Monday, July 10, 2006

Q27 A4: Whether the procession of love in God is generation?

No. The procession of love in God ought not to be called generation because the procession of the intellect is by way of similitude (and is called generation, because every generator begets its own like); whereas the procession of the will is not by way of similitude, but rather by way of impulse and movement towards an object.

We can name God only from creatures (Q13, A1). As in creatures generation is the only principle of communication of nature, procession in God has no proper or special name, except that of generation. Hence the procession which is not generation has remained without a special name; but it can be called spiration, as it is the procession of the Spirit.

What proceeds in God by way of love, does not proceed as begotten, or as son, but proceeds rather as spirit; which name expresses a certain vital movement and impulse, accordingly as anyone is described as moved or impelled by love to perform an action.

Each procession in God takes its name from the proper notion of will and intellect; the name being imposed to signify what its nature really is.

All that exists in God is one with the divine nature. Hence the proper notion of this or that procession, by which one procession is distinguished from another, cannot be on the part of this unity: but the proper notion of this or that procession must be taken from the order of one procession to another; which order is derived from the nature of the will and intellect.

The intellect and the will differ in this respect:

that the intellect is made actual by the object understood residing according to its own likeness in the intellect;

whereas the will is made actual, not by any similitude of the object willed within it, but by its having a certain inclination to the thing willed.

Likeness belongs in a different way to the word and to love. It belongs to the word as being the likeness of the object understood, as the thing generated is the likeness of the generator.

But it belongs to love, not as though love itself were a likeness, but because likeness is the principle of loving. Thus it does not follow that love is begotten, but that the one begotten is the principle of love.