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

The Person of the Holy Spirit 227
procession of Word and Love is not enough to point towards a personal distinction,
there will be no such distinction within God.33
Thomas’ unravelling of this theory closely binds together the study of
human aVectivity, the theory of analogy, the authentic demands of Trinitarian
doctrine, such as the requirement of immanent processions, the idea of
relation, and the notion of what a divine person is. As with the Father and
the Son, one sees again to what extent the reXection on the Holy Spirit
presupposes the whole of the introductory discussion of the processions,
the relations, and the notion of the divine person.
Without going back over the idea of procession ‘by mode of love’, of which
we gave a detailed account earlier on,34 what is now needed is to say precisely
what one means by ‘Love’, and how understanding him as Love Wts the Holy
Spirit. What personal property does one express by naming the Holy Spirit as
Love? St Thomas builds up to this in two stages, both of them carrying his
research in one single direction. Just as with the names Father and Word,so,as
he now articulates what the word ‘Love’ means, he commences by showing
that to call the Holy Spirit Love is to use a proper name. Having made this
clear, he promptly goes on to show that this Love is, as such, the mutual love
of Father and Son.
The study turns back once again to the timbre of our language. When we
say ‘divine Love’, does the name Love refer to the person of the Holy Spirit
alone?35 Because it creates real problems, the vocabulary we use has to be at
the forefront of our attention here, even more than elsewhere. St Thomas
begins by commenting on the ‘paucity’ of our language for the Holy Spirit,
something he had noted several times before. The usage of Scripture and the
Church gives us a ‘circumlocution’ with which to refer to this person; the logic
of the precise and given meaning of these words is not what enables us to say
Holy Spirit.36 Likewise, we make use of the name procession to indicate the
origin which belongs to the Holy Spirit, even though, of itself, the term
‘procession’ Wts both the Son and the Spirit.37 We adapt the name of an action
(spiration) or of an origin (procession) to signify the relation of the Father and
the Son in respect of the Holy Spirit, and the corresponding relation of the
Spirit to Father and Son.38 A similar accommodation rebounds on us in the
use of the name Love. There are not two loves within God, but one single love,
to wit, the love with which the three persons love, the love which is God
himself: ‘God is love’ (1 Jn 4.8). But, for want of another word, since our
33 De potentia, q.9,a.9,ad7.
34 See above, in Chapter 4, ‘A DiVerent Procession, Which is That of Love’.
35 ST I, q. 37, a. 1. 36 ST I, q. 36, a. 1. See above, ‘The Name ‘‘Holy Spirit’’ ’.
37 Cf. ST I, q. 27, a. 4, ad 3. 38 ST I, q. 28, a. 4.