Sect. 101The Origins in God Resulting from the Fecundity of the Divine Life as Absolute WisdomThe Origins in God Resulting from the Fecundity of the Divine Life as Absolute Wisdom

A Purely scientific explanation of the Trinity is impossible; the only possible explanation is a theological one, starting from at least one revealed principle. That principle is “the inner fecundity of the Divine Life,” the determination of which is the object of the present portion of our treatise.

I. That the plurality of Persons is brought about and can be brought about only by the production of two of Them from the First Person, is certain from Revelation, and (given the real distinction of the Persons) is also evident to reason. The teaching of Revelation is already known to us. As regards reason we observe that, as the Divine Substance cannot be multiplied, the distinction of the Divine Persons necessarily rests upon the distinct possession of the same Substance; and a difference in the manner of possessing the Divine Nature is necessarily founded upon the distinction between giving and receiving.

II. It is likewise certain from Revelation, and evident to reason, that the Divine productions are essentially acts of life. For the products are living Persons, generated and spirated, and life can only be communicated by a living principle.

III. Since the nature of a being is the principle of the acts of its life and of the communication of life, we must hold that in God the principle (principium quo) of the inner communications of life is His Divine Nature; that is, the Divine Nature as formally identical with the acts of knowing and willing.

IV. The communication of life being the essential outcome of the absolutely actual and purely spiritual life-activity of God, its form is necessarily different from any form of productivity observable among creatures: it is neither a reproduction of the Divine Essence in the Persons produced, nor a production of organs destined to enlarge and develop the sphere of life. The form of the Divine productivity can only be conceived as an immanent radiation and outpouring of the force and energy of the Divine Life, expressing itself in distinct subjects; so that the Divine Life, by reason of this very manifestation of itself ad intra, communicates itself to the Divine Persons. Hence the foundation of the Divine fecundity or productivity is the superabundant fulness of the Divine Life; and, as God is the absolute Spirit, that is Life itself, His fecundity is, unlike that of any being outside of Him, infinitely productive.

From this also appears the deep meaning of the old Roman doctrinal formula: “The three Persons are one Spirit” (ἑν πνεῦμα).

V. In order to arrive at a more concrete determination of the productivity of the Divine Life, we must consider it as the absolute and substantial Wisdom—that is, the most perfect Knowledge of the highest Truth and the most perfect Love of the highest Good. According to this, the communication of life in God must be effected by means of acts of the Divine Intellect and Will in such a manner that the products of the communication manifest, represent, and complete the Divine Knowledge and Volition, and that the products are but the inner manifestation and the adequate expression or outpouring of the substantial Wisdom of God. Now, Wisdom contains two, and only two, distinct forms of life-activity, viz. Knowledge and Volition, and is itself a combination of the Living Truth with the Living Holiness. Hence the two productions which we know by Faith to exist in God, must be distributed between these two forms of life in such a manner that one of them must be the expression and completing terminus of the absolutely perfect Knowledge, or the manifestation of the Living Truth; and that the other must be the outpouring and terminus of the absolutely perfect Volition and manifestation of the Holy Love or the absolute Holiness of God. The productions, however, are not distributed in such a way as to be independent of one another, which would happen if the one manifested only the Knowledge of truth and the other only Love and Holiness. They are even more intimately connected in God than knowing and willing in created minds. The expression of Knowledge is essentially the expression of a Knowledge which breathes holy Love; and the outpouring of Love is essentially of a Love full of wisdom. Thus, in both productions, although in a different manner, the whole of the Divine Wisdom is manifested. (Cf. St. Aug., De Trin., l. xv., n. 8 sqq., Franzelin, th. xxvi.)

VI. The proposition, “The communication of life in God is based upon a twofold manifestation of the Divine Wisdom,” is more than a working hypothesis; it is the only admissible one, and claims the character of a fixed principle for the declaration and the evolution of the dogma. Holy Scripture indicates this clearly enough, and Tradition has from the very commencement treated it as such. It is, therefore, of such a degree of certitude that to deny it would be temerarious and erroneous.

I. The character of the first production as inner expression of the Divine Knowledge, is set forth in Holy Scripture with all possible distinctness. The Second Person’s proper name is “the Word” (Λόγος, Verbum), and the name “Wisdom” is appropriated to Him; to Him alone are applied the terms “image” (εἰκών), “figure” (χαρακτήρ), “mirror,” “radiance,” and “splendour” (ἀπαύγασμα) of God, terms which in themselves imply an expression of the Divine Knowledge, and which, taken in conjunction with the names Λόγος and Wisdom, can imply no other meaning. In this manner the first production was conceived and declared even in ante-Nicene writers, but more especially by the Fathers of the fourth century.

2. The character of the second production as a manifestation of the Divine Volition, is not so formally set forth in Holy Scripture. Still it is sufficiently indicated, negatively and indirectly, by the non-application of the names of the intellectual production to the Third Person, and by the appropriation of the first of these names (Word) to the Son; whence the second production, which must be analogous to the first, is necessarily a manifestation of the other form of life in God, viz. of the Divine Will. And also, positively and directly, in the two elements of the name of the Third Person (“Holy,” “Ghost”), and in the description of the many functions and operations attributed to Him, which all characterize Him as the representative of Divine Love. In Scripture and in early Tradition alike, the character of the production of the Holy Ghost is only hinted at; in the fourth century it received a certain amount of development during the controversies on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. The exposition of the Greek Fathers is slightly different from that of the Latins. The Greeks represent the Holy Ghost as a manifestation of the absolute sanctity of the Divine Will, as the Spirit of Holiness, and “Subsisting Holiness.” The Latin Fathers represent Him as the hypostatic manifestation of the Love of the Divine Will existing between Father and Son; He is the “Spirit of Mutual Love and Unity,” or “Subsisting Union.” These two views differ only on the surface. The Sanctity, common to Father and Son, from which the Holy Ghost proceeds, is the Love of the supreme goodness and beauty of the Divine Essence, and as such includes Love of the Persons Who possess that Essence. On the other hand, the mutual Love of Father and Son is Love of their communion in the possession of the supreme goodness and beauty; hence this Love is but Sanctity conceived in a more concrete manner. The unity of the two views is best expressed thus: “The Father loves in the Son, as in the resplendent image of His Goodness, the Supreme Beauty; and the Son loves in the Father, as in the principle of His Beauty, the Supreme Goodness.”