Whether a Divine Person Can Be Properly Sent?
Objection 1: It would seem that a divine person cannot be properly
sent. For one who is sent is less than the sender. But one divine
person is not less than another. Therefore one person is not sent by
another.
Obj. 2: Further, what is sent is separated from the sender; hence
Jerome says, commenting on Ezech. 16:53: "What is joined and tied in
one body cannot be sent." But in the divine persons there is nothing
that is separable, as Hilary says (De Trin. vii). Therefore one
person is not sent by another.
Obj. 3: Further, whoever is sent, departs from one place and comes
anew into another. But this does not apply to a divine person, Who is
everywhere. Therefore it is not suitable for a divine person to be
sent.
_On the contrary,_ It is said (John 8:16): "I am not alone, but I and
the Father that sent Me."
_I answer that,_ the notion of mission includes two things: the
habitude of the one sent to the sender; and that of the one sent to
the end whereto he is sent. Anyone being sent implies a certain kind
of procession of the one sent from the sender: either according to
command, as the master sends the servant; or according to counsel, as
an adviser may be said to send the king to battle; or according to
origin, as a tree sends forth its flowers. The habitude to the term
to which he is sent is also shown, so that in some way he begins to
be present there: either because in no way was he present before in
the place whereto he is sent, or because he begins to be there in
some way in which he was not there hitherto. Thus the mission of a
divine person is a fitting thing, as meaning in one way the
procession of origin from the sender, and as meaning a new way of
existing in another; thus the Son is said to be sent by the Father
into the world, inasmuch as He began to exist visibly in the world by
taking our nature; whereas "He was" previously "in the world" (John
1:1).
Reply Obj. 1: Mission implies inferiority in the one sent, when it
means procession from the sender as principle, by command or counsel;
forasmuch as the one commanding is the greater, and the counsellor is
the wiser. In God, however, it means only procession of origin, which
is according to equality, as explained above (Q. 42, AA. 4, 6).
Reply Obj. 2: What is so sent as to begin to exist where previously
it did not exist, is locally moved by being sent; hence it is
necessarily separated locally from the sender. This, however, has no
place in the mission of a divine person; for the divine person sent
neither begins to exist where he did not previously exist, nor ceases
to exist where He was. Hence such a mission takes place without a
separation, having only distinction of origin.
Reply Obj. 3: This objection rests on the idea of mission according
to local motion, which is not in God.
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