Catholicity And Pantheism.
Number Five.
Laws According To Which The Mystery Of The Trinity Should Be Understood.
We proceed, in this article, to lay down some general laws which govern, so to speak, the organism of the life of the infinite. The ignorance or the overlooking of these laws has ever caused those who plunged into the abyss of infinite life to search its genesis, to fall into one form or other of pantheism, as will be seen in the course of this article.
The first and principal law may be enunciated as follows: No other distinction can be predicated of the infinite, but that arising from the relative opposition of origin between the terms. [Footnote 288]
[Footnote 288: Realis distinctio inter relationes divinas non est nisi ratione oppositionis relativae. S. Th., S. T.; qu. 30, art. ad.]
We have already demonstrated that the life of the infinite is terminated by three distinct personalities, which establish a multiplicity in its bosom. A distinction, therefore, must be predicated of the infinite. But of what sort?
This distinction, in the first place, could not fall upon the essence, without breaking its absolute simplicity. It must, consequently, be found among the terminations of the essence, or personalities. But, again, these three persons being possessed of the same identical essence, and thus participating in all its perfections, how can they be distinguished, one from the other? By a real opposition of origin. One person originates; the other is originated; as principle and term they are necessarily opposed to each other, and consequently distinct.
This law maintains both the unity and the multiplicity in the infinite. It maintains the unity; for the law does not require any real distinction between the persons and the essence, but only a distinction made by our reason to facilitate our apprehension; hence the three divine persons are truly and essentially the infinite. It maintains multiplicity, because the three divine persons are opposed on the ground of opposition of origin, and are consequently distinct. Here lies the whole difficulty, the reader will say; three things opposed one to another, and thus distinct from each other, how are they one in essence?
We might reply, in the first place, that the possibility of this is grounded on a psychological fact, which every one accustomed to reflection may easily ascertain. Take the operation of the human spirit. Man knows himself; in this fact the me enters twice; because the me is the subject which knows, and at the same time the object known. The me knowing is the being in the subjective form; the me known is the being in the objective form. Again, man loves himself through the idea of himself: the me here enters three times—the me under the subjective form of knowing and of loving; the me under the objective form of known; the me under the objective form of being loved. Nevertheless, all three are one and the same being: the me under the subjective form knows and loves the me under the objective form; a multiplicity and a unity which cannot be disputed; not only because of the testimony of consciousness, which avers to the fact, but because on this multiplicity and unity are founded two distinct sciences, psychology and ideology; psychology, which treats of the me as subject, of its nature and properties; ideology, which treats of the product of the me, or ideas.
This operation of man is an image of the genesis of God's life. The infinite knows and loves himself. Into this fact of his eternal life he enters three times; the infinite, so to speak, as subject knowing and loving himself; the infinite as object known; the infinite as object loved. The infinite knowing himself is necessarily opposed to the infinite known, because it originates him by an intellectual operation; the infinite known is necessarily opposed to the infinite knowing, because originated by him. Again, the infinite loving himself and the infinite known (because the infinite cannot love himself except through the infinite known) are necessarily opposed to the infinite loved, because they originate him; the infinite loved is necessarily opposed to the infinite loving and known, because emanating from both. This relative opposition of origin causes a real distinction among the terms without breaking the unity of the essence.
But, the better to illustrate this law, and to show how well it maintains unity and multiplicity in the infinite, we shall here investigate the metaphysical law of the fact; that is, why and how things which are opposed to each other can harmonize and be brought into unity, in a third thing.
We have given an example of the fact in the operation of man; but let us give a few more instances to generalize it more and more. This fact is observed in both the ideological and ontological orders. First, as to the order of ideas. Two ideas, which in their own order are opposed to each other, harmonize and are brought together in a third idea. Take, for instance, the idea of substance and modification; substance conveys the idea of something subsisting by itself, that which requires no being to lean on in order to subsist. It means something standing permanent. The idea of modification is that of something which is not permanent in itself, but requires another being to lean on, to cling to, in order to subsist. The two ideas, as it appears, are directly opposed to each other, since their notions are contradictory; yet both ideas, contradictory one to the other in their own order, agree and are brought into companionship in the common idea of existence, one existing permanently, the other existing by leaning on another.
Moreover, take the transcendental idea of unity, truth, and goodness. Unity implies a negation of multiplicity, something undivided in itself and distinct from others. Truth implies a multiplicity, because it is essentially a relation of an object to an intelligence; aequatio rei et intellectus, as St. Thomas defines it. Goodness also implies a multiplicity, because it is essentially a relation of a being to a tendency or faculty.
These three ideas, contradictory or diverse, are brought into harmony in the common idea of being; for every metaphysician knows that unity, truth, goodness, are the transcendental qualities of being, and are identified with it.
The fact is therefore indisputable in the ideological order, that is, of ideas contradictory one to another or diverse, agreeing in a common idea. It is no less true in the order of reality, because ideology is founded on ontology. Take, for instance, a body; it has length, breadth, height, and depth. These qualities of bodies are contrary to each other in their own order, yet they harmonize in the body. Take the forces of attraction and repulsion; both are contradictory laws, yet both agree in the same body. Man harmonizes and brings together in himself the laws of movement, of vegetation, of animality and of intelligence, which are different and contradictory to each other. And in his spirit, as we have said before, he opposes himself as an object to himself, as subject without breaking the unity of the soul. Now wherein lies the reason of this fact? In the ideological order it lies in the universality of ideas; in the order of reality, in the intensity of being, or in the amount of perfection. A universal idea comprehends and harmonizes in itself inferior and more particular ideas, opposed to or different from each other; a more perfect being, or a greater reality harmonizes and brings together inferior realities opposed to and diverse from each other, for the reason of its very intensity of perfection. A doctrine of St. Thomas beautifully illustrates this truth. He inquires into the distinction between intelligent and non-intelligent entities, and, after having remarked that intelligent beings are distinguished from those not intelligent by this—that the second are only capable of containing their own forms or actuality, whereas the first, besides their own actuality, are capable of receiving the forms or actuality of other things, because in intelligent beings is found the ideal similitude of the object known, he alleges, as a reason for this distinction, contraction or limitation. "From this it appears," he concludes, "that the nature of unintelligent beings is more contracted and limited, while the nature of intelligent beings is endowed with the greater extension; hence the philosopher said that the soul is as it were every thing." [Footnote 289]
[Footnote 289: S. Th., S. T.; part, 1, qu. 14, art. 1.]
This reason, however, which accounts for a more general idea or for a greater reality harmonizing in itself particular ideas or lesser realities opposed to each other in their own order, does not account for an opposition lying in the very bosom of a being. In other words, when the particular ideas and the lesser realities are taken as opposed to each other, they are considered distinct and apart from the general idea or greater reality. When they are harmonized in the general idea or greater reality, their limits and opposition are supposed to be eliminated; and this is the reason why the harmony becomes possible. But when the opposition is to be found in the same being, that is to say, when terms opposed to each other are not distinct from the general idea or greater reality, but lie in its very bosom, then what is it that maintains both the opposition of the terms and the unity and simplicity of the being?
In this case, a relation of origin causes the opposition without breaking the unity of the being.
The same being supposed subsistent, being capable of intelligencing itself, can beget an ideal conception of itself; in other words, the same being can exist as object understood in itself, as subject understanding, as object loved in itself, and as subject loving. In this origination, the relation between the terms originated is true and real; because the being as subject, as such, is really opposed to itself as object, and truly relative to itself. The being could not be subject, without opposing itself as object to itself as subject. Yet this takes place without addition to or subtraction from the unity and the simplicity of the being; ontologically, the being is absolutely the same. What prevents us from perceiving this fully and clearly, is the action of the imagination and the essential condition of our intelligence, which cannot be exercised except by the help of a sensible phenomenon. Thus, when we strive to perceive a relation, it is pictured to our imagination as being something real, a kind of link or chain between the terms related. Now, when it is considered that this is only imaginary, and that ontologically a relation is nothing more than the attitude, to speak the language of schoolmen, of one object toward another, it is evident that a being, capable of intelligence and of love, can oppose itself, as object, to itself as subject, without addition to or diminution from or breaking up of the simplicity of the being.
We conclude—particular ideas or lesser realities, opposed to each other, can be harmonized in general idea, or greater realities.
The metaphysical reason of this is, that opposition proceeds often-times from limitation, and that general idea or greater reality, by elimination of the limits, can harmonize things opposed in their own order. This reason is satisfactory when the particular ideas or lesser realities are considered distinct and apart from the general idea or greater reality; that is, they are opposed when distinct—the opposition vanishes when identified. But the reason is not satisfactory to explain how there may be terms distinct and opposed to each other in the same being, without breaking the unity of the being. The law of opposition of origin, and the relation resulting therefrom, fully explains and maintains both the multiplicity and the unity in the same being.
Applying these ideas to the infinite, it is evident that, the distinction of the divine personalities taking place according to the law of opposition of origin, both the multiplicity of persons and the absolute simplicity of the divine essence are maintained. Because the distinction of the divine persons is caused by a relation of origin. Now, as we have seen, a relation of origin neither adds to nor subtracts from the essence; on the other hand, the relation between the terms is true and real. Consequently, the law of opposition of origin explains, as far as human intellect can fathom, how the distinction of the divine personalities can be maintained without at all detracting from the unity of the essence.
It will not do to say that theologians have imagined this law, to suit their systems. This law is given by the fact of human thought and by the ontological requirements of being. As we have already observed, being is essentially one, true, and good. Now these qualities at the same time are identified with being, because, when the mind tries to fathom them, it finds nothing added to being, and yet are they essentially a relation. Here we have identity and distinction, and nothing can explain it, as far as the mystery of being can be explained, except the law of opposition of origin. Our readers, from the above remarks, may see what becomes of that great objection, so often urged against the dogma of the trinity, and so many times disposed of by the doctors of the church, yet repeated again and again which the same assurance.
It is said, quae sunt idem tertio, sunt eadem inter se; that is, things which are identical with a third thing are identical with each other. Now, the three divine persons, according to catholic doctrine, are identical with infinite essence; therefore they are identical with each other; that is, not distinct, and consequently cannot exist. Oftentimes, in thinking over this objection so triumphantly brought forward, we have thought of the well-known lines of Pope:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
Those shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
But drinking largely sobers us again."
For the principle, when examined carefully, does not apply to those cases in which a distinction is predicated of a being caused by a relation to itself.
For instance, upon that principle we might reason thus: things which are identical with a third thing are identical with each other. But height, length, breadth, and depth are one and the same thing with bodies; therefore, are identical among themselves; and all distinction between height and depth, length and breadth, is a pure figment; and architects, calculating the proportions of a building, would do well to remember the principle, for it would save them considerable time and trouble.
Again: unity, truth, and goodness are identical with reality. But those things which are identical with a third are identical with each other; therefore, unity, truth, goodness are identical among themselves, and it is the same thing to be one, true, and good, as to be. And all the different sciences formed on these relations of being are useless wastes of thought and meditation.
Moreover, the thinking and loving subject in man, the thought and the love, are identical with the soul; therefore, according to the said principle, there is no distinction between the thinking subject and the thought, and all ideology and grammar is nothing but useless pastime, and we could correctly say, the soul is a thinking subject—the soul is a thought.
The truth is, that the principle applies only to particular cases, and is by no means general; because, as we have demonstrated, being, in general, requires three distinct relations to be conceived, and which, remaining distinct among themselves, are yet identical with being.
The infinite being could neither be conceived, nor be actual, without three distinct relations, which must be identical with the essence, without ceasing to be distinct one from another. If its truth were general and it applied to all cases, it would abolish all distinction in the infinite being, and consequently, abolish its actuality and intelligibility, and leave it only as an abstraction—the Hegelian being—nothing.
Moreover, that the principle does not apply to the infinite is evident from the very enunciation and meaning of the principle. Things which are identical with a third are identical with each other. In the enunciation and in the meaning, the principle supposes a plurality, and, consequently, a distinction; for the gist of the principle is to compare a multiplicity to a unity. Now, who does not see that, if there were not a supreme identity and a supreme multiplicity beyond the sphere and subordination of this principle, the principle itself would be destroyed?
For if it be asked, what is the origin, the cause, and the supreme expression of plurality and distinction, which this principle supposes, we must rise to a supreme and typical distinction and identity, not subject to the principle; else we could never account for the existence of the principle.
The infinite is the supreme identity and the supreme multiplicity, the cause of all distinction and identity, and consequently, to it the principle cannot apply.
We conclude, therefore, that the first law governing the genesis of God's life is the law of opposition of origin, and that this law accounts both for the unity of essence and the trinity of persons in God.
We pass to the second law, which is as follows: In the infinite, there must be a person who does not proceed from anything, and who is neither begotten nor made, but who subsists by himself. The metaphysical reason of this law is, that there must be a first principle in everything, both in the ontological and in the ideological orders.
In the ontological order, because if every principle of reality, if every cause called for the existence of another to explain its existence, it is evident that there would be a process ad infinitum without explaining anything. For an infinite number of causes, each requiring another cause to explain their existence, would multiply, ad infinitum, the necessity of first cause, existing by itself and containing in itself the reason of its existence.
In the ideological order, because every science must have a principle which is not derived from any other, and which must be taken for granted, otherwise science would become impossible. Ask a proof and a demonstration for every principle, say of mathematics, and you will never be able to learn it.
Thus, in the genesis of infinite life, there must be a first person who subsists by himself, otherwise the life of the infinite becomes impossible.
But, besides this general reason which requires a first person underived from anything, there is a particular reason, more closely allied to the subject, which demonstrates it. Because, if there were not a first person in the infinite, not proceeding from any other thing, it would originate either from the essence or from another person. Now, it could not originate from the essence; because between the principle and its product there is a real opposition of origin; therefore, in the supposition, there would be a real opposition between the essence of the infinite and the first person. Now, the essence in question is infinite, and only the finite can be opposed to it. The first person, therefore, proceeding from the essence, would be finite and not infinite; that is, he would be a creature. Moreover, it would be impossible that the first person should proceed from the essence, because the essence without subsistence is an abstraction, and an abstraction could not originate a reality.
It could not proceed from another person, because, as we have remarked, this other person, unless subsisting of himself, would require another as his principle, and so on ad infinitum.
As a corollary of this law, it follows that whatever other persons may be supposed to exist in the infinite, they must originate from the first; because—no other distinction being possible in the infinite, but that arising from opposition of origin—it follows that, if there were other persons in the infinite, and if they did not originate from the first, they could not be opposed to it, and therefore they could not be distinguished from it; in other words, they could not exist.
A third law governs the life of the infinite; which, if possible, is yet more important than the former two. It is the law of immanence, which may be expressed in the following formula.
The action, by which the persons in the infinite are originated, terminates inside of the infinite, and is permanent, eternal, and complete.
Let it be observed that the action of an agent is always interior to it, because it is its own movement. But the product of the agent is not always so; sometimes it is laid inside the agent; sometimes it terminates outside the agent. In the first case, the action is called immanent or interior; in the second, transient or exterior; not because the action is not always interior to the subject, but because the effect or term of the action is exterior or foreign to the subject. The first sense, then, in which the law of immanence is to be applied to the infinite is, that the terms of the action of the first person terminate inside the infinite; because, if they were to terminate outside of God, they would be something different from him, and consequently not divine persons, but finite beings.
But the law has a higher and more important bearing: it implies that the action by which the divine persons are originated is not transitory, successive, and incomplete, but permanent, eternal, and complete; because God is infinite actuality, or actuality itself.
Forget for one single moment to apply this law to the genesis of God's life, and you fall at once into pantheism. For suppose the act, by which the divine persons are originated, to be transient, successive, temporary, incomplete, and it would follow at once that God is in continual development and explication. For He is either complete and perfect, or on the road to perfection. He is in fieri, or becoming.
And since, as we have often remarked, every development consists of different stages of explication, the last of which is always more perfect than those which precede it, it would follow that the genesis of God's life consists of a successive series of evolutions, the last of which is always more perfect than that which precedes it. Now, assuming the genesis of God's life at one determinate stage, and travelling backward to arrive at the first stage of explication from which He started, we should pass from a more perfect, defined, concrete stage of development, to one less perfect, less defined, less determinate, and thence to one still less so, until we should arrive at the most indeterminate, undefined, abstract stage of evolution; at the least being—the being not being, the first principle of pantheism.
But, keeping in view the law of immanence, every one can see that God's action is supposed at once all perfect, complete, and adequate—in one word, eternal; and consequently every idea of development, progress, and succession is eliminated; and the consequence is, that the infinite is at once conceived as being infinite actuality; the first principle of Catholic theology—the precise contradictory of pantheism.
Hence, according to this law, the first person is always originating, and his origination is always perfect; the others are always originated, and their existence is always perfect, adequate, and complete. We say always and are originated, not because the expressions convey the idea of eternal actuality and completeness, but because, our mind being measured by time, we can find no better words to exhibit the idea. Let this remark be made once for all.
A corollary of this law is, that whatever persons are originated in the infinite, being within the essence of God and terminating in Him, they are—the infinite, because nothing can be added to the infinite.
Fourth law: In the infinite there are no more than two processions.
By processions we mean the origination of one person from another.
Now, that in God there are no more than two processions will appear evident, if we consider the proper operation of God. God is a spiritual nature; the proper operation of a spiritual nature is by intelligence and by will; therefore, the operation of God is by intelligence and by will, and consequently one origination is by the intelligence, the other by the will.
So far we have given those laws which govern, in general, the genesis of God's life. We must now proceed to those laws which govern the particular origination of each of the two divine persons.
Now, the law governing the origination of the second person is the law of intellectual generation. Generation implies the following elements:
1st, the production of a living being from a living principle;
2d, identity of nature between the two;
3d, this identity required by the very natural, essential, and direct tendency of the action by which the term is produced.
It is according to these elements of generative law that the second person in the infinite is produced; and consequently he is really and truly the Son of God, as the producer is Father.
For the first person, whom we have said to be subsisting by himself, being intelligent activity, necessarily intelligences himself. He is the God-head intelligencing himself.
Now, an object understood, inasmuch as it is understood, exists in the understanding in an intelligible state; for to understand means just to apprehend, to grasp intelligibly that which is understood.
The Godhead, therefore, is in himself as the Godhead understood is in the Godhead understanding. Now, the object understood existing in the intelligence, is what is called mental word, intellectual conception, and by the Greeks, logos.
Hence in the Godhead exists the Godhead as mental word or logos. St. John, with a sublime expression, which electrified all the Platonic philosophers, began his Gospel thus: "In the beginning (the Father) was the Word."
This Word of the Godhead being conceived by an immanent act, an act which has neither beginning nor end, which is not power before it is act, is conceived therefore eternally, and consequently is coeternal with the conceiver. It is God or the infinite; because the first person, or intelligent activity, begets him by an operation which terminates inside himself, by the law of immanence; consequently the Word is identical with his essence, and is, therefore, the infinite.
Yet is he a distinct person from the first as Word.
For although the intelligent activity and the Word are both God, yet are they distinct from each other by the law of opposition of origin, which implies that a term proceeding from a principle is necessarily opposed to it, and consequently distinct from it. Thus the intelligent activity, as principle, is necessarily opposed to the Word as term; and, vice versa, the Word as term is necessarily opposed to the intelligent activity as principle. In other words, the intelligent activity could not be what it is, unless it were the opposite of the Word, and this could not be the Word unless it were the very opposite of intelligent activity. Hence, to be intelligent, activity belongs so exclusively to the First, as to exclude any other from partaking in that distinctive constituent; and to be Word is claimed so exclusively by the Second, as to be attributed to no other. The result is a duality of terminations, possessed of the same infinite nature and its essential attributes, each having a constituent so exclusively its own as to be altogether incommunicable. Now, two terminations, possessed of the same infinite nature and its essential attributes, with a constituent so exclusively their own as to be attributed to no other, convey the idea of two persons. For what is a person? A spiritual being with a termination of his own, which makes him distinct from any other, gives him the ownership of himself and renders him solidary of his action.
Now, the intelligent activity is a spiritual being, since he is the Godhead; is possessed of a constituent of his own, intelligent activity; has the ownership of himself; for, as intelligent activity, he is himself and no other, and cannot communicate himself; and is solidary of his notional action, that is, the action which constitutes him what he is: he is, therefore, a person.
Likewise the Word is a spiritual nature; for he is the same Godhead as to substance; as a relation or Word, he is the owner of himself, incommunicable, and solidary of his notional action; hence, he is also a person.
In other words, the Godhead is an infinite spirit; all that constitutes him, both substance and terms of relation, is spirit. Consequently, each term of the divine relation, as such term, has an individuality of his own and, as infinite spirit, has knowledge and intelligence of himself; he beholds himself distinct from the other as term of relation, one with the other as substance. His distinction causes his relative individuality; consciousness and intelligence of this relative individuality make him a person.
Here an objection might be raised; to be a person implies, necessarily, to be intelligent, which is an essential attribute of spiritual being. Therefore the Word also must be intelligent, otherwise he would have neither knowledge nor consciousness of his individuality. But you have attributed intelligence to the first person as being his particular termination; therefore how can the Word be a person, if intelligence be the particular termination of the first? Either the Word is not intelligent, and then he cannot be a person, or intelligence is not the particular termination of the first, and in that case they cannot be persons, for they cannot be distinct.
The difficulty will vanish if it be observed that we have not attributed intelligence to the first person as his particular termination, but intelligent activity.
A slight attention to the manner according to which the Word is produced in the infinite, will illustrate this distinction. The intelligence of the Godhead is infinite in its activity and actuality, as well as infinite in its term; which means that the Godhead understands itself infinitely, and an infinite term is the product of this intellection. Hence, once God has understood himself and conceived the expression of his intelligence, the activity is complete and fully terminated; consequently, the Word, the term of this intelligencing, has the Godhead with all its essential attributes communicated to him; except the activity of intelligencing, because the activity is complete in the production of the Word.
In other words, the act of the first person is eternal, complete, and perfect, by the laws of immanence. Its activity is fully and perfectly exercised in engendering the Word, hence it cannot be communicated. If it were communicated, it would argue imperfection and incompleteness in the act and in its term. In the act, for if any portion of activity remained to be communicated, the Godhead would not intelligence himself to the fullest extent of his infinity; in the term, because the Godhead not intelligencing himself to the full extent of his infinity, the intellectual utterance which would be produced would not fully and perfectly express the object.
Consequently both would be imperfect, incomplete, and potential. This happens in human conception. Our mind, being finite, that is, partial and imperfect, is forced to exert itself partially and conceive various mental words, which would not be the case if its activity were perfect and complete, as it is in the infinite.
This answers another objection which is brought forward by those who lose sight of the law of immanence in the divine operation. It is said, If the Word be intelligent, there is nothing to prevent his engendering another Word, and this second, a third, and so on ad infinitum.
The Word is intelligent, but not intelligent activity. When intelligence, so to speak, is communicated to him, it has been exercised in the engendering of himself; or better, the eternal immanent act of the intelligent activity communicating intelligence to the Word, is continually being exercised in the immanent engendering of the Word; therefore it cannot be communicated to him. [Footnote 290]
[Footnote 290: In Filio non habet intellectus illam veluti virtutem quia iam habuit actum sibi adequatum.—Suarez, De Trin., lib. 1. cap. 7. v. 11.]
Hence that magnificent expression of the Scripture, "Semel loquitur Deus." "God speaks but once." But because the activity of engendering another Word is not communicated to him, it does not follow that he is not endowed with the act of intelligencing the Father or himself; the Father as his principle, himself as the product of the Father. For it is one thing to be intelligent, another thing to be intelligent principle. To give some examples of this distinction. The architect of a building who has planned it, is the intelligent principle of the building; another, who understands the plan of the building, is the intelligent beholder of the building.
God is the intelligent cause of the world, man is the intelligent perceiver of the world.
There being, therefore, a distinction between intelligence as principle or cause, and intelligence as perception, one may easily conceive how the Word in the infinite may be possessed of intelligence, without being the principle of intelligence.
The Word, who is one Godhead with the first person, a distinct person himself, is also the substantial image of the first person. Because, in force of the act by which he is uttered, which is essentially assimilative, he is produced as the likeness of him whose expression and utterance he is; and as he is one as to substance with the conceiver, he is, consequently, his substantial image and likeness. We conclude, therefore, that the production of the second person in the infinite—resulting in a person, the substantial image of the conceiver, in force of the act of intelligencing by which he is produced, which is essentially assimilative—is governed by the law of generation; and that, consequently, the first person in the infinite is Father, and the second, Son. "Thou art my Son, to-day I have begotten thee." [Footnote 291]
[Footnote 291: Ps. ii. 7.]
The law by which the third person in the infinite is produced, is different from that which governs the production of the second.
The latter takes place according to the law of generation or assimilation; the former is subject to the law of aspiration, which must be understood as follows.
By his Word, the intelligent activity apprehends and conceives his infinite perfection and goodness. For the Word, as we have seen, is nothing but the infinite and most perfect expression or image of the intelligent activity, and as the intelligent activity is infinite perfection and excellence, so the Word is the utterance, the intellectual reproduction of that excellence and goodness. Hence the intelligent activity, by his Word, conceives and utters himself as infinite perception and excellence. But perfection or goodness apprehended is necessarily loved. For goodness, once apprehended, awakens the will, and necessarily inclines it toward itself; it necessarily attracts and affects it. The intelligent activity, therefore by apprehending himself through his Word as infinite perfection and goodness, necessarily loves himself.
Love implies the insidence or indwelling of the object loved in the subject loving. The intelligent activity, therefore, who necessarily loves himself through his Word, must be as object loved in himself as subject loving.
This love as object must be co-eternal with the infinite, because by the law of immanence which governs the genesis of infinite life, every origination in the infinite must be co-eternal with the infinite.
By the same law also, it must be identical and one with the infinite; because love, being originated by an immanent act, terminates inside of the infinite, and is, therefore, identical with the infinite. The love as object, therefore, is coeternal and identical with the infinite; it is the infinite.
It is distinct from love as subject and from the Word, by the law of opposition of origin, which implies that a term which originates from a principle is necessarily opposed to it, and consequently distinct. Now, love, as object in the infinite, originates from the intelligent activity and from the Word. The intelligent activity, by apprehending himself, as infinite goodness and excellence, through his Word, loves himself. Hence, this love proceeds from both—the intelligent activity, who conceives his infinite goodness—the Word, who represents it, and makes it intelligible. This love-object is a third person. For, from what we have said, it appears that love-object is identical with the infinite, with the divine essence, and consequently partakes of all the infinite attributes of the essence; hence he is a spiritual and intelligent being; as distinct from both the intelligent activity and the Word, he is possessed of a termination exclusively his own, which makes him the owner of himself incommunicable and solidary of his notional action. Hence he is a person.
This third person, not being originated according to a likeness of nature, cannot, like the second person, be called son. He is the personal and subsisting love of the Father and of the Son; and as the object loved exists in the subject loving, as inclining, and in a certain manner as impelling, the subject toward it, as raising in the subject an attraction or aspiration toward it, hence the third person is called the living and subsisting Spirit of God.
The better to conceive this distinctive termination of the third term in the infinite, let us suppose an attraction between two persons. It is needless to remark that we use this term for want of a better and more spiritual one. Suppose, therefore, an attraction between two persons; do not make it an accident or modification, but substantial; carry it to its utmost perfection, actualize it ad infinitum; so that it may be able to return upon itself, to have consciousness of itself, to possess and own itself, and in this sense to feel itself distinct from and independent of all others—and you will have, as product, a subsisting or personal attraction, a third person.
Such is the idea we can form of the Holy Spirit. The Father beholds himself totally in the Son as an offspring of himself, and loves himself in his offspring, his perfect and substantial expression.
The Son beholds himself totally in the Father as his author, and loves the Father as his principle and origin. This common love, this mutual attraction, this aspiration of the Father toward the Son, and of the Son toward, the Father, being infinite, is most actual, perfect, and complete—a living, subsisting attraction, with consciousness and the ownership of himself, a subsistence personifying their mutual love and binding both in one eternal tie of affection.
Hence, by this distinctive constituent of common love, the Spirit is the archetype of harmony and order; since in his personality he brings the opposition existing between the conceiver and the conceived into harmony and unity of love.
He is also the archetype of the beautiful, being the very beauty and loveliness of God.
Beauty, in its highest metaphysical expression, is variety reduced to unity, by order and proportion. Now, the Spirit harmonizes the reality and the intelligibility of God into a unity of love. Hence he is the beauty of the Father and the Son—their personal and eternal loveliness; and as such, the archetype of the beautiful in all orders.
He is the very bliss of the infinite, because bliss is the perfect possession of infinite life. Now, it is in the production of the Spirit that the genesis of infinite life terminates and is complete. He is, then, the expression of the perfect possession and enjoyment of the infinite life—the living Blessedness of the infinite. The last law which governs the mystery of God's life, and which is a consequence of all the laws we have explained, is the law of insidence.
This implies the indwelling of all the divine persons in each other. It is founded both on the community of essence and the very nature of personalities.
For the essence of the three divine persons, being one and most simple, it follows that they all meet in it, and consequently dwell in each other. On the other hand, what constitutes them persons is essentially a relation. Now, a relation necessarily asks for and includes the relative term. The intelligent activity is such, because in him dwells the Word, his infinite expression. The Word is such, because he is the expression of the intelligent activity, and dwells in him. The Spirit necessarily dwells in both, because he is the subsisting aspiration of the activity toward its conception, and of the conception toward its principle.
"Believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." (St. John.)
With these laws, we conclude the first part of the problem of multiplicity raised by pantheism. It is true, as pantheism affirms, that there must be a certain multiplicity in the unity of infinite essence. For, without a certain multiplicity, no being can exist or be intelligible. Pantheism, in giving such prominent importance to the problem, has rendered great service to philosophy and to religion, and has cut off, in the very bud, all those objections raised by the superficial reason of Arians or anti-trinitarians of old, or Unitarians of modern times. But, as we have seen, however able in raising the problem, Pantheism utterly fails in resolving it; and, in its effort to explain the problem, destroys both the terms to be reconciled. Catholicity, fully conscious of the immense value of the problem, unflinchingly asserts that it alone has the secret of its solution. Without at all assuming to explain away its super-intelligibility, it lays down such an answer as fully satisfies the mind which can appreciate the importance and the sublimity of the problem, and follow it into the depths of its explanation. The infinite, says Catholicity, is not infinite as an abstraction or potentiality, a germ as Pantheism affirms, which ceases to be infinite when it passes into multiplicity; the infinite is actuality itself.
This actuality consists in a first personality unborn and unbegotten, with full consciousness of himself and his infinite perfection. This personality is active intelligence, and in intelligencing his infinite perfection, begets a conception, an intelligible expression of that perfection, a second person. The active intelligence loves his infinite personality conceived by him in his intelligence. This love is a third personality.
Three personalities or terminations of one infinite actuality: a multiplicity in unity; unity without being broken by multiplicity; multiplicity without being destroyed by unity.
Hence the infinite is not a dead, immovable, unintelligible unity, but a living, actual, intelligible unity; because it is unity of nature and a trinity of persons; because the unity falls in the essence, the multiplicity, in the terminations of the essence.