The Trinitarian Christology of St Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

This book serves as a counterpoint to prevailing contemporary perspectives on Thomas Aquinas by bringing to light the surprising Trinitarian riches in his Christology. Its central thesis is that, for Aquinas, Christology is intrinsically Trinitarian, in its origin and its principles, its structure, and its role in the dispensation of salvation. It shows how and why Aquinas teaches that this is the case, and why, in his view, it is of central importance for understanding not only Christology, but the whole of Christian theology. The crux of its investigation is the Trinitarian shape of the incarnation itself: the visible mission of the Son, sent by the Father, implicating the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit to his assumed human nature. It demonstrates how, for Thomas, Christ’s humanity is, at its deepest foundations, marked by—or, better, incarnates—the very personal being of the divine Son and Word of the Father, and hence how every action of Christ reveals the Father, is from the Father, and leads back to the Father. “The one who sees me, sees the Father,” as Jesus says in John’s Gospel. It also uncovers a quite remarkable (and almost entirely unknown to contemporary scholarship) Spirit Christology in Aquinas: Christ as man stands in need of the Spirit’s anointing to carry out his saving work; his supernatural human knowledge is dependent on the Spirit’s gift; and it is the Spirit who moves and guides him in every action, from Nazareth to Golgotha.

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