Why is it that there can only be two processions in God? Only the Word and Love? And which of these three is truth? Since God was unbegotten did “he” simply achieve on his own some state of self realization? Fully knowing himself?
Bill
The basic reason is that, since God is utterly one (he has no division and no composition whatsoever), it follows that the only kind of distinctions there can be in Him are distinctions of mutual relations. As Aquinas explains, the only kind of relation that can be admitted in God are those of action and undergoing.
(For example, human fatherhood and human sonship are examples of that kind of relation: the father begets his son; the son is begotten by his father. “Father” and “son” make a pair of relationships that have the begetting and “being begotten” as their foundation.)
However, the actions done and undergone clearly take place entirely within the Godhead, because there occur prior to any act of creation. The only actions remotely like that in our experience are the acts of the intellect (knowledge) and the will (love). Although they can have transitive effects (e.g., when I decide to get out of bed, my body actually moves and the bedclothes become displaced and so on), the acts of the intellect and will fundamentally remain in our spiritual organism.
It turns out that there are only two such acts: knowing and loving.
The Father knows His Essence perfectly, because He is perfectly identical with His Essence. However, there is a real relation is established (from all eternity, obviously) between the Knower (the Father) and the Known (who is the Word or the Son). To put it a different way, the knowledge that the Father has of Himself is so perfect, that He communicates His entire Essence into it. Hence that knowledge is a Person.
As regards love, it is, I think, obvious that we are unable to love something unless we first know it. The Father, as I said, knows Himself so perfectly that the Knowledge (the Word) is itself a Person. That Person is so perfect and good that He is, so to speak, an infinite source of longing and delight for the Father. Therefore, the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, so perfectly, that the love is in fact a Person, the Holy Spirit. (The Eastern Fathers even describe the procession of the Holy Spirit as the “sighing,” or “spiration” between the Father and the Son.)
Looked at in this way, since God knows Himself perfectly and the Persons love one another perfectly, and have their happiness and delight in each other, there is no need for there to be any other processions.
We can also look at it this way: a procession is basically a communication of the Divine Essence. The Son proceeds (i.e., receives the Divine Essence) from the Father alone, obviously. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father
and the Son (or, more precisely, from the Father
through the Son).
The Father, therefore, is entirely active. He communicates the Divine Essence and does not receive it. The Son both receives the Essence and communicates it. The Spirit is entirely passive: He receives the Essence and does not communicate it.
I think it is clear that there is no room for any other combination here.
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