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1. Generation
Following revelation, particularly as recorded in St. John's
prologue, St. Thomas shows that there is in God an intellectual
procession, "an intellectual emanation of the intelligible Word from
the speaker of that Word." [518] . This procession is not
that of effect from cause (Arianism): nor that of one subjective
mode from another (Modalism). This procession is immanent in God,
but is a real procession, not merely made by our mind, a procession by
which the Word has the same nature as has the Father. "That which
proceeds intellectually (ad intra) has the very nature of its
principle, and the more perfectly it proceeds therefrom the more
perfectly it is united to its principle." [519] This is true
even of our own created ideas, which become more perfect by being more
perfectly united to our intellect. Thus the Word, conceived from
eternity by the Father, has no other nature than that of the Father.
And the Word is not like our word, accidental, but substantial,
because God's act of knowledge is not an accident, but
self-subsisting substance.
In Contra Gentes St. Thomas devotes long pages to this argument of
appropriateness. The principle is thus formulated: "The higher the
nature, the more intimately is its emanation united with it."
[520] He illustrates by induction. Plant and animal beget
exterior beings which resemble them, whereas human intelligence
conceives a word interior to it. Yet this word is but a transient
accident of our spirit, where thought follows after thought. In
God, the act of understanding is substantial, and if, as revelation
says, that act is expressed by Word, that Word must itself be
substantial. It must be, not only the idea of God, but God
Himself. [521] .
Under this form St. Thomas keeps an ancient formula, often appealed
to by the Augustinians, in particular by St. Bonaventure. It runs
thus: Good is essentially self-diffusive. [522] The greater
a good is, the more abundantly and intimately does it communicate
itself. [523] The sun spreads light and heat. The plant, the
animal, beget others of their kind. The sage communicates wisdom,
the saint causes sanctity. Hence God, the infinite summit of all
that is good, communicates Himself with infinite abundance and
intimacy, not merely a participation in being, life, and
intelligence, as when He creates stone, plant, animal, and man,
not even a mere participation of His own nature, as when He creates
sanctifying grace, but His own infinite and indivisible nature. This
infinite self-communication in the procession of the Word reveals the
intimacy and fullness of the scriptural sentence: "My Son art
Thou, this day I beget Thee." [524] .
Further, [525] this procession of the only-begotten
[526] Son is rightly called generation. The living thing,
born of a living thing, receives a nature like that of its begetter,
its generator. In the Deity, the Son receives that same divine
nature, not caused, but communicated. Common speech says that our
intellect conceives a word. This act of conception is the initial
formation of a living thing. But this conception of ours does not
become generation, because our word is, not a substance, but an
accident, so that, even when a man mentally conceives his own
substantial self, that conception is still but an accidental similitude
of himself, whereas the divine conception, the divine Word, is
substantial, is not merely a similitude of God, but is God. Divine
conception, then, is rightly called generation. Intellectual
conception, purified from all imperfection, is an "intellectual
generation," just as corporeal conception terminates in corporeal
generation.
In this argument we have the highest application of the method of
analogy. The Word of God, far from being a mere representative
similitude of God the Father, is substantial like the Father, is
living like the Father, is a person as is the Father, but a person
distinct from the Father. [527] .
2. Spiration
There is in God a second procession, by the road of love, as love in
us proceeds from the knowledge of good. [528] But this second
procession is not a generation, [529] because love, in contrast
with knowledge, does not make itself like its object, but rather goes
out to its object. [530] .
These two processions alone are found in God, as in us intelligence
and love are the only two forms of our higher spiritual activity.
[531] And in God, too, the second procession, spiration,
presupposes the first, generation, since love derives from knowledge.
Further on St. Thomas [532] solves some difficulties inherent
in St. Augustine's teaching on the divine processions. The three
persons, he shows, have in common one and the same essential act of
intellect, but it is the Father only who speaks the Word, a Word
adequate and hence unique. To illustrate: Of three men faced with a
difficult problem, one pronounces the adequate solution, while all
three understand that solution perfectly. Similarly the three persons
love by the same essential love, but only the Father and the Son
breathe (by notional love) the Holy Spirit, who is personal love.
[533] Thus love in God, whether essential or notional or
personal, is always substantial.
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