We may think that the holiness of the Saints is their accomplishment. In fact, the Saints
are those who allow the desires of God to take place within them.
For Thomas, the existence of each one of us is willed and loved by God.
“God’s will is the cause of all things… A thing has existence, or any kind of good, only
inasmuch as it is willed by God. to every exiting thing, then, God wills some good.
Hence, since to love anything, it is manifest that God loves everything that exists. Yet
not as we love. Because since our will is not the cause of goodness of things, but is
moved by its object, our love, whereby we love anything, is not the cause of the
goodness, but conversely its goodness, whether real or imaginary, calls forth our love,
by which we will that it should preserve the good it has, and receive besides the good it
has not, and to this end we direct our actions, whereas the love of God infuses and
creates goodness” (1a. 20, 2).
Thomas holds that every human existed first in the mind of God before actually being
created:
“Although creatures have not existed from eternity, except in God, yet because they
have been in Him from eternity God has known them eternally in their proper natures;
and for this reason, has loved them, even as we, by the images of things within us,
know things existing in themselves” (1a. 20, 2, ad 2).
Thomas uses the word “friendship” for God’s relationship to humans as rational, being
able to know and love God, unlike other created things, whom God loves in another
way.
“Friendship cannot exist except towards rational creatures, who are capable of returning
love, and communicating one with another in the various works of life … even to them is
benevolence properly speaking exercised…” (1a. 20, 2, ad 3).
Friendship necessarily implies communication:
“Since there is a communication between man and God, inasmuch as He
communicates His happiness to us, some kind of friendship must needs be based on
this same communication …’God is faithful: by whom you are called into fellowship of
His Son’ (1 Cor 1:9). The love which is based on this communication is charity:
wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God” (1a. 23, 1).
Humans respond to God’s love but this response is rooted in faith and hope:
“Charity signifies not only the love of God, but also a certain friendship with Him, which
implies, besides love, a certain mutual return of love, together with mutual
communication. ‘He that abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him’ (1 John 4:16)

… Now, this fellowship of man with God, which consists in a certain familiar colloquy
(conversatio) with Him is begun here, in this life, by grace, but will be perfected in the
future life, by glory; each of these things we hold by faith and hope. Wherefore just as
friendship with a person would be impossible, if one disbelieved in, or despaired of the
possibility of their fellowship, so too, friendship with God, which is charity, is impossible
without faith, so to believe in this fellowship and God, and to hope to attain to this
fellowship. Therefore, charity is quite impossible without faith and hope” (1a2ae. 65, 5).
The Holy Spirit enables us to love God:
“Since the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of the love by which God loves Himself … from
the fact that in loving God we are made like to this love, the Holy Spirit is said to be
given to us by God. Hence, the Apostle says: ‘The charity of God is poured forth in our
hearts, by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us’ (Rom 5:5) (Summa Contra Gentiles, 21,
1).
Our love is received from the Father, Son and Spirit but our attention is especially on the
Spirit:
“The love by which we love God is properly representative of the Holy Spirit. And thus,
the charity which is in us, although it is an effect of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit,
is nonetheless for a special sort of reason said to be through the Hol Spirit …” (Summa
Contra Gentiles, 21, 2).
The Spirit is within us:
“Since the charity by which we love God is in us by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit
Himself must also be in us as long as the charity is in us; ‘Know you not that you are the
temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells within you (1 Cor 3:16). Therefore, since we
are made lovers of God by the Holy Spirit, and every beloved is in the lover as such, by
the Holy Spirit necessarily the Father and the Son dwell in us. And so our Lord says,
‘We will come to him’ (He means to one who loves God) ’ – and make our abode in him
(John 14:230. And in 1 John 3:24, we read, ‘In this we know that He abides in us by the
Spirit, which He has given us’” (Summa Contra Gentiles, 21, 3).
The Spirit renews us:
“By the fact that one is established as a friend of another, every offense is removed,
because friendship and offense are contraries. We read in Proverbs 10:12, “Charity
covers all sins.’ Therefore, since we are established as friends of God by the Holy Spirit,
it is by Him that God remits our sins, and so our Lord says to His disciples (John 20:22-
23): ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven’” (Summa
Contra Gentiles, 21, 10).

“It is by the Holy Spirit that we are said to be renewed, and cleansed or washed, as the
Psalmist has it: “Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew
the face of the earth’ (Ps 104:30; and Ephesians: 4:23: “Be renewed in the Spirit of your
mind’” (Summa Contra Gentiles, 21, 11).
The Spirit makes us “lovers of God” and to converse with God:
“First, this appears to be especially proper to friendship, really to converse with the
friend. Now, the conversation of man with God is by contemplation of Him, just as the
Apostle used to say, ‘Our conversation is in heaven’ (Phil 3:20). Since, therefore, the
Holy Spirit makes us lovers of God, we are in consequence established by the Holy
Spirit as contemplators of Go. Hence, the Apostle says, ‘But we all beholding the glory
of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as
by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor 3:18). (Summa Contra Gentiles, 22, 2).
The Spirit consoles us:
“It is also a property of friendship that one takes delight in a friend’s presence, rejoice in
his words and deeds, and find in him security against all anxieties; and so, it is
especially in our sorrows that we hasten to our friends for consolation. Since, then, the
Holy Spirit constitutes us God’s friends, and makes Him dwell in us and us dwell in Him,
it follows that the Holy Spirit we have joy in God and security against all the world’s
adversities and assaults … (Summa Contra Gentiles, 22, 3).
The Spirit enables us to obey God’s will:
“Similarly, too, it is proper to friendship to consent to a friend in what he wills …
Therefore, it belongs to love by which we love God that we fulfill His commandments, as
the Word in John 14:15 says” ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments.’ Hence, since
we are established as God’s lovers by the Holy Spirit, by Him, too, we in a way driven to
fulfill the precepts of God … (Summa Contra Gentiles, 22, 4).
The Spirit strengthens our wills:
“… the Holy Spirit inclines us to act that He makes us act voluntarily, in that He makes
us lovers of God. The sons of God are impelled by the Holy Spirit freely out of love, not
slavishly out of fear” (Summa Contra Gentiles, 22, 5).
The good that our wills naturally desire is that directed by the Spirit:
“The will is ordered to that which is truly good. Since the Holy Spirit inclines the will
toward the true good, to which the will is naturally ordered. He removes both that
servitude in which the slave of passion infected by sin acts against the order of the will
… This is why the Apostle says: ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’ (12 Cor
3:27). Hence, it is that Holy Spirit is said to mortify the deeds of the flesh, inasmuch as a

passion of the flesh does not turn away from the true good, and to this the Holy Spirit
orders us by love: ‘If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live’
((Rom. 8:230’” (Summa Contra Gentiles, 22, 5).