Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Trinität, göttliche Hervorgänge (processio) - intellektuelle Emanation 3; Unterschied (Lonergan: Divinarum Personarum - De Deo Trino): kausale - intellektuelle Emanation; Unterschied (Thomas - Aristoteles); Wirkursache; p. operati - operationis

Kurzinhalt: The act of understanding is to the possible intellect, the act of loving is to the will, as act to potency, as perfection to its perfectible... But the inner word is to our intelligence in act as is act to act...

Textausschnitt: 773d Besides, these very differences clearly show how great is the difference between intellectual emanation and causal emanation. Intellectual emanation is the principle of sufficient reason within intellectual consciousness itself; causal emanation is the same principle insofar as there can be a participation and remote imitation of it apart from an intellectual consciousness that is actually understanding.1 (Fs) (notabene Fußnote)

Fußnote 17:

17 [A major difference in content between the two versions appears in their respective treatment of causality. In Divinarum Personarum the difference even in us between the emanation and an exercise of causality is stressed, while in De Deo Trino mention is made of a causality in us that is peculiar to consciousness. In Divinarum Personarum causality is 'imperfecta quaedam et inconscia imitatio ordinis intelligibilis qui in mente creatoris intentionaliter adest' (a certain imperfect and unconscious imitation of the intelligible order that intentionally exists in the mind of the creator) that is not found in the created image of the Trinity, that is, in our emanatio intelligibilis; whereas in De Deo Trino the notion of causality is extended to include a peculiar kind of causality proper to conscious acts. No help is given, though, to indicate just what that 'modum causalitatis proprium conscientiae' might be. More help is provided in the earlier work now available as the book Verbum, where a distinction is presented between the Aristotelian restriction of efficient causality to the exercise of an influence that proceeds from one being to another, on the one hand, and 'a more general notion' found in Aquinas, on the other hand. The following is from Verbum 205-206. (Fs)

Aquinas developed a more general notion of efficient causality than that defined by Aristotle. Thus principium operati, principium effectus, processio operati include the idea of production but do not include the Aristotelian restrictions of in alio vel qua aliud. The act of understanding is to the possible intellect, the act of loving is to the will, as act to potency, as perfection to its perfectible; the procession is processio operationis and cannot be analogous to any real procession in God. But the inner word is to our intelligence in act as is act to act, perfection to proportionate perfection; in us the procession is processio operati; in us dicere is producere verbum, even though it is natural and not an instance of Aristotelian efficient causality. (Fs)

Even more helpful is the following, from ibid. 207, reflected a bit, but not this clearly, in De Deo Trim's explanation of the phrase 'actu priori determinatae.'

There are two aspects to the procession of an inner word in us. There is the productive aspect; intelligence in act is proportionate to producing the inner word. There is also the intelligible aspect: inner words do not proceed with mere natural spontaneity as any effect does from any cause; they proceed with reflective rationality; they proceed not merely from a sufficient cause but from sufficient grounds known to be sufficient and because they are known to be sufficient. I can imagine a circle, and I can define a circle. In both cases there is efficient causality. But in the second case there is something more. I define the circle because I grasp in imagined data that, if the radii are equal, then the plane curve must be "uniformly round. The inner word of defining not only is caused by but also is because of the act of understanding. In the former aspect the procession is processio operati. In the latter aspect the procession is processio intelligibilis. Similarly, in us the act of judgment is caused by a reflective act of understanding, and so it is processio operati. But that is not all. The procession of judgment cannot be equated with procession from electromotive force or chemical action or biological process or even sensitive act. Judgment is judgment only if it proceeds from intellectual grasp of sufficient evidence as sufficient. Its procession also is processio intelligibilis]