"It is because the contemporary alternatives seem so one-sided and are not more evidently solutions to the problems which Thomas faced, and partly solved, that we return to him and to the tradition of theology and philosophy in which his Summa Theologiae appears: theology as the science of the first principle and this as the total knowledge of reality in its unity." -- Wayne J. Hankey, God in Himself (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.159.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Q28 A3: Whether the relations in God are really distinguished from each other?
Yes. There must be real distinction in God, not, indeed, according to that which is absolute (namely, essence, wherein there is supreme unity and simplicity) but according to that which is relative because if the relations were not really distinguished from each other, there would be no real trinity in God, but only an ideal trinity (which is the error of Sabellius).