Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, the word other signifies true otherness; and because of the word is, it must signify real otherness: for otherness is not true among real processions unless it is real. The phrase in the divine is taken as was declared in article 1, Comment., n. I.¹ And in the same way it is to be understood in each of the articles of this question, lest the same thing need be repeated many times.

II. In the body there is one conclusion, responsive to the question in the affirmative: In God, besides the procession of the Word, there is another procession, which is the procession of love. — And it is proved thus. In intellectual nature among us, besides the procession of the word according to intelligible action, there is another procession, namely of love, according to the operation of the will; therefore in God, besides the procession of the Word, there is another procession, etc.

The antecedent is proved by proportion: for just as by the conception of the word the understood is in the one understanding, so by the procession of love the beloved is in the one loving. — The consequence, however, is proved thus: because in the divine there is no procession except according to the immanent action of the intellectual nature, which is known to be twofold, that of the intellect and that of the will.

III. On this point there first arises a doubt similar to the doubt raised concerning the procession of the word²: namely, whether by an act of the will something proceeds within it as the term of that same act. And besides the common arguments drawn from the side of immanent action, there are others drawn from what is proper to the will. For it seems, in the first place, to contradict St. Thomas himself in the Questions On Truth, q. IV, art. 2, ad 7, where he says that in the will nothing proceeds except by way of operation, and that it is otherwise in the intellect. – Second, against this both Scotus argues³ and others who hold that produced love is an act of loving as spirated, just as they hold the word to be a generated act of understanding. They argue more from authorities than from reasons. But all the authorities and reasons tend toward this: that the Holy Spirit is love, and love is an act of loving.

IV. Concerning those words, according to which the beloved is in the lover, a doubt arises from Aureol, as reported by Capreolus, at the First Distinction⁴ For he strives with many arguments to attack this, both simply and ad hominem. Nevertheless all his motives consist in this: Love, or the impulse of the will, consists in a tending toward the thing loved, and not in a likeness of it; therefore through the procession of love the beloved is not made to be in the lover, but rather the converse—the lover is drawn, transformed, and is in the thing loved—according to that saying of Matthew VI⁵: where your treasure is, there is your heart.

V. To make these things clear, it must be known that, because the things of the will are less known and less named, the Author defined those things that are in the will proportionally from those things that appear in the intellect: so that, just as by understanding we form a concept, so by loving we produce a certain inclination within ourselves toward the beloved; and because this lacks a name, it is called love, impulse, inclination, and affection. Yet between intellect and will there is a difference not only in this, that the term of the former is a likeness, while that of the latter is an affection; but also in this, that the thing which is the term in the intellect has both the mode and the name of a term, as is clear in the case of the word and the concept; whereas the thing terminating in the will, although in reality it is a term, nevertheless has neither the mode nor the name of a term. For it both is, and is signified as, tending toward something else; but it is evident that tending toward something else is the condition not of a term, but of a way.

And for this reason those words were written in the Questions On Truth⁶, as is evident to one who carefully compares and penetrates the whole of the reply. Hence they do nothing against our thesis. – And from the same root the answer to the remaining objections in the first doubt is clear: for, owing to the poverty of words, the name of love extends to its terminus.

VI. To the second doubt, however⁷ it is said that the arguments err in two respects. First in this, that they do not see a third mode of being in, besides through essence and through likeness, namely through inclination or affection, the way being-down is in the heavy thing, and being-up in the light. For this, as is explained in IV Contra Gentiles, chapter XIX, is a third mode: and according to this mode, the beloved is in the lover, as is evident of itself. – Second in this, that, without weighing what it is for the beloved to be in the lover, they think this consequence holds: the beloved comes to be from the will in the lover; therefore the beloved is drawn to the lover; whereas it holds not at all. Because the beloved does not come to be in the lover otherwise than according to the affection of the lover toward the beloved: and consequently, by the very fact that it so comes to be, the lover is drawn, transformed, impelled toward the beloved objectively; and thus it is in him. And this could easily have been apparent from the very notion of the beloved. For to be loved is not to be drawn, but to draw the lover: and consequently, to come to be as beloved is not to come to be as drawn, but as drawing: and therefore, if something comes to be in the will as beloved, it does not come to be as drawn toward it, but on the contrary as drawing it. And in this way we grant that a likeness proportional to that of the letter runs between intellect and will, namely with respect to this, that just as there the thing understood comes to be, so here the thing loved: but differently, as has been said, and as will be said further below⁸.

VII. In response to the second, note that the reply consists in this, that that major premise does not hold in the infinite nature, which identifies all things to itself: although it is found to be true in other things, because they are finite, and for that reason it was assumed from them as though it were a maxim.

VIII. In response to the third, note two things. First is that the third argument intended to conclude that there is not a greater distinction between these processions than there is between the intellect and the will: and consequently, just as between the intellect and the will in God there is no true otherness, so neither between the processions. The reply, however, intends to show that the distinction between the processions is greater: indeed, that there is otherness between them, while the identity of intellect and will stands; and this on account of the order of origin between them—an order which nevertheless arises from the formal characters of the principles, namely the intellect and the will, between which there is no such order. Thus there is a distinction in what is principiated, but not in the principles themselves; and from the very character of those principles there is an order of origin—not within the principles themselves, but in the processions according to them. And thus the otherness of the processions sought for, determined only implicitly in the body of the article, is here made manifest explicitly from the order of origin.

Second, it must be noted here that in the text it is said that it belongs to the nature of love to proceed from a conception of the intellect; and consequently, in the divine, that procession be from a procession. Now the first doubt here is whether this belongs to the nature of the procession of love per se in the first way of speaking, or in the second. And again there is doubt whether it belongs to the nature of love to proceed from the Word insofar as it is Word, or only insofar as the Word is the thing understood. There is also a third doubt: whether the aforementioned order of origin is precisely that by which the processions themselves are really distinguished, so that if it were set aside there would be no real distinction between them. But since these matters are to be discussed in q. 36, art. 2⁹, where they will also be better understood, after the treatise on the divine Persons, therefore let us pass over them here.

IX. Yet I judged that five points must by no means be passed over. First is this: it is established that, taking "concept" for the thing conceived or known as such, the procession of love must be from the concept; for we can in no way love what is unknown. And therefore the text speaks of it as if self-evident, that it belongs to the nature of love to arise from a concept.

X. Second is that the thing known is the cause of love in the genus of efficient cause. This is evident from the fact that in the text it is said that love has an order of origin to the concept. For it is clear that the order of origin, in the case at hand, is an order according to the mode of efficiency. And there accords with this opinion that saying of Averroes in Book XII of the Metaphysics, comm. XXXVI: the bath in the soul is the agent of desire, etc.

XI. Third is that, although love arises effectively from two things, namely from the will and from the lovable thing as known, just as the word arises from the intellect and the intelligible together with the intellect; yet a great difference must be perceived here. For the concept is produced by both in the power of one complete efficient cause, and in the character of a thing: but love is produced by the will and by the lovable thing as known, not as integrating one agent, but from different sources, with different characters concurring. For love arises from the will in the character of a thing, and from the lovable thing in the character of something known: for the lovable, as known, begets love, while the will does so as such a thing. And these may suffice for now as foundations for what is to be said concerning love and the Holy Spirit.

XII. Fourth is that Scotus, in Book I, distinction XIII, understood from that word order that this passage concerns the distinction of processions according to prior and posterior: and he attacked it in three ways. First, because this is not the primary distinction of the processions: for the reason that one is prior and the other posterior is that the one is of such a kind and the other of such a kind. – Second, because the divine processions are relations: but relations are not distinguished primarily by other relations. – Third, because these relations of order are other than the relations of origin. This is proved: because they are between different extremes; for the relation of origin is between the produced and the producing, whereas the relation of order is between origin and origin. The text, therefore, has been badly expounded.

But to these points the reply is easy. For from the very course of this treatise the sense of the text is apparent, together with the reason why the Author spoke here in this seemingly diminished way. For it will be shown below¹⁰ that in the divine there is no order except of origin, and that this does not include relations of prior and posterior. And therefore the distinction of order posited here has been badly expounded as a distinction according to prior and posterior: since it is a distinction of the order of origin. – And if it be objected against this that this distinction is not the first, speaking of real distinction, the assumption is denied: for, as will be clear below¹¹, only the relations of origin really distinguish in the divine. – As for the formal distinction, the reply is already evident from the body of the article, and from the following article: namely, that they are distinguished, one by the intellect, the other by the will. Hence this order does not add other relations over and above the origins themselves, as the second objection wishes. – Nor is it true that, according to the thing, the extremes of the relations of origin and of order are other. For the product and its passive origin in the divine are one and the same relation: and in the same order in which the product, namely the Holy Spirit, is from the producer, namely the Son, the procession of the former is from the procession of the latter; which is to arise from it. – The Author, however, passed over these points here in silence, because, according to his custom, he proceeds from the more universal to the less universal, to be treated in their proper place: here the order, and then below¹² he will specify the order of origin.

XIII. The fifth point is that Scotus's arguments, in the same place, against those who hold that these processions are distinguished by principles distinct according to reason, namely intellect and will, are not opposed to our way. For they fight only against those who hold that the real distinction of the processions depends on the distinction of reason of the principles; which is foreign to the doctrine of St. Thomas. For although, as is said in the text, from the account of intellect and will there arises the distinction of these processions, nevertheless the distinction of these does not arise from the distinction of those. It is one thing to say from intellect and will, or from their accounts, and another thing to say from their distinction: for the first signifies God himself, or a real thing, while the second signifies an ens rationis.