Dr. John Goyette: “The Soul as Imago Dei”

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The Soul as Imago Dei:
The Image of the Trinity according to Nature and Grace

 

by Dr. John J. Goyette
Tutor, Thomas Aquinas College, California
2023 Thomistic Summer Conference
June 16, 2023

 

St. Thomas articulates two distinct ways that the soul functions as an image of the Trinity. First, the procession of word and love in the human soul (especially when the soul knows and loves itself) is an analogy for the procession of the Word and Love in God. St. Thomas calls this the “likeness of the natural image” or the “image of creation.”  Second, the soul is an image of the Trinity insofar it is assimilated to, and objectively united with, the persons of the Trinity by knowledge and love. This is called the “image of recreation.” The aim of this paper is to explain and clarify how St. Thomas understands these two ways the soul functions as an Imago Dei, and to show how the soul’s objective union with the divine persons is a more perfect image of the Trinity that builds on the less perfect natural image.

 

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to present St. Thomas’s teaching on the soul as imago Dei, and more specifically on the soul as an image of the Trinity. The scriptural basis for the notion of man as imago Dei is found in Genesis 1:26-7: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’… So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” St. Thomas interprets this text to refer not only to man’s rational nature as an image of the very essence of God, but also as an image of the distinction of persons. He asserts that the soul is an image of the Trinity of persons insofar as the interior processions of word and love in the human soul are made to be a likeness of the procession of the eternal Word and the procession of Love (Holy Spirit).[1] That the soul images the Trinity of persons finds some support from the use of the plural pronouns in the biblical text (“Let us make man in our image”) which suggests that an image of the Trinity of persons, not just the divine nature, is found in man.

Sorting out exactly how the soul is an image of the Trinity, according to St. Thomas, is a complicated matter. Besides the inherent difficulty in understanding the interior processions in the human soul and seeing how these processions manifest procession in God himself, there is an added complexity in the account. St. Thomas talks about two distinct ways in which the soul functions as an image of the Trinity. First, the procession of word and love in the human soul (especially when the soul knows and loves itself) is an analogy for the procession of the divine Word (i.e., the Son) and the divine Love (i.e., the Holy Spirit). St. Thomas calls this the “likeness of the natural image”[2] or the “image of creation”[3] (referencing the Genesis text quoted above). Second, the soul is an image of the Trinity insofar it is assimilated, or transformed, to the persons of the Trinity by being objectively united to them by graced acts of knowledge and love. This is called the “image of recreation.”[4] The scriptural basis for this notion of image is found in the New Testament, notably 2 Cor 3:18: “But we beholding the glory of the Lord with open face are transformed into the same image.”[5]

The aim of this paper is to explain and clarify how St. Thomas understands these two ways the soul function as an imago Dei, and to show how the soul’s objective union with the divine persons is a more perfect image of God, one that builds on the less perfect image, (i.e., the procession of the word and love in the soul as an analogy for divine procession and the distinction of persons in God). The paper has three parts. In Part I, I will sketch St. Thomas’s basic understanding of what is meant by the soul as in an image of God, and of the Trinity specifically. In Part II I will also discuss a couple of preliminary texts where St. Thomas describes different levels of the soul as an image of the Trinity according to nature and grace: one text from the De potentia q. 9, a. 9 and one from De veritate, q. 10, a. 7. This will enable us to raise a question about the relation between the image according to nature and the image according to grace. Part III will focus on that relation (between the image according to nature and the image according to grace), as found in the Summa theologiae drawing upon some of the features of the image that are illuminated by Thomas’s Trinitarian theology.

 

Part I – An Outline of the Imago

What exactly do we mean by the term image, and how is man made to the image of God? According to St. Thomas, an image is a certain kind of likeness, but not every likeness is an image. There are two features that especially characterize an image: 1) it is a likeness that is copied from the thing of which it is an image, and 2) it is a likeness that “represents the species” of a thing. First, an image is a likeness that is copied from, or derived from, something else and is therefore made to “imitate” the thing of which it is an image.[6] An egg is not said to be an image of another egg. And one man is not said to be an image of another man simply because he looks similar. Of course, a man is sometimes said to be the spitting “image” of his father, but that is because the son is in some sense made to be like his father. It is also worth noting that an image does not need to be equal to the original of which it is a copy.[7] We say that a person’s reflection in a mirror is an “image,” even though it falls short of the original.

The second feature of an image is that it is more than simply a generic likeness: it is a likeness that represents the species of something.[8] Although animals, plants, and non-living substances bear some likeness to God as their creator, they are not said to be images of God, but only “vestiges” of God (his tracks or footprints).[9] As creatures, they manifest the presence of God the creator in a general way, but they do not rise to the level of representing the species. St. Thomas argues that because of man’s rational nature—possessing an intellect and a will—his is able to represent the species. To say that an image represents the species obviously does not mean that the image is of the very same species as the thing it images, but it does mean that an image captures or represents the form or shape of something. He gives the example of a coin which can be said to bear the image of the king because the image has the same outward shape or form as the original.[10] Of course, man is said to be in the image of God not in an outward and material way—since God is altogether spiritual—but he does bear the image of God because his intellectual nature sufficiently represents or imitates the same form or species as the divine nature—like a coin that bears the image of a king. Since man is distinguished from the beasts by his rational soul, it is within the soul that one finds the image of the Trinity, and St. Thomas says that “God himself placed in man a spiritual image of himself.”[11] Indeed, St. Thomas says that the image of God is in man because of his mind (mens)—a term that encompasses both intellect and will.[12]

But how is the soul said to be an image of the Trinity? St. Thomas identifies the image of the Trinity with the interior processions of word and love in the soul:

[T]he uncreated Trinity is distinguished by the procession of the Word from the Speaker, and of Love from both of these, as we have seen [in the treatment of the Trinity]; so we may say that in rational creatures wherein we find a procession of the word in the intellect, and a procession of the love in the will, there exists an image of the uncreated Trinity, by a certain representation of the species.[13]

 

The interior processions of word and love bear a formal likeness to the procession of the Word and Love in God—the Word being another name for the Son and Love another name for the Holy Spirit. St. Thomas argues, moreover, that the image of the Trinity is found principally in the acts of the soul, and only secondarily in its powers and habits. This is because it is only by actual thought that a word is produced within the soul, and it is only through the word that proceeds from the intellect that there is a procession of love in the will:

Now the Divine Persons are distinct from each other by reason of the procession of the Word from the Speaker, and the procession of Love connecting Both. But in our soul word "cannot exist without actual thought," as Augustine says (De Trin. xiv, 7). Therefore, first and chiefly, the image of the Trinity is to be found in the acts of the soul, that is, inasmuch as from the knowledge which we possess, by actual thought we form an internal word; and thence break forth into love.[14]

So, man is made in the image of Trinity through his soul, and more specifically the mind, and principally in the acts of the soul than in its habits and powers.

 

Part II – A Preliminary Look at the Levels of the Imago

St. Thomas’s teaching on the imago also includes a clear sense that the imago admits of different degrees: nature, grace, and glory (although he mainly focuses on the image according to nature and the image according to grace). St. Thomas’s lengthiest treatment of the imago is found in Summa theologiae I, q. 93. This account is complex and difficult, so I will begin by looking at St. Thomas’s account of the imago in De potentia, q. 9, a. 9 and De veritate, q. 10, a. 7.

In De potentia q. 9, a. 9, St. Thomas presents the image according to nature and the image according to grace in a simple and straightforward way. The image according to nature is based on a likeness, or similarity, of interior operations: because the rational creature alone can understand and love himself, and consequently produces his own interior word and love, man represents the Trinity by a likeness that rises to the level of an image because it represents the “species” of the Trinity. It represents the form or species of the Trinity in the sense that the formal structure of the interior processions of word and love in the soul is similar to the formal structure of the order of the processions of Word and Love in God. Since every man is capable of knowing and loving himself, and produces his own interior word and love, this likeness of the Trinity is called the “likeness of the natural image.” It is also called the “image of creation” because it is meant to explain the line from Genesis: “Let us make man to our own image and likeness” (Gen 1:26).

The image according to grace (as described De potentia, q. 9, a. 9) does not focus on a likeness of interior operations, but on what he calls a unity of the object. Since the saints understand and love God, there is what St. Thomas calls a “conformity of union” because they know and love the same thing that God knows and loves. This likeness of the Trinity is called the “image of re-creation.” The scriptural basis for this notion of image is found in the New Testament, notably 2 Cor 3:18: “But we beholding the glory of the Lord with open face are transformed into the same image.”

A few simple observations. First, Thomas sees the basis for asserting two distinct ways that man is made in the image of Trinity as coming from scripture (one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament). Second, these two images seem to be distinct and unrelated to one another: one account focuses on a similarity of operation and the other on sameness of object. The aim of this paper is to show how these two images are related to one another, and that the image according to grace presupposes and perfects the image according to nature. There is perhaps already some hint of this insofar as the names of these two images (the “image of creation” and the “image of re-creation”) suggests some sort of relation between them.

Let us turn briefly to De veritate, q. 10, a.7 where St. Thomas presents a similar account of the two ways in which man is made in the image of God. This article raises the question of whether the image of the Trinity is found in the mind insofar as it knows temporal things, or only insofar as it knows eternal things. This is a question that arises from St. Augustine’s treatment of the imago in his De trinitate.[15] Thomas approaches this question by asking whether an image of God is found in the soul according to three different objects of the mind. Is the image of God found in the mind when it knows material things? Is the image of God found in the mind insofar as it knows itself? And is the image of God found in man insofar as it knows God? In answering these questions, St. Thomas uses slightly different terminology to refer to the image of nature and grace that we’ve already discussed: he calls the image of nature a likeness according to analogy and the image of grace a likeness according to conformation. Apart from terminology, this distinction between the two ways the imago is found in the mind is essentially the same as the distinction made in De potentia, q. 9, a. 9. The image according to analogy is based on a similarity between the operations in the human mind and the operations in God. The image according to conformation is based on the unity of object: since the mind becomes assimilated to the object known, when the mind knows and loves God as an object it is conformed to the divine persons.

In answering his question, St. Thomas argues that there is no image of the Trinity found in the mind when it knows material things. But there is an image of the Trinity according to analogy when the mind knows itself and an image according to conformation when it knows God:

In the knowledge by which our mind knows itself, there is a representation of the uncreated Trinity according to analogy inasmuch as the mind knowing itself in this way produces a word expressing itself, and love proceeds from both of these, just as the Father, speaking Himself, has begotten his Word from eternity, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both. But in that knowledge by which the mind knows God himself, the mind becomes conformed to God, just as every knower, as such, is assimilated to the thing known.

This text, like the one the De potentia, seems largely to contrast two distinct ways in which the soul is an image of the Trinity. Are these two images related in some way? If so, how are they related?

In the remainder of the article (De veritate, q. 10, a. 7), St. Thomas gives some indication of how these two are related by arguing that the image according to conformity is prior to the image according to analogy. Here is what he says:

Now the likeness which is by conformity [to its object], as sight to color, is greater than that which is by analogy, as sight to the understanding, which is similarly compared to its objects. Consequently, the likeness of the Trinity is more expressive [clearer] in the mind insofar as it knows God, than insofar as it knows itself. Therefore, properly speaking, the image of the Trinity is in the mind first and foremost in so far as the mind knows God; but it is there in a certain way and secondarily, in so far as the mind knows itself, and chiefly when it considers itself as the image of God and thus its consideration does not stop with itself but proceeds to God.

What is interesting to see here is that St. Thomas is not only arguing that the image according to conformity is superior to the image according to analogy, but that the latter is in some way ordered toward the former. The soul’s knowledge and love of itself bears a formal likeness to the Trinitarian processions, but this formal likeness has the character of an image chiefly insofar as it leads one to a knowledge of the Trinity as an object. That is a key insight, one that will feature prominently in the Summa theologiae where we find St. Thomas’s most developed treatment of the levels of the imago. Let’s turn to that now, to look more closely at the relation between the image according to analogy and the image according to conformation.

 

Part III – The Image according to Nature and Grace in the Summa theologiae

The place to begin is Summa theologiae I, q. 93, a. 4 where St. Thomas asks whether the image of God is found in all men. This question serves as the occasion to describe the different levels of the imago:

Since man is said to be the image of God by reason of his intellectual nature, he is the most perfectly like God according to that in which he can best imitate God in his intellectual nature. Now the intellectual nature imitates God chiefly in this, that God understands and loves Himself. Wherefore we see that the image of God is in man in three ways. First, inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men. Secondly, inasmuch as man actually and habitually knows and loves God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of grace. Thirdly, inasmuch as man knows and loves God perfectly; and this image consists in the likeness of glory. Wherefore on the words, "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us" (Ps. 4:7), the gloss distinguishes a threefold image of "creation," of "re-creation," and of "likeness." The first is found in all men, the second only in the just, the third only in the blessed.

This is a complicated text and there is a lot packed in here. For the moment, I would like to focus on how St. Thomas describes the image according to nature in this text. It seems to blend together the two ways that he had previously described the soul as a likeness of God (i.e., likeness by analogy of operation and likeness by objective union). Although the image according to nature consists in “the very nature of the mind,” that nature is understood as something oriented toward God as an object: it’s a natural aptitude to know and love God. Consequently, his account of the soul as the image according to nature is now seen as ordered toward the image according to grace as potency to act.

Do we see the same emphasis on the object when St. Thomas applies the notion of the imago to the distinction of persons in the Trinity? Yes, we do. To see this, we should turn to q. 93, a. 8, where Thomas asks whether the image of the Trinity is in the soul only by comparison to God as object. In that article St. Thomas reiterates that the divine persons are distinguished from each other according to the procession of the divine Word from the divine Speaker and the procession of divine Love from both. St. Thomas then points out that the divine processions come forth from God insofar as God knows and loves himself as object: “[T]he Word of God is born of God according to the knowledge of himself; and Love proceeds from God insofar as He loves himself.”[16] He gives a reason for prioritizing the object of knowledge and love. “It is manifest,” he says, “that the diversity of objects diversifies the species of word and love.”[17] The interior word conceived from the knowledge of a stone is not the same species as a word conceived of a horse or a man; likewise, the love brought forth from each of these is specifically different. Having pointed out that the object diversifies the procession of word and love, St. Thomas concludes that the image of the Trinity in the soul must have God as its object: “Hence the Divine image is found in man according to the word conceived from the knowledge of God, and according to the love derived therefrom. Thus, the image of God is found in the soul insofar as the soul turns to God, or was born [natus est] to turn to God.”[18] So, the image of God in the soul has God as its object, or at least was born with an orientation toward God. This fits with Thomas’s earlier claim in q. 93, a. 4, that the natural image of the Trinity consists in a natural aptitude to know and love God—a kind of directional potency toward the image of grace.

But what has become of St. Thomas’s initial description of the image according to nature by way of analogy—the soul’s knowledge and love of self (and its corresponding procession of word and love)? Has St. Thomas abandoned self-knowledge and self-love as a natural image of the Trinity? We get an answer to this question in the final part of q. 93, a. 8, where St. Thomas distinguishes between two ways in which the mind can be said to turn toward God:

Now the mind may turn towards something in two ways: directly and immediately, or indirectly and mediately, as when someone seeing the image of a man in a mirror, is said to be turned toward that man. And therefore Augustine says in De trinitate Bk. XIV, "the mind remembers itself, understands itself, and loves itself. If we perceive this, we perceive a trinity, not yet God, but already the image of God." But this is not because the mind turns toward itself absolutely, but insofar as it can further turn toward God.

We see, then, that for Thomas the soul’s knowledge and love of itself is said to be an image of God, but only insofar as it in some way points toward God or makes it possible for the mind to turn to God. St. Thomas is indicating that it belongs to an image as image, to point the way to the original of which it is the image. Of course, the example of the reflection in a mirror is a conspicuous example of an image that is recognized immediately as an image. The same is true of the image of the king—or former president—on a coin, or the image of Hercules in bronze or marble. All images point toward the things they imitate in some way, although in varying degrees. So, the likeness according to analogy found in the very nature of the mind (and its corresponding operations and interior processions) naturally leads the mind toward a knowledge the Trinity of persons.

At this point, one might wonder whether we have overstated the case for the natural image. If the procession of word and love in the human soul is an image of the Trinity precisely because it naturally leads the mind to see the procession of the Word and Love in God himself, this suggests that the mind can arrive at the existence of the Trinity by natural reason alone. But according to St. Thomas, natural reason is unable to demonstrate the distinction of persons in the Trinity—that presupposes faith.[19] St. Thomas anticipates this difficulty. In fact, it is one of the objections that he raises against the idea that there is an image of the Trinity in man.[20] Here is the objection: “An image leads to the knowledge of that thing of which it is the image. Therefore, if there is in man the image of God as to the Trinity of persons, since man can know himself by his natural reason, it follows that by natural knowledge man could know the Trinity of the divine persons, which is false, as shown above.”[21] The reference is to q. 32, a. 1, in St. Thomas’s treatise on the Trinity where he argues that natural reason is incapable of demonstrating the Trinity. In any case, St. Thomas answers the objection in q. 93, a. 5, by granting that the image of God in man would lead to the knowledge of the Trinity if the image of God in man were perfect. So, the general principle, that an image, as image, naturally leads to a knowledge of the thing it imitates is sound, but if the image is an imperfect image, it does not lead the mind to the thing it imitates with necessity. As it is, the mind is unable to arrive at a knowledge of the Trinity apart from supernatural faith.

What, then, can it mean to speak of a natural aptitude to know the Trinity, one which can help lead to a knowledge of the Trinity, but only if the mind is elevated by supernatural faith? One way to see the suitability of calling the image according to nature a natural aptitude to know the persons of the Trinity is to see how St. Thomas uses the interior processions within the soul in his treatment of the Trinity. Although the existence of interior processions within God is itself a matter of faith, the interior processions of word and love in the human soul play an essential role in manifesting the interior processions in God which gives a greater appreciation of why the image according to nature is described as a natural aptitude to know the persons of the Trinity.

The treatment of the Trinity in the Summa theologiae begins with procession because the divine persons are distinguished by relations of origin, and relations of origin presuppose procession in God.[22] Scripture and the creed use names that signify procession in God, but the point is to attempt to understand what faith reveals. But we are faced almost immediately with various ways that procession can be misunderstood—notably the Arian and Sabellian heresies. Both of these heresies mistakenly take procession to refer to an outward act, a procession ad extra. As a consequence, both deny a distinction of persons within God. Since procession necessarily presupposes action, the only remaining alternative is to admit that there is an internal procession, an internal act that remains within the agent. Here is where the soul as an image of the Trinity comes into play, helping us to see the processions in God through a likeness in the rational creature. The interior processions of word and love provide an entry point, indeed, the entry point enabling us to see how there can be procession within God, and how the divine persons can be distinguished. So, the image according to nature—the analogy of interior processions in the soul—provides the most apt or suitable likeness by which we can understand the divine processions.

There is another text in De potentia that makes the point even more forcefully. He says there that it is only through the interior processions of word and love in the human soul that one can discover (or establish) a personal distinction in God:

No other origin is able to be in God except one that is immaterial, and which is consistent with an intellectual nature, of which sort is the origin of word and love. Whence if the procession of word and love is not enough to introduce (insinuandam) a personal distinction, no personal distinction will be possible in God. Whence John both in the beginning of his gospel and in his first canonical letter uses the name “Word” for the Son, nor ought one to speak otherwise about God than Holy Scripture speaks.[23]

As this text makes clear, for St. Thomas the procession of word and love is the only way to understand the distinction of persons on God.

Time does not permit a detailed treatment of the interior word in the soul, or of the love brought forth from the will. Suffice it to say, that St. Thomas relies on the soul’s interior processions of word and love as the only suitable image of divine procession. Indeed, without this image the science of sacred theology has no clear way of moving forward, and the Arian and Sabellian heresies would always be lurking at the door. St. Thomas’s account of the processions in God show how the image according to nature is oriented toward the image according to grace because it is an indispensable aid to understanding the object of our faith—the most holy Trinity. And insofar as supernatural faith relies on this image, we see how the image according to grace presupposes, and builds on, the image according to nature.

Let me conclude with a brief account of the image according to grace. St. Thomas indicates that the image of God according to grace, entails actually (and habitually) knowing and loving God—as opposed to the aptitude to know and love God, or the ability to turn toward God. In this sense, the knowledge of the Trinity obtained by a simple faith in the creed, and in the science of sacred doctrine acquired by study, is surely included in the image according to grace insofar as faith is a supernatural elevation of man’s nature. Nonetheless, what St. Thomas principally has in mind by the “image of recreation” is a knowledge and a love of God that presupposes sanctifying grace, namely, the very indwelling of the persons of the Trinity which he explains in his treatment of the divine missions in Summa theologiae I, q. 43.[24] His account of the indwelling focuses on the presence of the divine persons in a manner that is more intimate and more immediate than what is attainable by faith alone (absent sanctifying grace and charity).

The indwelling of the divine persons is a complicated subject that could easily merit a separate paper, so I will limit myself to a few key points. To see that St. Thomas has the divine indwelling in mind when talking about the image of grace, we need to look at a couple of passages earlier in the Summa theologiae. The first is from the prima pars, q. 8, a. 3 where Thomas outlines the way that God is present in the world:

God is said to be in a thing in two ways; in one way through the mode of an efficient cause; and thus He is in all things created by Him. In another way as the object of operation is in the operator, which is proper to the operations of the soul, according as the [thing] known is in the knower; and the [thing] desired is in the one desiring. In this second way God is especially in the rational creature that knows and loves Him actually or habitually. And because the rational creature has this by grace, as will be shown later, he is said to be thus in the saints by grace.

Notice, here the emphasis on God’s presence in the soul as an object, but only in the saints, who know him actually or habitually. This language fits with St. Thomas’s description of the image according to grace in q. 93, a. 4. St. Thomas promises to take this up again later in the Summa theologiae. The editors of the standard English edition of the Summa[25] insert a reference to q. 12 (which focuses mainly on the beatific vision), but I think what Thomas has in mind is found in q. 43 on the divine missions. The key text is q. 43, a. 3 which is on the invisible missions of the divine persons as an effect of sanctifying grace. Here is the text:

There is one common mode by which God is in all things by His essence, power and presence, as the cause existing in the effects participating in His goodness. Above this common mode, however, there is one special mode that belongs to the rational creature in which God is said to be present as the [thing] known is in the knower, and the [thing] loved in the lover. And because, by knowing and loving, the rational creature by his operation attains to God Himself, according to this special mode God not only is said to be in the rational creature but also to dwell in him as in his own temple. So, no other effect can be the reason why the divine person is in the rational creature in a new mode, except sanctifying grace [or: the grace making one pleasing] (gratiam gratum facientem). Whence, it is only according to sanctifying grace that the divine person is sent and proceeds temporally.

I think we can clearly recognize that St. Thomas is describing what he will later call the image of God according to grace, which is found in the saints who are united to God as an object, but not an object that is known and loved in the ordinary way. This special mode of the divine presence exceeds the way that God is an object known by natural theology, or even the way that God is known by faith (when we recite the creed), or even in the science of sacred theology acquired by study. This is because it is possible to have dead faith, that is, a faith that is not animated by love (e.g., a soul existing in a state of mortal sin). If we have faith without love, the divine persons are not said to dwell in us, and we do not fully participate in, or imitate, the divine life. Indeed, St. Thomas goes on in this article to say that sanctifying grace enables us to freely enjoy the divine persons—which is to say that we participate in the fellowship of the Trinity.

There is one other point that is worth noting about the relation between sanctifying grace and the divine indwelling that is important to note in order to see how image of God according to grace not only has the divine persons as objects dwelling in the soul, but also entails the soul being conformed or assimilated to the divine persons through the gifts that accompany sanctifying grace, namely, wisdom and charity. Here is how St. Thomas puts it:

The soul is conformed to God by grace. Hence for a divine person to be sent to someone by grace, there must be an assimilation of that person to the divine person who is sent, by some gift of grace. Because the Holy Ghost is Love, the soul is assimilated to the Holy Ghost by the gift of charity: hence the mission of the Holy Ghost is according to the mode of charity. The Son, however, is the Word, not any sort of word, but one Who breathes forth Love. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. ix 10): "The Word we speak of is knowledge with love." Thus, the Son is not sent according to any intellectual perfection, but according to the intellectual illumination, which breaks forth into the affection of love, as is said Jn 6:45: "Everyone that hath heard from the Father and hath learned, cometh to Me," and in Ps. 38:4: "In my meditation a fire shall flame forth." Thus, Augustine plainly says (De Trin. iv, 20): "The Son is sent, whenever He is known and perceived by anyone." Now perception implies a certain experimental knowledge; and this is properly called wisdom (sapientia), as it were a sweet knowledge (sapida scientia), according to Ecclus. 6:23: "The wisdom of doctrine is according to her name."[26]

So, we see here that the divine indwelling presupposes an assimilation to the divine processions of Word and Love. It should be noted that this assimilation is not by way of efficient causality, but by way of exemplar causality. While the love shed abroad in our hearts is appropriated to the Holy Spirit in the line of efficient causality, it is proper to him in the line of exemplar causality.[27] All three persons of the Trinity together function as the efficient cause of charity in the soul, but this operation is appropriated to the Holy Spirit because the gift of charity imitates the divine procession of love. This is what St. Thomas means by the “conformation of grace” in his discussion of the image of God. This helps manifest that the image according to grace builds on the image according to nature. The objective union, or indwelling, of the divine persons presupposes an analogy of operation.

Let me conclude. St. Thomas’s treatment of the soul as imago Dei, and especially as an image of the Trinity, is a complicated subject both exegetically and doctrinally. Exegetically because the various places where Thomas discusses the different levels of the imago have subtle differences. It is dogmatically complicated because it requires a familiarity with the key points of St. Thomas’s Trinitarian theology. While the principal aim of his teaching on the imago is to instruct us about the dignity and perfection of man as made in the image of God, a better understanding of the Trinitarian theology that underlies his teaching on the imago can give us a greater appreciation of the Trinitarian aspects of the creation and sanctification of man.

 

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