Whether It Is Fitting That the Whole Trinity Should Adopt?
Objection 1: It would seem unfitting that the whole Trinity should
adopt. For adoption is said of God in likeness to human custom. But
among men those only adopt who can beget: and in God this can be
applied only to the Father. Therefore in God the Father alone can
adopt.
Obj. 2: Further, by adoption men become the brethren of Christ,
according to Rom. 8:29: "That He might be the first-born among many
brethren." Now brethren are the sons of the same father; wherefore
our Lord says (John 20:17): "I ascend to My Father and to your
Father." Therefore Christ's Father alone has adopted sons.
Obj. 3: Further, it is written (Gal. 4:4, 5, 6): "God sent His
Son . . . that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because
you are sons of God, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying: 'Abba' (Father)." Therefore it belongs to Him to
adopt, Who has the Son and the Holy Ghost. But this belongs to the
Father alone. Therefore it befits the Father alone to adopt.
_On the contrary,_ It belongs to Him to adopt us as sons, Whom we can
call Father; whence it is written (Rom. 8:15): "You have received the
spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: 'Abba' (Father)." But
when we say to God, "Our Father," we address the whole Trinity: as is
the case with the other names which are said of God in respect of
creatures, as stated in the First Part (Q. 33, A. 3, Obj. 1; cf. Q.
45, A. 6). Therefore to adopt is befitting to the whole Trinity.
_I answer that,_ There is this difference between an adopted son of
God and the natural Son of God, that the latter is "begotten not
made"; whereas the former is made, according to John 1:12: "He gave
them power to be made the sons of God." Yet sometimes the adopted son
is said to be begotten, by reason of the spiritual regeneration which
is by grace, not by nature; wherefore it is written (James 1:18): "Of
His own will hath He begotten us by the word of truth." Now although,
in God, to beget belongs to the Person of the Father, yet to produce
any effect in creatures is common to the whole Trinity, by reason of
the oneness of their Nature: since, where there is one nature, there
must needs be one power and one operation: whence our Lord says (John
5:19): "What things soever the Father doth, these the Son also doth
in like manner." Therefore it belongs to the whole Trinity to adopt
men as sons of God.
Reply Obj. 1: All human individuals are not of one individual nature,
so that there need be one operation and one effect of them all, as is
the case in God. Consequently in this respect no comparison is
possible.
Reply Obj. 2: By adoption we are made the brethren of Christ, as
having with Him the same Father: Who, nevertheless, is His Father in
one way, and ours in another. Whence pointedly our Lord says,
separately, "My Father," and "Your Father" (John 20:17). For He is
Christ's Father by natural generation; and this is proper to Him:
whereas He is our Father by a voluntary operation, which is common to
Him and to the Son and Holy Ghost: so that Christ is not the Son of
the whole Trinity, as we are.
Reply Obj. 3: As stated above (A. 1, ad 2), adoptive sonship is a
certain likeness of the eternal Sonship: just as all that takes place
in time is a certain likeness of what has been from eternity. Now man
is likened to the splendor of the Eternal Son by reason of the light
of grace which is attributed to the Holy Ghost. Therefore adoption,
though common to the whole Trinity, is appropriated to the Father as
its author; to the Son, as its exemplar; to the Holy Ghost, as
imprinting on us the likeness of this exemplar.
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