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

Missions 395
When his secretary and friend Reginald of Piperno expressed astonishment that
Thomas was to abandon work before completing his masterpiece, Thomas
responded by saying, ‘I can no more.’ When he went on insisting, Reginald
received the same answer: ‘I can no more, for everything I have written seems to
me as straw by comparison with what I have seen.’164 Historians have been
reserved about the cause of this event. It should probably be ascribed to an
extreme nervous and physical fatigue; but the last year of Thomas’ life is
marked by deep spiritual experiences. However that may be, this piece of
evidence suggests that Thomas had come to the same reality of which he had
spoken, and that theological speech was no longer suYcient to contain it. He
himself had observed this in his reading of John, commenting on Jesus’
response to the two disciples who asked him where he lived (Jn 1.38–39):
‘Rabbi, which means master, where do you dwell?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Come and see.’
In the mystical sense, [Jesus’ response, ‘come and see’] means that the dwelling of
God, whether of glory or of grace, cannot be known except by experience: for it cannot
be explained in words. Revelation 2.17: ‘To him who conquers I will give a white stone
upon which is written a new name, which no one knows but he who receives it.’ And
so Jesus says, ‘Come,’ by believing and working, and ‘see’ by having the experience and
the grasp.165
Christ’s indwelling in human hearts can only be recognized in experience
(agnosci non potest nisi per experientiam): words fall short of adequately
explaining it. The theologian can make sense of the indwelling in a speculative
meditation thereupon, which has a value on its own level. One explanation
can be truer or more complete than another. But the reality of the divine
indwelling is tested neither by precision concepts nor in their orderly formation,
but in an experience of faith acting through charity, opening the way to
the grasp of the very being of the divine persons.
4. THE IMAGE OF THE TRINITY
Thomas’ view of the imago Dei is extraordinarily close to his teaching on the
divine presence and on the missions of the divine persons. Both of them deal
with the same reality. But, whereas, in question 43 of the Trinitarian treatise,
the doctrine of mission and indwelling considers this reality from the standpoint
of the divine persons, his proWle of the image in q. 93 of the treatise on
164 See J.-P. Torrell, St Thomas Aquinas: the Person and his Work, p. 289.
165 In Ioan. 1.39 (no. 292).