A Trajectory from Augustine to Aquinas and Lonergan: Contingent Predication and the Trinity

Augustine and De Trinitate ¹¹

We begin with an account of the underlying issues in Book 5 of Augustine’s De Trinitate. Augustine concludes Book 4 with the anticipation that the following book will consider ‘what sort of subtle crafty arguments the heretics [i.e. Arians] bring forward and how they can be demolished.’ ¹² Of course he has just spent four books of De Trinitate demolishing the Arian arguments based on his reading of Scripture, so this conclusion signals a major shift to address the problem in a new, more theoretical way. ¹³ In order to address the ‘subtle crafty arguments’ of the Arians Augustine will deploy the category of relation, one of Aristotle’s ten categories, which enable him to make distinctions within the Godhead that do not modify or alter the divine ‘substance.’ Augustine states succinctly the dilemma posed by the Arians as follows:

Whatever is said or understood about God is said substance-wise [secundum substantiam], not modification-wise [secundum accidens]. Therefore the Father is unbegotten substance-wise, and the Son is begotten substance-wise. But being unbegotten is different from being begotten; therefore the Father’s substance is different from the Son’s. ¹⁴

Augustine will respond to this challenge by arguing that the terms begotten and unbegotten refer to relationships (or their lack) and thus as relational qualities they do not impinge on the substance in question. ‘And when the Father is called unbegotten, it is not stated what he is, but what he is not. And when a relationship is denied it is not denied substance-wise, because the relationship itself is not affirmed substance-wise.’ ¹⁵

Augustine then goes on to expound what will become classical Trinitarian formulations concerning what can be said or affirmed about the Father, Son, and Spirit. Whatever is said in relation to them substance-wise is said of all three equally: ‘So then, the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Spirit is almighty; yet there are not three almighties, but only one almighty.’ ¹⁶ The only distinction that can arise is in terms of their mutual relations:

But as for the things each of the three in this triad is called that are proper or peculiar to himself, such things are never said with reference to the self but only with reference to each other or to creation, and therefore it is clear that they are said by way of relationship and not by way of substance. ¹⁷

The phrase, ‘but only with reference to each other or to creation’ is, I would claim, pregnant with meaning. The translator of the text, Edmund Hill, is aware that something is happening here, but is quick to dismiss it as a confusion:

He [Augustine] rather confuses the issue by mentioning relationship words by which God is referred to creation, because they do not serve to distinguish the divine persons from each other, and therefore as far as trinitarian logic is concerned they are substantive and not relative predications. But of course he is feeling his way … Such confusions are part and parcel of Augustine’s via inventionis which is so different from Aquinas’ via doctrinae. ¹⁸

Augustine is indeed ‘feeling his way’ but perhaps in regard to the more profound question of how to relate the Trinity to the created order in the case of the Incarnation or grace. Can the same logic of relations be exploited to provide a framework for understanding such an extension of divine activity to individual persons of the Trinity?

While Augustine does not directly make the connection, he does begin to assemble the component parts. He begins with an analysis of the relationship between the Spirit and the Father and Son. While the eastern Fathers have come up with a verbal solution (e.g. the Son is begotten, the Spirit breathed forth), Augustine proposes a solution based on the logic of relations. He notes that the ways in which we can speak of the various relationships between the Father, Son, and Spirit do not exhibit symmetry in relation to the Spirit. ‘We say the Holy Spirit of the Father, but we do not reverse it and say the Father of the Holy Spirit, or we should take the Holy Spirit to be his Son. Again, we say the Holy Spirit of the Son, but we do not say the Son of the Holy Spirit, or we should take the Holy Spirit to be his Father.’ ¹⁹ This is because the relationship of Father and Son is mutually defining, in a way which precludes the addition of some further qualification from a relationship to the Spirit. The only solution to this situation, within the logic of relations, is to posit a relationship of the Father and Son to the Holy Spirit (the filioque) as a single origin:

We must confess that the Father and the Son are the origin of the Holy Spirit; not two origins, but just as the Father and Son are one God, and with reference to creation one creator and one lord, so with reference to the Holy Spirit they are one origin; but with reference to creation Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit are one origin, just as they are one creator and one lord. ²⁰

What is significant here is the analogy Augustine draws between the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit as one God to creation, and the relationship between Father and Son to the Spirit. Both are relations of origin, though one is ad extra, and the other is ad intra. While the Father, Son, and Spirit are indistinguishable in relation to creation, the Father and Son constitute a single indistinguishable relation to the Spirit.

Augustine then pushes the matter further by examining the notion of the Spirit as Gift. Is it a relational name or is it a name which emerges only in the order of salvation when the Spirit is actually given to us?

How could he already be the divine substance, if he only is by being given, just as the Son gets his being that substance by being born, and does not just get being Son, which is said relationship-wise? Or is the answer that the Holy Spirit always proceeds and proceeds from eternity, not from a point of time; but because he so proceeds as to be giveable, he was already gift even before there was anyone to give him to? ²¹

To be given ‘from a point of time’ implies a contingent created reality. Certainly Augustine wants the Spirit to proceed eternally, but leaves open the possibility of the Spirit being given at some point in time as a ‘donation,’ introducing a distinction between being a Gift and being actually donated. ‘The Spirit, to make myself clear, is everlastingly gift, but donation only from a point of time.’ ²² In other words a contingent reality is being predicated of the Spirit as a donation, which arises from his personal identity as Gift, but which is distinct from it, precisely as contingent.

While the significance of this is not explored, Augustine immediately enters into a discussion on the question of the relationship between God and creation, and how contingent realities can be predicated of God. ‘Look, this is the problem: He cannot be everlastingly lord, or we would be compelled to say that creation is everlasting, because he would only be everlastingly lord if creation were everlastingly serving him.’ ²³ The discussion which follows is a classical exposition of the issue of contingent predication:

Thus when he is called something with reference to creation, while indeed he begins to be called it in time, we should understand that this does not involve anything happening to God’s own substance, but only to the created thing to which the relationship predicated of him refers … So it is clear that anything that can be said about God in time which was not said about him before is said by way of relationship, and not yet by way of a modification of God, as though something has modified him. ²⁴

Book 5 ends here rather abruptly, to my mind, and somewhat incomplete. Augustine has introduced the distinction between the Spirit as gift and the Spirit as donation; he has explored the notion of contingent predication to conclude that any contingent predication of God to the created order is said ‘by way of relationship.’ The next step would be for him to suggest an analogy: just as a creature exists as a contingent relation to God as creator, so the donation of the Holy Spirit stands in a contingent relation to God as Father and Son. This contingent relation imitates in some sense the inner-Trinitarian relation of the Spirit to Father and Son. This allows us to then say the Spirit is truly given as gift to believers.

This is a step he does not take.

Aquinas and Summa Theologiae ²⁵

The one who does take the step is Thomas Aquinas, in his account of the Trinitarian missions in the Summa Theologiae (STh I q43). In eight articles Aquinas explores what can be truly said about the various persons in relations to the divine missions, of Son and Spirit. He begins by spelling out the ways in which a divine person can be sent (a1). This ‘mission’ involves a double aspect:

Thus the mission of a divine person is a fitting thing, as meaning in one way the procession of origin from the sender, and as meaning a new way of existing in another; thus the Son is said to be sent by the Father into the world, inasmuch as He began to exist visibly in the world by taking our nature. (STh I q43 a1)

This ‘new way of existing in another’ is a contingent reality precisely because it is ‘in’ another. But this new way of being is related in some sense to the ‘procession of origin from the sender.’ Mission and procession are related through a contingent reality. This is spelt out more clearly in a2 when he asks ‘whether the mission is eternal or only temporal?’ While distinguishing between the meanings of various terms under discussion—procession, going forth, generation, spiration, mission, and giving—Aquinas comes to the important conclusion:

Mission signifies not only procession from the principle, but also determines the temporal term of the procession. Hence mission is only temporal. Or we may say that it includes the eternal procession, with the addition of a temporal effect. For the relation of a divine person to His principle must be eternal. Hence the procession may be called a twin procession, eternal and temporal, not that there is a double relation to the principle, but a double term, temporal and eternal. (STh I q43 a2 ad 3)

And so mission comprises the procession with the addition of a ‘temporal effect’ or created term. This created term places the recipient in the same relationship to its origin as does the term of the procession in relation to its origin (a double term). Through this created term the divine person is genuinely sent into the created order.

Aquinas immediately goes on to specify this in terms of sanctifying grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (a3).

Again, we are said to possess only what we can freely use or enjoy: and to have the power of enjoying the divine person can only be according to sanctifying grace. And yet the Holy Ghost is possessed by man, and dwells within him, in the very gift itself of sanctifying grace. Hence the Holy Ghost Himself is given and sent. (STh I q43 a3)

Though it is not explicit in this text, the Spirit proceeds by active spiration, so for the Spirit to be given and sent there needs to be a created term in the graced person which in some sense ‘imitates’ the uncreated term of active spiration, that is, the Holy Spirit. This extends the ways in which the creature imitates God as the exemplary cause of all creation, through their ‘natural’ act of being, into the supernatural order whereby the temporal term in the supernaturally elevated subject imitates the term of the intra-divine relation of active spiration. Just as God is not changed in the relation of creator to creature, neither is the Spirit changed though the creation of this new relation. But the creature is radically changed through the presence of the Spirit ‘existing in a new way’ within us.

In doing this, Aquinas takes the step that Augustine did not. The pieces were all there in De Trinitate, but they were not combined. It took a more ordered presentation, driven by a stronger systematic exigence, to arrive at the place where Aquinas could stand. Of course the account does not end here. There are other aspects to deal with.

First we must consider the incarnation. While we have already seen reference above (STh I q43 a1) to the sending of the Son, this is not dealt with in detail until much later in the Summa. In STh III Aquinas devotes a number of questions to the nature of the incarnation and its necessity. In STh III q2 a7 he asks ‘whether the union of the divine nature and the human is anything created?’ In responding we find Aquinas immediately referring to the structure of contingent predication:

Now, as was said above (STh 1 q13 q7), every relation which we consider between God and the creature is really in the creature, by whose change the relation is brought into being; whereas it is not really in God, but only in our way of thinking, since it does not arise from any change in God. And hence we must say that the union of which we are speaking is not really in God, except only in our way of thinking; but in the human nature, which is a creature, it is really. Therefore we must say it is something created.

In STh III q2 a7 ad 3 this relation is specified in terms of the ‘divine hypostasis’: ‘A man [i.e. Jesus of Nazareth] is called Creator and is God because of the union, inasmuch as it is terminated in the Divine hypostasis.’ Thus there is a created contingent reality in the human nature which enables us to say this human being truly is the second person of the Trinity, and this created reality is relational, supernatural, and in some sense imitative of the relation whereby the Father generates the Son, that is, a relation that has ‘terminated in the Divine hypostasis [of the Son],’ or paternity. ²⁶

This same theme is taken up again in STh III q17 a2, ‘whether there is only one being in Christ?’ Here Aquinas comes to basically the same conclusion:

And thus, since the human nature is united to the Son of God, hypostatically or personally as was said above (STh III q2 aa 5,6), and not accidentally, it follows that by the human nature there accrued to Him no new personal being, but only a new relation of the pre-existing personal being to the human nature, in such a way that the Person is said to subsist not merely in the Divine, but also in the human nature.

What occurs in the Incarnation is the creation of ‘a new relation of the pre-existing personal being to the human nature’ which occurs in such a way that ‘the Person is said to subsist not merely in the Divine, but also in the human nature.’

In the Summa Aquinas does not specify what this new reality is which enables us to say that Jesus truly is the second person of the Trinity. However, in Concerning the Union of the Word Incarnate, he does suggest a solution to the question:

But, there is also another being of this suppositum, not insofar as it is eternal, but insofar as it became a man in time. That being, even if it is not an accidental being, because man is not accidentally predicated of the Son of God, as was said above—nevertheless, it is not the principle being of its suppositum, but [its] secondary [being] [non tamen est esse principale sui suppositi, sed secundarium]. ²⁷

This notion of a secondary act of existence is not further explored, but it fits well into the logic of the above discussion, of a created reality present in the human nature which allows us to say that the divine Person of the Son truly subsists in that nature.

Before concluding this examination of the use of contingent predication in relation to the missions of the Spirit as grace and the Son in the Incarnation, it is worth examining another instance where Aquinas does not use the same framework, but potentially could have done so. This is an important example because it has ongoing implications for contemporary theologians. It concerns the handling of the beatific vision in STh I q12 a1–13 and III Suppl q 92 a1. This latter article is certainly one of the longest in the Summa, with 16 objections listed and five authorities, against the customary one, in support of the thesis. ²⁸ This is clearly a difficult and controverted topic. The solution arrived at posits the divine essence as in some sense acting as the form in relation to our intellect:

But when any created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect. Hence it is necessary that some supernatural disposition should be added to the intellect in order that it may be raised up to such a great and sublime height. ²⁹

In the theological lexicon of Karl Rahner, this analysis gives rise to the notion of quasi-formal causality. The divine essence acts ‘as if’ (quasi) it is united to the intellect so that we see the divine essence in itself. Rahner then uses this construct as a template for his discussion of grace and Incarnation. As the article goes on to note (a1), the supernatural disposition is a ‘created light’ (the ‘light of glory,’ cf. q12, a2) which is ‘necessary to see the essence of God, not in order to make the essence of God intelligible, which is of itself intelligible, but in order to enable the intellect to understand in the same way as a habit makes a power abler to act.’ ³⁰

What is missing here, I contend, is the same logic that Aquinas has used in relation to sanctifying grace and Incarnation. In both these cases there is a contingent reality predicated of divinity, as Spirit and Son, which is a relational reality that in some sense imitates the processions of Spirit and Son. Now, regarding the beatific vision, we again have a created reality in the intellect of the blessed, the light of glory. As a created reality in us it can only be a relational reality in God for, to again quote Augustine, ‘anything that can be said about God in time which was not said about him before is said by way of relationship.’ ³¹ Either this relationship is to the divine essence alone, in which case we have simply the creature–creator relationship, which does not attain God uti in se est, or it is an entry into the relational reality of the persons of the Trinity in some way yet to be specified. This would allow a properly Trinitarian account of the beatific vision. This as we shall see is the direction taken by Lonergan.

Lonergan and The Triune God: Systematics ³²

The contention of this essay is that we find in Lonergan’s theological writings a more complete exploitation of the logic of contingent predication and Trinitarian relations than that found in Augustine and Aquinas. I have already argued that the basic elements are present in their writings, but the full systematization that could be achieved was never forthcoming. However, in Lonergan’s writings we find a final synthesis which incorporates the achievements of Augustine and Aquinas, while adding something new and important, a genuine theological development.

Within Lonergan’s own thinking on the matter there is also some development, and so we begin not with his later writings on the Trinity, but earlier writings on grace. ³³ Doran spells out something of the history of these notes, whereby Lonergan withdrew his original set of notes to work on a particular problem within the scholasticism of the day, that is, of the relative priority of created and uncreated grace. He notes that this was the same problem being addressed at the time by Karl Rahner, who resolved the matter through the use of the category of quasi-formal causality. Lonergan on the other hand came to a resolution in line with what we have seen above in Augustine and Aquinas:

The uncreated gift, as uncreated, is constituted by God alone, and by it God stands to the state of the justified person not only as efficient principle but also as constitutive principle; but this constitutive principle is not present in the justified person as an inherent form but is present to the justified person as the term of a relation. ³⁴

This statement is completely congruent with what we have already seen in Augustine and Aquinas, that a created reality predicated of the divine must be done so as ‘the term of a relation.’ As created this effect is caused efficiently by the divine essence, equally by Father, Son, and Spirit. However, as a supernatural principle producing justification, it is ‘present to the justified person as the term of a relation.’ This position allows Lonergan to develop the first form of the four-point hypothesis, in the context of his theology of grace. He begins by noting that there are four graces that are ‘pre-eminently qualified to be called such’:

The grace of union is that finite entity received in the humanity of Christ so that it exists through the personal act of existence of the divine Word. … The light of glory is that finite entity by which a created intellect is disposed to receiving the divine essence as an intelligible species. … Sanctifying grace is that finite entity by which a finite substance is reborn and regenerated for participating in the very life of God. Charity is that finite entity whereby a regenerated finite substance habitually possesses genuine friendship with God. ³⁵

It is then a matter of correlating these four graces, as contingent supernatural realities with the four divine Trinitarian relations, so that they are truly constituted ‘as a term of a relation’ in God’s Trinitarian life:

Now since every finite substance is something absolute, it seems appropriate to say it imitates the divine essence considered as absolute. But since these four eminent graces are intimately connected with the divine life, it seems appropriate to say that they imitate the divine essence considered as really identical with one or other real trinitarian relation. Thus the grace of union imitates and participates in a finite way the divine paternity,the light of glory divine filiation, sanctifying grace active spiration, and the virtue of charity passive spiration. ³⁶

Rather than the notion of quasi-formal causality adopted by Rahner, Lonergan draws on an exemplary causality whereby the created graces imitate not the divine essence considered absolutely, but considered relatively in terms of the four Trinitarian relations of paternity, filiation, active and passive spiration. It is important to note that two of these, paternity and active spiration, are already implicit in Aquinas’s account of the two missions of Word and Spirit, only the language there is the language of processions. Arguably this advance is a step Aquinas could have made, but did not. Finally, the inclusion of the light of glory within the framework of the four relations allows for a Trinitarian account of the beatific vision.

The tentative nature of this proposal is evident in the fact that this is not Lonergan’s final formulation. There is one element that will undergo revision in light of his own further reflections on the ontological and psychological constitution of Christ. ³⁷ In the major section entitled, ‘On the ontological constitution of Christ,’ Lonergan explores the variety of theological opinions that have been put forward in relation to the hypostatic union and its relationship to the divine essence. ³⁸ In a final subsection entitled ‘Deducing the Composite from the Principle of Composition’ Lonergan spells out in detail his own resolution of the question. In doing so the elements of contingent predication, constitutive principle, and Trinitarian relations are fully exploited:

In the first place, then, the constitutive reason or cause of the hypostatic union does not tell us why the Son is a person, or why he is God, or why he is man, but why it is the same one who is God and who is man. For the Son is a person through a subsistent relation; the Son is God through the divine essence; the Son is man through a human essence; but it is through the constitutive reason or cause of the hypostatic union that the same one who is God is also man. ³⁹

Given the Son has his own act of existence, which is the divine essence, to be ‘really and truly human’ he will do so ‘by his own proper act of existence.’ However, the truth of the Incarnation ‘demands not only a constitutive cause, which is the infinite act of existence of the Word, but also the production of an extrinsic term as the condition in the real order’ for the contingent truth of the Incarnation to be realized. ⁴⁰ This contingent term Lonergan will identify with a secondary act of existence which is to be distinguished from the grace of union:

The infinite act of existence of the Word, therefore, is the sole cause of the hypostatic union; on the other hand, the secondary act of existence, as it is not that which links and unites, neither is it that by which the link and unifier links and unites. We must conclude, then, that the secondary act of existence is in no way a linking and uniting intermediary. But inasmuch as the conjoining person constitutes himself contingently as man through the infinite act of existence, that secondary act follows by way of a simply posterior term … because this secondary act of existence is absolutely supernatural, it is also grace. However, it is not the grace of union as though constituting that union. The grace of union constituting the union is the sole constitutive cause of the union that is the infinite act of existence of the Word. Nevertheless, this secondary act of existence can be said to be the grace of union inasmuch as it is required by and consequent upon the constitutive cause of the union. ⁴¹

This transition from the grace of union to the secondary act of existence of the Word in Christ will then be reflected in Lonergan’s final deployment of the original insight of Augustine, that ‘anything that can be said about God in time which was not said about him before is said by way of relationship.’ ⁴²

We are now in a position to spell out Lonergan’s ‘four-point hypothesis’ as the culmination of a process that begins with Augustine, is further developed by Aquinas, and comes to fruition in Lonergan’s Trinitarian systematics:

First, there are four real divine relations, really identical with the divine substance, and therefore there are four very special modes that ground the external imitation of the divine substance. Next, there are four absolutely supernatural realities, which are never found uninformed, namely, the secondary act of existence of the Incarnation, sanctifying grace, the habit of charity, and the light of glory. It would not be inappropriate, therefore, to say that the secondary act of existence of the incarnation is a created participation of paternity, and so has a special relation to the Son; that sanctifying grace is a participation of active spiration, and so has a special relation to the Holy Spirit; that the habit of charity is a participation of passive spiration, and so has a special relation to the Father and the Son; and that the light of glory is a participation of sonship, and so in a most perfect way brings the children of adoption back to the Father. ⁴³

Most of the component parts of this position have already been elaborated in the preceding discussion, so I shall not repeat myself. I will however comment on what I think is a significant development in Lonergan’s thinking that allowed this position to emerge. The classical position of Augustine and Aquinas is based on the two processions leading to two distinct communications of the divine nature, grace and Incarnation. In his earlier writings on grace Lonergan also adopts the language of communication. ⁴⁴ At some point, however, he moved to the language of participation in the divine nature. While strictly speaking there are only two communications of the divine nature through the two processions, because the divine nature is communicated to the Word and Spirit by the Father, the notion of participation allows for a larger imagination to emerge. Rather than being restricted to the two processions, the four Trinitarian relations come into play to form the basis for four created participations in the divine nature. ⁴⁵

To posit this as the end-point of a genetic process of development is not to posit some sort of evolutionary or teleological account of systematic theology. There are many ways in which the works of Augustine and Aquinas could have been and have been developed by various theologians over the centuries. However, through this culminating point, this history itself is brought into a new light. Elements within the tradition, which may not have seemed important or significant at the time, appear in a different perspective. Augustine’s musings at the end of Book 5 of De Trinitate are no longer an oddity or the result of confusion. They are the seeds for a potential new development. Viewing those seeds in the light of the end-point in Lonergan allows for a sharper reading of Aquinas on related issues. With so much going on in Aquinas’s remarkable synthesis, such a sharp focus could easily be lost. Even in Lonergan’s writings there is no clear indication from Lonergan himself that he viewed this hypothesis as anything more than an interesting possibility needing further theological exploration. On the other hand, it achieves in a remarkable fashion the goal set for theology by Vatican I, that theologians should seek to identify the nexus or interconnections of the various elements of our faith. In this one hypothesis Lonergan unifies Trinitarian theology with the key mysteries of grace, Incarnation, and beatific vision. While I believe that I have demonstrated that this account is a development, the question remains whether it is authentic to the tradition. Has anything been lost, neglected, or distorted on the way? Is it internally coherent? Such questions are valid and need to be asked but also questions such as: does it suggest further fruitful developments and applications? What would a systematic theology which took this into its very foundations look like? Given the relative novelty of the proposal, only time and further theological investigations can provide an answer.

Conclusion

Identifying development, genuine development, over mere change, is a difficult thing, often more evident in hindsight. In his work on doctrinal development John Henry Newman identified seven distinct criteria to mark out genuine development from mere change or regression. ⁴⁶ It would not be a difficult exercise to establish that the four-point hypothesis ticks most if not all of the boxes in terms of Newman’s criteria, with the caveat that we are dealing here not with a doctrinal development per se, but with a development within systematic theology. On the other hand, Newman’s criteria are basically descriptive and a more thorough analysis, which Lonergan himself would endorse, would be to test it against the criteria of religious, moral and intellectual conversion. More pragmatically the theological community will pass judgment through its adoption or rejection of the position Lonergan has developed, as it is disseminated and applied by those who find its logic compelling.