The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas - El Camino ...

Appropriation 323
certain order amongst themselves. But whereas, in the case of the properties,
distinction and order are real, they are purely conceptual (‘according to
reason’) in the case of the essential attributes. Thomas thus says that,
The [appropriated] essential attributes do not open the way to a suYcient knowledge
of the persons. Nonetheless, we observe in the appropriated [attributes] some kind of
likeness to the persons, and this is how an appropriation has the quality of a disclosure
of the faith, however imperfect.41
What kind of ‘likeness’ to the divine persons do the essential attributes
need to have if they are to ‘disclose the faith’? Thomas’ analysis develops those
of his predecessors: the very notion of the appropriable attribute must present
a kinship with the character of one person; in addition, the appropriated
essential attributes must be distinct, as Albert indicated, and they must have
an internal order and indicate origin, as Bonaventure speciWed.
On the one hand, tracking St Albert’s meditation, Thomas pinpoints the
fact that, even though they belong to the reality of the God who is simple, the
essential attributes are diVerent in their ‘notion’ or ‘rationale’.42 As Thomas
explains it in an addendum which he slipped into his Commentary after Wrst
writing it, this diVerence of ‘rationale’ does not just exist reXexively in the
theologian’s mind, but ‘Xows from the character of the reality itself’. The
plurality of distinct essential attributes is tied to the incomprehensibility of
the God who surpasses our understanding, but what we recognize in these
divine attributes is authentically divine, for they really exist in God (God is
eternal, powerful, one, wise, good, in the mode of unity). Thomas aYrms
that,
The plurality of these ‘rationales’ [of divine attributes] does not only exist from the
perspective of our human minds, but also from within God himself, in so far as his
perfection transcends every conception we can think of. This is why there is indeed
something which corresponds within the reality of God to the plurality of these
‘rationales’: not a real plurality, but a plenitude of perfection, from which it follows
that all these ‘rationales’ of attributes are authentically attributed to him.43
The plurality of divine attributes is thus also founded ‘from the standpoint
of the divine reality itself’.44 We are certainly not in the order of personal
properties, where the plurality is real, but this point is very important,
because it is the ground of the value of the appropriation of the essential
attributes that, since they also authenticate some kind of distinction and
plurality ‘from the standpoint of the reality’, they are Wtted to ‘disclosing’ a
distinction and a plurality.
41 Thomas, I Sent. d. 31, q. 1, a. 2. 42 Ibid., ad 2.
43 I Sent. d.2,q.1,a.3. 44 I Sent. d.2,q.1,a.3.