Person is Relation?

An Explanation...

It is quite common in Eastern Orthodox circles to oppose the idea that persona relationem significat, i.e., “person signifies relation.” Unfortunately, many of the critiques are leveled at caricatures that could be simply resolved by an explanation of the sense of the affirmation.

Recently, I was translating through Billuart’s Summa Summae (already posted on Patreon, here, will be posted on my Complete Course in Thomistic Theology soon) and thought it would be helpful to give a few helpful notes from this work.

In the fourth question of the first article, Billuart treats the question “what is signified in divinis [by] this name ‘Person’?’”

Now, you would think that he would jump on this question and answer “relation!” But, his answer is quite different from what you would expect according to the ordinary Orthodox polemic. He answers that “person…in divinis signifies relation, not as it is formally and explicity a relation (or, in its respect to the terminus), BUT AS IT SUBSISTS SUBSTANTIALLY.” Shocking, right? From this, he draws the obvious conclusion that, due to this, the name “person” is not a relative, but an absolute name: “the name ‘person’ is said of God (de divinis) NOT AS A RELATIVE NAME, but an absolute name, because it signifies relation, not as it is formally relation (or, by a relative mode), but by a subsistent mode.”

Very interesting! So, it is quite more complicated of a teaching than many would initially realize.

In the second article, he treats this question at a greater length, refuting any opposing position and vindicating the true position. Yet, the most interesting part is the beginning where the notae are listed which explain the thesis that will be stated in the dico.

The first note is relatively straightforward and we all remember it from our first readings of Trintiarian theology. Relation imports a two-fold concept, in and ad. For something to be “in” another is common to all accidents. Ad is what is unique to relation insofar as relation indicates an order to another, i.e., some terminus.

In divinis, the in is different from the in that is present among created things. For, unlike created accidents, the in of a Divine relation does not import inherence, but subsistence. Created accidents inhere in some other subject (or, at least is apt to do so), in divinis relations simply subsist, they do not “inhere in” the Divine Essence as an accident inheres in a subject. Hence why the Divine Relations are really identical to the Divine Essence rather than forming some sort of composition with the Divine Essence.

Now, here is the tricky part. Most people remember the ad of the relations, but they will often think about it too much in a “completionist” sense, only thinking of the reference to the terminus rather than also that which is presupposed to such a reference. In the concept of ad, we are able to distinguish two rationes. First, the ratio of relative entity in se as affecting the subject as that by which (ut quo). This is known as the relation in actu signato or the formae afficientis subiectum. Second, the ratio of the exercise itself, and as actually referring to the terminus as that which (ut quod). This is the relation in actu exercito or sub conceptu formae exercitae referentis. While these are temporally simultanoues, there is a certain logical priority and posteriority going on there. The former is that by which the subject is ordered to the terminus whereas the latter is the actual ordering to the terminus. Clearly, the former is logically prior to the latter.

From this perspective, it is easy to see how absurd many of the critiques of this scholastic doctrine end up being. Lossky writes “The relationships, instead of being characteristics of the hypostases, are identified with them…” How can this not be absurd under a fair understanding of the doctrine? We do not believe that the relations constitute the persons as actually referring to the terminus (i.e., in actu exercito) since this very referentiality would assume the person as already constituted (Billuart, sic enim supponit personam, et sequitur ad generationem). This is the same reason why active or passive origin cannot formally constitute the persons as persons. Rather, we affirm that relation constitutes the person in actu signato, i.e., insofar as it is some subsistent form, logically presupposed to the exercise of the relation, which is something that is absolute, as stated above.