Tag: Holy Spirit

The Trinity Matters: Relations of Origin

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark, STL

See Part 1 here – it is really hard to jump in without at least seeing Part 1 (Question 27).

We are looking now at Question 28. Article 1 regards the question of whether there are real relations in God (there are); Article 2 is about whether the relations are the Divine Essence (they are); Article 3 is on the distinction of the relations between each other (they are really distinct); Article 4 asks whether there are four relations, namely, paternity, filiation, spiration, and procession (there are only these four).

Article 1 has a clear opponent, as stated in the “sed contra”: Sabellianism. If there are not real relations in God, then there are only relations in our way of understanding God. That would mean God only “appears” as Father, or as Son, or as Holy Spirit, depending on how we encounter God, but that God is not actually these Three in reality. But what does it mean for there to be relations in God, Who is absolutely simple, with no parts whatsoever? This is the point of Article 1… it’s not a simple text, so let’s go through it carefully.

The first thing that is done is to describe what exactly “relation” is to begin with. Nerds will recall that relation is one of the 9 genera of accidents set forth in Aristotle’s Categories, the others being quantity, quality, habitus, time, location, situation, action, and passion. Relation is that which signifies regard to another. The stone has a relation with the Earth (or rather with bodies in general), which is its inclination to move towards the center. The son has a real relation to his father, but not to a tree, at least not in the same way (procession of the same nature – man from man… there is a kind of relation by position as well, or by action and passion, such as being on this side of a tree, or touching the tree, etc., but this kind of relation more “formal” than “accidental” – but we are getting ahead of ourselves). The man also has a relation to animality (that is, “animal-ness” as an idea, or as a genus), which is that he is a part of that genus. This is a logical relation, not a real relation, because the genus as such does not even exist really except in its individual instantiations, like in “this animal.” So it is something which the mind does – it pulls apart these ideas and compares them. This is quite unlike the man in relation to his father, or the stone in relation to the Earth – these are relations inherent in the things themselves, and thus they are real relations. The Persons have (or are) real relations because the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from principles of the same nature (the Divine Essence), which is analogous to the man and his father who generated the other man who is his son (both are men). The Son is really from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is really from the Father and the Son. It’s not just a way of speaking.

The Objections are difficult, but worth a shot.

Objection 1 quotes Boethius’ De Trinitate (a strikingly short but rather dense text), where he seems to deny relation in God. Thomas makes a fine distinction developed out of the body of the answer (which, to be honest, seems to depart a bit from Aristotle… but I digress and am probably wrong anyway). Relation exists in God in a way that is not “inherently towards something else” (viz., creatures), but only denotes “regard to another,” viz., one Person with respect to another Person. This is unlike creatures in relation to God, and unlike mere logical relations which only exist in our way of thinking.

Objection 2 again quotes Boethius, saying that God’s relations are relations of “the same to the same,” but since “the same” is only a logical relation (because we have to create a mental image of a thing being related to itself in order to grasp the idea), it seems that only logical relations exist in God. Well, of course, Boethius himself is not looking to deny real relations in God, and Thomas distinguishes between that which is absolutely and numerically the same and that which is the same according to a genus or species. In this “genus,” God, there are three Persons, related in a certain sense like three men – there are three, but they are all “man,” which is one specific substance, or all “animal,” which is one generic substance. Of course, the difference with the Trinity is that there is only one God numerically (unlike with the three men who are three persons), so the comparison is only partial.

Objection 3 compares and contrasts God’s relation to creatures (which is only a logical relation, as God in no way depends on creatures and exists totally “apart” from them, perfectly subsistent in Himself) and the Father to the Son. The Father and the Son are of the same Divine Nature, unlike creation, so it is a real relation between Them.

Objection 4 is maybe the most interesting. If logical relations are those which only exist in the mind, and the Word is generated by the Divine Intellect, how is there anything but a logical relation? Well, logical relations exist by observation, not by procession. The intellect is real, that which comes from it is also real, so there is real relation between them, just like between a father and a son – or in this case, the Father and the Son.

The question posed by Article 2 sounds bizarre but is quite important for us to consider: are relations in God the same as His Essence? The short answer is, yes. We “adore the distinction of the Persons, and the Equality of Their Majesty,” as the Church’s liturgy teaches us.

The controversy that this Article takes on was all the rage at the time, if I recall correctly. Is the Father “paternal” because of the Son (viz., “Look! This Divine Person has a Son, so He has the quality of paternity from His Son!”), or is the Father “paternal” in Himself (viz. “Look! That is the Father! He must have a Son!”)? Gilbert de la Porrée said the former, Thomas says the latter; Gilbert later retracted his position at Rheims, as Thomas notes.

The Cathedral at Rheims.

There are two ways a relation can be predicated of something (meaning “said” of something). The first way is the way Gilbert exclusively considered… The dog bites the cat, so the dog is in a “biting” relation to the cat, and the cat is in a “bitten” relation to the dog; this is the most formal kind of relation, but it is not the real accident of relation. The accident of relation actually inheres in (or exists in) the subject, like the father’s paternity (“father-ness”) exists in him because of his real relation to his son (by a procession of the same nature – man from man). But God has no accidents in Himself due to His perfect simplicity, so whatever is predicated of God is the same as God, so what would normally be an accidental real relation would be an essential or substantial relation after the manner of an accidental relation. (Confused yet? Take a deep breath and buckle up.) So too, the way a father is related to his son is that of a procession of the same nature which inheres in the father and in the son with regard to each other, viz., a real relation inhering in the subject insofar as it regards another. However, unlike creatures, not only does God not have a real relation to whatever is not God, but God also does not change, and so His Persons are those specific unchanging Persons from all eternity, in all their distinct Personalities – the Father is Father always, and the Son is Son always. So paternity and filiation (“sonship”) do not “happen” but are eternal, therefore inherent to the Father and Son respectively, and therefore are not affixed or “assistant” as a result of some relation. (NB: I am going a bit beyond what Thomas says here.) In the end, the relations are therefore actually what God is Himself in His Persons, though not in His Essence when considered apart from the Persons. What this means is that to know the Divine relations (paternity, filiation, spiration, and procession) is to know the Divine Persons, which is to know the Divine Essence (though the Persons may be spoken of as such rather than as the Divine Essence “in general”), but to know the Divine Essence is insufficient for natural reason (without revelation) to know the relations and the Persons, because to know the Divine Essence from reason alone (without faith) is not to know that there are opposing terms within the Divine Essence (which are signified by the relations).

Objection 1 develops this last point about the Divine Essence and relations being spoken of independently; the relations are the Divine Essence, but they are not spoken of under the mode of substance, as this would imply a relation improper to Divine Simplicity, namely, one unlike a relation of the three men to each other in their nature as men in the relevant sense (identity), more like a stone in relation to the Earth.

Objection 2 sounds more complex than it really is. In creatures, relation exists within the creature, and the creature is more than the relation it possesses (the dog is more than its “biting-ness,” the father is more than the father of his son, the stone is more than its character of being drawn toward the Earth, etc.). In God, this is not so – the relation is the same as the Substance, which is God. But the descriptor “relation” does not exhaust the mystery of what God is – nor is “relation” even used in the normal way, as we have seen.

Objection 3 follows upon the preceding Objection and says that even though relation signifies in some real way what God is, this is not everything that God is (which would be a problem for His perfection, as it would mean God exists in relation to something else entirely, thus not being Self-subsistent and fully actual). God contains all perfections within Himself, as He is their source.

Onto Article 3, a short one which is taking on Sabellianism yet again. This might be one of if not the most important Articles in the entire Treatise. If the relations are all really the Divine Essence (God), wouldn’t they all actually be themselves the same? No, says Boethius, says Thomas, and says the Church. How?

The argument is simple. We have established that there are real relations in God, which have “regard to another.” We have established that the terms of these relations are opposed to one another by the logic of procession (the Intellect generates the Word, the Will spirates the Holy Spirit), which means that there is real relation, as already discussed in Question 27 and the last post in this series. To have real relations means to have opposing terms – a real “from where,” and a real “where to,” so to speak, as we see in processions, including interior processions (i.e. the thought I have of myself is not actually myself). The key is this: that which is really opposed necessarily implies a real distinction. Just as “left” is really distinct from “right,” so too is Intellect distinct from Word, and Will distinct from Love/Spirit/Gift (more on the Names of the Holy Spirit later). The terms are opposed, therefore they are really distinct, while still being contained within the same Substance, viz., God. There’s the Mystery: the fact that there is within this single and perfectly simple Substance, God, a collection of oppositions, thus allowing for real distinctions within God. Three Whos, One What.

The Objections are basically clarifications of this point, so we leave them aside, though they are worth a read.

We’re almost done. Article 4 is asking whether there are only four relations in God – paternity, filiation, spiration, and procession. This Article is curious in that it does not have a “sed contra” but only an opposing wrong answer proposed in the final Objection (5), which, unlike the first four Objections that propose more than four relations, instead argues that there are fewer.

There are only these four relations. Relation can be based either on quantity (like double and half) or based on an action/passion (doing/receiving action, like the dog biting the cat, or even like the human father generating his son who receives being from him). There is no quantity in the Divine Essence, as God is infinite Being. So, the relations must be action/passion. They are the acts of the interior processions, of course, which have already been described: the Intellect generating the Word, and the Will spirating the Holy Spirit. Now, the relations are described “from both ends” as it were – from the origin and the final term (the “beginning” and “end”). It’s clear with the Father and the Son: paternity and filiation. With the Holy Spirit, there is no “normal” vocabulary, so we designate the relation of the principle of the Holy Spirit (the Father and the Son) as “spiration” and the relation of the Holy Spirit to His principle as “procession.”

Objection 1 is worth a look. The argument is that the relation between a mind and its object is a real relation (as with the will and its object which it loves, so the following argument holds also for the Holy Spirit) because they are really different things. So it seems that there are more than four relations in God. But since God is knowing and loving God, the Divine Intellect and Will are the same as their objects (and therefore only logically distinct and logically related, like the way anything is “related to itself”). How then, can there be such diversity in these acts (knowing and loving) as to allow for real relations? Well, the Word is in a real relation by the opposition found in intelligible and interior procession, as described previously… The Word is that by which God understands Himself, which has the real relation, real opposition, and real distinction spoken of earlier, even though the Word is also the Divine Essence, the object of understanding. As described above, the key is the real distinction that is allowed for by the opposition of terms – intellect and word – which leads us to this strange but coherent “both/and” with the Word being both not the object of understanding but the concept by which the object is understood insofar as He is the Word, and as the object of understanding which is God Himself, the Divine Essence.

Objections 2 through 4 deal with some other errors about what counts as relation in God. Objection 5 is our last stop. Isn’t there only one relation between the Father and the Son, a paternal-filial relation? Just as there is one road between Athens and Thebes, it seems there is only this one relation between the Father and the Son. However, we already see the problem in the proposed name for this single relation (which is my own invention, mind you): there are two parts. The human son is not father to his own father, nor is the father son to his own son. While one takes a single road from Athens to Thebes and from Thebes to Athens, you go northwest and southeast respectively. You could say, however, that some things have this “absolute” mutual relation, perhaps like numbers, though we leave this discussion aside. The point is that to describe filiation is not to describe paternity, and this also applies to the spiration-procession relations which are between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son.

Whew. We made it. Next time, we finally answer the burning question: what exactly is a person anyway?

The Trinity Matters: Processions

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark, STL

See the Introduction here.

The argument begins simply: “From God I proceeded.” (John 8:24) Question 27 is the foundation for the Treatise on the Trinity, and this appeal to authority – in this case, Divine Authority – is the point of departure. God has said it, therefore we believe it, as God does not lie and is never confused or ignorant.

It must begin this way, as we will see later in detail; for now it suffices to say that what can be known about God by reason alone does not include real processions of the sort which we are about to discuss. God must in fact tell us there are processions in Himself. With that, let us begin.

Article 1 establishes the presence of procession in God. Article 2 demonstrates that one procession is rightly called “generation” (of the Word, or the Son). Article 3 shows that there is another procession in God, that of the Holy Spirit. Article 4 determines that the procession of the Holy Spirit is not “generation” but “spiration.” Article 5 proves there cannot be more than two processions in God (and thus not more than three Persons).

The “sed contra” of Article 1 has already been laid out – John 8:24 tells us that procession exists in God. We move now to the body of Article 1 (the “respondeo” or “answer”) before looking at the objections (which is the proper way to read the Summa, by the way) and the other Articles.

Thomas again begins with Scripture. The Bible uses Names for God which imply procession (like “Son”) but it is not immediately clear what kind of procession this is. A procession, in general, is a kind of “issuing forth” of one thing from another – the way a son proceeds from a father… But now we see the two great errors which are possible: Arianism and Sabellianism.

Arianism sees the Son as a creature of the Father, and the Holy Spirit as a creature of both – this would be procession indeed, but this position empties the Son and the Holy Spirit of Divinity. (Thomas again appeals to Scripture to explain why Arius was wrong, specifically 1 John 5:20 for the Son, and 1 Corinthians 6:19 for the Holy Spirit… I hope it is sufficiently clear by now that Thomas’s theology is deeply Biblical; we are not even half-way through Article 1.)

Sabellianism (also Modalism) sees the Son and the Holy Spirit not as creatures but simply Names predicated of God the Father acting in certain ways. When the Father is Incarnate, He is called “Son.” When He sanctifies human souls, He is called “Holy Spirit.” In other words, the Son and the Holy Spirit are only logical distinctions – they are not really distinct from the Father. Thomas appeals to John 5:19 and “many other passages” to rebut this… This simply is not what we get from Christ’s teaching in Scripture.

The common error is to see procession as “outward” – something existing in creation. With Arius, it is the beings themselves which are processed outwardly, while with Sabellius the outward effect which proceeds from Divine operation in creation indicates the Name to use.

This is not the kind of procession which allows for the Trinity of Catholic Faith. The processions of the Trinity are interior processions.

The most evident analogy is with our own mind (an analogy developed at length by St. Augustine in his book on the Trinity frequently called the “psychological analogy”). We think of a thing by conjuring an idea – but the idea remains within our mind until we speak it by the word, the concept, by which we are understanding it. In God, procession is like this – it is not procession as according to bodies, such as a son proceeding from a father, or heat proceeding from fire.

You can look at Objections 1 and 3 on your own. Objection 2 is worth a look here, as it really touches the heart of the major obstacle to making sense of the Trinity, namely, Divine Simplicity. After all, what proceeds from a thing is distinct from that whence it proceeds – but God is perfectly simple. How? Well, in an intellectual procession, the more perfect the procession is the more closely united is the concept with the mind. In other words, the better a thing is known, the more it is one with the intellect. God knows perfectly – so what He conceives of must be perfectly united with Him by Essence. (We will see a similar argument about power later – the more power a cause has, the more the cause will be replicated in the effect… the better the teacher, the more able the students will be to teach what they are learning. Coincidentally, this is part of why Jesus did not write a book. But we are getting sidetracked…) The point is that the Word is perfectly understood by the Father and is therefore perfectly One with Him.

So much for Article 1. There are processions in God which remain within God, the most easily grasped being the intellectual procession of the Word, Who is perfectly united with the Father because the Father perfectly understands the Word. On to Article 2: is any procession in God called “generation”?

The “sed contra” is Psalm 2:7 – “This day I have begotten Thee.” (To “beget” and to “generate” are the same.) So, at least one procession in God is called “generation.” But why?

There are two kinds of generation – the kind which makes something new (fire making more fire) which brings something into existence out of non-existence, and a kind which is proper to living things which generate other living things which have the same specific nature (unlike a man producing a hair on his head – but like a man producing a man). The latter normally includes the “making” of the first kind of generation; a horse generates a horse, a man generates a man, and so on. But maybe there could be something which lacks the aspect of “making” and has only this latter kind of generation… This is the Father-Son relationship. This generation is from a living principle (the Father, Whose operation of understanding is the “force” of this generation), it is a generation of similitude (due to how understanding works, as explained above), and that which is being understood is God Himself, the Divine Essence (the same nature as the Generator). So this is living generation but without creation. (Nerds may look at Question 14 for more details.)

Objections 2 and 3 are very important and very helpful.

Objection 2 notes that our own thoughts are not called “generation.” So, why should God’s thought in this case be called “generation”? Well, our act of understanding is not the same as our own substance – this is not the case with God. We produce thoughts that are not ourselves; but for God, anything in Him is Him.

Objection 3 argues that what derives its existence from another will exist in a subject, meaning, it is not self-subsistent – for example, a horse generated from a horse will exist in the physical universe, as part of that universe. So, since God is self-subsistent, there can be no generation in Him. Well, the created universe is Thomas’ counter-example: it does not exist in a subject. Creation exists in itself, due to the power of God. So, the Word, Who derives or receives His existence from another (the Father) by interior procession, does not need to subsist in another, just like creation does not need to.

Article 3 is relatively simple. The “sed contra” points to Scripture for the grounds for arguing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from God but is not the Word (John 15:26 and John 14:16 respectively).

The intellect has an interior procession, and so does the will. In the will, the object of desire moves us towards that object by a kind of impulsion. In God, the intellectual procession generates the Word; the procession of the Will of God gives us the Holy Spirit. This is the procession of love.

Objections 1 and 3 are good to look at.

Objection 1 states that, if we admit of more than one procession in God, we could be setting ourselves up to say that there are infinite processions in God, which is unreasonable. Thomas’ response is very important (and essentially constitutes the argument of Article 5)… Only the intellect and the will can have interior processions, so there cannot be more than two.

Objection 3 is possibly the strongest counter-argument yet. The claim is that intellect and will are the same in God, due to Divine Simplicity. Therefore, there cannot be a difference in the procession from the Divine Intellect and Will… So, there can be only one procession. Thomas admits that the Will and Intellect of God are the same, but Thomas says that there is a priority between intellect and will, with intellection preceding willing, logically even if not really; in God, this priority can only be logical – one must know what one loves, but since God is not doing this “step by step” it is in a single moment… and yet, there really is this logical priority, so there can be distinct processions. (Nerds might like to recall the insistence of Thomas on the priority of the intellect in human acts, over and against Bonaventure and later Scotus, Ockham, and then the long line of nominalists and voluntarists… Interesting how this connects, no?)

Article 4 gives us the first appeal to something other than Scripture – rather, it is an appeal to St. Athanasius, who says that the Holy Spirit is not begotten (or generated).

The intellect has an interior procession because some similitude exists in the intellect (I think of the apple, and something like an apple is in my mind – I think of myself, and something like myself is in my mind – and the better the conception in my mind is, the more like the thing itself that it is a conception of will it be… in God, as we saw, this conception is perfect, and therefore is God Himself, God the Word). Well, with the will it is a bit different. Instead of similitude, we speak of inclination, or a kind of wanting (or loving). When we have an object in our will, we are inclined towards it – we want it, we desire it, we love it. God, by loving Himself, has an interior procession in His Will. What thus proceeds is the Holy Spirit, so called because “spirit” implies a kind of living impulse. The procession is therefore called “spiration” rather than generation (see Objection 3).

We’ll leave the Objections alone.

Article 5 is within our grasp, as we’ve already indicated the argument. The “sed contra” is particularly blunt at this point – Thomas simply says there are only two Persons Who proceed, and thus there are only two processions.

As we have said, the intellect and the will are the only faculties which can have interior processions. Other faculties or operations will have exterior processions or no processions at all – sensation, for instance, requires activity outside the intellectual nature. Thus, there can only be three Persons in God, in accord with the Intellect and Will and unproceeded Principle, the Father.

The Objections concern the following claims: 1, that power has procession; 2, that goodness involves procession; and 3, that fecundity of operations would multiply the processions of Word and Love.

As for 1, power is exercised on another, so it is an external operation. As for 2, the goodness of God belongs to His Essence and is not an operation like understanding or willing, and so the Goodness of God is simply involved in the processions of the Word and Love. As for 3, God understands all and loves all by one simple act – therefore, there is no possibility of multiplying the processions of Word and Love.

We made it! Question 27, done! Believe it or not, we have already pretty much laid out the entirety of Trinitarian theology in seed form. The rest is largely just unpacking what we have just done.

Next up, Question 28: relations of origin…

The Trinity Matters: Introduction

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark

The story goes that an old Irish priest was getting ready for his homily on Trinity Sunday. In Ireland at the time, on this Feast, the annual tithe of peat moss was made, to supplement the priest’s salary. He would need it for the fires throughout the coming winter. He ascended the ambo to preach that Sunday, and said, “As you know today is Trinity Sunday. That means it’s time to make the tithe of peat. If I don’t have peat, the winter will be dreadful, etc.” When asked later by a friend why he didn’t preach on the Trinity, the priest said, “Well, they all believe in that… They don’t all believe in making their tithe of peat!”

It should go without saying that, being the highest Mystery of our Faith – God Himself – the Trinity matters. However, as Rahner aptly pointed out in his important book on the subject, the Trinity has nonetheless somehow been slipping into practical irrelevance in the lives of believers. One must ask not only whether people do not believe in “tithing peat” and other such appropriate responses of parochial commitment anymore – but if they even really believe in the entire center and ultimate point of Christianity, which is the Triune Godhead as such. Or, instead, is it the case that, after so many preachers simply assuming “they believe it,” they are rather actually some kind of Sabellians or Arians, even if unknowingly? (Many are.) What effects could that have on the spiritual life, for individuals, and also for the whole Church and world? (Enormous ones.) And what exactly is the doctrine of the Trinity anyway? (Three Persons in One God.) Is it even really coherent? (Yes.) Is the doctrine demonstrable from reason alone? (No.) Do the missions imply a subordination of the Persons? (No.) Etc.

We will be walking step by step through the Treatise on the Trinity by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, starting with Question 27 of the Prima Pars and going all the way through to Question 43… At the end, I will introduce you to the most relevant debate occurring right now in Trinitarian theology (over Rahner’s famous “grundaxiom” – “The Immanent Trinity is the Economic Trinity, and the Economic Trinity is the Immanent Trinity”) and perhaps give some additional reflections on the visible mission of the Son (the Incarnation) as it relates to the mysteries of His public life and ministry.

Have no fear! I will break down the language piece by piece and sift through all the normal queries. As St. Augustine said, this part of theology is the most dangerous, but it is also the most fruitful… It’s worth the effort.

Astute and zealous readers might want to brush up first on Divine Simplicity (Question 3) to see what is immediately at stake in this topic (basically, if something is not perfectly simple, viz., without parts, then it’s not God – such a thing would have had to be put together by something else which existed prior to it). Other Questions might be helpful to read too (11-14, 18-20, 22, 25), but Question 3 is enough to see the major “obstacle” at hand. I will help you through the rest.

I hope you enjoy this upcoming series, and may God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit bless you and keep you always… Happy Trinity Sunday!

Main image: The Jordan River, near the Baptismal Site, the lowest place on Earth – where all Three Persons were encountered by distinct visible missions.