Tag: the Trinity

#10 Creation and Act

by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

The creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity and belongs to the essence of God. 

God is the Father of the Son from eternity; while He is the Father of the creature in time.

Reference: Summa Theologica Volume 1: Treatise on the creation: The mode of emanation of things from the first principle: Whether to create is proper to any person?

To the Father is appropriated power which is chiefly shown in creation, and therefore it is attributed to Him to be the Creator.  To the Son is appropriated wisdom, through which the intellectual agent acts; and therefore it is said “Through Whom all things were made.” And to the Holy Ghost is appropriated goodness, to which belong both government bringing things to their proper end, and the giving of life – for life consists in a certain interior movement. 

“God is the cause of things by His intellect and will, just as the craftsman is cause of the things made by his craft.  Now the craftsman works through the word conceived in his mind, and through the love of his will regarding some object.  Hence also God the Father made the creature through His Word, which is His Son; and through His Love, which is the Holy Ghost.”  [Page 510]

To create belongs to God according to His being, that is His essence and this is common to the three persons.  Hence to create is proper to the whole Trinity, and not only to one of the Persons.

Reference: Summa Theologica Volume 1: Treatise on the Most Holy Trinity: Of the person of the Son:

Word implies relation to creatures.  For God by knowing Himself, knows every creature.

The knowledge of God is cognitive and operative of creatures  “He spake, and they were made.”  Because in the Word is implied the operative idea of what God makes.

#9 The Trinity

by clarevmerry, posted in Theology
Who is God?

This is the most fundamental question for any believer who feels God’s presence but does not comprehend the Being who is felt, the One who calls.

The vision of Thomas Aquinas is truly sublime.  It is he who consolidated the Christian concept of God as Trinity.

This post is longer as it contains the most important part of this article.

This is what Thomas Aquinas writes in Summa Theologica Volume 1: Treatise on the Most Holy Trinity (I will not quote page numbers too much as they will be different in different editions).

God is one essence and three persons.  The divine persons are distinguished as each subsists distinctly from the others in the divine nature.  There is only one essence though and one Godhead.

God the Father is existence itself, the principle without principle.  The Father is the principle of the whole deity.  It is the property of the Father to beget the Son.  God is the Father of the Son from eternity.

Jesus, the Son is begotten of God the Father receiving the whole Godhead from God.

Jesus is the principle from a principle.  He is wisdom.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

The Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus.

The Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son.  He is not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.  There is unity between Father and Son by the Holy Spirit.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have the essence of God which is existence; which is perfection; which is the goal of all things.

Power belongs to the Father who is the principle of the whole Godhead.  Wisdom belongs to the Son as the Word.  Goodness whose object is love has the likeness of the Holy Spirit.

The Father and Son are in everything one and are one principle of the Holy Spirit.  The Father in begetting the Son communicated His whole nature to Him.  “The Son was not begotten from nothing, but from the Father’s substance.” 

Creatures were originally created from nothing.  The principle of each ‘genus’ or type of creature made came from the over-arching principle of God.  It’s form was originally established by God it’s maker.

Humans are different from all other creatures in that God, the Holy Spirit may be given to us through grace and reside in our souls.  We can begin to know the One who made us.