CHAPTER XII: QUESTION 38 THE GIFT AS THE NAME OF THE HOLY GHOST


PRELIMINARY REMARKS

THIS question is the basis for the question on the missions of the divine persons (question 43) and it is also fundamental to the questions on grace. For a clear understanding of the following articles we must first present a few notes on the differences between the Latin and Greek Fathers.[491]

For the Latin Fathers the natural order, or the order of creation, depends efficiently and finally on the one God, the author of nature; the supernatural order, or the order of grace, depends efficiently and finally on the triune God, the author of grace. For the Greeks, the natural order is also produced by God ad extra through efficient causality and by the command whereby God in pronouncing the fiat produced all created things from nothing. The supernatural order, however, for the Greeks is rather the indwelling of the divine persons in the just than an effect of efficient causality ad extra. This indwelling is in a sense a prolongation of the divine processions ad extra, distinct from the creative action as living is distinct from commanding. Living is an action essentially immanent whereas the divine command is something that refers to things outside the divine nature. It was in this sense that the Greek Fathers interpreted St. Peter's words, "My whom He hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature."[492] In order that the intimate life of God may come to us it is necessary that the divine persons themselves, without whom this intimate life of God cannot exist, should come to us in their substantial reality. It is not enough that the Father should have the simple will of adopting; He must operate, as it were, by His nature or according to His intimate life by sending us the Son and the Holy Ghost. Thus in the mind of the Greek Fathers the order of grace is rather the order of substantial indwelling than an effect of divine causality, and therefore the Greeks insist that we receive not only grace, which is a created effect, but the Holy Ghost, who is the gift par excellence. For Origen[493] and the Alexandrian Fathers, the Holy Ghost is the substantial font of all graces. For Didymus[494] the Holy Ghost is the seal impressed on the soul, and sanctifying grace is the impression of this seal in its passive aspect, and this seal must remain in the soul.[495]

Similarly St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen call our sanctification a deification, and this deification is described as the projection of God's inner life ad extra by the divine missions.

For the Greek Fathers, then, the Holy Ghost is the uncreated gift and at the same time the enexgeia metaphorically expressed by the figure of the spring of living water; and this uncreated gift is prior, on the part of God who gives it, to the created gift of grace. In this sense they also understood the words, "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us."[496]

St. Thomas does not appear to recede from this position of the Greek Fathers, although he does insist that habitual grace is a previous disposition on the part of the subject, man, for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. This does not preclude the idea that the Holy Ghost on the part of the efficient cause, which is God, is given prior to grace. Causes are often causes of each other; thus the ultimate disposition for a perfection precedes the perfection in the order of material cause and follows it as a property in the order of formal cause. In the theory of the Greek Fathers, although the entire Trinity dwells in the just, the Holy Ghost is in the just by a special presence which is more than the presence by appropriation of which the Latin Fathers speak. In other words, the theory of the Greek Fathers, which considers the three persons prior to the divine nature, finds it easier to explain the special nature of the mission of the Holy Ghost, which as a mission is something more than simple appropriation.

In the Greek mind the Father, in order to sanctify men and angels, sends them the uncreated gift, namely, the Holy Ghost, who dwells personally in the just and by circumincession, as it were, draws the Son, who is also sent, and the Father, who is not sent but who comes. Thus the Holy Ghost dwells in us formally as a person and as the uncreated gift. There is not, however, a hypostatic union of the soul of the just man with the Holy Ghost because the just man retains his own personality and the union with the Holy Ghost is not substantial but only accidental.

According to the theory of the Latin Fathers the Holy Ghost dwells in us by reason of the divine nature, because the Latins considered the divine nature before the three persons, and in the souls of the just they considered first the participation in the divine nature, which is created grace, before they considered the uncreated gift, for which grace disposes the soul. These are two aspects of the same mystery, and divine Providence has arranged that both be studied so that we might understand this mystery better although we shall never be able to express it adequately.

From this it is clear that the Greeks understood the absolute distinction between the order of nature and the order of grace; indeed they declare that without the uncreated gift we cannot be made partakers of the divine nature; that is, habitual grace cannot be infused except through the divine persons dwelling in the just, especially by the Holy Ghost, who is the uncreated gift, the living spring of all graces.[497]

This at all events is the interpretation of the doctrine of the Greek Fathers proposed by many modern authors although the doctrine of the Greek Fathers in other texts seems to be closer to St. Augustine and the Latin Fathers.

We shall now consider how St. Thomas preserved the doctrine of the Greek Fathers and how he reconciled it to the Latin theory of the two processions after the manner of intellection and of love. This question has two articles: 1. whether "the Gift" can be taken as a personal name; 2. whether it is a proper name of the Holy Ghost. Such is St. Thomas' procedure because the Son of God is also given to us, and he wished to show that the Holy Ghost is properly the gift.