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Objection 1: It would seem that it does not belong to Christ as
God to sit at the right hand of the Father. For, as God, Christ
is the Father's right hand. But it does not appear to be the same
thing to be the right hand of anyone and to sit on his right hand.
Therefore, as God, Christ does not sit at the right hand of the
Father.
Objection 2: Further, in the last chapter of Mark (16:19)
it is said that "the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven, and
sitteth on the right hand of God." But it was not as God that
Christ was taken up to heaven. Therefore neither does He, as God,
sit at the right hand of God.
Objection 3: Further, Christ as God is the equal of the Father
and of the Holy Ghost. Consequently, if Christ sits as God at the
right hand of the Father, with equal reason the Holy Ghost sits at
the right hand of the Father and of the Son, and the Father Himself
on the right hand of the Son; which no one is found to say.
On the contrary, Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iv): that
"what we style as the Father's right hand, is the glory and honor of
the Godhead, wherein the Son of God existed before ages as God and
as consubstantial with the Father."
I answer that, As may be gathered from what has been said (Article
1) three things can be understood under the expression "right
hand." First of all, as Damascene takes it, "the glory of the
Godhead": secondly, according to Augustine "the beatitude of the
Father": thirdly, according to the same authority, "judiciary
power." Now as we observed (Article 1) "sitting denotes" either
abiding, or royal or judiciary dignity. Hence, to sit on the right
hand of the Father is nothing else than to share in the glory of the
Godhead with the Father, and to possess beatitude and judiciary
power, and that unchangeably and royally. But this belongs to the
Son as God. Hence it is manifest that Christ as God sits at the
right hand of the Father; yet so that this preposition "at," which
is a transitive one, implies merely personal distinction and order of
origin, but not degree of nature or dignity, for there is no such
thing in the Divine Persons, as was shown in the FP, Question
42, Articles 3,4.
Reply to Objection 1: The Son of God is called the Father's
"right hand" by appropriation, just as He is called the "Power"
of the Father (1 Cor. 1:24). But "right hand of the
Father," in its three meanings given above, is something common to
the three Persons.
Reply to Objection 2: Christ as man is exalted to Divine honor;
and this is signified in the aforesaid sitting; nevertheless such honor
belongs to Him as God, not through any assumption, but through His
origin from eternity.
Reply to Objection 3: In no way can it be said that the Father is
seated at the right hand of the Son or of the Holy Ghost; because
the Son and the Holy Ghost derive their origin from the Father, and
not conversely. The Holy Ghost, however, can be said properly to
sit at the right hand of the Father or of the Son, in the aforesaid
sense, although by a kind of appropriation it is attributed to the
Son, to whom equality is appropriated; thus Augustine says (De
Doctr. Christ. i) that "in the Father there is unity, in the
Son equality, in the Holy Ghost the connection of unity with
equality."
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