This prepares the way for a different method of presenting the argument from analogy, based on the conception of God as actus purissimus, or most pure act. This is clearly and succinctly stated by Dr. Brownson as follows:
"The one, or naked and empty unity, even in the Unitarian mind is not the equivalent of God. When he says one, he still asks, one what? The answer is, one God, which implies even with him something more than unity. It implies unity and its real and necessary contents as living or actual being. Unity is an abstract conception formed by the mind operating on the intuition of the concrete, and as abstract, has no existence out of the mind conceiving. Like all abstractions, it is in itself dead, unreal, null. God is not an abstraction, not a mere generalization, a creature, or a theorem of the human mind, but one living and true God, existing from and in himself, ad se et se. He is real being, being in its plenitude, eternal, independent, self-living, and complete in himself. To live is to act. To be eternally and infinitely living is to be eternally and infinitely acting, is to be all act; and hence philosophers and theologians term God, in scholastic language, most pure act, actus purissimus. But act, all act demands, as its essential conditions, principle, medium, and end. Unity, then, to be actual being, to be eternally and purely act in itself, must have in itself the three relations of principle, medium, and end, precisely the three relations termed in Christian theology Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--the Father as principle, the Son as medium, and the Holy Ghost as end or consummation of the divine life. These three interior relations are essential to the conception of unity as one living and true God. Hence the radical conception of God as triune is essential to the conception of God as one God, or real, self-living, self-sufficing unity. There is nothing in this view of the Trinity that asserts that one is three, or that three are one; nor is there anything that breaks the divine unity, for the triplicity asserted is not three Gods, or three divine beings, but a threefold interior relation in the interior essence of the one God, by virtue of which he is one actual, living God. The relations are in the essence of the one God, and are so to speak the living contents of his unity, without which he would be an empty, unreal abstraction; one--nothing." [Footnote 184]
[Footnote 184: Brownson's Review, July, 1863, pp. 266, 267.]
There is still another way of stating the argument, founded on the necessary relation between subject and object. In the rational order, subject is that which apprehends and object that which is apprehended. Intelligence is subject and the intelligible is object. The mere power or capacity of intelligence, if it is conceived of in an abstract manner as existing alone without relation to its object, must be conceived of as not in actual exercise. Intelligence in act implies something intelligible which terminates the act of intelligence. Even supposing that the object of the intelligence is identical with the subject, that is, that the rational mind contemplates itself as a really existing substance, nevertheless there is a distinction between the mind considered as the subject which contemplates, and the mind considered as the object which is contemplated. The reason contemplated must be projected before itself and regarded as an object distinct from the contemplating reason in the act of contemplation. The eye which sees objects external to itself, does not actually see or bring its visual power into act until an object is presented before it; and the individual does not become conscious that he can see or is possessed of a visual faculty, except in the act of seeing an object. The eye cannot see itself immediately by the mere fact that it is a visual organ, but only sees itself as reflected in a mirror and made objective to itself. God is the absolute intelligence and the absolute intelligible, as has been proved in a previous chapter. He contemplates and comprehends himself, and in this consists his active being and life. Thus in the divine being there is the distinction of subject and object. God considered as infinite intelligence is subject, and considered as the infinite intelligible is his own adequate object. The hypothesis of the Trinity presents to us God as subject for intelligence in the person of the Father, as object, or the intelligible, in the person of the Son. The Son is the image of the Father, as the reflection of a man's form in the mirror is the image of himself. The eternal generation of the Son is the [{765}] eternal act of the Father contemplating his own being, and is terminated upon the person of the Son as its object. As this act is within the divine being, the image of the Father is not a merely phenomenal, apparent, unsubstantial reflection of his being, but real, living, and substantial. The Son is consubstantial with the Father. The being of God is in the act of intelligence or contemplation, whether we consider God as the subject or the object in this infinite act, that is, as intelligent and contemplating, or as intelligible and contemplated. The consummating principle of love, complacency, or beatitude, which completes this act, vivifies it, and unites the person of the Father with the person of the Son in one indivisible being, is the Holy Spirit, equal to the Father and the Son, and identical in being, because a necessary term of the most pure act in which the divine life and being consists. All that is within the circle of the necessary, essential being of God, as most pure, intelligent, living act, is uncaused, self-existent, infinite, eternal. By the hypothesis, we must conceive of God as subsisting in the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in order to conceive of him as ens in actu, or in the state of actual, living, concrete being, and not as a mere abstraction or possibility existing in thought only; as infinite intelligence, and the adequate object of his own intelligence, self sufficing and infinitely blessed in himself. Therefore the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. It is only by this triplicity of personal relations that the unity of God as a living, concrete unity, or the unity of one, absolute, perfect, infinite being, containing in himself the actual plenitude of all that is conceivable or possible, can subsist or be vividly apprehended. Therefore there cannot be, by the hypothesis, a separate and distinct Godhead in each of the three persons, since triplicity of person enters into the very essential idea of Godhead. The hypothesis of the Trinity, therefore, absolutely compels the mind to believe in the unity of God, and shuts out all possibility that there should be more Gods than one, because it shuts out all possibility of imagining any mode or form of necessary being which is not included in the three personal relations of the one God. Unity and plurality, singularity and society, capacity of knowing, loving, and enjoying the true, the beautiful, and the good, and the adequate object of this capacity, or the true, beautiful, and good in se, the subject and the object of intelligent and spiritual life and activity, intelligence and the intelligible, love and the loved, blessedness and beatitude, subsist in him in actual being, which is infinite and exhausts in its most pure act all that is in the uncreated, necessary, self-existent principle of being and first cause. The adequate reason and type of all contingent and created existences is demonstrated also to be in the three personal relations of the one divine essence, in such a way, that the hypothesis of the Trinity, as a theorem, satisfactorily takes up, accounts for, and explains all discoverable truths as well in regard to the universe as in regard to God.
This last statement indicates the answer which we think is the most correct one to the question proposed in the beginning of this chapter, as to the full logical force of the rational argument for the Trinity. That is, we regard it as a hypothesis which in the first place is completely insusceptible of rational refutation. In the second place, contains certain truths which are established by very strong probable arguments and analogies. In the third place, suggests a conception of God which harmonizes with all the truth we know, or can see to be probable, and at the same time is more perfect and sublime than any which can be made, excluding the hypothesis. We do not claim for it the character of a strict demonstration. To certain minds it seems to approach [{766}] very near a demonstration, probably because their intellectual power of vision is unusually acute. To others it appears nearly or quite unintelligible. Probably but few persons comparatively can grasp it in such a way as to attain a true intellectual insight into the relation between the doctrine of the Trinity and philosophy. Yet all those who have thought much on the doctrine, and who find their great difficulty in believing it to consist in a want of apparent connection with other truths, ought to be able to appreciate the philosophical argument by which the connection is shown. They must have an aptitude for apprehending arguments of this nature, otherwise they would not think on the subject so intently. All they can justly expect is that the impediment in their minds against believing that the doctrine is credible, or not incredible, supposing it revealed, should be removed. This is done by the arguments of Catholic theologians. If the doctrine be revealed, it is credible; that is, an intelligent person can in perfect consistency with the dictates of reason assent to the proposition that God has revealed it, and that it is therefore credible on his veracity. The ground of the positive and unwavering assent of the mind is in the veracity of God, and remains there, no matter how far the reasoning process may be carried; for without the revelation of God, the conception of the Trinity, supposing it once obtained, would for ever remain a mere hypothesis, though the most probable of all which could be conceived.
As already explained, it is only by a supernatural grace that the mind is elevated to a state in which it clearly and habitually contemplates the object of faith as revealed by God. By divine faith, the intellect believes without doubting the mystery of the three persons in one divine nature, and incorporates this belief into its life, as a vivifying truth and not a dead, inert, abstract speculation or theorem. When it is thus believed, and taken as a certain truth, the intellect, if it is capable of apprehending the argument from analogy, may be able to see that the Trinity is really that truth which is the archetype that has been copied in creation, and is indicated in the analogies already pointed out. It may see that one cannot think logically unless he is first instructed in the doctrine of the Trinity and proceeds from it as a given truth or datum of reasoning. Thus, he may by the light of faith attain an elevated kind of science, or eminent act of reason, which really rests on indubitable principles. Yet it will not be properly science or knowledge of the revealed mysteries, since one of these indubitable principles on which all the consequences depend, is revelation itself, which really constitutes the mind in a certitude of that which on merely rational principles remains always inevident. Probably this is what is meant by those who maintain that the Trinity can be rationally demonstrated. Given, that the Trinity is a revealed truth, it explains and harmonizes in the sphere of reason what is otherwise inexplicable. It is the same with other revealed truths, and to prove that it is so is the principal object of this essay. Presented in this light, the Catholic dogma of the Trinity vindicates its claim to be a necessary part of religious belief; an essential dogma of Christianity, revealed and made obligatory for an intelligible reason, and essential to the formation of a complete and adequate theology and philosophy. It is no longer regarded as a naked, speculative, isolated proposition; to which a merely intellectual assent is required by a precept of authority, and which has no living relation to other truths or to the practical, spiritual life of the soul. It is shown to be a universal and fundamental truth, the basis of all truth and of the entire real and logical order of the universe.
This can be shown much more easily, and to the majority of minds more intelligibly, in relation to the other truths of Christianity, than to those truths which are more recondite and metaphysical. It is necessary to an adequate explication of the creation, of the destiny of rational existences, of the supernatural order, of the character and mission of Christ, of the regeneration of man through him, and of his final end or supreme and eternal beatitude and glorification in the future life, as will be shown hereafter. Deprived of this dogma, Christianity is baseless, unmeaning, and worthless; and is infallibly disintegrated and reduced to nihilism, by the necessary laws of thought. This is true also of theism, or natural theology. And this suggests a powerful subsidiary argument in a different line of reasoning, proving that the doctrine of the Trinity is necessary to the perfection and perpetuity of the doctrine of the unity of God.
The same universal tradition which has handed down the pure, theistic conception, and has instructed mankind in the true, adequate knowledge of God, has handed down the Trinity, and traces of it are even found in heathen theosophy and the more profound heathen philosophy. Wherever the doctrine of the Trinity has been preserved, there the clear conception of the one God and his attributes has been preserved. And where this doctrine has been corrupted or lost, the conception of God as one living being of infinite perfection, the first and final cause of all things, has passed away into polytheism or pantheism or scepticism. Wherever God is apprehended as the supreme creator and sovereign, the supreme object of worship, obedience, and love, in intimate personal relations to man, he is apprehended in the personal relations which subsist in himself, that is, in the Trinity. His interior personal relations are the foundation of all external personal relations to his creatures. This is even true of Unitarians, so long as they retain the Christian ethical and spiritual temper which connects them with the Christian world of thought and life, and do not slide into some form of infidelity. They retain some imperfect conception of the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and in proportion as they become more positive in religion, they revive and renew this conception. The effort to make a system of living, practical theistic religion is feeble and futile, and what little consistency and force it has is derived from the conception of the fatherhood of God borrowed from Christian theology; but imperfect without the two additional terms which constitute the complete conception of the Trinity. All this is a powerful argument for a Theist or a Unitarian in favor of the divine origin and authority of the Catholic dogma. The instruction which completes the inward affirmation of God in the idea of reason, and is the complement of the creative act constituting the soul rational, must be from the Creator. He alone can complete his own work. It is contrary to all rational conceptions of the wisdom of God to suppose that he has permitted that the same instruction which teaches mankind to know, to worship, to love, and to aspire after himself, should hand down in inseparable connection with the eternal truth of the unity of his essence, the doctrine of the threefold personal relations within this unity, if this were an error diametrically its opposite, and not a truth equally necessary and eternal.