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Objection 1: It would seem that "Word" is not the proper name of
the Son. For the Son is a subsisting person in God. But word does
not signify a subsisting thing, as appears in ourselves. Therefore
word cannot be the proper name of the person of the Son.
Objection 2: Further, the word proceeds from the speaker by being
uttered. Therefore if the Son is properly the word, He proceeds
from the Father, by way only of utterance; which is the heresy of
Valentine; as appears from Augustine (De Haeres. xi).
Objection 3: Further, every proper name of a person signifies some
property of that person. Therefore, if the Word is the Son's
proper name, it signifies some property of His; and thus there will
be several more properties in God than those above mentioned.
Objection 4: Further, whoever understands conceives a word in the
act of understanding. But the Son understands. Therefore some word
belongs to the Son; and consequently to be Word is not proper to the
Son.
Objection 5: Further, it is said of the Son (Heb. 1:3):
"Bearing all things by the word of His power;" whence Basil infers
(Cont. Eunom. v, 11) that the Holy Ghost is the Son's
Word. Therefore to be Word is not proper to the Son.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. vi, 11): "By
Word we understand the Son alone."
I answer that, "Word," said of God in its proper sense, is used
personally, and is the proper name of the person of the Son. For it
signifies an emanation of the intellect: and the person Who proceeds
in God, by way of emanation of the intellect, is called the Son;
and this procession is called generation, as we have shown above
(Question 27, Article 2). Hence it follows that the Son alone
is properly called Word in God.
Reply to Objection 1: "To be" and "to understand" are not the
same in us. Hence that which in us has intellectual being, does not
belong to our nature. But in God "to be" and "to understand" are
one and the same: hence the Word of God is not an accident in Him,
or an effect of His; but belongs to His very nature. And therefore
it must needs be something subsistent; for whatever is in the nature of
God subsists; and so Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 18)
that "the Word of God is substantial and has a hypostatic being; but
other words [as our own] are activities if the soul."
Reply to Objection 2: The error of Valentine was condemned, not
as the Arians pretended, because he asserted that the Son was born by
being uttered, as Hilary relates (De Trin. vi); but on account
of the different mode of utterance proposed by its author, as appears
from Augustine (De Haeres. xi).
Reply to Objection 3: In the term "Word" the same property is
comprised as in the name Son. Hence Augustine says (De Trin.
vii, 11): "Word and Son express the same." For the Son's
nativity, which is His personal property, is signified by different
names, which are attributed to the Son to express His perfection in
various ways. To show that He is of the same nature as the Father,
He is called the Son; to show that He is co-eternal, He is called
the Splendor; to show that He is altogether like, He is called the
Image; to show that He is begotten immaterially, He is called the
Word. All these truths cannot be expressed by only one name.
Reply to Objection 4: To be intelligent belongs to the Son, in
the same way as it belongs to Him to be God, since to understand is
said of God essentially, as stated above (Question 14, Articles
2,4). Now the Son is God begotten, and not God begetting; and
hence He is intelligent, not as producing a Word, but as the Word
proceeding; forasmuch as in God the Word proceeding does not differ
really from the divine intellect, but is distinguished from the
principle of the Word only by relation.
Reply to Objection 5: When it is said of the Son, "Bearing all
things by the word of His power"; "word" is taken figuratively for
the effect of the Word. Hence a gloss says that "word" is here
taken to mean command; inasmuch as by the effect of the power of the
Word, things are kept in being, as also by the effect of the power of
the Word things are brought into being. Basil speaks widely and
figuratively in applying Word to the Holy Ghost; in the sense
perhaps that everything that makes a person known may be called his
word, and so in that way the Holy Ghost may be called the Son's
Word, because He manifests the Son.
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