thus that there are three spiritual activities, and three only—the Moral, the Aesthetic, and the Intellectual activity.[1] If then these three mental Gifts of the Spirit have a true and definite meaning, they ought to correspond with the three absolute values of the human spirit. This is the philosophy of the spirit; and theology would add that since men desire these three spiritual qualities and no other, intuitively, it must be because they are the nature of God; and that the desire for them is in man, because he is himself made in the image of God. And therein, we may conjecture, lies an explanation of those three personal manifestations of God, which we call the Holy Trinity—Beauty in the Creator who is power, and is the artist of the world, Truth in the Word who is the wisdom of the Father, and Goodness in the Spirit who is the will, and because the will is divine is the will to Good. There are not three Gods in orthodox theology; but God is one, and is at one and the same time Power or Cause (the Father), Wisdom (the Son), and Will (the Holy Ghost).[2] In scholastic theology the Holy Spirit or Will was thought of especially in terms of Love;[3] but at the same time the Power of the Spirit
- ↑ This has been most lucidly set forth by Mr. A. Clutton-Brock in The Ultimate Belief, London, 1916.
- ↑ H. Rashdall, Philosophy of Religion, London, 1914, p. 183.
- ↑ According to S. Augustine the love of the Father to the Son is the Holy Spirit. S. Thomas Aquinas speaks of
