16. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (SCG 4,2–26)
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (SCG 4,2–26)
IN SCG 1–3, Aquinas argues for certain conclusions concerning God while noting what errors are set aside by them and while showing “how the truth that we come to know by demonstration is in accord with the Christian religion.”1 However, with SCG 4 it is what Aquinas takes to be divine revelation that comes to the forefront. In this book, he introduces arguments based on reason only so as to try to make some sense of what he believes on faith, never to refute arguments complaining that this has not been philosophically proved to be true. Since Aquinas holds that divine revelation is primarily given in the Bible, therefore, SCG 4 provides biblical quotations in abundance while presenting them as proof texts. It continually appeals to Scripture as settling what is to be believed on certain topics. More specifically, it does so with respect to the Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the resurrection of people from the dead. It also does so while turning to the sacraments of the Catholic Church.
To repeat what I have already stressed (see chapter 1, section 4 here), Aquinas makes a sharp distinction between faith and reason. He thinks that there are some things that people may know to be true since their truth can be demonstrated. Yet he also thinks that there are truths that cannot be demonstrated. Among this second set of truths Aquinas includes the articles of faith, which he takes to be grounded in Scripture and to be formally presented in texts like the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and the definition of faith coming from the Council of Chalcedon.2 Running these creeds together, we find what Aquinas took to be the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Incarnation, and the doctrine that the dead shall be raised. It is these doctrines that Aquinas is concerned with in SCG 4, and, since he does not take them to be demonstrable, his initial procedure is to defend them with reference to the Old and New Testaments. So a lot of SCG 4 is devoted to citing scriptural passages that Aquinas regards as teaching what he takes these doctrines to maintain. SCG 4 is, therefore, very much an exercise in biblical interpretation proceeding on the assumption that the Bible should be thought of as inspired by God. It also proceeds on the assumption that biblical texts should be read in a literal sense unless there is some reason for taking them to be only figuratively true.3
Aquinas’s way of reading the Bible is not that of contemporary biblical scholars, so you should not expect SCG 4 to read like modern, academic biblical commentaries.4 You can, however, take it for granted that, rightly or wrongly, Aquinas believes that the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation are grounded in biblical texts. You can also take it for granted that he thinks the same when it comes to belief in the resurrection of the dead and to what he means by the word “sacrament.”
All of this becomes obvious in the foreword that Aquinas provides for SCG 4, in which there are echoes of what we find in SCG 1,1–9 (see chapter 1, section 4 here). This foreword is partly a reflection on Job 26:14 and partly a reiteration of what Aquinas has previously said or implied in the SCG concerning faith and reason. “There is in people,” says Aquinas, “a threefold knowledge of things divine.” He continues:
Of these, the first is that in which people, by the natural light of reason, ascend to a knowledge of God through creatures. The second is that by which the divine truth—exceeding the human intellect—descends on us in the manner of revelation, not, however, as something made clear to be seen, but as spoken in words to be believed. The third is that by which the human mind will be elevated to gaze perfectly upon the things revealed.5
Aquinas goes on to concede that by reason we attain only an imperfect knowledge of God, albeit one “in keeping with reason’s native capacity.”6 We should not, he says, suppose that divine revelation gives us perfect knowledge of God. We read:
What has been passed on to us in the words of sacred Scripture may be taken as principles, so to say: thus, the things in those writings passed on to us in a hidden fashion we may endeavor to grasp mentally in some way or other, defending them from the attacks of the infidels. Nonetheless, that no presumption of knowing perfectly may be present, points of this kind must be proved from sacred Scripture, but not from natural reason. For all that, one must show that such things are not opposed to natural reason, in order to defend them from infidel attack.7
So Aquinas declares that the purpose of SCG 4 is to treat of matters concerning God that are taught by revelation.
We must treat of the things about God which surpass reason and are proposed for belief: such is the confession of the Trinity; second, of course, the things which surpass reason that have been done by God, such as the work of the Incarnation and what follows thereon; third, however, the things surpassing reason which are looked for in the ultimate end of people, such as the resurrection and glorification of bodies, the everlasting beatitude of souls, and matters related to these.8
The “confession of the Trinity” (confessio trinitatis) is the topic of SCG 4,2–26.