New Modern Defenses for the Catholic Faith Based in the Understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas
A Visual Explanation of Triadology
Essence and Hypostasis
Let the interior of the circle above represent the divine essence in its entirety. “Essence” is “whatness,” the intrinsic properties of a thing that makes it what it is. This word is convertible with substance, nature, or quiddity in this context. Though, such an essence is superessential, incomprehensible, and unconfined to any form. God’s form is utterly formless. His essence possesses all things pertaining to being fully, perfectly, and pre-eminently. All attributes applied to God in their perfection are identical to each other in God, lest God be a composite. Such an essence cannot be contained in a finite intellect as ours. With inadequate means for out minds to reach this mystery it is appropriate to use created representations, though they fall infinitely short of the reality.
Let the border surrounding the circle represent hypostasis. Hypostasis includes individuation in essence. It does not alter essence in any way. It only posits and individual subject which the essence belongs to. This word is convertible with subject, person (rational hypostasis), or suppositum in this context.
One Essence and Three Hypostases
To accurately depict the Trinity 3-dimensionally, according to the limitations of our intellectual grasp, let us collapse these circles to represent that there is one essence while maintaining the three boarders representing three hypostases:
Once collapsed, let us blur the 3 boarders representing the three hypostases so that we do not mistakenly envision 3 essences. The tri-fold boarder will be signified by the color red:
For the sake of clarity, let us also assert that the border adds nothing to essence. Just like any attribute or property, each hypostasis is the divine essence, identical to it.
Distinguishing the Persons
Now, let us abstract the hypostases from the essence so as to distinguish them:
Since nothing is different in essence, the hypostases cannot be distinguished by something intrinsic to essence. The only accident (attribute) by which we can distinguish them must be something extrinsic to essence, that being relation, or “towardness,” to another hypostasis. If two hypostases were to not be mutually opposed by something extrinsic to essence, that being relative opposition, then they could not be distinguished except by essence.
Ordering the Persons
Each hypostasis is associated with a notion specific to its hypostasis due to its relative opposition with the others. The notions perceived do not mark anything difference in the hypostasis as it is identical to essence but hypostasis as it is relative to the others. These logical notions are the result of an order between the hypostases. The Father is first in order, the Son second, and the Spirit third. The essence, not the hypostases or any particular hypostasis, establishes the order. Therefore, production is proper to essence, not Hypostasis. However, since essence is identical to hypostasis, the hypostasis or hypostases which serve as principle in order can be said to produce. The yellow arrows represent production:
Production #1: Generation
Generation (begetting) is the essence ordering the Father and Son. This occurs prior to spiration, the second production. And since the Father and Son produced are identical to the essence, and the essence itself is that which orders (produces) the hypostases, then the Father and Son, as one essence, serve as the principle for the Holy Spirit. The mutual opposition is one of order, asserting one hypostasis or hypostases as principle and the other as terminus. Following their mutual opposition, the Father gains the constitutive property (formality) of paternity and the Son gains the formality of filiation:
Production #2: Spiration
The gray/red border represents two hypostases sharing an essence. Both the Father and the Son are now mutually opposed to the Spirit and so they gain the property of spirator. But since they both spirate, this property is not constitutive of one or the other and so no new formality is gained. The Spirit gains the formality of procession. Each person is now distinguished by virtue of the hypostasis which it is not. Moreover, each hypostasis is essentially its relation. And so the essence is itself a relation, the persons distinguished as separate relations by the order of possession of that same relational essence exhaustively. The result is 3 hypostases really and one essence common to all really:
Why Tri-unity?
God possesses all things found within creatures pre-eminently, superiorly, infinitely, and perfectly. Therefore it is necessary that distinction, rationality, and love are to be found most perfectly in the Trinity. Distinction is found transcendentally in the pure mutual oppositions that do not violate super-essential essence. Rationality is found transcendentally in the productions of God’s knowing and loving Himself exhaustively, this being analogous to our operations of knowing and loving Him discreetly in creation. Such is why He is three and not two or four, mirroring the operations of mind (memory), intellect, and will. And love is found transcendentally because it is necessary that affection requires multitude. If God truly excels the creature in every way, then He must be triune, most perfectly triune.
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Written by Matthew Shuler