Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« Assuming faith in the real procession of the Word and of the Holy Spirit, and assuming the manner of the processions through intellect and will, there can be found, with the holy Fathers and Doctors leading the way, in the created spirit an analogy and image, from which faith may seek understanding and some more distinct concept of the Most Holy Trinity ».

Assuming the foundation which we prepared in the preceding thesis, and with revelation shedding light before us, we strive for some — albeit imperfect and merely analogical — understanding of the internal processions in the infinite spirit, [namely] how they are to be conceived. In the infinite spirit the internal productions and processions about which we inquire must needs correspond to the spiritual nature. But processions in a spirit cannot be save through immanent vital acts; such acts, however, in a perfect spirit, and all the more in the infinite spirit, are necessarily the intellection of the true and the volition of the good, that is, dilection, and cannot be others,¹ because all other vital acts include imperfection (Pallavic. Curs. theol. l. VIII. c. 51. n. 376.). Just as, therefore, revelation teaches two processions, so also from the nature of the infinite spirit it is understood that, if they exist, they cannot be other than through intellect and will, or better, through intellection and volition — S. Th. I. q. 27. aa. 1. 3. 5.; contr. Gent. IV. cc. 11. 19. 26.; Compend. theolog. c. 52. 56.; de Potent. q. 9. a. 9. We shall consider both manners of procession.

I. The divine intellect, in the first place, is not a faculty superadded to the essence, but is the divine essence itself; in the second place, it is not an intellect in potency or in habit with respect to acts, but from its inmost nature it is pure act, namely, a substantial, actual, infinite intellection. The object of intellection is God Himself, that is, the divine essence with which the intellection is identified, and in the divine essence all truth. Hence the divine intellection is not perfected, as in creatures, by manifold elicited acts, but is itself one substantial act comprehending itself, infinite truth, and in itself all truth. Up to this point we attain even by the light of reason, and these matters you have set forth at length in the Tractatus de Deo (sect. IV. c. 1.). But now the infinite substantial intellect, by understanding itself, produces its Word, as we know by revelation alone. Now, however, from this faith we seek some understanding of this production. The created spirit, the image of God the infinite spirit, by understanding itself produces in itself its word, that is, its intellectual expression of itself, or, as the ancients say, its intention.² This intellectual expression of self, then, this concept of the mind, even in us is a certain similitude and, as they say, the intentional being of the thing which is understood; and hence, while the spirit understands itself, the word, that is, the intellectual expression of the spirit, is in the substantial spirit as the spirit understood in the understanding spirit.

Moreover, the word is the more perfect the more fully and adequately it expresses the thing understood, the more it therefore approaches identity with the thing understood, and the more perfect is the thing understood and expressed by the word. In us the word always falls short of the fullness of perfection: first, because the more perfect things are in themselves, the less we express them by a word according to their whole ratio and intelligibility; second, because the things which we express more perfectly by the word of the mind are in themselves imperfect;³ third, because even insofar as we express things more perfectly, our word is an accident and only an intentional similitude, not a substance and the very thing understood. In particular (which here we especially regard), when the mind expresses itself by a word, the word falls short of perfection according to all three reasons.

In God, just as the understanding itself is infinitely perfect, so the Word expressed by infinite intellection is infinitely perfect. For God understands Himself, and hence the thing understood is infinite; He understands, that is, comprehends Himself according to the whole infinite ratio of intelligibility; by this intellection of Himself He produces not only an intentional image of Himself, which would be an accident, but, by understanding Himself according to the whole infinite intelligibility and hence according to the whole infinite Being, He produces an immanent substantial Word of Himself. To be sure, the substance understanding itself by the substantial intellection expressive of the Word does not multiply, but by understanding communicates and irradiates (according to the manner of speaking of St. Basil) the same numerically one substance as understood. Whence the substantial intellection, by understanding producing the substantial Word, and the immanent produced Word are one in essence, because (as we said) He who understands Himself according to His whole infinite Being expresses the Word not only intentionally, but by substantially communicating His whole Being. Nevertheless, the substantial intellection expressing itself in the substantial Word, and this expressed Word, are two things relative to each other by the relation of origin of one from the other, because the procession of one from the other is real.

« Everything understood, inasmuch as it is understood, must be in the one understanding; for the understanding itself signifies the apprehension of that which is understood by the intellect; whence also our intellect, understanding itself, is in itself not only as the same as itself by essence, but also as apprehended by itself in understanding. It is necessary, therefore, that God be in Himself as the understood in the one understanding; but the understood in the one understanding is the understood intention and the word. There is, therefore, in God understanding Himself, the Word of God, as it were God understood... Since our intellect understands itself, the being of the intellect is one thing and its very understanding is another.... Whence it is necessary that in a man understanding himself, the interior word conceived be not a true man having the natural being of a man, but be only the man understood, as it were a certain similitude of the true man apprehended by the intellect. But the Word of God Himself, from the very fact that He is God understood, is true God naturally having divine Being, because the natural Being of God is not one thing and His understanding another... It is, however, of the nature of the interior word, which is the understood intention, that it proceeds from the one understanding according to his understanding, since it is, as it were, the term of intellectual operation: for the intellect, by understanding, conceives and forms the intention or understood ratio, which is the interior word. It is necessary, therefore, that from God according to His very understanding His Word proceed. The Word of God is therefore compared to God understanding, whose Word He is, as to Him from whom He is; for this is of the nature of the Word. Since, therefore, in God the one understanding, the understanding, and the understood intention or Word are one by essence, there remains only the distinction of relation, insofar as the Word is referred to the one conceiving, as to Him from whom He is » S. Th. contr. Gent. IV. c. 11.

II. Just as in God the infinite true is the infinite good, so the intellection of self as infinite true is at the same time necessarily the dilection of self as infinite good. Moreover, just as the intellection of self from its inmost ratio and fecundity expresses the Word as an immanent term in the manner which has been said, so dilection is an act producing love as its internal term. Although the divine essence itself has both the formal ratio of intellection and that of dilection — or rather the essence itself is both intellection and dilection, and hence intellection is really and identically dilection — nevertheless the function under the formal ratio of intellection is one thing and that under the formal ratio of dilection another, not only ad extra, but in the very productions ad intra. For the Word proceeds through the formal ratio not of dilection but of intellection, and conversely love (the Holy Spirit) proceeds through the formal ratio of dilection and not of intellection. There is, therefore, between intellection and dilection a virtual distinction, because the functions are distinct in order to a twofold really distinct immanent term, no otherwise than if intellection and dilection themselves were really distinguished.

Now what is of the greatest moment here: not intellection presupposes dilection, but dilection necessarily presupposes intellection — not, to be sure, in time, but in the inborn order of formal reasons. For from the internal formal ratio of intellection and dilection, the good is loved insofar as it is known, not known insofar as it is loved. Indeed, just as dilection cannot exist without intellection, so neither can there be a perfect intellection of the infinite good without dilection; but the difference is that dilection from its own proper formal ratio pre-requires intellection, whereas upon the perfect intellection of the infinite good dilection necessarily follows because of the nature of the good comprehended by intellection. Wherefore from the inmost necessary nature of the thing, even God, the infinite spirit, by understanding Himself loves Himself, but not in the inverse order, by loving Himself understands Himself. Hence the formal ratio of the dilection of self is founded on the formal ratio of the intellection of self; and dilection in the necessary order presupposes the act of intellection of self. But this intellection in the divine being⁴ or in the infinite spirit has, from the necessary exigency of its nature, the Word eternally produced as its immanent term. Wherefore the formal ratio of the act of dilection whose produced term is love, that is, the Holy Spirit, presupposes the formal ratio of the act of intellection with its produced term, which is the Word; without which Word the intellection in act, as being from the necessary exigency of its perfection eternally productive of the Word, could neither exist nor be more fully conceived (as is made known from revelation).

Since, therefore, dilection, and hence the dilection productive of love, from what has been said pre-requires an intellection having the produced Word, for this reason the dilection itself productive of love is necessarily expressed and communicated to the Word; and hence the dilection itself productive of love, and consequently the procession of love, cannot be conceived save as at once from the Begetter of the Word and from the Word. « Since it belongs to the concept of volition to be a vital act and hence to be produced (if, that is, volition is regarded as the term of a vital act), and not only to be produced in some way but also to draw its origin from produced cognition (which is « the understood intention and word » S. Th., above), therefore in God there is given another production (besides the production of the Word) posterior in origin, and flowing not only from the producer of the Word but from the Word itself » Pallavic. l. c. n. 378. Cf. S. Th. Compend. theolog. c. 49.

As regards the substantiality and the real distinction of the produced love from its producing principle, all the things which were said a little earlier about the substantiality and distinction of the Word are easily applied. For that which is loved is infinite substantial goodness, namely, the divine essence itself according to the whole ratio of infinite goodness; and the loving act is the same divine essence, hence not an accident but a substantial act; whence the immanent term produced by this substantial act is substantial love. Likewise, to this term, that is, to the love produced through the act by which infinite substantial goodness is loved according to the whole ratio of lovableness, the whole infinite substantial goodness, that is, the very same numerically one divine essence, is communicated and inheres.

Just as, therefore, in the manner in which we have said, in God understanding Himself there is God understood, so in God loving Himself there is God loved; not three Gods, because the absolute essence is one in number, but nevertheless one is other insofar as by intellection He produces or utters His immanent Word, another is the Word insofar as produced by intellection, and another is love insofar as produced by the one common dilection of Him who utters the Word and of the Word. The three, therefore, are really distinct from one another, insofar as one proceeds from another as from a principle, by a real though immanent procession; and hence the three are relative to one another; and the three are substantial, because these, although distinct from one another, are each singly and all together the intellectual divine essence, which is indeed supremely substance. But one distinct from the others who is an intellectual substance, or (which comes to the same) a distinct subsistent in an intellectual nature, is a person; there are, therefore, three divine persons of one essence. The three would not be distinct unless they were relative from the real procession of one from another; each one would not be a person unless it were substance, that is, the divine essence. The foundation of personality, therefore, is intellectual substantiality; the formal ratio by which they are distinct persons is relation (above pp. 330. 345).

This whole declaration is taken from St. Thomas. « Just as the understood is in the one understanding insofar as it is understood, so too the loved must be in the lover insofar as it is loved.... But God, just as He understands Himself, so it is necessary that He love Himself; for the good understood is lovable of itself. God is, therefore, in Himself as the loved in the lover... But just as the understanding of God is His Being, so too is His loving. God, therefore, does not love Himself according to something supervening upon His essence, but according to His essence (both the object loved and the act loving, and therefore also the term proceeding through this act, is identically the divine essence, not an accident). Since, therefore, He loves Himself according to this, that He Himself is in Himself as the loved in the lover, God is not loved in God loving after an accidental manner, as loved things are in us who love accidentally; but God is in Himself as the loved in the lover substantially. The Holy Spirit Himself, therefore, by whom divine love is insinuated to us, is not something accidental in God, but is a subsisting thing in the divine essence, as the Father and the Son... It is common in every intellect that that which is conceived in the intellect must in some way proceed from the one understanding insofar as he is understanding, and by its procession is in some way distinguished from him, just as the conception of the intellect, which is the understood intention, is distinguished from the understanding intellect; and similarly it is necessary that the affection of the lover, through which the loved is in the lover, proceed from the will of the lover insofar as he is loving. But the divine intellect has this property, that since its understanding is His very Being, it is necessary that the conception of the intellect, which is the understood intention, be His substance; and so likewise is it with the affection in God Himself loving. It remains, therefore, that the intention of the divine intellect, which is His Word, is not distinguished from Him who produces it in this, that it is Being according to substance, but only in this, that it is according to the ratio of the procession of one from another; and so likewise is it with the affection of love in God loving, which pertains to the Holy Spirit.... From all the things which have been said, it must be gathered that in the Godhead we posit a certain ternary, which nevertheless does not conflict with the unity and simplicity of the essence. For it must be conceded that God is as existing in His nature (as the first person proceeding from no one and as the font of the Trinity), and as understood, and as loved by Himself. But this happens otherwise in God and in us. For because in his nature man is a substance, while his understanding and his loving are not his substance, man, according as he is considered in his nature, is a certain subsisting thing; but according as he is in his intellect, he is not a subsisting thing but a certain intention of a subsisting thing; and similarly according as he is in himself as the loved in the lover. Thus, therefore, in man three things can be considered, namely, man existing in his nature, and man existing in the intellect, and man existing in love. And yet these three are not one, because understanding is not his being, and similarly loving; and of these three only one is a certain subsisting thing, namely, man existing in his nature. In God, however, being, understanding, and loving are the same. God, therefore, existing in His natural Being, and God existing in the intellect, and God existing in His love, are one; yet each one of them is subsisting. And because the Latins have been accustomed to call subsisting things in an intellectual nature persons, the Greeks hypostases, for this reason in divine matters the Latins say three persons, the Greeks three hypostases, namely, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit » S. Th. Compend. theol. c. 45. 48. 50. 52. Cf. above thes. XIV.