This paper will focus on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit"s procession grounded in the doctrine of the Trinity in the Dominican friar, Thomas Aquinas. He established an influential teaching of how one might speak of plurality in God in light of confirm...
This paper will focus on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit"s procession grounded in the doctrine of the Trinity in the Dominican friar, Thomas Aquinas. He established an influential teaching of how one might speak of plurality in God in light of confirming His oneness, combining Aristotelian metaphysics with Christian belief. In order to demonstrate the dynamic movements of the three Persons in the divine simplicity, Thomas argues that the divine Persons differ through the relations of origin to one another. Their unity is based on the divine substance, which the Son and the Spirit both receive from the Father, the principle of the whole divinity. Following Augustine who regards the Holy Spirit as the Bond of the Love between the Father and the Son, Thomas develops systematically the doctrine of the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son. For the dominican friar, the procession of the Spirit from the Son is not only based on Jesus" own statements in the Bible but also even necessary for the Spirit"s salvific work that leads people to conform to the sons and daughters of God as well as brings them through the Son to the Father. Thus, Thomas insists that the filioque is true and defensible. However, his views on the procession of the Spirit from the Son provide targets for criticisms that pneumatology seems to be a second-class doctrine compared to Christology. The friar completely overlooks the active work of the Spirit in the Incarnation event and does not pay proper attention to the linguistic difference when ?κπορε?ω(exporeusis) is translated into the Latin term processio. In Greek, the former is a personal word, one that is descriptive of the Spirit alone and not the Son.