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We consider first the theological reason he offers in the
Summa[446] and later how he solves the difficulties
of the Greeks. In the body of the article we find three
reasons: the first from incongruity and the other two from
the congruity or conformity with things in the natural
order. From the analogy with natural things we can to
some degree know the mystery of the Trinity although we
cannot demonstrate it.
1. The reason or argument from incongruity is an
apodictical argument by reduction to the impossible. It
begins with the negation of the position to be admitted:
if the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son, He
would not be distinguished from the Son, because the
divine persons are distinguished only by the relation of
origin, which is founded on the processions. We do not
delay in considering this argument because it will be
developed against the objections of Scotus after an
examination of the Greek difficulties.
2. This argument is based on the nature of the
processions. The Son proceeds after the manner of
intellection as the Word, and the Holy Ghost proceeds
after the manner of the will as personal love. But love
proceeds from the word, for we do not love anything unless
we have apprehended it by a concept of the mind. Nothing
is willed unless first it is known. Therefore the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Son. This argument proposed by
St. Thomas is sufficiently clear from the foregoing.
It is at least a profound argument of congruity. Against
it, however, two objections have been raised which are
too much concerned with particulars and in this way do not
take into consideration what St. Thomas wished to say.
Objection. In the beatific vision there is no word, and
yet it is followed by love.
Reply. In the beatific vision there is no accidental
created word, but the divine essence takes the place of
the expressed species because the divine essence of itself
is understood in act and cannot be represented in a created
word as it is in itself. We are obliged to express
ourselves in this manner because of the imperfect manner of
our intellection although there is in our intellection an
expressed species (when it exists) which is the vicar of
the object and which takes the place of the object, as
when the object is not understood of itself in act. Thus
what St. Thomas wished to say in this argument stands:
nothing is willed unless first known, and love follows
vision and proceeds from it in some way. So
proportionately the Holy Ghost proceeds as love from the
Word, and this procession is understood to take place as
intellection from the words of the prologue of St.
John's Gospel.
I insist. In created beings the word does not concur
effectively in love; it concurs only objectively and as
the final object inasmuch as the word proposes the object
that elicits love.
Reply. Granting this for the sake of argument, it is
still true that love in some way proceeds from the
knowledge of the good or from the good as known; it also
is still true that the appetitive faculty comes from the
essence of the soul as endowed with the intellectual
faculty, and the essence is therefore the root of the
other faculties. Moreover, according to revelation, the
divine Word is a subsisting person and thus can be the
principle (principium quod) of notional love and active
spiration, whereas our accidental word is not the
principium quod but a necessary condition (sine qua non)
of love since love tends only to the known good.
We granted for the sake of argument that the word in
created beings does not concur effectively in love,
because a dispute exists on this point between Thomistic
theologians.
Conrad Kollin, Cajetan, and others hold that the
intellect moves the will with respect to its specification
as an efficient cause inasmuch as the object proposed by
the intellect is the cause for eliciting a determined act
of love. The particular specification of the act of
love, as distinguished from the exercise of the act of
love, must have an efficient cause, and the will alone is
not a sufficient efficient cause for this specification,
otherwise all acts of love would be of the same species.
Moreover, as Conrad Kollin and Cajetan point out, in
God the subsisting Word effectively produces personal
love or the Holy Ghost. Therefore the same thing takes
place analogically in the case of the non-subsisting word
of our intellect. To support this interpretation they
cite certain texts of St. Thomas: "The intellect is
prior to the will as the mover is prior to what is moved
and as the active is prior to the passive, for the good
that is understood moves the will."[447]
Other Thomists, among them Capreolus, Ferrariensis,
Bannez, and Gonet hold that the intellect moves the will
only as a final and formal extrinsic cause because the
object proposed by the intellect to the will is not
intrinsic to the will. But even if this second opinion is
admitted, our argument still holds because the word in
created beings produces love at least in a broad sense
because it leads to the eliciting of a definite act of love
inasmuch as it specifies the act, and no act can be
elicited without being specified.
Further, the subsistence of the divine Word elevates all
the conditions of the word to most perfect being and in
this state of being the Word actively and properly
influences love. Thus the Word of God spirates love.
St. Thomas' argument remains unscathed. He was
disinclined, however, to descend to these particulars
because as he said: "Our intellect cannot understand the
essence of God as it is in itself in this life, but it
determines and limits every mode in the things it
understands about God and departs from the mode of God's
being in Himself. Therefore the more certain nouns are
unrestricted and common and absolute, the more properly
they are predicated by us of God, as, for instance, the
name "Who is," which expresses the vast and infinite
ocean of substance itself.
Hence we should not descend to small particulars, to
excessive precision and delimitation; these things remove
us from the contemplation of God and we cannot understand
a free act in God or how the Word spirates love. This
is true of many speculative and practical questions. For
instance, a certain particular intention virtually lasts
for several days, but we cannot say for how many days it
lasts since there is a great difference here between a
superficial soul and one that is profoundly recollected.
Again, it is certainly very laudable to unite our
personal offerings often during the day by prayer to the
oblation made continually in the heart of the glorious
Christ and to the offering of all the Masses celebrated
throughout the world. If we wish to descend mechanically
to particulars, we might ask how it is possible to unite
oneself to all these Masses in particular. This does not
mean that it is impossible to unite ourselves to the
oblation which perdures in the heart of Christ in glory,
which is, as it were, the soul of all these Masses.
Very often excessive and pseudo-scientific exactitude in
spiritual things removes us from the contemplation of
God. Such concern with particulars detracts from the
beauty of St. Thomas, argument that love proceeds from
the knowledge of good, and therefore it appears right to
say that in God personal love proceeds from the Word.
In the light of this argument we understand those
beautiful words of tradition: The Word spirates love.
The same is true with regard to our understanding of the
mystery of the cross or of the Redemption: too much
concern with details impedes us in contemplation of the
mystery.
The third argument of congruity may be stated as follows:
When several things proceed from one, they are distinct
only by number and matter unless they are distinguished
because of the orders of origin or causality. But the
Son and the Holy Ghost proceed from one and the same
Father and they are distinct by more than number and
matter, that is, by the two processions of intellect and
love, which are more than numerically distinct. Hence
there must be between them some order; not the order of
causality or of greater or less perfection, but of
origin. And since the Son does not proceed from the
Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost must proceed from the
Son.
The major of the argument is based on the fact that when
several things that are distinct by more than number and
matter proceed from one thing they proceed according to
some order, and in created beings according to some kind
of subordination. When several things proceed from one
thing and are distinguished only by number and matter,
they may proceed without any definite order as, for
instance, when a workman makes many knives distinct from
one another only numerically and materially, they have no
order to each other. Such is not the case, however,
with the species of number and the figures of geometry in
the order of quantity; all numbers proceed from unity
according to a definite order. So also in the order of
quality: for example, the different degrees of heat and
light, the various colors of the spectrum. The various
species of minerals, plants, and animals are subordinated
according to their greater or lesser perfection; such
subordination is also found among the angels.
This gives us an analogy of the divine processions. But
in God there can be no order of greater or lesser
perfection and so there can be no subordination or
coordination, which implies subordination. Nor can there
be an order of causality since each divine person is
uncreated, uncaused, and entirely equal to the others.
In the divine persons there is an order of origin as we
know exists between the Father and the Son, and between
the Holy Ghost and the Father, and equally between the
Holy Ghost and the Son, otherwise there would be no
more order in the divine persons than between those things
that are distinguished only numerically and materially.
If there were no such order the analogy with intellect and
will would break down, for the will, as the rational
appetite, does not come from the essence of the soul
except through the mediation of the intellective faculty,
otherwise the appetite would not be properly rational in
its root nor would it be under the direction of reason.
In other words it is impossible that the intellect and the
will should be equal (ex aequo) as Suarez thought;
there must be some order between them as there must be
order between vision and love.
Suarez failed to see that all coordination supposes
subordination and that the intellect and the will cannot be
coordinated on an equal plane (ex aequo) nor can vision
and love.
Order is a disposition by way of earlier and later with
respect to some principle, and thus order is discovered in
subordination before it is found in coordination. Two
soldiers are not coordinated in an army unless they are
first subordinated to the leader of the army.[448]
St. Thomas asks whether the inequality of things is from
God, and he replies in the affirmative, saying that the
subordination or hierarchy of things serves to manifest in
many ways the divine goodness, which in itself is most
simple and would not be fittingly manifested if all things
were entirely equal. Then there would be no reason for
multiplying created things.[449]
Thus, as Leibnitz said, no one would place in his
library several identical copies of the same edition of
Virgil. The variety of species necessary for the
subordination of created things is a better manifestation
of the divine goodness, which is in itself most simple.
In God's intimate life there is no subordination or
hierarchy, but there is an order of origin that transcends
coordination and subordination.
In the body of the article St. Thomas notes that the
Greeks concede that there is an element of truth in this
argument; they concede that the Holy Ghost is from the
Father through the Son. This formula will be examined
in the next article. St. Thomas also notes that some
Greeks are said to concede that the Holy Ghost flows
from the Son but does not proceed from Him. To which
St. Thomas replied: everything that flows from another
proceeds from it, as the brook from the spring and the ray
of light from the sun. The Greeks insisted that the
Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father as the brook from
the spring and through the Son as through the channel in
which the brook flows.
The fourth argument is taken from the general principle
that in God all things are one and the same except where
there is opposition of relation. But between the Father
and the Son there is no opposition of relation in active
spiration. Therefore active spiration is common to both.
This commonly accepted principle was expressly formulated
in the Council of Florence,[450] and as Denzinger
notes, it was at this Council that the learned Cardinal
Bessarion, archbishop of Nicaea, the theologian of the
Greek party, proclaimed: "No one is ignorant of the
fact that the personal names of the Trinity are
relative." It is on this accepted principle that the
argument is based.
The fifth reason is drawn from the words," ll things
whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine. Therefore I
said, that He shall receive of Mine."[451] If
the Holy Ghost did not proceed from the Son, the Son
would not have whatsoever the Father has (excepting
paternity), and the divine will would be less fecund in
the Son for active spiration than in the Father. Nor
should it be said that the Holy Ghost has the same will
as the Father and still does not spirate actively because
the Holy Ghost, proceeding not by intellection but by
the will, exhausts the will as its adequate terminus. In
other words, the Holy Ghost exhausts the entire
fecundity of the divine will within itself (ad intra),
just as the divine Word proceeding by intellection ad
intra, exhausts the entire fecundity of the divine
intellect as its adequate terminus.
The sixth reason is found in the Contra
Gentes.[452] In God, since He is necessary,
there is no difference between being and possibility, that
is, being follows immediately on possibility. But it is
not the impossibility but rather the possibility that
appears that the Son should be the principle of the Holy
Ghost, for that which is from a principle in the first
procession can be the principle in the second procession.
Therefore the Son is a principle of the second procession
together with the Father.
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