SUMMA THEOLOGICA
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free-will, and it is finally acted upon by the free-will bringing it into external reality for one’s self, usually first by the word, “Let’s go to …” (This is the very nature of advertisements). And because the human person’s intellectual ‘concept’ is usually first made external by the spoken word; it is called the ‘word of the heart (will)’, signified by the word of the voice.
What we are seeing is that, as God is above all things, we should therefore understand what is said of God, not according to the mode of the lowest earthly creatures, namely external motions of physical bodies, but from a likeness of the highest creatures, the intellectual substances; while even the likeness’s derived from these falls short in the understanding of the Divine Reality Who is God. Thus, in the example, God The Father is ‘The Thinker’, God The Son is ‘The Thought’ or Concept, and God The Holy Spirit is ‘The Love’ that The Father has for The Son-Concept, AND is also -- at one and the same time -- The Love that God The Son has for God The Father. We can understand then that God The Father’s intellectual ‘concept’ remains internal, however, it is named after the corporeal spoken word that man understands; hence it is called “The Word”. In this way we understand St. John’s Gospel [Jn 1:1–4,14] introduction of God The Father from all eternity, with The Son, The Word of God… In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and this life was the light of men. . . . And The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Son from The Father. Of course, unlike us, God The Father never began in time, He never ‘started’ to begin to think of The Son Who never began in time either; rather, The Son was present from all eternity with The Father, bringing forth (spirating/spiration) the Love that is God The Holy Spirit. Hence The Son is said to be “Eternally Begotten” of The Father, for it never was that He was not. Conclusion Motion within the Godhead is not, therefore, to be understood from what it is in material bodies, either according to local movement or by way of a cause proceeding forth to its exterior effect, as, for instance, like heat from the agent to the thing coming to be made hot. Rather it is to be understood by way of an interior intelligible emanation, for example, of the intelligible word which proceeds from the speaker, yet remains within him. In this sense the Catholic Faith understands procession (motion) as existing within The Godhead. The Nicene Creed was formulated in the year 325 by the assembly of all the Christian (Catholic) Bishops of the world. They made the Creed the standard of what we as Christians are to believe, and we, as Catholics, have held to that same Creed since that time. I believe in One God, The Father, the Almighty. . . I believe in One Lord, Jesus Christ, The Only Son of God, Eternally Begotten of The Father . . . I believe in The Holy Spirit, The Lord, the giver of life, Who proceeds from The Father and The Son. With The Father and The Son He is worshipped and glorified. . . . |