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In his commentaries on the Gospel of St. Matthew and
that of St. John and on the epistles of St. Paul,
St. Thomas examined all the texts of the New Testament
in which the Holy Trinity is mentioned explicitly or
implicitly. In his consideration of this subject, he
clearly understood how much St. Augustine was able to
contribute toward the understanding of these texts. His
debt to St. Augustine will become evident from a
comparison of the works of St. Augustine with the
writings of the Greek Fathers.
1. The method of the Greek Fathers. In their
refutation of Sabellius, who had denied the real
distinction between the divine persons, and of Arius and
Macedonius, who had denied the divinity either of the
Son or of the Holy Ghost, the Greek Fathers began
with the affirmation of the three persons, as found in
Sacred Scripture, and then they tried to show that this
Trinity of persons could be reconciled with the unity of
nature by reason of the consubstantiality of the persons.
This idea of consubstantiality was more and more
explicitly stated and then defined in the Council of
Nicaea.[121]
Thus the Greek Fathers, especially St. Athanasius,
showed that, according to revelation, the Father begets
the Son by communicating to Him not only the
participation of His nature but His whole nature, and
from this it followed that the Son was consubstantial with
the Father and true God from true God. This also
explained how the incarnate Son of God was able to redeem
us from the servitude of sin, because His merits had
infinite value.[122] In the same way the Greek
Fathers showed that according to Sacred Scripture the
Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son,
was God and therefore was able to sanctify our souls.
Indeed these processions were looked upon as donations and
communications rather than as operations of the divine
intellect and will: the Father, in begetting the Son,
gave Him His nature. Similarly, the Father and the
Son gave or communicated the divine nature to the Holy
Ghost, who proceeded from them. But in this concept,
the manner in which the first and second processions took
place remained inscrutable.[123] In their
explanations of this mystery, the Greek Fathers followed
the order of the Apostles' Creed, in which the Father
is called the Creator, the Son the Savior, and the
Holy Ghost the Sanctifier. The explanations proposed
by the Greek Fathers contained, it must be said, many
obscurities.
2. The difficulties of the Greek Fathers. Why are
there two processions and only two? How does the first
differ from the second, and why is the first procession
called generation? In other words, why is the Son of
God only-begotten, and why does the Holy Ghost,
although not begotten, receive the whole divine nature?
One other doubt arises: Why, in the Apostles'
Creed, is the Father alone called the Creator, whereas
in the prologue of St. John's Gospel and in the
epistles of St. Paul all things are said to have been
made by the Word? The creative omnipotence is an
attribute of the divine nature and therefore it is
something common to the divine nature and pertains to the
three divine persons. The Greek Fathers did not explain
in what sense the Father alone is called the Creator in
the Creed.
To solve this difficulty, St. Augustine and his
successors adopted the theory of appropriation, which is
found only implicitly in the Greek Fathers. The Latins
explained that the Father is called the Creator, not
because He alone created, but by appropriation, that
is, by a similitude of propriety, for "the creative
power contains the idea of principle and therefore has a
resemblance with the heavenly Father, who is the
principle in the divinity."[124] In the same way
wisdom has a resemblance with the Son inasmuch as He is
the Word.
3. St. Augustine's solution of these difficulties.
To arrive at a solution of these problems, St.
Augustine labored long in the writing of his great work,
De Trinitate, in fifteen books; the first seven books
explain the biblical texts referring to the Trinity, and
the other eight treat of the mystery speculatively,
proposing analogies taken from the human soul, inasmuch as
the word of the mind proceeds from it by intellection as
well as love, which is the inclination or weight of the
soul drawing it to the good as loved. St. Augustine
laid great emphasis on the fact that according to the
Fourth Gospel the Son proceeds from the Father as the
Word; "And the Word was with God and the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning with God. All
things were made by Him... ."
The Son, who is called only-begotten (v. 18),
proceeds therefore from the Father as the Word, not as
the Word produced and delivered exteriorly, but as the
Word of the divine mind, for it is said, "The Word
was with God, and the Word was God." The Word,
then, is God, not the supreme creature, and "all
things were made by Him." In the Epistle to the
Hebrews, we read, "Who being the brightness of His
glory, and the figure of His substance[of God the
Father], and upholding all things by the word of His
power."
St. Augustine explains the intimate manner of the
generation of the eternal and only-begotten Son, while
the Greek Fathers said that the manner of His begetting
was inscrutable. Explaining the prologue of St.
John's Gospel, St. Augustine showed that the Father
from eternity begets His Son by an intellectual act just
as our mind conceives the mental word: in the soul we find
the mind, knowledge, and love; in the soul, which is
the image of the Trinity, there are memory, intelligence
(the act of intellection), and the will. This helps us
to understand the fecundity of the divine
nature.[125]
But while our word is only an accident of our minds,
remaining very imperfect and limited, and multiple to
express the diverse nature of things, the divine Word is
something substantial, most perfect, unique, perfectly
expressing the divine nature and all that it contains. It
is therefore truly "light of light, God of God, true
God of true God." Thus, by the analogy of our
intellectual word, by its similarity and dissimilarity,
the intimate manner of the first procession is explained.
The manner of the second procession, which appears as the
procession of love, is also explained. From our souls,
which according to the Scriptures are created in the
likeness of God, proceeds not only the word but also
love. The human mind not only conceives the true-good
but also loves it. If therefore the only-begotten Son
proceeds from the Father as the mental Word, the Holy
Ghost is to be considered as proceeding from them as
love.
Thus it is that there are in God two processions and only
two, and the manner of each is explained. St.
Augustine, however, did not understand why the first
procession is called generation. St. Thomas explains:
"The Word proceeds by intellectual action, which is a
vital operation, conjoined to the principle, and after
the manner of a likeness, because the intellectual concept
is an image of the thing understood."[126] The
concept of our minds, however, does not deserve the name
of generation, because in us the concept is only an
accident of our minds, whereas in God the Word is
substantial inasmuch as intellection in God is subsisting
being. Thus the Father, in producing the Word, begets
a Son like to Himself, and does not produce an
accidental mental word.
St. Thomas further perfected the doctrine of St.
Augustine by showing why the procession of love should not
be called generation: "the will is in act, not because
some likeness of the thing willed is in the will, but
because the will has a certain inclination toward the thing
willed."[127] In St. Augustine's words, "My
love is my weight."
In the doctrine proposed by St. Augustine we also find
an explanation of why the Holy Ghost proceeds not from
the Father alone, but also from the Son, because in our
souls love proceeds not only from the soul itself but from
the knowledge of the true-good, since nothing is loved
unless it is also known.
From this it appears that in his thinking about the
Trinity, St. Augustine did not begin with the three
persons as did the Greek Fathers but rather with the
unity of the divine nature, which was already demonstrated
by reason, just as he began with the soul itself in his
demonstration of its faculties and superior operations.
In these two approaches opposing difficulties arise: in
the Greek approach it is difficult to safeguard the unity
of nature, while in the Augustinian approach, starting
with the unity of nature, it is difficult to safeguard the
distinction between the persons and those things which are
proper or appropriated to the persons. It is, after
all, a transcendent and indemonstrable mystery. But by
these two approaches, the first of which is the more
concrete and the second is more abstract, the mystery is
contemplated under two aspects. And finally, the
abstract principles serve to advance a better understanding
of what is known beforehand in a concrete manner.
St. Augustine and his followers easily explained what
the Greek Fathers were not able to show: why the Father
alone is not the Creator, but also the Son and the Holy
Ghost, because the creative power is a property of the
divine nature, common to the three persons. Gradually
was unfolded the meaning of the traditional principle: the
three persons are one principle in the operations "ad
extra". This principle was formulated in the
condemnations by Pope Damasus in 380, and later
councils defined it more accurately.[128] Great
progress was thus made in the elucidation of this dogma.
When, in the Apostles' Creed, only the Father is
called the Creator, the predication is not proper and
exclusive; it is rather by a kind of appropriation,
inasmuch as the creative power contains the notion of
principle "ad extra" just as the Father is the
principle "ad intra." In the same way, wisdom
has a resemblance with the Word, and our sanctification
has a resemblance to the Holy Ghost, since it proceeds
from God's love for us, and thus the Holy Ghost is
called the Spirit of love or personal love.
Therefore, while consubstantiality was the terminus
toward which the Greek Fathers tended, beginning with
the three persons, whose names are found in Scripture,
St. Augustine, on the other hand, began with the unity
of the divine nature to arrive at the three persons, just
as he began with the unity of the soul to determine its
superior operations and the various manifestations of its
life.
In the Augustinian doctrine, gradually that principle
which illumines the whole treatise on the Trinity and was
formulated by the Council of Florence in 1441, came
to light, "In God all things are one and the same
unless there is opposition of relation, " that is, where
there is no relative opposition between the persons, all
things are one and the same because the divine nature is
numerically one with all its attributes.[129]
4. The difficulties of the Augustinian teaching solved
by St. Thomas. Two difficulties remained in the
Augustinian doctrine. The first arose from the fact that
the generation of the Word takes place after the manner of
intellection; but the three divine persons have
intellect; therefore the three divine persons ought to
beget, and then there would be a fourth person, and so on
to infinity. This difficulty is solved by the distinction
between intellection and the expression of the notional
idea inasmuch as the three persons all have intelligence
but only the Father expresses the intellection. He alone
expresses because the Word is adequate and the most
perfect expression of the divine nature and no other Word
need be enunciated. Just as in a classroom while the
teacher is teaching, both he and the pupils understand,
but the teacher alone enunciates. Similarly a difficult
question may be proposed to a number of persons; then one
discovers and expresses the correct solution, while all
the others immediately understand it. This distinction
between intellection and enunciation is offered by St.
Thomas.[130]
The second difficulty is similar: the second procession
takes place after the manner of love; but the three
persons love; therefore the three persons ought to spirate
another person, and so on to infinity.
The solution of this difficulty depends on the distinction
between essential love, which is common to the three
persons, and notional love, which is active spiration and
corresponds to the enunciation of the Word. It is called
notional because it denotes the third person. Thus the
three persons all love, but only the first two spirate.
We have then three kinds of love in God: essential,
notional, and personal. Personal love is the Holy
Ghost Himself, who is the terminus of active spiration
just as the Word is the terminus of generation and
enunciation.[131] According to a rather remote
analogy: a saintly preacher loves God and inspires his
audience with this love, and the hearers also love God
but they do not inspire others with this love. These two
distinctions are not explicitly found in St. Augustine,
but after his time great progress was made in elucidating
the traditional doctrine of the Trinity.
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