Understanding the Doctrine of the Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity can be seen as a solution to a problem, the answer to a dilemma that faced the first followers of Jesus. The problem is fairly straightforward, as it involves what seems to be a blatant contradiction. On the one hand, Christianity emerged out of the darkness of the world. of Judaism, a strict monotheistic faith. On the other hand, we witness the first Christians offering religious devotion to their Lord Jesus as if he were a God. But how could this monotheism and this worship of Jesus not complete the mystery of the world? conflict. Evidence of the monotheism that they inherited from Judaism is at the heart of the morning and evening prayer that every Orthodox Jew would recite. The words are taken from Deuteronomy 6.4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And this is reaffirmed at the beginning of the Ten Commandments. I am the Lord your God. who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods beside me."Now as Christianity emerged from Judaism it naturally inherited this monotheism. For example the Apostle Paul in condemning idolatry can say, we know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things come and from whom we live. So to start with we have a monotheistic faith that has grown out of Judaism. But of course something else was happening. The one who came proclaiming the dawning of the kingdom of Israel's God had been raised and exalted. As the first Christians expressed it, he had been seated at God's right hand. And we can see even within the pages of the New Testament that remarkably quickly Jesus became a figure of devotion. For example in the New Testament epistles we find what look like hymns being quoted that focus on the exalted Christ. Hymns that the first Christians probably used in their worship We also find evidence of prayers to God in the name of Jesus And prayers to the exalted Jesus himself Furthermore we have the first Christians calling on Jesus'name In baptism and healings We in fact have a letter from a governor of a Roman province To the emperor Trajan Saying that in the worship of the Christians he is investigating They were chanting hymns to Christ as to a God. But interestingly the first Christians could show all this religious devotion to Christ but still remain committed to monotheism. As one writer explains, devotion to Jesus was combined with a continuing monotheistic stance that promoted the disdain of participation in the worship of the many other deities of the Roman religious environment. So on the one hand we have a strict monotheism, on the other the worship of the risen exalted Christ as to a god. So how can these two seemingly contradictory convictions be brought together? Now there were certain ways around this dilemma that were not open to a monotheistic faith. One of these is to think in terms of more than one god. It's not that that move was uncommon. Roman emperors could be deified. But of course that would quickly lead to polytheism and would fly in the face of the monotheistic convictions that Christianity is. inherited from Judaism. But there are other options that were open to them and that over the first few centuries the church was to explore. One promising solution that was explored was to think in terms of one God who takes on different roles at different times in a similar way that an actor in a Greek drama would hold up different masks to play different roles in the production. The play of course on this account is the biblical drama of creation, redemption, new creation. So on this analogy the one God plays the role of creator, the father of all at the beginning of the drama and then takes on the role of creator. of redeemer in Jesus and then relinquishes that role and takes up the next one etc etc. At various times in church history something of this sort has been advocated as a solution to our problem. The author of one of the most monumental studies of the development of Christian doctrine, von Harnack, gives this approach the name modalism in the sense that the one deity takes on different modes of presentation. Probably the first clear advocate of this approach is the is a third century priest and theologian, Sibelius. As one writer explains, Sibelius confesses one God who is now Father, now Son, now Holy Spirit. Three names do not refer to three individuals or three persons. but the different ways or modes of acting for the one God. Now at first sight, this seems a promising solution. It clearly supports the stringent monotheism that the first Christians upheld, and supports the diet of each person in the drama of salvation. But in other ways, it's clearly problematic. For example, it doesn't seem to be a problem for the first Christians to follow the diet of each person. not fit all scenes in the drama that well. In the scriptural narrative there are occasions where the father, the son and the spirit all appear on stage at the same time. This gets confusing if what's ultimately going on is is one actor taking on different roles. A good example of this is of course Jesus'baptism. Here we not only have all the characters on stage at once, but the characters are addressing each other. If there's only really one person behind three masks, how can you have a conversation? Another problem with one person taking on different roles or putting on different masks is the feeling of being one removed from who is playing the role. the different parts. If when encountering someone you only ever presented with a mask or the role the person is playing you would never encounter the reality behind the facade. The first critic of modalism was the theologian Tertullian, a Latin-speaking theologian from the western province of the empire who argued for a clear distinction between father, son and spirit. Another approach that was developed extensively was to suggest that in Jesus we don't have just God taking on a new role but rather the incarnation of something other than God the Father. Here we have the idea of something that pre-existed Jesus earthly ministry but was also with God from the very beginning. This idea is there in the prologue to John's Gospel in the contemplation of the pre-existent word. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God. with God, the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. There's been a long debate about exactly what the Greek term for Word means here. Whether the term Logos is picking up Old Testament ideas of God's creative Word going out into the world to fulfill his will, or perhaps it echoes ideas of the Old Testament. ideas of God's wisdom active from the very dawn of creation, or finally whether it was connecting with philosophical ideas of the time where Logos could refer to an all-pervasive reason that governs the cosmos. But whatever background informs this passage, the prologue is making it clear that at the very beginning the Logos already existed and that it was distinct from God, yet in close fellowship with him, and that this divine principle became enfleshed. Understandably, reflection on this passage and the exposition of this theme became of great importance for the development of Trinitarian theology. Probably the best example of this can be found in the philosophically minded apologists at the end of the second century, particularly the theology of Justin Martyr. In his search for the true philosophy, Justin turned from one school of thought to the next, finally moving from Platonism to Christianity. With the other apologists, he developed the theology of the Logos. Echoing the Platonic philosophy of the time, Christ is seen as the incarnation of a rational principle the logos that gave form and order to the cosmos the god and father of the universe is unconfined and is not present in a place but his logos through whom he made all things who is his power and wisdom, assumes the role of father, the lord of the universe. And this rational principle, the logos, has been enlightening philosophers ever since. We have been taught that Christ is the firstborn of God, and we have suggested above that he is the logos. of whom every race of man and woman were partakers. And they who lived with the logos are Christians, even though they had been thought atheists, as among the Greeks Socrates and Heraclitus, and people like them. Justin appears to see the Logos as an intermediary figure mediated between God and his creation, the go-between. But does that make the Logos number two in the divine pecking order, a lesser being than the father of all? Seeing the son as inferior to the father, becomes known as subordinationism where the second person of the trinity has a lesser role form or status than that of the father we get the impression from justin that father is god transcendent and son god the imminent and of course the danger of this kind of thinking is it logically tends towards subordinationism but can this be seen as a way out of our problem for the apologists could say that the logos who became incarnate in christ the one they worshipped was divine but not the supreme god rather he was the father's agent in the world the early apologists placed the doctrine of the Trinity on a new footing, by trying to explain for their audience how they could claim to be continuing the monotheism of the Jews while worshipping Christ as God. From an early period, a concern to uphold the biblical confession of the unity of the of God accompanied the development of Christian statements about the deity of the Son. Especially in the early stages of the doctrine of the Trinity, this concern was met by the subordination of the Son to the monarchy of the Father. This approach of seeing the Son as the subordinate mediator between the one transcendent God and creation can be seen in a number of Eastern Fathers of the Church, Clement of Alexandria being a good example. But this approach reaches its most sophisticated form. in the theology of Origen. Origen without doubt is the most significant theologian of the third century and because his theology is so influential and because he did not have the chance to draw all the lines of his thought together into a unified whole much of the Trinitarian debate after Origen can be seen as following up on some of his loose ends and because of the complexity and ambiguity of his thought his theology has been the cause of much debate both then and now. His Trinitarian theology. develops the overall structure of his thought. He sees a movement out from God to creation through the Logos and the Spirit and then a process back, a reconciliation to the One via the Spirit and the Son. Origen's Trinitarian theology is one in which the Father is the cause and originator of all, the Son the fashioner of the rational world, the Spirit the sanctifier. All the Trinitarian energy is in the movement from the Father to the world, through the Logos and the Spirit, and equally the drawing of the redeemed world through the Spirit to the Logos and in the Logos to the Father. On the one hand, Origen can insist that there was never a time when the Son was not, that the Son was eternally enticed. primestly begotten. We recognise that God was always the Father of his only begotten Son, who was indeed born of him, and draws his being from him, but yet without any beginning. This is an eternal and everlasting begetting, as brightness is begotten from light, for he does not become the Son in an external manner through the adoption of the Spirit, but is Son by nature. Origen makes the logical observation that when speaking of the Father, by definition we presuppose some offspring. For Charlotte, it does not make sense to talk about a father without a son. But on the other hand, in origin theology, as we have seen, the son is still the mediator between the transcendent father and creation. Here scholars have clearly seen signs of subordinationism. When discussing Jesus'statement the father is greater than I, origin says the father exceeds the saviour as much or even more than the saviour himself and the holy spirit exceed the rest of creation. In this way, Origen's theology seems to be on a knife edge. As one writer explains, Origen so emphasises the transcendence of the Father, such that there are no others besides him as members of the same class, yet at the same time he wants to ensure the essence of the Son, even if it cannot equivocally be stated to be the same as the Father's. At least it is not considered as separate from that of the Father, so that the divinity of the Son is affirmed. Origen is not alone in his subordinationism and his hierarchical conception of the Trinity. It was common before the Council of Nicaea and not that uncommon after. Almost everyone prior to the Council of Nicaea presupposed that the Father alone and singularly constituted the fullness of Godhead. However, because of this presupposition, there was always an inbuilt necessity to conceive the Son and the Holy Spirit not only as deriving their being from the Father, but also as less divine than the Father. And so subordinate to him, for he alone embodied the whole of the Godhead. There was a hierarchical conception within the Trinity. Developing just one side of Origen's thought, the most infamous advocate of subordinationism brought things to a head. Around 320, a priest in Alexandria called Arius, objected publicly that his bishop, Alexander, had misinterpreted the idea of subordinationism. and was wrong to claim that the Son was eternally begotten with the Father and his exact image. Arius argued that the Son was not co-eternal with the Father, was in fact inferior. This was not an isolated incident. but was rather an example of a widespread tension within the church concerning the son's status within the Trinity. As one writer puts it, Controversy over Arius was the spark that ignited a fire waiting to happen, and the origins of the dispute do not lie simply in the beliefs of one thinker, but in the existing tension that formed his background. In arguing that the son was not co-eternal with the father, Arius claimed that there was a time when the son was not co-eternal with the father. For Arius, the sun was not seen as necessary to the father's being or nature, not seen as part of the definition of what it means to be father, as Origen had argued, but rather a product of the father's will, something he could choose to create or not to create. If he were to make a divide between the creator and his creation, not an easy thing to do at the time, the sun for Arius would be on the side of creation. Arius'position that the sun is on the side of creation in the first place, inferior to the Father, a product of the Father's will, not necessary to the Father's nature, come together in his own words. The one without beginning establishes the Son as the beginning of all creatures. He, the Son, possesses nothing proper to God, for he is not equal to God, nor yet is he of the same substance. There exists in the Trinity unequal glories. The Father is other than the Son in substance because he is without beginning. By God's will, the Son is such as he is. Ares did not see himself as radical. He probably saw himself more as a conservative biblical theologian. And of course Ares has a point. There are passages in scripture that look as if they support his subordinationist position. A verse that was much debated at the time is Proverbs 8.22. When speaking of God's wisdom at work in creation, wisdom says, The Lord created me at the beginning of his works, the first of his acts of long ago. Those sympathetic to him. to Ares could claim that here we have the one through whom God created all things addressing us and saying quite clearly that he himself was an act of God's creation the beginning of his work one of his acts Things came to a head in 325. After gaining complete control of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, Constantine wanted to settle disputes disturbing the church in the east, and called a council to meet in his palace at Nicaea. The council took a common baptismal confession of faith, probably from Jerusalem, and in order to outlaw Ares'position, made a few additions to that confession, that those who were sympathetic to Ares'thought would find it difficult to affirm, and at the end added something else. some anathemas condemning Ares'theology. The key addition follows this line, we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten as only begotten of the Father, that is of the being of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father. You can hear here different elements of Ares'position being targeted. For example, by saying begotten, not made, it was suggesting that the Son of God was not made. was on the side of the creator not the creature but the most famous term used and not of biblical origin is the word homoousios translated as consubstantial or as one being or substance with the father arius was known to object to the term so it was a way of outlawing his theology but to the term's precise meaning and significance that remained controversial a number of contemporary scholars have voiced concern that the importance of nicaea over history has been blown out out of proportion. All that has happened is a few additions have been made to a baptismal confession of faith, making it difficult for anyone sympathetic to Ares'theology to affirm them. It had not settled the question of Trinitarian relations once and for all. That debate continued, with if anything increasing ferocity well beyond this gathering of bishops. As one writer explains, many modern readers assume that Nicaea was to stand as a binding in the universal formula of Christian faith, with a care carefully chosen terminology, defining the fundamental Christian account of the relationship between father and son. I have argued that Nicaea's Creed was not designed to do much more than earn the approval of the majority present, and make it clear that certain perceived errors of Arius and his early supporters were unacceptable. The Christian imagination has tended to portray Nicaea's counsel as ushering in the victory of orthodoxy over the Arian heresy. with the inspired confession of homoousios. However, the reception of Nicaea was far more convoluted process than such a rendering suggests. In point of fact, the council of Nicaea resulted with more in the way of confusion than resolution. It was Athanasius, the secretary to the Bishop of Alexandria, the bishop that Arius had originally objected to, who is most famous for carrying on the battle against those still sympathetic to Arius'concerns after Nicaea. Athanasius firstly develops a line of argument that we've seen Origen employ. How can you talk about a father without presupposing some offspring? How can you have a father without a son? As the term father necessitates son, as light necessitates radiance and a fountain necessitates water. So there could never be a father without a son because the son is inseparable from the father, never was there when he was not, but he was always. And being the father's image and radiance, he has the father's eternity. At the heart of Athanasius'opposition to those sympathetic to Arius, there is the question of salvation or soteriology. In order to fully perceive this, one needs to be aware of the fact that for Athanasius, salvation is a form of deification. Salvation ultimately involves sharing in the life of the Trinity and as Athanasius argues, only one who is truly divine can draw us into that divine life. The sun's full divinity is crucial for Athanasius Athanasius'soteriological Christology. Only if the Son is truly divine can he divinise human beings, for he is the deifying, enlightening power of the Father, in which all things are deified and quickened. Man would not have been deified unless the Word, who became flesh, had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to him. For man, if joined to a creature, was not deified unless the Son were truly God. Nor was man brought into the Father's presence unless he had been his natural and true word who had put on the body. Now Athanasius uses the same logic when arguing for the Spirit's divine status. When assessing the work the Spirit completes in us in terms of sanctification, he argues this also must be a work of God. Just as he insists, on God's immediate work in Christ, the Spirit too must be part of the immediate divine activity. The sanctifying work of the Spirit must be directly the work of God. He also stresses the continuity between the Spirit and the Spirit. between the Father, the Son and the Spirit's work in salvation. The sanctifying work of the Spirit is the completion of a work begun by the Father and taken up by the Son. Athanasius can clearly show that the Spirit's work is a continuation of the Son's, just as the Son's work is that of the Father in him. Athanasius lists various texts which point to aspects of the Spirit's function. The purpose of this list is to show that the work of the Spirit is the same as the work of the Son. same as that of the Son. And then just as the Son's presence is also the presence of the Father, so too the Spirit's presence is the presence of God. This point is taken up by the next generation of writers to defend Nicaea after Athanasius. For example, like Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea argues that the work of the Spirit is inseparable from the work of the Father and the Son. Basil presents the particular action of the Spirit completing and sanctifying as a constant part or aspect of God's activity. The action of Father and Son in creating and saving intrinsically involves an action of perfecting, that is, the work of the Spirit. Here, Basil and Athanasius exhibit common concerns. In the final chapter of this story we are going to look at three theologians known as the Cappadocian Fathers, two Gregories and a Basil. We can identify a number of good reasons for speaking of these as a group. They were closely linked by a web of family and regional ties. They shared significant involvement in the defense of some fundamental theological principles. Their understanding of theological methods shows significant overlap. In fact, Gregory of Nazianzus was for a time the chair of the next major council which met in Constantinople. Those sympathetic to Ares'theology had remained influential through much of the 4th century because a number of Roman emperors had been sympathetic to their cause. But the last emperor supportive of Ares was killed fighting the Goths in 376. his successor Theodosius was in favour of those who rallied around Nicaea. To take advantage of this, Gregory of Nazianzus took up residence in the capital, Constantinople, converting his brother's house into a chapel where he preached. in support of Nicene Orthodoxy and in defense of the deity of the Holy Spirit. When Theodosius arrived in Constantinople in 380 he made Gregory bishop and exiled the previous bishop who'd been sympathetic to Ares'thought. Theodosius also declared a general council will be held the following year in 381. The council reaffirmed the Creed from Nicaea including the term homoousios, a one substance with the father, and added to the Creed a longer clause. on the Holy Spirit. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, together with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. It became common to read this creed at Eucharistic services and it became known as the Nicene Creed, not to be confused with the creed issued in 325. But again, Constantinople is not the end of the debate. Some of the most sophisticated Trinitarian theology gets hammered out immediately following Constantinople in the work of the Cappadocian Fathers. The Cappadocian Fathers become associated with developing the Orthodox Trinitarian terminology of three persons, hypotheses, in one substance, Uziah. The way they distinguish between substance and person is firstly to talk about a thing's general nature and then a particular instance of that nature. As Basil of Caesarea writes, the distinction between essence and hypostases is the same as that between general and particular, for instance between the animal and the particular human. Therefore, concerning the divinity, we confess one essence, so as not to give a differing principle of being, but the hypothesis, on the other hand, is between the two. particularizing in order that our conception of Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be unconfused and clear. We must therefore confess the faith by adding the particularizing to the common. Divinity is common, fatherhood is particular and we combine them to say I believe in God the Father and again the confession of the Son. It is necessary to do the same, to unite the particular to the common and say I believe in God the Son. Basil's great contribution was to differentiate the terms, each with a clear defined meaning, so that the distinct reality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be affirmed without introducing any compromise with regard to their unity and identity of being or essence. He used the example of a common humanity and a particular instance of that humanity. Basil argued that though Peter and Paul differ in their names, their essence is one and that they are two. distinguished by the properties particular in each. For names do not indicate essences, but the properties which categorise each individually. But what kind of unity is envisaged here? Many have argued that the illustration of three people sharing a common generic humanity is insufficient, and that some stronger unity than that is required. A long-running scholarly debate has asked whether the terminology used by the Cappadocians, and especially Basil, entail a generic or numerical unity. The Basilian account, and that of the Cappadocians as a whole, has sometimes been tested by the Cappadocians. to demonstrate a merely generic as opposed to truly Nicaean numerical account of unity. This has led some scholars to argue that the Cappadocians were not in tune with Athanasius in his defence of Nicaean orthodoxy. Whereas Athanasius was a very good scholar, athanasius argued that homoousios meant unity of substance the cappadocians theology focused on three beings who share a common substance rather than on divine unity which is mysteriously threefold harnack sees them as offering a modified version of origins trinitarian theology not athanasius's original nicene orthodoxy there were also questions asked at the time about what kind of unity is envisaged by this generic language These questions led Gregory of Nyssa to write a work entitled On Not Three Gods. It is important first to get a sense of the polemical charge that Gregory faces. This charge is that Gregory's theology, and the Cappadocian theology more widely, implies the existence of three gods. Because it is susceptible to the logic of distinction, retaining between three distinct people. Up to this point we have heard theologians accused of modalism or subordinationism, but here Gregory is being accused of tritheism, believing in three gods. A major part of Gregory's response is to argue for a unity of action or inseparable operations within the Trinity. In other words, that the Trinitarian persons do not act independently of one another, but in unison. One of the most important principles shared by the pronunciations is that whenever one of the divine persons act, all are present, acting inseparably. The unity of their action is then seen as evidence for the unity of their nature. If we understand that the operation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, differing or varying in nothing, the oneness of their nature must needs be inferred from the identity of their operation. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit alike give sanctification, and life, and light, and comfort, and all similar graces. And let no one attribute the power of sanctification in an especial sense to the Spirit, when he hears the Saviour in the Gospels saying to the Father concerning his disciples, Father, sanctify them in thy name. As we say that the operation of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one, so we say that the Godhead is one. It is simply inappropriate to speak of three gods because we do not observe three distinct actions in the divine activity. If the activities of the three are the same, then the power which gives rise to them is the same, and the ineffable divine nature in which that power is inherent must also be one. The divine nature remains unknown, but its power is revealed to be one. Gregory has thus offered a refutation that his teaching implies three gods. Gregory also points out that when thinking of the divine nature, we should not think of three objects in the material world. God transcends such distinctions. Most clearly, if we were to imagine God as three potentially separate agents, or three centres of consciousness, the content of whose minds were distinct, pro-Nicene would see us as drawing inappropriate analogies between God and creative realities and in serious heresy. If we argue for the inseparable operations of the Trinitarian persons, we cannot then distinguish between them by the role that they play, say, in creation or redemption. So what distinguishes the persons? The answer that is given by those arguing for Nicene Orthodoxy is that we distinguish between the persons only in their relationship of origin. It is within the context of inseparable operations that we also find the Greek and Latin pronunciations articulate the principle that we know the persons only by their relationship of origin, that the Father is unbegotten, that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. After modalism is avoided, subordinationism overcome, tritheism rejected, what are we left with? Well, Lewis Ayres, towards the end of his momentous discussion of the development of Nicene orthodoxy, has some helpful summary statements of where things have got to by the end of the fourth century. Even though there's some clarity here, it is clarity cloaked in mystery. Scripture demands that we confess a logic of eternal distinction, which insists that insofar as we could talk about God as an eternal and distinct reality, So too we can speak of the Father, the Son and the Spirit as eternally distinct realities. At the same time, Scripture demands that we speak of a unitary divine power and nature. We cannot make their mode of existence more understandable by presenting them in Sibelian fashion as aspects of God or roles of God. Nor can we assume that they possess different natures, wills or activities within the one Godhead. The distinctions between them are real, but we do not know what it is to exist distinctly in this state. Hence statements of the general form, Father is not Son, Son is not Father, Spirit is neither Father nor Son, are some of the clearest we can make precisely in that they deliver only a logic of relationship.

of Judaism, a strict monotheistic faith. On the other hand, we witness the first Christians offering religious devotion to their Lord Jesus as if he were a God. But how could this monotheism and this worship of Jesus not complete the mystery of the world? conflict.

Evidence of the monotheism that they inherited from Judaism is at the heart of the morning and evening prayer that every Orthodox Jew would recite. The words are taken from Deuteronomy 6.4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.

And this is reaffirmed at the beginning of the Ten Commandments. I am the Lord your God. who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods beside me."Now as Christianity emerged from Judaism it naturally inherited this monotheism. For example the Apostle Paul in condemning idolatry can say, we know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things come and from whom we live. So to start with we have a monotheistic faith that has grown out of Judaism. But of course something else was happening. The one who came proclaiming the dawning of the kingdom of Israel's God had been raised and exalted. As the first Christians expressed it, he had been seated at God's right hand. And we can see even within the pages of the New Testament that remarkably quickly Jesus became a figure of devotion. For example in the New Testament epistles we find what look like hymns being quoted that focus on the exalted Christ. Hymns that the first Christians probably used in their worship We also find evidence of prayers to God in the name of Jesus And prayers to the exalted Jesus himself Furthermore we have the first Christians calling on Jesus'name In baptism and healings We in fact have a letter from a governor of a Roman province To the emperor Trajan Saying that in the worship of the Christians he is investigating They were chanting hymns to Christ as to a God. But interestingly the first Christians could show all this religious devotion to Christ but still remain committed to monotheism. As one writer explains, devotion to Jesus was combined with a continuing monotheistic stance that promoted the disdain of participation in the worship of the many other deities of the Roman religious environment. So on the one hand we have a strict monotheism, on the other the worship of the risen exalted Christ as to a god. So how can these two seemingly contradictory convictions be brought together? Now there were certain ways around this dilemma that were not open to a monotheistic faith. One of these is to think in terms of more than one god. It's not that that move was uncommon. Roman emperors could be deified. But of course that would quickly lead to polytheism and would fly in the face of the monotheistic convictions that Christianity is. inherited from Judaism. But there are other options that were open to them and that over the first few centuries the church was to explore. One promising solution that was explored was to think in terms of one God who takes on different roles at different times in a similar way that an actor in a Greek drama would hold up different masks to play different roles in the production. The play of course on this account is the biblical drama of creation, redemption, new creation. So on this analogy the one God plays the role of creator, the father of all at the beginning of the drama and then takes on the role of creator. of redeemer in Jesus and then relinquishes that role and takes up the next one etc etc. At various times in church history something of this sort has been advocated as a solution to our problem. The author of one of the most monumental studies of the development of Christian doctrine, von Harnack, gives this approach the name modalism in the sense that the one deity takes on different modes of presentation. Probably the first clear advocate of this approach is the is a third century priest and theologian, Sibelius. As one writer explains, Sibelius confesses one God who is now Father, now Son, now Holy Spirit. Three names do not refer to three individuals or three persons. but the different ways or modes of acting for the one God. Now at first sight, this seems a promising solution. It clearly supports the stringent monotheism that the first Christians upheld, and supports the diet of each person in the drama of salvation. But in other ways, it's clearly problematic. For example, it doesn't seem to be a problem for the first Christians to follow the diet of each person. not fit all scenes in the drama that well. In the scriptural narrative there are occasions where the father, the son and the spirit all appear on stage at the same time. This gets confusing if what's ultimately going on is is one actor taking on different roles. A good example of this is of course Jesus'baptism. Here we not only have all the characters on stage at once, but the characters are addressing each other. If there's only really one person behind three masks, how can you have a conversation? Another problem with one person taking on different roles or putting on different masks is the feeling of being one removed from who is playing the role. the different parts. If when encountering someone you only ever presented with a mask or the role the person is playing you would never encounter the reality behind the facade. The first critic of modalism was the theologian Tertullian, a Latin-speaking theologian from the western province of the empire who argued for a clear distinction between father, son and spirit. Another approach that was developed extensively was to suggest that in Jesus we don't have just God taking on a new role but rather the incarnation of something other than God the Father. Here we have the idea of something that pre-existed Jesus earthly ministry but was also with God from the very beginning. This idea is there in the prologue to John's Gospel in the contemplation of the pre-existent word. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God. with God, the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. There's been a long debate about exactly what the Greek term for Word means here. Whether the term Logos is picking up Old Testament ideas of God's creative Word going out into the world to fulfill his will, or perhaps it echoes ideas of the Old Testament. ideas of God's wisdom active from the very dawn of creation, or finally whether it was connecting with philosophical ideas of the time where Logos could refer to an all-pervasive reason that governs the cosmos. But whatever background informs this passage, the prologue is making it clear that at the very beginning the Logos already existed and that it was distinct from God, yet in close fellowship with him, and that this divine principle became enfleshed. Understandably, reflection on this passage and the exposition of this theme became of great importance for the development of Trinitarian theology. Probably the best example of this can be found in the philosophically minded apologists at the end of the second century, particularly the theology of Justin Martyr. In his search for the true philosophy, Justin turned from one school of thought to the next, finally moving from Platonism to Christianity. With the other apologists, he developed the theology of the Logos. Echoing the Platonic philosophy of the time, Christ is seen as the incarnation of a rational principle the logos that gave form and order to the cosmos the god and father of the universe is unconfined and is not present in a place but his logos through whom he made all things who is his power and wisdom, assumes the role of father, the lord of the universe. And this rational principle, the logos, has been enlightening philosophers ever since. We have been taught that Christ is the firstborn of God, and we have suggested above that he is the logos. of whom every race of man and woman were partakers. And they who lived with the logos are Christians, even though they had been thought atheists, as among the Greeks Socrates and Heraclitus, and people like them. Justin appears to see the Logos as an intermediary figure mediated between God and his creation, the go-between. But does that make the Logos number two in the divine pecking order, a lesser being than the father of all? Seeing the son as inferior to the father, becomes known as subordinationism where the second person of the trinity has a lesser role form or status than that of the father we get the impression from justin that father is god transcendent and son god the imminent and of course the danger of this kind of thinking is it logically tends towards subordinationism but can this be seen as a way out of our problem for the apologists could say that the logos who became incarnate in christ the one they worshipped was divine but not the supreme god rather he was the father's agent in the world the early apologists placed the doctrine of the Trinity on a new footing, by trying to explain for their audience how they could claim to be continuing the monotheism of the Jews while worshipping Christ as God. From an early period, a concern to uphold the biblical confession of the unity of the of God accompanied the development of Christian statements about the deity of the Son. Especially in the early stages of the doctrine of the Trinity, this concern was met by the subordination of the Son to the monarchy of the Father. This approach of seeing the Son as the subordinate mediator between the one transcendent God and creation can be seen in a number of Eastern Fathers of the Church, Clement of Alexandria being a good example. But this approach reaches its most sophisticated form. in the theology of Origen. Origen without doubt is the most significant theologian of the third century and because his theology is so influential and because he did not have the chance to draw all the lines of his thought together into a unified whole much of the Trinitarian debate after Origen can be seen as following up on some of his loose ends and because of the complexity and ambiguity of his thought his theology has been the cause of much debate both then and now. His Trinitarian theology. develops the overall structure of his thought. He sees a movement out from God to creation through the Logos and the Spirit and then a process back, a reconciliation to the One via the Spirit and the Son. Origen's Trinitarian theology is one in which the Father is the cause and originator of all, the Son the fashioner of the rational world, the Spirit the sanctifier. All the Trinitarian energy is in the movement from the Father to the world, through the Logos and the Spirit, and equally the drawing of the redeemed world through the Spirit to the Logos and in the Logos to the Father. On the one hand, Origen can insist that there was never a time when the Son was not, that the Son was eternally enticed. primestly begotten. We recognise that God was always the Father of his only begotten Son, who was indeed born of him, and draws his being from him, but yet without any beginning. This is an eternal and everlasting begetting, as brightness is begotten from light, for he does not become the Son in an external manner through the adoption of the Spirit, but is Son by nature. Origen makes the logical observation that when speaking of the Father, by definition we presuppose some offspring. For Charlotte, it does not make sense to talk about a father without a son. But on the other hand, in origin theology, as we have seen, the son is still the mediator between the transcendent father and creation. Here scholars have clearly seen signs of subordinationism. When discussing Jesus'statement the father is greater than I, origin says the father exceeds the saviour as much or even more than the saviour himself and the holy spirit exceed the rest of creation. In this way, Origen's theology seems to be on a knife edge. As one writer explains, Origen so emphasises the transcendence of the Father, such that there are no others besides him as members of the same class, yet at the same time he wants to ensure the essence of the Son, even if it cannot equivocally be stated to be the same as the Father's. At least it is not considered as separate from that of the Father, so that the divinity of the Son is affirmed. Origen is not alone in his subordinationism and his hierarchical conception of the Trinity. It was common before the Council of Nicaea and not that uncommon after. Almost everyone prior to the Council of Nicaea presupposed that the Father alone and singularly constituted the fullness of Godhead. However, because of this presupposition, there was always an inbuilt necessity to conceive the Son and the Holy Spirit not only as deriving their being from the Father, but also as less divine than the Father. And so subordinate to him, for he alone embodied the whole of the Godhead. There was a hierarchical conception within the Trinity. Developing just one side of Origen's thought, the most infamous advocate of subordinationism brought things to a head. Around 320, a priest in Alexandria called Arius, objected publicly that his bishop, Alexander, had misinterpreted the idea of subordinationism. and was wrong to claim that the Son was eternally begotten with the Father and his exact image. Arius argued that the Son was not co-eternal with the Father, was in fact inferior. This was not an isolated incident. but was rather an example of a widespread tension within the church concerning the son's status within the Trinity. As one writer puts it, Controversy over Arius was the spark that ignited a fire waiting to happen, and the origins of the dispute do not lie simply in the beliefs of one thinker, but in the existing tension that formed his background. In arguing that the son was not co-eternal with the father, Arius claimed that there was a time when the son was not co-eternal with the father. For Arius, the sun was not seen as necessary to the father's being or nature, not seen as part of the definition of what it means to be father, as Origen had argued, but rather a product of the father's will, something he could choose to create or not to create. If he were to make a divide between the creator and his creation, not an easy thing to do at the time, the sun for Arius would be on the side of creation. Arius'position that the sun is on the side of creation in the first place, inferior to the Father, a product of the Father's will, not necessary to the Father's nature, come together in his own words. The one without beginning establishes the Son as the beginning of all creatures. He, the Son, possesses nothing proper to God, for he is not equal to God, nor yet is he of the same substance. There exists in the Trinity unequal glories. The Father is other than the Son in substance because he is without beginning. By God's will, the Son is such as he is. Ares did not see himself as radical. He probably saw himself more as a conservative biblical theologian. And of course Ares has a point. There are passages in scripture that look as if they support his subordinationist position. A verse that was much debated at the time is Proverbs 8.22. When speaking of God's wisdom at work in creation, wisdom says, The Lord created me at the beginning of his works, the first of his acts of long ago. Those sympathetic to him. to Ares could claim that here we have the one through whom God created all things addressing us and saying quite clearly that he himself was an act of God's creation the beginning of his work one of his acts Things came to a head in 325. After gaining complete control of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, Constantine wanted to settle disputes disturbing the church in the east, and called a council to meet in his palace at Nicaea. The council took a common baptismal confession of faith, probably from Jerusalem, and in order to outlaw Ares'position, made a few additions to that confession, that those who were sympathetic to Ares'thought would find it difficult to affirm, and at the end added something else. some anathemas condemning Ares'theology. The key addition follows this line, we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten as only begotten of the Father, that is of the being of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father. You can hear here different elements of Ares'position being targeted. For example, by saying begotten, not made, it was suggesting that the Son of God was not made. was on the side of the creator not the creature but the most famous term used and not of biblical origin is the word homoousios translated as consubstantial or as one being or substance with the father arius was known to object to the term so it was a way of outlawing his theology but to the term's precise meaning and significance that remained controversial a number of contemporary scholars have voiced concern that the importance of nicaea over history has been blown out out of proportion. All that has happened is a few additions have been made to a baptismal confession of faith, making it difficult for anyone sympathetic to Ares'theology to affirm them. It had not settled the question of Trinitarian relations once and for all. That debate continued, with if anything increasing ferocity well beyond this gathering of bishops. As one writer explains, many modern readers assume that Nicaea was to stand as a binding in the universal formula of Christian faith, with a care carefully chosen terminology, defining the fundamental Christian account of the relationship between father and son. I have argued that Nicaea's Creed was not designed to do much more than earn the approval of the majority present, and make it clear that certain perceived errors of Arius and his early supporters were unacceptable. The Christian imagination has tended to portray Nicaea's counsel as ushering in the victory of orthodoxy over the Arian heresy. with the inspired confession of homoousios. However, the reception of Nicaea was far more convoluted process than such a rendering suggests. In point of fact, the council of Nicaea resulted with more in the way of confusion than resolution. It was Athanasius, the secretary to the Bishop of Alexandria, the bishop that Arius had originally objected to, who is most famous for carrying on the battle against those still sympathetic to Arius'concerns after Nicaea. Athanasius firstly develops a line of argument that we've seen Origen employ. How can you talk about a father without presupposing some offspring? How can you have a father without a son? As the term father necessitates son, as light necessitates radiance and a fountain necessitates water. So there could never be a father without a son because the son is inseparable from the father, never was there when he was not, but he was always. And being the father's image and radiance, he has the father's eternity. At the heart of Athanasius'opposition to those sympathetic to Arius, there is the question of salvation or soteriology. In order to fully perceive this, one needs to be aware of the fact that for Athanasius, salvation is a form of deification. Salvation ultimately involves sharing in the life of the Trinity and as Athanasius argues, only one who is truly divine can draw us into that divine life. The sun's full divinity is crucial for Athanasius Athanasius'soteriological Christology. Only if the Son is truly divine can he divinise human beings, for he is the deifying, enlightening power of the Father, in which all things are deified and quickened. Man would not have been deified unless the Word, who became flesh, had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to him. For man, if joined to a creature, was not deified unless the Son were truly God. Nor was man brought into the Father's presence unless he had been his natural and true word who had put on the body. Now Athanasius uses the same logic when arguing for the Spirit's divine status. When assessing the work the Spirit completes in us in terms of sanctification, he argues this also must be a work of God. Just as he insists, on God's immediate work in Christ, the Spirit too must be part of the immediate divine activity. The sanctifying work of the Spirit must be directly the work of God. He also stresses the continuity between the Spirit and the Spirit. between the Father, the Son and the Spirit's work in salvation. The sanctifying work of the Spirit is the completion of a work begun by the Father and taken up by the Son. Athanasius can clearly show that the Spirit's work is a continuation of the Son's, just as the Son's work is that of the Father in him. Athanasius lists various texts which point to aspects of the Spirit's function. The purpose of this list is to show that the work of the Spirit is the same as the work of the Son. same as that of the Son. And then just as the Son's presence is also the presence of the Father, so too the Spirit's presence is the presence of God. This point is taken up by the next generation of writers to defend Nicaea after Athanasius. For example, like Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea argues that the work of the Spirit is inseparable from the work of the Father and the Son. Basil presents the particular action of the Spirit completing and sanctifying as a constant part or aspect of God's activity. The action of Father and Son in creating and saving intrinsically involves an action of perfecting, that is, the work of the Spirit. Here, Basil and Athanasius exhibit common concerns. In the final chapter of this story we are going to look at three theologians known as the Cappadocian Fathers, two Gregories and a Basil. We can identify a number of good reasons for speaking of these as a group. They were closely linked by a web of family and regional ties. They shared significant involvement in the defense of some fundamental theological principles. Their understanding of theological methods shows significant overlap. In fact, Gregory of Nazianzus was for a time the chair of the next major council which met in Constantinople. Those sympathetic to Ares'theology had remained influential through much of the 4th century because a number of Roman emperors had been sympathetic to their cause. But the last emperor supportive of Ares was killed fighting the Goths in 376. his successor Theodosius was in favour of those who rallied around Nicaea. To take advantage of this, Gregory of Nazianzus took up residence in the capital, Constantinople, converting his brother's house into a chapel where he preached. in support of Nicene Orthodoxy and in defense of the deity of the Holy Spirit. When Theodosius arrived in Constantinople in 380 he made Gregory bishop and exiled the previous bishop who'd been sympathetic to Ares'thought. Theodosius also declared a general council will be held the following year in 381. The council reaffirmed the Creed from Nicaea including the term homoousios, a one substance with the father, and added to the Creed a longer clause. on the Holy Spirit. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, together with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. It became common to read this creed at Eucharistic services and it became known as the Nicene Creed, not to be confused with the creed issued in 325. But again, Constantinople is not the end of the debate. Some of the most sophisticated Trinitarian theology gets hammered out immediately following Constantinople in the work of the Cappadocian Fathers. The Cappadocian Fathers become associated with developing the Orthodox Trinitarian terminology of three persons, hypotheses, in one substance, Uziah. The way they distinguish between substance and person is firstly to talk about a thing's general nature and then a particular instance of that nature. As Basil of Caesarea writes, the distinction between essence and hypostases is the same as that between general and particular, for instance between the animal and the particular human. Therefore, concerning the divinity, we confess one essence, so as not to give a differing principle of being, but the hypothesis, on the other hand, is between the two. particularizing in order that our conception of Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be unconfused and clear. We must therefore confess the faith by adding the particularizing to the common. Divinity is common, fatherhood is particular and we combine them to say I believe in God the Father and again the confession of the Son. It is necessary to do the same, to unite the particular to the common and say I believe in God the Son. Basil's great contribution was to differentiate the terms, each with a clear defined meaning, so that the distinct reality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be affirmed without introducing any compromise with regard to their unity and identity of being or essence. He used the example of a common humanity and a particular instance of that humanity. Basil argued that though Peter and Paul differ in their names, their essence is one and that they are two. distinguished by the properties particular in each. For names do not indicate essences, but the properties which categorise each individually. But what kind of unity is envisaged here? Many have argued that the illustration of three people sharing a common generic humanity is insufficient, and that some stronger unity than that is required. A long-running scholarly debate has asked whether the terminology used by the Cappadocians, and especially Basil, entail a generic or numerical unity. The Basilian account, and that of the Cappadocians as a whole, has sometimes been tested by the Cappadocians. to demonstrate a merely generic as opposed to truly Nicaean numerical account of unity. This has led some scholars to argue that the Cappadocians were not in tune with Athanasius in his defence of Nicaean orthodoxy. Whereas Athanasius was a very good scholar, athanasius argued that homoousios meant unity of substance the cappadocians theology focused on three beings who share a common substance rather than on divine unity which is mysteriously threefold harnack sees them as offering a modified version of origins trinitarian theology not athanasius's original nicene orthodoxy there were also questions asked at the time about what kind of unity is envisaged by this generic language These questions led Gregory of Nyssa to write a work entitled On Not Three Gods. It is important first to get a sense of the polemical charge that Gregory faces. This charge is that Gregory's theology, and the Cappadocian theology more widely, implies the existence of three gods. Because it is susceptible to the logic of distinction, retaining between three distinct people. Up to this point we have heard theologians accused of modalism or subordinationism, but here Gregory is being accused of tritheism, believing in three gods. A major part of Gregory's response is to argue for a unity of action or inseparable operations within the Trinity. In other words, that the Trinitarian persons do not act independently of one another, but in unison. One of the most important principles shared by the pronunciations is that whenever one of the divine persons act, all are present, acting inseparably. The unity of their action is then seen as evidence for the unity of their nature. If we understand that the operation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, differing or varying in nothing, the oneness of their nature must needs be inferred from the identity of their operation. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit alike give sanctification, and life, and light, and comfort, and all similar graces. And let no one attribute the power of sanctification in an especial sense to the Spirit, when he hears the Saviour in the Gospels saying to the Father concerning his disciples, Father, sanctify them in thy name. As we say that the operation of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one, so we say that the Godhead is one. It is simply inappropriate to speak of three gods because we do not observe three distinct actions in the divine activity. If the activities of the three are the same, then the power which gives rise to them is the same, and the ineffable divine nature in which that power is inherent must also be one. The divine nature remains unknown, but its power is revealed to be one. Gregory has thus offered a refutation that his teaching implies three gods. Gregory also points out that when thinking of the divine nature, we should not think of three objects in the material world. God transcends such distinctions. Most clearly, if we were to imagine God as three potentially separate agents, or three centres of consciousness, the content of whose minds were distinct, pro-Nicene would see us as drawing inappropriate analogies between God and creative realities and in serious heresy. If we argue for the inseparable operations of the Trinitarian persons, we cannot then distinguish between them by the role that they play, say, in creation or redemption. So what distinguishes the persons? The answer that is given by those arguing for Nicene Orthodoxy is that we distinguish between the persons only in their relationship of origin. It is within the context of inseparable operations that we also find the Greek and Latin pronunciations articulate the principle that we know the persons only by their relationship of origin, that the Father is unbegotten, that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. After modalism is avoided, subordinationism overcome, tritheism rejected, what are we left with? Well, Lewis Ayres, towards the end of his momentous discussion of the development of Nicene orthodoxy, has some helpful summary statements of where things have got to by the end of the fourth century. Even though there's some clarity here, it is clarity cloaked in mystery. Scripture demands that we confess a logic of eternal distinction, which insists that insofar as we could talk about God as an eternal and distinct reality, So too we can speak of the Father, the Son and the Spirit as eternally distinct realities. At the same time, Scripture demands that we speak of a unitary divine power and nature. We cannot make their mode of existence more understandable by presenting them in Sibelian fashion as aspects of God or roles of God. Nor can we assume that they possess different natures, wills or activities within the one Godhead. The distinctions between them are real, but we do not know what it is to exist distinctly in this state. Hence statements of the general form, Father is not Son, Son is not Father, Spirit is neither Father nor Son, are some of the clearest we can make precisely in that they deliver only a logic of relationship.

Transcript for:Understanding the Doctrine of the Trinity

Transcript for:
Understanding the Doctrine of the Trinity