n--are called personal
properties, constituting as it were the persons; for paternity is the
person of the Father, filiation is the person of the Son, procession
is the person of the Holy Ghost proceeding.

Reply Obj. 2: That which proceeds by way of intelligence, as word,
proceeds according to similitude, as also that which proceeds by way
of nature; thus, as above explained (Q. 27, A. 3), the procession of
the divine Word is the very same as generation by way of nature. But
love, as such, does not proceed as the similitude of that whence it
proceeds; although in God love is co-essential as being divine; and
therefore the procession of love is not called generation in God.

Reply Obj. 3: As man is more perfect than other animals, he has more
intrinsic operations than other animals, because his perfection is
something composite. Hence the angels, who are more perfect and more
simple, have fewer intrinsic operations than man, for they have no
imagination, or feeling, or the like. In God there exists only one
real operation--that is, His essence. How there are in Him two
processions was above explained (Q. 27, AA. 1, 4).

Reply Obj. 4: This argument would prove if the Holy Ghost possessed
another goodness apart from the goodness of the Father; for then if
the Father produced a divine person by His goodness, the Holy Ghost
also would do so. But the Father and the Holy Ghost have one and the
same goodness. Nor is there any distinction between them except by
the personal relations. So goodness belongs to the Holy Ghost, as
derived from another; and it belongs to the Father, as the principle
of its communication to another. The opposition of relation does not
allow the relation of the Holy Ghost to be joined with the relation
of principle of another divine person; because He Himself proceeds
from the other persons who are in God.

Reply Obj. 5: A determinate number, if taken as a simple number,
existing in the mind only, is measured by one. But when we speak of a
number of things as applied to the persons in God, the notion of
measure has no place, because the magnitude of the three persons is
the same (Q. 42, AA. 1, 4), and the same is not measured by the same.
_______________________

THIRD ARTICLE [I, Q. 30, Art. 3]

Whether the Numeral Terms Denote Anything Real in God?

Objection 1: It would seem that the numeral terms denote something
real in God. For the divine unity is the divine essence. But every
number is