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Duns Scotus on What Constitutes Personeity
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duns scotus on WHat constitutEs PErsonEity †allan B. WoltEr, o.F.M. As I looked for a theological topic where I could make use of information I have about Duns Scotus that has not yet been made available to the general public, I chose the topic of Trinitarian personeity, that is to say, what precisely constitutes a person in the Trinity. I know that recently theologians have questioned the aptness of using ‘person’ in the Trinity.1 For it differs so radically from what we ordinarily understand by a person,2 namely, an individual human being. That is the primary definition given by Webster’s Third International Dictionary. Yet we need to recall historically that ‘person’ is a distinctively Christian notion. It is not found, for example, in Aristotle. The idea of an individual subject responsible for its own acts sufficed for the Stagirite.3 1 Lawrence B. Porter, O.P. gives a good summary of the controversy between Karl Barth and Karl Rahner in his article “On Keeping ‘Persons’ in the Trinity; A Linguistic Approach to Trinitarian Thought,” in Theological Studies 41 (1980): 530-48. 2 Porter (531) emphasizes the vagueness of the term and cites various opinions of its origin. He concludes with this observation: “… it now seems that the Latin persona is linked to the Etruscan persu, a word found written beside two masked figures. Whatever may be the true origin, we know that persona was used to translate the Greek prosopon, meaning countenance or face, but originally designated the mask worn by an actor. From this it was applied to the role assumed and finally to any character on ‘the stage of life.’” 3 Aristotle dealt with it under the notion of ousia, which Boethius translated as ‘substance.’ Substance in its primary sense was the individual, something linguistic philosophers stress can only be properly named or pointed to (ostensive definition). In a secondary sense, substance was the basic category (defined properly in terms of genus and specific difference). Words Made Flesh: essays honoring Kenan osborne 30 It was Tertullian,4 I believe, who first suggested the Latin term persona as a fitting name for the individual persons in the Trinity . And Webster’s Dictionary admits this theological usage (especially if Person is capitalized) in its third set of definitions, viz.: “One of the three modes of being5 in the Godhead as understood by Trinitarians.” It is the English equivalent, the dictionary goes on to say of the Greek term: “hypostasis.” The other definition given here is: “the unitary personality of Christ that unites the divine and human natures.” The problem Scotus discusses, coming as he does in a university setting where all theologians are Christian trinitarians, is quite different. It is whether what constitutes a person is something purely relative or something absolute. The first alternative he admits is the common view. It was admirably couched by Augustine6 in what became a kind of theological axiom, namely that whatever is said of the Trinitarian persons absolutely is common, what is distinctively trinitarian is the opposition of relationships , namely paternity versus sonship, and passive spiration versus active spiration. Three of the termini or subjects of these relationships of origin represent distinct supposits or persons . The third terminus, active spiration, according to “filioque” tradition to which Scotus belongs, is a shared property of Father and Son. Philosophers have no trouble in understanding the possibility of triadic relationships, involving three distinct persons. What they do have trouble in understanding, however, is that the subjects of these relationships are essentially constituted exclusively by their relationships.7 Relationships require as a logi4 Tertullian, Adversus Praxean Liber, text and translation by Ernest Evans (London: SPCK, 1948). 5 “Modes of being” is considered to be a Barthian term, see K. Barth, The Doctrine of the Word of God, tr. G.W. Bromley (Edinburgh, 1975), 355. James of Viterbo uses the term, however, and Scotus himself is aware of this usage. See Balić, Adnotationes, 21*-22* in vol. 6 of the Vatican edition of Duns Scotus, Opera omnia (hereafter abbreviated as Vat.). 6 Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, V, c. 9 (PL 42, 916-17); see also De Trinitate, VIII, proemium (947). 7 Though second or higher order relationships can exist between relationships themselves as subjects, philosophically speaking, primary relationships require ultimately subjects which are not relations, and in that sense, abso- [44.222.249.19] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 03:34 GMT) allan Wolter 31 cal precondition subjects (or relata), and ultimately a...