From Reformation to Reformation

THESIS XXVII: Hitherto the commanding principium: the executing principium follows, which is the power of God, whereby God is able to...

THESIS XIX: In the Scripture there are various names for the divine will, which nevertheless indicate concepts, diverse to us, of...

THESIS XVIII: The principium commanding action is the will, whereby God wills Himself of Himself, and beyond Himself all things because...

THESIS XIV: Hitherto the divine properties of the first class: Of the second class are those that are applicable to God in such a way...

THESIS XI: Immutability is a property of God, which excludes from God all possibility of mutation: 1. with respect to existence; 2. ...

THESIS VI: The Properties of the divine nature, or essence, are GOD’S essential attributes, whereby the truth and majesty of the divine...

THESIS I: Hitherto the προλεγόμενα/Prolegomena of Christian Theology: now follows the explication of the body of Theology itself by...

Thesis I: The knowledge of God is defined. Thesis II: God is described. Explanation: 1. The description of God is confirmed. 2. The...

3. And so our AUTHOR joins himself with the Theologians of the preceding age; pursuing a middle way with them, he says that Personality is a positive Mode of Being, ultimately terminating and completing the substantial nature, and giving incommunicability to that. For an understanding of this description it is able to be noted: Johannes a Marck α. That Mode of Being here is opposed by our AUTHOR to Being strictly so called or Substance, which Logician say is a Thing subsistin

Personality in abstract, 1. Is not any Real Being, that is, having its own Essence or Substance: by means of which a Fourfold Essence would be imposed upon God, the one common Divine Essence, and the three others of the three Persons. Christopher Wittich 2. Personality is also not the mere Negation of Actual Communication. Thus, of course, some of the More Recent men: Wittich,[1] in his Theologia Pacifica, § CXLIX, CCXXVII, “Subsistence is thus rather to be defined, as what,

Instead of this the Greeks use πρόσωπον/face/mask/character, τρόπον ὑπάρξεως, manner/temper of existence, ὑφιστάμενον/subsistence, ὑπόστασιν/hypostasis/substance: see SUICERUS’ Thesaurum ecclesiasticum[1] on the words Πρόσωπον and Ὑπόστασις. Expositione Fidei, in JUSTIN MARTYR’S operibus, page 373, Οὐ ταὐτὸν οὖν τῷ πατρὶ ὁ υἱὸς καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον· ὅτι τὸ μὲν ἀγέννητον καὶ γεννητὸν καὶ ἐκπορευτὸν, οὐκ οὐσίας ὀνόματα, ἀλλὰ τρόποι ὑπάρξεως· ὁ δὲ τρόπος τῆς ὑπάρξεως, τοῖς ὀνό

Theater Masks Persona/Person is a Latin term, the Etymology of which now has us a little concerned. “What,” says VOSSIUS,[1] in his Etymologico Linguæ Latinæ, “if we should say that Personam/Person is from προσώπη/ prosope/person/appearance, with the προ/pro changed into per, as elsewhere περ/per is changed into pro. But what is persona/person to the Latins, that to the Greeks is πρόσωπον/face/person, προσωπεῖον/mask, προσώπη/person/appearance.” According to SCALIGER[2] in V

Johannes a Marck Our AUTHOR, being about to treat of the TRINITY of Divine PERSONS, by way of preface takes up a consideration of both terms, Trinity and Person. Trinitas/Trinity is, as it were, Trium Unitas, Unity of Three, out of 1 John 5:7, so that, although this term is not extant in Sacred Scripture formally and in this composition, it is found there in the passage cited in its basic elements; and so it is not to be rejected as completely ἄγραφος/ unwritten. The Greeks m

Summary of Chapter V In the doctrine of the TRINITY these things come to be considered: I. The Names A. Of Trinity, with its Etymology, Synonymy, and Homonymy, § 1. B. Of Person, א. With its Etymology, Synonymy, and Homonymy, § 2. ב. With respect to substance, Personality is here α. Negatively, not a. Real Being, b. The Negation of actual Communication; β. Is defined Positively: the Mode ultimately concluding and completing the Substantial Natu

Johannes Cocceius It is agreeable to add in the place of an ending what things are found concering this Attribute of God in the illustrious COCCEIUS’ Doctrina de Fœdere, chapter II, § 43, Not only does the will of God inflict vengeance upon sin, but also Righteousness itself requires it. For, He is not able to grant union and communion with Himself to a sinner without denying His own Holiness, Exodus 23:7; 2 Timothy 2:13; Habakkuk 1:13. For, without the similitude of God unio

William Twisse Now, as far as TWISSE is concerned, he makes use of four Arguments above all, in the passage cited, § 4, upon which observe: α. That concerning the Omnipotence of God are to be observed what things the most illustrious MARCKIUS (so that I might not cite more witnesses) taught, Compendio Theologiæ, chapter IV, § 22: With this Independence of Power not preventing, apparently some limits of it are wont to be observed; that God, actually not from any want of power,

Philippus van Limborch Ἀνασκευὴ/refutation follows Κατασκευὴν, constructive reasoning; and so the order of Disputation requires that, after we have thus sufficiently discharged our duty in the confirmation of the Thesis that we had undertaken to prove, we pass to the resolution of the Arguments that are wont to be alleged for the opposite opinion. But, as I, studying brevity, have passed by a great many Exceptions of those thinking things diverse from our reasons; so these li

Johannes Crellius But, as Socinus teaches that it is consistent with the Divine Nature to inflict punishments on the impenitent, so also Crellius, de Attributis Dei, chapter XXIII, page 95b, in the place which we just now cited, confesses that neither the Holiness nor Majesty of God bears in every situation that His commandments might be violated with impunity. By this very thing he sufficiently acknowledges that the Divine Holiness requires that God exact punishments of the

Faustus Socinus For what is read in the Prælectione of chapter XVI, that this Righteousness is very rarely attributed to God, makes for this; while in the same Chapter he had written, that the Sacred Books do not even consider that worthy of the name, what is commonly wont to be called Righteousness. Therefore, he confesses what he had just denied, that sometimes Vindicatory Righteousness goes by that name in the Sacred Codex and is attributed to God: for that is not able to

William Twisse Even more Arguments on this matter could be produced, of which our Theologians everywhere make use, both against Socinus, and even against Twisse: such as, That God, unless this Righteousness be also Essential to Him, is able to be conceived of under the opposite of this Attribute, namely, as unjust. For what things depend upon the altogether free Will of God are able to be conceived of under their opposite: but to conceive of an unjust God is contradictory, Jo