Question 1. Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son

1. About the eleventh distinction I ask whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

That he does not:

Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.7: “the one proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son we call the Holy Spirit.”

2. Again, ch.8: “We say the Holy Spirit is from the Father, we do not say he is from the Son.”

3. Again, the same in his letter On the hymn the All Holy to the Archimandrite [Jordan] n.38, at the end: “Father and Word and Holy Spirit;” and he adds: “From the Father indeed; but of the Son, and not from the Son, but the Spirit of the mouth of God.”

4. Again, by the reasoning of the Greeks: nothing is to be held as an article of the faith save what is contained in the Gospel (which confusedly contains the faith), or at any rate in the Scripture of the New Testament; but it is not seen expressed in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son; therefore etc.

5. Again, love in us does not proceed from the word, because knowledge does not have causality with respect to volition; therefore likewise not in the prototype either.

6. Again, the will is posited as the third part of the image, Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.27 n.50; therefore it is not a principle of producing but a product. -Response: love is called ‘will’; but will ‘in potency’ pertains to the parent, although it does not constitute the parent, but quasi-arrives as a second fecundity in the Father.

7. Again, passive inspiriting is proper to one person in divine reality, therefore active inspiriting is too. - Proof of the consequence: for each seems equally perfect and equally incommunicable.

8. On the contrary:

In the Nicene Creed: “who proceeds from the Father and the Son;” and Athanasius in his Creed [Ps-Athanasius, Creed ‘Quicunque vult’]: “the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.”

I. To the Question

9. On this question the Greeks are said to disagree with the Latins, as the authorities from Damascene [nn.1-3] seem to indicate. But about this disagreement [the Bishop of] Lincoln [Robert Grosseteste] says (in a certain note on the end of the letter On the hymn the Thrice Holy [ms. in Magdalen College, Oxford, 192, f. 215rb]) that “the opinion of the Greeks is that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son but does not proceed from the Son, but only from the Father, although through the Son; and this opinion seems contrary to ours where we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But perhaps, if two wise men - one Greek and the other Latin - each a true lover of truth and not a lover of his own way of speaking, insofar as it is his own, were to inquire into this contrariety, it would eventually be plain to each that the contrariety is not truly real as it is verbal; otherwise either the Greeks themselves or we Latins are truly heretics. But who dares accuse this author, namely John Damascene, and blesseds Basil, Cyril, and other like Greek fathers, of being heretics? Who indeed will accuse again blesseds Jerome, Augustine, and Hilary and other like Latins of being heretics? It is likely then that there is not, under the said contrary words, an opinion of contrary saints; for the thing is said in many ways (just as here ‘of this’, so there ‘out of this’ or ‘by that’ of ‘from that’), in which multiplicity of contrary words perhaps, when it is more subtly understood and distinguished, no opposed opinion would appear.”

10. However it may be with these matters, from the time when the Catholic Church declared that this is to be held as of the substance of the faith (as is plain [in the Decretals of Gregory IX bk.1 tit.1 ch.1], ‘About the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith’: “We firmly believe”), one must firmly hold that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from both”.

11. For this there is the following sort of reason: that which first has a perfect productive principle before it is understood to have a product can produce by that principle, namely when the principle is so perfect that it does not depend on something passive nor can be impeded by anything; the Son has will, which is a principle productive of adequate love, and he has it as it is pre-understood to ‘the produced act of the will’; therefore he can produce it, therefore also he does produce it.

12. I prove the minor [n.11]: generation and inspiriting have a certain order, so that in some way generation is prior to inspiriting; in that prior stage there is communicated to the one generated all the divine perfection that is not repugnant to it, and so the will is communicated; therefore the generated then has will as prior ‘to what is produced by act of will’, because there is not yet understood any production made by way, or by act, of will.

13. Also, the assumption about the order of these productions [n.12], although it seem to be manifest from the order of the powers, is however proved from the fact that when first acts have an order in something - provided each is perfectly active - they will also have a like order in eliciting their acts. But I have added the phrase ‘perfectly active’ to exclude substantial form and quality in the case of corruptible things, where, although the substantial form is active, and the quality likewise, and the substantial form is prior to the quality, yet the quality has its act first; but this comes from the imperfection of the activity of the substantial form. Now in the Father intellect and will are perfectly active principles, and they have a certain order, because the fecundity of the intellect has constituted the Father but not the fecundity of the will. Therefore the fecundity of the intellect will in some way have its act before the fecundity of the will has its act.

14. Others prove this order of production to the product by the fact that, as understanding is to willing, so saying is to inspiriting.

15. But this proof [n.14] seems defective: for willing presupposes understanding, because the object, about which there is to be a love, is through this ‘understanding’ sufficiently present, and without this intellection it would not be sufficiently present to the will so that it might will; but through the act of speaking there is not present to the will precisely the object of which the love is inspirited, because, although the Father inspirits by the will as it is in him, yet he does not have the object formally present through generated knowledge (because he knows nothing by generated knowledge, as

Augustine says On the Trinity VII ch.1 n2), but by the intellection ungenerated in him does he have the object present to him, and this is the knowledge presupposed to the act of inspiriting; therefore there is not the like necessity for generation to be presupposed to inspiriting as there is for intellection to be presupposed to volition.

16. I concede that this instance [n.15] well proves that there is not altogether a like necessity, but there is an order between intellection and will for two reasons: one is because of the presence [of the object] already stated [n.15], the other is because of the order of these powers in operating, because these powers are such that one is naturally ordered to operate after the other. The first reason is not the reason for the priority of generation to inspiriting, but the second is; for just as, to the extent they are operative powers, there is some order between their operations, so there, to the extent they are productive powers, there is some order between their productions, although no order of necessity is required by the need to have such a presence of the object.

17. An example of this: if in fire heat and dryness are active causes, yet of a nature to elicit their acts in ordered fashion such that dryness cannot dry unless heat first heats, the order of necessity is not because the dryable object is, by the heating, made present to the dry so that it might be dried, but it is because of the nature of these active powers; and if in the prior stage in which the hot heats by heat it should communicate to the heated, or produce in the heated, not only the heat but also the dryness which it had, the heated would be dried by the same dryness as is in the heater, because in the instant of nature in which there is drying, there is one dryness in the heater and in the heated.

18. So must it be understood here, that in the moment of origin in which the Father produces by an act of will, there is the same productive principle in the Father and in the Son, and therefore the Son produces the Holy Spirit with the same production as the Father does.

II. To the Principal Arguments

19. To the authorities from Damascene [nn.1-3] it seems that a response can be made through that note of my Lord of Lincoln, about which we spoke [n.9]. However Damascene’s first authority [n.1] might, if he is speaking of the will and not of the Holy Spirit, be given an exposition: because it could then be said that the will, which is the principle of inspiriting, is ‘from the Father in the Son’ because the Father communicates it to the Son; and ‘it rests in the Son’, that is, it is not further communicated under the idea of fecund principle, although the same will is communicated to the Holy Spirit, in himself. But the literal meaning of Damascene in the same place [n.1] seems to be that he is speaking of the Holy Spirit, and not of the will by which he is inspirited.

20. To the reasoning about the Gospel [n.4] I say that the doctrine ‘Christ descended into hell’ is not taught in the Gospel, and yet it is to be held as an article of faith, because it is placed in the Apostle’s Creed. Thus are many other things about the sacraments of the Church not expressed in the Gospel and yet the Church holds them, handed down with certitude from the Apostles, and it would be dangerous to err about things which have not only come down from the Apostles but are also to be held by the custom of the universal Church. Nor did Christ in the Gospel teach all things pertaining to the dispensation of the sacraments; for he said to his disciples (John 16.12-13): “I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now; however when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will teach you all truth.” Therefore the Holy Spirit taught them many things which are not written in the Gospel; and thus have many things, some by writing, some by the custom of the Church, been handed down.

21. Likewise, diverse creeds have at diverse times been put forth against diverse heresies newly arisen, because, when a new heresy was arising, it was necessary to declare the truth against which the heresy was; which truth, although it was before of the faith, was yet not before as much declared as it is now against the errors of those who were denying it.

22. To the other point, about our word [n.5], I say that it is a mark of imperfection in the created image, because through our word the same nature as is in the mind is not communicated, and therefore not the liberty either, formally and simply. But to the divine Word is communicated the nature of the Father and the same will as is in the Father, and therefore the Word has the will as fecund with respect to the production of the Holy Spirit, because he is understood to have it first in order of origin before the Holy Spirit is inspirited.

23. To the final one [n.7], I say that it does not follow, because the divine nature cannot be had by one person in several productions, as will be plain in the following question [n.47], because in each production it would have the nature and in neither it would have the nature; yet one person can communicate nature in several productions, and several persons can produce a person in one production; and therefore if passive inspiriting is in one person alone, it does not follow that active inspiriting is in one alone.