Scripture never speaks of the Father as cause of the Son or of the Son as caused—principle, principium, is the better term as more scriptural and also as more general in scope than cause: “since divine truths are incomprehensible and beyond definition, it is more appropriate to keep to broad terms … when speaking about God.”105 Note that Aquinas here not only retains but utilizes substantively the reading of John 1:1 that we noted early on in patristic theology as crucial to the philosophical appropriation