call eternal relations of origin or personal modes of subsistence: paternity, filiation, and spiration. The Father eternally generates the Son (paternity and filiation), and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son (spiration). These three relations of origin have allowed the church to distinguish between the three without aborting the unity of the three as one in essence.39 “Simplicity in respect to essence, but Trinity in respect to persons,”
