Post on 23-Feb-2023
Ryan J. Brady, Ph.D, Cand.Ave Maria University
The Divine Logos of John 1:1 and the Background ofAugustine’s Analogy of the Word as found in Philo and other
Fathers of the Church
The Gospel of John begins “Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ
λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. οὗτος ἦν ἐν
ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ
ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.1 This
striking statement that the Logos (Word)2 was in the
beginning in relationship to God (literally, “towards” Him3)
1 Kurt Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012), Jn 1:1–2. My translation: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with (lit., ‘towards’) God and the Word was God. He was towards God inthe beginning (cf., footnote #3.2 Although the primary way Logos will be translated in this essayis as ‘word’, it should be noted that in Sophocles’ Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (from B.C. 146 to A.D. 1100), there are variousother definitions given. Though the first meaning is ‘word’, it is also said to mean ‘speech’, ‘sentence’, ‘syllogism’, ‘account’, and reason – whether internal (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος) or uttered (λόγος προφορικός). Cf., E. A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (From B. C. 146 to A. D. 1100) (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900), 720.3 Πρός with the accusative suggests a movement towards – though amovement that “breaks off on the frontier of the object sought whereas with εἰς it is continued right on into the object.” In other words, there is a distinction of that which is ‘towards’ the other. Perhaps a similar phrase to the Λογος which was towards God, is “λέγειν πρός τι,” meaning, to speak with “reference to” someone or something and recalls the category of
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and yet also identified with God and the one through whom
all things came to be is shrouded in mystery. Although some
previous thinkers said similar things4 there is something
radically new about it. Here, the Logos is not merely some
part of creation but is also equated with God and in
relationship to Him as the transcendent God Himself.5 In
order to better understand how this can be, St. Augustine
would turn to “that image which the creature is, that is, to
the rational soul for a more careful questioning and
consideration” of the procession of the Son from the Father.
“πρός τι” in Aristotle (meaning ‘relation’; cf., chapter 7 of theCategories). The Word, then, apparently exists in reference to the Father or in relationship with Him even though He is also God. For the meaning of πρός, cf., Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 721.4 As Jaeger pointed out, “the Stoics had taught that the divine principle and cause of the world was the Logos, which penetrated all that exists”),Werner Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge, MA: the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961), 28.5 As Augustine says, on this passage: “In Him are all things: andyet in that He is God, under Him are all things.” Sermon 67.3 (Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers); sermon 117 in the modern numbering). “Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament,” in Saint Augustin: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. R. G. MacMullen, vol. 6, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 459.
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He would do so by seeing a link between the way the mind
“beget[s] its knowledge when it knows itself” and the way
the Father begets the Son;6 in other words, the way a word
is spoken by man and the way the Divine Word is ‘spoken’ by
the Father. In this essay, we will investigate both the way
this ‘analogy of the word’ was used by thinkers prior to
Augustine and also the thought of the Latin Father himself.
Philo (25 BC – 50 AD)
One stage in this development may be found in the
Jewish thinker, Philo, who spoke of two kinds of words
(λόγοι) in man, that which is uttered and that which is kept
concealed.7 By this distinction between what may also be
called the spoken (προφορικὸς / Prophoric) and unspoken
(ἐνδιάθετος / Endiathic)8 words, Philo would provide a
6 Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Stephen McKenna, vol. 45, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 287; Bk. 9.12.17.7 Charles Duke Yonge with Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 502.8 Cf., The Special Laws, IV 69 in Peder Borgen, Kare Fuglseth, and Roald Skarsten, “The Works of Philo: Greek Text with Morphology” (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005).
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foundation for thinking about the procession of the Word in
eternity and the procession of the Word into the world, when
the Father would ‘speak’ the Word externally. In one
remarkable section of On Abraham, he argues “the speech which
is conceived within is naturally the father of that which is
uttered (πατὴρ γὰρ ὁ ἐνδιάθετος φύσει τοῦ γεγωνοῦ).”9 There
could hardly be a better foundation of pagan thought for
people like St. Ignatius to later teach that “Christ was the
Father’s Word issuing from silence.”10
For Philo, God made man after the image “of some other
god” because he could not conceive of a mortal being having
been formed in the likeness “of the supreme Father of the
universe.” He thought man could only be made “after the
pattern of the second deity, who is the Word of the supreme
Being.” He grants “it is fitting that the rational soul of
man should bear in it the type of the divine Word since …
9 Charles Duke Yonge with Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 418, On Abraham 83.10 Quote from J.N.D. Kelly’s paraphrase of his teaching. Cf., Magn. 8, 2: cf. Eph. 3, 2; Rom. 8, 2., and J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, Fifth Ed., Revised. (London; New Delhi; New York;Sydney: Bloomsbury, 1977), 96.
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virtuous and consistent men … bear in themselves a familiar
acquaintance with his Word, of which the human mind is the
similitude and form,”11 but the supreme Father, the first
deity, is so transcendent in his estimation that He could
not have made man in his own likeness. Man must consequently
be made in the image of the secondary God or Word because
“in his first Word, God is superior to the most rational
possible nature,”12 which is apparently the second Word. So
even if he “undeniably shows a tendency to hypostasize the
Logos and the powers, as if they were separate from God
himself,” Philo nevertheless held to the common Jewish
belief that there is but one God (and not more than one
Person).13 Unfortunately, others such as the Arians seemed
to follow Philo more than the Gospel on tis point, so such
speculations had potential to lead to error despite their
11 Charles Duke Yonge with Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 834; Questions and Answers on Genesis, 2.62.12 Charles Duke Yonge with Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 834.13 Cf., David T. Runia, “Philo the Theologian (15 BC–50 AD),” ed. Trevor A. Hart, The Dictionary of Historical Theology (Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 2000), 425–426 and J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, Fifth, Revised. (London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 1977), 11.
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remarkable proximity to some of the teachings of
Christianity. As Newman observed regarding the Arians, they
“meant by the προφορικὸς λόγος a created being, made at the
beginning of all things as the visible emblem of the
ἐνδιάθετος, to be the instrument of God’s purposes towards
His creation.”14 In other words, they forgot that the Word’s
nature was identical with God’s, and their penchant for
philosophy combined with their errors would cause others to
mitigate or outright deny the role of philosophical
analogies in discussions of the Trinity.
St. Athanasius (296-373 AD) and St. Basil (330-379 AD)
In view of Arian tendencies to exaggerate the likeness
between the human mind’s word and the Divine Word and to
think of the Son as proceeding by the Father’s will (and,
according to some, for the sake of man), Athanasius came
down soundly against the role of philosophical speculation
both in general (he argues that the Word brought the
philosophical schools to naught in On the Incarnation, 50.3) and14 John Henry Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century (London: J. G. & F.Rivington, 1833), 216.
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in this regard in particular. In responding to the Arians
who pointed out that a human word is made up of syllables
and once those syllables are spoken, the word disappears
(and thus the Word of God must not be truly God, who exists
always) he responded by simply insisting on the scriptural
teaching. “If their dispute concerns God, who created
humanity,” he said, they ought not to “entertain human
thoughts but others that are above human nature”15 because
God’s Word is not merely pronounced as a human word is.
Interestingly, though, St. Athanasius’ contemporary,
St. Basil the Great, saw that he could use the analogy to
his advantage on this point. He noticed that “our outward
word has some similarity to the divine Word” inasmuch as our
word “declares the whole conception of the mind,” which is
its “source.”16 The Mind of the Father, in other words, is
completely expressed in the generation of the Word.
Consequently, the Word must have all of the same attributes
15 Joel C. Elowsky, ed., John 1–10, Ancient Christian Commentary onScripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 11 (quoting the second discourse against the Arians, 18.35)16 Homily 16.3. Cf., PG 31:477. Cited in Joel C. Elowsky, ed., John 1–10, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 10.
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of the Father – including immutability and divinity.
Perhaps this would answer to Athanasius’ concern
because the Word would then not return to nothingness after
being uttered. Be that as it may, Athanasius remained
skeptical of applying the image of man’s word to God (who,
he insisted, does not exist in the way man does). Rather, He
exists always and his Word must always exist with Him just
as the radiance of a light always exists with a light.
Curiously, then, even though Athanasius was willing to use
the word ‘radiance’ analogously, he emphatically shied away
from an ‘analogy of the word’ (due to the fact that the word
of man disappears once it is spoken and is not a word that
affects anything merely by being spoken, as God’s Word
does17). Perhaps his reaction against analogy regarding the
Word was simply based off of the false conclusions of the
Arians, therefore, and not so much against any use of
analogy in shedding light on the Trinity.
St. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch (d. 184 AD)
17 Ibid., 2.35
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Among the early Christian thinkers who were willing to
use philosophical thought in speculation about the inner and
outer words of our minds was St. Theophilus, who wrote
nearly two hundred years before Athanasius. He also made a
distinction “between the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος, the intelligence
of the Father, and the λόγος προφορικός, the Word brought
forth externally in order to create.”18 For Theophilus, God
the Father possessed his interior Word within Himself and
begat Him from His wisdom (ἔχων οὖν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ λόγον
ἐνδιάθετον ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις σπλάγχνοις, ἐγέννησεν αὐτὸν μετὰ
τῆς ἑαυτοῦ σοφίας ἐξερευξάμενος πρὸ τῶν ὅλων).19 As Newman
notes, the gennesis (γέννησις) or begetting he speaks of is
necessarily a proper and true begetting of the Word, which
is of one substance (ὁμοούσιος/Homoüsios) with the Father. It
is not a metaphorical begetting; “for if metaphorical, there
was nothing in it to call for mention of the intrinsic
nature of God.”20 Unfortunately, though, “the philosophical
18 F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1617.19 John Henry Newman, Tracts: Theological and Ecclesiastical (London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1874), 209.20 Ibid., 210.
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words, Endiathetic and Prophoric” which are used in an
orthodox way by Theophilus and which are, according to
Newman, “implied as ideas in Justin and Tatian, as also in
Hippolytus and others,”21 were not used in such a way by
all. Newman makes a fascinating claim on this point:
The Platonic doctrine of the Logos ἐνδιάθετος and προφορικὸς, the Word conceived in the mind and the Word spoken, a Divine attribute and a Divine energy, leads either to Sabellianism or to Arianism;—to Sabellianism, since the Divine Word, Endiathetic, is not a Person; to Arianism, since the Personal Word, Prophoric, is not strictly Divine.22
It seems that he must be correct if, in fact, a) it is not
possible to think of the Endiathic procession as a procession
of the Father in eternity wherein the Word is begotten as
being of the same nature of the Father and if b) it is not
possible to think of the Prophoric procession of the Word in
time as being a procession of the Word which is God (cf.,
Jn. 1:1) and became flesh (cf., Jn. 1:14). In other words,
if the revelation of Sacred Scripture is not taken into
account in accordance with the analogy of faith, then either21 Ibid., 210.22 Ibid., 259.
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of these philosophical concepts can lead to heresy. That is,
using “either of the two absolutely and to the exclusion of
the other would have involved some form of Sabellianism, or
Arianism, as the case might be; but each term might correct
the defective sense of the other.”23 Perhaps for this reason
the terms were ultimately “received into the Church” 24
despite the need for absolute precision in understanding
them.
St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394)
St. Gregory of Nyssa made use of an analogy of the word
in the human mind in discussing the Father’s eternal
generation of the Son and did so in such a way that he
avoided the errors of both Sabellianism and Arianism (which
he called a ‘Jewish’ error). He argues that by rising
anagogically (ἀναγωγικῶς) “from matters that concern
23 Joseph Pohle and Arthur Preuss, Christology: A Dogmatic Treatise on the Incarnation, Dogmatic Theology (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1913), p.23 n. 64.24 John Henry Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century (London: J. G. & F.Rivington, 1833), 214.
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ourselves to that transcendent nature, we gain a knowledge
of the Word” and adds:
As in our own case we say that the word is from the mind, and no more entirely the same as the mind, than altogether other than it… in like manner, too, the Word of God by its self-subsistence is distinct from Him fromwhom it has its subsistence; and yet by exhibiting in itself those qualities which are recognized in God it isthe same in nature with Him who is recognizable by the same distinctive marks.”25
The way he specifically avoids the Sabellian error is,
perhaps, most remarkable. The Father, he says, cannot be
conceived of without the Word and the Word cannot be
conceived of without the Father, whose Word He is. Actually,
just as Father and Son are ‘relative’ terms distinguishing
the Persons, “this, too, to a certain extent is a term of
“relation.”26 In other words, the Word is personally
distinct from the Father and not simply a mode of Him that
can come and go at any given moment.
25 Gregory of Nyssa, “The Great Catechism,” in Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, Etc., ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. William Moore, vol. 5, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1893), 476–477; Chapter 1.26 Ibid., 476.
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St. Augustine
The one who is most known for employing an analogy of
words in the human mind to understand the Trinity better was
St. Augustine, who argued that man “subsists” as the image
of God (cf., 1 Cor. 11:7) inasmuch as he “approaches it by a
kind of similarity” or “likeness.”27 By the likeness of some
“word of man,” the “Word of God may in some manner be seen
as in an enigma.”28 Because a word of man can be understood
internally or externally, so too the Divine Word can be
understood inasmuch as it pertains to the Divine Nature or
as it pertains to the external going forth into creation:
That the Word proceeded from God is an eternalprocession; he does not have a time, through whom timewas made. Let no one ask in his heart: before the Wordwas, in what way did God exist? You should never say,Before the Word of God was. God never was without theWord because the Word is abiding, not transient … Heproceeded from [God] as God, as equal, as the only Son,as the Word of the Father; and he came to us because theWord was made flesh that he might dwell among us.29
27 Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Stephen McKenna, vol. 45, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 240.28 Ibid., 477–478, 15.11.20.
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Here we have an example of the Word proceeding from the
Father eternally as an abiding Son who is equal to the
Father. So even when Augustine has in mind the eternal
proceeding of the Word, he avoids denying that the Son is
personally distinct from the Father. In his 196th Sermon, he
did so by asserting that in the “first begetting” (that of
the eternal generation as opposed to that which took place
with the Incarnation), the Word was the “Father’s own” Word
who is the Son. It was an eternal begetting because the
Father “has never been without the Son” and thus “He both
begot and yet did not begin to do so.” Again, the Son must
be a person because “there is no beginning for one begotten
without beginning. And yet he is the Son, and yet he is
begotten.”30 He is, therefore, clearly distinct from the
Father who begot Him as an equal.
He also spoke in a Prophoric sense (pertaining to the
Word in relation to creatures, or the Word’s procession ad
29 Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John 28–54, ed. Thomas P.Halton, trans. John W. Rettig, vol. 88, The Fathers of the Church(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993),154–155.30 Joel C. Elowsky, ed., John 1–10, Ancient Christian Commentary onScripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 3.
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extra) while avoiding the Arian tendency to deny the Divinity
of the Word. The Arians had thought of the Word as
proceeding from the Father’s bosom such that he was
necessarily not divine and reasoned that if the Word were to
essentially belong to God as equal to Him, He could not be
external to Him in any way. Newman says they argued that if
Catholics “held their Logos to be Prophoric, that was enough
to prove that He was not God.”31 Augustine, nevertheless,
spoke of the need for the Divine Word to come forth from the
Father and speak with His voice. If He had remained with the
Father “as not to receive the form of a servant [cf.,
Philippians 2:7] and speak as man with men how could they
have believed in Him, since their weak hearts could not have
heard the Word intelligently without some voice that would
appeal to their senses?”32
31 John Henry Newman, Tracts: Theological and Ecclesiastical (London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1874), 164.32 Augustine of Hippo, “Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John,” in St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. John Gibb and James Innes, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Niceneand Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 221.
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Augustine explained this procession from the Father
into the world by noting that in the process of bringing his
own word to his congregation by means of his voice, the word
did not depart from his heart. In a similar way, the “Word
came forth to our senses, yet departed not from His Father.
My word was with me, and it came forth into a voice: the
Word of God was with the Father, and came forth into
Flesh.”33
An objection that could be raised that, if this coming
among us is similar to the way we speak a word, then the
Word must change because our own word, “when it is spoken
through a sound or through some bodily sign … is not spoken
just as it is”34 but changes in some way. For Augustine,
this is really where the particular aptness of the analogy
comes in. Surely the spoken word is distinct from the word
33 Augustine of Hippo, “Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament,” in Saint Augustin: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. R. G. MacMullen, vol. 6, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers ofthe Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 467; Sermon 69.7 (NPNF); 119.7 . (Ben.).34 The Trinity, 15.11.20, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Stephen McKenna, vol. 45, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 478.
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in our mind, but when “that which is in the knowledge is in
the word, then it is a true word, and the truth which is
expected from man, so that what is in the knowledge is also
in the word, and what is not in the knowledge is not in the
word.”35 So even if there is a distinction, there is also an
identity just as the Father and Son are distinct as Persons
and yet united in nature. This particular analogy is
particularly suitable for making sense of the fact that the
Word is both distinct from God and God Himself. Augustine
says it is “in this way the likeness of the image that was
made [by God; namely, man] approaches, insofar as it can, to
the likeness of the image that was born [of God; namely, the
Word], whereby God the Son is proclaimed as substantially
like the Father in all things.36 Even when speaking of the
Son’s entry into the world, therefore, he defended His true
nature as God.
35 Cf., De Trinitate, Bk. 15.11.2036 Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Stephen McKenna, vol. 45, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 478; Book 15.11.20.
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It seems that among the early Christians, Augustine
utilized the patrimony of his Pagan and Jewish philosophical
predecessors most wisely. Although he ultimately placed the
highest degree of confidence in the truths explicitly
revealed in Scripture, he was willing to unfold those truths
by making use of what was best in philosophical and
analogous reasoning. Unlike Athanasius, he did not think the
use of analogy (at least in regard to the procession of the
Word) a presumptuous enterprise, but he did recognize its
limits and constantly pointed out the ways the analogy fell
short. For this reason, he pointed out in his 117th Sermon
that the first couple of verses of the Gospel of John cannot
not be comprehended and as such professed ignorance of its
meaning is better than “presumptuous knowledge” because “the
Creator transcends indescribably whatever we could gather
from the creature, whether by the bodily senses, or the
thought of the mind.”37 At the same time, he clearly
37 Sermon 67.3 (NPNF; sermon 117 in the modern numbering). Saint Augustin: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. R. G. MacMullen, vol. 6, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 459 and 464.
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believed the analogy of the word was a good way of attaining
some sense of the mysteries of God that can only be known by
faith and was willing to utilize the best of philosophical
conclusions in using it.
Appendix on the Analogy of the Word and the Role of
Philosophy in Aquinas
In St. Thomas Aquinas we find a further clarification
of this doctrine. He spoke of the Word as proceeding from
the Father’s intellect by way of a kind of self-
understanding and he confidently used the arguments of
Augustine and others in doing so. He knew, however, that
purely philosophical arguments can not be used as definitive
proof of truths that can only be known by revelation - such
as those pertaining to the Trinity (as Trinity). In fact,
the likeness of our understanding as applied to the
understanding of God and the procession of the Word does not
“sufficiently prove anything about God” because
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understanding (intellectio) does not have the same meaning in
us and in Him. He says it is for this reason that Augustine
argued that faith is the way to knowledge and not the other
way around. He thus quotes Augustine, who said faith is the
way to knowledge and not the other way around.38
Faith being presupposed, however, philosophical
arguments can go a long way in coming to a better
understanding of what has been revealed. An example of this
is the way St. Thomas based an argument about the procession
of the Word by reason on the knowledge we can have of the
procession of our own knowledge into words in the Summa
Contra Gentiles. It is similar to many arguments we have
already seen but adds further precision:38 Summa Theologiae, I q.32 a.1 ad 2. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologica, Editio altera Romana. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible
Software, 2009): Similitudo autem intellectus nostri non
sufficienter probat aliquid de Deo propter hoc, quod intellectus
non univoce invenitur in Deo, et in nobis. Et inde est, quod
August. super Joan. (tract. 27. circa med.) dicit, quod per fidem
venitur ad cognitionem, et non e converso.
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It belongs to the interior word or intelligible species,to proceed from the intelligent being through the latter’s act of intelligence, since it is the term of its intellectual operation; for the intellect by understanding conceives and forms the understood speciesor idea which is the interior word. Therefore God’s Wordmust needs proceed from Him by reason of His act of intelligence. Hence God’s Word stands in relation to Godunderstanding, whose Word He is, as to Him from whom He proceeds; for such a relation is implied by the very nature of a word. Since then in God the intelligent subject, the act of intelligence, and the intelligible species or word, are essentially one, and since for thisreason each one of these must needs be God, it follows that there is only a distinction of relation between them, for as much as the Word is referred to the cause of His conception, as to the source whence He proceeds. Hence John the Evangelist, lest the phrase The Word was God should seem to remove any distinction whatsoever between the Word and God the speaker and conceiver of the Word, added (verse 2): The same was in the beginning with God, as though to say: “This same Word, whom I have stated to be God, is in some way distinct from God the speaker of the Word, and thus may be described as being with God.39
Arguments of this sort can go so far in the estimation of
Thomas, in fact, that they can be considered almost
demonstrative so long as faith is presupposed (as it is in
39 Saint Thomas Aquinas, Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Summa Contra Gentiles, vol. 5 (Bellingham, WA: Logos BibleSoftware, 2010), 52–53; SCG 4.11.
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this latter section of the Summa Contra Gentiles dealing
precisely with things known by revelation as opposed to
natural reason); accordingly, he says, “it is clear (patet)
from what has been said that the Son proceeds from the
Father, as the Father’s knowledge of Himself.40
For him, therefore, faith is preeminent and yet other
arguments from natural reason can be profitably used. The
theologian “makes use also of the authority of philosophers
in those questions in which they were able to know the truth
by natural reason, as Paul quotes a saying of Aratus: As
some also of your own poets said: For we are also His offspring (Acts
17:28).” Nevertheless, in doing so, he only “makes use of
these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but
properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as
an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors
of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely
as probable.”41
The first Vatican Council would echo this teaching six
centuries later:40 SCG 4.23.41 STh., I q.1 a.8 ad 2
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Reason, indeed, enlightened by faith, when it seeks earnestly, piously and calmly, attains by a gift from God some, and that a very fruitful, understanding of mysteries; partly from the analogy of those things whichit naturally knows, partly from the relations which the mysteries bear to one another and to the last end of man: but reason never becomes capable of apprehending mysteries as it does those truths which constitute its proper object. For the divine mysteries by their own nature so far transcend the created intelligence that, even when delivered by revelation and received by faith,they remain covered with a veil of faith itself, and shrouded in a certain degree of darkness, so long as we are pilgrims in this mortal life, not yet with God: “forwe walk by faith, and not by sight.”42
42 Vincent McNabb, ed., The Decrees of the Vatican Council (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1907), 26.
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