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

Missions 371
sentbytheone(s)fromwhomheeternallyproceeds.Healsoobservedthatthe
Eastern Fathers, with whose explanations he concurs, reserve the sending of the
Son to the Father alone: for the Greek Patristics, only the Father sends the Son.
But, according to Augustine, one can also say that the whole Trinity sends one
of the persons.49 The authority of Augustine, relayed and ramiWed by Peter
Lombard, could not just be ignored.50 Like his peers, Thomas suggests a
solution which genuinely contains both teachings, by showing that, for all
their limitations, it is not improper to use the Augustinian expressions.51 He
does this by coming back to the structure of mission, as initially construed. As
we have seen, there are two features in a mission: the divine emissary’s relation
to the sending person and the relation to the created eVect for whom the mission
is carried out. A consideration of both of these elements brings out the
legitimacy of the dual perspective. Thomas writes that,
If the one who sends is taken to mean a principle of the person sent, then not each of
the persons is the one who sends, but only a person to whom it belongs to be a
principle of the person sent. Accordingly the Son is sent by the Father alone; the Holy
Spirit by Father and Son together. If, however, the person sending is taken to mean the
principle of the eVect in which the mission becomes observable, then it is the entire
Trinity that sends the person sent.52
The distinction of the persons and the eVects of the mission are not put into
separate compartments. These two features are grasped together, in their
conjunction, but the duality is nonetheless necessary to the integral notion
of mission. One can see from this that, like Augustine, Thomas strictly holds
that only the Son and the Holy Spirit are sent. But here we have to specify
what it means to send a person. One can see it from two diVerent points of
view. On the one hand, aligning oneself with the intra-Trinitarian relation of
origin, one can conceive of mission in terms of one person sending another:
the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to the Church. On the other hand,
one can look for the eVects of mission, seeing the sending person as their
source, and in that case, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together make the
Spirit indwell the Church to which he is sent.53 This dual-perspective could
be considered as a way of interpreting what Augustine himself is saying, since
49 CEG I, ch. 14.
50 I Sent. d. 15, q. 3, a. 1: ‘Since the Holy Fathers commonly use these expressions, and above
all since Augustine and the Master of the Sentences [Peter Lombard] do concede it.’ On
Augustine’s authority in this question, see also Bonaventure, I Sent. d. 15, p. 1, a. un., q. 4.
51 See Albert, I Sent. d. 15, a. 5 and a. 11; Bonaventure, I Sent. d. 15, p. 1, a. un., q. 4.
52 ST I, q. 43, a. 8; cf. I Sent. d. 15, q. 3, aa. 1 and 2; CEG I, ch. 14.
53 Cf. I Sent. d. 15, q. 3, a. 1. From the perspective of the relationship to the created eVects, the
three persons act inseparably.