|
State of the question. It seems that love is not the
proper name of the Holy Ghost since the three persons
love, and love therefore is predicated essentially.
Moreover, love is the name of an action, not of a
subsisting person, and it is predicated of the Holy
Ghost as His operation after He is constituted a
person.
Reply. The reply is in the affirmative. Love, used
personally and not essentially or notionally, is the
proper name of the Holy Ghost.
1. Proof from authority. St. Gregory the Great
declared: "The Holy Ghost Himself is
love."[475] St. Augustine also frequently uses
the name "love" to designate the Holy Ghost. This
usage is plainly in accord with the Latin theory of the
Trinity, according to which the Holy Ghost proceeds
after the manner of love, and the term of such procession
can be called love. But we do not have an explicit
warrant in Sacred Scripture for the use of this
appellation, while on the other hand the Son of God is
explicitly called "the Word" in the Scriptures. St.
Ambrose calls the Holy Ghost the charity of God, and
this thought is also expressed in the liturgy:
|
Thou who art called the Paraclete,
Best Gift of God above,
The living Spring, the living Fire,
Sweet Unction, and true Love ![476]
|
|
The Eleventh Council of Toledo (675)[477]
makes reference to this name: "The Holy Ghost is shown
to have proceeded from the Father and the Son because He
is acknowledged to be the charity or the holiness of
both."
In the writings of the Greek Fathers the Third Person
of God has one proper name, the Holy Ghost, but He
has various appellations: kleseis, that is, energeia,
or vital action, the gift of God and certain symbolic
names: living spring, chrism, anointment, and spiritual
unction. But the Greeks do not distinguish the proper
name from the others as the Latins do.[478]
2. Theological proof. In the body of the article St.
Thomas argues that love is accepted in three senses:
essentially, notionally, and personally. In all three
senses it is substantial love. In the essential sense it
denotes the condition of the lover with reference to the
thing loved and belongs to the three persons like
intellection. Notionally love signifies active
spiration, by which the Holy Ghost is designated as
proceeding from the spirating Father and Son, just as in
the first procession the enunciation as distinct from
intellection is something notional, as will be explained
more fully below in question 41. Personally love
denotes the condition of him who proceeds after the manner
of love with regard to his principle, and in this sense it
is a proper name of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the
mutual love of the Father and the Son as a "certain
impression of the thing loved in the affection of the
lover," as St. Thomas says. This notional love of
the Father and the Son is unique if understood
substantively, because there is but one spiration and
indeed only one spirator; it is also said to be mutual
when understood adjectively because there are two
spirating.
As we have said in the first article of question 36,
the procession of love is not as well understood by us as
the procession after the manner of intellection, and
therefore we do not have the proper terms to designate what
pertains to love. Thus while the term of enunciation in
the intellect has a proper name, the mental word, the
immanent terminus of love is unnamed. Three reasons are
given for this: 1. the intellect knows better what is in
itself than what is in the will; 2. good, the object of
love, is not formally in the mind as truth, that is, as
the conformity of the judgment with the thing, but it is
in things outside the mind. A certain terminus of love
exists in the affection of the lover, "I certain
impression of the thing loved on the affection of the
lover" and at the same time "an impulse to the thing
loved." In St. Augustine's words, "My love (is)
the pressure that is on me." Thus love can be predicated
of God not only essentially and notionally but also
personally because, although a special name for the
immanent terminus of love is lacking, we use the common
name of love;[479] 3. a reason why love, the act
of the will, is less known than the act of the intellect
arises from the fact that a thing is not intelligible
except inasmuch as it is in act or determined; but the act
of the will or love, tending to the good which is in
things, retains something that is potential. We do not
understand divine love, which is determined to the highest
degree, except from the analogy with our love, whose
tending to the good remains somewhat potential and not
fully determined. From this difficulty in understanding
the things that pertain to love comes this poverty of
words, and so we must have recourse to common terms.
Because of this limited vocabulary we often hear preachers
speak of the Holy Ghost as if He were the active,
mutual love of the Father and the Son, whereas this love
is active spiration and if the Holy Ghost were identified
with it there would be only two persons in God.
Certainly the Holy Ghost is not the active spiration
which is in the Father and the Son; He is the terminus
of that spiration, a terminus which is opposed to the
first two divine persons by the opposition of the relation
of procession or of passive spiration.
|
|