Summa I, Q.43 a.7: Why the Holy Spirit Is Sent Visibly (the Dove and the Fire)

Orientation #

He opens: “We’re up to Article Seven here, Question Forty-Three,” and closes wanting “to take Article 8 before we take a little break.” He refers back once to “an earlier article where we talked about the Son being sent when we know him in a special way” (prev. lecture, per the context block: the class was working through the invisible-mission articles of q. 43). The preceding class treated a. 6 (whether the invisible mission comes to all who partake of grace) with a digression on Aristotle’s logic; the next takes a. 8 and the order of theological treatises.

The class, in order #

1. The six objections (“whether it’s suitable to the Holy Spirit to be sent in a visible way”) #

He reads the objections, glossing each with what it rests on.

1. The Son, sent visibly, is said to be less than the Father (“the Father is greater than I”); the Holy Spirit is never read to be less. Berquist: the objection ignores the difference in how they are sent visibly — the Son takes on human nature so that he is a man; the Holy Spirit does not become fire or a dove, these only signify his coming. “You got to be careful about the word assumed.”
2. A visible mission is noted in a visible creature assumed; the Holy Spirit assumes none, so is in visible creatures only as in a sign — but so is he in the sacraments and all the figures of the Old Law. So either no visible mission, or a visible mission in all of these.
3. Every visible creature is an effect of the whole Trinity, so through it the Holy Spirit is no more sent than any other person. Berquist’s parallel: the Incarnation too is a work of the whole Trinity, only appropriated to the Holy Spirit because of his love and its being gratuitous.
4. The Son is sent in the worthiest visible creature (“that’s us,” human nature); so the Holy Spirit, if sent visibly, should be sent in a rational creature, not a dove or fire.
5. Visible things done by divine dispensation are dispensed through the ministry of angels (Augustine, De Trinitate bk. 3); so the angels are sent, not the Holy Spirit. Aside: “I have to talk to my guardian angel about that.”
6. A visible mission exists only to make known an invisible one; so wherever there is an invisible mission (Old or New Testament) there should be a visible one, and conversely. “Is there a visible mission there when you were ordained? No. It should have been, though, according to this objection.”

Sed contra: Matthew 3:16, the Holy Spirit came down upon the baptized Lord in the form of a dove. Aside: a dove once landed on a helicopter during a lay-in here, “a couple months ago.”

2. The body: manuductio, and the two persons sent differently (“led by the hand to visible things, to invisible things”) #

Point: God provides for each according to its way; man’s way is to be led by the hand from the sensible to the non-sensible.

1. It is natural to man to be led by the hand (Latin manuducatur; he recalls the term manuductio, which “Augustine talked a lot about”) from visible to invisible things.
2. Therefore the invisible things of God — even the eternal processions — are shown to men through visible creatures as signs or indications.
3. So it was suitable that the invisible missions too be made known through visible creatures. This much is common to Son and Holy Spirit. Then the distinction: the Holy Spirit, proceeding as love, is suited to be the gift of sanctification; the Son, as the beginning from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds, is the author of sanctification. He ties this to John: “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” — the Son “is like the principal there.” Hence the Son is sent visibly as author, and so as a man; the Holy Spirit “as it were a sign of the sanctification.” “That’s kind of a subtle distinction” between the ways the two are visibly sent.

3. Reply 1: assumption into the unity of the person (“what is said of that creature is able to be said of the Son of God”) #

The Son assumes the visible creature in the unity of his person, so what is said of the creature is said of him: the Son of God is a man, died, rose; Mary is the Mother of God, though mother according to his human nature — “quite a history in the history of the church there.” So by the assumed nature he is less than the Father, and “sometimes we say he’s less than himself” (as man, less than himself as God). The Holy Spirit assumes no creature in the unity of his person: it would be heretical to deny the Son is man, but heretical to affirm the Holy Spirit is fire or a dove. Hence he cannot be said to be less than the Father. “That’s very clear.” Aside: it is “a good objection to begin with” — Thomas orders his objections; sapientis est ordinare, it belongs to the wise man to order, “to see the before and after.”

4. Reply 2: visible sign vs. imaginary vision vs. sacramental sign (“not to be noted according to an imaginary vision”) #

Thomas escapes the objection “by a long quote from Augustine” (De Trinitate bk. 2) — Thomas “has no false pride” in citing the master, as he quotes Aristotle and Avicenna (every time on God’s liberality: “God alone is generous,” gets nothing back).

• First distinction: prophetic vision is not shown to bodily eyes through bodily forms, but “in the spirit through spiritual images of bodies.” Berquist on “spiritual” here: imagination is between eye-sight and understanding, more immaterial than the eye though the eye is the least material of the senses; so imaginary vision is the second sense of “to see,” before “to understand.” Note that the Son as thought is imago Dei, not image in the sense of imagination. What is formed in a prophet’s imagination is not seen by bystanders (some apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, he supposes, are of this kind); but the dove at the baptism and the fire at Pentecost were seen by the eyes of whoever was there. So: image formed in the prophet’s imagination with illumination to understand it, vs. exterior fire or dove.
• Second distinction: the Holy Spirit is not related to the dove as the Son to the rock (“the rock was Christ”): the rock already existed in creation and is named Christ from its way of acting; the dove and fire were formed all at once, only to signify, like the flame in the bush to Moses (he first says cloud, corrects to bush), the column the people followed in the desert, the lightning and thunder when the law was given — formed to signify, then passed away. Thomas in his own person concludes: the visible mission is not to be noted according to prophetic visions (imaginary, not bodily), nor according to sacramental signs of Old and New Testament, where pre-existing things (bread, wine, water) are taken to signify; but the Holy Spirit is sent visibly when shown in creatures formed specially for this purpose as signs of his attributes. Summary as he gives it: the visible sign shares with the imaginary that it is formed hic et nunc for a purpose, but differs in being exterior and visible to others; it differs from sacramental signs because those already existed — here something is made just to indicate the invisible sending, “in accordance with the weakness of man.”

5. Replies 3 and 4: signs of a particular person; why not a rational creature (“not assumed ad aliquid agendum”) #

Reply 3: though those visible creatures are worked by the whole Trinity, they are made to point out this or that person; as the persons are signified by diverse names, so by diverse things, though among them there is no separation or diversity. Berquist: Thomas avoids “separation” or “diversity” and admits only “distinction,” the most general and safest word. Reply 4 (already touched in the body): the Son, through whom grace and truth came, must be sent visibly in a rational nature, to which it belongs to act and to sanctify; a sign of sanctification can be any creature. Nor need the creature be assumed into the unity of a person, since it was not assumed ad aliquid agendum but only to signify — “I don’t have to assume my words in my own person”; nor need it remain beyond doing its office (officium — Cicero’s De officiis; aside on Romans, West Point’s “honor, duty, country,” and his worry his soldiers will be waylaid by Kant’s talk of duties rather than Aristotle). Student: isn’t the Holy Spirit usually called the sanctifier, the author of sanctification? Berquist: he does not deny the Holy Spirit does something, but he does nothing through the dove or the fire; Christ does all kinds of things through his human nature — touches, dies, redeems. The Son is origin of the Holy Spirit’s mission (he breathes on the apostles, “receive the Holy Spirit”); the Holy Spirit’s mission to sanctify is through Christ’s humanity. “Everything fits together with that.”

6. Replies 5 and 6: angels; when a visible mission is owed (“the manifestation of the Spirit is given for usefulness”) #

Reply 5 (like reply 3): the creatures are formed by the ministry of angels, but to signify the Holy Spirit’s person, not the angel’s; the Holy Spirit was in them as the signified in the sign, so he, not the angel, is said to be sent. (Aside before this: they will arrange fire on the head at the next ordination; a student says he has “a spot for this flame to land on.”) Reply 6: an invisible mission need not always be shown by an exterior sign; the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the usefulness of the church (1 Cor 12:7), namely that faith be confirmed and propagated by visible signs. This was done chiefly through Christ and the apostles (Hebrews 2:3: narrated by the Lord, confirmed in us by those who heard). So a visible mission was owed to Christ, the apostles and “some primitive saints” (primitivos, the first saints), in whom the church is in a way founded — hence “apostolic” in the creed. Then “a subtle thing”: the visible mission to Christ shows an invisible mission made not then but at his conception — the dove does not signify Christ’s soul being sanctified at that moment but points back to March 25th (he first says “March eighth,” then corrects; aside on the same date being kept “nine months ahead”). Signification of the signs:

• Baptism: a dove, a fecund animal, showing Christ’s authority to give grace of spiritual regeneration; the Father’s voice, “this is my beloved Son” (Mt 3:17), that others be regenerated to the likeness of the only-begotten. Christ is not sanctified by the Jordan but sanctifies the water, “just the reverse” of our baptism, establishing the matter of the sacrament.
• Transfiguration (Mt 17): a lucid cloud, showing the abundance of Christ’s teaching; the Father says “hear him,” which he does not say at the baptism. The two match John’s “grace” (dove) and “truth” (cloud).
• Apostles: breath (Christ breathing on them), showing the power of their ministry in dispensing the sacraments — “whose sins you forgive are forgiven,” Latin remittere, sins “sent back”; corresponding to the dove. Tongues of fire — “important that you say tongues” — showing the office of teaching (Acts 2:4, they spoke in various tongues), inflamed by charity; fire is a good metaphor for God and the Trinity.
• Fathers of the Old Testament: no visible mission of the Holy Spirit was owed, since the visible mission of the Son had first to be perfected — the Holy Spirit manifests the Son as the Son manifests the Father. Visible apparitions were made to them (the three men who came to Abraham), but these are not called missions because (per Augustine) they did not designate indwelling through grace but manifested something else. Aside: the Chartres window where prophets hold up evangelists (Isaiah holding Matthew, Daniel John).

7. Student exchange: is the Holy Spirit’s mission “proper” as the Son’s is? (“the mission of the one person seems to be proper”) #

Student’s objection: the Son’s visible mission is proper — only the Son took flesh, took on a new mode of existence; the Holy Spirit’s mission by grace does not seem proper, since grace is the indwelling of the whole Trinity, an increase of grace is an increase of the whole Trinity, and the Holy Spirit does not take a new mode of existence without the others. So one mission looks proper, the other an appropriation. Berquist’s replies, in stages:

• The dove and fire are creatures made for that moment to signify this person; the Holy Spirit is truly given to the apostles at Pentecost “in abundance never before,” and it is a visible sending because a visible creature was formed to signify his invisible coming.
• Thomas’s own difference: the Holy Spirit as love is the gift of sanctification (sanctification belongs to the whole Trinity but is appropriated to him); the Son is the author — not the Son alone, but Christ acts through the sign he assumed, the Holy Spirit does not act through his sign. The student presses: the visible sign is proper to the Son, but what it signifies (author of salvation) is common to the Trinity; Berquist: “but it was only the Son who died on the cross.”
• The fuller answer: the student is emphasizing the third kind of cause, the mover or maker; but there is also the exemplar cause. When I love by charity I have a likeness to the Holy Spirit in what is proper (“private,” the easiest word) to him, since he proceeds as love; when I am made a son of God I am assimilated to what is private to the second person, who is Son even as divine person — “I never aspire to be the Father of God, but I do aspire to be a son of God.” (Fire’s warmth: the apostles inflamed with love for those they preach to, the lost sheep of Israel first, then the Gentiles.)
• God is a cause “in two and a half ways”: alpha and omega, maker and end; the half is exemplar, since he is not the intrinsic form of things (“God is not my soul”) — our soul is made to the image and likeness of God, the “to” indicating distance. An exemplar is an extrinsic form imitated, as a parent is a model to children, or one imitates someone admired.
• Student: is exemplar causality the same as the mission? Berquist: it is what is involved — insofar as I know I become like the Son, not the Holy Spirit or Father; insofar as I love, like the Holy Spirit. So there is something distinct in the effect. Student: still thinking in terms of efficiency. Berquist: if I make a statue of you, I am the maker (Michelangelo), but you too are a cause of it; Lafayette before Washington’s statue in Virginia, years after his death: “the very man himself” — Washington is in a sense in that statue. This goes back to the earlier article: the Son is sent when we know him in a special way, knowledge that breathes love; the love assimilates us to the Holy Spirit. Closing aside: reading Thomas that morning “between the wake and the funeral,” where Aristotle distinguishes four senses of whole and Thomas, unlike Aristotle explicitly, divides the four into one against three. He stops to take Article 8 before a break.

His words #

• assumed: to take a visible creature into the unity of one’s person, so that what is said of the creature is said of the person; “you got to be careful about the word”
• appropriated: a work of the whole Trinity attributed to one person (Incarnation to the Holy Spirit because of love and gratuity; sanctification to the Holy Spirit)
• manuductio / manuducatur: being led by the hand from the sensible to the non-sensible
• gift vs. author of sanctification: Holy Spirit as proceeding love vs. Son as beginning of the Holy Spirit
• sapientis est ordinare: it belongs to the wise man to order, to see the before and after
• imaginary vision: the second sense of “to see,” between eye-sight and understanding; “spiritual” images because more immaterial than the eye
• imago Dei: the Son as thought is image of God, not image in the sense of imagination
• hic et nunc: here and now — what visible and imaginary signs share
• ad aliquid agendum: “to doing something”; the Son’s nature is assumed for this, the Holy Spirit’s sign is not
• officium: office, duty (Cicero, De officiis)
• primitivos: “the first saints”
• remittere: to forgive, “sent back”
• distinction: the only word Thomas allows among the persons, never “separation” or “diversity”
• private (to a person): his easiest word for what is proper to one person
• exemplar cause: extrinsic form imitated or modelled after; God’s “half” way of causing besides maker and end [ed.: he calls maker the "third kind of cause" among Aristotle's four]

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 43, a. 7 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1-6), read and translated throughout
• Augustine, De Trinitate bk. 2 (as quoted in reply 2 on prophetic vision and the dove/fire/bush/column/thunder); bk. 3 (in obj. 5, on angelic ministry)
• Matthew 3:16 (sed contra), 3:17, 17 (transfiguration, “hear him”)
• 1 Corinthians 12:7; Hebrews 2:3; Acts 2:4 Mentioned
• John, “the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17, inferred)
• “The Father is greater than I” (obj. 1); “the rock was Christ” (reply 2); “whose sins you forgive” (reply 6) — no loci given
• Avicenna on God alone being generous (no locus)
• Cicero, De officiis
• Aristotle on the four senses of whole, and Thomas’s commentary dividing them one against three (no locus given)
• Summa Contra Gentiles IV, ch. 15 and Summa Theologiae I, q. 93: reported by the text-matching system as treated in this episode; the transcript never names them (the image-and-likeness discussion of segment 7 may be the q. 93 match)

His questions #

• Why is the Son, by reason of his visible mission, said to be less than the Father, and the Holy Spirit not? Because the Son assumes the creature into the unity of his person; the Holy Spirit does not, so “fire” or “dove” cannot be said of him.
• Would it be heretical to deny that the Holy Spirit is fire or a dove? No — it would be heretical to deny the Son is man, but heretical to affirm the Spirit is fire or a dove.
• Is there a visible mission when you are ordained? No; the visible mission is not of the necessity of the invisible one, but for the church’s usefulness, chiefly in Christ and the apostles.
• When the dove comes down, is that a sign of Christ’s soul being sanctified at that moment? No; it signifies back to his conception.
• Why did the Father say “hear him” at the transfiguration but not at the baptism? The cloud signifies the abundance of Christ’s teaching (truth), the dove the authority to regenerate (grace).
• Why was no visible mission of the Holy Spirit made to the Old Testament fathers? The Son’s visible mission had first to be perfected, since the Spirit manifests the Son as the Son the Father; their apparitions did not signify indwelling by grace.
• Student: isn’t the Holy Spirit the sanctifier, the author of sanctification? He sanctifies, but does nothing through the dove or fire; the Son acts through his assumed nature and is origin of the Spirit’s mission.
• Student: is the Holy Spirit’s mission proper to him as the Son’s is, or only an appropriation? By exemplar causality there is something distinct in the effect: knowing assimilates us to the Son, loving to the Holy Spirit — though the student remains thinking “in terms of efficiency,” and the point is left at the statue example.