, and he himself, who bestows generation upon others, cannot be sterile, according to what is said in the last chapter of Isaiah.

9. To that which is objected, that God cannot produce something from any creature without the alteration of that creature: it must be said that it is not similar: because, since a creature is mutable and not altogether simple, when something is posited to be produced from it, it is posited consequently to be altered, because that which is given and that which is received and the intermediate act cannot be the same there through every manner of indifference: but in the divine it is altogether the opposite, as is manifestly clear from the preceding.

10. To that which is objected, that nothing can be produced from nothing without change: it must be said that this is not analogous, because nothing can be produced from nothing without having being after non-being, and without also having being from a principle that is essentially different. Whence, although nothing is not mutable of itself, nevertheless the eduction by which something that previously was not a being is made a being necessarily posits inception and change. But this is not so regarding that production by which a person is produced from the eternal substance of the eternally producing person, because there neither is another being received anew, nor does anything begin, and consequently neither is anything altered.

11. To that which is objected, that a form cannot be produced without change, therefore neither can a supposit: it must be said that this is not analogous, because the production of a form implies a substantial difference between the producer and the product; for nothing produces itself. And therefore, when a form is produced, it is necessary that it be produced by another form, which, since it is other than it, will truly be the producing cause and naturally prior to the produced form itself; and therefore in that production it is necessary that change be included. But this is not so in the production of a supposit or person, for the reason that there is one nature and essence in both, and therefore they are simultaneous; nor is there change or motion, because there is neither prior nor posterior nor anything new.

12. To that which is objected, that as part is related to part, so whole is related to whole: it must be said that in the divine persons there is properly neither part nor whole, according as whole is said of that which contains part and part. Nor does it follow that, if a thing produced from a part posits change in the part, similarly a thing produced from the whole substance would posit change with respect to the whole; because, as was touched upon before, production from a part posits a cutting off, posits the loss of something and the acquisition of something, which necessarily include change. But production from the whole substance implies nothing of this sort; rather, it excludes everything upon which motion follows, as was shown in the principal solution. For neither is there a cutting off in the producing principle, nor composition in the product, nor innovation in the production, nor any variation regarding any of the aforesaid.