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State of the question. The difficulty arises because,
as we have said, a mission implies a procession, and the
processions are eternal. Moreover, whenever anything
belongs to another temporarily and not from eternity, that
one is changed; but a divine person is not changed.
Reply. Nevertheless the reply is that mission and giving
in God are predicated only temporarily.
1. This is proved from the Scriptures: "But when the
fullness of the time was come, God sent His
Son."[615]
2. The theological reason is merely an explanation of
the idea of mission: for a mission, besides the reference
to the eternal principle, has a reference to the temporal
terminus by which the idea of mission is completed.
Therefore it must be said to be temporal, even though its
principle is eternal, because the effect which it connotes
and by which it is denominated is temporal.
In the same way God is said to have created not from
eternity but in time. Similarly, the Incarnation and
the sending of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost are not from
eternity but in time.
On the other hand, generation and spiration are said to
be from eternity, because they do not imply a reference to
a temporal terminus. Procession and exitus in God,
however, are said to be both eternal and temporal, since
the Son proceeds eternally as God and temporally as man.
In his conclusion St. Thomas joins mission and giving
(datio), not because they are entirely the same but
because they are in a certain way in agreement. They
agree in this, that both imply a new mode of existence in
creatures. They differ inasmuch as mission implies that
the person who is sent proceeds from another, whereas the
giving does not imply this procession. Thus the Father,
who cannot be sent, gives Himself, and the divine
essence can be given to the Son and the Holy Ghost by
communication.
Reply to the second objection. Why is the person who is
sent not changed by the fact that the person becomes
present in a new way in another? The reason is that this
is solely because of the change in the creature, just as
God is said to be the Lord of all things in time not
because God is changed but because things arrive at
existence. In the same way any object is said to be
actually seen now and not before, not because there is a
change in the object but because of the change in vision,
which is now terminated to this object. Thus the Word is
not changed by the visible mission of the Incarnation,
that is, by the fact that the humanity of Christ
terminates in the Word.
Reply to the third objection. Mission includes the
eternal procession and adds a temporal effect. We have
then a twofold procession, eternal and temporal;
twofold, not with respect to a twofold principle but to
two termini, of which one is eternal (and so the
procession is eternal) and the other temporal (and so the
procession is temporal, which is the mission itself).
Hence "mission" can be defined as "the procession of
origin of one person from another with a new mode of
existence in another." Mission, therefore, is more
than appropriation, and is distinguished both from
creation and from eternal procession. It is distinct from
creation because its eternal principle is the person that
sends and not the entire Trinity, which is the one
principle of operation ad extra. It is distinct from
eternal procession because of its temporal terminus and
also because it is somewhat similar to creation. Mission
is, therefore, a kind of middle between eternal
procession and creation.
Doubt. Does mission principally and directly imply the
eternal origin of the person sent or the new effect
produced in the creature? With John of St.
Thomas[616] and Gonet,[617] it should be noted
that there are two concepts of mission held by
Scholastics: the one proposed by St. Bonaventure and
Scotus, the other by St. Thomas, the Thomists, and
others. This question, which seems to be rather subtle,
is necessary to distinguish the divine mission from simple
appropriation, inasmuch as mission is more than
appropriation.
For St. Bonaventure and Scotus, mission is
principally not the procession itself but the production of
the temporal effect for which the person is said to be
sent. Their reason is that the person pre-existed by
eternal procession before the free and temporal
procession.
The Thomists, like Gonet, say that mission is not the
production of the temporal effect, but that it implies
directly the eternal origin of the persons, and indirectly
the new effect produced in the creature.
1. This is proved by the authority of St. Augustine,
"Now go forth from the Father and to come into the world
is to be sent."[618] St. Thomas says: "Mission
includes the eternal procession but it adds something,
namely, the temporal effect."[619] Besides this,
St. Thomas held in the eighth article that the Son is
not as properly sent by the Holy Ghost as the Holy
Ghost is sent by the Son, although the Holy Ghost
together with the Father and the Son produces the
temporal effect on account of which the Son is said to be
sent.[620]
2. Proof from reason. The mission of a divine person
essentially implies the going forth of the person sent.
But this going forth can be nothing else than the eternal
origin, because the mission of the divine person cannot
take place by either command or counsel. Therefore the
mission essentially implies such origin, and therefore it
is not only the temporal operation of God ad extra, but
the eternal origin of the person sent with the connotation
of the operation ad extra and the temporal effect.
First confirmation. Otherwise the Father would also be
sent, since sanctifying grace is produced in the just,
according to which the Father also dwells in the just.
Second confirmation. Our view is confirmed by a
comparison of the divine mission with a free act of God,
for example, creation, for this free act of creating in
God is nothing else than the one unique act of the divine
will by which God necessarily loves Himself, with the
added connotation of the good that is not necessarily
loved.
Third confirmation. The Thomistic view seems more in
conformity with the Scriptural language: "From God I
proceeded, and came";[621] and "I came forth from
the Father, and am come into the world."[622]
The Greek Fathers regarded the missions as prolongations
of the processions ad extra; thus they distinguished the
missions from creation. They said that the sending of the
persons of the Son and the Holy Ghost differs from
creation as to live differs from to command. And they
based the communication of divine life, by which we are
elevated to the order of grace, not on creation but on the
divine missions. In this way they distinguished between
the natural order and the order of grace as they
distinguished between creation and the missions of the
divine persons. Naturally they placed great emphasis on
the invisible mission of the Holy Ghost, and this
characteristic of the Greek theory should not surprise
us, because the Greeks began with the three persons
rather than with the unity of nature. St. Augustine,
however, preserved the essential point in the doctrine of
the Greeks when he said: "To go forth from the Father
and to come into the world is to be sent."[623]
The mission is said to be temporal, however, inasmuch as
it connotes a temporal effect by which it is denominated;
just as creation is said to be temporal by reason of its
effect, although the free creative action is eternal.
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