ONLINE FIRST
published on March 8, 2025
John J. Goyette
https://doi.org/10.5840/acpaproc202536163
The Interior Word as a Preamble and Analogy in St. Thomas¡¯s Trinitarian Theology
This paper argues that St. Thomas distinguishes between what natural reason can know about the interior Word in God and what can be known by faith alone. I will argue that reason can show that verbum names a pure perfection that must exist in any intellectual nature and that verbum is therefore, in this sense, predicated properly of the divine nature. Thus, our natural understanding of verbum serves as a preamble to faith. But the real procession of the Word within God (and the distinction of persons that follows from real procession) is revealed by faith alone. But even here, reason can be used in the service of faith to show how the procession of the word in the human soul functions as a fitting likeness or analogy to help manifest the procession of the eternal Word.