How should we understand the term ‘person’ in Trinitarian theology?

Boethius and Aquinas are two prominent thinkers of medieval Christian thought, and in this

particular field, offer us two uniquely substantial and contrasting doctrines of personhood,

particularly through Aquinas’s commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate. Therefore, in this

essay, I shall compare and contribute to the dialogue between these two scholars in order to

evaluate their doctrines. Both writing in the tradition of historical orthodoxy on the subject

strongly regarded as the central tenet of Christian theology, this essay aims to draw upon their

considerable works to bring a balanced and theologically rich analysis of their own origins,

questions and direction. I posit that Boethius draws upon personhood being suitable in

definition for the Godhead in the singular, but does not recognise the three hypostases in the

Trinity as persons, due to the concern of dividing them in substance, with particular concern

to nature and essence. On the other hand, I posit that Aquinas’s focus on the relations

between the persons of the Trinity, offering personhood as a definition for the Father, Son

and Spirit, presents a unique and particular view of personhood that contributes also to

human anthropological personhood.

When approaching the notion of ‘person’ and personhood in trinitarian theology, we are

confronted with both Eastern and Western theological contributions that collectively have

influenced our contemporary perspective. However, it is in Boethius, and Aquinas’s

commentary and use of Boethius later on, which I believe our two definitions in this essay

should find their origins, to build a robust comparison and evaluation, that we might inherit

either one or the other, or parts of both. By doing so, we are offered a broad and considerate

spectrum from which to develop the perspective of the essay, from theologians who are often

used in contemporary dialogue on the subject.

To do so, firstly this essay shall contextualise the topic, and the historical debate surrounding

the unity and community of the Trinity, and the distinction between these persons found

there. This essay shall then expound upon Boethius and his theological construction of

persons, with particular interest on dissection “individual substances” in his work De

Trinitate, and how this is meant by Boethius, but also perhaps interpreted in alternative ways.

Then, this essay shall approach Thomas Aquinas, in particular his Commentary on Boethius

and his Summa Theologiae to both deconstruct and compare the theological approaches and

concerns shown by both theologians. The approach away from the natures or distinctions

between them ontologically, and a focus on these relations, I shall present as the key, both to

Aquinas’s work, but also to how we might be able to approach the topic of personhood

ourselves.

It is worth offering reason to the topic, asking ‘why’ this topic ought to be raised in the first

place. In doing so, we are able to gain greater perspective into the term person itself, and root

the origins of this discussion in the patristic presentation. This question arises even prior to

Gregory of Nazianzus and the Council of Nicaea, seemingly with Tertullian, who was aiming

to show “both the distinction of the “persons” with the unification of the “substance.”’1

Primarily, Tertullian, and orthodoxy through history, inherits a distinction between the one

God in three personae – Father, Son and Spirit because “Scripture insists that this be the

case,” yet without saying “that God took on different roles in this situation.” Thus, there must

be distinction in some way, legitimately, “in more than mere title.”2 So, prior to systematics

or philosophy as a disciple is applied to the Bible or to orthodox Christianity, one is presented

1
Andrew P. Hillaker, “Substance and Persons in Tertullian and Augustine” in Fidei et Veritatis: The Liberty
University Journal of Graduate Research 2 (2018), p.8.
2
Hillaker, “Substance and Persons”, p.8.
with the biblical reality of the one God who is three persons. Thus, when confronted by this

reality of three persons and yet one God, we must assess whether this terminology is

beneficial, appropriate, or consistent in relation to how one receives it ontologically and

anthropologically. The term, or choice, of persons should fit in a logical assessment of what

we mean when we use this language. I shall carry Tertullian and Augustine forward as minor

contributors in portraying the definition of persons and the analysis of such.

Firstly, however, I shall approach Boethius as a commentator on persons and personhood.

Boethius’, in his A Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius, offers us several potential

definitions of personhood. However, the one in which “we have found the definition of

Person” locates personhood in “the individual substance of a rational nature.”3 Whereas many

of his other definitions are purposed to define the human person, focusing on composition,

this definition is Boethius’s attempt to define the human and divine person in one

presentation. Boethius’s broad and particular definitions recognise God as a “correlate who

differs from other persons,”4 and thus the need to offer definitions of personhood that

distinguish God and humanity, and offer other definitions that overlap this aspect between

God and humanity. This allows our ontological reception of the personhood of the Godhead

to provide both a distinction and a necessary identicality to our own being. I believe this is an

important factor in considering persons linguistically. It is this definition of personhood that I

think is most suitable to put forward in the conversation of this essay.

This definition, intended by Boethius to denote personhood regardless of being divine or

human is intriguing. “The individual substance of a rational nature” carries with it two

implications worth offering in this essay. Firstly, an “individual substance,” which

3
Boethius, ‘A Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius’, The Theological Tractates, translated by H.F. Stewart
(London: Heinemann, 1918), p.85.
4
immediately questions its application to our understanding of the Trinity. Secondly, “rational

nature,” and its ontological reception by humanity, considering whether it is distinct enough

between human nature and animals to offer a clear enough definition. Furthermore, and more

significantly, this questions our understanding of Christ and his true humanity in relation to

personhood.

The second thinker of this essay is Thomas Aquinas, whose definition of personhood in the

Trinity in centred “in terms of their relationships,”5 focused on the relational interaction

between the Trinity “rather than the second person of the Trinity,” and a move which

influences other doctrines developed by Aquinas, such as “Christ’s role in creation and the

nature of the resurrected body.”6 This seems to contrast the expected approach of interpreting

personhood through the lens of the incarnation in the Godhead. It is therefore reasonable to

ask why Aquinas does not think the incarnate Christ is an answer in himself.

Bringing Boethius’s thesis to the forefront once again, I want to interpret his definition of

personhood alongside Aquinas. Boethius’s first phrase, “individual substance,” makes sense

in relation to the human definition of person. We can accept that each individual does not

share themselves substantially with another person, such that acting, thinking, and willing

occur without alternating the material of another human being. For example, if one man eats

because he is hungry, that desire has not rooted itself in another person also feeling hungry.

Similarly, by eating, he does not fill the stomach of another, or satisfy another’s hunger. This

shows the matter of “individual substance” is observable and acceptable in relation to human

5
Stephen H. Webb, “Thomas Aquinas on Relations, Personhood, and Matter”, in Jesus Christ, Eternal God:
Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter, ed. by Stephen Webb (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),
p.172.
6
Webb, “Relations, Personhood and Matter”, p.176.
personhood.7 This is, of course, also true in the Trinity, However, when approaching the

Trinity, we must assert at the very first instance the homoousios substance of the Father, Son,

and Spirit. As Tertullian asserted, the unification of substance is key to orthodoxy. Asserting

“individual substance” in the Godhead must be carefully handled, or dismissed. Pavel

Butakov states that Boethius’s definition of the Trinity, in his De Trinitate, is “three

subsistent persons.”8 If so, Boethius’s definition personhood assumes subsistence, or self-

maintaining. Though perhaps correct in human terms, in relation to the Trinity, and Nicene

procession terminology, we cannot agree to this subsistence. However, Boethius still asserts

in The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods that “the Father, Son and Spirit are one…truly one

without plurality.”9 Therefore, we have to interpret Boethius differently that simply asserting

he simply distinguishes the persons of the Trinity substantially in order to define persons the

way he does. In fact, it seems as though Boethius suggests a much stronger position regarding

personhood being singular in the Godhead, the one God being one person, and the Father,

Son, and Spirit being identified distinctly from one another, but not in the language of person.

The alternative understanding of Boethius that seems to consider his use of “individual

substance” is found in Aquinas himself. Aquinas argues against synonymising person and

subsistence in Article 2 Objection 110. Rather, subsistence and hypostasis are to be the

synonyms, whereas person remains a distinct quality apart from them. For our interpretation

of Boethius, therefore, personhood in the Godhead is not distinguishable due to

“subsistence,” but rather subsistence gives us distinction between persons, while personhood

7
We can also derive from this that the “substance” of personhood in humans is identical substance. What makes
a human person is this identical substance of humanness, however this substance is not shared between people,
removing ones autonomy and individuality, but rather as people.

8
Pavel Butakov, ‘Relations in the Trinitarian Reality: Two Approaches’, Schole 8 (2014) p.505 (505-519)
9
Boethius, ‘The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods’, The Theological Tractates, translated by H.F. Stewart
(London: Heinemann, 1918), p.56.
10
Thomas Aquinas, “First Part, Question 29”, Summa Theologiae,
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1029.htm.
itself does not imply subsistence. Thus, in the phrase “individual substance,” we do not

isolate persons as individual ‘substances’ in the Trinity. Instead, we are to see the unity of

substance, or homoousios nature of the Trinity in the individual persons. Individuals with the

same substance still hold substance – a shared and identical substance, enabling this

definition of “individual substance” to be consistent in Boethius. Hence, Aquinas is able to

develop Boethius in using “individual” to contribute “restriction to the first substance,”11 or

the Father’s substance. However, this is Boethius’s issue with personhood. He argues that

two or more persons “cannot occupy the same space,”12 positing that personhood, firstly, is a

physical trait of distinction, and secondly that because the substance of God as three

‘individuals’ occupies the same space (infinite space), then personhood cannot be a trait to

denote the distinction between the Trinity, but rather characterising the oneness of God.

Hence, the three distinct hypostases in the Godhead are defined underneath the singular

personhood of God.

Boethius’s perspective on trinitarian personhood offers us the view that, while sharing

identical substance (homoousios), the one “person” has unique distinctions that gives us the

ontological gift of three distinct hypostases. This is not intended in a modalist manner, as

Boethius is not suggesting one person changes forms at different times, but rather that

definition of personhood defines only the one God, and not the three co-present hypostases.

Personhood, for Boethius, cannot be attached to the Father, Son, and Spirit, though he

believes in them firmly, because personhood defines the “individual substance.” Not only is

this difference present, but it also gives the question its gravitas. I disagree with Boethius

here, as does Aquinas (to be expounded upon later). My issue is that even with personhood in

this definition from Boethius, when approaching the Trinity, I posit that personhood must be

11
Aquinas, Summa, Question 29.1.
12
Boethius, ‘The Trinity’, p.52.
able to hold “individual substance,” while not necessarily meaning unique substance. From

this, the language of personhood is located in these three individually named and

distinguished figures of the Godhead. Christ, for example, would be an individual of shared

substance with the Father, an individual with substance, identical to the Father, to necessarily

a distinct individual. Rather that three “subsistent” beings, too, the unity between them as

persons is found in their shared substance that makes them, as proceeding from the Father,

one God, but truly three persons. This personhood, in identical substance and unity, is seen

clearly in the person of Christ. Though we may, as I do, assert that Christ is not a human

person, but a divine person incarnate, we still see the presence of an individual person that

distinctly acts in a manner than the Father and Spirit do not. As Christ walks, the Father does

not walk, although God is walking. This distinction, I believe, is best represented as

personhood.

We may recognise that this type of personhood, in agreement with Boethius, does contrasts

the human person, which shares a substances type (human nature), but not the substance of

the individuals themselves shared. The contrast to this, perhaps, is in the example of parent-

child substance, where the substance of the child is in nature from the parents, and not of

unique substance per se, while being a unique individual. The question this raises is how this

potentially aids, yet should not confused, our understanding of trinitarian persons.

The remainder of Boethius’s statement on persons, being of “rational nature,” is less

subjective, I believe. Knowing God Christianly as one who is rational is intrinsic the narrative

of Scripture and historical theological construction. By his very nature, he is able to

communicate, thinks, knows (Psalm 139). These traits offer us a rational God. Therefore, I

shall continue through this essay to Aquinas and his dialogue with Boethius’s work.
Drawing Boethius’s theology of personhood together, therefore, in this “individual substance

of rational nature,” we can posit that, without the Godhead being anything other than one

substance which is shared between them through procession, Boethius understands the

Trinity to be one single “person,” while there being three aspects of this one person in a

triune manner, or hypostasis. He posits that “nothing but God can be begotten of God,” and

“the repetition of units does not produce plurality,” insomuch as the Father, Son and Spirit

“differ from none of the others.”13 In this, Boethius critiques relations as not distinguishing

enough between individuals to denote “a difference of persons.”14 His perspective presents

personhood clearly in this manner of “individual substance,” as well as the much more

widely accepted “rational nature,” in the Trinity. Boethius, in this definition of personhood in

the Trinity, is rightly still concerned with the orthodox pursuit that Tertullian also concerns

himself with, distinguishing the three-ness of God in the perfect unity and oneness of God.

Though Aquinas’ wrote a considerable commentary on Boethius’ and the theology of

personhood, as well as referencing Boethius in the Summa consistently, I shall be offering

Aquinas’ perspective as one separate to Boethius, as he seems to both develop Boethius’s

theology, as well as disagree and dispute some of what Boethius writes in his Treatise.

The first important proposition Aquinas offers in agreement to Boethius’s definition of

personhood in the Trinity is the “essential characteristic… there be found in him a rational

soul.”15 The location of personhood is in the ability to participate, or give, from logic or

reason. We are able to see the origins of personhood within humanity, in this perspective, as

13
Boethius, ‘The Trinity’, p.60.
14
Boethius, ‘The Trinity’, p.60.
15
Thomas Aquinas, Super Boethium De Trinitate, translated by Rose E. Brennan and Armand Mauer (Toronto,
University of Toronto, 1953), https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/BoethiusDeTr.htm#L12.
an inheritance of God’s characteristic, unique to humanity in contrast to the rest of creation in

particular. Similarly, Aquinas appreciates Boethius’s proposition that “otherness is the

principle of plurality.”16 When approaching the Trinity, we are to be informed that that which

is “other” from one thing, in this case the Father, for Boethius, offers us the plurality we hope

to achieve in the three persons. However, being “other” is not what we see in the Godhead,

and so we must not simply apply this, and I do not think Aquinas does. Whereas Boethius

addresses this by placing personhood as the singular, not the plural aspect of God, Aquinas

offers us the idea that though “division precedes plurality of first causes, diversity does not,”

since “division does not require the being of things divided amongst themselves.”17 When we

take this further, it is worth asking whether diversity or division is present in the Godhead in

this example. I think Aquinas allows us to suggest that the Godhead is division enough, while

unified, to offer personhood to the Father, Son and Spirit individually, without suggesting any

diversity, difference, or “other” in the Godhead. We are enabled to posit, in Boethius’s

language but Thomistic systematics, that God is not “other” to himself, hence why otherness

is synonymous with diversity which comes after God. Rather, in division, which comes

within the Godhead, no “other” is necessarily present, while the distinction is made. Here,

Aquinas and Boethius contrast. While Boethius would say that “the essence of plurality is

otherness,”18 Aquinas suggests Boethius’s only examples reference composite beings, hence

Boethius’s matter of the Trinity, preceding “otherness,” must precede plurality of

personhood, and be singular in God a se. However, Aquinas states that it is diversity that

would create the issue of plurality of persons, but division in the same substance, allows for a

unity of distinguishable personhood – a distinguishable personhood we seem to observe in

Christ.

16
Aquinas, Super Boethium.
17
Aquinas, Super Boethium.
18
Aquinas, Super Boethium. cf. Boethius, ‘The Trinity’, p.46.
Incidentally, Boethius and Aquinas differ on the unity of the divine essence, which roots their

arguments in this point. Boethius does argue that the Father, Son and Spirit possess distinct

essence, serving as the foundation for their individuality. Once again, it remains their lack of

“individual substance” that disallows for the use of personhood for each of these hypostases.

On the other hand, Aquinas rots his arguments in the notion that this divine essence is

undivided, shared between the three persons, and whose relationships between one another

within this undivided essence is what necessitates the term person appropriately, not only in

the singular, like Boethius, but in the plurality, the three.

Aquinas confronts Boethius’s theological construction relating to the idea that more than one

person “cannot occupy the same space,”19 asserting that “Boethius falsely says that two

bodies cannot occupy one and the same place.”20 While it is evident of two physical bodies

being unable to do so, Aquinas posits that, with corpulentia21, there is “to be found a double

relation of a body to place.”22 It is this prevailing relationship in personhood, or even between

personhood that defines the Thomistic definition of persons in the Trinity. While evident that

it is a difficult task to define persons in any strict manner regarding physical, real and

anthropological inheritances of the persons, such as Christ assuming flesh, Aquinas focuses

on these relationships that occur both within oneself and between the components of oneself.

He says that “relationship prevails according as a body is said…to be in place.”23 If we

observe what Aquinas is implying here, we deduce that relations between the persons of the

Godhead occur not because they are different or unique, but because they are of the same

19
Boethius, ‘The Trinity’, p.52.
20
Aquinas, Super Boethium.
21
Aquinas does not define corpulentia decisively, however he suggests the simultaneousness of “density or
impurity or corruptibility.”
22
Aquinas, Super Boethium.
23
Aquinas, Super Boethium.
substance, like this corpulentia, where relationship occurs within the being occupying one

space.

Not only does this respond to Boethius, but we can recognise the root of Aquinas’s definition

of personhood. Whereas Augustine asserts that “the word person…does not signify relation,

but substance,” Aquinas believes that defining person in this way offers heretics “more

reason to argue,”24 or more ground to stand upon. In fact, Boethius also recognises that

“persons signifies relation.”25 For Aquinas, person is a suitable term for “both the essence and

relation”26 in the Godhead because, first of all, it bears meaning also in personhood “in God,

in man, and in angels,”27 offering the necessity of anthropological language that humanity is

able to ontologically adopt and understand in relation to how we already understand

ourselves as persons. His concern for heretic movements in the defining of the Trinity is

commendable, and provides perspective as to why his desire to root persons in essence and

relations is important. The Thomistic approach to personhood in the Godhead, therefore, is

that relations between the persons (Father, Son, and Spirit) are the distinguishing factor,

rather than any substance, or essential nature that could create diversity within the Trinity.

The relations between them subsist individually, which shifts the theological goal away from

trying to know how the persons of the Trinity might be characteristically or essentially

different enough from each other, and rather allows one to hold to the perfect unity,

identicality and substantial individuality of the Godhead, while knowing the distinction

between the persons is present, located in the relations.

24
Aquinas, Summa, Question 29.4.
25
Aquinas, Summa, Question 29.4.
26
Aquinas, Summa, Question 29.4.
27
Aquinas, Summa, Question 29.4.
In conclusion, we may observe that Boethius and Aquinas contribute significantly to the

dialogue of persons in the Trinity, and to how we might understand the “term” persons in

such a way. They both attempt to build upon Tertullian, Augustine and historical orthodoxy

that preceded them, with concern for heresy and heterodoxy. Boethius’s concern is that three

persons projects a plurality in the Godhead that must otherwise precede God in terms of

diversity. By locating personhood in the singular person of God, encompassing the three

hypostasis, then we are able to observe Boethius’s definition of personhood as “individual

substance of a rational nature” with clarity. God, or the Father, is the individual substance

from which Christ and the Spirit get their substance, and therefore personhood is offered in

the singular.

Though the definition is widely accepted by Thomas Aquinas, this essay demonstrates that

Aquinas’s concern with Boethius is not so much his definition of person, but how he views

this in relation to the Trinity. Aquinas demands a refocusing of personhood from outside of

the body itself, when it comes to divine persons, and locates it in the relations between the

persons of the Godhead. Aquinas also asserts that division in the Trinity, in personhood,

remains true in the very unity of the Godhead, and enables the language of personhood to be

attached to the Trinitarian persons. Because of this relational activity between God, as

humanity also has relations happening within themselves as individuals, Aquinas sees this as

a clear solution that enables us to use the term person in a manner that also successfully

situates itself in the understanding of human persons too, ontologically.

We can successfully observe, through this essays argumentation and comparison, that

understanding the Trinity as persons demands caution and consideration, while also offering

several propositions that are situated in historical orthodoxy. Whether ones perspective holds
to the term persons being given to God as one, above the three, or to the three persons

themselves, one can inherit from this dialogue between Aquinas and Boethius.

Bibliography

Aquinas, Thomas, “First Part, Question 29”, Summa Theologiae,

https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1029.htm

Aquinas, Thomas, Super Boethium De Trinitate, translated by Rose E. Brennan and Armand

Mauer (Toronto, University of Toronto, 1953),

https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/BoethiusDeTr.htm#L12

Boethius, ‘A Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius’, The Theological Tractates, translated

by H.F. Stewart (London: Heinemann, 1918)

Boethius, ‘The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods’, The Theological Tractates, translated by

H.F. Stewart (London: Heinemann, 1918)

Butakov, Pavel, ‘Relations in the Trinitarian Reality: Two Approaches’, Schole 8 (2014)

pp.505-519

Hillaker, Andrew P., “Substance and Persons in Tertullian and Augustine” in Fidei et

Veritatis: The Liberty University Journal of Graduate Research 2 (2018)

Webb, Stephen H., “Thomas Aquinas on Relations, Personhood, and Matter”, in Jesus

Christ, Eternal God: Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter, ed. by Stephen Webb

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)