VI-TRINITY
VI. TRINITY DOCTRINE AS INTERPRETED IN LATIN THEOLOGY
The transition to the Latin theology of the Trinity was the work of St. Augustine. Western theologians have never departed from the main lines which he laid down, although in the Golden Age of Scholasticism his system was developed, its details completed, and its terminology perfected. It received its final and classical form from St. Thomas Aquinas. But it is necessary first to indicate in what consisted the transition effected by St. Augustine. This may be summed up in three points:
He views the Divine Nature as prior to the Personalities. Deus is for him not God the Father,but the Trinity. This was a step of the first importance, safeguarding as it did alike the unity of God and the equality of the Persons in a manner which the Greek system could never do. As we have seen, one at least of the Greeks, Didymus, had adopted this standpoint and it is possible that Augustine may have derived this method of viewing the mystery from him. But to make it the basis for the whole treatment of the doctrine was the work of Augustine’s genius.
He insists that every external operation God is due to the whole Trinity, and cannot be attributed to one Person alone, save by appropriation (see HOLY GHOST). The Greek Fathers had, as we have seen, been led to affirm that the action (energeia) of the Three Persons was one, and one alone. But the doctrine of appropriation was unknown to them, and thus the value of this conclusion was obscured by a traditional theology implying the distinct activities of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
By indicating the analogy between the two processions within the Godhead and the internal acts of thought and will in the human mind (De Trin., IX, iii, 3; X, xi, 17), he became the founder of the psychological theory of the Trinity, which, with a very few exceptions, was accepted by every subsequent Latin writer.
In the following exposition of the Latin doctrines, we shall follow St. Thomas Aquinas, whose treatment of the doctrine is now universally accepted by Catholic theologians. It should be observed, however, that this is not the only form in which the psychological theory has been proposed. Thus Richard of St. Victor, Alexander of Hales, and St. Bonaventure, while adhering in the main to Western tradition, were more influenced by Greek thought, and give us a system differing somewhat from that of St. Thomas.
A. The Son
Among the terms empIoyed in Scripture to designate the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is the Word (John 1:1). This is understood by St. Thomas of the Verbum mentale, or intellectual concept. As applied to the Son, the name, he holds, signifies that He proceeds from the Father as the term of an intellectual procession, in a manner analogous to that in which a concept is generated by the human mind in all acts of natural knowledge. It is, indeed, of faith that the Son proceeds from the Father by a veritable generation. He is, says the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, begotten before all worlds”. But the Procession of a Divine Person as the term of the act by which God knows His own nature is rightly called generation. This may be readily shown. As an act of intellectual conception, it necessarily produces the likeness of the object known. And further, being Divine action, it is not an accidental act resulting in a term, itself a mere accident, but the act is the very substance of the Divinity, and the term is likewise substantial. A process tending necessarily to the production of a substantial term like in nature to the Person from Whom it proceeds is a process of generation. In regard to this view as to the procession of the Son, a difficulty was felt by St. Anselm (Monol., lxiv) on the score that it would seem to involve that each of the Three Persons must needs generate a subsistent Word. Since all the Powers possess the same mind, does it not follow, he asked, that in each case thought produces a similar term? This difficulty St. Thomas succeeds in removing. According to his psychology the formation of a concept is not essential to thought as such, though absolutely requisite to all natural human knowledge. There is, therefore, no ground in reason, apart from revelation, for holding that the Divine intellect produces a Verbum mentale. It is the testimony of Scripture alone which tells us that the Father has from all eternity begotten His consubstantial Word. But neither reason nor revelation suggests it in the case of the Second and Third Persons (I:34:1, ad 3).
Not a few writers of great weight hold that there is sufficient consensus among the Fathers and Scholastic theologians as to the meaning of the names Word and Wisdom (Proverbs 8), applied to the Son, for us to regard the intellectual procession of the Second Person as at least theologically certain, if not a revealed truth (cf. Suarez, “De Trin.”, I, v, p. 4; Petav., VI, i, 7; Franzelin, “De Trin.”, Thesis xxvi). This, however, seems to be an exaggeration. The immense majority of the Greek Fathers, as we have already noticed, interpret logos of the spoken word, and consider the significance of the name to lie not in any teaching as to intellectual procession, but in the fact that it implies a mode of generation devoid of all passion. Nor is the tradition as to the interpretation of Proverbs 8, in any sense unanimous. In view of these facts the opinion of those theologians seems the sounder who regard this explanation of the procession simply as a theological opinion of great probability and harmonizing well with revealed truth.
B. The Holy Spirit
Just as the Son proceeds as the term of the immanent act of the intellect, so does the Holy Spirit proceed as the term of the act of the Divine will. In human love, as St. Thomas teaches (I:27:3), even though the object be external to us, yet the immanent act of love arouses in the soul a state of ardour which is, as it were, an impression of the thing loved. In virtue of this the object of love is present to our affections, much as, by means of the concept, the object of thought is present to our intellect. This experience is the term of the internal act. The Holy Spirit, it is contended, proceeds from the Father and the Son as the term of the love by which God loves Himself. He is not the love of God in the sense of being Himself formally the love by which God loves; but in loving Himself God breathes forth this subsistent term. He is Hypostatic Love. Here, however, it is necessary to safeguard a point of revealed doctrine. It is of faith that the procession of the Holy Spirit is not generation. The Son is “the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). And the Athanasian Creed expressly lays it down that the Holy Ghost is “from the Father and the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” If the immanent act of the intellect is rightly termed generation, on what grounds can that name be denied to the act of the will? The answers given in reply to this difficulty by St. Thomas, Richard of St. Victor, and Alexander of Hales are very different. It will be sufficient here to note St. Thomas’s solution. Intellectual procession, he says, is of its very nature the production of a term in the likeness of the thing conceived. This is not so in regard to the act of the will. Here the primary result is simply to attract the subject to the object of his love. This difference in the acts explains why the name generation is applicable only to the act of the intellect. Generation is essentially the production of like by like. And no process which is not essentially of that character can claim the name.
The doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit by means of the act of the Divine will is due entirely to Augustine. It is nowhere found among the Greeks, who simply declare the procession of the Spirit to be beyond our comprehension, nor is it found in the Latins before his time. He mentions the opinion with favour in the “De fide et symbolo” (A.D. 393); and in the “De Trinitate” (A.D. 415) develops it at length. His teaching was accepted by the West. The Scholastics seek for Scriptural support for it in the name Holy Spirit. This must, they argue, be, like the names Father and Son, a name expressive of a relation within the Godhead proper to the Person who bears it. Now the attribute holy, as applied to person or thing, signifies that the being of which it is affirmed is devoted to God. It follows therefore that, when applied to a Divine Person as designating the relation uniting Him to the other Persons, it must signify that the procession determining His origin is one which of its nature involves devotion to God. But that by which any person is devoted to God is love. The argument is ingenious, but hardly convincing; and the same may be said of a somewhat similar piece of reasoning regarding the name Spirit (I:36:1). The Latin theory is a noble effort of the human reason to penetrate the verities which revelation has left veiled in mystery. It harmonizes, as we have said, with all the truths of faith. It is admirably adapted to assist us to a fuller comprehension of the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion. But more than this must not be claimed. It does not possess the sanction of revelation.
C. The Divine Relations
The existence of relations in the Godhead may be immediately inferred from the doctrine of processions, and as such is a truth of Revelation. Where there is a real procession the principle and the term are really related. Hence, both the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit must involve the existence of real and objective relations. This part of Trinitarian doctrine was familiar to the Greek Fathers. In answer to the Eunomian objection, that consubstantiality rendered any distinction between the Persons impossible, Gregory of Nyssa replies: “Though we hold that the nature [in the Three Persons] is not different, we do not deny the difference arising in regard of the source and that which proceeds from the source [ten katato aition kai to aitiaton diaphoran]; but in this alone do we admit that one Person differs from another” (”Quod non sunt tres dii”; cf. Gregory Nazianzen, “Or. theol.”, V, ix; John Damascene, “F.O.”, I, viii). Augustine insists that of the ten Aristotelean categories two, stance and relation, are found in God (”De Trin.”, V, v). But it was at the hands the Scholastic theologians that the question received its full development. The results to which they led, though not to be reckoned as part of the dogma, were found to throw great light upon the mystery, and to be of vast service in the objections urged against it.
From the fact that there are two processions in Godhead, each involving both a principle and term, it follows that there must be four relations, two origination (paternitas and spiratio) and two of procession (filiatio and processio). These relations are what constitute the distinction between the Persons. They cannot be digtinguished by any absolute attribute, for every absolute attribute must belong to the infinite Divine Nature and this is common to the Three Persons. Whatever distinction there is must be in the relations alone. This conclusion is held as absolutely certain by all theologians. Equivalently contained in the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, it was clearly enunciated by St. Anselm (”De process. Sp. S.”, ii) and received ecclesiastical sanction in the “Decretum pro Jacobitis” in the form: “[In divinis] omnia sunt unum ubi non obviat relationis oppositio.” Since this is so, it is manifest that the four relations suppose but Three Persons. For there is no relative opposition between spiration on the one hand and either paternity or filiation on the other. Hence the attribute of spiration is found in conjunction with each of these, and in virtue of it they are each distinguished from procession. As they share one and the same Divine Nature, so they possess the same virtus spirationis, and thus constitute a single originating principle of the Holy Spirit.
Inasmuch as the relations, and they alone, are distinct realities in the Godhead, it follows that the Divine Persons are none other than these relations. The Father is the Divine Paternity, the Son the Divine Filiation, the Holy Spirit the Divine Procession. Here it must be borne in mind that the relations are not mere accidental determinations as these abstract terms might suggest. Whatever is in God must needs be subsistent. He is the Supreme Substance, transcending the divisions of the Aristotelean categories. Hence, at one and the same time He is both substance and relation. (How it is that there should be in God real relations, though it is altogether impossible that quantity or quality should be found in Him, is a question involving a discussion regarding the metaphysics of relations, which would be out of place in an article such as the present.)
It will be seen that the doctrine of the Divine relations provides an answer to the objection that the dogma of the Trinity involves the falsity of the axiom that things which are identical with the same thing are identical one with another. We reply that the axiom is perfectly true in regard to absolute entities, to which alone it refers. But in the dogma of the Trinity when we affirm that the Father and Son are alike identical with the Divine Essence, we are affirming that the Supreme Infinite Substance is identical not with two absolute entities, but with each of two relations. These relations, in virtue of their nature as correlatives, are necessarily opposed the one to the other and therefore different. Again it is said that if there are Three Persons in the Godhead none can be infinite, for each must lack something which the others possess. We reply that a relation, viewed precisely as such, is not, like quantity or quality, an intrinsic perfection. When we affirm again it is relation of anything, we affirm that it regards something other than itself. The whole perfection of the Godhead is contained in the one infinite Divine Essence. The Father is that Essence as it eternally regards the Son and the Spirit; the Son is that Essence as it eternally regards the Father and the Spirit; the Holy Spirit is that Essence as it eternally regards the Father and the Son. But the eternal regard by which each of the Three Persons is constituted is not an addition to the infinite perfection of the Godhead.
The theory of relations also indicates the solution to the difficulty now most frequently proposed by anti-Trinitarians. It is urged that since there are Three Persons there must be three self-consciousnesses: but the Divine mind ex hypothesi is one, and therefore can possess but one self-consciousness; in other words, the dogma contains an irreconcilable contradiction. This whole objection rests on a petitio principii: for it takes for granted the identification of person and of mind with self-consciousness. This identification is rejected by Catholic philosophers as altogether misleading. Neither person nor mind is self-consciousness; though a person must needs possess self-consciousness, and consciousness attests the existence of mind (see PERSONALITY). Granted that in the infinite mind, in which the categories are transcended, there are three relations which are subsistent realities, distinguished one from another in virtue of their relative opposition then it will follow that the same mind will have a three-fold consciousness, knowing itself in three ways in accordance with its three modes of existence. It is impossible to establish that, in regard of the infinite mind, such a supposition involves a contradiction.
The question was raised by the Scholastics: In what sense are we to understand the Divine act of generation? As we conceive things, the relations of paternity and filiation are due to an act by which the Father generates the Son; the relations of spiration and procession, to an act by which Father and Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit. St. Thomas replies that the acts are identical with the relations of generation and spiration; only the mode of expression on our part is different (I:41:3, ad 2). This is due to the fact that the forms alike of our thought and our language are moulded upon the material world in which we live. In this world origination is in every case due to the effecting of a change. We call the effecting of the change action, and its reception passion. Thus, action and passion are different from the permanent relations consequent on them. But in the Godhead origination is eternal: it is not the result of change. Hence the term signifying action denotes not the production of the relation, but purely the relation of the Originator to the Originated. The terminology is unavoidable because the limitations of our experience force us to represent this relation as due to an act. Indeed throughout this whole subject we are hampered by the imperfection of human language as an instrument wherewith to express verities higher than the facts of the world. When, for instance, we say that the Son possesses filiation and spiration the terms seem to suggest that these are forms inherent in Him as in a subject. We know, indeed, that in the Divine Persons there can be no composition: they are absolutely simple. Yet we are forced to speak thus: for the one Personality, not withstanding its simplicity, is related to both the others, and by different relations. We cannot express this save by attributing to Him filiation and spiration (I:32:2).
D. Divine Mission
It has been seen that every action of God in regard of the created world proceeds from the Three Persons indifferently. In what sense, then, are we to understand such texts as “God sent . . . his Son into the world” (John 3:17), and “the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father” (John 15:26)? What is meant by the mission of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? To this it is answered that mission supposes two conditions:
That the person sent should in some way proceed from the sender and
that the person sent should come to be at the place indicated.
The procession, however, may take place in various ways — by command, or counsel, or even origination. Thus we say that a king sends a messenger, and that a tree sends forth buds. The second condition, too, is satisfied either if the person sent comes to be somewhere where previously he was not, or if, although he was already there, he comes to be there in a new manner. Though God the Son was already present in the world by reason of His Godhead, His Incarnation made Him present there in a new way. In virtue of this new presence and of His procession from the Father, He is rightly said to have been sent into the world. So, too, in regard to the mission of the Holy Spirit. The gift of grace renders the Blessed Trinity present to the soul in a new manner: that is, as the object of direct, though inchoative, knowledge and as the object of experimental love. By reason of this new mode of presence common to the whole Trinity, the Second and the Third Persons, inasmuch as each receives the Divine Nature by means of a procession, may be said to be sent into the soul.