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In article I, in the reply to the second objection,
St. Thomas says that in God love can be a divine person
inasmuch as it is subsisting and also incommunicable as the
terminus of the second procession.
The third objection: Love is a nexus between lovers;
but the nexus is the medium between those things which it
joins and therefore it is not a terminus or something that
proceeds.
Reply. The Holy Ghost is at the same time a nexus and
a terminus, since He is the terminus of the mutual love
of the Father and the Son. This mutual spirating love
is notional love, and the Holy Ghost is personal love.
The Holy Ghost is said to be the terminus of mutual love
inasmuch as He proceeds from two spirators, but the love
of the two spirators is unique since there is only one
spiration.
In the reply to the fourth objection we learn that the
Holy Ghost loves with an essential love like the Father
and the Son. We should note how St. Thomas safeguards
the proper meaning of the terms. "The word," he says,
"onnotes the condition of the word with respect to the
thing expressed by the word."[486] That which is
really understood is the thing understood in the word;
that is, what we first understand in direct intellection
is not the mental word of the extramental thing but the
nature of the extramental thing expressed by the mental
word. We know the extramental thing in the word but not
in the word first seen or known in itself. On the other
hand we know a man in his reflection, and the reflection
is that which is first seen or known, and God knows all
creatures in Himself and He knows and sees Himself
first, for what is first known by the divine intellect is
the divine essence itself and not possible or actual
creatures.
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