The Blessed Trinity
27. The Proceeding of the Divine Persons
1. Scripture indicates a proceeding in God. This cannot be a creatural movement, nor an operation involving change. It must be in God and of God. And it must be in the order of intellect and will (that is, the intellective order), for this is the most perfect type of proceeding.
2. There is in God an eternal proceeding, likened to our human knowing, in which God (the Father) eternally begets the Word. The Word is God the Son. This proceeding is generation.
3. There is in God an eternal proceeding, likened to our willing or loving, in which Spirit proceeds from Father and Son. The Spirit is God the Holy Ghost. This proceeding is procession.
4. The two proceedings cannot both be called generation, for one is in the order of knowing, and the other is in the order of willing or loving. Speaking in terms of our creatural human processes, the mind begets reality by knowing; the mind generates the mental word or concept. Hence the divine proceeding which is likened to knowing is rightly called generation. And since, when we know a lovable being that can reciprocate our love, love proceeds from lover and beloved, the second divine proceeding is rightly called procession.
5. Proceedings of the intellective order which are in and of the agent, are two only: one in the likeness of knowing; one in the likeness of willing. Hence in God there are no other proceedings than generation and procession. There are other relations, as we shall see, but there are no other proceedings.
28. The Divine Relations
1. A relation is the standing of a thing with reference to something other. A relation, or relationship, exists between things that can be in some way referred to one another. If the basis of the relation is in things, the relation is called real; if the basis of the relation is in the mind's grasp and comparison of things, the relation is called logical or rational. Between sons of the same parents, the relation of brotherhood is a real relation. Between subject and predicate of a sentence, the relation is a logical relation. Now, in God there are real proceedings, and in consequence there are real relations in God.
2. A real relation in God cannot be an accidental, for there are no accidentals in God. As a thing, an entity, a real relation in God is one with the divine essence.
3. Now, a real relation involves contrast inasmuch as really related things must be really distinct from one another. Hence, real relations in God mean that in God there are real distinctions. These real distinctions cannot be in the simple and undivided essence of God. They must be really distinct respects which exist in God by reason of the divine proceedings. (It is to be remembered that distinction does not necessarily mean separation or separability. Things are distinct by a real distinction when they are distinguished one from another as thing and thing, even though they are completely inseparable. Thus, for example, the whiteness and the coldness of snow are really distinct from each other, and each is really distinct from the substance of the snow, although there is no separating these things.) The real respects in God which come from the divine proceedings are real relations and imply real distinction in their terminals (that is, in the divine Persons), but there is neither separation nor separability in God; the divine Persons are one in essence, nature, and substance; they are one and the same undivided God, eternally existing in absolute simplicity and unity of being.
4. There are four real relations in God: (a) The relation of the Father to the Son. This is paternity or fatherhood, (b) The relation of the Son to the Father. This is filiation or sonship. (c) The relation consequent upon the proceeding in which Father and Son are the principle whence proceeds the Holy Ghost. This is the spiration or breathing forth of the Holy Ghost. (d) The relation consequent upon the same proceeding as considered from the standpoint of the Person spirated. This is the procession of the Holy Ghost. These real relations in their essence and being as entities or things are one with the simple and undivided divine essence; yet they are real relations and hence are really distinct in their terminals (that is, in the realities related), which are the three divine Persons.
29. The Divine Persons
1. A person is a complete substance of the rational order.
2. A person is a substance, not an accidental. A person is a complete and subsistent substance, not a mere member or part of a greater substance. A person is of the rational order, or has a rational nature, that is, a person has (at least fundamentally) understanding and free will.
3. The name person indicates what is most perfect in nature. Hence it is a name rightly applied to God who is all-perfect. But in applying the term to God we exclude from its meaning all that is limited and imperfect in our concept of a creatural person.
4. Applied to God, the name person means a divine relation as subsisting, that is, as perfectly existing in the order of infinite substance. What actually subsists is, as we have said, the divine nature and essence itself. And this subsistence is actual in the terminals of the divine relations (that is, in the three Persons) without being merely shared among them. The undivided nature of God subsists perfectly in each of the three Persons, so that, while they are really distinct Persons, they are one and the same God.
30. The Plurality of Persons in God
1. A divine Person is a real divine relation as subsisting in the divine nature or essence. Since there are several real relations in God, there are several Persons in God.
2. There are, in fact, three and only three Persons in God. The four real relations (paternity, filiation, relation consequent on spiration, relation consequent on procession) involve not four, but three, relatively opposed or contrasted terminals. These three are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
3. When we call God "One," we indicate the undivided divine essence or nature. When we call the Persons "Three," we mean that each is really distinct from the others as a Person, but not as God.
4. The meaning of the term person is common to the three Persons in God. Whether applied to Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, the term person means a really distinct divine relation, in which subsists one and the same undivided divine nature or essence.
31. Terms for unity and Plurality in God
1. The name Trinity as applied to God means the determinate number of three Persons in one and the same undivided God.
2. We rightly use the term distinction when we speak of the Persons of the Trinity. But we avoid the vagueness or the plain error of the terms diversity and difference; these words appear to suggest a cleavage in the undivided divine essence. We may, however, use the term other when we contrast the divine Persons, for this word stresses the distinction of Persons without implying a difference of essence or nature. Hence we may say, "The Son is other than the Father."
3. The terms alone and only are properly applied to God's name when we speak of God in comparison with creatures. Thus we say, "God alone is eternal," and "Only God is infinite." But we do not use the words alone and only in such a way as to suggest that God is solitary or lonely; such use would be an implied denial of the Trinity of Persons in God. Therefore, it is misleading to say, "Before there were creatures, God was alone."
4. The terms alone and only may be added to the name of one Person of the Trinity as distinct from the others when what is expressed is proper to that one Person. These words alone and only are not to be added to the name of any one divine Person if such expression would or could suggest the excluding of the other Persons from what is attributable to God in unity. Thus we may say, "The Son alone is begotten or generated." But we cannot rightly say, "The Holy Ghost alone gives us grace."
32. Our Knowledge of the Divine Persons
1. We cannot come to the knowledge of the Trinity by reason alone, that is, by the natural and unaided efforts of the human mind. By our natural reason, we can know that God exists; that he is the First Cause of all; that he is one, infinite, simple, immutable, etc. But that the one God subsists in three really distinct Persons is a truth that can be known only by supernatural means. This is a truth beyond the reach of human reason to know, to prove, or to disprove. We know this truth by divine revelation, and accept it by supernatural faith; we take it upon the authority of God himself.
2. Once we know the truth, we naturally tend to discuss it. In our discussion we use such terms as we have, knowing that these are imperfect and inadequate. Some scholars think that we ought not name properties of the divine Persons, using abstract words. But this is a mistaken view. We cannot discuss the divine Persons in concrete terms alone. And we are thoroughly justified in using abstract words, and, by their use, ascribing properties to the divine Persons, provided that we use terms that are neither mistaken nor misleading.
3. Five notable abstract terms are used with reference to the divine Persons: (a) innascibility, or unbegottenness, is proper to the First Person; (b) paternity is also proper to the Father; (c) filiation is proper to God the Son; (d) spiration is not proper to any one Person, but is common to the Father and the Son; (e) procession is proper to the Holy Ghost.
4. Disagreement about terms used with reference to God's unity and trinity may arise among scholars without involving any heresy, provided the Church has not spoken on the precise points at issue, and also provided that the terms employed are not plainly misleading or erroneous.
33. The Person of God the Father
1. A principle is that from which anything takes its rise in any way whatever, or from which anything proceeds in any manner. A principle is not necessarily a cause; a cause is only one type of principle. The divine proceedings involve, in first instance, the Father begetting (but not causing) the Son. Hence the term principle is rightly applied to God the Father.
2. A name proper to the First Person of the Trinity is that which divine paternity (which is proper to the First Person) implies. This is the name Father.
3. The name Father is truly a personal name, that is, it applies to a divine person rather than to the divine essence in unity. But we often use the name Father as an essential name of God and not a personal name. When we say, for instance, "God is the Father of us all," we are not speaking of the First Person of the Trinity, but of the three Persons in undivided Godhead. Thus Father, strictly speaking, is a distinctive personal title of the First Person; less strictly, Father is one of our ordinary names for God in unity.
4. In the divine proceedings the Father is the principle whence proceeds the Son (by eternal begetting or generation); the Father and the Son together are the one principle whence proceeds the Holy Ghost (by spiration and procession). The Father himself does not proceed from any principle. It is the distinctive property of the Father to be unbegotten. This is the Father's innascibility.
34. The Person of God the Son
1. The name Son is manifestly a personal name in God, not an essential name; that is, it refers to one of the three Persons, and not simply to God in unity. The name Word is also a personal name in God.
2. The name Son and the name Word are proper to the Second Person of the Trinity. The eternal generation or begetting of the Son is likened to the process by which the human intellect generates the concept or mental word. Hence the Word of God is the Person begotten by the Father. It is a personal name for God the Son.
3. God, in knowing himself by one eternal act of the divine intellect, that is, "by his only Word," knows his own essence, his operations, and all things. Hence he knows all creatures. And thus the name Word in God implies a relation with creatures.
35. The Son as Image of the Father
1. The name image in God implies a relation, for an image refers to what is imaged. And this relation includes a contrast or relative opposition between image and thing imaged. Now, such a relation in God must be subsistent; that is, it must be a person. Hence, the name image in God refers to one of the three divine Persons. It is a personal, not an essential name.
2. The Person to whom the name image is proper is God the Son. Scripture (Col. 1:15) calls the Son, "the image of the invisible God," and (Heb. 1:3) "the figure of God's substance." Thus the Son is the image of the Father. We notice that while man is made to or in the image of God, the Son is the image of the Father. The image of a ruler is impressed on the coins of his country; his image is also found in his living child. This illustrates very imperfectly the difference between the image of God in man and the image of the Father in God the Son.
36. The Person of God the Holy Ghost
1. The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit. These two names mean the same thing. They are names proper to the Third Person; thus they are personal names, not essential names. Since the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son as from a common principle, it is fitting that his name should be something that is common to Father and Son. St. Augustine says (De Trin. xv 17), "The Father is a spirit; the Son is a spirit. The Father is holy; the Son is holy." Therefore, Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is a name suitably applied to the Third Person of the Trinity.
2. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, not from the Father alone. If the Holy Ghost were not from the Father and Son, there would be no relative opposition in the relation of Son and Holy Ghost, and these two would really be only one Person. Now, this is in conflict with the truth of the Trinity. Hence it is certain that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.
3. The Son, eternally begotten of the Father, constitutes with the Father the principle whence proceeds the Holy Ghost. It is therefore permissible to say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son.
4. The Father and the Son are one principle whence proceeds the Holy Ghost. The divine Persons are one in everything that is not relatively opposite (i.e., consisting in contrasted real relation). Now, in spirating the Holy Ghost, the Father and the Son act together as one and not as relatively opposed. Therefore Father and Son are one principle from which the Holy Ghost proceeds.
37. "Love" as the Name of the Holy Ghost
1. Although love is an essential name of God, as we have seen, the term is also used specifically as a personal name in God; as such it is proper to the Third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Ghost is love.
2. The Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Ghost, not, however, as though the Holy Ghost were the principle of this love; for God is love by His essence, and not by a Person.
38. "Gift" as the Name of the Holy Ghost
1. The name gift in God is a personal name. A rational creature (man or angel) can possess God by or through a Person of the Trinity who is thus given to the creature.
2. This name gift in God is proper to the Third Person of the Trinity. A gift is the fruit of love. Love itself which dictates the giving is the first gift. Hence, as the Holy Ghost has the proper name of love, He is also properly called gift. St. Augustine (De Trin. vx) says, "By the gift which is the Holy Ghost, many particular gifts are bestowed on the members of Christ."
39. Persons and Essence in God
1. Because God is absolutely simple in his being, the divine relations, as things or entities, are identified with God's essence. Essence in God is not really distinct from Person, and still the three Persons are really distinct from one another. They are real relations in God which involve relative opposition in their terminals (the Persons) but none at all in their essence.
2. Therefore the three Persons in God, while really distinct from one another, are one and the same undivided and indivisible divine essence.
3. Hence when we use nouns or noun-expressions for the divine essence, we use them in the singular. We do not say, "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are Gods"; we say, "Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost are God." Sometimes we may use adjective-expressions in the plural, for these often refer to the divine essence, not directly in itself, but as subsisting in the distinct Persons. Thus we may say that there are three eternal beings. But if the noun beings is stressed, rather than the adjective eternal, we should not use the expression, for it might be misunderstood as declaring the essence of God to be threefold, which is not the case.
4. Concrete names for the divine essence may sometimes be understood in a personal sense; whether such names are essential or personal depends on our use of them. Even the noun God can be used as a personal name: we may use it to indicate the Father only, as when we say, "God begets"; we may use it to indicate Father and Son, as when we say, "God spirates"; we may use it-and this is our ordinary use of the name-for the Trinity, as when we say, "God creates."
5. Abstract names for the divine essence cannot thus be used as personal names. While we can say, "God begets God," we cannot say, "Essence begets essence."
6. And names for the Persons may be applied to the divine essence, since, in entity or being, the Persons and divine essence are one and the same. Thus we may say, "The divine essence is the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost"; or "The divine essence is the three Persons"; or "God is the three Persons."
7. Attributes of the divine essence (power, wisdom, knowledge, etc.) are sometimes appropriated to the Persons of the Trinity. Thus it is customary to appropriate power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and goodness to the Holy Ghost. Or we may say that the Father creates, the Son redeems, and the Holy Ghost sanctifies. Yet all that God does proceeds from the undivided will of the undivided Trinity.
8. Such appropriation is justified inasmuch as it helps us better to understand and explain our faith. We derive all our knowledge from creatures, and thus we are led to consider God himself as we consider creatures, and to parcel out the divine attributes. We need constantly to remind ourselves, however, that these helpful appropriations of essential divine attributes to distinct divine Persons are conveniences for us, and not accurate expressions of objective truth.
40. Divine Relations and Divine Persons
1. Boethius says that in God what is and whereby it is are the same. The Father is the Father by the divine relation of paternity; the what is the Father; the whereby is the relation of paternity; these are the same. In God, the subsistent real relations are the same as the Persons. Even the relation consequent upon spiration is identified with the Father and with the Son without involving the identity of these two divine Persons as persons.
2. But, though the divine relations are the same as the divine Persons, in our human way of understanding we distinguish the Persons one from another by the divine relations. It is the very notion of paternity in contrast with filiation that makes us aware of the distinct Persons of Father and Son.
3. We cannot think of Father except as one generating or begetting, nor of Son except as one generated or begotten. Therefore we cannot remove the divine relations from our idea or concept of the divine Persons without removing the Persons themselves and thus nullifying our idea of the Trinity.
4. It has been said that, in our human way of understanding, the thought of generating precedes the thought of paternity; that is, in technical words, "notional acts precede the relations." Generating as a "notional act" is our mental grasp of an operation; paternity is a relation. The saying, "notional acts precede relations," means that our grasp of the operation carries us on to the grasp of the operator. But this saying is not correct. It is not true that "generating precedes paternity in the order of human understanding." On the contrary, the human mind is aware of a person acting before it is aware of his action; or rather, the operator is there before we are aware of his operation. Hence, the Persons (that is, the subsistent relations which are the same as the Persons) precede the "notional acts" by which we conceive of the Persons as acting. Thus, the relation of paternity (which is the Father) precedes our notional act of generating. We reverse the saying that "notional acts precede the relations," and say, "the relations precede the notional acts."
41. Our Notions of the Divine Persons as Operating
1. Our concepts or ideas of the divine operations of generating and spirating (that is our "notional acts") ascribe these operations to the divine Persons. Only by thus ascribing "notional acts" to the proper Persons can we grasp and designate the distinction of Persons in the Trinity.
2. The divine operations are not in God by free choice but by the necessity of the divine nature itself. Just as God is necessary being, in the sense that he cannot be nonexistent, not by reason of any outside force, but by reason of his infinite excellence, so generating and spirating are in God by the necessity involved in the supreme excellence of the divine nature itself.
3. The divine operations do not proceed from nothing, as is the case in the external action of creating. The Son is generated, not from nothing, but from the Father.
4. The divine operations of generating and spirating are from God's almighty power, not, indeed from that power as creative, for the operations and relations are eternal and uncreated; they are from God's power as the principle of divine proceeding.
5. God's power to beget and his will to beget are one with his eternal essence. Hence the power of God means essence and not relation.
6. There is only one eternal generating in God and one spirating. There is only one Father, only one Son, only one Holy Ghost.
42. The Equality of the Divine Persons
1. The divine persons are coeternal and coequal, for they are, in undivided essence, one and the same God.
2. That the divine Persons are coeternal means that "whensoever the Father exists, the Son exists, and the Holy Ghost exists." There is no time in God, no succession of before-and-after. The eternal proceedings in God are one with his timeless essence and exist always in his changeless nature.
3. The standing or order of the Persons, as First, Second, Third, is not an order of priority, as though one Person should be in any way more excellent than another. It is an order of nature. Sometimes it is called an order of origin, taking the word origin in the sense of principle, not in the sense of a start or beginning, for there are no beginnings of the eternal Persons.
4. The Son is the Father's equal in greatness, as is the Holy Ghost. For greatness is a perfection of nature, and the divine nature is one and undivided in the three Persons.
5. By reason of the undivided divine essence, each Person is in each other Person of the Trinity. Our Lord says (John 14:10), "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me."
6. The divine Persons are equal in power, for power, like greatness, is a perfection consequent upon nature, and the divine nature is one and the same in the three divine Persons.
43. The "Mission" or "Sending" of the Divine Persons
1. Our Lord says (John 8:16), that the Father sent him. God the Son is sent into the world. This sending or mission of a divine Person is not something done by command or even advice; this would seem to imply inferiority in the Person sent, and the divine Persons are coequal. For a divine Person to be sent means to begin to exist in a new way in the world or in the souls of human beings. God the Son is everywhere eternally; but when he became man, he began to be in the world in a new way, that is, as man. This is what is meant by his being sent.
2. If we should take the word mission to include the divine proceedings of generation and spiration, then the mission or sending of divine Persons is something eternal. But if we limit the word, as we usually do, to signify the coming of the Son into the world, and the coming of the Holy Ghost into men's souls by grace, then mission or sending means something temporal.
3. It is suitable that a divine Person should be sent, as newly existing in a rational creature. This sending is always by way of sanctifying grace.
4. The Person of God the Father is not sent. Sending or mission is from another, and the Father is not from another. The Son is from the Father, and the Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son. Hence only the Son and the Holy Ghost are sent.
5. Thus it belongs to the Son and to the Holy Ghost to be sent to dwell in us by grace. The Father is in us too, but not as sent.
6. The invisible mission or sending of a divine Person by grace into men's souls is a fact in all who are in the state of grace and who are renewed or increased in grace.
7. The Holy Ghost came visibly on our Lord at His baptism by John; He also came visibly in the form of tongues of fire on Pentecost Day. And the Son came visibly when He was born of Mary. These visible missions or sendings are of greatest benefit, for man needs visible manifestations to help him understand invisible truths. Mission or sending of a divine Person is for man's sanctification. The Son is sent visibly as the author of sanctification; the Holy Ghost is sent visibly as the sign of sanctification.
8. When the Person sending is designated as the principle of the Person sent, then the Son is sent by the Father only, and the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father and the Son only. But when the sender is considered as the principle, not of the Person sent, but of the effect of the mission, then the sender is the Trinity itself.