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

230 The Person of the Holy Spirit
under the rubric of the way the known is in the knower, and the beloved in the
lover. By the Word who arises eternally as the conception of the Father who
knows himself (and who, in knowing himself, knows all things), God is
‘present’ to himself in the mode of knowledge. Through the imprint of the
love which from all eternity arises in the love with which God loves himself
(and through which he also loves all creatures), God is ‘present’ to himself in
the mode of love. The ‘self-presence’ of the spiritual being is a fundamental
feature of Thomas’ Trinitarian theology and of his anthropology. This is how
God is in himself through a real identity (God is God), but he is also in
himself as God known in the God who knows (with the procession of the
Word), and as God beloved in the God who loves (with the procession of
the aVection or imprint of Love).46 This take on the question makes the
complete immanence of the procession of Love evident. By a further analogy,
this analysis will also enable one to conceive the way the Trinity is present in
the saints: when he is known through faith and vision, the Triune God makes
himself present in the fruits of charity.47
From this vantage point, Thomas goes to work on the linguistic diYculties
which we mentioned earlier, directing his attention to the relations which are
involved in the procession of the ‘imprint’ of love. Commencing with what
he has by now established about the Word, he initially reviews his analysis of
the generation of the Word so as to draw up a parallel which indicates the
meaning of the language which we use to speak of the Holy Spirit.
In the context of intellectual actions, we have a Wtting language at our
disposal. We use the verb ‘to know’ (intelligere) to refer to the essential act of
each divine person: each person knows himself and knows others. God knows
himself through his essence; this knowledge does not entail a real relation or
introduce a distinction of persons into the Trinity. We also have to hand an
apposite language for referring to the divers aspects of the personal procession
and the real relations which it implies. We can actually supply a proper name for
the principle, that is, the Father: ‘The one who speaks’ (dicens); the attendant
notional action: to speak (dicere); and Wnally for the conception thus formed or
begotten: the ‘Word’ (Verbum).48 But, when it comes to the action of love, we
can no longer deploy such linguistic precision. Thomas observes that,
In connection to will, we do indeed have the verb ‘to love’ (diligere and amare), which
bears on the relation of the one who loves to the beloved being. But there is no proper
vocabulary to designate the relation between its principle and that aVection or
‘imprint’ of the loved thing, that ‘imprint’ which comes about in the one who loves
46 See also SCG IV, ch. 19 (no. 3564); De potentia, q. 10, a. 2, ad 11; CT I, chs. 45–46.
47 ST I, q. 43, a. 3; cf. q. 8, a. 3.
48 ST I, q. 37, a. 1; cf. q. 34, a. 1, ad 3; see above, in Chapter 9, ‘The Son, Word of God’.