Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« If, for some understanding of this marvelous union, regard be had above all to the term of mission and inhabitation: inhabitation must be called the union of friendship of the soul elevated by grace with God, unto fruition begun here and consummated in the other life through knowledge and love (through charity in faith, through charity in vision), so that God by loving makes the lover, and is possessed by charity; and on that account in the sanctified soul God remains according to essence under a new title of friendship, according to power and presence in a new manner ».

Following the theologians who have gone before us, we can deduce a more distinct understanding of this inhabitation and union from Sacred Scripture and the declarations of the holy Fathers and from the analogy of faith; in which matter, keeping before our eyes the certain norm of Catholic doctrine, we can indeed and ought to attain so far that nothing be said which is not true; but we shall not attain so far that we understand the whole depth and height of this mystery of divine love, and are able to explain the whole truth, so long as it is said to us: now we are the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be (1. Io. III. 2).

By reason of the immensity of the one and triune God, the intimate inexistence in all creatures according to essence, power, and presence is presupposed. But from this necessary inexistence God is not said to dwell in a creature in the manner in which Scripture and the PP. present the inhabitation to us, nor can this be called a union of the creature with God. Besides the hypostatic union, a union with God properly so called on the part of the creature is only the possession of God unto enjoying God as the ultimate end. For complete fruition indeed we shall possess the one and triune God in the light of glory, which presupposes sanctifying grace; but now in this life, sanctified by grace and charity, we possess God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit unto fruition begun and dispositive. As therefore according to natural gifts we proceed from God as from a principle, which is not a proper union with God; so through the supernatural gift of grace and charity and finally of glory we are brought back to God as the ultimate end, and we are truly united to the one and triune God as unto enjoyment. « In the going forth of creatures from the first principle there is noted a certain circulation or reversion, because all things return as unto an end to that from which as from a principle they proceeded... According to this therefore the procession of the divine persons into creatures can be considered in two ways: either inasmuch as it is the reason of going forth from the principle, and thus such a procession (into creatures) is considered according to natural gifts, in which we subsist...; it can also be considered (the procession into creatures) inasmuch as it is the reason of returning unto the end, and it is according to those gifts only which conjoin us most closely to the ultimate end, namely God, which are sanctifying grace and glory... For in the participations of divine goodness there is not an immediate conjunction with God through the first effects, by which we subsist in the being of creatures; but through the last ones, by which we adhere to the end, and therefore we concede that the Holy Spirit is not given except according to the gifts that make one pleasing... For the giving of the Holy Spirit it does not suffice that there be a new relation, of whatever sort, of the creature to God; but it is necessary that it refer to Him as to something had, because what is given to someone is had in some way by him. But a divine person cannot be had by us except either unto perfect fruit, and thus it is had through the gift of glory; or according to imperfect fruit, and thus it is had through the gift of sanctifying grace » S. Th. I. d. 14. q. 2. a. 2.

Moreover, this possession and fruition of God the ultimate end is through habit and act together, or at least through the habit of knowledge and love (conjointly, of course, not divisively — through knowledge alone, which does not suffice for enjoying, nor through love alone, which cannot be separated from knowledge). Whence « above the common manner in which God is in all things, there is one special manner which befits the rational nature, in which God is said to be as the known in the knower and the beloved in the lover; and because by knowing and loving the rational creature attains by its operation to God Himself, according to that special manner God is said not only to be in the rational creature, but also to dwell in it as in His temple » S. Th. I. q. 43. a. 3.

But in order that this may be rightly understood, it must be attended to that this love is of mutual and most perfect friendship, by which the Lord God, as s. Ignatius speaks (Contemplat. ad amor. spiritual.), « not only gives from those things which He has but also Himself, as much as He can, according to His divine ordinance »; but the creature through the charity given to it attains God by love unto enjoyment. Whence this love of friendship is not only a union according to affection, but of itself it also demands and desires a real union, as s. Thomas explains 1. 2. q. 28. a. 1: « a certain union is an effect of love, and this is the real union which the lover seeks with the beloved thing ». Since now charity, omnipotent on the part of God, also does what it desires; it can rightly be said that sanctifying grace, which either includes charity or is charity itself, « as a kind of joining which couples two things or desires to couple them » (Aug. Trin. VIII. c. 10; S. Th. 1. c.), is as a new title which demands the conjunction of God with the sanctified soul in such a way that, if God by reason of immensity were not present everywhere, He would become present according to essence and would be conjoined with the sanctified (Suarez 1. c. n. 12. 13). But this very thing has its foundation in this, that love is ordered unto enjoying God.

If therefore this union be compared with the existence of God in all creatures according to essence, power, and presence: the union and inhabitation, as we have already deduced above from the Scriptures, is from a new title and a moral exigency demanding the presence of God according to essence not as immense but as loving and loved, communicating Himself to the beloved unto enjoyment; it is then a new mode of inexistence according to power and the operation of supernatural effects, and a new mode according to presence through the tutelage and supernatural providence of a father toward an adoptive son. « For enjoying that which is to be enjoyed, there is required the presence of the enjoyable thing and also the due disposition of the enjoyer; whence there is required the presence of the Holy Spirit and His gift, namely the love by which one clings to Him. Nevertheless, when the Holy Spirit is given to us, He does not begin to be in a new place, but in a new manner through the production of a new effect and a new respect, by which the creature is otherwise related to the Holy Spirit than before, on account of which He Himself is also said to be otherwise in the creature than before, because He is in it as in one knowing and loving Him, which was not the case before. From what has been said it is clear that in justification a twofold charity is given to us, namely created and uncreated, that by which we love, and that by which we are loved... From these things it is gathered that although God is in all things by essence, presence, and power, He is not however had by all men through grace » s. Bonavent. compend. theol. verit. c. 9.

It follows from what has been said after the manner of a corollary that a) the union of which we speak is a new relation of the creature to God, on the part of the creature most real, founded in the gifts of grace and a supernatural ontological elevation; but in God, the unchangeable good, it posits nothing real indeed, yet it is a true union through a change not in both but only in the other of the terms united, which is the creature. Which unchangeableness of God is here far more easily understood than in the hypostatic union, where nevertheless it is equally certain and is to be reconciled from the same principle through the change made in the united human nature (de Incarn. th. XXXIII.). It follows b) that it is false what some of the Scholastics said, that the Holy Spirit can be invisibly sent without supernatural gifts conferred upon the creature. The invisible mission is unto the union and inhabitation of the proceeding person; but this union and inhabitation cannot be conceived without a supernatural change in the united creature.