Philosophy and Religion: Six Lectures Delivered at CambridgeRashdall, Hastings
Religion
Philosophy and Religion: Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge
Rashdall, Hastings
Christianity; Philosophy and religion
[2] In his Essay in _Lux Mundi_ (1889). He has since developed his
view in his Bampton Lectures on _The Incarnation of the Son of God_ and
a volume of _Dissertations on Subjects connected with the Incarnation_.
[3] I venture thus to translate 'Principium' (_arche_); in Abelard and
his disciple Peter the Lombard, the famous Master of the Sentences, the
word is 'Potentia' (L. I. Dist. xxxiv.): and St. Thomas himself (P. I.
Q. xli. Art. 4) explains 'Principium' by 'Potentia generandi Filium.'
[4] Thus in _Summa Theologica_, Pars I. Q. xxxvii. Art. 1, the
'conclusio' is 'Amor, personaliter acceptus, proprium nomen est
Spiritus sancti,' which is explained to mean that there are in the
Godhead 'duse processiones: Una per modum intellectus, quae est
processio Verbi; alia per modum voluntatis, quae est processio amoris.'
So again (_ibid._ Q. xlv. Art. 7): 'In creaturis igitur rationalibus,
in quibus est intellectus et voluntas, invenitur repraesentatio
Trinitatis per modum imaginis, inquantum invenitur in eis Verbum
conceptum, et amor procedens.' In a friendly review of my Essay in
_Contentio Veritatis_, in which I endeavoured to expound in a modern
form this doctrine, Dr. Sanday (_Journal of Theological Studies_, vol.
iv., 1903) wrote: 'One of the passages that seem to me most open to
criticism is that on the doctrine of the Trinity (p. 48). "Power,
Wisdom, and Will" surely cannot be a sound trichotomy as applied either
to human nature or Divine. Surely Power is an expression of Will and
not co-ordinate with it. The common division, Power (or Will), Wisdom,
and Love is more to the point. Yet Dr. Rashdall identifies the two
triads by what I must needs think a looseness of reasoning.' The
Margaret Professor of Divinity hardly seems to recognize that he is
criticizing the Angelical Doctor and not myself. If Dr. Sanday had had
the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the result, if less
metaphysically subtle, might no doubt have proved more easily
intelligible to the modern mind; but the 'identification' of which he
complains happens to be part of the traditional doctrine, and I was
endeavouring merely to make the best of it for modern Christians. I
add St. Thomas' justification of it, which is substantially what I gave
in _Contentio Veritatis_ and have repeated above: 'Cum processiones
divinas secundum aliquas actiones necesse est accipere, secundum
bonitatem, et hujusmodi alia attributa, non accipiuntur aliae
processiones, nisi Verbi et amoris, secundum quod Deus suam essentiam,
veritatem et bonitatem intelligit et amat' (Q. xxvii. Art. 5). The
source of the doctrine is to be found in St. Augustine, who habitually
speaks of the Holy Spirit as Amor; but, when he refers to the 'Imago
Trinitatia' in man the Spirit is represented sometimes by 'Amor,'
sometimes by 'Voluntas' (_de Trin._, L. xiv. cap 7). The other two
members of the human triad are with him 'Memoria' (or 'Mens') and
'Intelligentia.'
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