question from a different side. They have never troubled much about metaphysics; subtle questions concerning simplicity and composition, the absolute and relative, or the principle of distinction in the Blessed Trinity, do not mean very much to them. They begin with the very firm conviction that God the Father, and the Father only, is the source of all things, "from whom all Fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph. iii. 15). He is the cause of all things, and they say that he is the cause (αἱτία) of God the Son and the Holy Ghost[1] — an expression that has always sounded wrong to Latin theologians. From this one principle or cause the other Persons of the Trinity derive the Divine nature from all eternity; creatures derive their natures in time, but all from the one cause only, from God the Father.[2] God the Son derives his Divine nature from the Father by generation, God the Holy Ghost derives it from the same Father by his procession, but only from the Father. If we say that he derives it also from the Son, we set up two principles or causes in God, we destroy the faith by which the Father alone is the cause of all things, and we undermine the unity of God by establishing a double source, instead of the one only root and cause and beginning of Divinity, which is the Father. Moreover, we should thus confuse the properties which are special to the three Persons. The incommunicable property of the Father is that he is the source; because of this he is distinguished from the others. The property of the Son is to be born, and of the Holy Ghost to proceed. No one of these properties can be shared by another Person without confusing the truth of their distinction. And so the Son cannot share the property of being a source (of the Holy Ghost) with the Father, any more than the Holy Ghost can share the
- ↑ A number of Greek Fathers say this, e.gr. St. John Damascene, de fide orth. i. 10, &c.
- ↑ The Latin theologians deny this at once. In all relations to creatures God acts by his one simple essence; in this regard the three Persons are not distinguished, but only in their mutual relations. God is the cause of all things, the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, not the Father only.
