Why only the Son is the image, and the name 'Holy Spirit' (q.35, a.2; q.36, a.1)

Orientation #

He picks up q. 35 a. 2 (whether “image” is proper to the Son) directly after the previous article on image; a student refers back to “the last article” where Thomas maps out the three things that belong to the notion of image (prev. lecture). After a break he begins q. 36 (the Holy Spirit), reads its prologue and a. 1, and stops “at page four twenty-one”. The previous class treated image as predicated of God and the Son’s imaging of the Father; the next takes up q. 36 a. 2, whether the Spirit proceeds from the Son.

The class, in order #

1. Objections and sed contra of q. 35 a. 2 (“is it proper to be what? Son”) #

Point: three reasons to deny that “image” is private to the Son, against Augustine’s authority.

• Obj. 1: Damascene says the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son. He calls this “an interesting objection”.
• Obj. 2: the notion of image is “a likeness with expression” (Augustine, 83 Questions); the Holy Spirit proceeds from another in a likeness (he is God too), so he is an image.
• Obj. 3: man is called the image of God (1 Cor 11:7, a man should not cover his head, being the image and glory of God). He notes this is the objection “we were kind of messing up” with last time; it is “more proper here”.
• Sed contra: Augustine, De Trinitate VI, the Son alone is the image.
• On “proper” vs “private”: he prefers “private” here, since proper is opposed to improper, private to common.
• Aside: Thomas’s respect for Augustine in theology parallels his respect for Aristotle in philosophy — in the article on the soul being infused by God rather than coming from the father, Thomas’s first reply is “it’s against the authority of Aristotle” and only then a reason, even though he says elsewhere the argument from authority is weakest in philosophy.

2. Greeks vs. Latins; the first rejected reason (“the doctors among the Greeks”) #

Point: the Greek doctors commonly call the Spirit image of Father and Son; the Latins give the name to the Son alone, following Scripture.

• Scripture: Colossians 1:15 (image of the invisible God, firstborn of creatures); Hebrews 1:3 (splendor of his glory, figure of his substance). Aside: the Greek behind substantia is hupostasis, but not taken here as “person”.
• Rejected reason 1: the Son agrees with the Father not only in nature but in the notion of beginning (Father is beginning of Son; Father and Son beginning of Spirit; Spirit beginning of no one), so the Son is “more like” the Father. Thomas: this does not suffice, because according to the relations neither equality nor inequality is noticed in God (Augustine), so neither likeness, which image requires.
• Student: is the Son more like the Father than the Spirit, being alike in two things (God + beginning)? Answer: no — likeness and equality among the persons are considered only according to what is absolute, the divine nature; the Spirit is no less like the Father than the Son. He says this will come out clearly in “the comparative consideration”, the last five questions, where some try to say the Father has an authority and they are not equal.

3. The second rejected reason (“there is not an image of an image”) #

Point: some argue the Spirit is no image at all: not of the Son (no image of an image), not of the Father (an image refers immediately to its exemplar, but the Spirit is referred to the Father through the Son), not of both (one image of two things seems impossible). Thomas: “this is nothing” — Father and Son are one beginning of the Spirit (to be shown below), so nothing prevents one image of them insofar as they are one; even man is one image of the whole Trinity, not three images.

• Aside: “do you imagine having this guy as a teacher?” — Thomas’s blunt dismissal.

4. Thomas’s own reason: likeness vs. inclination (“the Son proceeds as a thought”) #

Point: just as the Spirit receives the Father’s nature by his procession yet is not said to be born, so he receives the very same form yet is not called image — because the Son proceeds as thought, and it belongs to the definition of a thought to be a likeness of the species from which it proceeds; this is not of the notion of love, though love which is divine love is in fact like.

1. If I see you, an image of you proceeds from you in me as a likeness of you.
2. If a love for you proceeds from you in me, it does not proceed as a likeness but as an inclination toward you, a kind of breath inclining me to the beloved.
3. Example: the perfect thought of a square (Euclid: equilateral right-angled quadrilateral) proceeds as a likeness, so much that I can say it of the square. If I understand wine I have a likeness of it; if I love wine, the love proceeds as an inclination of my heart toward the wine, not a likeness.
4. So the Spirit does not proceed as likeness of Father and Son but as their love; yet because that love is divine, it must be God and therefore like them. “That’s a very subtle distinction.” This is how Augustine spoke, and apparently St Paul in Colossians.

• Why Son and Word (per modum naturae, per modum intellectus) are the same: both proceed as a likeness of that from which they proceed. Hence the “beautiful” order of the three names: Son, Word, and what is common to both, Image — all private to the Son. Likewise for the Spirit the name love comes before and explains the name gift. This before-and-after is in our knowing of what has no before and after; “the truth doesn’t require that the way we know be the way things are.”
• Aside: if you think you’ve understood everything you’ve understood nothing. Augustine on time: I know what it is if no one asks; asked, I don’t know. So with the Trinity: “I make a little progress.”
• Shakespeare’s “my eye has played the painter” as a metaphor for an image proceeding as a likeness.

5. Reply 1 and reply 2, with a student’s difficulty (“the Holy Spirit is like the Father”) #

• Reply 1: Damascene and the Greeks use “image” for perfect likeness; you can say the Spirit is completely like Father and Son. But this is not the most precise use, since likeness is the way a son (“chip off the old block”), a thought or an image proceeds, not the way love proceeds.
• Reply 2: the Spirit proceeds as something like them, not as the likeness of them.
• Student objection: the three marks of image from the last article (likeness, of the species, from an origin) all seem to fit the Spirit. His answer, worked through the example of meeting a beautiful girl: her image in me proceeds as her likeness; my love of her does not proceed as her image. Student: but in God it does proceed as an image, since it is the love of God — isn’t that applying the human analogy to God? Answer: insofar as he proceeds by way of love, he does not proceed as a likeness; he is perfectly like, but that is not what characterizes this going forth. Reason the Spirit is God: the love of God is the same as the being of God, as the understanding of God is the same as his being; in us neither is our being, so my thought of myself is a likeness of myself but not another self, and my love of myself is an inclination, not a likeness. You have to “bring something in” besides the three marks: proceeding as a likeness.
• What distinguishes the persons is not that one is more like the Father, but that one proceeds as the thought of God (hence as likeness) and the other as the love of God. In a sense one defends the Greek doctors, but Augustine transcends them and is closer to Scripture, which calls the Son imago Dei invisibilis and never calls the Spirit the image.
• Student: since likeness is not looked at according to relations of origin, “image” seems a better name for the Son; calling the Spirit the image could lead into error about how he proceeds. He agrees: what is private is tied to the way they proceed. Thomas has no separate article on the name Son (it goes with Father), but from Son and Word one sees the uniqueness of the third name, Image, as later from love one sees gift.
• Why are we the image of God? Because we proceed as a likeness of him in some way; hence we are called sons of God, not the love of God.

6. Reply 3: two ways an image is found (“the image of the king is found”) #

• Same nature: the king’s image in his son; other nature: the king’s image in the denarius. In the first way the Son is the image of the Father (same nature, not only in kind but numerically); in the second way man is the image of God.
• To mark the imperfection, man is not only “image” but “to the image” (ad imaginem), designating a motion toward perfection: more image by grace than by nature, most of all in the beatific vision — though even there we do not know him as much as he is knowable, being infinitely knowable. Of the Son it cannot be said that he is to the image, being the perfect image.
• Aside: the Fathers develop the coin: give to Caesar what bears Caesar’s image, to God what bears God’s image, namely the soul.
• Break “to catch our breath” — puns on breath before the Holy Spirit.

7. Prologue to q. 36 (“those things which pertain to the person”) #

• In both Summas Thomas takes the Son before the Spirit; that before-and-after is in the order of learning.
• The Spirit is also called love and gift; Scripture also says Spirit of God, Spirit of Jesus, though we usually say Holy Spirit rather than Spirit of God (as we say Son of God).
• Three questions on the Spirit (Holy Spirit, love, gift); two on the Son, one on the Father.
• Four articles: (1) whether “Holy Spirit” is the private name of a person — the recurring problem that things pertaining to the Spirit’s proceeding lack names; (2) whether he proceeds from Father and Son; (3) whether from the Father through the Son; (4) whether Father and Son are one beginning. Division: article 1 against the last three; 2 and 3 connected; 4 related, taking Father and Son as two or as one. Thomas sometimes says both for different reasons: insofar as he proceeds as God he proceeds from the divine nature as found in them, something one; insofar as he proceeds as their mutual love, he proceeds from them as two.
• Aside: sic procedit — Thomas “a very forward thinker”.

8. q. 36 a. 1, objections and sed contra (“no name common to the three persons”) #

• Obj. 1: “Spirit of God” (Hilary, De Trinitate) sometimes signifies the Father (“the Spirit of the Lord is upon me”), sometimes the Son (“in the Spirit of God I cast out demons”), sometimes the Spirit (“I will pour forth my Spirit upon all flesh”), so the name is common. He is “not sure about those texts”.
• Obj. 2: names of persons are said ad aliquid (Boethius, De Trinitate); “Holy Spirit” is not said toward something as Father and Son are.
• Obj. 3: the Son cannot be called son of this or that man, but the Spirit is called spirit of this or that man: Numbers 11:17 (I will take of your spirit), 4 Kings (the spirit of Elias rested on Elisha). His comment: that is more just equivocation.
• Sed contra: 1 John near the end, three who give testimony in heaven (he notes “some question about that text”); Augustine, De Trinitate VII: asked “which three?”, we say three persons. Certainly the Church’s tradition calls this person the Holy Spirit.

9. Respondeo: the unnamed procession and the accommodated name (“does not have its own name”) #

• Preface, from Aristotle: moral virtue lies between two vices; sometimes the excess has a name and the defect not — the glutton eats too much, but the man who pursues sense pleasures too little has no name (“intemperate” always means excess); Aristotle invents “insensible”. Namelessness is a sign of being less known.
• Body: of the two goings-forth in God, the one by way of love has no proper name, so its relations are unnamed and so is the person. Names are accommodated from the custom of speakers: “procession”, and spiratio (breathing), which by their proper meaning signify notional acts rather than relations; likewise “Holy Spirit” is accommodated from Scripture’s use.
• Aside on custom/use: Shakespeare, “use can almost change the stamp of nature” — the feminist who bought her girl a toy truck; the girl treated it like a doll. Almost, not quite.
• Fittingness, two reasons:
  1. From the commonness of the name (Augustine, De Trinitate XV): because the Spirit is common to both, he is properly called what both are — Father and Son are each spirit and each holy. He is “turning the thing around”: the commonness makes you stop and think that the Spirit is the union and bond of the two, proceeding as their mutual love. Illustration from Thomas’s commentary on Paul: where Paul blesses in the name of Father and Son without mentioning the Spirit, Thomas says the Spirit is understood as the bond of the two.
  2. From its proper meaning: “breath” in bodily things signifies impulse and motion (breath, wind, blowing = spirit); it is proper to love to move and impel the will toward the beloved — love proceeds as inclination toward, not likeness of; likeness is the work of imagination or memory. Holiness is attributed to what is ordered to God. So the person proceeding by way of love, by which God is loved, is fittingly “the holy breath” — breathed toward God.
• Confirmations: on Holy Thursday the bishop breathes on the oil (insufflatio); Christ breathes on the apostles when giving power to forgive sins.

10. Reply 1: two words vs. one diction; the word “spirit” (“in virtue of two words”) #

• “Holy Spirit” taken as two dictions is common to the whole Trinity: “spirit” signifies the immateriality of the divine substance, because bodily spirit — the first meaning — is invisible and has little matter, hence the name is given to all immaterial, invisible substances. Taken as one diction, by the use of the Church it is accommodated to the person proceeding by way of love.
• How the name is carried over from sensible things: Aristotle, Natural Hearing IV, on place, the empty and time, takes up those who think air is empty — we say an emptied room is “empty”, though it is full of air; air is a substance you can hardly see, with seemingly little matter, so the name lends itself to what is in no way sensible (we carry over “air”, not “earth”). Shakespeare’s “melted into thin air”; Anaxagoras: mind is the thinnest of all things and therefore, penetrating all, knows all; most people picture the soul as an air-like substance in the man’s shape; Dante recognizes dead friends but cannot embrace them.
• Aside on nameless things: square, oblong, rhombus, rhomboid, trapezium have names, but “equilateral triangle” is not one name, though it functions as one (in vi unius dictionis) and as a species in Porphyry’s sense (genus, species, difference, property, accident). “I don’t know why square got a name, equilateral triangle didn’t.” The Spirit’s case is different.

11. Replies 2 and 3 (“laid down for something relative”) #

• Reply 2: though “Holy Spirit” is not said relatively — like “person” — it is laid down for something relative, being accommodated to signify a person distinct from others by relation alone; that differs a little from “person”. A second way: some relation can be understood in the name, if “spirit” is taken as “breath”, since breath implies a breather. He ties the two replies to the two reasons of the body: the accommodation answers the commonness; the breath-relation is more primary or proper.
• Asides on spirit as mover: his mother after dinner “waiting until the spirit moves her”; “spirit” in politics; Dionysius (as he recalls) on a leaf blown along looking like a crawling crab, wind making things seem alive; students: money is spiritual because it moves people; snow moves people too.
• Reply 3: the name Son includes only the relation of one from a beginning to that beginning; Father includes the relation of a beginning; likewise Spirit, insofar as it implies a motive power. No creature can be a beginning with respect to a divine person, but the reverse; so God can be called our father and our spirit (the spirit that moves us), not our son. He finds it surprising Thomas solves it this way rather than by the human-spirit equivocation, which he thinks Thomas uses elsewhere. Stop at page 421.

His words #

• private (name); what belongs to one person only; opposed to common [ed.: proprium]; “proper” is opposed to improper
• beginning; principium; the Father is the beginning of the Son, both of the Spirit
• comparative consideration; the last five questions on equality and likeness of the persons
• thought; the Word, verbum; proceeds as a likeness of that from which it proceeds
• inclination / breath; how love proceeds, toward the beloved rather than as a likeness
• per modum naturae, per modum intellectus; ways of the Son’s proceeding, which coincide
• imago Dei invisibilis; Colossians 1:15
• ad imaginem, “to the image”; man’s imperfect image, a motion toward perfection
• sic procedit; “one goes forward thus”
• going forward; procession
• ad aliquid; said toward something, relative (Boethius)
• spiratio; breathing, the accommodated name for the notional act/relation
• accommodated; a name adapted from custom of speakers or use of Scripture/Church
• ex ipsa communitate; the first reason of fittingness, from commonness
• holy breath; his rendering of Spiritus Sanctus by its proper meaning
• insufflatio; the bishop’s breathing on the oil
• two dictions / one diction (in vi unius dictionis); the name as two words vs. as one name
• Natural Hearing; [ed.: Physics]
• the empty; [ed.: the void]
• insensible; Aristotle’s invented name for the nameless defect opposite gluttony

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 35, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, respondeo, three replies)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 36, prologue and a. 1 (objections, sed contra, respondeo, three replies)

Mentioned

• Augustine, De Trinitate VI (Son alone is image), VII (which three? three persons), XV (Spirit common to both); De 83 Quaestionibus (likeness with expression)
• Damascene on the Spirit as image of the Son
• Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Numbers 11:17; 4 Kings on Elias and Elisha; 1 John (end); Isaiah/Joel-type texts quoted through Hilary (“Spirit of the Lord is upon me”, “I will pour forth my Spirit”) (inferred loci)
• Hilary, De Trinitate; Boethius, De Trinitate
• Thomas on the soul’s infusion vs. Aristotle’s authority (locus not given); Thomas’s commentary on St Paul (greetings without the Spirit)
• Aristotle, Ethics on virtue between two vices, the nameless defect (inferred locus); Natural Hearing IV on place, the empty, time
• Euclid, Elements, definition of the square; Porphyry, five predicables
• Shakespeare: “my eye has played the painter” (sonnet), “use can almost change the stamp of nature”, “melted into thin air”
• Anaxagoras on mind as thinnest; Dante meeting souls; Dionysius on the wind-blown leaf (as he recalls); the Fathers on Caesar’s coin

His questions #

• Is the Son more like the Father than the Holy Spirit, because he agrees with him also as beginning? No: likeness and equality among the persons are considered only according to the divine nature, what is absolute.
• Does love proceed from the beloved as a likeness of it? No: as an inclination toward it, a kind of breath; only thought or image proceeds as a likeness.
• Why are Son and Word the same, and why does Image come third? Both proceed as a likeness of that from which they proceed; Image names what is common to the two.
• Of the three marks of image, which fails in the Holy Spirit? None as such; something must be brought in besides: proceeding as a likeness, which love does not do.
• Why are we said to be the image of God? Because we proceed in some way as a likeness of him; hence sons of God, not the love of God.
• Why don’t we use “holy” and “spirit” of the other persons too? Taken as two words the name is common to the Trinity; taken as one name the Church accommodates it to the person proceeding by way of love.
• Is a room with all the furniture and people taken out really empty? No, it is full of air — which shows how “spirit” is carried from an almost invisible body to the immaterial.
• Does an equilateral triangle have a name? Not one name; the phrase functions as one, but the Spirit’s case is different.
• Why can God be called our father and our spirit but not our son? Father and Spirit imply the relation of a beginning or a motive power; Son only the relation of one from a beginning, and no creature is a beginning of a divine person.