God’s existence is knowable according to the natural human power of reason, without the aid of supernatural revelation. However, this knowledge of God is indirect, a matter of understanding God as the condition for finite existence. Knowing who God is in himself requires a personal self-revelation on God’s own part, for the divine nature as such infinitely transcends our nature and its capacity to know. But this is precisely what God has done. In Jesus Christ, God has freely revealed, out of sheer love, the innermost secret of his life: that God is Trinity— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the central mystery of Christian faith, which means that it is the deepest truth of all being. Here we glimpse the ultimate context for our natural sense that human happiness is to be found in loving and being loved (already implicitly contained in Aristotle’s definition of man as the political animal): God reveals that his life is nothing other than an eternal exchange of love—God is love. Even more, Jesus Christ reveals that the Blessed Trinity has graciously willed that man’s ultimate fulfillment, the fulfillment of our embodied powers of knowing and loving, be found in nothing less than incorporation into this Trinitarian life. That is, man’s final good, his end, is not natural; it is supernatural. God himself is our end. This opens for humanity a horizon of happiness that infinitely surpasses even the natural joys of human life: a life of eternal love in the embrace of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here we move beyond philosophy. For the remaining sessions, we will be operating in the orbit of Catholic theology, which is the use of reason to gain some understanding of the riches of faith in Christ.
Article 1. Whether the trinity of the divine persons can be known by natural reason?
Hilary says (De Trin. i), "Let no man think to reach the sacred mystery of generation by his own mind." And Ambrose says (De Fide ii, 5), "It is impossible to know the secret of generation. The mind fails, the voice is silent." But the trinity of the divine persons is distinguished by origin of generation and procession (30, 2). Since, therefore, man cannot know, and with his understanding grasp that for which no necessary reason can be given, it follows that the trinity of persons cannot be known by reason.
I answer that, It is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason. For, as above explained (12, 4, 12), man cannot obtain the knowledge of God by natural reason except from creatures. Now creatures lead us to the knowledge of God, as effects do to their cause. Accordingly, by natural reason we can know of God that only which of necessity belongs to Him as the principle of things, and we have cited this fundamental principle in treating of God as above (12, 12). Now, the creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity; and hence it belongs to the unity of the essence, and not to the distinction of the persons. Therefore, by natural reason we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons. Whoever, then, tries to prove the trinity of persons by natural reason, derogates from faith in two ways.
Firstly, as regards the dignity of faith itself, which consists in its being concerned with invisible things, that exceed human reason; wherefore the Apostle says that "faith is of things that appear not" (Hebrews 11:1), and the same Apostle says also, "We speak wisdom among the perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world; but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery which is hidden" (1 Cor. 2:6,7).
Secondly, as regards the utility of drawing others to the faith. For when anyone in the endeavor to prove the faith brings forward reasons which are not cogent, he falls under the ridicule of the unbelievers: since they suppose that we stand upon such reasons, and that we believe on such grounds.
Therefore, we must not attempt to prove what is of faith, except by authority alone, to those who receive the authority; while as regards others it suffices to prove that what faith teaches is not impossible. Hence it is said by Dionysius (Div. Nom. ii): "Whoever wholly resists the word, is far off from our philosophy; whereas if he regards the truth of the word"--i.e. "the sacred word, we too follow this rule."
Excerpt from: Saint Thomas Aquinas, The Compendium of Theology
But there are other truths about God revealed to us in the teaching of the Christian religion, which were beyond the reach of the philosophers. These are truths about which we are instructed, in accord with the norm of Christian faith, in a way that transcends human perception. The teaching is that although God is one and simple, as has been explained above, God is Father, God is Son, and God is Holy Spirit. And these three are not three gods, but are one God. We now turn to a consideration of this truth, so far as is possible to us.
37 The Word in God: We take from the doctrine previously laid down that God understands and loves Himself and that understanding and willing in Him are not something distinct from His essence. Since God understands Himself, and since all that is understood is in the person who understands, God must be in Himself as the object understood is in the person understanding. But the object understood, so far as it is in the one who understands, is a certain word of the intellect. We signify by an exterior word what we comprehend interiorly in our intellect. For words, according to the Philosopher, are signs of intellectual concepts. Hence we must acknowledge in God the existence of His Word.
39 Relation of the Word to the Father: …What is conceived in the intellect is a likeness of the thing understood and represents its species [image]; and so it seems to be a sort of offspring of the intellect. Therefore, when the intellect understands something other than itself, the thing understood is, so to speak, the father of the word conceived in the intellect, and the intellect itself resembles rather a mother, whose function is such that conception takes place in her. But when the intellect understands itself, the word conceived is related to the understanding person as offspring to father. Consequently, since we are using the term word in the latter sense (that is, according as God understands Himself), the word itself must be related to God, from whom the word proceeds, as Son to Father.
45 God in Himself as beloved in lover: As the object known is in the knower to the extent that it is known, so the beloved must be in the lover, as loved. The lover is, in some way, moved by the beloved with a certain interior impulse. Therefore, since a mover is in contact with the object moved the beloved must be intrinsic to the lover. But God, just as He understands Himself, must likewise love Himself; for good, as apprehended, is in itself lovable. Consequently God is in Himself as beloved in lover.
46 Love in God as Spirit: Since the object known is in the knower and the beloved is in the lover, the different ways of existing in something must be considered in the two cases before us. The act of understanding takes place by a certain assimilation of the knower to the object known; and so the object known must be in the knower in the sense that a likeness of it is present in him. But the act of loving takes place through a sort of impulse engendered in the lover by the beloved: the beloved draws the lover to himself. Accordingly, the act of loving reaches its perfection not in a likeness of the beloved (in the way that the act of understanding reaches perfection in a likeness of the object understood); rather the act of loving reaches its perfection in a drawing of the lover to the beloved in person.
47 Holiness of the Spirit in God: …Since good that is loved has the nature of an end, and since the motion of the will is designated good or evil in terms of the end it pursues, the love whereby the supreme good that is God is loved must possess the supereminent goodness that goes by the name of holiness. ...Rightly, then, the Spirit, who represents to us the love whereby God loves Himself, is called the Holy Spirit. For this reason the rule of the Catholic Faith proclaims that the Spirit is holy, in the clause, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”
49 Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son: We should recall that the act of understanding proceeds from the intellectual power of the mind. When the intellect actually understands, the object it understands is in it. The presence of the object known in the knower results from the intellectual power of the mind, and is its word, as we said above. Likewise, what is loved is in the lover, when it is actually loved. The fact that an object is actually loved, results from the lover’s power to love and also from the lovable good as actually known. Accordingly, the presence of the beloved object in the lover is brought about by two factors: the appetitive principle and the intelligible object as apprehended (that is, the word conceived about the lovable object). Therefore, since the Word in God who knows and loves Himself is the Son, and since He to whom the Word belongs is the Father of the Word, as is clear from our exposition, the necessary consequence is that the Holy Spirit, who pertains to the love whereby God is in Himself as beloved in lover, proceeds from the Father and the Son. And so we say in the Creed: “who proceeds from the Father and the Son.”
50 The Trinity of divine persons and the unity of the divine essence: We must conclude from all we have said that in the Godhead there is something threefold which is not opposed to the unity and simplicity of the divine essence. We must acknowledge that God is, as existing in His nature, and that He is known and loved by Himself. But this occurs otherwise in God than in us. Man, to be sure, is a substance in his nature, but his actions of knowing and loving are not his substance. Considered in his nature, man is indeed a subsisting thing; as he exists in his mind, however, he is not a subsisting thing, but a certain representation of a subsisting thing; and similarly with regard to his existence in himself as beloved in lover. Thus man may be regarded under three aspects: that is, man existing in his nature, man existing in his intellect, and man existing in his love. Yet these three are not one, for man’s knowing is not his existing, and the same is true of his loving. Only one of these three is a subsisting thing, namely, man existing in his nature. In God, on the contrary, to be, to know, and to love are identical. Therefore God existing in His natural being and God existing in the divine intellect and God existing in the divine love are one thing. Yet each of them is subsistent. And, as things subsisting in intellectual nature are usually called persons, [we] say that there are three persons in God, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
READING QUESTIONS:
1. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, can the Triune nature of God be known through reason alone?
2. The three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are really distinct from each other and yet there is only one divine nature: truly one God, truly three Persons. In order to gain some understanding of this incomprehensible fact, Thomas uses an analogy from human knowing and loving. The generation of the Son/Word from the Father is compared to the conception, in the mind, of an inner word expressing an act of understanding or judging (in this case, the self-knowing of God). According to this analogy, how is the Word really distinct from the Father? How are they united?
3. The second procession in God, that of the Holy Spirit, is explained on the analogy of the procession according to love in us. When we understand and affirm something true (and therefore good and beautiful), we love that reality. The Holy Spirit is this Love proceeding from the Father and the Son. How is the analogy of the procession of the Spirit like and unlike that of the Word? How might the procession of the Holy Spirit shed light on the fact that we are given the powers of knowing and loving precisely to love and be loved, that is, the fact that man’s vocation is to make a sincere gift of self?
4. How is human knowing and loving like and unlike that of God?
5. If we cannot prove that God is a Trinity to unbelievers (or “others” as Aquinas says), what can reason do? What does he mean by saying that we can prove that the teachings of the faith are not “impossible?”
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