Studia Neoaristotelica

Volume 10, Issue 3, 2013

A Journal of Analytic Scholasticism

Inhabitace Boha v duši

The New Testament testifies the fact of divine inhabitation in the soul. This raises the question of what philosophical means may be employed in order to explicate such a theological supposition. Irenaeus and Basil the Great seem to suggest that God is present in the soul as a form in a matter. Thomas Aquinas speaks of God in-existing in us as an efficient cause of our existence and of the grace. In accordance with the modern Thomists we may understand the God’s sanctifying inhabitation as an exemplar-efficient causality (the “form” of Basil has to be interpreted in the sense of “exemplar”). This causality does not constitute any new substantial divine presence in the soul. Rather we may conclude that the “old” substantial presence of God as the cause of our existence becomes also cause of our spiritual transformation operated according the “exemplar” of God.