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

258 The Person of the Holy Spirit
expression) of the uncreated Gift who is the Holy Spirit. It is thus through the
Holy Spirit that all other gifts are given: beginning with gifts of the natural
order (not forgetting creation itself, for the Wrst gift of all is to be158); the
charisms which come after it, given for the common good and the building up
of the Church; and above all the gifts in which the Holy Spirit is given in person,
to wit, the gifts of sanctifying grace, and, at the summit of the life of grace, the
gift of charity.159 In sum: ‘the Holy Spirit is the pattern of all gifts’.160 He is also,
in this sense, the divine person ‘closest to us’, so to speak, the one who is most
intimate with us, because he is given to us. It is through him that we receive the
Father and the Son, and it is through him that we receive all gifts.161
6. THE HOLY SPIRIT’S GIFTS TO HUMAN BEINGS
Having shown that the Holy Spirit is the source of creation and in fact the
source of all the gifts which God makes to men, St Thomas draws the whole
economy together under the sign of the Holy Spirit: creation, the exercise of
providence, human life, human action under the motivation of the Holy Spirit,
Christology, the sacraments, and union with God in the beatitude in which the
human vocation is fulWlled.Thisisnottheplaceforadetaileddescriptionofthe
presence of the Holy Spirit in every region of Thomistic theology. There are
other books one can consult which have eloquently shown this: ‘if one does not
Wnd the Holy Spirit here or there in the work of Thomas Aquinas, this is
because he is everywhere’.162 We caught a glimpse of this earlier on, in the
discussion of the creative action of the Holy Spirit. Thomas speaks of it at
greater length when revelation and the life of grace are in question.
He had supplied a miniature synthesis of this in the Summa Contra Gentiles,
conWrming the power of his idea of Love. He sets oV from Scripture so as to use
the theory of Love to disclose the Holy Spirit’s being as person. Then he returns
to Scripture, to collect up the witnesses of the Holy Spirit’s action, which he is
now able to account for in the light of the idea that the character of the Holy
Spirit is Love. Without pretending to set up a complete overview, he notes one
158 I Sent. d. 10, q. 1, a. 1; cf. our study, La Trinité créatrice, pp. 372–376.
159 I Sent. d. 18, q. 1, a. 3, ad 4. Charisms (gifts of tongues, of teaching, etc.), given for the
ediWcation of the Church, do not inherently imply sanctifying grace, and this is why the Holy
Spirit is not formally given in them, even though these gifts (just like natural gifts, which do not
imply sanctifying grace either), clearly come from the Holy Spirit.
160 I Sent. d. 18, q. 1, a. 3.
161 III Sent. d. 2, q. 2, a. 2, qla 2, ad 3: ‘The Holy Spirit is the closest to us, because it is through
him that all gifts are given.’
162 J.-P. Torrell, St Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, p. 154; cf. pp. 153–157.