The Holy Spirit as Love and as Gift (ST I, q.37 a.2 replies; q.38) and the Order of the Treatise on the Trinity

Orientation #

He opens by “applying it to the objections” of the article begun last time (prev. lecture: q.37 a.2, the Father and Son loving each other by the Holy Spirit) and closes by announcing that “next time we’ll start looking at the persons related to the essence,” q.39 a.1. The previous class treated q.37 on Love as a personal name; the next works through q.39 a.1 on whether essence and person are the same.

The class, in order #

1. Replies of q.37 a.2: wise vs. speaking vs. loving (“apply it to the objections”) #

Point: “wise” is only essential, “to say” only notional, “to love” both, so only the last licenses “by the Holy Spirit”.

• Reply 1: Augustine’s remark (De Trin. VII, retracted) that the Father is not wise by generated wisdom. Thomas: “wise” or “understanding” in God is taken only essentially, so the Father is not wise by the Son “in any meaning”. But “strictly speaking only the Father is the speaker in the house” (his phrase): all three understand, he alone says. “To love” is taken both essentially and notionally because of the inopia, the “poverty” of words, so “the Father and Son love each other by the Holy Spirit” holds in one way of understanding.
• Reply 2 (objection: then one could say the Father breathes by the Holy Spirit or generates by the Son). Argument:
  1. When the understanding of an action implies a determined effect, the source can be denominated both from the action and from the effect: a tree is flowering by its flowering and by its flowers; “I speak by my speaking and by my words.”
  2. When no determined effect is included, only from the action: the tree does not “produce a flower by the flower” but by the production of the flower.
  3. “Breathe” and “generate” imply only a notional act; “to say” implies a person proceeding (to speak is to produce a word), and “to love”, taken notionally, is to produce love. Conclusion: not “breathes by the Holy Spirit” or “generates by the Son”; but “says by the Word” (as by a person proceeding) and “loves the Son by the Holy Spirit” (as by a person proceeding) and “by love itself” (as by a notional act).
• Reply 3: the Father loves not only the Son but himself and us by the Holy Spirit, since love taken notionally implies a person produced by way of love who has a relation to the thing loved. Parallel: the Father says himself and every creature by the Word (his own poem: “God the Father said it all, one word”), as the Word sufficiently represents the Father and all creatures; so he loves himself and every creature by the Holy Spirit, who proceeds as love of the first goodness. The relation to the creature in both Word and Love is “as it were secondary”, since divine truth and goodness are the source of understanding and loving every creature.
• Aside: the Pope’s book on Augustine — several books of De Trinitate were published without his permission, and he later revised and added; part of the retraction may be due to that.

2. q.38 a.1, objections: gift is not a personal name (“gift can be a personal name”) #

Point: four objections and the sed contra, read with a note on translating proprium.

• Proprium: usually “proper”, sometimes “private” — he uses both throughout.
• Obj. 1: every personal name implies distinction; but Augustine (De Trin. XV) says the Holy Spirit is so given as gift of God that he also gives himself — no distinction from himself.
• Obj. 2: no personal name belongs to the divine essence; but the essence is the gift the Father gives the Son (Hilary, De Trin. IX). Aside: Hilary is second only to Augustine in Thomas’s quoting here, “not anywhere near Augustine”.
• Obj. 3: Damascene — nothing subject or subservient in the divine persons; but a gift is subject both to the giver and to the receiver. His gloss: that is true of our gifts, a gift is below me and for the sake of the other.
• Obj. 4: gift implies relation to the creature, hence said of God in time; personal names are eternal. “I’m convinced it’s not, right? … a little reading is a dangerous thing.”
• Sed contra, Augustine XV: as the body of the flesh is nothing but the flesh, the gift of the Holy Spirit is nothing but the Holy Spirit; so gift is a personal name.

3. q.38 a.1, body: aptness to be given; who can “have” a divine person (“an aptness to being given”) #

Point: gift implies an aptness to be given, hence relation to a giver whose it is and to a receiver whose it becomes; a divine person can be “had” only by a rational creature, and only from above.

1. “Can I have a gift for you before I’ve given it to you?” — yes; gift names aptness, not the act.
2. What is given relates to the giver (it must be his to give) and to the receiver (that it be his).
3. A divine person is “of someone” either by origin (Son of the Father) or as had by someone.
4. We “have” what we can freely use and enjoy as we wish. Boundary case: a library book — you “have” it, but it must be returned by a date; a personal library, yes, a public one, no.
5. So a divine person can be had only by a rational creature joined to God; other creatures can be moved by a divine person but cannot enjoy him or use his effect. The rational creature becomes partaker of the Word and the proceeding Love, “so as to truly know God and rightly love him”; this he cannot reach by his own power, so it must be given from above. “Can’t give as a gift to the dog.”

4. q.38 a.1, replies: three ways of being “of” someone (“of that is said in many ways”) #

Point: gift is a personal name in the sense of “of the giver” by origin, not by identity or possession.

• Reply 1: gift implies personal distinction as “of someone by origin”; yet the Spirit gives himself insofar as he is “of himself”, able to enjoy himself, as a free man is of himself (Augustine on John: “what is more yours than you?”). Thomas’s “better” answer: “of the giver” is said in three ways:
  • (a) by identity: a free man is of himself, a slave of another; here gift is distinguished only from the receiver — thus the Holy Spirit gives himself. Aside from a student: as in marriage, giving oneself; his reply: you could not give yourself if you were not yours to give — nemo dat quod non habet.
  • (b) as possession or servant: then the gift is essentially distinct from the giver — so the gift of God in this sense is something created; the theological virtues are gifts in this sense.
  • (c) by origin only: the Son is Son of the Father not as possession, not because identical, but because he proceeds from him; the Holy Spirit the breath of Father and Son. In this way gift is personally distinguished from the giver and is a personal name. Only one of the three ways suffices; that is why one says “Son of the Father”, not as a possession.
• Reply 2: the essence is gift of the Father in way (a), identity; not a possession handed over. Q: does the essence as such proceed from the Father? No — then it would be really distinct from him.
• Reply 3: the objection takes “of” in way (b). Gift as personal name implies no subjection, only origin toward the giver, and free use or enjoyment toward the receiver. Aside: the old objection to “I now pronounce you man and wife,” which makes the wife something of the husband but not the reverse.
• Reply 4: gift is said from aptness, not actual giving; so the divine person is gift ab aeterno though ex tempore datur (“from time” in the Latin, “in time” in English). Nor does a relation to the creature make the name essential; it only includes something essential in its understanding, as the essence is included in the understanding of person.

5. q.38 a.2, objections: is gift the Holy Spirit’s own name? (“gift is not the private name”) #

Point: granted gift can be personal, why does it belong to the one who proceeds as love rather than to the Son?

• Obj. 1: Isaiah 9:6, puer natus est nobis, filius datus est nobis — the Son is given too. “That’s a nice objection”; he adds John: God so loved the world that he gave his Son.
• Obj. 2: a proper name signifies a property; gift signifies none. He counters with Christ’s “If you but knew the gift of God…”
• Obj. 3: the Holy Spirit is said to be the spirit of a man, but never the gift of a man, only of God. “Obscure objection.”
• Sed contra, Augustine De Trin. IV: as to be born is for the Son to be from the Father, so to be gift of God is for the Spirit to proceed from Father and Son; that is how he gets his own name.
• Aside on “how Thomas unties this knot”: Aristotle’s Poetics — a good plot ties knots and unties them; young poets are better at tying than untying, as are most philosophers, who tie your mind in knots and leave it so; “leaving the cistern open.” Story: at Saint Mary’s College he had to get diocesan permission to use Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity for a Marxism course; the reply granted it but held him responsible for anyone who lost his faith. Feuerbach: the human mind is infinite, the infinite is God, so man is God — the incarnation reversed; Marx and Engels became enthusiastic Feuerbachians.

6. q.38 a.2, body: gift is a giving not to be returned; love the first gift (“love has the notion of the first gift”) #

Point: gift properly is a gratuitous giving, whose reason is love; so the one who proceeds as love proceeds as first gift.

1. Gift, “according to the Philosopher”, is a giving not to be returned — Augustine gives the authority, Aristotle the reason. Examples: “Are you giving me this?” asked when handed something; his father’s name written on a tool he lends; lending is giving only in a qualified sense. Cajetan: “there is no conscience where books are concerned”; people write down who borrowed a book; Larry Brown’s bookplate “This book belongs to Larry Brown (but not exclusively).”
2. So gift implies gratuitous giving, and the reason for gratuitous giving is love: we give gratis because we will good to someone.
3. The first thing we give is the love by which we will him good. “This is very important”: love has the notion of the first gift, by which all gratuitous gifts are given. Conclusion: since the Holy Spirit proceeds as love, he proceeds as first gift; Augustine XV: through the gift that is the Holy Spirit many proper goods are divided among the members of Christ (quoted verbatim by John Paul II in a discourse on the Holy Spirit).

• Student observation: in one Gospel’s Our Father passage the Father gives “good things”, in the other “the Holy Spirit”; his answer: because in giving the Holy Spirit he gives first, before all other gifts.
• He stresses the order in Thomas: the name Love (q.37) comes before Gift (q.38) because he is gift precisely because he proceeds as love.

7. q.38 a.2, replies (“the Son also is given”) #

• Reply 1: the Son, proceeding by way of thought, has in his notion likeness to his source and so is properly Image (same order again: Word before Image); the Holy Spirit is also like the Father but proceeds as love, not as likeness, so is properly Gift, though the Son is also given — and his being given is from the Father’s love (John 3:16, “God” there standing for the Father).
• Reply 2: gift implies being of the giver by origin, so it implies the property of origin of the Spirit, who proceeds as love and hence as gift.
• Reply 3: before it is given a gift is only of the giver; after, of the receiver. Since gift does not imply actual giving, one says gift of God, not of man; once given, it is the man’s, “his spirit or his gift given.”

8. Recap: the division of the seventeen questions (“divided into two or three parts”) #

Point: catechetical review of the structure, by question-and-answer with the class.

• Treatise: three parts, per the proemium — persons are distinguished by relations of origin, so processions (one question), relations (one question), persons (fifteen). In De potentia the last three of its ten questions cover the same three, but in the order relations, persons, processions — the order of disputation.
• Fifteen on the persons: two parts — absolute consideration (ten, “we just finished that today, if we can say finished”) and comparative (five).
• Ten absolute: persons in general (four) and in particular (six); the six: Father one, Son two, Holy Spirit three; a single question divides only into articles.
• His mnemonic: seventeen questions on the Trinity; Augustine on the 153 fish in John — 17+16+…+1 = 153, and 17 = 10 commandments kept through the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. Aside: Peter Quennell’s life of Shakespeare mentions he was buried seventeen feet deep — “that means he’s saved, or at least it’s a sign”; not Joseph Pearce’s book.

9. Preview of q.39: persons compared to the essence (“in comparison to the essence”) #

Point: the comparative consideration compares persons to essence, properties, notional acts, and to each other (probably first three against the last two).

• Fundamental first article: is the essence the same as the persons? There is a distinction of reason between Father and divine nature, but Thomas: no real distinction between any person and the nature; the real distinction is between Father and Son by opposition of relation. Fatherhood is toward the Son, not toward the nature; the Son is not Son of the divine nature. Relation is one kind of opposition “as the Philosopher teaches, even in the Categories and in the fifth book of Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics V] — first book of the first science and the fourteen books of wisdom, and it comes up here in theology.
• Subordinate: three persons “of” one essence — what does “of” mean; whether essential names are predicated of the persons in plural or singular (three gods or one). Articles two–six are about what can be said of what; Hilary: “from words put forth disorderly heresy arises.”
• Seven and eight differ: whether essential attributes can be appropriated to persons (yes, carefully) and how — power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, goodness to the Holy Spirit, with “strange appropriations” from Augustine and Hilary; no person has more of what is common to all, so why appropriate at all is the question. So the question could be divided into three.

His words #

• inopia — “poverty” of the word; why “to love” has to serve both essentially and notionally.
• “the speaker in the house” — the Father alone says the Word, though all three understand.
• proprium — “proper”, sometimes “private” (as in “private name of the Holy Spirit”).
• aptness to be given — his rendering of the definition of gift (aptitudo ad dandum, inferred).
• “of someone” in three ways — by identity (free man of himself), as possession or servant, by origin only.
• nemo dat quod non habet — cited on self-giving: you must be yours to give.
• ab aeterno / ex tempore datur — gift from eternity, given “from time” = in time.
• giving not to be returned — gift in the fullest sense; lending is giving only in a qualified sense.
• first gift — love, by which all gratuitous gifts are given.
• imago — the Son’s name after verbum; likeness of its beginning.
• “fifth book of Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics V]; “the first science” [ed.: Categories / logic].
• opposition of relation — what really distinguishes the persons from each other.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q.37 a.2, replies 1–3
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q.38 a.1, whole article
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q.38 a.2, whole article
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q.39, proemium and survey of article headings
• (verified sources also match a handout “Nature and Kinds of Love”, p. 18, to about nine minutes of this class; the transcript does not name it — probably the passage on gratuitous giving and love as first gift)

Mentioned

• Augustine, De Trinitate VII (Father not wise by generated wisdom), XV (Spirit gives himself; gift nothing other than the Spirit; goods divided among the members of Christ), IV (to be gift is to proceed); Augustine on John (“what is more yours than you?”); Augustine on the 153 fish
• Hilary, De Trinitate IX; Hilary on disorderly words and heresy
• John Damascene (nothing subject in the divine persons)
• Isaiah 9:6; John 3:16; John “if you knew the gift of God”; the Our Father in Matthew and Luke
• Aristotle, Poetics (tying and untying the knot); Categories; Metaphysics V (opposites)
• Thomas, De potentia (last three of ten questions)
• Cajetan (quoted on books and conscience); Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity; the Pope’s book on Augustine; Peter Quennell on Shakespeare; John Paul II discourse on the Holy Spirit
• Printed volume DHB Vol. III, p. 1123 (verified source; not named in the transcript)

His questions #

• Can I have a gift for you before I’ve given it to you? Yes — gift names an aptness to be given, so the divine person is gift from eternity though given in time.
• Do I really have a library book? A personal library yes; a public one no, it must be returned — “having” means free use and enjoyment.
• Can a gift be given to the dog? No — only a rational creature can have a divine person, since it alone can know and love.
• Is the Son the Son of the Father as a possession, or because they are the same? Neither; because he proceeds from the Father — the third way of being “of”.
• Does the essence as such proceed from the Father? No, or it would be really distinct from him; it is the Father’s by identity.
• Why does the Our Father text say “give good things” in one place and “give the Holy Spirit” in the other? Because in giving the Holy Spirit he gives the first gift before all others.
• Why does Thomas treat the name Love before the name Gift? Because the Holy Spirit is gift precisely because he proceeds as love.
• Is the treatise on the Trinity divided into two or three parts, and the fifteen questions on the persons? Three (processions, relations, persons); the fifteen into two (absolute ten, comparative five), the ten into four and six, the six into one, two, three.
• Is there any real distinction between the Father and the divine nature? No, only of reason; the real distinction is between the persons by opposition of relation — to be seen next time.