4. THE COMMON TEACHING OF THEOLOGIANS

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]