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The Augustinian teaching prevailed for three reasons.
1. Because by beginning with the unity of the divine
nature, St. Augustine began methodically with what was
better known to us. The divine nature was already
demonstrated by reason, and from this he proceeded to the
supernatural mystery of the Trinity. When the Greek
Fathers were writing, the treatise on the one God had
not yet been set up as the way to an understanding of the
Trinity.
2. Because the Augustinian approach solved those
difficulties remaining in the Greek concept, explaining
the number and character of the processions after the
manner of intellection and love. It also explained the
"Filioque", inasmuch as love presupposes
intellection; and finally it explained the distinction
between the natural order, of which God as one and the
Creator is the efficient principle, and the supernatural
order, whose supreme mystery is the divine processions
within God.
3. Because whatever difficulties still remained were
attributable not to deficiencies of method but to the
sublimity of the mystery. Moreover, the Augustinian
concept offered whatever was positive in the Greek
concept, perfecting it, and thus itself was more
perfect. The Greek Fathers began with the concrete;
the Latin Fathers and theologians arrived at a more
abstract consideration and at the knowledge of principles
which cast light both on the whole treatise and on those
things known concretely in the beginning.
6. The theory of Richard of St. Victor.[132]
This theory is dominated by the Victorine voluntarism,
according to which the good is prior and more important
than being, and the will and love are more important than
the intellect. According to this concept, God would
better be defined as the supreme Good rather than as
subsisting Being. To which St. Thomas replied that
that which first comes to the attention of our intellect is
being, and that the notion of good presupposes the more
universal and simpler concept of being; good is nothing
more than the plenitude of being, desired because it is
perfective.[133] We should not be surprised to see
these two tendencies among philosophers and theologians,
the primacy of being and intellect, and the primacy of
good and love, nor is it surprising that two theories
should have been proposed by Latin theologians about the
Trinity. We will briefly consider here Richard's
theory because it was adopted in some form by Alexander of
Hales and St. Bonaventure, and is quoted by St.
Thomas.[134] Indeed, St. Thomas, developed his
own doctrine by correcting the theory of Richard of St.
Victor, which should therefore be explained first.
Richard, like the Greeks, first considered in God the
person and then the nature. He demonstrated the existence
of a personal God, possessing all perfections,
especially the supreme perfection, which for Richard was
the love of benevolence and friendship, or charity.
Charity, however, declared Richard, is not the love of
oneself, but the love of friendship, the love of another
person, according to the classical passage from St.
Gregory the Great: "Charity cannot exist unless there
are two persons, for no one can properly be said to have
charity toward himself."[135] Hence Richard
concluded: "It is fitting that love should tend toward
another in order that it be charity. Where there is not a
plurality of persons, charity cannot be said to be
present."[136] In God, according to Richard,
love (good diffusive of itself) begets a second beloved
person, without whom the love of friendship cannot come
into being. The most perfect love of friendship gives to
the other not only something belonging to the lover but the
whole nature of the lover. The love of the lover gives
whatever it can.
Finally, Richard in order to prove that the most perfect
charity, such as is found in God, is most pure without
any love of concupiscence, concluded that it not only
tolerates but most freely desires a third person, equally
beloved by the other persons. When envy appears sometimes
in human friendship, it is a sign that the love is not
pure. Hence there are in God three persons, who love
one another equally without any selfish love or
self-interest, and the three loves are identified with
subsisting love itself, which is the definition of God
Himself.
Objection. But the love of the Holy Ghost is not
freely given as is the love of the Father and the Son.
Reply. Richard's reply was that, by reason of His
supreme benevolence, the Holy Ghost wishes rather to
receive than to give in order that what is more glorious
might be attributed to the other two persons.
Such is the brief outline of this theory by which Richard
wished to demonstrate the mystery of the Trinity from the
fact that God is the most perfect personal love.
Criticism.[137] St. Thomas replied that the
theory does not demonstrate that God is infinitely fecund
ad intra, for the love of the most perfect person does not
require the association of another person for his
happiness. Further, what becomes of the Word of God in
Richard's theory? It seems to disappear, since the
first procession is by love and not by
intellection.[138] For Richard, as for the
Greeks, the Word was something spoken to another person
rather than a mental concept of a person. In Richard's
mind the Father speaks, the Son is the utterance, and
the Holy Ghost hears. Thus the intimate life of God is
an intimate conversation, and the same is intellection in
the three persons. Briefly, Richard does not understand
by the Word or by His production a formal mode of divine
generation, for he explains divine generation not by the
analogy of intellection but of love.
Hence another objection arises: Richard omits the
concept of intellection, but nothing can be loved unless
it is known beforehand. As we see from his writings,
Richard responded to this objection on the basis of his
metaphysical and psychological principles.
1. Metaphysically speaking, according to Richard, the
good is superior to being and diffusive of itself by love,
as Plato and the Neoplatonists taught. According to the
Neoplatonists, the first
"hypostasis" is the one-good, which
by its own diffusiveness and by love generates the second
"hypostasis", intelligence, whose
object is being, something inferior to the supreme Good.
2. Psychologically speaking, Richard contended that
the highest vital activity is not immobile intellection,
which is quiescent in itself, but love, especially the
love of friendship, which is diffusive of itself. For
Richard knowledge was subordinate to love, as a previous
condition for a higher perfection. This opinion is
continued in Scotism, which is a form of voluntarism.
For St. Thomas, on the other hand, the dignity of
love is derived from the dignity of knowledge by which love
is directed, and the heavenly beatitude is constituted
formally by the vision of God. This vision of God is
necessarily followed, as by its complement, by the love
of God above all things.
Another objection against Richard's theory arises from
the difficulty of safeguarding the unity of the divine
nature.[139] It is the same difficulty as beset the
Greeks; like the Greeks, Richard began with the notion
of divine person rather than with the notion of the divine
nature. Therefore in his mind the divine nature was
rather the act of love, rather a dynamic unity than a
static entity. For Richard the same love was identical
in the three divine persons, although some special
property of this love is found in each person. The matter
is left in mystery. The main criticism of Richard's
theory is that he seems to lose sight of the teaching of
St. John's Gospel, that the Son of God proceeds as
the Word, that is, after the manner of intellection.
Alexander of Hales made some improvements on Richard's
theory.[140] Alexander was more intent on the
metaphysical aspect of the problem; he considered the
principle that good is diffusive of itself, rather than
the psychological aspect, that the love of charity
requires several persons. Thus Alexander and St.
Bonaventure, who followed him, looked on the divine
processions as the fecundity of the infinite living being,
relying on the axiom that good is diffusive of itself, and
the higher the nature the more intimate and complete will
be this diffusion. But the highest kind of diffusion is
the communication of ideas and of love, as when God makes
creatures in His own likeness and loves them, and also
the communication of His entire divine nature. Whereas
we, the adopted sons of God, have received only the
participation of the divine nature, the only-begotten
Son has received the entire divine nature without any
division or multiplication; and this is the supreme
diffusion and fecundity of the supreme Good.
As we shall see, this concept was retained by St.
Thomas, but a part of Alexander's theory was discarded
by him. Alexander had taught,[141] "In God to
beget after the manner of intellection is hardly the same
as to understand." After lengthy examination, under the
title, "Thether begetting is the same as intellection in
God, " St. Thomas assigns supporting reasons: "God
lives the noblest kind of life, which is intellection";
"Intellection is nothing else than generating a species
within oneself." These arguments had already been
presented by St. Augustine and St. Anselm, and St.
Thomas perfected them.
Yet Alexander concluded: "Begetting in God is not the
same as intellection."[142] For this he gives two
reasons: 1. "No one begets himself, and yet he
understands himself; the Son of God understands but does
not beget. Therefore in God begetting is not the same as
intellection." St. Thomas replied that begetting is
the same as intellectual enunciation. 2. Begetting
implies the duality of the begetter and the begotten, but
such is not the case in intellection, since anyone can
understand himself without this duality. A study of this
theory reminds us of Leibnitz's dictum: "In general,
systems are correct in what they affirm and false in what
they deny." Why? Because reality is more solid than
the systems; especially is this true of the supreme
reality.
Richard's theory was also accepted by Peter
Bles,[143] by William of Auxerre,[144] and
partly by St. Bonaventure,[145] but it was refuted
by St. Thomas.[146]
St. Bonaventure's theory is mixed because it proceeds
from two sources, from Peter Lombard, who gave St.
Augustine's doctrine on the Word, and from Richard of
St. Victor through Alexander of Hales. Hence we find
a difference between St. Bonaventure and St.
Thomas.[147] The principal difference seems to be
this: for St. Thomas, God is pure act, in the sense
of pure actuality; for St. Bonaventure, God is pure
activity or the supreme activity. For St.
Bonaventure, therefore, the supreme unity is active,
rather dynamic than static, and goodness especially is
essentially diffusive of itself. Therefore the supreme
active unity is not only absolute but it also implies a
certain relation to something else by reason of the notion
of diffusion or fecundity of a living being.
According to this principle, St. Bonaventure, like
Alexander, conceived the first procession as "the
fecundity of the divine nature," and the second
procession as "the fecundity of the will."[148]
St. Bonaventure looked on the Second Person rather as
the Son of God than as the Word of God, and he
considered the Word, or Logos, mentioned by St. John
in his prologue, as a comparison to help us understand who
the Son of God is.[149] With Alexander, St.
Bonaventure conceded that there must be begetting in God
since every nature is communicable and every living being
begets specifically like itself. Such fecundity is a
noble quality or perfection which must be attributed to
God. St. Bonaventure pointed out that there is a
notable difference between divine and human generation.
In divine generation alone, the communicated nature
remains numerically the same with the first nature because
it is infinite and cannot be divided. In human
generation, man begets in order to preserve the species
after the death of the begetter; thus man begets both
because of his fecundity and his need.
God the Father almighty begets only because of His
fecundity. St. Bonaventure's theory joins the classic
theory of St. Augustine with Richard's theory as
modified by Alexander of Hales. It is a dynamic concept
in which the concept of the good is dominant; the theory
is greatly influenced by Dionysius' principle: good is
diffusive of itself. This principle, it should be
noted, serves to illustrate the fitness of creation, but
not that of the Incarnation or of the Holy Eucharist.
In all these mysteries God diffuses His goodness.
The question arises whether St. Thomas retained the
principle that good is diffusive of itself. In making use
of this principle St. Thomas distinguished between the
end and the agent. "Good," he said, "is said to be
diffusive of itself in the sense that the end is said to
move or elicit."[150]
Every agent acts on account of an end, and therefore the
good is first of all diffusive of itself as an end, and
then effectively it is diffusive through the mediation of
the agent. "It pertains to the idea of the good," says
St. Thomas,[151] "that it communicate itself to
others; and it pertains to the idea of the supreme good
that it communicate itself in the highest way to the
creature." This takes place ad extra in the
Incarnation. Again, under the question: "Whether
God wills other things besides Himself, " St. Thomas
taught: "The natural thing... has a natural
inclination to diffuse its own good to others as much as is
possible. Hence we see that every agent, so far as it is
in act and perfect, makes something like itself... .
Much more it belongs to the divine will to communicate its
own good to others by means of a likeness as far as is
possible."[152] In the following article, against
the Neoplatonists, he says that the divine will most
freely wills other things besides itself, "Since nothing
accrues to the divine goodness from creatures." St.
Thomas also points out the fitness of the Holy
Eucharist, which is the sacrament of love.[153]
Thus we see that St. Thomas retains the principle of
Dionysius so often quoted by Alexander of Hales and
St. Bonaventure, although sometimes he proposes it
differently in the questions on the Trinity, where the
good is not properly speaking the final cause, nor the
efficient cause, but the principle. In the "Contra
Gentes" in the famous eleventh chapter, he offers
this principle to explain the divine generation of the
Word: "By how much a nature is higher, by that much
what emanates from it is more intimate." Thus, from
fire is generated, from the plant another plant, and a
vital operation is the more vital the more it is immanent,
as, for example, sensation, and intellection is still
higher since from it proceeds the word. "That which
proceeds ad extra is properly diverse from that from which
it proceeds; but that which proceeds ad intra by the
process of intellection is not properly diverse, for the
more perfectly it proceeds the more it will be one with
that from which it proceeds. Thus the Word of God
proceeding from the Father, proceeds from Him without
any numerical diversity of nature."[154] Even if
there had been no creation, the principle, good is
diffusive of itself, would be verified in God, and so
the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity confirms the
dogma of a free creation, in no way necessary.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Thomists in
explaining the teaching of St. Thomas frequently make
use of that principle so often invoked by St.
Bonaventure, that the good is essentially diffusive of
itself; although on this point there is some difference
between the two doctors. In his treatise on the
Trinity, Scheeben also makes use of this principle.
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