Abstract
Scholars have long noted that there is a tension between the strength of Thomas’s arguments for the Trinity and the limits he places on natural reason. Very few, however, have noted a curious pattern: it is often within the same passage that Thomas both seems to prove the Trinity and rules out the possibility of any such proof. This paper begins by drawing out this pattern. It then proposes that this tension in Thomas’s thought might be a reflection of, and an education into, a deeper tension: the tension between union with God and distance from God that structures the beatific vision into which Thomas’s Trinitarian theology hopes to initiate us.
This paper will be premised on a bold claim, which I have made at length elsewhere: according to St Thomas Aquinas, the very meaning of perfection demands that absolute perfection could not exist at all if it were not shared by three divine Persons. 1
Many readers will no doubt find this claim hard to swallow. And there is good reason to dismiss it out of hand. For Thomas breaks with many of his contemporaries and immediate forebears by insisting that no ‘necessary reason’ for the Trinity could possibly be formulated. 2 For all its boldness, however, this claim is unavoidable: it follows inescapably from a great number of texts which run all through Thomas’s mature Trinitarian theology.
Before going any further, we should at least sketch, in the barest of terms, the lineaments of the argument which emerges from these texts. In brief: God is absolutely perfect, and He must therefore understand, for understanding is a pure perfection; 3 there must therefore be a Word in God, for a word belongs to the ratio of understanding; 4 there must therefore be procession in God, for procession belongs to the ratio of a word; 5 there must therefore be real relation in God, for real relation follows on any procession within any shared nature and on any procession of any inner word; 6 there must therefore be real distinction in God, for real distinction belongs to the ratio of real relation; 7 because God is simple, whatever exists in God must subsist in God, and so each of these really distinct entities must subsist in God; 8 and because a person is defined as that which subsists in a rational nature, each of these really distinct subsistent things in the intelligent divine nature must be a distinct divine Person. 9
Again, I have commented at length on this argument elsewhere, and I have tried to show that the reasoning is airtight and ironclad: Thomas begins with the intrinsic requirements of absolute perfection; he ends with personal plurality in God; and each step that he takes follows unavoidably from the previous step and leads unavoidably to the following step. 10
Acknowledging as much, however, leaves us with an almost overwhelming difficulty. For it requires holding that, according to Thomas, natural reason can know the meaning of certain terms, but that natural reason cannot know that God is Triune, even as the very meaning of those terms demands that God be Triune. Given the seriousness of this difficulty, it is certainly understandable that Wayne Hankey—who holds the distinction of being the reader of Thomas who has most fully recognized the strength of the tension at work here—should conclude that Thomas merely contradicts himself here, leaving us with a cluster of ‘incongruities’ and ‘incoherences.’ 11 In what follows, however, I hope to show that Hankey is overhasty in concluding as much. Specifically, I hope to focus on just a few details from just some of the passages in which Thomas binds the meaning of perfection to the necessity of the Trinity. For, in these passages, a curious pattern is evident: a pattern which has yet to be acknowledged in any depth, and which can hopefully open up certain insights into the question of ‘necessary reasons.’ For these texts make clear that Thomas does not merely bar natural reason from the Trinity and also bind the meaning of perfection to the necessity of personal plurality in God. Instead, and far more curiously, Thomas often bars natural reason from the Trinity precisely as he binds the meaning of perfection to the necessity of personal plurality in God. For, in these texts, some of Thomas’s strongest arguments for the Trinity based on the meaning of perfection fall in remarkable proximity to, or even within the same passage as, some of his strongest denials that any such arguments could exist.
This point is relevant for us because, first of all, if we had here merely a conflict between two remote corners of Thomas’s thought, then it might be plausible to argue—as, again, Hankey has argued—that Thomas simply contradicts himself. For, in such a situation, Thomas might have failed to recognize the tension between these remote corners; and, had this tension been brought to his attention, he might have modified one or both of the tension-laden terms in order to bring them into harmony. When the terms in tension are both articulated within the same passage, however, such a reading becomes less plausible, for this proximity suggests that Thomas was aware of this tension. And it suggests therefore that, whatever else is going on here, it is more complicated that a mere contradiction. 12 Indeed, it might even suggest that Thomas deliberately presents us with this tension—which might, in turn, suggest that he meant this tension itself to serve a purpose.
I hope here to propose one purpose this tension might serve. Before doing so, however, we will spend Section I attending directly to this tension: we will see that Thomas often most reverently upholds reason’s inability to discover the Trinity precisely where he most boldly seems to offer reason a path to the Trinity; he often distinguishes faith most cleanly from reason precisely where he unites faith most intimately to reason. In Sections II–IV, I will argue that this tension might be coherent with, and that it might stand at the service of, one of the governing goals of Thomas’s Trinitarian theology as a whole. For, according to Thomas, a similar coincidence of reverence and boldness, of distance and intimacy, structures both our encounter with Revelation (Section II) and our union with God in beatific vision (Section III). And, given that the chief aim of Thomas’s Trinitarian theology is to begin initiating us into beatific vision (Section IV), we will propose that the tension in our passages might serve to educate us into a tension which is constitutive of this vision—and that it might thereby help to educate us into this vision itself.
To be clear, seeing as much may not yield any exhaustively satisfying master-solution to the question of ‘necessary reasons’ in Aquinas. Yet I hope it might at least point towards one path which can hopefully shed some amount of light on this question, and which can hopefully take us further than any other path which has been opened as of yet, but which might also have limits, and which could certainly be complemented by other approaches. 13
Within The Same Breath
De Potentia 9.5
Some of Thomas’s readers have recognized that the opening of DP 9.5 contains one of his fullest articulations of the limits of natural reason vis-à-vis the Trinity. 14 Others have recognized that this same article contains one of Thomas’s strongest and densest progressions from the meaning of absolute perfection to the plurality of divine Persons. 15 Yet few have noted, 16 and none have drawn any significance from the fact, that one and the same passage contains both.
To appreciate this coincidence, we can begin with this article’s ‘manifestation’ of the Trinity, which opens with a threefold claim: first, that God must enjoy ‘every perfection that is in creatures’; second, that understanding is such a perfection; and, third, that, therefore, ‘understanding is in God as well as whatsoever belongs to its ratio.’ 17 From there, Thomas introduces the ‘concept of the intellect,’ which is ‘called the ‘inner word,’ and he registers the most important claim of the entire corpus: he tells us that such a word ‘belongs absolutely to the ratio of understanding.’ 18 If, therefore, ‘understanding’ is predicated of God analogously, and not equivocally, then there must be a Word in God.
Nor does Thomas stop there. Instead, he goes on to reason—very quickly—that, because of simplicity, because of the meaning of a word, and because of the meaning of sonship, this divine Word must be a divine Son. From another direction, he argues that the divine Word ‘differs’ from the divine Speaker insofar as this Word is ‘from’ this Speaker; that, because of divine simplicity, this Word and this Speaker—and Their relations to each other—must each be ‘subsistent’; and finally, because ‘[s]ubsisting things in the nature are divine Persons,’ there are multiple Persons in God. 19
There would be much to say regarding this passage. For our purposes, we can happily admit that, while Thomas is unambiguous here that a Word is necessarily present in God, there may be holes in his argument from the presence of such a Word to its distinct and personal subsistence. At the same time, however, this latter argument is quite strong, especially given the relatively short space in which it unfolds, and it becomes striking when read against the backdrop of other principles which we sketched in our Introduction, and which Thomas affirms throughout his mature corpus.
Yet DP 9.5 becomes truly significant for us in light of its opening words. For Thomas begins the corpus of this article as follows: I answer that the plurality of persons in God is an article of faith, and natural reason is unable to investigate or adequately understand it, though we hope to understand it in heaven when we shall see God in his essence, and faith will be succeeded by vision. The holy fathers, however, being pressed by those who gainsaid the faith, were compelled to discuss this and other matters of belief, yet humbly and reverently withal, and avoiding any pretense to comprehension. Nor is such a discussion without its use since it enables the mind to perceive some glimpse of the truth sufficient to steer clear of error.
Thus, Thomas opens this corpus by closing the door to the Trinity so tight that, even with faith, only a ‘glimpse’ can peek through: natural reason cannot even ‘investigate,’ let alone ‘adequately understand,’ the Trinity. In the very next words, however, he begins laying out elements of an argument by which natural reason could potentially open wide the doors to the Trinity. Through the bulk of this corpus, that is, Thomas seems boldly and blithely to draw reason beyond the very boundaries which he, in the opening words of the same corpus, had just drawn.
DP 8.1
Things become even more interesting when we come to the previous question. The corpus of DP 8.1 opens with Thomas’s writing, ‘I answer that those who follow the teaching of the Catholic faith must hold that the relations in God are real . . .; how this may be we must endeavor to discover by following the statements of holy men, although reason is unable to do so fully.’ 20 Through the rest of the corpus, however, Thomas never mentions the faith again, and he offers only a single citation of a single Father, and that only in passing. 21 Instead, he argues that an inner word ‘is not extrinsic to the intellect’s very act of understanding [ipso intelligere intellectus], since the very act of understanding [ipsum intelligere] cannot be complete without the word’; he goes on immediately to make clear that this claim holds analogously in the divine intellect, or in that intellect ‘whose act of intelligence is its very essence’; he continues that such a word ‘originates’ from a speaker, and that, because of divine simplicity, the divine Word shares the nature of the divine Speaker; and he concludes that ‘wherever there is the origin of one thing from another, there must be a real relation,’ and that when ‘the one taking its origin attains to the nature of its principle,’ this relation must be reciprocal. 22 Thus, immediately after telling us that only faith can know of real relation in God, Thomas lays out an argument that shows such real relation to follow straightforwardly from terms accessible to natural reason, and he treats ‘the statements of holy men’ as all but irrelevant in doing so.
Yet DP 8.1 is most important for us not because of its corpus, but because of Thomas’s response to one of its objections. For this objection charges that Thomas’s doctrine of the Word might allow ‘human reason to discover the Trinity of Persons.’
23
Thomas responds: Although natural reason is able to succeed in proving that God is intelligence, it is not able to discover adequately his mode of understanding. Just as we are able to know that God is, but not what he is: even so we are able to know that God understands, but not the mode in which he understands. Now to understand by conceiving a word belongs to the mode of understanding: wherefore reason cannot prove this adequately, but it can form a kind of conjecture by comparison with what takes place in us.
24
Thus, we can know that God understands, but we cannot know how God understands. And, because the conception of a word belongs to ‘the mode of understanding,’ natural reason might ‘conjecture’ that such a word could possibly be conceived in a God, but it cannot conclude that such a word must necessarily be conceived in God.
Everything seems to be neatly in place—until we return in more detail to the opening of the ‘manifestation’ of DP 9.5, where Thomas writes that we must attribute to God every perfection that is in creatures, according to that which belongs absolutely to the ratio of the perfection, but not according to the mode in which it is in this or that one . . . Now in creatures nothing is more excellent or more perfect than to understand . . . It follows then that understanding is in God as well as whatsoever belongs to its ratio, although it belongs to God in one mode and to creatures in another.
Thus, Thomas begins by explicitly distinguishing that which belongs to the ‘mode’ of a given perfection from that which belongs to its ratio, and he then again explicitly distinguishes all that belongs to the ratio of understanding from a given ‘mode’ of understanding. Yet, immediately after drawing these two rapid-fire distinctions between ratio and modus, Thomas uses the strongest language to plant the inner word squarely within the ratio of understanding: again, a word ‘belongs absolutely to the ratio of understanding.’
Thus, in DP 8.1, ad 12, an inner word ‘belongs to the mode of understanding’; in DP 9.5, a word belongs not merely to any mode of understanding, but ‘absolutely to the ratio of understanding.’ Even more, Thomas affirms as much shortly after telling us that ‘we must attribute to God every perfection that is in creatures, according to that which belongs absolutely to the ratio of the perfection.’ In DP 9.5, then, we can do more than conjecture that a word might be present in God; instead, we can conclude with confidence that a Word must be present in God. Within the same work, and just one question apart, a word first belongs to the mode of understanding, and then it belongs not to the mode but to the ratio of understanding. Thomas has it both ways, and he has it both ways within two immediately adjoining questions. 25
Nor, finally, do we have here an anomaly which might be shrugged off as an uncharacteristic slip of the pen from a writer who is usually so careful. Instead, we have a particularly striking iteration of a tension that, as we saw above, is present within the corpuses of both DP 8.1 and DP 9.5. Even more, we have a tension which plays out, in various ways and with various degrees of strength, throughout Thomas’s corpus. To begin appreciating as much, we can now run more briefly through a series of texts in which the same pattern is present, albeit in less developed and striking form.
Scattered Texts
Early in his Sentences Commentary, Thomas asks whether there is generation in God, and he begins, ‘Generation cannot be effectively confirmed by reason to be in God, as said [in the distinction immediately preceding this one], but it is held by authority and by faith: therefore, it must be simply conceded that generation is in God.’ 26 Immediately after denying that reason could discover generation to be in God, however, Thomas argues that ‘whatever perfection is found in creatures can be said of God’; he goes on to argue that generation belongs to ‘that which is perfect’ among creatures, and that it ‘signifies a certain perfection’; and he concludes that generation is therefore present in God. 27 Thus, the logic—which echoes that of DP 9.5, though in a different register—seems inescapable: the absolutely perfect God must enjoy every perfection; generation is a perfection; generation, therefore, is necessarily present in God. Yet, in another echo of DP 9.5, the limits on natural reason with which Thomas introduces this corpus seem to rule out from the outset the very argument that he unfolds through the bulk of the same corpus.
Similarly, in the de rationibus fidei, Thomas cautions us in chapter two that we ‘should not try to prove the Faith by necessary reasons’; 28 yet, in the very next chapter, he continues by arguing that procession belongs to the ratio of a word and that a divine Word necessarily subsists—and he thereby lays out significant markers along the path from absolute perfection to the Trinity. In his Roman Scriptum of the Sentences, he opens a corpus by soberly reminding us that ‘as faith posits, even so reason, although not altogether perfectly, can consider in God the Trinity of persons in the unity of essence.’ 29 Yet he spends the bulk of the very same corpus arguing that ‘because God is most perfect, no perfection can be lacking in Him’; that intellect and will are the ‘highest’ perfections; that ‘all who understand, by the fact that they understand, form something in their mind’; that, ‘therefore, we must posit in God one that proceeds by way of intellect, and this is the Word of God’; and, finally, that ‘because in the divine nature nothing exists unless it is subsistent, the Word of God . . . must have subsistent being.’ 30 Thus, immediately after insisting that reason can only imperfectly ‘consider’ the Trinity once faith has ‘posit[ed]’ it, Thomas goes on to show that the procession of a subsistent Word in God is demanded by the meaning of understanding and by the meaning of simplicity.
The STh, finally, is notable in that, here alone, we find a completely fleshed out argument from the meaning of perfection to the necessity of personal plurality in God. This argument unfolds in STh I 27-30. Just two questions later, however, Thomas devotes an article to denying that natural reason could reach the Trinity, 31 and he even explicitly denies that reflection on the structure of intellect—or, as he puts it, the ‘road which we have followed’ in STh I 27-30—could lead to knowledge of the Trinity. 32 Thus, again, this airtight argument—in which every i is dotted, every t crossed, and every gap filled in—is separated by just two questions from a forceful denial that any such argument could possibly exist.
I hope that noting the presence of this tension in these more scattered works can give us some sense for just how frequently some iteration of it appears in Thomas’s Trinitarian theology. We can end Section I with two texts where a similar tension comes to the fore, for, in these texts, Thomas both starkly separates and seamlessly unites discourses based on faith and reason.
A Radical Break, a Seamless Transition
Thomas spends chapters 3–34 of Compendium Theologiae I with matters accessible to natural reason. He then spends an entire chapter reminding us that the Trinity is not thus accessible: The truths about God thus far proposed have been subtly discussed by a number of pagan philosophers . . . But other truths about God are . . . beyond the reach of the philosopher. These are truths about which we are instructed, in accord with the norm of Christian faith, in a way that transcends human perception. The teaching is this: although God is one and simple, as has been explained, God is Father, God is Son, and God is Holy Spirit.
33
Yet, immediately after thus starkly dividing the discussion he had just concluded from the discussion he is poised to begin, Thomas seamlessly unites them. He opens the very next chapter by writing We take from what has been said above that God understands . . . Because God understands Himself, and all that is understood is in the person who understands, God must be in Himself as the object understood is in the person understanding. But . . . words, according to the Philosopher, are signs of that which is understood. Therefore we must posit in God the existence of His Word.
34
Thus, Thomas had spent chapter 36 starkly setting off ‘[t]he truths of God thus far proposed’ from the truths still to be discussed; yet he begins his reflection on the latter truths by invoking ‘what has been said above.’ Thomas does not ground his argument for a divine Word explicitly in Scripture or in a Church authority; instead, he grounds it in the fact that God understands Himself and in the intrinsic requirements of understanding. Indeed, the only external authority he cites here is ‘the Philosopher’—and he does so immediately after insisting that the truths in question are ‘beyond the reach of the philosopher.’ Even more, after he establishes that the presence of a Word in God follows on the fact of God’s self-understanding, Thomas goes on to show—based on the nature of a word, 35 on the requirements of divine simplicity, 36 and on the nature of intelligible procession 37 —that this Word must subsist in God as distinct from His Speaker. In chapter 36, then, Thomas had erected a sort of barrier between faith and reason; yet he begins chapter 37 not from the new ground on the faith-ward side of that barrier, but by reaching back across the barrier he had just built and by walking right through it. He not only binds and looses; instead, he binds as he looses and he looses as he binds.
Elsewhere, I have drawn out a similar pattern in the SCG. 38 In Book IV, Thomas shows that, because of the meaning of understanding, a Word must be present in God. 39 He then goes on immediately to show that this Word is ‘true God Himself’; 40 that it proceeds within the divine nature; 41 and that it is therefore distinct from the divine Speaker by a ‘distinction of relation.’ 42 He reasons, that is, from the meaning of understanding, of a word, and of simplicity to the necessity of relation and distinction in God.
Most remarkably of all, however, Thomas draws this conclusion directly from premises which he had explicitly established within Book I’s discussion based on natural reason. And he thereby seems to put this conclusion within the reach of natural reason. At the same time, however, Thomas only draws this conclusion once he has transitioned starkly from Book I–III’s discussion based on natural reason to Book IV’s discussion based on faith—and he thereby seems to put this conclusion beyond the reason of natural reason. 43
Things become more striking in light of a historical detail. For it is in his discussion of an inner word in Book I, ch. 53 that Thomas registers several of the points that become premises for arguments in Book IV. Yet historical scholarship has shown that Thomas went back and composed the final redaction of this chapter immediately after he had composed Book IV, ch. 11 itself. 44 When Thomas registers these points in Book I, therefore, he does so just after having used them as premises in arguments for procession and relative distinction in God—which means that he registers them in Book I with full knowledge that they yield conclusions which can only be discovered if they are revealed. Yet he registers them all the same.
From the other direction, Thomas mentions the divine Word in Book I, ch. 53, and he argues that a word must be present in understanding. His argument, however, establishes the presence of a word only in our understanding; it proves nothing of God. 45 Thomas, however, could have introduced the much stronger argument of IV 11§9, which does prove a Word to be present in God—for he had just composed this argument, and he therefore had it actively in mind as he was writing ch. 53. Indeed, it might seem as though he should have included this stronger argument in ch. 53, for this chapter as a whole is devoted to addressing a question concerning God’s understanding. Yet Thomas leaves this argument unmentioned, reserving it instead for Book IV’s discussion based on faith. Just so, Thomas could have shown in Book I that the divine Word is identical to the divine nature, that it proceeds in God, and that it is therefore relatively distinct from its Speaker, for he had fresh in mind arguments that show these conclusions to follow on premises he had established in Book I. Yet he makes no mention at all of any of these points. Instead, he again chooses to reserve these conclusions for Book IV, and so for a context that is inaccessible to natural reason.
The point, then, is both that Thomas explicitly registers these points within Book I, despite knowing the conclusions to which they tend, and that Thomas waits until Book IV to draw these conclusions, despite having them ready to hand as he was composing the relevant sections of Book I. And so the point is that he seems both to put the Trinity within reason’s reach and to keep the Trinity outside of reason’s reach. More specifically, the content of IV 11§§9–13 seems to place the Trinity squarely within the ambit of natural reason, yet the context of this passage seems to put it well beyond the ambit of natural reason. And, reading this content together with this context, it seems as though Thomas, in one and the same passage, both opens the Trinity to natural reason and closes the Trinity from natural reason.
A Curious Conclusion
Before going further, we can acknowledge that there might seem to be an easy way of explaining away the pattern we have traced here. One might admit that Thomas very often asserts the limits of natural reason just as he might appear to be demonstrating the Trinity, and that he inserts a sharp break between faith and reason right where he might appear to be seamlessly uniting them. Yet one might argue that he does so in order to underscore that his arguments for the Trinity cannot actually be doing what they might otherwise appear to be doing. That is, he might be read as scrupulously insisting on these limits at just these points because he recognized that, otherwise, he might be misunderstood as arguing the Trinity to be necessary based on the meaning of perfection; and, in order to rule out such a misreading of his ‘manifestations’ of the Trinity, he reminds us that no such argument can exist. One might be tempted, that is, to allow the strength of the limits he places on natural reason to unilaterally trump the strength of the arguments that they so often accompany.
In response, however, we can note that one could just as easily argue in the opposite direction. That is, one might just as reasonably admit that Thomas very often presents these arguments just as he is laying out what appear to be strict limits on natural reason, and that he often unites faith and reason right where he appears to set them asunder. Yet one might argue that he lays out these arguments and effects this union in precisely these places in order to make clear that these limits on natural reason cannot actually mean what they might otherwise appear to mean. That is, he might be read as boldly laying out these arguments at just these points because he recognized that, otherwise, he might be misunderstood as erecting a sort of barricade between the Trinity and natural reason; and, in order to rule out such a misreading of his rejection of ‘necessary reasons,’ he placed these limits right next to jarring reminders that no such barricade can exist. And so one might just as easily allow the strength of these arguments for the Trinity to unilaterally trump the strength of the limits on reason that they so often accompany. 46
Neither such reading of this pattern, however, can stand in the face of the actual details of the actual texts in question—for both readings would invoke one set of texts and principles in order to blunt or to blot out the plain meaning of another set. And so neither reading can fully countenance the plain meaning of a whole swath of passages from Thomas’s Trinitarian theology. If we would avoid a similar fate, and if we would do justice to the whole range of claims that Thomas registers in these texts, then we must go a different route. Doing so might appear to take us afield from our reflections to this point. In Section IV, however, we will apply directly to our question all of the principles we will unearth in Sections II and III.
Zealous Humility, Humble Zeal: SCG I, Ch. 5
We can begin with a series of passages from the opening of the SCG, where Thomas gives four reasons as to why it is fitting that Revelation should contain truths that transcend natural reason in the first place. Thomas begins: No one tends with desire and zeal into something that is not already known to him. But, as we shall examine later on in this work, men are ordained by divine Providence towards a higher good than human fragility can experience in the present life. That is why it was necessary for the human mind to be called into something higher than the human reason here and now can reach, so that it would thus learn to desire something and zealously tend into something that surpasses the whole state of the present life.
47
Thus, the chief reason that God reveals to us truths ‘higher than human reason here and now can reach’ is so that we might know Him, desire Him, and ‘zealously tend into’ Him.
Thomas goes on, however, to lay out a second such reason: It is also necessary that such truth be proposed to men for belief so that they may have a truer knowledge of God. For then only do we know God truly when we believe Him to be above everything that it is possible for man to think about Him; for, as we have shown, the divine substance surpasses the natural knowledge of which man is capable. Hence, by the fact that some things about God are proposed to man that surpass his reason, there is strengthened in man the view that God is something above what he can think.
48
To be clear, natural reason can already discover that ‘God is something above what [we] can think.’ 49 Yet when Revelation unveils God further, this new self-disclosure brings in its wake a greater appreciation for our inability to grasp God. This point cannot be overemphasized. When truths to which natural reason does not have access—chief among which is the Trinity 50 —are revealed, this revelation in no way compromises God’s transcendence and ungraspability. Instead, it ‘strengthen[s]’ our awareness of this transcendence and ungraspability. The more intimately we see into God, the more decisively do we see just how far beyond us God remains.
Thus, after stressing in 5§2 that Revelation allows us to tend into God, Thomas now stresses that Revelation underscores God’s ungraspability. Immediately after drawing out the intimacy with God to which we are called, Thomas underscores the distance that stretches between us and God even in our union with Him—and he makes clear that our awareness of this distance strengthens as we come to know God more intimately.
Before following this train out further, we can turn to this chapter’s third argument: Another benefit that comes from the revelation to men of truths that exceed reason is the curbing of presumption, which is the mother of error. For there are some who have such a presumptuous opinion of their own ability that they deem themselves able to measure the nature of everything . . . So that the human mind, therefore, might be freed from this presumption and come to a humble inquiry after truth, it was necessary that some things should be proposed to man by God that would completely surpass his intellect.
51
Thus, Revelation drives home to us the limits of our understanding. Yet it does not thereby shut down human thought into a sort of solipsistic despair. Rather, it frees us for ‘a humble inquiry after truth.’ Again, within this argument we see something of a tension: in humbling us, Revelation spurs us into an inquiry animated precisely by that humility.
Finally, Thomas offers a fourth argument, in which he seems to shift back to the tone of the first: A still further benefit may also be seen in what Aristotle says in the Ethics. There was a certain Simonides who exhorted people to put aside the knowledge of divine things and to apply their talents to human occupations . . . Against Simonides Aristotle says that ‘man should draw himself towards what is immortal and divine as much as he can.’ And so he says in the De animalibus that, although what we know of the higher substances is very little, yet that little is loved and desired more than all the knowledge that we have about less noble substances. He also says in the De caelo et mundo that when questions about the heavenly bodies can be given even a modest and merely plausible solution, he who hears this experiences intense joy.
52
If the third argument in 5§4 had shown that Revelation relieves us of a false presumption, then this last argument shows us that Revelation relieves us of a false modesty—and Thomas is clear that we need relief from both. Revelation humbles us in making clear that the truth even of created things exceeds that which might immediately appear to us. Yet Revelation also emboldens us in making clear that even the highest of all truths—truths that seem more ‘immortal and divine’ than mortal and human—are not entirely inaccessible to us. Rather, we can, and we even ‘should,’ ‘draw [ourselves] towards’ these truths, for even in this life such truths can be known enough to be ‘loved and desired’ with ‘intense joy.’
Thus, Thomas’s first argument had emphasized our need to ‘tend with desire and joy into’ the God to Whom we are called; similarly, this last argument picks up on our love, desire, and joy in relation to the ‘immortal and divine’ with Whom we can enjoy a real intimacy. Yet between these two affirmations of desire and union, Thomas had emphasized the distance that yawns between us and the ‘immortal and divine,’ even in our increasingly intimate knowledge of it. The point, however, is that Thomas stresses both sides of this tension. Indeed, he seems to stress both in roughly equal measure, with one side very often right at the heels of the other; and he even suggests that, far from crowding each other out, the two sides increase together. Revelation kindles our desire for God and it allows us to ‘tend into’ God, even as it throws into even sharper relief the unbridgeable distance that yawns between us and God; it disabuses us of our false presumption and it drives home the limits of reason, even as it disabuses us of our false modesty and secures the grandeur and exalted scope of reason. From union to distance, from humility to boldness—Thomas moves from one to the other, and he insists that both sides are secured and demanded by the same revelation of the same ‘truths that are above human reason.’ 53
We can already, therefore, perhaps begin to see a sort of resonance between this coincidence of intimacy and distance, which Thomas takes to govern our encounter with the revelation of the Trinity, and the pattern that we pursued throughout Section I. For we saw throughout Section I that Thomas often seems to be boldest and most heedless where he is most modest and cautious, to most carefully build barriers where he most carelessly careens right through them, and to most seamlessly unite faith and reason where he most scrupulously puts them asunder. Yet we perhaps see now a way in which these tensions might not be a contradiction: for, in SCG I, ch. 5, Thomas presents both poles of a similar tension as intrinsic to our encounter with the revelation of the Trinity.
Wonder, Reverence, and Vision
The most basic point, however, is that our intimate knowledge of God and our reverent awareness of God’s incomprehensibility seem not to be simply opposed. Instead, they seem to be directly correlated: as we just saw, each increases as we transition from natural knowledge of God to revealed knowledge of God. We will see now that each together reaches its apex as our relation to God is perfected in beatific vision. 54
First of all, Thomas teaches that beatific vision includes wonder: when he is speaking of our ‘ultimate felicity,’ he writes that ‘the divine substance is always viewed with wonder by any created intellect, since no created intellect comprehends it.’ 55 Similarly, he writes that the blessed angels will forever ‘wonder at God’s supereminence and incomprehensibility.’ 56 Seeing God as He is does not collapse God’s incomprehensibility; it confirms it. To see God as He is is to see how much He exceeds our sight—and thus to wonder. 57
We see this interweaving of intimacy and distance not only in our perfect knowledge of God, but also in our perfect love of God. For Thomas distinguishes filial fear from servile fear, and he is clear that the former is not cast out, but included in, charity. Indeed, filial fear even increases in direct proportion to charity: Thomas writes that ‘filial fear must increase when charity increases, even as an effect increases with the increase of its cause’; 58 and again, ‘as filial fear increases with the increase of charity, so is it perfected when charity is made perfect.’ 59 Beatific vision, then, entails the perfection of charity and of filial fear. 60
This fullness of filial fear is relevant for us chiefly due to the reverence and the chastity of which it consists: as Thomas puts it, filial fear ‘teaches us to love God with reverence and solicitude’; 61 it ‘causes reverent servitude’; 62 and ‘filial and chaste fear amount to the same.’ 63 To fear God filially is to revere Him; it is to chastely let Him be Other than ourselves; it is to respect the distance between us and God. As Thomas writes, filial fear is bound up with the fact that ‘the creature is infinitely distant from God, which will remain even in heaven.’ 64 The deepening of our union with God, then, does not dim our awareness of our distance from God. Instead, the deepening of this union deepens our awareness of, our awe before, and our acceptance of this distance: we chastely recognize our distance from God precisely to the extent that we are perfectly united to Him. We bow down to God with reverence even as we embrace Him with zeal; we bow in embracing and we embrace in bowing, embracing all the tighter the lower we bow.
We can sum these points up, and we can return to wonder, by turning to a final passage. Commenting on Jesus’ words, ‘a prophet has no honor in his own town,’ Thomas tells us that living with men in the usual way, and too much familiarity, lessen reverence and breed contempt. So it is that those with whom we are more familiar we come to reverence less, and those with whom we cannot become acquainted we regard more highly. However, the opposite happens with God: for the more intimate we become with God through love and contemplation, realizing how superior he is, the more we revere Him and the less do we esteem ourselves. ‘I have heard you, but now I see you, and so I reprove myself, and do penance in dust and ashes’ (Job 42:5). The reason for this is that man’s nature is weak and fragile; and when one lives with another for a long time, he notices certain weaknesses in him, and this results in a loss of respect for him. But because God is infinitely perfect, the more we know Him the more we wonder at His superior perfection, and as a result the more we revere Him.
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Thus, the more intimate we become with God, the more we wonder at and revere Him; the closer we come to God, the further we realize ourselves to be from Him. The distance entailed by our reverence for and wonder at God is not opposed to our union with God; instead, this reverent and wonder-ful distance is constitutive of our union with God. Far from standing at odds, intimacy with God and an awareness of our distance from God stand or fall together.
Beatific Vision, Trinitarian Theology, and Tensions of Faith and Reason
This coincidence of intimate union and infinite distance, finally, might be able to shed an unexpected light on the question of ‘necessary reasons’ in Aquinas. For Gilles Emery has shown that, for Thomas, ‘speculative Trinitarian theology constitutes an exercise, an elevation of the believing mind, a training in order to see God, which procures a foretaste of the beatific vision and makes it possible to give an account of Trinitarian faith.’ 66 Trinitarian theology, for Aquinas, is an ‘exercise’ by which we can begin, already now, to be elevated into that vision whose fullness awaits us. We just saw, however, that this vision harmonizes notes which might initially appear to be contradictory: it is a matter of perfect union with a God Whom we recognize to be all the more beyond us the more deeply He welcomes us into His intimate confines. If, therefore, Thomas’s Trinitarian theology is an ‘exercise’ aimed at acclimating our eyes to this vision, then it is perhaps fitting that this theology itself should be marked by just this coincidence of zealously uniting and chastely setting boundaries.
Thus, returning to our main passages, we can recall once more that it is often precisely where Thomas most chastely and reverently upholds the Trinity as inaccessible to natural reason that he seems most boldly to offer natural reason intimate access to the Trinity; and it is often where he most seamlessly unites faith and reason that he most scrupulously puts them asunder. Using our current language, we can say that, throughout his Trinitarian theology, Thomas often most boldly suggests an intimate union between natural reason and the Trinity precisely as he most chastely and reverently insists on an unbridgeable distance between natural reason and the Trinity. Yet we just saw that this tension between intimate union and reverent distance reaches its height in, and is even constitutive of, beatific vision; and we saw that the goal of Trinitarian theology is to begin initiating us into precisely this vision. It may therefore be entirely fitting that, in initiating us into this vision, Trinitarian theology should initiate us into precisely this tension. The tension we sketched in Section I might not be a glitch or an oversight; instead, it might be intrinsic to the most fundamental purpose of Thomas’s Trinitarian theology.
On such a reading, then, even if Thomas’s arguments do bind the meaning of perfection indissolubly to the necessity of the Trinity, they need not represent a violation of his rejection of ‘necessary reasons.’ Instead, they might be read as a complement to his rejection of ‘necessary reasons’—a complement which stands in tension with that rejection without contradicting or violating it. That is, these arguments and this rejection can be read not as mutually exclusive sides of a contradiction, but as poles of a paradox—which means that both of these poles can be held at the same time. Indeed, insofar as they reflect this deeper paradox, both of these poles must be held at the same time, lest the truth to which they together point should lose its fullness and its balance: for it is only when both poles of a paradox are fully present that they can together point towards a fullness of truth which neither one can capture or convey alone.
Thus, on such a reading, one would not need to deny that absolute perfection is necessarily Triune perfection—which would require gutting any number of passages from Thomas’s Trinitarian theology—in order to make room for Thomas’s rejection of ‘necessary reasons.’ Nor would one need to scale back the force of this rejection in order to make room for this Trinitarian reading of perfection. Instead, the full force of Thomas’s arguments can stand together with the full force of Thomas’s rejection of ‘necessary reasons.’ Thus, we can fully affirm that natural reason could never possibly discover the Trinity, and we can fully affirm that the logic of perfection intrinsically demands that absolute perfection be Triune perfection. Indeed, we can coherently affirm both at once—and we can acknowledge that Thomas’s principles demand that we affirm both at once—without one affirmation at all threatening the other. And we can do so, again, because the beatific vision, into which Thomas’s Trinitarian theology as a whole is designed to educate us, coherently includes both poles of a similar paradox.
Conclusion
Of course, any number of challenges could be posed to our proposal, which might be dismissed as a stretch or as forced. Whatever its limits, however, this proposal goes beyond current readings of Thomas on this question in that it accepts both the strength of his arguments for the Trinity and the strength of his limits on natural reason, without concluding that he merely contradicts himself. And I hope that it can therefore stand as an example of the sort of approach that might shed some light on this question.
More deeply, I hope it suggests that accepting the bold claim with which we began, which I have established elsewhere, and which we have assumed throughout—that Thomas binds the meaning of perfection to the necessity of the Trinity—need not mean sidelining or violating Thomas’s rejection of ‘necessary reasons’ for the Trinity, it need not mean concluding that Thomas contradicts himself, and it need not mean shutting down any further discussion. Instead, it can spur us into a deep and fruitful with engagement with Thomas’s Trinitarian theology, and it can open up dimensions of Thomas’s Trinitarian theology that might otherwise escape our notice.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.