The Trinitarian Indwelling

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRoVINCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017 VoL. XXXV JULY, 1971 No.3 THE TRINITARIAN INDWELLING CATHOLIC THEOLOGY of grace is, traditionally, a theology of nature and grace. From the synthesis of Thomas Aquinas, through the Council of Trent, to theologians like Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner, grace theology has been mainly concerned with grace as transforming nature, with human nature's capacity for grace, with the problem of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural . The nature-grace problem has, in fact, dominated Catholic theology of grace and justification for a very long time. On the other hand, in a contemporary culture that sees man as a person rather than a member of a species, that sees man in terms of his personhood rather than his human nature, theology tends to understand man more as a person. And this is as it should be. The task of theology is to express Christian faith in terms of the worldview, the outlook, the entire stance of contemporary man. This is not to say that God's word should be distorted as a concession to the times; 369 8?'0 ROBERT :t. FARICY it is simply to say that God's word, if it is to be heard and understood, must be theologically so formulated that it can be addressed. It is to be expected, then, that Catholic theologians try to express the traditionally nature-centered doctrine of sanctifying grace in more modern terms of person and personal relationship. Efforts have been made but they have not been completely successful; and Catholic theology of grace remains today a theology of grace and nature, cut off from the main currents of today's theology-process, eschatology, ecclesiology, theology of community, theology of progress and involvement in the world-and eclipsed by them. This is unfortunate, for Catholic theology badly needs a more personalist theology of grace. For one thing, a personalist framework is needed in order to interpret the New Testament data better and more fully; with few exceptions, the New Testament speaks not of nature being graced but of the Holy Spirit being sent to us, of the Father and the Son dwelling in us, of grace as interpersonal relationship. Again, a personalist theology of grace is necessary not only that the doctrine of grace be expressed in contemporary thought patterns but that the theology of grace might be the foundation for a clearer theological understanding of the relationship between the Christian person and the Christian community, and that it might be the basis for a sounder sacramental theology that sees the sacraments as personal encounters with Christ. Furthermore , Catholic theology of the spiritual life is in real need of a theology of sanctifying grace that can provide the personalist categories for a theology of prayer as interpersonal relationship with God, that can address itself in a personalist way to the problem of prayer and Christian activity, and that can speak more coherently about the Person of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. Modern attempts to express the doctrine of sanctifying grace in terms of person rather than in terms of nature can be traced back to the seventeenth century to Petau who felt that, to be faithful to Scripture and to the Greek Fathers, THE TRINITARIAN INDWELLING 871 theology had to admit and explain a special union between the Christian and the Holy Spirit; this union he thought to be properly with the Holy Spirit, who is " the sanctifying form, bestowing adoptive filiation by the communication of Himself ." 1 In the nineteenth century Scheeben in Germany and de Regnon in France revised and elaborated Petau's ideas on the special role of the Holy Spirit? In more recent years there have been several works on the subject of the Christian's personal relation to each of the Indwelling Persons. In 1949 B. Lonergan treated the question.3 In the 1950's many theological articles dealt with the specific question of the Christian's personal relations to each of the Indwelling Persons; in particular, a three...