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

228 The Person of the Holy Spirit
language is so meagre, we make use of the same name to refer to the person of
the Holy Spirit, that is, to indicate the one who proceeds as a ‘fruit of love’,
and thus we give this word a diVerent, personal meaning.
Why do we have this linguistic problem when it comes to the Holy Spirit,
when nothing in the study of the Son presents anything like it? For Thomas,
the reason is that we have a better understanding of mental procession,
whereas that of the will is much more obscure for us. In the study of
human beings, just as in that of Trinitarian faith, we have therefore a much
more detailed and more accurate vocabulary for designating intellectual
things than those connected to volition and love.39 But Thomas does not
give up on achieving the same level of doctrinal vision with the Spirit as with
the Word. It is true that there is an outstanding diVerence between the
procession of knowledge and that of love: knowledge is brought about by
means of a similitude (the very notion of the Word who proceeds implies such
a similitude, and this is why the speaking of the Word is, as such, a generation).
But, on the other hand, as we have seen,40 the procession of love does
not come about through a likeness. The amorous procession does in fact
presuppose the similitude which one can see in the speaking of the Word, but
what it consists in is an impulsion, a vital momentum toward the beloved.
Despite this diVerence, St Thomas maintains that procession by way of
intellect (the generation of the Word) and procession by way of the will
(the procession of Love) have a comparable structure. Thomas writes that,
All the same, it is necessary to understand both processions in a similar way. Thus: the
fact that someone knows something brings about an intellectual conception of the
known reality, a conception which we call a word; and in like manner, the fact that
someone loves a thing brings about in the lover’s aVectivity what one might call an
imprint of the loved reality. It is by means of this imprint that the loved reality is
present in the one who loves, just as the known reality is in the knower. In this way,
whenever someone knows and loves himself, he is present to himself not simply
through actual identity, but also as an object known in one knowing and as an object
loved in one loving.41
In this key passage, Thomas accents the features of the analogy which he plans
to bring into play. On the one hand, we are looking at an immanent procession,
where that which proceeds remains within the principle from which it
issues. In the same way that the word remains in the knowing subject, the
imprint of love emerges within the lover’s own aVectivity. Thus it achieves the
basic condition set out at the outset of the Trinitarian treatise (q. 27, a. 1).
39 ST I, q. 37, a. 1.
40 See above, in Chapter 4, ‘A DiVerent Procession, which is that of Love’.
41 ST I, q. 37. a. 1.