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Theologians commonly teach about this inhabitation: a)
that this union is not hypostatic or personal and
substantial, but that it is accidental and moral,
although real; b) that the Holy Ghost is in the souls
of the just not properly as a formal cause but as an
efficient and exemplary cause, and as an object that is
known and loved; c) that this habitation belongs to the
three persons but is appropriated to the Holy Ghost.
a) This inhabitation is entirely distinct from a
hypostatic union, since the just man retains his own
personality, and the soul is not only a substance distinct
from the Holy Ghost but it retains its own proper being.
It is therefore a union that is not personal or
substantial but accidental through knowledge and love;
thus it is a moral union. Nevertheless it is a real union
because the Holy Ghost is present not only as the effect
of a divine operation but also by the divine substance;
that is, without any change in Himself, the Holy Ghost
is infused into the soul according to the degree by which
He elevates the soul to grace and charity.
b) The Holy Ghost living thus in the soul sanctifies it
not as a formal cause but as an efficient and exemplary
cause; not as a formal cause, because infused charity is
something created and is not uncreated charity.[651]
The Council of Trent declared: "The one and only
cause of justification is the justice of God, not the
justice by which God is just but that by which He makes
us just,"[652] namely, created grace. If the
Holy Ghost were the formal cause of our justification,
the soul would have to be considered the material cause,
in which the Holy Ghost inheres intrinsically; and by
these two as parts there would be constituted a third being
more perfect than the parts, which is impossible. This
would open the way to pantheism.[653] Hence the
Holy Ghost is called only "the quasi-soul of our soul
and the quasi-life of our interior life." But together
with the Father and the Son the Holy Ghost is properly
the efficient cause of grace and charity inasmuch as He
infuses, conserves, and increases them. The Holy
Ghost may also be called the exemplary cause, since He
imprints on the soul the divine likeness,[654] and at
the same time He is also the ultimate end. In the
explanation of St. Thomas' articles we must explain how
the Holy Ghost is in us as the known and loved object.
c) This indwelling in the soul, as Pope Leo
remarks,[655] is common to the three persons but it
is appropriated to the Holy Ghost, because it takes
place by charity, which assimilates us more to the Holy
Ghost than faith assimilates us to the Son. By the
light of glory we will be perfectly assimilated to the
Son, who will perfectly assimilate us to the Father, of
whom He is the image.
This is the common teaching in opposition to Petavius,
Scheeben, and Jovene, who believe that the indwelling
is common to the three persons, but, citing certain texts
of the Greek Fathers, they hold that the union belongs
properly to the Holy Ghost, who is united to us by
reason of His person rather than by reason of the divine
nature. This opinion is generally rejected because "in
God all things are in common except where there is
opposition of relation." And not only the indwelling but
the union of God with the soul by grace can be attributed
to the three persons as long as there is no opposition of
relation. This union of the Holy Ghost with the soul of
the just man is not personal because it is not hypostatic,
and thus it cannot be more than appropriation. This was
the teaching of Pope Leo, namely, the presence is
"that of the entire Trinity, although it is predicated
as peculiar to the Holy Ghost."[656]
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