Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Die göttlichen Sendungen; Gott - kontingente Wahrheit: Gründung in Gott, Ziel in der Kreatur

Kurzinhalt: ASSERTION 15 - What is truly predicated contingently of the divine persons is constituted by the divine perfection itself, but it has a consequent condition in an appropriate external term

Textausschnitt: 439a The principle in all of this is that contingent truths, whether predicated of the divine persons commonly or properly, have their constitution in God but their term in creatures. Therefore, although the external works of God are necessarily common to the three persons, the missions in the strict sense are necessarily proper, since a divine person operates by reason of the divine essence but is not really and truly sent except by reason of a relation of origin. Accordingly, the entire question is reduced to a question of fact, namely, whether not only the Son but also the Holy Spirit has really and truly been sent. (Fs)

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Argument

441c First, what is truly predicated contingently of the divine persons is constituted by the divine perfection itself. (Fs)

For where there is present a formality constitutive of infinite perfection, any other formality is superfluous. But each divine person as well as all together are infinite in perfection. Therefore, any constitutive formality other than the divine perfection itself is superfluous for constituting whatever is truly predicated contingently of the divine persons. (Fs)

441d Second, what is truly predicated contingently of the divine persons has no correspondence of truth without an appropriate external term. (Fs)

For the correspondence of truth is lacking where a truth is contingent but the corresponding reality is absolutely necessary. But our inquiry is explicidy about contingent truths, and the divine perfection is absolutely necessary; therefore, if there is no external term, there is no correspondence of truth. (Fs)

441e Third, the necessary external term is not a constitutive cause but only a condition, and indeed a condition that is not prior or simultaneous but consequent. (Fs)

443a It is not a constitutive cause, both because that is superfluous where infinite perfection is present, and because each thing is constituted by its own reality and not by that of another. (Fs)

It is only a condition, because it is not a cause, and yet it is necessarily required. (Fs)

It is not an antecedent or a simultaneous but a consequent condition, because the divine persons are absolutely independent with respect to all created things. (Fs)