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

The Person of the Holy Spirit 265
The aspect which we want to emphasize thus looms into view: all of the
elements of the idea of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit are drawn out
into the account of his action in the world. The characteristic features
designated by the name ‘Holy Spirit’ are Love (as the imprint which proceeds
and which personally characterizes the Holy Spirit), the spiritual presence of
the beloved in the one who loves, the mutual Bond of Father and Son, and the
Gift. These themes are not sequestered into the theological study of the
distinctness and eternal existence of the Holy Spirit within the immanence
of the Trinity, but also weigh heavily on our understanding of the economic
action of the Holy Spirit. One Wnds the same idea on both sides, the two
aspects mutually illuminating one another.
In the next chapter, we will present the doctrine of the procession of the
Holy Spirit a Patre and a Filio, but we need to begin to indicate here that this
teaching itself also sheds light on the work of the Holy Spirit. It can already be
perceived in the theme of the mutual Love or Bond of Father and Son. The
soteriological signiWcance of the Holy Spirit’s procession a Patre and a Filio is
constantly accentuated. The procession of the Spirit from the Son is not only
tied into a speculative consideration of the opposition relations within the
Trinity, but also puts itself forward as an explanation of the Wlial and Christological
character of the grace given by the Holy Spirit.190 At an even deeper
level, St Thomas observes that, because of his eternal procession, ‘the eVect of
the mission of the Holy Spirit is to lead the faithful to the Son’.191 The Spirit
leads us to the Son because he proceeds from the Son. The Spirit gloriWes the
Son, he gives it into men’s hands to receive the Son through faith, because he
proceeds from him, and it is for the same reason that the Son is manifested by
him.192 Thomas says that, ‘the reason why the Holy Spirit will glorify Christ
...isbecause the Son is the principle of the Holy Spirit. For everything which
is from another manifests that from which it proceeds: the Son manifests the
Father, because he proceeds from him. And so, because the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Son, it typically belongs to him to glorify him.’193 We
will come back to this in greater detail in the next chapter: the mission of the
Holy Spirit on behalf of humanity grows out of the fundamental structure of
his eternal procession. This is why it is in his consideration of the eternal
procession that St Thomas uncovers the doctrinal grounds for understanding
the work of the Holy Spirit.
190 See below, in Chapter 11, ‘The Doctrinal Weight of the Holy Spirit’s Procession a Patre
and a Filio’.
191 In Ioan. 14.26 (no. 1958).
192 In Ioan. 16.15 (nos. 2109–2115).
193 In Ioan. 16.14 (no. 2107). Cf. De potentia, q. 10, a. 4.