Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Der Geliebte im Liebenden (amantum in amante): konstituiert durch Liebe oder gemacht; Hervorgang im Akt des Wollens analog zu jenem im Akt des Verstehens?

Kurzinhalt: QUESTION 4; Is the 'beloved in the lover' constituted by love or produced by love?; we are asking whether it is really the same as love, the act of loving, or whether perhaps it is really distinct from love and proceeds from love.

Textausschnitt: [...]

219b Summa theologiae, 1, q. 27, a. 3 c: '... in God there is procession only according to action that does not tend toward something extrinsic but remains within the agent itself. But such action in an intellectual nature is that of the intellect and that of the will. The procession of the word is considered in connection with the action of the intellect. However, another procession is found in us in connection with the operation of the will, namely, the procession of love, whereby the beloved is in the one who loves, just as the reality spoken or understood is in the one who understands through the conception of the word. Hence, in addition to the procession of the Word, another procession is to be posited in God, namely, the procession of Love.' (Fs)

219c Summa theologiae, 1, q. 37, a. 1 c: 'Just as from the fact that someone understands something, there comes forth in the one who understands some intellectual conception of the reality understood, which is called the word; so from the fact that someone loves something, there comes forth in the affection of the lover some impression, so to speak, of the reality loved, whereby the beloved is said to be in the one who loves, just as what is understood is in the one who understands. So it is that, when one understands and loves oneself, one is in oneself not only by an entitative identity, but also as what is understood is in the one who understands, and as the beloved is in the one who loves.' (Fs)

221a Regarding that reality which is named 'the beloved in the lover' we are asking whether it is really the same as love, the act of loving, or whether perhaps it is really distinct from love and proceeds from love. If you say the former is the case, then 'the beloved in the lover' is constituted by love; if you say the latter is the case, then 'the beloved in the lover' is produced by love. (Fs) (notabene)

221b In favor of the former opinion is the first passage cited above: according to that passage, the beloved is said to be in the one who loves in accordance with the procession of love, just as the thing spoken or understood is in the one who understands it through the conception of the word. For 'the reality spoken or understood' is constituted in the one who understands through the word itself; in like manner, therefore, the 'beloved' is constituted in the lover through proceeding love itself. (Fs)


221c In favor of the latter opinion is the second passage cited above: there, from the fact that someone understands, there issues forth in the one understanding a conception of the thing understood, and similarly from the fact that someone loves, there issues forth in the affection of the lover a kind of impression of the thing loved. For the word is produced by the act of understanding, and so, in like manner, 'the beloved in the lover' is produced by the act of loving. (Fs)

221d The importance of this question is that corresponding to these opposed opinions there are opposed theoretical systems. Some take the trinitarian analogy from determining that there are two processions in us, one within intellect and the other within will; so that, just as the act of understanding produces the word in the first procession, so the act of love produces the 'beloved in the lover' in the second; John of St Thomas1 and Thomists generally have been of this opinion. But we take the trinitarian analogy from the fact that we experience in ourselves two processions, the first of which is within intellect, while the second is from intellect toward will. In the first procession, we judge because and according as we grasp the sufficiency of evidence. And in the second, we choose because and according as we judge. (Fs) (notabene)

221e Thus, we do not follow the opinion of Thomists in this matter, both because it prescinds from our internal experience in its conception of the psychological trinitarian analogy, and because it prescinds from our internal experience in its interpretation of the texts of St Thomas on psychological reality. However, we postpone this general question to appendices 1 and 2, and for now we ask only whether in the writings of St Thomas 'the beloved in the lover' is constituted or produced by the act of loving. (Fs)

223a We answer by citing texts in which (1) 'the beloved' is present 'in the lover' because love is present and not because something is produced by the act of love, (2) the analogy is explicitly posited in the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Word just as love proceeds in us from our mental word, (3) the Holy Spirit is called proceeding Love, and (4) a procession after the manner of a thing operated is excluded from the will. (Fs)

223b Summa contra Gentiles, 4, c. 19, ¶4, §3560: [...]
227b Summa theologiae, [...]

229b Our response is that a hypothesis concerning development is superfluous when one attends to St Thomas's explicit doctrine. St Thomas taught explicitly
(1) that the second procession is the procession of love from the word;
(2) that the Holy Spirit is both 'the beloved in the lover' and proceeding Love;
(3) that the only procession in the will is the procession after the manner of an operation; and
(4) that the beloved is in the lover inasmuch as the beloved is being loved. (Fs) (notabene)
229c This internally consistent doctrine would have evolved to the extreme if in some later stage it could be proved beyond doubt
(1) that the second procession is not the procession of love from the word, but 'of the beloved in the lover' from love,
(2) that the Holy Spirit is 'the beloved in the lover' but is not proceeding Love,
(3) that there is a procession in the will after the manner of a reality that is the term of the operation,
(4) that the beloved is in the lover, not because the beloved is being loved, but because something really distinct proceeds from this love, which is named 'the beloved in the lover.' (Fs)

229d However, such extreme development is so far from having been proved beyond doubt that the only texts adduced in its favor are those in which perhaps implicitly there can be found, not the fullness ofjohn of St Thomas's thought on the point, but only certain elements of it. (Fs)