Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Große - kleine begriffliche Unterscheidung zw. göttlicher Substanz und Relationen; Lösung: Unterschied zw. Philosophie und Theologie im Erkennen Gottes

Kurzinhalt: QUESTION 8 -- Is it by a major or a minor conceptual distinction that the divine substance is distinguished from the divine relations and, conversely, ...

Textausschnitt: QUESTION 8
Is it by a major or a minor conceptual distinction that the divine substance is distinguished from the divine relations and, conversely, that the divine relations are distinguished from the divine substance?

Terminology
295a distinct: one is not the other. (Fs)

conceptual distinction: the concept of one is not the concept of the other.

major or adequate conceptual distinction: the concept of one does not actually express the concept of the other, even implicitly.

minor or inadequate conceptual distinction: at least implicitly the concept of one actually expresses the concept of the other.

substance: that to which it is proper to be through itself.

divine substance: pure act.

relation: the order of one to another; that to which it is proper to be to another.

divine relations: paternity, filiation, active spiration, passive spiration. (Fs)

Opinions
295b Among those who defend a major distinction in both cases are Ferrariensis, Toletus, Molina, Vasquez, Billot, Buonpensiere, and Boyer.1 (Fs)

Others hold for a minor distinction in both cases: perhaps Cajetan, certainly John of St Thomas, and Galtier.2
Still others, such as Suarez and Ruiz, hold that the divine substance is distinct from the relations by a major distinction, but the relations are distinct from the substance by a minor distinction. (Fs)

295c Note that this is an open question, lacking any theological note. (Fs)

Solution
297a Since every concept proceeds from an act of understanding and expresses what is grasped by understanding, the determination of what is expressed in a concept proceeds remotely from the object of understanding and proximately from the act of understanding itself. (Fs) (notabene)

Moreover, when different authors affirm that concepts are different, their acts of understanding are no doubt different, as well as the formal objects of these acts. (Fs)

297b The present question, therefore, seems to require only that we explain from which acts of understanding concerning which formal objects the different concepts of different authors proceed. (Fs)

297c First of all, then, there is the case in which the formal object is the divine reality itself as apprehended by faith and by reason enlightened by faith. This object is, indeed, a rationally conscious infinite act that is conceived by us according to the two formalities of substance and relation. In speaking of an infinite act of existence, of understanding, of conceiving, of judging, and of loving, we are referring to the divine substance. But in speaking of two rationally conscious emanations, namely, of word from speaker and of love from both, we are referring to the divine relations. From this it is clear that the relations are distinct from the substance by a minor distinction, since the rationally conscious relations cannot be had without an act of understanding, of speaking, and of loving. The substance is similarly distinct from the relations by a minor distinction; for although the natural light of human reason is not capable of grasping that an infinite act of understanding is necessarily such that it utter a word and through the uttered word spirate love, nevertheless reason enlightened by faith understands this to some extent, and in accordance with this limited understanding it does not conceive the divine substance without also at least implicitly affirming the intellectual emanations and the consequent relations. (Fs) (notabene)

297c In contrast, there is the case where the formal object is the divine reality not as understood and conceived in theology, but as understood and conceived under the wholly generic concepts of substance and relation. Now, the generic concept of substance is the concept of that to which it is proper to be through itself, and the generic concept of relation is the concept of that to which it is proper to be to another. Since the concept of substance does not actually indicate 'other,' even implicitly, it is set off from the concept of relation by a major conceptual distinction; and this major distinction is not denied by the fact that this concept taken precisely is applied to the divine reality. Similarly, the generic concept of relation explicitly indicates only that to which it is proper to be to another; and although from this concept alone one can conclude to a subject, another premise is certainly required to demonstrate that the subject is a substance. For among creatures that which is referred to another by a relation may be not only a substance but also an accident (such as a word related to the act of understanding, or love to both), or an intrinsic principle of being (such as potency related to act, and so on), or a conceptual being (such as difference related to genus); but in God, the subject that is referred to another by a relation is not the divine substance, [eg: rein unter dem Formalobjekt einer Philosphie] since the divine substance does not generate and therefore is not related to the Son, is not generated and therefore is not related to the Father, does not spirate and therefore is not related to the Spirit, and is not spirated and therefore is not related to the Father and the Son together. (Fs)

299a It is clear from this how all the opinions of the theologians have some foundation. Those who hold for a minor conceptual distinction from both sides argue from a theological understanding of the divine reality itself. But those who defend a major conceptual distinction from both sides argue from systematically defined generic concepts. Finally, those who follow a middle course seem to base their judgments on the stronger arguments of other theologians. (Fs)