[Footnote 183: See among others, Archbishop Manning on the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost.]
The Catholic believer in the Trinity apprehends the dogma in such a way that it presents no contradiction to his intellect between itself and the first principles of reason or the primary doctrine of the unity of the divine nature. God, who is the Creator and the Light of reason, as well as the author of revelation, is bound by his own attributes of truth and justice, when he proposes a doctrine as obligatory on faith, to propose it in such a way that the mind is able to apprehend and accept it in a reasonable manner. This is done by the instruction given by the Catholic Church, with which the supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit concurs. The Catholic believer is therefore free from those crude misapprehensions and misconceptions which create the difficulty in the unbelieving mind. He apprehends in some degree, although it may be implicitly and confusedly, the real sense and meaning of the mystery, as it is apprehensible by analogy with truths of the natural order. What it is he apprehends, and what are the analogies by which it can be made intelligible, will be explained more fully hereafter. It is enough here to note the fact. This apprehension makes the mystery to him thinkable, or capable of being thought. That is, it causes the proposition of the mystery in certain definite terms to convey a meaning to his mind, and not to be a mere collocation of words without any sense to him. It makes him apprehend what he is required to assent to, and puts before him an object of thought upon which an intellectual act can be elicited. It presents no contradiction to reason, and therefore there is no obstacle to his giving the full assent of faith on the authority of God.
It is otherwise with one who has been brought up in Judaism, Unitarianism, or mere Rationalism; or whose merely traditional and imperfect apprehension of Christian dogmas has been so mixed up with heretical perversions that his mature reason has rejected it as absurd. There is an impediment in the way of his receiving the mystery of the Trinity as proposed by the Catholic Church, and believing it possible that God can have revealed it. He may conceive of the doctrine of the Trinity as affirming that an object can be one and three in the same identical sense, which destroys all mathematical truth. Or he may conceive of it, as dividing the divine substance into three parts, forming a unity of composition and not a unity of simplicity. Or he may conceive of it as multiplying the divine essence, or making three co-ordinate deities, who concur and co-operate with each other by mutual agreement. These conceptions are equally absurd with the first, although it requires more thought to discern their absurdity. It is necessary then to remove the apparent absurdity of the doctrine, before any evidence of its being a [{760}] revealed truth is admissible. The first misconception is so extremely crude, that it is easily removed by the simple explanation that unity and trinity are predicated of God in distinct and not identical senses. The second, which is hardly less crude is disposed of by pointing out the explicit statements in which the simplicity and indivisibility of the divine substance in all of the Three Persons is invariably affirmed. The third is the only real difficulty, the only one which can remain long in an educated and instructed mind. The objection urged on theological or philosophical grounds by really learned men against the dogma of the Trinity, is, that it implies Tritheism. The simplest and most ordinary method of removing this objection, is by presenting the explicit and positive affirmation of the church that there is but one eternal principle of self-existent, necessary being, one first cause, one infinite substance possessing all perfections. This is sufficient to show that the church denies and condemns Tritheism, and affirms the strict unity of God. But, the Unitarian replies, you hold a doctrine incompatible with this affirmation, viz., that there are three Divine Persons, really distinct and equal. This is met by putting forward the terms in which the church affirms that it is the one, eternal, and infinite essence of God which is in each of the Three Persons. The Unitarian is then obliged to demonstrate that this distinction of persons in the Godhead is unthinkable, and that unity of nature cannot be thought in connection with triplicity of person. This he cannot do. The relation of personality to nature is too abstruse, especially when we are reasoning about the infinite, which transcends all the analogies of our finite self-consciousness, to admit of a demonstration proving absolutely that unity of nature supposes unity of person, and vice versa, as its necessary correlative. The church affirms the unity of substance in the Godhead in the clearest manner, sweeping away all ground for gross misconceptions of a divided or multiplied deity; but affirms also trinity in the mode of subsistence, or the distinction of Three Persons, in each one of whom the same divine substance subsists completely. This affirmation is above the comprehension of reason, but not contrary to reason. Even Unitarians, in some instances, find no difficulty in accepting the statement of the doctrine of the trinity made by our great theologians, when it is distinctly presented to them; and in the beautiful Liturgical Book used in some Unitarian congregations, the orthodox doxology, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," has been restored.
The absurd misconception of what the church means by the word Trinity being once removed, the evidence that her doctrine is revealed, or that God affirms to us the eternal, necessary distinction of three subsistences in his infinite being, becomes intelligible and credible. Reason cannot affirm the intrinsic incompatibility of the proposition, God reveals himself as subsisting in three persons, with the proposition, there is one God; and therefore cannot reject conclusive evidence that he does so reveal himself through the Catholic Church. For aught reason can say, he may have so revealed himself. If satisfactory evidence is presented that he has done so, reason is obliged, in consistency with its principles, to examine and judge of the evidence, and assent to the conclusion that the Trinity is a revealed truth. This is enough for all practical purposes, and as much as the majority of persons are capable of. But is this the ultimatum of reason? Is it not possible to go further in showing the conformity of the revealed truth with rational truths? Several eminent theologians have endeavored to take this further step, and to construct a metaphysical argument for the doctrine of the Trinity. Some of the great contemplatives of the church, who are really the most profound and sublime of her [{761}] theologians and philosophers, have also through divine illumination appeared to gain an insight into the depths of this mystery. For instance, St. Ignatius and St. Francis de Sales both affirm that the truth and the mutual harmony of all the divine mysteries were made evident to their intelligence in contemplation. In modern times, Bossuet, Lacordaire, and Dr. Brownson have reasoned profoundly on the rational evidence of the Trinity, and a Roman priest, the Abbate Mastrofini, has published a work entitled "Metaphysica Sublimior," in which he proposes as his thesis, Given divine revelation, to prove the truth of all its dogmas by reason. The learned and excellent German priest Günther attempted the same thing, but went too far, and fell into certain errors which were censured by the Roman tribunals, and which he himself retracted. It is necessary to tread cautiously and reverently, like Moses, for we are on holy ground, and near the burning bush. We will endeavor to do so, and, taking for our guide the decisions of the Church and the judgment of her greatest and wisest men, to do our best to state briefly what has been attempted in the way of eliciting an eminent act of reason on this great mystery, without trenching on the domain of faith.
First, then, it is certain that reason cannot discover the Trinity of itself. It must be first proposed to it by revelation, before it can apprehend its terms or gain anything to reason upon. Secondly, when proposed, its intrinsic necessity or reason cannot be directly or immediately apprehended. If it can be apprehended at all, it must be mediately, or through analogies existing in the created universe. Are there such analogies, that is, are there any reflections or representations of this divine truth in the physical or intellectual world from which reason can construct a theorem parallel in its own order with this divine theorem? Creation is a copy of the divine idea. It represents God as a mirror. Does it represent him, that is, so far as the human intellect is capable of reading it, not merely as he is one in essence, but also as he is three in persons? Assuming the Trinity as an hypothesis, which is all we can do in arguing with an unbeliever, can we point out analogies or representations in creation of which the Trinity is the ultimate reason and the infinite original? If we can, do these analogies simply accord and harmonize with the hypothesis that God must subsist in three persons, or do they indicate that this is the most adequate or the only conceivable hypothesis, or that it is the necessary, self-evident truth, without which the existence of these analogies would be unthinkable and impossible? Do these analogies, as we are able to discover them, represent an adequate image of the complete Catholic dogma of the Trinity, or only an inadequate image of a portion of it?
It is evident, in the first place, that some analogical representation of the Trinity must be made in order to give the mind any apprehension whatever of a real object of thought on which it can elicit an act of faith. The terms in which the doctrine is stated, as for instance. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, eternal generation, procession or spiration, person, etc., are analogical terms, representing ideas which are otherwise unspeakable, by images or symbols. It is impossible for the mind to perceive that a proposed idea is simply not absurd, without apprehending confusedly what the idea is, and possessing some positive apprehension of its conformity to the logical, that is, the real order. Every distinct act of belief in the Trinity, therefore, however rudimental and imperfectly evolved into reflective cognition, contains in it an apprehension of the analogy between it and creation. If we proceed, therefore, to explicate this confused, inchoate conception, we necessarily proceed by way of explicating the analogy spoken of, because we must proceed by explaining the terms in which the doctrine is stated, [{762}] which are analogical; and by pointing out what the analogy is which the terms designate. What is meant by calling God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Why is the relation of the Son to the Father called filiation? Why is the relation of the Holy Spirit to both called procession? The Niceno-Constantinopolitan and Athanasian Creeds, all the other definitions of the church respecting the Trinity, and all Catholic theology deduced from these definitions and from Scripture and tradition by rational methods, are an explication of the significance of these analogical terms. The only question which can be raised then, is, in regard to the extent of the capacity of human reason to discern the analogy between inward necessary relations of the Godhead, and the outward manifestation of these relations in the creation. The hypothesis of the Trinity assumes that this analogy exists, and is to some extent apprehensible. We will now proceed to indicate the process by which Catholic theologians show this analogy, beginning with those terms of analogy which lie in the material order, and ascending to those which lie in the order of spirit and intelligence.
First, then, it is argued, that the law of generation in the physical world, by which like produces like, represents some divine and eternal principle. Ascending from the lower manifestation of this law to man, we find this physical relation of generation the basis of a higher filiation in which the soul participates. Man generates the image of himself, in his son, who is not merely his bodily offspring, but similar and equal to himself in his rational nature. As St. Paul says, the principal of this paternity must be in God, and must therefore be in him essential and eternal. But this principle of eternal, essential paternity, within the necessary being of God, is the very principle of distinct personal relations.
Again, the multiplicity of creation indicates that there is some principle in the Divine Nature, corresponding in an eminent sense and mode to this multiplicity. The relations of number are eternal truths, and have some infinite transcendental type in God. If there were no principle in the Divine Nature except pure, abstract unity, there would be no original idea, from which God could proceed to create a universe; which is necessarily multiplex and constituted in an infinitude of distinct relations, yet all radically one, as proceeding from one principle and tending to one end. Here is an analogy indicating that unity and multiplicity imply and presuppose one the other.
These two arguments combine when we consider the law of generation and the principle of multiplicity as constituting human society and building up the human race. Society, love, mutual communion, reciprocal relations, kind offices, diversity in equality, constitute the happiness and well being of man; they are an image and a participation of the divine beatitude. All the good of the creature, all the perfections of derived, contingent existences, have an eminent transcendental type in God. Love, friendship, society, represent something in the divine nature. If there were no personal relations in God, but a mere solitude of being existing in a unity and singularity exclusive of all plurality and society, it would seem that, supposing creation possible, the rational creature would copy his archetype, be single of his kind, and find his happiness in absolute solitude. It is otherwise, however, with the human race. The human individual is not single and solitary. Human nature is one in respect of origin and kind, derived from one principle which is communicated by generation and exists in plurality of persons. Society is necessary to the perpetuation, perfection, and happiness of the human race. This society is constituted primarily in a three-fold relation between the father, the mother, and [{763}] the child, which makes the family; and the family repeated and multiplied makes the tribe, the nation, and the race. Taking now the hypothesis of three persons in one nature as constituting the Godhead, it is plain that we have a clearer idea of that in God which is represented and imitated in human society, and which is the archetype of the life, the happiness, the love, existing in the communion of distinct persons in one common nature, than we can have in the hypothesis of an absolute singularity of person in the deity. That good which man enjoys by fellowship with his equal and his like, is a participation in the supreme good that is in God. In that supreme good, this participated good must exist in an eminent manner. God must have in himself infinite, all-sufficing society, fellowship, love. He must have it in his necessary and eternal being, for he cannot be dependent on that which is contingent and created. Supposing therefore that it is consistent with the unity of his nature to exist in three distinct and equal persons, not only is the analogy of his creation to himself more manifest, but the conception we can form of the perfection of his being is more complete and intelligible.
There is another analogy in the intellectual operation of the human mind. The intellective faculty generates what may be called the interior word, or image of the mind, the archetype of that which is outwardly expressed in a philosophical theory, a poem, a picture, a statue, or a work of architecture. Through this word, the great creative mind lives and attains to the completion and happiness of intellectual existence. It loves it as proceeding from and identical with itself. Through it, it acts upon other minds, controls and influences their thought and life; and thus the spirit proceeding from the creative mind, through its generated word, is the completion of its inward and outward operation. Thus, argue the theologians, the Father contemplating the infinitude of his divine essence generates by an infinite thought, the Word, or Son. Being infinite and uncreated, his necessary act is infinite and uncreated, in all respects equal to himself, and therefore the Word is equal to the Father; possesses the plenitude of the divine essence, intelligence and personality. The divine act of generation is not a purely intellectual cognition, but a contemplation in which love is joined with knowledge. The Father beholds the Son, and the Son looks back upon the Father, with infinite love, which is the spiration of the divine life. This spiration or spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is the consummating, completing term of their unity, and contains the divine being which is in the Father and the Son in all its plenitude; constituting a third person, equal to the first and second. The operation of a limited, finite, created soul presents only a faint, imperfect analogy of the Trinity, because it is itself limited, as being the operation of a soul participating in being only to a limited extent. Individual existences possess each one a limited portion of being. But in God, it is not so. There is no division in his nature, because the eternal, self-existing cause and principle of its unity is a simultaneous cause of its absolute plenitude by which it exhausts all possible being. This plenitude of being is in the eternal generation of the second person, and the eternal spiration of the third person in the Godhead, on account of the necessary perfection of the most pure act in which the being of God consists; wherefore personality is predicable, as one of the perfections of being, of each of the three terms of relation in God. The word of human reason and its spirit, are not equal to itself, or personal, because of the limited and imperfect nature of human reason, and its operations. The Word or Son of the Eternal Father, and the Holy Spirit, are equal to him and personal, because the Father is God, and his act is infinite.