Whether "Word" Is the Son's Proper Name?
Objection 1: It would seem that "Word" is not the proper name of the
Son. For the Son is a subsisting person in God. But word does not
signify a subsisting thing, as appears in ourselves. Therefore word
cannot be the proper name of the person of the Son.
Obj. 2: Further, the word proceeds from the speaker by being uttered.
Therefore if the Son is properly the word, He proceeds from the
Father, by way only of utterance; which is the heresy of Valentine;
as appears from Augustine (De Haeres. xi).
Obj. 3: Further, every proper name of a person signifies some
property of that person. Therefore, if the Word is the Son's proper
name, it signifies some property of His; and thus there will be
several more properties in God than those above mentioned.
Obj. 4: Further, whoever understands conceives a word in the act of
understanding. But the Son understands. Therefore some word belongs
to the Son; and consequently to be Word is not proper to the Son.
Obj. 5: Further, it is said of the Son (Heb. 1:3): "Bearing all
things by the word of His power;" whence Basil infers (Cont. Eunom.
v, 11) that the Holy Ghost is the Son's Word. Therefore to be Word is
not proper to the Son.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Trin. vi, 11): "By Word we
understand the Son alone."
_I answer that,_ "Word," said of God in its proper sense, is used
personally, and is the proper name of the person of the Son. For it
signifies an emanation of the intellect: and the person Who proceeds
in God, by way of emanation of the intellect, is called the Son; and
this procession is called generation, as we have shown above (Q. 27,
A. 2). Hence it follows that the Son alone is properly called Word in
God.
Reply Obj. 1: "To be" and "to understand" are not the same in us.
Hence that which in us has intellectual being, does not belong to our
nature. But in God "to be" and "to understand" are one and the same:
hence the Word of God is not an accident in Him, or an effect of His;
but belongs to His very nature. And therefore it must needs be
something subsistent; for whatever is in the nature of God subsists;
and so Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 18) that "the Word of God is
substantial and has a hypostatic being; but other words [as our own]
are activities if the soul."
Reply Obj. 2: The error of Valentine was condemned, not as the Arians
pretended, because he asserted that the Son was born by being
uttered, as Hilary relates (De Trin. vi); but on account of the
different mode of utterance proposed by its author, as appears from
Augustine (De Haeres. xi).
Reply Obj. 3: In the term "Word" the same property is comprised as in
the name Son. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. vii, 11): "Word and Son
express the same." For the Son's nativity, which is His personal
property, is signified by different names, which are attributed to
the Son to express His perfection in various ways. To show that He is
of the same nature as the Father, He is called the Son; to show that
He is co-eternal, He is called the Splendor; to show that He is
altogether like, He is called the Image; to show that He is begotten
immaterially, He is called the Word. All these truths cannot be
expressed by only one name.
Reply Obj. 4: To be intelligent belongs to the Son, in the same way
as it belongs to Him to be God, since to understand is said of God
essentially, as stated above (Q. 14, AA. 2, 4). Now the Son is God
begotten, and not God begetting; and hence He is intelligent, not as
producing a Word, but as the Word proceeding; forasmuch as in God the
Word proceeding does not differ really from the divine intellect, but
is distinguished from the principle of the Word only by relation.
Reply Obj. 5: When it is said of the Son, "Bearing all things by the
word of His power"; "word" is taken figuratively for the effect of
the Word. Hence a gloss says that "word" is here taken to mean
command; inasmuch as by the effect of the power of the Word, things
are kept in being, as also by the effect of the power of the Word
things are brought into being. Basil speaks widely and figuratively
in applying Word to the Holy Ghost; in the sense perhaps that
everything that makes a person known may be called his word, and so
in that way the Holy Ghost may be called the Son's Word, because He
manifests the Son.
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