mmon to horse and ox. Both of
these explanations, however, are excluded by the fact that "person" is
not a name of exclusion nor of intention, but the name of a reality.
We must therefore resolve that even in human affairs this name
"person" is common by a community of idea, not as genus or species,
but as a vague individual thing. The names of genera and species, as
man or animal, are given to signify the common natures themselves, but
not the intentions of those common natures, signified by the terms
genus or species. The vague individual thing, as "some man,"
signifies the common nature with the determinate mode of existence of
singular things--that is, something self-subsisting, as distinct from
others. But the name of a designated singular thing signifies that
which distinguishes the determinate thing; as the name Socrates
signifies this flesh and this bone. But there is this
difference--that the term "some man" signifies the nature, or the
individual on the part of its nature, with the mode of existence of
singular things; while this name "person" is not given to signify the
individual on the part of the nature, but the subsistent reality in
that nature. Now this is common in idea to the divine persons, that
each of them subsists distinctly from the others in the divine nature.
Thus this name "person" is common in idea to the three divine persons.

Reply Obj. 1: This argument is founded on a real community.

Reply Obj. 2: Although person is incommunicable, yet the mode itself
of incommunicable existence can be common to many.

Reply Obj. 3: Although this community is logical and not real, yet it
does not follow that in God there is universal or particular, or
genus, or species; both because neither in human affairs is the
community of person the same as community of genus or species; and
because the divine persons have one being; whereas genus and species
and every other universal are predicated of many which differ in
being.
_______________________

QUESTION 31

OF WHAT BELONGS TO THE UNITY OR PLURALITY IN GOD
(In Four Articles)

We now consider what belongs to the unity or plurality in God; which
gives rise to four points of inquiry:

(1) Concerning the word "Trinity";

(2) Whether we can say that the Son is other than the Father?

(3) Whether an exclusive term, which seems to exclude otherness, can
be joined to an essential name in God?

(4) Whether it can be joined to a personal term?
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