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This chapter examines the accounts which various scholastic theologians gave of a notion central to medieval discussions of the Trinity, that of ‘distinction’. The following theologians: Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, and Duns Scotus have been chosen not only for their general contribution to the development of Trinitarian theology, but also because their treatment of the issue established the main lines of argument running through and focusing the discussion between Durandus and Hervaeus. Some of the fundamental features in the contrasting positions of Durandus and Hervaeus appear foreshadowed in the earlier accounts, thus representing the main sources and theological allegiances of the two Dominicans.

This chapter is devoted to Hervaeus Natalis’s quodlibetal disputations, thus introducing the quodlibetal exchange between Hervaeus and Durandus, sustained between the years 1308, roughly when Durandus’s early commentary was made public, and 1317, date of the second censure list. Hervaeus’s Quodlibets show how his interpretation of Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology was profoundly shaped by Scotist insights not necessarily concordant with Thomism, but which Hervaeus skillfully adapts to suit Thomist priorities.

This chapter introduces the apologetic Avignon Quodlibets, Durandus’s most conspicuous attempt at conciliation, followed by Hervaeus’s cold reception in the Correctiones. Hervaeus’s final tract also points the way to the ‘Thomist turn’ which the controversy later assumed, and which materialized in the second censure of 1317.

This chapter focuses on the conceptual devices of John Duns Scotus. It analyses Scotus's way of handling the distinction between in sensu composito and in sensu diviso, and explains the principle of his theory of the formal distinction. The chapter suggests that this theory presupposes the theory of the real and the rational relation on the one hand, and the concept of identity on the other.

Scotus believes the divine essence must play the role of the formal terminus of production––that is, it must be the shared form of the persons, not a shared lump of matter. For Scotus, there simply are no materials in the Godhead. But this does not mean that the Son is created from nothing. As Scotus sees it, something is not created if it is produced with at least one pre-existing ingredient, and that need not be a material entity (it could be a form, as the divine essence is in the production of a divine person). According to Scotus, the divine essence and the personal properties are both like “forms,” as it were, that combine by perfect identity (a very tight bond between formally distinct entities) to constitute the divine persons.

In opposition to Aquinas, Scotus takes God's infinity, not His simplicity, as the starting point for his account of the Trinity, infinity being characteristic not only of God but also of his attributes. The names we apply to God and creatures are univocal, and as applied to God they name several distinct attributes. He rejects Aquinas's double-aspect account of the divine relations as self-contradictory. He sides with Albert, not Bonaventure, in holding that abstraction is irreflexive. The Persons, while really identical with the divine essence, differ from it by a formal distinction which is prior to any act of the understanding. Scotus considered abandoning the traditional relational account of the Persons in favour of a nonrelational account, but in the end did not do so. On his account there is one substance (God), and formally there are 7 non-substances (divinity, 3 Persons and 3 Personal properties), and 2 additional non-substances for each of the divine attributes (e.g. the perfectly good and perfect goodness). The Persons are interconnected as correlatives. Abstract and concrete are always formally distinct. The divine attributes are formally distinct from God.

Ockham's nominalist program dictated that the semantic value of an abstract name for a relation such as ‘paternity’ be the same as that of the corresponding concrete name ‘father’: primarily such a name signified a father and secondarily the father's child. As well as describing this nominalist semantics, Ockham describes a realist semantics for relational propositions. He follows Scotus in rejecting Aquinas's double-aspect analysis of the divine relations. He also lends qualified support to Scotus's doctrine of the formal distinction so long as it does not carry ontological commitments. Like Scotus, he shows interest in a nonrelational account of the Personal properties but in the end returns to the traditional relational account, and for this purpose abandons his otherwise preferred nominalist account of relational propositions. On that account there is one substance in the Godhead and 6 non-substances (the Persons and their relational properties).