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Chapter Three: Trinity and Creation
- University of Notre Dame Press
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Three Trinity and Creation , .. In contemporary theological research, we see renewed interest in a trinitarian doctrine of creation. In the field of trinitarian theology, reflection strives to overcome the “isolation” that threatens the doctrine of the Trinity, according to the account put forward some time ago by Karl Rahner.1 Christian thought has been careful ever since to insist on the relationship between trinitarian faith and the whole of the divine economy, of which creation is the first work: since God is Trinity, his action must be understood in a trinitarian manner.2 One finds a comparable concern expressed within the field of the theology of creation: a Christian doctrine of creation cannot be limited to an approach of philosophical theology, however legitimate this approach may be. Rather, it must ground creative work in the trinitarian mystery of God, in order to emphasize its distinctively Christian characteristics. Many scholars today express dissatisfaction with the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas in this domain: according to a widely held view, Thomist trinitarian theology consists in a logical and metaphysical reflection detached from the Bible and separated from those actions in which God manifests himself as Trinity.3 In a related and no less prevalent view, the Trinity does not play a constitutive role in the Thomist treatment of creation: Saint Thomas has a monistic conception of divine creative activity, “at the expense of mediation through the Son and the Spirit.”4 Such judgments, examples of which abound in recent theo- logical literature, indicate perhaps the shortcomings of certain currents in Thomistic neo-scholasticism during the first half of the twentieth century. But they fail to do justice to the authentic thought of Saint Thomas, and cannot withstand an attentive reading of his works. In fact, contrary to these all-toooften widespread misrepresentations, Saint Thomas developed a profoundly trinitarian conception of creation. He systematically set forth the trinitarian principles of creative action and their repercussions for the understanding of the created world in a coherent synthesis that intimately unites faith in God the Trinity, creation, and the economy of salvation. Without attempting to present an exhaustively detailed account of the Thomist position, I will describe the trinitarian structure of the Thomist theology of creation and of divine action in the world. The ordo creationis: The Causality of the Trinitarian Processions As early as his first theological synthesis, the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, Saint Thomas formulates the central thesis of his trinitarian doctrine of creation: “The eternal processions of the persons are the cause and the reason [causa et ratio] of the production of creatures.”5 The words “cause” and “reason” are completed by other terms to make precise the trinitarian foundation of creation: Saint Thomas explains that the procession of the persons is the origin (origo) of the procession of creatures,6 or the principle (principium) of creatures;7 the procession of creatures has as its exemplar (exemplatur, exemplata) the procession of the divine persons.8 This affirmation is presented as a theological exegesis of the biblical texts that deal with the creative action of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It occurs nearly twenty times in the works of Saint Thomas, in the same terms9 or in related expressions: “the temporal going-forth of creatures is derived [derivatur] from the eternal going-forth of the persons,”10 “the going-out [exitus] of the persons in the unity of essence is the cause of the going-out of creatures in the diversity of essence.”11 Saint Thomas discovered this theological thesis in the works of his master, Saint Albert the Great, who twice expressed it in his commentary on the Sentences.12 He also clearly relied on Saint Bona venture , who, without expressly formulating that thesis, also taught that the procession of the Son and of the Holy Spirit possessed a causality and an exemplarity with respect to creation: the “extrinsic diffusion” of the good (creation ) has as its reason the “intrinsic diffusion” of the sovereign Good in the divine persons, in the way in which that which is first (primum) is the cause of all secondary realities that are derived from it. And yet neither Saint Albert nor Trinity and Creation [44.197.251.102] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:07 GMT) Saint Bonaventure systematically developed the creative causality of the trinitarian processions; the use of that thesis appears to be a trait particular to and characteristic of Saint Thomas’ theology.13 The causality of the trinitarian...