Chapter III. Love of God and the Indwelling of the Blessed Trinity
Those who would know what it means to love God should seek to learn it from the Christian doctrine expressed in St. John's words: "God is charity; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God in him." 1 Reflection on how and why charity makes the soul a living temple of the Trinity gives some appreciation of the grandeur of the love of God in souls possessing His grace, for the special presence of God within us is the foundation of our interior life. With it our interior life begins, generally without any consciousness of it on our part; and with it our interior life comes to full flower when, freed from all stain by mortification and the cross, the soul consciously and truly enters into its heart of hearts and finds the Blessed Trinity at home there. 2
Faith first teaches us that God is present in all His creatures by the general presence of immensity. Knowing this, the Psalmist exclaimed: "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit?
- St. Teresa, Interior Castle, Seventh Mansion.1
or whither shall I flee from Thy face ? If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I descend into hell, Thou art present." 8 Realization of the same truth prompted St. Paul's preaching in the Areopagus: "God, who made the world and all things therein, He being Lord of heaven and earth ... is not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and are." 4
St. Thomas 5 gives an excellent explanation of this general presence of God by saying that God is present to all things: first, by His infinite vision from which nothing is hidden, even the secrets of men's hearts; secondly, by His power, the causality of which extends to all that exists in such a way that we cannot act even in the natural order without His concurrence; thirdly, by His essence, which is one with His creative and conserving power and maintains all spiritual and material creation in existence. He is in deep, hidden, and immediate contact with all beings, with what is innermost in each; and if His divine conserving action, the continuation of His creative act, were to cease, all creatures would be at once annihilated, returning to the nothingness from which they came, as light fails when the sun goes down.
Faith teaches us that God is wholly and really present in all created things — plants, men, angels, and devils. He is present to all as a cause is in the effect it produces and conserves, since the being of every creature is the proper effect of God, as illumination is the proper effect of light. God is whole and entire in heaven and whole and entire in the world in such a way that He embraces all things and is not limited by any. He is the burning hearth from which the life
of creation flames up, the center of gravity drawing all things to Himself, as the liturgy proclaims.
Rerum Deus tenax vigor,
Immotus in te permanens.
God's special presence as revealed in Scripture
Holy Scripture speaks to us of something beyond God's universal presence in all diings; it tells us of His special presence in the just, warning us, in the Book of Wisdom, that "wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins." 6 Lest we think only created grace or the created gift of wisdom comes to dwell in the just, our Lord's own words show us that the three divine Persons themselves come to dwell in us. "If anyone love Me," He says, "he will keep My word. And My Father will love him; and Wc will come to him and will make Our abode with him." 7 Every word of this statement is worth noting. "We will come." Who or what? Created effects? Supernatural gifts? No. Those who love and those who come are the same, the divine Persons, Father, Son, and inseparable Spirit promised to us by our Lord and sent visibly to His Church on Pentecost. "We will come," not merely for a little while but to make Our abode with him who receives Us and keeps Us through grace.
The apostles were aware of this marvel and mystery. St. John tells us: "God is charity; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God in him." 8 He who loves God, bears God; him whom God loves, God bears, upholding him in natural and supernatural life.
Wherefore St. Paul warningly asks us: "Know you not that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 9 "Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God ; that you are not your own ? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body." 10 And, together with our Lord and St. John, he tells us that with charity we receive the Giver of charity Himself: "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us." 11
St. Ignatius of Antioch, too, taught that all true Christians bear God within them and calls them theophoroi (Godbearers). So well known was this doctrine in the primitive Church that the martyrs proclaimed it openly before their judges. We hear St. Lucy answer her judge Paschasius with the claim, "Those who are bearers of the Holy Ghost cannot lack for words." And to this inquiring taunt, "So the Holy Ghost is in you ?" she calmly maintains, "Yes. All who lead a chaste and holy life are temples of the Holy Ghost," expressing a doctrine the Church herself has many times proclaimed. 12
The words of St. John's Gospel already quoted make it clear that the three Persons of die Blessed Trinity truly come to dwell in us, for Christ says "We," 13 having already alluded to Himself and the Father. Therefore, if this special presence is attributed to the Holy Ghost, it is only because He has His
13 Petavius' opinion that the divine indwelling is a presence proper to the Holy Ghost plainly contradicts this text. Cf. Frogct, The Indwelling oj the Holy Spirit in the Souls of the lust, tr. Racmers (New York: Paulist Press, 1921), pp. 29, 104-13.
special mission as the One sent by the other two Persons from whom He proceeds and because charity likens us to the Holy Ghost just as the intellectual gifts liken us to the Word — although only in heaven will He make us perfect likenesses of Himself, assimilating us to the Father, whose splendor He is. 14
Theological views on God's special presence
For those seeking a theological explanation of the special presence of the Blessed Trinity in the just, Father Gardeil's work, La structure de I'cLme et I'experience mystique, gives a new and profound study of the subject, based on St. Thomas' explanation of the mystery, and abounding with excellent, original, and suggestive thoughts.
Using the same method as John of St. Thomas, Father Gardeil 15 gives an account of three theological opinions on the special presence of the Blessed Trinity in the just, presenting the views of Vasquez, then of Suarez and others who share his way of thinking, and, lastly, what he considers the real thought of St. Thomas.
Commenting on the passage in the Summa theologica 18 where St. Thomas defines the special mode whereby God dwells in rational creatures by grace as being "as the known in the knower and the object of desire in him who desires," Vasquez makes this statement at the start:
About the mode of presence no actual controversy is found among doctors of the Church; it is of such a nature as to be insufficient to render God present to things by His essence if He were not already present to them by His immensity. As a matter
14 Cf. Leo XIII, Encycl. Divinum Mud munus. 18 Op. cit., II, 12 fi. " la, q.8, a.3.
of fact, this mode of presence unites man to God only by knowledge and affection, according as these are actual or habitual. . . . The true explanation is that God, being already in us on another account, deigns to make Himself evident by another effect, grace. And, as the gift of grace is attributed to the Holy Ghost, it is said that He Himself is given and sent to us and that with Him comes the whole and entire Trinity. . . . These gifts of grace unite us by affection to God as our rule or measure, whence the name of "just"; they unite us to God as our friend, whence the name of "beloved" and, ultimately, of "saints," the unspotted. All these effects, since they are related to affection, can evidently exist between beings substantially at a distance from one another. 17
In odier words, Vasquez reduces any real presence of God in us to the presence of immensity whereby He maintains all things in existence. This amounts to saying that God is not really present in the just as an object known and loved but only as absent loved ones are represented in minds and hearts diat hold them dear. Vasquez' conception seems to rob the Gospel and Pauline texts relative to the indwelling Trinity of much of their wealth. St. Paul does not say that only charity is given to us at the moment of justification, but that "die charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us." 1S He does not assert merely that the Holy Ghost is known and loved by us but that He dwells in us. 19 Indeed, were the three divine Persons present to the just only in the same mode in which they are said to be in all things, the general presence of immensity, how could our Lord say:
17 Cf. Vasquez, Comm. in lam P. D. Thomae, q.8, disp. 30, c.3. Vasquez held that the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in the souls of the just implied no real presence distinct from the general presence of immensity, but simply an extension of it.
"If anyone love Me, he will keep My word. And My Father will love him; and We will come to him and will make Our abode with him" ? 20 These words plainly mean, "We will really come to him." And the words "I will ask the Father: and He shall give you another Paraclete," 21 promise a real sending, a real coming.
To avoid subtracting anything from the obvious meaning of such scriptural texts, we apparently must accept St. Thomas' explanation of the special presence of the Blessed Trinity in the just: in those who possess grace the three divine Persons are present as an object known in the knower, as an object loved in the lover; no distance divides Them from Their host who really possesses Them and enjoys a quasi-experience of Their presence. St. Thomas was not afraid to label as error the opinion that we receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost but not die Giver Himself. 22 If Vasquez' theory were true, it would be difficult to see why God does not dwell in those belonging to His Church who are in mortal sin, for, after all, they have God present in them through His immensity, they know him supernaturally by an act of infused faith, they hope in Him, and even, if may be, love Him, diough with a wholly inefficacious love. God is really present to all sinners as their conserving cause; as the object of their faith He is present to none, for they know Him only as one far from them and possess no quasi-experience of His nearness. That the just possess God in a deeper and fuller way than this, the Scriptures attest.
22 Cf. Ia, q.43, a. 3, ad ium, and Froget, op. ctt., pp. 60 S. "No other perfection except grace, added to substance, renders God present in anything as the object known and loved; therefore only grace constitutes a special mode of God's existence in things." Ia, q.8, a. 3, ad 411m.2
Contrary to Vasquez, Suarez holds that, when sanctifying grace and charity are conferred on us, the person of the Holy Ghost is really given to us and comes to us together with the entire Trinity in such a way that, if God were not already present in all things by the presence of His immensity because of His universal operation and as to His substance, He would become really and substantially present in us by reason of the grace and charity uniting us to Him. "By charity," says Suarez, "God and man contract a perfect friendship. Now friendship demands union between friends, not mere oneness through affection but inseparable companionship so far as that is possible. The perfect spiritual friendship between God and man demands by divine right the intimate presence of God in the sanctified soul." 23
As Father Gardeil remarks, the big difficulty with this second opinion comes from the fact that in this life the supernatural love of charity formally constitutes not a real but an affective union between God and us. After all, separated friends are bound together with ties of affection, yet distance lies between them just the same; for friendship as such makes us desire the real presence of the one we love, but it cannot bring him to us.
Many facts confirm this truth. A deep supernatural love for our Savior's sacred humanity fails to make it substantially present to us. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin does not succeed in effecting her real presence within the compass of our hearts. St. Thomas justly says: "The union of lover and beloved is twofold. The first is real union; for instance, when the beloved is present with the lover. The second is union of
23 Suarez, De Trinitalc, Bk. XII, "De missione divinarum personarum," chap. 5, nos. io, 12, 13.
affection: and this union must be considered in relation to the preceding apprehension. . . . The first of these unions is caused effectively by love; because love moves man to desire and seek the presence of the beloved, as of one who fittingly belongs to the lover. The second union is caused formally by love ; because love itself is this union or bond." 24
The same reason is the basis for St. Thomas' teaching that perfect beatitude, or possession of God, consists not in love essentially but in the beatific vision, love preceding possession in the form of desire and following upon it in the form of joy. 25
It follows, as John of St. Thomas says, that the union of love is merely affective, not real. Granted that perfect love ardently desires and seeks the presence of the beloved and that, therefore, a tendency toward real and effective presence arises out of affective union, nevertheless this real presence does not flow from love itself acting as a formal cause nor does love serve as a disposing medium for effecting the real presence of die beloved, as the light of glory unites the intellect of men to the divine essence. 28 Suarez and the theologians who follow him 27 have never really answered this objection. Father Gardeil makes this fact quite plain in his satisfying completion, and slight correction, of Father Froget's excellent work.
St. Thomas' view
The extreme opinions of Vasquez and Suarez evidently fail to convey to us an exact idea of the mystery of the Blessed
28 John of St. Thomas, In lam. q.43, a. 3, disp. xvii, a. 3, no. 9. 27 Frogct, op. cil., pp. 69 ff.34
Trinity's real and special presence in the just. From his place among die best Dominican Thomists, John of St. Thomas, whom Father Gardeil follows step by step in this matter, proposes a third solution, which he offers as St. Thomas' own thought.
"This union and special presence of God in the [just] soul," he says, "is in addition to the presence of immensity, is distinct from it but necessarily presupposes it." By these last words he puts himself in opposition to Suarez, but for all that, he by no means adopts Vasquez' opinion because he immediately adds: "By sanctifying grace, God becomes present in a new way, so that die soul can know Him experimentally and delight in His presence." 28
The baptized who are in mortal sin have no such possession of God ; although He continues in them as the first conserving cause of their being, they know Him only as someone absent from them. The just know Him as the object of quasiexperimental knowledge really and especially present in them.
Vasquez says that the special presence of the Blessed Trinity in the just is not of itself real but only ideal and affective. Suarez says that of itself it is so real that it is separable from the general presence of immensity. John of St. Thomas, claiming to follow his master with complete faithfulness, teaches that it is distinct from the general presence of immensity but not separable from it, just as in all creatures essence and existence are really distinct aldiough inseparable. 29
From the start, St. Thomas noted diat other modes of presence — presence by grace, by glory, by hypostatic union — all presuppose the general presence of immensity. In fact, he says
28 John of St. Thomas, he. cit., nos. 8, 10. *» Gardeil, op. cit., Bk. U, p. 33, note 2.
in The Commentary on the Sentences: "These three modes [by power, presence, and essence, whereby God in His immensity is present to all things He conserves in being] originate not in the diversity of creatures but on the part of God Himself operating in things; and therefore in every creature they are demanded and presupposed by other modes of presence. So, in whomever God is present by union, He is present by grace, and in whomever God is present by grace, He is present by power, presence, and essence." 30
If a man would learn the meaning of God's indwelling in those who are making their pilgrimage toward heaven, he should contemplate it in those whom grace has brought to full development, die blessed; for grace is the seed of glory, and no one knows the acorn until he has seen the oak. God is substantially present in die glorified soul of the blessed by His immensity inasmuch as He preserves its natural and supernatural being; furthermore, He is there not merely by representation but also in reality, seen and possessed without intermediary in virtue of the light of glory. 31
If grace is die seed of glory, then at bottom the life of grace and the life of glory are essentially the same supernatural life, the means of apprehending God the author of grace in His intimate life and of loving Him above all things. However, these two states have their differences: in this life we do not see God, but believe in Him and, in the obscurity of faith, we can have a quasi-experimental knowledge of Him such as the Scriptures frequently describe, and sometimes, by a gift of His good pleasure, we may experience Him in us through the gift of wisdom. In heaven the possession of God
*<> Commentary on Bk- ' of Sentences, dist. 37, q.l, a. 2, ad 311m. 81 Cf. Gardcil, op. cit., II, 72.5
is absolutely certain and inamissible, whereas in this life the just cannot, without a special revelation, have absolute certainty of being temples of God and they can at any time lose the life of grace by mortal sin. Apart from these differences, the life of grace continues as the life of glory and remains, in essentials, the same supernatural life.
In the state of grace, therefore, God is substantially present in the just by His immensity inasmuch as He preserves its natural and supernatural being; furthermore, He is there by a special presence that is again real and not merely ideal, representative, and affective; He is there as an object really present and knowable in a quasi-experimental manner, an object possible for us to possess imperfectly and in some way to enjoy. So Thomas puts this truth into plain words, saying:
The divine Person is fittingly sent in the sense that He exists newly in anyone; and He is given as possessed by anyone; and neither of these is otherwise than by sanctifying grace.
For God is in all things by His essence, power, and presence, according to His one common mode, as the cause existing in the effects which participate in His goodness. Above and beyond this common mode, however, there is one special mode belonging to the rational nature wherein God is said to be present as the object known is in the knower, and the beloved in the lover. And since the rational creature by its own operation of knowledge and love attains to God Himself, according to this special mode, God is said not only to exist in the rational creature, but also to dwell therein as in His own temple. So no other effect can be put down as the reason why the divine Person is in the rational creature in a new mode, except sanctifying grace. Hence, the divine Person is sent, and proceeds temporally only according to sanctifying grace. 32
God dwells in no man without sanctifying grace and charity. Natural knowledge of Him, even the supernatural knowledge of infused faith united to hope, fails to make Him ours. We must know Him by living faith and the gifts of the Holy Ghost united to charity; then we shall hold Him not as a distant being apprehended by some mere representation but as a real person here and now with us, ours to possess and enjoy.
Vasquez missed seeing this beautiful truth, his nominalist tendency preventing him from grasping the divine reality hidden in the words of Holy Scripture and tradition. St. Thomas, however, has driven home the point very clearly in the rest of the article just transcribed: "Again, we are said to possess only what we can freely use or enjoy: but to have the power of enjoying the divine Person can only be according to sanctifying grace. Moreover, the Holy Ghost is possessed by man, and dwells within him, in the very gift itself of sanctifying grace. Hence the Holy Ghost is given and sent." 38 His Commentary on the Sentences 3 * also contains an important text stating that, for the Holy Ghost to be sent, for Him to take up His abode in man in an entirely new way, any kind of knowledge of God will not suffice but only a quasi-experimental knowledge proceeding from a gift of God that unites us to Him according to the proper mode of this divine Person, that is, by love. Joined to charity, this gift, called wisdom, judges divine things connaturally, with a loving understanding grounded on charity. 85
St. Thomas 38 gives an even more exact statement of his
INDWELLING OF THE TRINITY 149 thought in the same place in his Commentary on the Sentences, saying:
In the procession of the Spirit, as we are here discussing it, in the sense that it includes the giving of the Holy Spirit, it does not suffice that there be a new relation, of any kind whatsoever, of the creature to God; but there must be reference to Him as to something possessed; because what is given to anyone is possessed by him in some manner. A divine Person cannot be possessed by us except as a perfect delight, and in this way is had through the gift of glory; or as an imperfect delight, and in this way is had through the gift of gratia gratum jaciens or rather as that through which we are joined to the delectable in so far as the divine Persons, by a kind of impression of themselves, leave in our souls certain gifts which we formally enjoy, namely, love and wisdom; wherefore the Holy Spirit is called the pledge of our inheritance.
According to this passage the quasi-experimental knowledge of God spoken of in the preceding text, is rooted expressly in the gift of wisdom united to charity. St. Thomas preserves exactly the same doctrine in a shorter form in die Summa theologica: "Since the rational creature by its own operation of knowledge and love attains to God Himself, according to this special mode [through sanctifying grace] God is said not only to exist in the rational creature, but also to dwell therein as in His own temple. ... By the gift of sanctifying grace the rational creature is perfected so that it can freely use not only the created gift itself, but enjoy also the divine Person Himself." 37
For it to be said that the Blessed Trinity dwells in us, we must have the proximate power for knowing God by quasi-
I5 o THE LOVE OF GOD experimental knowledge. St. Thomas asserts this not only as a result of theological deduction but because of the express statement of Holy Scripture. We read in die Episde to the Romans: "For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. . . . You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father). For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God." 38 In his commentary on this epistle St. Thomas says that the Holy Spirit gives testimony to our spirit by the filial love He produces in us.
St. John has a like message: "And as for you, let the unction, which you have received from Him, abide in you. ... His unction teacheth you of all things, and is truth and is no lie." 39 His anointing, therefore, teaches experimentally by the effect of filial love produced in us, giving us both illumination for the intellect and inspiration for the will.
And our Lord Himself says to us: "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not nor knoweth Him. But you shall know Him; because He shall abide with you and shall be in you." 40 "But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you." 41 When the aposdes must preach truly, when the Church must define infallibly, when the faithful must endure bravely, then shall this Advocate of Christ bring to minds in need the teaching of their Master. "But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what to
• INDWELLING OF THE TRINITY 151 speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." 42
With the same thought in mind St. Paul writes: "But the sensual man perceivedi not these things that are of the Spirit of God. For it is foolishness to him: and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined. But the spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man." 43 As St. Thomas explains in his commentary on this epistle, the spiritual man judges with an enlightened intellect and an inspired will.
To make the idea of a quasi-experimental knowledge of God comprehensible to us, St. Thomas was fond of using the quotation from the Apocalypse that reads: "To him that overcometh I will give the hidden manna and will give him a white counter; and in the counter a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it." 44 So the just man, says St. Thomas, can have a certain knowledge of the existence of sanctifying grace within himself, "because whoever receives it knows by experiencing a certain sweetness, which he who does not receive it, does not experience." 45
St. John speaks of the same quasi-experimental knowledge when saying: "He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is charity." 46 Evidently there can be no question here of either philosophical knowledge of God or that knowledge of Him by faith possible to a baptized person in mortal sin. The whole doctrine of St. Thomas, founded immediately on Scripture, can be expressed in a synthesis written by John of
- 2 Matt, io: 19 f. "I Cor. 2: 14 f. ** Apoc. 2: 17. 46 la Ilae, q. 112, a. 5. "I John 4:8.
I52 THE LOVE OF GOD
St. Thomas 47 and incorporated by Father Gardeil 48 into his own work.
God in His immensity reaches out to all the effects of His power and, having given them being, continues to act as the root of all creatures, pouring being into them as the vine pours sap into its branches. To none is He an informing form, as man's soul to his body; to all, He is sufficient cause, the universal root and principle from which their being proceeds. Holy Scripture describes Him to us as "upholding all things by the word of His power," 49 . . . recalling to the mind of man, "thou bearest not the root; but the root thee." 50 For "He is before all; and by Him all things consist." 51 "He is not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and are." 62
God exists in all things as their hidden root, their principle of being, nearer their being's very core than their form to their matter or their substance to their accidents, entirely and intimately filling each with His presence by giving all that they are to all.
Despite the wonder of this presence, through it God is with us not as friend to friend but as the root of all creatures and the universal principle intimately united to His effects. How differently He manifests Himself through grace, showing Himself to us as an object of our created intellect, not as any other object we know but as uniquely and entirely penetrating it in a way possible only to the root of our being. His introduction of Himself, the holy familiarity and intercourse that follow, necessarily require a new presence of God in the soul altogether other than that which it shares with all creation. Through grace God offers Himself to the
00 Rom. 11: 18. "Col. 1: 17. 62 Acts 17: 27 £• soul as an object of knowledge and love, coming to it in a new and real (not merely an ideal and affective) way. Intimately ours as the cause and reason of our being, He is present in us in an entirely different manner from any other object of knowledge, making us know and love Him through experiencing His blessed familiarity, giving us the kind of knowledge of Him that an angel has of its own substance, which is manifest and united to his intellect as intimately and really present and experimentally known. 53
No Thomists reject this synthesis of John of St. Thomas. If, in studying the mystery of God's indwelling, some, like the Carmelites of Salamanca, seem inclined to follow Suarez' manner of speaking, apparently this is only because they failed to go deeply enough into the subject. They seem to have meant only that if, by an impossible assumption, God were not really present in the just man as the conserving cause of his natural being, He would become really present in him as the cause of grace and charity and as an object quasiexperimentally known and loved above all things. 54
We owe Father Gardeil our gratitude for having brought this fundamental point back to light. Since the publication of Father Froget's work no one else has written so profound a study of the mystery which serves as the basis for Christian spirituality. At the moment of justification, without any consciousness of our own, our spiritual life begins with God's indwelling; and in that inner sanctuary to which St. Teresa
68 Vallgornera, Theol. mystica D. Thomae (Turin cd., 1891), nos. 886-92, deserves credit for having recognized the worth of this quotation from John of St. Thomas which he reproduced word for word in his work published in 1662. It is not the only thing he has borrowed and for which he should have paid his debt of acknowledgment to the author.
64 This represents the view of the Carmelites of Salamanca especially. Cf. Salmanticenses, Cursus theol. in lam, q.43, a.3, disp. xix, dub. v, nos. 96, 99.
refers in her Seventh Mansion it reaches its culmination by and with the same divine presence. 566
First of all, as is evident, the just man's knowledge of the indwelling Godhead is not discursive, not inferred. St. Thomas gives abundant proof for this truth in a number of texts; for example, when showing that the gift of wisdom, from which experimental knowledge of God proceeds, judges not by reasoning but by a certain connaturality or conformity to divine things founded on charity and given to it by a special illumination of the Holy Ghost. 58
This quasi-experimental knowledge of God excludes reasoning, for it does not make use of the effect of filial love as an objective term from which to conclude to His presence. The just man can experience within himself the effect of filial love as making known to him the vivifying presence of God, the audior of salvation; somewhat as the soul, through its acts of intellect and will, knows its own existence experimentally
65 Father Galtier, S.J., challenges the interpretation of St. Thomas' view given by both John of St. Thomas and Gardeil, saying that their interpretation makes the quasi-experimental knowledge of God in the souls of the just actual whereas in most cases, especially in children, who have no such actual knowledge, it is only habitual. Properly to interpret St. Thomas' passage, la, q.43, a. 3, we have only to recognize what it implies and what John of St. Thomas and Gardeil both take for granted, that the three divine Persons are knowable as the object of quasiexperimental knowledge before they arc actually known, and that this very knowableness demands the special presence of which St. Thomas speaks. To put it in another way, in the words of Galtier himself: "The divine Persons already substantially present offer themselves [to the just] to be known and enjoyed." Cf. L'habitation en nous des Irois Personnel (Bcauchcsne, 1928), pp. 183 ff., 262.
and without reasoning, perceiving not thought in general but its own act of thinking and, by it, its substantial subject. In this way its act is at once that which is known by experience and that which makes known to the soul its own substance. 57 As much must be said of the effect of filial love in relation to the vivifying presence of God; for, by the special inspiration of the gift of wisdom, God makes Himself in some way felt as the radical principle of our whole life, more intimate to us than we are to ourselves.
To produce this quasi-experimental and non-discursive knowledge in us, the Holy Ghost, by His illumination and inspiration, uses a means prepared by charity, the soul's connaturality or conformity to divine things. In itself, a deep attachment to chastity makes us sound judges of what is in conformity with chastity, even if we are ignorant of moral theology; for, from the very fact of this attachment a relation of proportion exists between die subject so disposed and those things in harmony with the virtue, which appear to him as entirely fitting and in line with his own aspirations. 58 Likewise, as our love for God grows, so does our apprehension of His truth and supreme goodness, even when we have to see Him in those decrees of His will that remain obscure and disconcerting to us. The good hidden in this divine obscurity lies out of the reach of our understanding, but supernatural love makes us taste and see that it is good. By His special illumination, the Holy Ghost uses our interior disposition of love for the divine Persons, which He Himself has aroused,
6T Q.io, a.8; Summa, la, q.87, a.i; De veritate, q.14, a.8, ad 4um; Cajetan, in Ham Ilae, q.i, a. I, II.
6 8In his commentary on la Ilae, q-58, a. 5, no. 8, Cajetan gives a profound explanation of Aristotle's principle, "Such as a man is, such does the end seem to him" (Ethics, Bk. HI). Cf. also la Ilae, q.68, ait, 2, 3, 4 and Ha Ilae, q.68, de donis, disp. 18, a. 4, no. IX.
to make Their presence manifest to us. In the De veritate, 59 St. Thomas says that from affection for divine things arises a manifestation of them, and he interprets in this sense St. John's words: "He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father; and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him." 80 Surely St. Paul's words have the same meaning: "You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba (Father). For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God." 61 Mother and child have no need of reasoning to reveal their hearts to each other, but know each other deeply through their mutual love. The same is true of God and those who are born of God. 82
At this point it may be easy to grant that the just man's knowledge of God is evidently not discursive and yet wonder why St. Thomas calls it quasi experimentalis instead of proprie experimentalist There are two reasons why he adopts this terminology. First, in this life, we do not, properly speaking, experience God immediately but only through the effect of filial love, which He produces in us. 64 If the divine essence were presented to our intellects immediately, without any created effect or idea acting as a medium of knowledge, then either we should have the vision of God because of the light of glory uplifting our intellects to apprehend God 65 or we should not have any such knowledge, however obscure, for
69 De veritatc, q.26, a. 3, ad 18 um. 60 John 14:21. «' Rom. 8:15. 82 John I! 13.
84 St. Thomas, in Ep. ad Rom., viii, 16; Ha Ilac, q.97, a.2, ad 2um; De veritate, q.26, a. 3, ad i8um.
lack of that light. 08 The intellect 67 either attains to God immediately or it does not; it immediately apprehends the divine essence as it is in itself or does not. If it does, then it enjoys the beatific vision at least in some degree; if it does not, then it has no immediate knowledge of God. The beatific vision is the only absolutely immediate knowledge or experience of God. It alone attains not only to God Himself, as faith too apprehends Him, but also to God as He is in Himself, in His inner life, a reality impossible for any created effect to represent. 68 In this fact lies rooted one of the reasons why, in this life, the just man cannot have absolute certitude of being in the state of grace, of being the temple of God, unless God reveals it to him. "But the principle of grace and its object is God, who by reason of His very excellence is unknown to us, according to Job 26: 26. 'Behold God is great, exceeding our knowledge.' And hence His presence in us and His absence cannot be known with certainty, according to Job 9: 11 : 'If He come to me, I shall not see Him; if He depart, I shall not understand.' " 69
Secondly, the just man's knowledge of God is called quasiexperimental and not simply experimental because he cannot differentiate with absolute certitude between the supernatural effect of filial love and a certain natural lifting up of the heart which resembles it. Even when not in the state of grace, a poet may so delight in the beauty and perfection of God that he translates both for himself and for us as to mistake a
88 We maintain that this immediate experience could not be in the intellect but must be in the will, which attains God immediately by charity. In this sense it can be called an immediate affective experience.
87 C£. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Bk. IX, chap. 10.
natural mood for a supernatural state, complacence for charity. In this life, then, the just man enjoys no absolute certitude of being in the state of grace but only a reasonable certainty to which he concludes from certain signs, such as his joy in divine things, contempt for the things of the world, and peace of conscience. God's assurance in the Apocalypse has its application here: "To him who overcometh, I will give the hidden manna . . . which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it"; 70 he shall know a certain sweetness unshared by those who have not grace. 71
Because he maintains that Holy Scripture implies no absolute or literal certitude in this quotation, St. Thomas cites other passages that demonstrate the truth of his opinion, such as St. Paul's words, "I am not conscious to myself of anything. Yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord." 72 And the petition of the Psalmist, "From my secret ones [sins] cleanse me, O Lord," 73 from sins indirectly voluntary, sins of negligence in not considering or accomplishing what could and should be considered and accomplished. 74
As the soul's purification progresses and it continues to grow in charity and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, its quasiexperimental knowledge of God becomes more and more perfect. St. John of the Cross thinks that the soul is never joined to God in transforming union without being confirmed in grace. 75 And some writers 76 consider that a state so
76 Spiritual Canticle, st. 22.
70 Philip of. the Blessed Trinity (Theol. myst.. Proem., a.8), Scaramelli, and others.7
sublime requires that God make known to the soul, His spouse, the indissoluble friendship existing between them. In other words, they hold that God does accord the soul that special revelation which the Council of Trent declares is necessary for anyone to know with absolute certitude that he is in the state of grace. Before the passive purifications of the soul, 77 its quasi-experimental knowledge of God lacks much in depth and penetration, and St. Thomas has done well to give us an insight into its character by purposely using the term "quasi."
The role of quasi-experimental knowledge in the spiritual life
With Father Gardeil, we would insist that to St. Thomas' mind the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity is inconveivable without some quasi-experimental knowledge of God's presence, a truth that strongly confirms a doctrine we regard as traditional and have held for many years: namely, that infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith belongs to the normal progress of sanctity. Father Gardeil has devoted his best efforts to showing that mystical experience comes to the Christian life of grace as its highest, though entirely normal, development, its full and final flowering. As a matter of fact, the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity is explicable only so far as God can be known and loved as the object of quasiexperimental knowledge. And, since this knowledge proceeds from faith enlightened by understanding and wisdom and since these gifts are united to charity, it follows that, as char-
77 Gardeil, op. at., II, 207 ff. The passive night of the senses is considered one of the preludes to mystic experience; it comes, however, only in the sixth mansion of St. Teresa after the prayer of union described in the fifth mansion and before transforming union as described in the seventh.
ity increases, the quasi-experimental knowledge of God grows too, 78 manifesting itself either in a clearly contemplative form or in one more directly orientated to action. Quasiexperimental knowledge attains to its full perfection in contemplation, which, according to St. John of the Cross, begins in the illuminative way and develops during the unitive. 79
When the Holy Ghost comes to dwell in the just He brings His seven gifts, 80 two of which play a special part in the soul's purification. The gift of knowledge is particularly active during the night of the senses, when it keeps before the mind the emptiness of all created things; 81 the gift of understanding, during the night of the spirit, when it leads the soul to penetrate more and more deeply into the spirit of the mysteries of faidi and to abandon all too human conceptions of divine things. 82 The quasi-experimental knowledge of God needs these two purifications to clear away the obstacles put in its way by unconscious egoism and self-love. At life's beginning, thought of self so dominates man that he unconsciously seeks to relate everything to self; after the purifications of the senses and the spirit, he gives first place to the thought of God and His glory and the salvation of souls.
Experimental knowledge of God's infinite goodness and that of our own nothingness and misery keep pace with each other, and the soul learns, as St. Catherine was taught by her divine Spouse, "I am He who is; thou art she who is not." This knowledge St. Catherine describes to us as having two
80 Cone. Trid., scss. VI, cap. 7; Dcnzinger, no. 799. Cf. also Denzinger, no. 83.
complementary aspects which share and share alike in mutual development, like two opposite points in an ever-growing circle. The more a man realizes his own misery, the more he realizes by contrast the infinite goodness of God, and his fear of sin increases with his love for God until he reaches the hour of perfect knowledge when, in the home of his Father, he receives the immediate vision of the divine essence. That we may reach this end, our souls must undergo purification, we must place ourselves wholeheartedly in the school of Jesus Christ and there learn by experience the deep affinity existing between the cross of Christ and the love of God.
The invisible missions of the divine Persons and the mystical life
The mystical life serves as the normal completion and crowning of the life of grace because of the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity. During the latter half of the seventeenth century, Louis Chardon, one of the Thomistic theologians to see this truth most clearly, wrote a book entitled La croix de Jesus which treats of this subject in some profound and little known chapters on the invisible missions of the Word and the Holy Ghost. 88
Chardon first shows 84 that the divine Persons are not only the object of knowledge and supernatural love but also the principles of supernatural operation. He says: "We naturally conclude that, since grace is communicated with a view to operation, it does not render the uncreated Persons present in us in the manner of a mere idle habit, as though God
l62 THE LOVE OF GOD were to come to us as a man asleep. . . . They are no longer present to us simply as objects powerfully attracting our operations but as actualizing, effecting, applying, and directing our operations for, as Christ says, 'My Father worketh until now; and I work.' "
A little before this he expresses his thought with even greater precision: "That it may attain to God Himself and possess Him, the soul needs the help of those supernatural gifts that are inseparable from the divine Persons. These gifts of Theirs make us like to Them by assimilating and conforming us to Their likeness, so that the divine Persons Themselves become the lovable object of our operations, and, by Their gifts, their all-powerful principle, support, and end." By the production of the intellectual gifts in us, the Son, the Eternal Wisdom, is said to be invisibly sent by the Father; and, by the inpouring of charity, the Holy Ghost, who is Love, is also said to be invisibly sent by the Father and the Son. 85 The invisible missions of the divine Persons conform to die visible missions of the Incarnation and Pentecost.
Concerning the relation of die temporal missions of the divine Persons to the eternal processions, Chardon follows the teaching of St. Thomas when he writes: "The temporal mission of a divine Person is only an extension of the eternal procession in God. . . . The condition of time adds nothing new to the immutable and fully perfect God. Change occurs only in the creature, who begins to participate in what God is from all eternity. Thus the Word, begotten by the Father from all eternity, and with Him the Holy Ghost, are invisibly sent to the just at the moment of conversion." 86 The Father,
since He does not proceed from any person, cannot be sent but dwells in us together with the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Asking the question, "How are the divine Persons the principle of mystical operations in souls progressing in grace?" Chardon answers it by saying:
God ordinarily communicates Himself to His creatures according to the measure of their dispositions. As a man's purification advances, the divine Persons become more intimately present to him through their missions. They are more deeply united to him and more completely possessed by him as the object and principle of his soul's higher operations. . . .
Charity may at times act with such efficacious strength that it reduces souls to a passive state in regard to divine things; they are no longer conscious of their cooperation and concurrence in supernatural and Godlike acts. They do not so much live the life of God as the life of God lives in them; they are more loved than loving; and even when they love, they receive rather than give. 87
Beginners are rightly cautioned against being held back by sensible graces, for man must give as well as receive, and the gifts he offers God must include himself. Yet in the passive states which Chardon refers to here, God accomplishes in us and for us a much more perfect and complete giving of ourselves that we could ever achieve by our own efforts with ordinary actual grace.
Chardon concludes:
What joy is ours to have God make His home in us! He fills our hearts' deepest recesses, pours Himself out over the soul's entire compass, overflows into its powers and faculties, and penetrates all and destroys nothing, making us participants of His divine society
j6 4 the love of god and sharers, by imitation, in His own natural life that we may be caught up and embraced by the fullness of Divinity.
Through the invisible missions of the divine Persons, since they conform to the visible missions of the Incarnation and Pentecost, God is in us and we are in God. More than that, since They are principles of operations in us, They necessarily make us change and advance continually along the way of perfection, even if we have reached its eminences."
Chardon could have found no better way of saying that the purgative way normally leads to the mystical life and that, when the soul has entered there, it begins by degrees to advance along the way of illumination and of union. He immediately tells us, too, the reason for spiritual progress, saying:
As principles of supernatural operation, these wonderful missions cannot allow grace to remain idle but force it to advance, sometimes so much that the soul is said to change its state and experiences a newness of grace that lifts it to a height incomparably above its first sanctification. In the measure that it advances in grace and charity, the divine Persons are present anew within it (or better, are sent to it in a new way, as St. Thomas says) 88 and the soul possesses Them with rights and privileges it had not formerly.
Because it keeps the soul solicitous for its progress and ready for the most difficult and fervent acts of virtue, the truth of the divine missions is one of the strongest incentives for spiritual advancement, stimulating beginners, encouraging the proficient, and confirming the perfect. It makes the soul eager to grow in grace that God may abide in it more fully, more deeply, more personally, by a union growing more and more sublime as it becomes purer, stronger, and more intimate. 89
89 La croix dc Jesus, ist cd., p. 457. We owe Father Bremond our gratitude for having called attention to the profound and beautiful pages of the original edition.
INDWELLING OF THE TRINITY 165 Louis Chardon's words were written before the time of Bossuet and Fenelon. In his work he emphasizes another truth even more than the relation of the divine missions to supernatural life; that truth, as we shall see, is the affinity existing between grace and the cross. He points out in the Gospels and Epistles the summits toward which converge theological speculation like St. Thomas' and the mysticism of men like Tauler and St. John of the Cross. And he leads us to appreciate more and more fully how the theology of the great masters, because it is derived by faith from divine revelation, disposes us to desire infused contemplation that we may, by an act of living faith enlightened by the gifts, enter into and enjoy the mysteries revealed to us by God. So Chardon, in a really vital way, brings us back to the very source of theology, the truths of Scripture and tradition.
In opposition to the theologians for whom "that which is immediately perceived is not God here present but His effects in the soul," 90 Father Gardeil is inclined to admit an "immediate experience" of God. He finds that these authors react with good reason "against fantastic opinions which ascribe to the soul, particularly in the prayer of union, a sight or intuition of God through species miraculously superadded to the ideas of faith." He adds:
But, in my opinion, these authors fall into exaggerations in their reaction against such opinions. They regard God's impressions on the soul, the divine touches it experiences, as effects received and
^6 THE LOVE OF GOD remaining in the soul and claim that the soul perceives these effects and only these effects, that its regard rests on them as on an objective term from which it concludes to the presence of God. If this be true, then mystical contemplation in its apogee, the experience of God, consists essentially in an inference and necessitates reasoning. I do not think that this mode of attaining to the presence of God is the mode of experimental and, consequently, of immediate knowledge of God, who gives of His fullness in the prayer of union. 91
In the first of these two opinions criticized by Father Gardeil, we can recognize the thought of Bishop Farges, the intuition of God by infused ideas; in the second, the entirely contrary view of Father Saudreau, the knowledge of God's presence through His effects. Saudreau would probably answer this criticism by saying that he does not hold that quasiexperimental knowledge of God through the effect of filial love is inferential but that it is supra-discursive, an act of the gift of wisdom transcending reason. This position we too maintain. 82 In his work, Western Mysticism, Dom Butler sets down Father Gardeil's manner of expression as being in opposition to the common interpretation of St. Thomas' doctrine, but Father Gardeil has since explained his position on this point. 98 In substance we are in agreement with him.
We feel certain, and have said so already, 94 that some forms of experimental knowledge are by no means discursive and yet are not absolutely immediate either. As soon as my sight perceives the color of an object, my intellect, without reason-
82 Christian Perfection and Contemplation, pp. 270 ff.
83 Cf. Butler, Western Mysticism (New York: Dutton, 1922), pp. lxv ff.; and Gardeil, "Examen de conscience," Revue Thomiste, January, 1929, pp. 70-85- cf - also the July, 1929, number.
»* Christian Perfection and Contemplation, Fr. ed., II, 115.
ing, apprehends the substance of that colored object; the substance itself, unlike its color, is not sensible but is called sensible per accidens because it is grasped immediately by the intellect with the first presentation of the sensible object. 95 Here we have an instance of intellectual experimental knowledge without reasoning, which is, however, mediate in the sense that it presupposes sensation and its object as an intermediary. As Aristotle says, by seeing Callias I see without reasoning that he lives, although life itself is not sensible like color and sound.
We have an experimental knowledge of our own souls, too, inasmuch as they operate as the principles of our intellectual and voluntary acts. We do not arrive at this knowledge by reasoning, yet we attain to the soul's substance only by means of its acts. "Plato or Socrates perceives that he has an intellectual soul because he perceives that he understands." 96 And, as the Angelic Doctor also teaches, the angel, too, knows his own substance only by means of a mental term, for the substance of an angel, although in itself intelligible in act, is not of itself known in act {intellecta in actu) ; for the angel is not pure act, not its own existence, not its own intellection, and so has to be expressed in an interior word to be known. But the reality expressed in that mental word, which makes him an image of the Trinity, is not far from him. 97
Lastly, in discussing the knowledge which a just man possesses of God by the gift of wisdom and through the action of the Holy Ghost, St. Thomas purposely and pointedly adds
87 Cf. St. Thomas, Contra Gentes, Bk. IV, chap. II, nos. 1, 4, and in the Angelicum, 1928, fasc. I, the author's study of St. Thomas' proof, "Utrum mens seipsam per essentiam cognoscat an per aliquam speciem."
the qualification "quasi" whenever he refers to it as "experimental." In the final pages which Father Gardeil devoted to this question 98 and in diose where he shows so well how infused contemplation proceeds from faith enlightened by the gifts, he comes very near the explanation just given, which we hold as traditional among Thomists.
The question of a purely natural immediate apprehension' of God
In a recent publication," Father Picard poses the question: "Can an immediate apprehension of God other than the beatific vision be admitted?" And he gives the answer that even in the natural order man can have an immediate though obscure apprehension of God's presence. Father Picard then seeks to discover the part of such an immediate apprehension of God in the mystical state, trying to find support for his views as being implied by St. Thomas. 100 His interpretation of St. Thomas' texts is highly debatable; for example, when he uses St. Thomas' Commentary on the Sentences 101 by quoting his answer to an objection according to St. Augustine and omitting his answer according to Aristotle. Further, references to the opusculum De intellectu et intelligibili carry no weight since this work is not authentic.
Certainly God is intimately present to us in the natural order since He is the conserving cause of all creatures; but that fact does not make Him present to us in such a way that
08 Op. cit., II, 254 ff.; Revue Thomiste, 1929, articles quoted above. B9 La saisie immediate de Dieu dans les (lats mystiques (Paris: Editions Spcs, 1923).
100 Ibid., pp. 20-30. Cf. the author's criticism of this position, Bulletin Thomiste. March, 1925, p. 250.
in the natural order we have an obscure immediate apprehension of His presence— as Father Picard would lead us to believe. Treating ex professo of God's natural presence in us, St. Thomas says: "No other perfection, except grace, added to substance, renders God present in anything as the object known and loved ; therefore only grace constitutes a special mode of God's existence in things." 102 He repeats the same conclusion in many other places in his works. 103 Father Picard explains his use of Vallgornera's interpretation 104 of those texts of St. Thomas which seem favorable to his theory by saying that he quotes Vallgornera not so much because he seeks to lean on his authority as because he finds in him an excellent expression of his own thought: "namely, that the ontological presence of God 105 produces in the soul's depths an immediate experimental knowledge of Him, analagous to a man's consciousness of self." He immediately adds: "In detail, the theory I propose is perhaps a shade different from his. He demands the state of grace for the ontological presence of God to become perceptible even in an obscure fashion; I do not see the necessity for it." 106 Do these two theologies, then, differ "perhaps" only in detail and by just a shade of meaning ? The "shade of difference" has to do with the distinction and the distance between the order of nature and that of grace, a distance so great that the natural powers of man and angel could develop to infinity without ever attaining to the formal object specifying either infused faith or the gift of wisdom.
108 la, q.12, a. II, ad 4um; q.43, a.3; q.88, a.3; q.8 4> 3.7; q.85, a.i; q.87, a.2, ad 2um et 3um; also In Boetium de Trinitate, q. 1, a.3. 104 Mystica t/ieologia D. Thomae, q. 4 , disp. 1, a.4, no. 866.
105 The presence alluded to here is that of God as the conserving cause of our existence.
I70 THE LOVE OF GOD
And that is what Vallgornera, together with St. Thomas, speaks about in the quotation referred to. Of course, Father Picard admits that our natural intuition of God is obscure and that "under the influence of grace and the gift of wisdom, in the ascetical plan, diis immediate apprehension of God emerges from its obscurity and becomes half-clear" and at last, in transforming union (St. Teresa's "seventh mansion") "reaches the maximum of clarity and intimacy it can attain in this life." 107
About this theory many readers have asked themselves the question diat Father Heris clearly formulated: 108 In the formal object, is there a difference between the obscure natural intuition of God and that supernatural experimental knowledge of Him proceeding from the gift of wisdom ? We do not see this distinction. This seems to be admitted by the claim diat obscure natural intuition of God attains to Him immediately, not only as it is not, 109 but positively, yet without apprehending Him as He is in Himself (sicuti est). The double distinction between "obscure" and "half-clear" and between the latter and "clearly distinct" does not constitute a distinction of nature such as the difference between the natural and the supernatural order demands. Here we need to apply the universal and inflexible Thomistic principle that faculties, habits, and acts are specified by their formal objects.
We make a distinction between obscure, half-clear, and clearly distinct knowledge in the natural order. A man of common sense knows rational principles obscurely; a young student of philosophy has a half -clear knowledge of them; a metaphysician of St. Thomas' genius apprehends distinctly
their ontological value, absolute necessity, universality, and relative subordination. Yet no matter how great a genius the metaphysician may be, his natural knowledge can never grasp even obscurely the formal object of either faith or the gift of wisdom. Nor can any odier creature, however perfect, man or angel, succeed where he fails. The distinction of order here depends on the distinction of formal objects. This principle might be called the theme or leitmotiv of the second part of the Summa: potentia, habitus et actus specificantur ab objecto formali. 110
If we would avoid falling into the errors of the ontologists, and ultimately into pantheism itself, we must realize that, although faith belongs essentially to the same order as the beatific vision because it adheres to supernatural mysteries, human reason and angelic intellect do not. The ontologists failed to see this. For them man's intellect naturally attains, even if only obscurely, to the same formal object as the beatific vision, an opinion leading to pantheism through a confusion of the human intellect with the divine. 111 Infused faith and the gift of wisdom are not only supernatural quoad modum, in die mode of their production, but also quoad substantiam, by their very nature, as specified by their formal
110 Cf. Ila llae, q.5, a.3. Thomists have never admitted the active obediential capacity required, it seems, by Father Picard's view of our nature as the "pierre d'attentc pour des apports de grace" (pp. cit., p. 47).
To Thomists such an active obediential capacity would be at one and the same time essentially natural, as a property of our nature, and essentially supernatural, as a positive inclination specified by a supernatural formal object — a metaphysical monstrosity. Cf. John of St. Thomas, in lam, q.12, disp. xiv, a.2, no. 11, and Billuart, De Deo, diss, iv, a. 5.
As John of St. Thomas remarks, "Parvus error in principio magnus est in fine." A small error in defining the supernatural and the relations between die natural and the supernatural can take us far astray. If our nature already has an active obediential capacity specified by the formal object of infused faith or of charity, there is apparently no further necessity for supernatural virtues.
111 This question has been studied at length in De revelatione, II, 337, 344-404.
m THE LOVE OF GOD object. The resurrection of the dead entails the supernatural restoration of natural life; but sanctifying grace, faith, and charity, and the gift of wisdom belong to an essentially supernatural life, which fits us for an essentially supernatural object
It is to be regretted that Father Picard did not treat of the key problem about the intuition of God, that is, the distinction between nature and grace. By nature, man's intellect first apprehends neither himself nor his God but the being of sensible things. 112 In a criticism he makes of our views on the subject, Father Picard seems to be ignorant of St. Thomas' opinion on man's first intellectual apprehension as well as the chief difference between St. Thomas' ontological realism 113 and both nominalism and conceptualism. 114 At all events, for St. Thomas certainly, man's intellect is not a faculty for the divine in the sense that his first intellectual apprehension attains immediately and obscurely to the divine, to God Himself. If it did, man's intellect would be specified neither by the being of sensible things nor by being in general but by God Himself. Its formal object would differ not a whit from the formal object of faith; and, as a result, man's will would not be immediately specified by the universal good but by God Himself and would have the same formal object as infused charity, or, at the very least, of hope. Of the soul itself we would have to say what we now teach of sanctifying grace: that it is a real and formal participation in the divine
" 4 Although, for lack of time, the author has not answered this criticism specifically, it is met by his work, God: His Existence and His Nature. I, no ff. Cf. also L. Noel, "Le reel et l'intclligence," Revue Neo-scolastique, February, 1925, p. 22; and Maritain, Reflexion sur Intelligence (Paris: Nouvelle Libraric Nationalc, 1925), pp. 342-45; Three Reformers, tr. (New York: Scribner, 1929)-8 nature. Thomists have always jealously defended the distinction between nature and grace against any trace of naturalism. One of St. Thomas' greatest glories is that he marked out clearly the limits of these two orders by the great principle that faculties and acts are specified by their formal object. So universal is this principle that, should it fall, the whole of Thomistic doctrine would go down with it; the distinction between the intellect and the external and internal senses would disappear, together with the proofs for the spirituality of the soul; and we would revert to radical nominalism, the lineal forefather of contemporary positivism; the way would be immediately opened also to naturalism and pantheism, for it would no longer be evident that the natural powers of intellectual creatures cannot attain to the formal object of the divine intellect. No wonder St. Thomas so treasured diis principle, confirmed 115 in modern times by the Council of the Vatican. 116
116 Cf. Contra Gcntes, Bk. I, chap. 3; Bk. Ill, chap. 50; Summa, Ia, q.12, a.4; De veritate, q.8, a. 3.
Footnotes
Chapter 4 of 37