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In the first question on the Trinity St. Thomas began
with the unity of the divine nature and the revealed
existence of the processions. He showed that the
processions were immanent or ad intra and he explained them
according to St. Augustine by analogy with the
intellectual enunciation of the word and with love. Thus
the processions were seen to be after the manner of
intellection and of love. This is based on revelation
since it is clear from the prologue of St. John's
Gospel that the Son of God proceeds as the intellectual
word of the Father.
In the second question he showed how these real
processions, namely, generation and spiration, are the
bases of real relations according to which the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost are denominated in Sacred
Scripture. These real relations are not really
distinguished from the essence, but they are really
distinct from one another if relative opposition exists
between them. For it is not repugnant that the relations
be mutually opposed; they are indeed not opposed to each
other in their "esse in" (for in this they are
identified with the essence) but according to their
"esse ad", which does not properly inhere in the
essence. If, on the contrary, that which is proper to a
relation inhered in the subject, as the property of
quality, the opposition of relation could not exist
between the relations unless at the same time there should
be opposition in the divine essence itself. We saw also
how St. Thomas solved the objection based on the
principle that those things which are the same as a third
are identical, whereas Suarez held that the principle of
identity does not apply to the Trinity.
In question 29 St. Thomas showed that the divine
persons are formally constituted by subsisting relations
opposed to one another. Thus he safeguards the analogical
notion of person as something subsisting and
incommunicable. Hence the divine essence is communicable
but the paternity is not.
Then St. Thomas treats of plurality in God, the
proper manner of expressing this plurality, and the
knowability of this mystery.
St. Thomas thus begins with the unity of the divine
nature and the two processions as they are revealed and
proceeds to the three divine persons mentioned in
revelation. Thus without detracting from the sublimity of
this mystery he explains it to some extent by showing
that, even after the unity of the divine nature is
established, the Trinity of persons is not repugnant.
The possibility of the Trinity is not properly and
positively demonstrated, but congruent reasons are given
to show that the divine nature ought to be fecund, even
infinitely, after the manner of intellectual generation
and the spiration of love. In this way St. Thomas
retained what earlier theologians, like Alexander of
Hales and St. Bonaventure, had taught: that the good
is diffusive of itself, and that it seems that the higher
the good the more intimately it will be diffusive of
itself. St. Thomas expressed this idea in his own
words: "the higher any nature is, the more intimate with
it will be that which proceeds from it."[374]
But, as has been said, with respect to creatures the
good is diffusive of itself primarily in the order of final
causality and consequently in the order of efficient
causality, since everything that acts does so because of
some end. The divine processions, however, are above
the order of causality, both final and efficient. The
Father is not the cause of the Son; He is only the
principle. The same is true of the Father and the Son
with regard to the Holy Ghost. Hence St. Thomas
makes little use of the formula, "Good is diffusive of
itself," in this treatise on the Trinity; and in order
to express the fecundity of the divine nature he prefers
the statement, "My how much higher a nature is so much
more intimate will be that which proceeds from that
nature," and "By how much greater the understanding so
much more intimate will be the intellectual concept with
the intellect... . Hence, since the divine intellect
is at the apex of perfection, we must say that the divine
Word is perfectly one with Him from whom it proceeds
without any diversity of nature."[375]
The divine Word is not something accidental; it is
substantial because intellection in God is not an accident
but something subsisting. The first procession, then,
is not the conception of an accidental word but the true
generation of the substantial Word. Thus to some degree
the mystery is explained notwithstanding its supernatural
sublimity. We now turn to the divine persons in
particular.
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