Person and essence

Gilles Emery writes concerning Thomas’s view of essence and person in the Trinity, defending Thomas against Rahnerian-style charges: “There is . . . not ‘derivation’ of persons from an essential act in Thomas. This observation clarifies anew the structure of the treatise on God: the distinction of the two sections of the treatise (what concerns the essence, then what concerns the distinction of persons) does not express a separation between a treatise on a ‘monopersonal’ God and a treatise on God the Trinity, nor a conception of the essence which opens up into a plurality. In reality, it prevents the derivation of the persons from the essence: it is to relation, and not to essence in its proper formality, that the manifestation of the plurality in God belongs. The pivot of this structure is, once again, the doctrine of relation, since only this opposed relation according to origin allows for the introduction of the aspect of plurality in God.”

This is an intriguing argument, and it perhaps works in the way Emery suggests – namely, as a way to prevent the notion that persons are derived from essence. But the treatment of the common essence as a prelude to a discussion of the distinction of persons still seems methodologically flawed. That still leaves open the option of working out a theology of God’s essence without a conscious recognition that this essence is hypostatized as Father, Son, and Spirit.