Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Gott - individuum vagum; Beispiel Sokrates: Gattung, Art, Individuum unbestimm (Person), bestimmt

Kurzinhalt: QUESTION 13 -- What does the word 'person' mean in regard to God?; Still, there is this difference between the word 'person' as applied to God and as applied to humans, that it is applied to the latter as a universal, ...

Textausschnitt: QUESTION 13 -- What does the word 'person' mean in regard to God?

333c In God, 'person' signifies an individual in an indeterminate sense, an individuum vagum.1

To understand this, let us begin with Socrates, whose genus is animal, whose species is human, whose determinate individuality is to be Socrates, but whose individuality in an indeterminate sense is to be a person. Note that generic and specific predicates, even when used in the singular, as 'this animal,' 'this man,' are applied to Socrates by reason of the nature of a rational animal and signify this nature of Socrates. But terms referring to individuals, such as 'Socrates' or 'person,' directly signify a subsistent and indirectly the nature in which the individual subsists. Finally, there is this difference between a determinate individual and an individual in an indeterminate sense, that 'person' is predicated of Socrates or of Plato or of Aristotle, but 'Socrates' is said only of Socrates. (Fs)

333d Accordingly, in God, 'Father,' 'Son,' and 'Spirit' name determinate individuals, while 'person' names an individual indeterminately. But neither in divinity nor in humanity is there anything indeterminate that exists in reality, and therefore the common element that 'person' signifies is what is common according to a formality, namely, the formality of a distinct subsistent in an intellectual nature. Still, there is this difference between the word 'person' as applied to God and as applied to humans, that it is applied to the latter as a universal, since it is predicated of many who differ in their acts of existence, whereas it is applied to the divine Three who nevertheless have but one act of existence. (Fs) (notabene)