HIM Blog #5: How Christianity unlocks the secrets to consciousness (part 2)- The Processional Eternal Structure of the Trinity

To comprehend how a single being can give and receive one’s own love we need to realise that within the singular beingness/essence of God is three distinct persons. This trinitarian structure of God’s nature is what allows love to reciprocate with infinite abundance within the essence of His identity and also provides us with the blueprint of the original state of consciousness itself. In this blog, we will continue our explication of the nature of God and examine how the HIM model of consciousness is not only fully compatible with the classical view of Trinity but also provides insights towards the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore, I will be drawing on Aquinas’ treaty of the Trinity whilst also weaving some of my own original insights, as to how I believe the Trinity operates in eternity, which is consistent with the tenants of the HIM model. The trinitarian structure of God is a logical conclusion when we view the three persons of God sharing an undivided beingness/essence of consciousness, composed fundamentally by the holy infinite memory of Himself. Firstly, we must be aware of the distinctions between the three persons of God, which I will explain in a way that draws on insights from the HIM model and aligns with Christian doctrine. When discussing the eternal structure of the Trinity, there may be language used that give the impression of a ‘temporal sequence’ of cause and effect occurring. However, we must keep in mind that this explication of God’s being is in relation to His condition beyond creation where no effects or potentiality exist, as all is complete and fully actualised within God. However, God’s mind is structured as an ordered hierarchy containing ‘processions’, as articulated by Aquinas. These processions exist between the three persons of the Trinity and represent subordinate relationships that embody the uncreated structure of God’s innate beingness, which never began and will never cease to exist.

The Father is the identity of God beyond creation and is the ‘simple’ aspect of God. As we established in the previous blog, God, the Father, is in an eternal immutable state of purely knowing Himself via the holy infinite memory of His own existence. God sees that His essence completely fills eternity with the presence of no other, as the absolute sovereign King of reality itself. Therefore, the self-consciousness of God the Father means He has a perfect understanding of Himself as the singular infinite possibility of reality. This also implies that He understands perfectly that He is of pure holy infinite worth and knows Himself as being of unlimited self-value, as there is no ‘other’ to compare His worth to. So, we can see that the consciousness of oneself, the knowing that oneself is the sole possibility of eternal reality and that oneself must, therefore, be of infinite worth are fundamental characteristics of the Father’s identity, which also highlight one more crucial characteristic; His will. It is clear that God’s essence of self-consciousness also implies the presence of a natural will to ‘know oneself’. “Joy and Delight are a sort of rest of the will in its object. But God singularly rests in Himself as the first object of His own will, in as much as He has all sufficiency in Himself.”[1] Therefore, the Father’s consciousness and will are completely inseparable. “God has will inasmuch as He has understanding. But He has understanding by His essence, and therefore will in like manner.”[2] This explains why the Father is the source of love, as the knowledge of His own existence simply renders Him in an eternal state of ‘joy and delight’, aka self-love. “If therefore our act of understanding, coming to its perfection, yields delight, most delightful must be the act whereby God understands.”^[3]

Now that we have a general understanding of God’s ‘simple’ identity, as the Father, we can examine the first procession within His eternal structure, which highlights the presence of His Son; Jesus. God understands oneself as the ‘infinite possibility’ of reality, which implies that He must be capable of ‘infinite possibilities’, as He indeed knows oneself as being omnipotent. Another way to frame this is to say that the holy infinite memory of Himself naturally contains an infinite many differentiated unique memories for God to know Himself through. This self-knowledge enfolded within the simple knowing of oneself reveals a secondary aspect of His will, which is to understand oneself in an infinite many ways. We could say this will proceeds from the Father’s original will, which defines the personhood of the Son within the eternal Trinity. God’s will to rejoice in His own perfection is the same as His will to know Himself in an infinite many different ways, representing the distinct eternal presence of the Son. This will that the Son beholds is completely driven by the love God has for Himself, as He is infinitely motivated to know, and simultaneously gratified in knowing, each intimate possible way in which He can understand Himself that befits and aligns with the simple unlimited love He already has for oneself. The notion that the Son’s identity derives from the ‘Father’s will’ is clear within scripture. During the time that He spent in this world in human form, Jesus consistently emphasised that the purpose He came was to disclose the sacred will of the Father, not the human will within Him that was prone to worldly temptations. “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38)

We are then presented with the second procession, which is presented within this model of the eternal Trinity as God’s infinite complexity, which is beheld by the Holy Spirit; the third person of the triune Lord. Therefore, God’s mind also contains an infinite many uncreated differentiated memories formed by His singular essence of self-consciousness. These memories contained within the hierarchically dominant memory of Himself provide God an infinite many ways to relate to Himself and are organised in a perfect pattern of fully actualised order. This complex differentiation within the essence of God defines the identity of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10-11). This notion that God understands all things within the memory of Himself is reflected in Aquinas’ writing also... “As then by one act He understands Himself and other beings, in as much as His essence is the pattern of them all.”^[4] And, “But God with His understanding understands Himself in the first place, and in Himself understands all other things”.

Via the will of the Son, God’s Holy Spirit provides the Father and Son the experience to instantaneously and intimately know the entirety of this infinite hierarchal pattern of orderly memories. Each memory is wholly made of the ‘original memory’ God has for oneself and, therefore, is the foundational unchanging essence of every individualised memory. Thus, the whole of God’s self-consciousness is within each memory.  “But in God's knowledge many things are known in one, not by many different presentations, but by that one species, or presentation, which is the essence of God.”[5] This uncreated complexity of God’s character exists in an eternally static and fully actualised arrangement, where each unique memory occupies a purposeful position in relation to all other memories within the perfect order of God’s mind. Therefore, we can understand the mind of God beyond creation to be of utter silence and stillness, as His simplicity and complexity contains no potentiality. The only thing that moves in eternity is God’s reciprocating love within Himself, as the divine triune structure of reality. All possibilities of God are complete and openly revealed to Himself via the single pure act of His self-consciousness. “God is attentive to behold His essence perfectly, which is to see it to the whole reach of its virtual content, which includes all things. God therefore, in beholding His essence, discerns at once all things”.^[6] This infinite series of God’s memories are also known as the Logos (the logic of God), aka, the Word.

But the divine mind understands by virtue of no impression other than its own essence. At the same time the divine essence is the likeness of all things. It follows therefore that the concept of the divine understanding itself, which is the Divine Word, is at once a likeness of God Himself understood, and also a likeness of all things whereof the divine essence is a likeness. Thus, then by one intelligible impression (species intelligibilis), which is the divine essence, and by one intellectual recognition (intentio intellecta), which is the Divine Word, many several objects may be understood by God.[7] 

God loves each and every one of His memories in the same way in which He loves Himself, as we must assume that He discerns each distinct impression within His essence through a lens of self-identity and, therefore, worth. God understands and infinitely values each memory as a deeply meaningful reflection of His own identity. “In this one simple eternal act, God has a unique loving, intimate and orderly relationship with each memory based on the individualised meaning they add to God’s complex knowledge of Himself, which requires God’s mind of infinite self-memories to be harmoniously entangled and logically organised, completely void of chaos.”[8] We can see clearly how, although there is no movement in the simple and complex eternal state of God’s mind, there is indeed a dynamic eternal relationship of reciprocal love bound within God’s consciousness of Himself that exists between His identity as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The way in which I have described the Trinity here is consistent with how Aquinas describes how the Holy Spirit, who possesses the Word, proceeds from the Father and Son. Aquinas writes, “For it is clear that the more a thing is understood, the more closely is the intellectual conception joined and united to the intelligent agent, since the intellect by the very act of understanding is made one with the object understood. Thus, as the divine intelligence is the very supreme perfection of God, the divine Word is of necessity perfectly one with the source whence He proceeds, without any kind of diversity.” [9] This quote demonstrates how there is no separation within God, as His understanding of the Word is the same as understanding Himself, making the knower and what is known within God His whole unified identity, as the perfect intellectual agent who holds divine intelligence of oneself. God’s full knowledge of Himself occurs through inward processions that originate from a simple awareness/memory of His own existence (Father), which then proceeds to the understanding that He has a will to know oneself in an infinite possible ways (Son), which then proceeds to the understanding of oneself as an infinite orderly pattern of memories / impressions within the divine essence of His Spirit. How then does the Trinitarian structure of God’s self-consciousness give rise to creation? We will explore this dynamic in the next blog.

References

[1] St. Thomas Aquinas, Of God and His Creatures (Burns and Oates: London 1905

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6]  Paul A. Böer Sr (editor), The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas (Veritatis Splendor Publications, 1920)

 [7] Aquinas op cit

[8] Sam Breslauer, “A Theistic Cosmological Theory Aligned with Principles of Thomism: The Holy Infinite Memory Model of Consciousness.” Science and Christian Belief, October 2024, Vol 36(2).

[9] Böer, op, cit.

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