Week 1 Course Material

Course Slides and Readings

Before the first session, please read:

• Question 27 of the Prima Pars. Links here and here. Focus on the responses (i.e., part beginning with "I answer that," or "I respond"). Please reflect on the articles therein and bring any questions or comments to class.

Further Reading

Optional reading:

• “Essence and Existence, God’s Simplicity and Trinity,” by Thomas Joseph White. Chapter three in The New Cambridge Companion to Aquinas. Link here.

• Chapter four, "Processions," in The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas, by Gilles Emery. Link here.

Assignment

After the first session, write 300 words in response to one of the following:

1. Give a brief outline of two major influences on Aquinas and their works. Cite places in Aquinas's texts where he references them.

2. Briefly describe each of the five notions. Refer to a text in Aquinas where he talks about them.

3. What is the etymology of the word "notion"? Why is it a suitable word to be employed in Trinitarian theology?

4. How many processions are there in God? How are they described in Scripture?

5. Outline the difference between the order in which we come to know the Persons, relations, and processions in the Trinity, and the order of doctrine (ordo doctrinae).

6. What are the immanent processions of a spiritual being? Why are these most suitable when speaking of the Persons in God?

7. Explain why there are five notions but only four relations in Aquinas's Trinitarian theology.

8. Explain why there are four relations but only three Persons in Aquinas's Trinitarian theology.

9. Explain why there are three Persons but only two processions in Aquinas's Trinitarian theology.

10. What did Arius and Sabellius get wrong about the Trinity with respect to God's action? How does Aquinas correct these errors?