DIVINE NOTIONS. - These are theological terms that express those characteristic notes by which the individual Divine Persons can be distinctly recognized. Five are usually enumerated: innascibility, paternity, filiation, active spiration, procession.
In God there are two immanent processions (v.), corresponding to the two divine operations, intellection and volition (thought and love), from which four relations (v.) arise, of which three are numerically and really distinct and thus constitute the three Persons (Paternity = Father; Filiation = Son; Procession = Holy Spirit). These three subsistent relations are also strictly personal properties; two other properties, while being personal, do not constitute the persons but characterize them; they are: innascibility, proper to the Father (who derives from no one) and active spiration, which belongs to the Father and the Son in relation to the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from them.
The notions coincide with the relations and the personal properties, which denote the individual Persons distinctly. Therefore, while the three relations-properties, paternity, filiation and procession, are also notions, active spiration is not such, because it is common to two Persons (Father-Son). Furthermore, innascibility, while not being a relation, is a notion, because it indicates exclusively the Person of the Father. In substance, the notions serve to connote unmistakably the individual Persons of the Most Holy Trinity.
Together with the notions, the notional acts must be remembered, which are two: to generate and to spirate (four, if the two verbs are also considered in the passive sense). "To generate" is nothing other, concretely, than the first procession and thus denotes the eternal divine intellective act in relation to the two terms, Father (thinking) and Son (thought). Analogously, "to spirate" is equivalent to the second procession and denotes the volitive act, which has as its principle the Father and the Son together, and as its term the Holy Spirit. At the basis of the processions and of the notional acts lies the immanent activity of God, thought and love, which are essential attributes and become notional if they are referred to the Persons; thus thinking is an absolute action, identical with the divine essence, but if it is referred to the thinking principle (Father) and to the thought term (Son), it assumes a personal and therefore notional character (to think = to generate the idea: from the Father to the Son).
Similarly, willing is an absolute action, identical with the divine essence, which becomes personal and notional in relation to the terms, which are on the one hand the Father and the Son, on the other the Holy Spirit (to will = to spirate love).
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Pietro Parente