Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Wort Gottes, inneres Wort, inner word: natürlich Vernunft reicht nicht aus; Psychological trinitarian theory; Trinität, Augustinus

Kurzinhalt: hat divine knowledge of the other provides no premise whence the procession of the divine Word could be established by natural reason; Psychological trinitarian theory

Textausschnitt: Now on Thomist analysis the divine essence formally is itself but eminently it contains all perfection. The divine act of understanding primarily is of the divine essence but secondarily of its virtualities. The divine Word that is uttered is one, but what is uttered in the one Word is all that God knows. Moreover, the divine essence, the divine act of understanding, and the divine Word considered absolutely are one and the same reality; hence there can be no real distinction between 'contained eminently in the essence' and 'secondary object of the understanding' or between either of these and 'uttered in the one Word.' Further, utterance in the one Word does not confer on the ideas an esse intelligibile that otherwise they would not possess; for in God esse naturale and esse intelligibile are identical. It remains, then, that divine knowledge of the other provides no premise whence the procession of the divine Word could be established by natural reason. The plurality of divine ideas within divine simplicity is accounted for by an infinite act of understanding grasping as secondary objects the perfections eminently contained in the divine essence and virtually in divine omnipotence. As we can understand multa per unum all the more so can God.
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Hence, though our intelligere is always a dicere, this cannot be demonstrated of God's. Though we can demonstrate that God understands, for understanding is pure perfection,d still we can no more than conjecture the mode of divine understanding and so cannot prove that there is a divine Word. Psychological trinitarian theory is not a conclusion that can be demonstrated but a hypothesis that squares with divine revelation without excluding the possibility of alternative hypotheses. Finally, Aquinas regularly writes as a theologian and not as a philosopher; hence regularly he simply states what simply is true, that in all intellects there is a procession of inner word.