asmuch as Adam was his father; and
mediately, as Eve was his mother, who proceeded from Adam; although,
indeed, this example of a material procession is inept to signify the
immaterial procession of the divine persons.

Reply Obj. 2: If the Son received from the Father a numerically
distinct power for the spiration of the Holy Ghost, it would follow
that He would be a secondary and instrumental cause; and thus the
Holy Ghost would proceed more from the Father than from the Son;
whereas, on the contrary, the same spirative power belongs to the
Father and to the Son; and therefore the Holy Ghost proceeds equally
from both, although sometimes He is said to proceed principally or
properly from the Father, because the Son has this power from the
Father.

Reply Obj. 3: As the begetting of the Son is co-eternal with the
begetter (and hence the Father does not exist before begetting the
Son), so the procession of the Holy Ghost is co-eternal with His
principle. Hence, the Son was not begotten before the Holy Ghost
proceeded; but each of the operations is eternal.

Reply Obj. 4: When anyone is said to work through anything, the
converse proposition is not always true. For we do not say that the
mallet works through the carpenter; whereas we can say that the
bailiff acts through the king, because it is the bailiff's place to
act, since he is master of his own act, but it is not the mallet's
place to act, but only to be made to act, and hence it is used only
as an instrument. The bailiff is, however, said to act through the
king, although this preposition "through" denotes a medium, for the
more a _suppositum_ is prior in action, so much the more is its power
immediate as regards the effect, inasmuch as the power of the first
cause joins the second cause to its effect. Hence also first
principles are said to be immediate in the demonstrative sciences.
Therefore, so far as the bailiff is a medium according to the order
of the subject's acting, the king is said to work through the
bailiff; but according to the order of powers, the bailiff is said to
act through the king, forasmuch as the power of the king gives the
bailiff's action its effect. Now there is no order of power between
Father and Son, but only order of 'supposita'; and hence we say that
the Father spirates through the Son; and not conversely.
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FOURTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 36, Art. 4]

Whether the Father and the Son Are One Principle of the Holy G