The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas - El Camino ...

100 Relations
relation of the Father and the Son in respect to the Holy Spirit), and the
procession of the Holy Spirit (the relation of the Holy Spirit in respect to
the Father and the Son).92 This enumeration summarizes the traditional
triad of personal properties established by the Capaddocians,93 inscribes
in it the Catholic teaching about the procession of the Holy Spirit, and reWnes
the point that the generation of the Son involves a pair of opposed relations
(paternity–Wliation), just as much as the procession of the Spirit does
(spiration–procession). One nonetheless Wnds Thomas’ original orientation
in the manner in which he exhibits these four relations. By linking his
explanation of them to relative opposition, Thomas exhibits the relations by
way of the immanent processions of the Word and of Love:
In each of the processions, one must consider two opposed relations: the relation of
what proceeds from its principle or source, and the relation of the principle itself. The
procession of the Word is called ‘generation’ in the proper sense of the term which
belongs to living beings; and, in the perfection of the living, the relation of being the
principle of generation is called paternity; and the relation of the one who proceeds
from this principle is called Wliation. For the procession of Love, however, there is no
proper name, as we have said above (q. 27, a. 4), neither is there for the relations
which it founds. All the same the relation of being the principle of this procession may
be called spiration and the relation of what proceeds procession, although these two
words have to do with the processions or origins themselves, not with relations.94
Here, where Thomas makes a uniWed presentation of ideas whose main
features he has already established, the Wrst striking move is the use of relative
opposition. Generation founds the relation of Father to Son, and, correlatively,
of Son to Father: these are ‘opposed relations’. Not all of the connections
of the four relations touch on opposition, just the mutual connection
of paternity and Wliation, on the one hand, and the mutual connection of
spiration and procession, on the other. We are on familiar terms with the
analogy of Word and Love, since Thomas used it in his discussion of the
processions. It is this which, by enabling one to grasp the immanent processions,
gives rise to the conception of opposed relations. St Thomas explains
the relation of the Father and the Son by applying his analysis of the
92 See for instance Saint Bonaventure, Breviloquium I, ch. 3 (Opera omnia, vol. 5, pp. 211–
212). Bonaventure puts forward here a portfolio of academic refinements, the like of which is
not found in St Thomas (!): two processions, three hypostases, four relations, five notions.
93 See Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations, 31.9 (SC 250, 292–293); Orations, 39.12 (SC 358,
174–177): the unengendered Father engenders the Son; the Son is engendered, the Holy Spirit
proceeds. Peter Lombard offers a synthesis of these ideas on the basis of Augustine’s theology:
paternity, filiation, procession (Sentences, Book I, dist. 27).
94 ST I, q. 28, a. 4; one finds a comparable discussion in SCG IV, ch. 24 (no. 3613).