Essence and Relation in the Trinity
Gospel Reflection for Wednesday, July 16th, 2025
“All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." Matthew 11:27
In today’s Gospel, Our Lord reveals two intricate truths about the Blessed Trinity:
1. The equality of the Father and the Son
2. The origin of the Son from the Father
At first glance, these two truths may seem to be at odds with each other. How does the Son claim both equality with the Father and yet find His origin in the Father? God as Trinity possesses unity according to the Substance, but possesses multiplicity in relation.1 To understand this, I want to first ground this idea in the metaphysics of Aristotle. Simply, according to Aristotle, there are nine categories for understanding and classifying being. We call these:
1. Substance
And the Nine Accidents
1. Quantity
2. Quality
3. Relation
4. Place
5. Time
6. Situation
7. Condition
8. Action
9. Passion
Of these, substance applies to God as God is Being Itself. When we speak of God’s Substance, we are speaking about His Very Essence, that is, Ipsum Esse Subsistens, or Being Itself. Of the nine accidents, only relation exists in God. The difference, though, is that relation is not an accident in God, as there are no accidents in God. As all things in God, relation is identical with essence since anything that exists in God must be essential. Simply, an accident is something said to be in a substance which could change, but the substance would remain what it is. In God, there is no change. Therefore, all that is in God must be essential, that is, identical with What God IS.
Returning to the Gospel text, Our Lord reveals that “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” It is here that we first see the equality of the Father and Son. This equality is found in the substance of the Trinity. Both the Father and the Son are God. They possess the same divine nature. This means that the Father and the Son are both divine in the same sense. There is no distinction in the divine nature in the way that there is with created natures. In the divine nature, one is either God or not God. One is either Divine or not Divine. The Father is Divine. The Father is God. The Son is Divine. The Son is God. Thus, the Father and the Son are equal. This is expressed in the words all things. The Son possesses all that the Father possesses. There is nothing that the Father has withheld from the Son. The Father communicates the Divine Nature and all that comes with it to the Son, and so the Son is equal to the Father.
This communication then requires an origin. The Divine Nature is possessed by the Father as Origin and He communicates that Divine Nature to the Son. This is not a temporal movement. It does not first exist in the Father for a time and then moves to the Son. The Father and the Son are both eternal. The Creed beautifully expresses this mystery:
I believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Born of the Father before all ages…
It is here that we can return to the idea of relation. Relation is found in God, essentially, as said above. This relation is found in action and requires what is called relative opposition. St. Thomas teaches on this:
“These processions are two only, as above explained (Q27, A5), one derived from the action of the intellect, the procession of the Word; and the other from the action of the will, the procession of love. In respect of each of these processions, two opposite relations arise; one of which is the relation of the person proceeding from the principle; the other is the relation of the principle Himself.”2
This means that the persons in the Trinity are related to one another according to opposing positions based on procession. Simply, the Father is Father because He has the Son. The Father is not the Son because He has no Father. Likewise, the Son is Son because He has the Father. The Son is not the Father since He has no Son. This is what we call relative opposition. The Son receives everything that He is from the Father, who is the origin of the Trinity. The Father begets the Son eternally with no beginning and no end to that divine action.
What does all of this teach us in the practical sense? Simply this, for those sects that want to deny the equality of the Son with the Father, they are confounded by this revelation from the Son Himself. Our Lord reveals that He is equal to the Father in this passage.
Furthermore, those who would deny the unity of the Trinity and accuse Christians of being Tri-theists are likewise confounded. Relation and essence are identical in God. The communication of the divine nature through the procession of persons is essential to God. God is not God without this relation.
All of these things are difficult to wrap our feeble human minds around. God is infinite, and you can’t put an infinite thing (God) in a finite space (human mind). We are limited by our human nature. But, in His goodness, God has revealed certain truths about Himself. This glimpse of the Holy Trinity is given to us by the Son so that we can come to know the immensity of the Trinitarian relationship. God’s greatest revelation is not words on a page. It is the Word Himself. It is the Son who alone can reveal the Father.
For as complicated as all of this is, let us sit with this today and contemplate the Trinitarian God. If anything, essence and relation may drift over our heads. Substance and accidents may confuse us. At the end of the day, the lesson of this Gospel is that God desired to encounter us and lift us into His divine life, and so sent His Son to reveal that love to us.
God has loved us and sent His Son to reveal that love. Sit with that today.
Cf. Boethius, De Trinitate.
Summa Theologiae, Ia q. 28, a. 4.
Dr McGovern
I’ve recently finished Blessed Columba Marmion’s book, CHRIST in HIS Mysteries.
On page34-35, he says, “GOD is the plenitude of being, the shoreless ocean of all perfection and of all life.
…we must recognize, in the most positive manner, that there are no limits where GOD is concerned.
….Being Infinite Intelligence, GOD perfectly comprehends HIMSELF; in a single act, HE sees all that HE is, all that is in HIM. HE comprehends, as it were , in a single glance, the plenitude of HIS perfections, and, in one thought, in one word that exhausts all HIS knowledge. HE expresses this infinite knowledge to HIMSELF. This thought conceived by the eternal intelligence, this utterance whereby GOD expresses HIMSELF is the WORD. Faith tells us that this WORD is GOD, because the WORD has/is with GOD one and the same divine nature. And because the FATHER communicates to this WORD a nature not only like unto HIS own, but identical with it…calls the WORD, the SON.”
I so very much recommend this book, as a matter a fact all his book, I’m on my third. If you should ever consider doing a substack book club on his writings count me in.
This discussion reminds me of On The Trinity by Richard of Saint Victor, recently translated by Ruben Angelici. This includes a discussion of the Gift of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.