The Blessed Trinity in
Scholastic Theology
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The theological effort to
understand the doctrine of God as
Trinity continued throughout the
middle ages. This was an effort
towards SYSTEMATIZATION.
The final achievement can be seen
in St. Thomas' Summa Theologica.
This determined the structure and
content of textbook theology
since then down to the preVatican II period. The tract De
Deo Trino was meant to be a
summary of Thomas' thought.
Sources
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In formulating his theology, St. Thomas carefully
studied the rich mine of sources from the Latin
Tradition and his contemporaries: Augustine,
Boetheius, St. Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard,
Richard St. Victor, Albert the Great, Bonaventure.
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All these scholars belong and continue the Latin
theological tradition - but they do not speak with
one voice, they represent different approaches
within the tradition.
Richard St. Victor
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Richard St. Victor would develop a different side of St.
Augustine. He develops his understanding of the Trinity
from an analysis of the divine will and its act of love.
Taking as his scriptural basis the text 1 John 4:16 (God is
Love), Richard points out that love demands Another whom
it can address and to whom it can devote itself.
In God this Other can only be Another in God. If God is
love then God must consist at least of two persons. But
pure love given its altruistic, social character, goes beyond
two and issues in a third, the shared gift in which lovers
express their mutual love.
In God this process terminates in this Third, the shared gift
of the Father and the Son which is the Holy Spirit.
Richard's approach will be followed later by St. Bonaventure
and Duns Scotus and the Franciscan School.
Thomas Aquinas' Summa
Theologica
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The structure of the Summa is based on the ExitusReditus model - Creation as coming forth from God and
then, through God's redemptive providence, returning
again to God.
Aquinas begins his summ with a discussion of God as
simply God, the One who is the transcendent Origin.
The opening section has two parts:
(1) Q2-26 - discusses the existence, nature and
attributes of the one God
(2) Q27-43 - introduces God as Trinity and discusses
the three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and their
relations to one another.
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Thus, there are two discussions: one devoted to
God as one, and the other to God as three. The
discussion of God as one is a discussion of the
one divine nature or substance.
There is in effect a separation between the one
divine nature and the three divine persons. This
separation is further reinforced by the assertion
of the principles concerning God's external
activity in creation and salvation history and
appropriation.
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Aquinas' introduction of a procedural separation
between the one divine nature and the three
divine persons was thus developed in later
scholastic theology into a real separation.
The effect of this development was to confine
the reality of God as Trinity within the
immanent Godhead and thereby depersonalize
the understanding of God's relationship with us.
The net result was to reduce the theology of the
Trinity to a matter of abstract and purely
academic interest, somewhat like a problem in
pure mathematics.
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Thomas's work influenced the later scholastic
manuals. The tract De Deo Trino is a summary
of Thomas discussion of the Trinity in Summa
book 1, Q 23-43.
St. Thomas identified the basic concepts which
the doctrine of the Trinity, involves and
arranged them in logical order and explained
their meaning and implications.
These concepts were, in the following order:
the divine processions, the divine relations, the
divine persons and the divine missions.
Divine Processions
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The origin or coming forth of one thing from another.
The theological term describe how the Son and the Spirit
originated within the Godhead.
There are two divine processions:
-that of the Son from the Father
- and that of the Holy Spirit from both the Father & the Son
Distinction between the principle, the origin or source from
which something proceeds, and the term, that which proceeds
from the source,
immanent procession - an idea is developed by the mind,
proceeds from the mind and yet stays in the mind (the their
terms, the Son and the Spirit, remain within the Godhead)
transient procession - creation proceeds from God but exists
outside of God.
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The divine processions are eternal events within the
Godhead itself which emerge the divine triad, all three
Members of which are truly, fully and equally divine,
God.
The concept of procession is applied to God
analogously. In applying this to God we must remove
from it those aspects which attach to it in human
experience but which do not apply to God: there can
be no question of causality, it does not involve a
temporaly sequence.
The divine processions are eternal.
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The procession of the Son is by generation - the Father
generates the Son,
this procession occurs through a exercise of divine intellect,
an act of divine knowing
the Father, contemplating and knowing himself produces
in the divine mind a perfect expression or image of himself
- the Word, his begotten Son
The procession of the Spirit is by Spiration - The Spirit
proceeds from the Father and the Son
the procession of the Spirit comes from the act of the
divine will, an act of divine loving
In God the Father contemplating his Image, the Son, loves
the Son and the Son in return loves the Father. This
mutual love of the Father and the Son, the bond of love
that unites them, subsists as a third Other in God - the
Holy Spirit.
Divine Relations
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The processions are the basis for the recognition in
God of three distinct relations,
Three factors:
1. Two terms which are related (ex: A parent and child)
2. the ground or basis of relationship (origin)
3. the relationship in itself - the essence of the
relationship = towardsness
Relation as a mode of presence and of terms to each
other, an ordering, directing, facing of beings towards
each other. Towardsness is the essence of the relation.
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Each procession set up two terms which are related to
each other on the basis of origin:
the principle from which proceeds
and that which proceeds,
Since each procession establishes two relations, two
related terms, there are in God four relations - but only
three of these four are distinct or opposing relations - the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Each relation is the divine nature existing in a distinct
relative way, as a distinct relation:
- divine nature in relation to paternity is the Father
- divine nature in relation of sonship is the Son
- the divine nature in the relation of the gift of love is the
Spirit
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The relation in God are subsistent relations relations which exist in themselves and not
simply as an aspect of something else - we have
no experience of relations since with us relation
is always an aspect of something else. We only
know beings who have relation - we have no
experience of a being who simply is relation.
The Divine Persons
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For Boethius - person is "an individual
substance of rational nature"
Medieval theology accepted this definition and
added to it a further note of "autonomy" and
"incommunicability".
Thus, person is defined as: an individual
substance of a rational nature existing in an
autonomous, incommunicable way. This
definition can be applied to divine relations who
could be described as persons.
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Divine relations constitute the divine persons, the relations
are the divine person.
This identification of relation and person leads us to
consider the divine relations not as cold abstractions
(unbegotteness, begotenness, etc) but as personal beings
whom we can approach and address as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit
The concept of procession, relation, person led theology to
identify another significant aspect of God as Trinity. The
divine persons do not live in isolation from one another,
as relations their life totally consists in relating to each other
- they live in and for one another: the Father is fully in the
Son and the Holy Spirit, The Son is fully in the Father and
the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is fully in the Father and the
Son - Perichoresis
Divine Missions
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Mission as sending of the proceeding person in the
economy of salvation,
Since there are two proceeding persons there are
two divine missions:
_ the visible mission of the Son - the incarnation
- the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit - the
Pentecost
The divine mission - consideration of the
economic trinity