Question One. Whether the Father and the Son Love Each Themselves by the Holy Spirit

1. About the thirty second distinction I ask whether the Father and the Son love themselves by the Holy Spirit.

That they do not:

Because to love is taken either essentially or notionally; not essentially, because anything essential is present in any person not through another person; if notionally, therefore the Father and the Son inspirit by the Holy Spirit, - which is false.

2. The same thing is proved secondly, because no notional act converts to the same agent form which it is or proceeds, because of the distinction which such notional act requires between the agent and the term; therefore, if this act converts, it is not taken notionally.

3. Further, if Father and Son love themselves by the Holy Spirit, then the Father loves himself by the Holy Spirit, because the Father seems to love himself and the Son by the same thing; but the conclusion seems unacceptable, because the Father loves himself in the first moment of origin, in which the Holy Spirit is not understood to have been inspirited.

4. Further, they love themselves and creatures by the same thing; but the Holy Spirit does not seem to be ‘what they love the creature by’, because then just as the Holy Spirit from the necessity of his production is love, so love of creatures would be from necessity - and so God would necessarily love the creature.

5. On the contrary:

On the Trinity VI ch.5 n.7: the Holy Spirit is “that by which the begotten is loved by the begetter and loves his begetter.”