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

The Processions 65
other. It is the inclination of things to come into line with the good congruent
to them. This conception of creaturely love stands under the ensign of Wnality:
what makes things act is the good which Wts them, doing so either by nature
or because they can perceive their own good. The arc they trace out has their
good as its end or goal. Love is something which is teleological, belonging to
the order of Wnality, and also analogical, authenticating its presence on the
diverse rungs of being. Without love, nothing would act, nothing would
become, nothing would change, because nothing would seek its good. Love
is thus the root of action. With the helping hands of Stoicism and Nemesius of
Emesa behind him, Thomas recognizes love as the source of our central
aVections:
Every inclination of the will derives from the fact that, through it, something is
apprehended as ‘congruent’ or as ‘arousing the aVections’: to experience aVection for
something is to love it. Thus, every inclination of the will, and even of the sensible
appetite, originates from love. It is because we love something that we desire it in its
absence, that we are joyous in its presence, that we are sad when we cannot attain it, and
that we experience hate and anger towards whatever separates us from it.65
So love is the principle of the aVective life, the absolutely primary aVection of
the appetite in contact with the desirable, and native complacency in the good,
which the will has as its object. This is why love motivates action: it is the
‘primitive root’ of all appetitive movements.66 Whenever we act, it is because we
are moved by a good which we want to attain, and it is always because of a love.
This is why, analogously, God’s creative activity will be attributed to his Love, as
the principle of his works. Understanding the creative action of the Holy Spirit
will beneWt a great deal from knowing about this.
On this basis, St Thomas proposes one more step, which is of central
importance for the application of the analogy of love to the procession of
the Holy Spirit. In the spiritual order, our union with another is achieved by
the presence of the other to ourselves. Earlier, we brought to mind that, in the
case of knowledge, this presence is secured by a similitude to the thing known
in the knowing subject, and particularly by the word which renders the item
present, and known. Love is not achieved by the presence of a similitude of the
‘object’: the presence of another through a likeness is the mode which Wts
understanding.67 When we love, this love is not a likeness or resemblance in us
65 SCG IV, ch. 19 (no. 3559). Joy, sadness, hope, and fear are the four ‘principal passions’: ST
I-II, q. 25, a. 4. Cf. E. Dobler, Zwei syrische Quellen der theologischen Summa des Thomas von
Aquin, Nemesios von Emesa und Johannes von Damaskus, Fribourg, 2000, pp. 330–335.
66 ST I-II, q. 28, a. 6: ‘Whatever it is, every agent carries out all its actions because of a love’;
cf. q. 27, a. 4; ST I, q. 20, a. 1.
67 ST I, q. 30, a. 2, ad 2.