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

The Person of the Holy Spirit 225
Thus, once its profound ‘congruity’ has been shown, which does not arise
from the meaning of its terms taken strictly in themselves, but from the
scriptural way in which the Church has used them, the name Holy Spirit
indicates a person, that is, a relation, the property of the Holy Spirit in his
connection to the Father and the Son. ‘Although Holy Spirit is not itself a
relational expression, still, as an accommodation, it is posited to designate
one person, distinguished from others through a pure relation.’27 In this way,
the name Holy Spirit is found to be on a level with the names Father and Son.
So far as one can, it is necessary to pinpoint what the relative property of the
Holy Spirit is. This is the task Thomas sets himself when he studies the names
Love and Gift.
2. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS LOVE IN PERSON
The indications of where the thesis is going are already given in Thomas’ study
of the processions, in q. 27: to be able to grasp the procession of the divine
persons in a way that avoids the pitfalls of Arianism and Sabellianism, one has
to conceive it as an immanent procession, and not like an external action.
One’s understanding of it must also be congruent with God’s spiritual nature.
These theological exigencies frame the doctrine of the Word.28 Unless one
wants to slip into the stream of semi-Arianism, one also has to disclose how
the procession of the Holy Spirit is diVerent from that of the Son. Without
that, one could perfectly well make a faith-based assertion that the Holy Spirit
is a divine person distinct from the Father and the Son, but one could not
disclose this to the minds of believers and one’s rationale for the faith would
be threadbare.
These theological requirements oblige one to look for an immanent action
within God himself. And, in a spiritual being, such an immanent action can
only come about through the activity of the mind or the will. Thus, from the
Summa Contra Gentiles onwards, Thomas developed an original doctrine of
the Word and Love which is his own personal extension of the legacy of
St Augustine; the ultimate synthesis of this is in the Summa Theologiae. He
Wrst of all treats the procession of the Word, making him distinct from the
ad 1). The Compendium of Theology makes a close connection between the two lines of thought
(CT I, ch. 47) of purity and consecration.
27 ST I, q. 36, a. 1, ad 2.
28 ST I, q. 27, a. 1; see above, in Chapter 4, ‘The Problems of Arianism and of Sabellianism’
and ‘A Procession which is the Generation of the Word’; on the doctrine of the Word, see above,
Chapter 9.