Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« That the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, although it is above reason and the human power of understanding, is nevertheless not against reason, is assuredly evident, granted divine revelation. Against those, however, who deny revelation, it can be shown in a twofold way that there is no evident repugnance against reason: 1° namely, indirectly, from the very fact that the intimate ground of the divine essence and of the divine person (as it is in itself) surpasses our power of understanding; 2° directly, by showing that there is no evident truth which is understood to be evidently repugnant to this dogma, in the sense in which it has been revealed and is proposed as to be believed by faith. »

When it must be shown that the revealed doctrine does not repugn to reason — namely, that the one God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, three really distinct from one another — this can be understood in a threefold way. For either a) it is demanded that the very truth of the matter be perceived by reason and be able to be demonstrated, namely that the divine nature, from its own infinite perfection, necessarily subsists in three distinct persons, as the Güntherians said, that non-repugnance is congruity with reason; and therefore that the former cannot be shown without the latter being demonstrated at the same time, and that in such a way that the very internal truth of the matter is perceived ¹. That in this way a rational demonstration of the mystery cannot be made, and that in this sense the truth is above reason, has been proved by us above (th. XVII.). Or b) a demonstration of non-repugnance is demanded, such that reason positively perceives and evidently understands the internal possibility of the matter. But that one most simple, undivided essence can at the same time be three relative subsistents really distinct from one another cannot be demonstrated by comparison with the ideas and rational truths pre-understood from creatures; and so such a possibility could only be understood by immediately knowing that essence and those hypostases in themselves, as they are in themselves. But then not only the bare possibility, but the very truth and necessary existence would be understood. Therefore c) it is one thing to demonstrate non-repugnance positively from internal grounds, and another that we understand even negatively, by reason, that a repugnance cannot be demonstrated. For that former there would be required to have seen into the truth intrinsically, which cannot be done in superrational mysteries; for the latter it suffices to have shown that the arguments which are opposed as demonstrating repugnance are either not evident truths, or do not evidently repugn to the true sense of the mystery.

This last point can always be shown. For indeed a rational truth cannot, objectively and in itself, repugn to a revealed truth; otherwise the same thing would at once be true and false. Hence it is impossible that reason understand anything as an evident truth evidently opposed to revelation understood in its genuine sense; otherwise reason would understand as an evident truth that which is false; and so the very light of reason, made for truth, would by its own nature incline toward it, and consequently God Himself, the author of reason, would lead us to judge as true that which is false. But these are evidently contradictory. Therefore by the very fact that the truth of the mystery is certain to us by infallible faith, it is no less certain that what is said to repugn to it is either not a truth, or does not truly repugn, or repugns only to a sense of the dogma foreign to it, in which sense the mystery is neither revealed nor true.

« The gifts of grace are added to nature in this way, that they do not take it away but rather perfect it. Hence the light of faith, which is infused into us gratis, does not destroy the light of natural cognition naturally implanted in us. Although, however, the natural light of the human mind is insufficient for the manifestation of those things which are manifested through faith, nevertheless it is impossible that those things which are divinely handed on to us through faith be contrary to those which are implanted in us through nature; for then one of the two would have to be false; and since both are for us from God, God would be for us the author of falsehood, which is impossible.... Just as, however, sacred doctrine is founded upon the light of faith, so philosophy is founded upon the natural light of reason. Hence it is impossible that those things which are of philosophy be contrary to those things which are of faith; but they fall short of them. They contain, nevertheless, certain likenesses of them and certain preambles to them, just as nature is a preamble to grace. But if anything is found in the sayings of the philosophers contrary to faith, this is not philosophy, but rather an abuse of philosophy and a defect of reason. And therefore it is possible from the principles of philosophy to refute an error of this kind, either by showing it to be altogether impossible, or by showing it not to be necessary. For just as those things which are of faith cannot be demonstratively proved, so certain things contrary to them cannot be demonstratively shown to be false, but it can be shown that they are not necessary. Thus, therefore, in sacred doctrine we can use philosophy in a threefold way: first, to demonstrate those things which are the preambles of faith... second, to make known through certain likenesses those things which are of faith... third, to resist those things which are said against the faith, either by showing them to be false, or by showing them not to be necessary » S. Th. in Boet. Trin. Prooem. q. 2. a. 3. cf. I. q. 1. a. 8.

I. Now, in order that it be shown that the opposing arguments are false or not necessary, speaking per se and absolutely, there is no need to compare those arguments one by one with the revealed dogma; but a certain general comparison of the divine eminence and infinite perfection with the imperfection and limitation of our intellect suffices. This general solution of the difficulties, indeed, will be only indirect; yet it is not therefore less valid in itself. For from this very general comparison it is altogether evident that there can be many things in the infinite essence which cannot be understood by the light of finite reason, restricted within certain limits of truths. We understand many things in God by the very light of reason, because they are; yet we do not understand how they are and how they do not repugn to one another; for example, that the essence itself is one immutable volition and yet free in its operations ad extra, and many other things. If, therefore, on account of the infinity of the essence, predicates of this kind do not repugn — which would involve an evident contradiction in finite natures — then without absurdity it cannot be asserted that such a communication of the infinite nature, that there be several really distinct from one another of one numerically single essence, evidently repugns, because such distinction and unity would repugn in finite natures and hypostases. For although someone might assert that the intimate ground of a finite essence and hypostasis is so fully seen by him that he evidently understands the metaphysical repugnance of the unity of nature in distinct persons, no one can claim for himself, without enormous arrogance and ignorance, such an evident understanding of the divine essence and hypostasis. Because, namely, the divine essence stands above the whole order of created and finite being, and we do not understand it as it is in itself, it cannot be evident to the light of reason whether there is or is not one formal ground of that infinite spiritual nature and another of the divine hypostasis, such that the nature, remaining one, requires its communication through internal vital acts, and therefore under the formal ground of nature there is unity, while under the formal ground of hypostasis there is plurality.

In this sense can be understood what Suarez says, l. I. c. 12. n. 20: « that principle, things which are the same as one and the same third are the same as each other, although it is universally true in finite things, in an infinite reality cannot be demonstrated by natural reason; and therefore in the way in which it is evident, it is not contrary to this mystery ».

Namely, in finite things there are never two who are really distinct from each other under some ground and really and numerically one under another ground, but they are only one in species. But the truth has been revealed that the infinite essence is so identified with one relative that, from its infinite eminence and communicability, it is at the same time identified with the other relative, and therefore there are two really distinct under the ground of the relatives, and the same are one under the ground of the absolute essence (all of which, as is plain, holds equally of the third person as well).

But in such communicability of the infinite essence, whose intimate ground, as it is in itself, we do not understand, to assert an evident repugnance is evidently absurd. « If, because he does not see this in other things, he is unable to understand it in God either, let him bear for a little while that there is in God something which his intellect cannot penetrate » s. Anselm. de fide Trin. c. 7. Moreover, that principle, « things which are the same as one and the same third, etc., » has metaphysical truth, and so holds in any order of infinite things no less than of finite ones, provided it be understood in its true sense, about which we shall speak shortly.

This somewhat indirect solution of the difficulties by which the adversaries of the faith wish to demonstrate a contradiction is not an appeal to the superrationality of the mystery, so as to evade demonstrations of an evident contradiction, as Bayle said with cunning but quite clear words in his Dictionary², and after him other unbelievers said; but it is a demonstration deduced from the very natures of the things themselves of the impossibility of demonstrating an evident contradiction between the Trinity of relative hypostases and the unity of the essence or absolute perfection, when the proper internal ground both of the hypostasis and of the divine essence stands above our intelligence, and cannot be understood by us as it is in itself. For if the contradiction between the Trinity of hypostases and the unity of essence were evident, as the hypostases and the essence are conceived by you, by that very fact it will not be, and cannot be, evident that that concept of yours is genuine and proposed in revelation; indeed for Christians it will be evident, if not immediately, at least mediately from the revealed truth, that such a concept of yours, whether the one or the other or both, is foreign to revelation and is false. Conversely, if the concept is genuine as it is contained in revelation, it is at least mediately evident from infallible faith that a proof by which the showing of a contradiction would be pretended is necessarily fallacious, and therefore can also be shown by the light of reason to be either false or not evident, and by this very fact altogether empty for the purpose for which it is brought forward. « Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and it is impossible that the contrary be demonstrated of the true, it is manifest that the proofs which are brought against it are not demonstrations but soluble arguments » S. Th. I. q. 1. a. 8.

Indirect solutions of this kind show indeed sufficiently that the objections are not valid, but they do not show from an intrinsic ground why they are not valid. They occur, however, frequently among the Fathers, because they are most suitable both in themselves and for preparing minds for the direct solutions, and because most are not suited for grasping these latter. « Sometimes we bring them a reason, not the one they seek when they ask about God, because neither can they take it in, nor perhaps can we either apprehend or utter it; but one by which it is shown to them how unfit and utterly unsuited they are for perceiving what they demand » s. Aug. Trin. I. n. 3.

II. Yet in theology, where faith seeks understanding, what Augustine pursues in that same place must be attempted, « that as much as we can, we render a reason that the Trinity is the one and only true God ». But this very reason rendered, as Augustine speaks — namely, a more distinct concept, although only analogical, of the Most Holy Trinity deduced from revelation — supplies the direct solution of all the difficulties by which the adversaries would wish to demonstrate a contradiction in the concept of the mystery. A fuller direct solution of objections of this kind will therefore spontaneously follow below from the very explanation of the genuine concept. Here only some general consideration will suffice.

1°. It cannot be demonstrated that there is an evident repugnance in the fact that in God, an infinite spirit, the immanent Word really proceeds through intellection, or is eternally truly produced. For a repugnance of this kind is not evident from the very nature of intellection considered universally; indeed, we conceive intellection in act without an immanent word with more difficulty than intellection with a word as immanent term. The repugnance is not evident in intellection insofar as it is divine and infinite; for from that alone it is evident that the Word cannot be an accident; but if it is something, it is necessarily substantial, because divine intellection is a substance. Finally, that repugnance is not evident by reason of the non-multipliable unity of the divine essence; for from that alone it is evident that the principle producing the Word by intellection and the Word as the immanent term of this intellection are one absolute essence. To be sure, the production of the divine essence repugns; for that would be both a multiplication of the essence and its production out of nothing; but it cannot be shown to be an evident repugnance that from the inborn perfection of the divine intellect there is required the eternal necessary procession of the immanent Word, which is distinguished under the formal ground of the Word, namely of the relative, from the producing principle likewise viewed under the formal ground of the producer and of the relative, but in such a way that the formal ground of the Godhead and of the absolute essence is one, common in the begetter of His Word and in the Word of His begetter.

The truth, therefore, of the production of the divine Word is indeed above reason, because by reason it cannot be understood and demonstrated that in the divine intellect there is, as immanent term, and necessarily is, a produced Word (th. XVII.); but it is not a doctrine against reason, because there is no notion of reason, nor can there be, evidently true and evidently repugnant to this doctrine. When, however, the Spirit of God, who searches the depths of God, has revealed to us, and the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, has Himself declared this mystery: « in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word »; when, I say, it is established by divine revelation concerning the procession of the immanent Word, from this posited principle and from this « root of truth » (S. Th. I. q. 32. a. 1.), as was said in the preceding thesis, we understand the remaining consequences through « necessary reasons »; namely, that the begotten Word is distinct from the begetter, that it is substantial, and therefore (according to the analogy of a person in created things compared with the common nature) that it is a subsistent person distinct from the Father, but that the distinction is not according to essence but according to the formal ground of the relative. For all these things (supposing the real procession of the Word) are necessarily connected with the infinity, unity, and simplicity of God, which attributes are understood even by the light of reason. Moreover, these same things hold of the real production of an immanent term through an act of willing or of loving, and therefore of the third person, whose notion is shown in the same way to be above reason, but not against reason.

2°. Let judgment now be passed on the Socinian hay, which the Rationalists of our age continue to chew over again (Christianus Baur, Fridericus Strauss, Fridericus Schleiermacher and others, in D.num Ioan. Kuhn de Trinit. p. 522. seqq.). One, they say, is not equal to three; we evidently understand that 1=3 repugns. The mathematical axiom is evident: things which are not distinguished from one and the same third are not distinguished from one another; A=B; B=C; therefore A=C. The divine persons, according to Christian dogma, are not distinguished from the essence; therefore they are not distinguished from one another.

We answer: these mathematical axioms are evident, and their altogether necessary truth so little contradicts the revealed mystery of God one in nature and three in persons, that unless the truth of these axioms were absolutely certain to us, we could neither understand the revelation of the mystery itself nor know what is to be believed. « For unless we had rational souls, we could not believe at all » (Aug.). Indeed revelation itself presupposes, and we presuppose in believing revelation, as evidently true that one is not three; otherwise revelation and faith in the Trinity, proposing one essence and three persons, would not render us certain that there are not three essences and one person. In general, just as we could be certain of no truth, so neither could we be certain of a revealed truth, because we would not have rational souls.

Likewise, revelation and faith in God one in nature and three in persons presupposes as evidently true the other axiom: wherever two things are said not to be distinct from one third, there under that formal aspect under which they are not distinct from that said third, they are really neither two nor a third, but altogether one undivided thing. Without this evident principle we would not understand the one undivided Godhead, while it is revealed and believed that the Father is God and the Son is God and yet there is one God. For while it is revealed that the Father is God and the Son is the same God, the two under the formal aspect of deity are said to be one, i.e., not distinct from one third (as is objected), namely from the deity; and therefore from that evident principle we understand that the two are not distinguished from one another but are altogether one in deity, although at the same time they are revealed as distinct from one another under another formal aspect (namely under the formal aspect of relatives, i.e., of Father and Son): « I and the Father are one; there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one ».

The evident truth enunciated in both of those mathematical principles therefore in no way opposes the mystery of the Catholic faith, but rather is presupposed in it; those axioms indeed contradict only a heresy — such as has never existed nor can be conceived by the mind — if it were said that the one God is three Gods, and that the three persons, who under the aspect of deity are one and undivided, are nevertheless, under the same aspect, the deity I mean, really distinguished among themselves³ Let the Rationalists, therefore, who continue to swear by the most foolish words of the Socinians, hold fast the simplest answer: the one, under that aspect under which it is one, is evidently not three, and therefore one divine essence, one God, is not three essences and not three Gods; and conversely, three persons are not one person, one Father is not three Fathers, one Son is not three Sons, etc. Likewise, things that are really one under some aspect are evidently not many under that aspect, or, as it is said in the objection in less fitting words: things that are under some aspect the same as one third are under that aspect the same among themselves. For this reason the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because they are one under the aspect of deity, i.e., inasmuch as they are God, are not three Gods but one God; or, because they are the same as the deity and are one deity, therefore under the aspect of deity they are not distinguished among themselves.

A far different opinion would contradict the mystery of faith — one that is in no way evident, cannot be demonstrated true, indeed, enunciated in general terms, is evidently false. For one would have to say: things that are several really distinct from one another under one aspect cannot be one under another aspect; and things that are one under some aspect (or, less properly speaking, things that are the same as one third under some aspect) are the same among themselves under every aspect, i.e., are distinguished among themselves under no aspect. But who does not see that, where in one thing there are several different aspects and functions, it is absurd to say that what is verified in it according to one aspect must necessarily also be true according to another, different aspect? In man life is rational and animal and vegetative; does he therefore, according to the same aspect according to which he digests food and vegetates, also think, and will and choose with free will? On the matter at hand St. Thomas answers thus: « That argument holds — that whatever things are the same as one and the same thing are the same as one another — in those things which are the same in reality and in notion, like a tunic and a garment, but not in those which differ in notion... Although paternity is the same in reality as the divine essence, and filiation likewise, nevertheless these two import opposite respects; whence they are distinguished from one another » S. Th. I. q. 28. a. 3. ad 1. That is to say, they are not really distinguished among themselves because they are distinguished from the essence according to reason; for in that way even the absolute attributes are distinguished both from the essence and from one another only by reason. But that the infinite divine nature has diverse aspects of the absolute and the relative, i.e., that nature and hypostasis in God are distinguished by reason and virtually — this is the condition without which there could be no real distinction of the hypostases among themselves. But the formal reason of this distinction actually existing is that the divine hypostases are relative through relations of origin, and therefore are opposed to one another as principle and as really proceeding from the principle.

Mathematical formulas do not pertain to this; for there the terms cannot be the same as a third under one aspect and not the same among themselves under another aspect, because abstract quantities have only one aspect, not one and another. In the physical and metaphysical order of finite substances there is a distinction under the aspect of hypostasis (another and another), and some unity under the aspect of nature (not another and another), although only a specific unity. Peter, formally as this one individual, is other than Paul; if the nature contained in the definition is regarded formally, Peter has a greater unity with Paul than with animal (in general), and with animal greater than with substance in general (e.g., with a stone); but the greatest, indeed numerical, unity would be according to the notion of man, if — as some philosophers and even Catholic theologians thought — humanity, i.e., the formal notion of nature, on the side of the thing really and numerically one, constituted Peter and Paul one man (see above the Scholion to th. IX.).

Now if the divine intellect really produces the immanent Word, evidently the essence or nature, one in number, is that of the producer and of the Word (and the same holds for the immanent term of volition or love). Then indeed, under the formal aspect of the producer of the Word and of the Word produced, they are two relatives really distinct from one another; but under the formal aspect of nature or deity there is one in number, and therefore one God. Both this unity under the aspect of the absolute and this distinction under the other aspect of relatives evidently follow from the supposed production of the Word. Ridiculous sophisms drawn from the mathematical axiom are therefore to be dismissed, if the Rationalists do not wish to contradict evident reason; and so there will remain for them only this: to test the strength of their unbelief solely in demonstrating an evident repugnance in the fact that infinite intellection produces the Word as the immanent term of intellection. All attempts of this kind will necessarily come to nothing, because, as we have said, neither from intellection in itself, nor from intellection inasmuch as it is substantial and infinite, nor from the divine nature is there available any evident principle evidently repugnant to this revealed truth. Nor can such a repugnance be deduced from anywhere else; indeed, it is evident by the light of reason from the very infinity of the divine intellection, and most certain by revealed faith, that there can be no such evident principle repugnant to it.

3°. From these things an answer has now also been given to the remaining difficulties, which the same Rationalists — Schleiermacher, Strauss, and the rest of suchlike traffickers walking in darkness (see Fol. trimest. Theolog. Tubing. 1843. fasc. 1.) — repeat from the ancient heretics in order to demonstrate a contradiction in the concept of three persons who are one God. They say, namely: three persons would necessarily be three essences, because a person is not distinguished from the singular intellectual substance (from the first substance). Moreover, if the persons are really distinguished, necessarily there is some perfection in one that is not in another, and accordingly the three persons would also be something more perfect than each one singly. Finally, if one person is the principle of another, this latter depends on the first, and by that very fact is inferior and less perfect.

In the reheating of such difficulties, which are exhibited by those pettifoggers as though new lights had arisen in their own philosophy, one thing is perfectly clear: that either their own notable ignorance or the presumption of ignorance in their readers renders men foolishly overconfident. For these objections — proposed since the third century by the ancient heretics in almost the same words, refuted by the holy Fathers, crushed by all the Scholastic theologians — could neither prevent the ruin of the Sabellian, Arian, and Tritheist heresies, nor of Roscelin, Abelard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Abbot Joachim, and the Socinians, nor in the least weaken the universal faith of the whole Church in the one and triune God or the theological illustration of the dogma promoted by the Catholic doctors; indeed, they were the external occasion for a more ample and at the same time more subtle Catholic explanation. « The Catholic truth was asserted from the heretics ... when the heretics had been cut off, they agitated the Church of God with questions; what lay hidden was laid open, and the will of God was understood... For was the Trinity treated of perfectly before the Arians barked? » Aug. in Ps. 54. n. 22.

a) We concede that even in created and finite beings the connatural hypostasis does not differ from the singular and complete substance by some superadded reality; but we say that it is distinguished by reason with a foundation in the thing, i.e., that the same thing under one aspect is a singular and complete substance (first substance), inasmuch as it is this such οὐσία or entity, and under another aspect is a hypostasis, inasmuch as it is wholly in itself and not, whether after the manner of a part, the nature of another, or a nature common to several. Because of this diverse aspect of one and the same thing, a created nature, without ceasing to be a singular and complete substance, can not be in itself a hypostasis — and this by the sole union after the manner of a part with a superior hypostasis, of which it becomes the proper nature, and so not by detraction but by superaddition of reality — which has been demonstrated at length in its place concerning the human nature of the God-man (in the treatise on the Incarnation, th. XXXI.). Much more do we not only concede but hold by faith that the divine essence or substance itself is really a hypostasis: « a certain supreme thing, which is really the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, the Holy Spirit who proceeds ». But the same thing under one aspect is the absolute, and so an essence one in number, not multipliable; and under another aspect it is relative, and so there are three hypostases. For since a relation is of one to another, inasmuch as one proceeds from another by an immanent act, by which the Word is expressed as the immanent term of substantial intellection, and the Holy Spirit proceeds as the immanent term of substantial love, under this formal aspect of relatives to one another, i.e., of the producer and of the one proceeding by way of intellection and love, there are three relatives really distinct among themselves, but the absolute entity, i.e., the divinity of the three, is one in number.

Now, according to the analogy derived from creatures, we call the one common absolute reality the essence, nature, or substance; the three distinct subjects of one intellectual nature we call persons (intellectual hypostases). None of us affirms that this distinction of the three can be demonstrated by reason alone; but rather, just as we believe it by faith, because God Himself revealed it, so also we believe that it cannot be demonstrated by the light of reason (th. XVII.). But if it is already established that by intellection and love the immanent terms, the Word and the Holy Spirit, are really produced, the rest concerning unity and distinction is demonstrated from this very dogma of the processions « by necessary reasons ». Therefore we again recall the adversaries to that one point, that they evidently demonstrate a repugnance in this, that the infinite intellect produces the Word, and the infinite will produces love as an immanent term; which repugnance we not only deny can be demonstrated, but we demonstrate that it cannot be demonstrated.

b) Those who imagine the immanent relations and relatives in God after the likeness of three men — as absolutes and persons mutually separated, each of which has its own numerically distinct nature — will surely find an evident contradiction in the notion of the one and triune God; but no less than reason itself, revelation contradicts such a concept. And yet from that utterly false concept proceeds the objection mentioned in the second place. For if one infinite essence simultaneously has the aspect of the absolute and of the relative, and if the same infinite essence is identified with the three relatives, it is repugnant that more perfection be understood under the aspect of either one or several relatives than under the aspect of the infinite absolute essence. Of this matter we have said enough in th. XV.

c) In what they also object concerning dependence, from which the inequality of the persons is supposed to follow, there is presupposed the production of a nature, and hence distinction, and by that very fact a diversity of natures, and from these further a production through action, which, producing another nature, is a most true production ad extra. In one word, the Arian opinion about the production of the Son is presupposed, in which indeed the dependence, and the inequality of the Son included in it, is evident. But the revealed doctrine is altogether different. The infinite act of divine intellection, from the intimate perfection and exigency of its nature, by understanding itself produces the Word of itself as the immanent term of intellection, so that in the Word there is communicated the whole same absolute perfection, one in number, which is in the producer. « It is necessary, therefore, that God be in Himself as the intellect is in the one understanding; but the thing understood in the one understanding is the understood intention (concept) and the word. Therefore in God understanding Himself there is the Word of God, as it were God understood » S. Th. contr. gent. IV. c. 11. But from the same exigency of necessary perfection by which God is, in understanding, expressing the Word, the Word also exists as God understood.

If, therefore, dependence is said improperly, namely that one cannot be without another from the inborn exigency of perfection, in this sense the dependence is mutual, because the paternal intellection cannot be without the immanent Word produced, and the Word cannot be without the producing intellection. But this is not dependence properly so called including imperfection; rather, it is an internal necessary perfection, so that the one God is — just as He is the necessarily existing infinite intellection of Himself expressing the Word, so the Word of infinite intellection necessarily existing; « in the beginning was the Word with God, and God was the Word ».

Dependence properly so called is the negation of necessary Being and of necessary perfection, and the affirmation of some Being and some perfection through the influx of another as cause (in some genus of causality: material, formal, final, efficient). This dependence is neediness and denies necessary Being, and consequently denies divine Being⁴ The procession of the Word, therefore, necessary from the necessary perfection of the divine nature, is not a dependence of neediness and imperfection; rather, it is the inborn exigency of perfection in the infinite spirit, so that one and the same spirit in one essence that is not multipliable but nevertheless communicable is both the producer of the Word and the Word. All of which, as is evident, applies equally to the procession of love, i.e., to the necessary immanent term of the infinite love of the Father and of the Son. This necessary procession according to the natural exigency of perfection is to be understood when the Fathers say that the Son depends on the Father, the Holy Spirit on the Father and the Son. See Didac. Ruiz disp. X. sect. 1. 2. 3; Suarez l. II. c. 2.