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August 08, 2005
Ch.XI. Q.69. Divine Mission
DIVINE MISSION is the procession of one person from another, having relation to some temporal effect.1
2. Two things are involved in Mission: (a) He Who is sent proceeds essentially from Him Who sends;2 (b) the Person sent stands in some new relation to the object to which, terminus ad quern, He is sent;—not that the Person changes, but the economic relation.
3. All the Divine Persons can come into the world.3 The Father does not proceed and therefore is not sent.4 The Father and the Son send, for there is a procession from Both. The Son5 and the Holy Ghost are sent, because Both proceed. The Holy Ghost does not send, but is sent by the Father and the Son, since He proceeds from Both.6
4. The external effect of mission does not pertain to the whole Trinity except by way of efficiency. The relation of each Person to that effect is different, and the difference is such that we attribute the action to one Person. For example, it is the Son, not the Father or the Holy Ghost, Who became Incarnate.7
1 Wilhelm and Scannell, Manual, Vol. I., pp. 343-349; Forbes, Creed, pp. 124-125; St. Thos., Summa, I., xliii.; Schouppe, Elementa, pp. 166-173; Petavius, De Dogmatibus, lib. viii. ch. 4-7.
2 John viii. 42.
3 John xiv. 23; xvi. 7.
4 Pearson, Creed, p. 63.
5 St. John vi. 57.
6 Cf. John xiv. 26 w. xv. 26.
7 Hooker, Eccles. Polity, I., ii. 2; Schouppe, §168; Wilhelm and Scannell, pp. 342, 343.
Posted by Debra Bullock at August 8, 2005 06:28 PM
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