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A
Brief Introduction to Trinitarian Faith
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Introduction
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following
article is intended to express some basic ideas that are involved in
understanding Scripture, especially pertaining to the Trinity. Although some space is spent on methodology
and interpretive questions, I feel that the diligent reader will profit from
carefully considering the points raised.
As with all really valuable endeavors, the effort, I think, pays
off.
For a fairly
substantial portion of my Christian experience, I had no significant
appreciation of the faith of the Triune God.
In fact, for about seven years, I was deeply involved in a religious
movement that forcefully denied Trinitarianism. We believed those who held God was a Trinity of persons were
guilty not only of idolatrous worship, since they were violating the most basic
command to love the one and only God with all of our hearts (Deuteronomy
6:4-6), but also of a flagrant contradiction.
It seems ludicrous, we reasoned, to affirm simultaneously that God is
both one and three. In light of the
fact that Scripture affirms the “oneness” of God, this truth must function as
the primary one with which to evaluate and interpret all the rest of the data of
revelation. [i]
Although we accepted
the full deity of Christ, there are others who argue in a similar fashion for
the radical unity of God, excluding a Trinity of persons, who also reject the
claim that Christ is God. There are
still others who define Christ’s deity in ways that make Him essentially
inferior to the Father.
All of these
positions, and many others besides, have in common an attack on the Trinity
based on claiming its internal inconsistency, inconceivability, or simply its
lack of Scriptural support. They all
find it necessary, however, to offer some kind of explanation for the various
Scriptures that seem to lend themselves to some kind of
Trinitarianism.
The purpose of this
article is to suggest the beginnings of an approach to the Trinity that will
primarily consist in some observations regarding our approach to the Sacred
text and then some suggestions regarding the nature of revelation itself. This will then lead to a sketch of the
biblical data concerning the Trinity. It
will then be possible to see first why the Trinity had to develop
historically and second why this fact of development does not discredit the
doctrine itself but rather tends toward supporting it.
Method
Much ink has been spilt over “theological methodology” in the recent
past. Since this paper has to do with a
specific biblical doctrine, or at least one we are claiming to be biblical, it
is necessary to begin our comments with some considerations about the nature of
biblical interpretation. Since my own
study and teaching have revolved around both theology and philosophy, I find it
helpful at times to disassociate ourselves from the controversial texts and
look at the way we are reasoning. This
“neutral” perspective sometimes makes evident the grounds of disagreement so
that, even if we continue disagreeing, we can understand one another more
clearly. I have come to see that there
are really two approaches to knowledge in philosophy and, to my surprise, I
have found it is possible to apply these approaches to the interpretation of
Scripture.
Philosophical theories about the nature of reality have classically been
divided into varying camps under the general categories of analytic and synthetic. These categories are quite helpful in
understanding the direction in which the philosopher is carrying out his
analysis. We might further clarify
these categories by the use of the terms induction and deduction. When one reasons inductively, he is moving
from specific facts or observed details and then working towards some general
or universal claim. One might examine
John, Mary, Susy, and Fred as individual human persons and then begin to “see”
some commonalities present. I may
notice that each of them have bodies with certain sensory powers. I might also discover that each of them is
able to read or carry on a conversation with the others. These facts lead me to the more general
claim that each of these “humans” has a rational capacity to engage in
activities that go beyond what sense experience alone can disclose. It is quite remarkable that human persons,
through the use of the intellect, have a kind of “openness” to all
things.
Deductive reasoning, on the other hand, attempts to move from general
claims or insights to specific conclusions or applications of the claims
themselves. I might say that humans are
rational creatures and then say that Steve is human and draw from these facts
that Steve must also have a rational nature.
In any case, I have reasoned from a general truth or truth-claim to a
specific application of that truth.
Induction, as a kind of reasoning process, is the great tool used in
analytic inquiry. We consider the
specific facts of human experience and then attempt to consider what must be
the case in order for those facts to be experienced. For example, it must be the case that my eyes are instruments or
means by which the more basic power of sight operates.
Deduction tends to be the basic tool of those using the synthetic
approach to knowledge. The overarching,
universal, and general truths are used as the key for drawing out more specific
truths. The great rationalists like
Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz are good examples of this process. Plato had little interest in inductive
reasoning based on the facts available to sense experience. Descartes specifically wanted to set up his
philosophy on a mathematical basis which, he argued, was based on “intuition”
and deduction. One simply “sees” the
basic truths and uses those to draw out further implications. The whole Rationalist tradition, however,
met with great challenges when it was found that more than one kind of
deductive system could be drawn from similar starting-points. The reasoning process used in the deduction
was always held in doubt because of the problem of knowing the origin of the
intuited starting-truths themselves. The
creativity of many genius minds only showed how very difficult it is to have
real confidence in a purely deductive theory of reality.
Aristotle, on the other hand, made extensive use of the analytic method
including the inductive sort of reasoning.
He began with the “facts” at hand and worked back towards what must
underlie
such facts. He would start with the
objects of which we have immediate awareness.
In my case, I am immediately aware of a computer screen before me
including all its colors and shapes. I
am also aware of the noises caused by typing and the gentle hum of the computer
itself. Looking back at this
experience, I can see that I must have organs of sense by which such sense is
possible. It is further necessary, as
already indicated, to have these organs as channels or instruments through
which certain powers or abilities are exercised. These powers, in turn, find their unity in
certain functions inside of me and, ultimately, in the intrinsic unifying
principle we might call “human nature” or substance. It is important to see that the description is controlled
by
the data. We will not be justified, on
this account, in suggesting that we have certain powers for which there is no
corresponding function or exercised ability.
Unlike the rationalist approach, then, we have a “check” on the use of
the method in the very data that is used to get at more basic truths.
Since our task here is not strictly a philosophical one, we must call a
halt to this brief look at philosophical methods and return to the subject of
this article. What I would like to
suggest is that the real root of my rejection of the Trinity as a young man was
the implicit choice of a deductive methodology to the Scriptures evidenced by
my adoption of a specific truth as primary and deduced from that truth certain necessary, at least to my
mind, consequences. The problem,
however, as I came to see more clearly in the course of my studies, was that
the data of Scripture was not presented in such a way that it lent itself to
this fundamental approach and also that my deduced “truths” were no more
“necessary” than were other ways of construing the same data.
More specifically, the biblical texts themselves are not written as a
deductive philosopher or interpreter would expect. Let it be clear, I am not saying that deduction is a wrong
approach altogether. No, inducted
truths can be used to generate further conclusions through the process of valid
deduction. I don’t find out that there
are human animals and brute animals merely by deducing such a fact from the
notion of “animal,” however. I come to
see that there are a variety of kinds of existing things that fall under the
general category of animal through inducted observation. It might be possible after such a procedure
to make some deduced conclusions about the things I have learned
inductively. If I were doing
mathematics, on the other hand, it might be possible to formulate various
conclusions merely by reflecting on the meaning of terms, definitions,
etc. In our case, however, we are not
given in Scripture some series of definitions or propositions with standardized
definitions. To the contrary, most of
what is known about the subjects of our Faith is gathered from a variety of
different literary genres or types.
Consider the most foundational section of the Old Testament, the
Pentateuch. Here we have several kinds
of literature, most dominantly historical narrative and legal
prescriptions. Stories or historical
descriptions are significantly different from what we might call “systematic
theology.”
It is because of this lack of “system” in the manner Scripture speaks of
God, the human person, sin, etc., we can reconcile texts that apparently seem
to contradict. Early in Genesis, God is
said to “repent” that He had made man.
We find out later, however, that “God is not a man that He should
repent.” James writes that in God there
is no “shadow of turning,” etc. Malachi
depicts God as saying, “I the Lord change not.”
Well, there appears to be a significant problem here. Either God changes or He does not,
right? Maybe not.
If the biblical writers intended the same thing by the uses of “repent,”
it would be beyond question that they contradict each other. This is the kind of consistency that you
would expect from a deductive philosophical system or from a precise systematic
theologian. One would certainly be
faulted for setting forth a “system” that involved a good deal of deduction
from first principles and definitions only to find that the terms used take on a variety of meanings and
significances.
If, on the other hand, the biblical writers were not concerned with
deductive precision but rather with using language that expressed something
meaningful given their task or objective involved in such an expression, we
might excuse them for saying things from which we would not be allowed to
deduce further claims. That God
“repented” of making man is a way of showing God’s displeasure and also the
grounds for His subsequent punishment of those giving rise to this
displeasure. If we are too strict,
however, it will be “deduced” that God “changed His mind” upon “discovering”
new data. This, however, is seriously
problematic in light of the fact that God appears elsewhere to know all things
including the “end from the beginning.”
Looking to the other side of the issue, however, it would be equally
disastrous to assume that because “God does not change,” that He has no
interest or dealings with human beings.
It would be awfully narrow to suppose that God is so radically “perfect”
and unchanging that He is indistinguishable from a block of ice. The texts regarding “change” in God coupled
with those of immutability, provide a kind of friction that warns us against
the deductive methodology since such an approach would assume a univocal or
identical meaning between the usage of terms in different settings. Such a procedure would be devastating for
understanding Scripture since it would make some texts absurd that really do
communicate profound meaning if allowed to speak in the terms and contexts with
which they are cloaked.
Analogy
The renewal of the study of the great thirteenth-century theologian,
Thomas Aquinas, at the beginning of this century, gave rise to a fresh look at
his theory of religious language normally associated with the term “analogy.” [ii] This was in large measure due not to the
great emphasis on this subject in Aquinas but rather to the pressing challenges
in our own age regarding language and the question of how human language could
possibly express ideas or realities that seem to transcend the categories
available for human expression.
Further, given the general attitude of Positivism in the 19th and 20th
centuries, whatever was not “seeable” was considered meaningless. Long before, David Hume had offered his own
explanation of the origin of ideas such as “God,” heaven, the soul, etc., in
terms of their being only confused “ideas” that originated in sense
experience. We don’t really have an idea of
God in our minds simply because any analysis of the concepts people associate
with the term God turn out to be a collection of notions that
can be reduced to finite objects of sense experience. We do not have a concept of “infinite,” only “big” with a refusal
to set the boundaries. This is far from
an actual comprehension or real concept of infinity.
In this way, although with a good deal more sophistication and
argumentation, Hume and others have argued that “God-talk” is fundamentally
meaningless. I remember reading a text
by an atheist many years ago in which his “positive” argument against God’s
existence was that the idea self-destructs upon examination. Take, for example, God’s
“omnipresence.” This means several
things in classical theology. For one,
it means that God cannot be contained in one place. Further, it does not mean that God is like some kind of
transparent “stuff” spread out evenly throughout the universe. No, God is not in a “place” properly
speaking. For God to be in a place
would mean that He is measurable or less than a real infinite and omnipresent
spirit. If, however, God is everywhere
but really nowhere, the doctrine becomes absurd.
The solution to this dilemma appears whenever we recognize there is a
distinction between concepts or mental images formed from sense experience
and ideas for which there may be no adequate basis in concepts (e.g. spirits,
infinity, etc.). Returning to our
problem, for God to be omnipresent, Aquinas argued, means that He is
uncontained by any “form.” What limits
our presence is the fact that “we” are contained by a limiting essence, God is
not. Such a concept is inconceivable,
however, for our minds. For this
reason, biblical writers seem to discard such notions as omnipresence and talk
about God as “coming down” from heaven, etc.
In other words, it is not possible to speak of God consistently in the
terms that theology develops to attempt at capturing the divine “essence.” The terms do not escape the limitations of
human conceptual ability.
We are then driven to the rather important conclusion that all human language
and conceptualization concerning God is limited and incomplete. God is ever greater than our highest
thought. This does not mean, however,
that the notion of God, since we cannot capture it fully in human concepts, is
either absurd or without content. No, I
can know that God is infinite or uncaused without fully grasping in concepts
what this means. It is not absurd to
say that there is a Being Who is uncreated and that is because I can understand what
is meant by such a term without fully exhausting or having the power to explain
it.
Appreciating these various ideas already
discussed should lead to a deep sense of humility when approaching the subject
of God or, more specifically, the Trinity.
Since our concepts are inadequate at grasping fully the divine
essence, we should then humbly look at Divine Revelation and consider the
concepts used there and then strip away from them everything that is
incompatible with the divine nature, i.e., everything that limits God as
creatures are limited. This is the
standard procedure for dealing with anthropomorphisms, or the
application of human characteristics to God.
One must first identify the truth that the author intends to communicate
and then strip away from the concept everything that is incompatible with the
infinity of God. In this way, we can
avoid out-right contradictions in Scripture that would result from crass
literal interpretation of the text and we may also move towards understanding
what the Scriptures intend to communicate about God. This interpretive situation is caused by the nature of the
subject we are considering in relationship to the limitations of human
language.
In sum, we have come to see that Scripture is not in the form necessary
for deductive interpretation. Rarely
are “definitions” of divine attributes given.
Rather, Scripture normally relies on historical narrative and
illustrates God’s nature through the activities of God in concrete
situations. It is left to the reader,
most often, to organize and properly interpret that data. Our task in theology, then, is fundamentally
an inductive one in which we gather all the relevant data and allow it to
dictate our conclusions. This is
admittedly hard work and requires first an intimate knowledge of the texts. From this writer’s perspective, such a situation
also requires a profound respect for the earliest interpreters of Sacred
Scripture as well as the subsequent history of the Church. This is due to the fact that Scripture can
be and has been variously interpreted due to the non-systematic form in which
it was given. This shows us that
theology is a life-long quest that should be humbly carried out. For those of us who believe the Scriptures
to have come from God by inspiration, we believe this depth of the texts only
mirrors the infinite depth of our God.
It is then irresponsible to reduce the mysterious depth of Scripture to
a simplistic “formula” or deductive system.
If it turns out that God is three persons and one being, we approach
this as a mystery to be believed but not necessarily something that can be
reduced to an equation or concept, just as we cannot reduce anything about God to such
finite constraints.
Notice we are not saying we know nothing about God, only that what we do
know about God is limited by our inability to fully grasp such truths and also
that we cannot prejudge, based on human categories, what can and cannot be true
in God based on human experience. That
is not to say that “God” is a collection of contradictions. No, we are compelled to say that there are
no real contradictions in God but we must ever beware of the fact that our
limited experience may find the transcendent truths of God so unlike our world
that we mistakenly see them as contradictory.
The Trinity
We are now prepared to apply to Scripture the above approach. Perhaps we should state what exactly we mean
by the Trinity and then offer its various parts along with some Scriptural
basis. In accord with what has been
presented above, we will use an inductive approach to gather the data of divine
revelation and then we will turn our attention to the deeper problem of understanding the points we
have set “gathered.” We will begin with
a definition of the term Trinity which will require a bit of discussion
concerning the primary terms used in this definition. It is fair to warn the reader that this is not easy
material. I can only say in “apology”
that it is worth the effort to attempt understanding what is written. I only wish that more teachers of theology
would take the time to learn and explain such matters so that more effort could
be spent on illustrations and analogies that would make these profound truths
and concepts more meaningful.
By the Trinity is classically meant that God is one in His
being or essence while internally God is three in person. That is, there are three internal
“relations” in God that are most accurately described as “persons.” This definition may not be particularly helpful
unless one knows the sense in which the terms “person” and “relation” are
intended. The problem is compounded by
the shift in meaning that such terms receive through the centuries. Avoiding such controversies, it should be
noted that a “person” is, at bare minimum, a rational awareness and
consciousness. We do not usually consider
dogs “persons” but we do so consider human “persons” in that we all share a
self-awareness and awareness of others that enables us to interact with them. It is this idea of interaction that lies at the
heart of our distinguishing between persons. I am not you even though we both share human nature. What makes your personhood distinct from my
own is precisely all that is yours that is not shared with me. To take a relevant example, a father and son
share the same nature but are distinct in two ways: (1) they have distinct interior worlds of consciousness and (2)
one stands in a different relationship to the other. The father is the source or origin of the son but in such a way
that the son is not identical with the father but is a distinct person related
to the father as son.
Having at least the beginning of a concept of “person,” we must
emphasize the idea of “relation.” For
Aquinas, this notion was the key to showing how the Christian understanding of
God as Trinity could avoid the charge of Tritheism on the level of reason. Christians do not believe that the persons
of the Trinity are separable from each other and therefore cannot say that
God is three “substances.” Substance is a loaded
theological term with a history that could fill many papers such as this. The term itself literally means “to stand
under” and was used in the philosophical tradition to refer to the inner
reality of a thing in which its accidental features inhere. The substance is further the source of its properties
and accidents (e.g., the substance of “water” gives rise to its wetness). For example, I see a “ball.” You ask me to describe it to you. It is blue, round, hard, etc. No one of these “accidental” features of the
ball can be separated from the ball itself so that they are found on their
own. For example, one never finds
“roundness” just sitting around on its own.
No, you always find something that is round. The “something” in view here is the inner principle underlying
all accidents and properties and that is classically called the substance.
In the case of human persons, we each are, according to Boethius’
ancient definition, an “individual substance of a rational nature.” What unifies my own self as a rational
subject is that I am an instance of the human substance. In that sense, then, you and I are distinct
instances of the same category of substance (human nature) and are therefore
separable.
The idea of “relation” is a way in which an individual substance can
exist in connection with other things.
For example, my father is related to me in a certain way that no other person
in this universe is so related. The
same may be said of many other relationships in our individual lives. Such relations in our world tend to be
“illusory” in that they can quickly cease to exist and they are hard to “see”
concretely in the world around us.
Think of your relationship with your father. As long as your father is alive, the relationship exists. What happens to the “relation” whenever your
father dies? Does it cease to be? Where did it go? This kind of observation has led some to claim that relations are
little more than mental entities that have no real existence in the world. This conclusion is unacceptable, however,
since it is clear that there is a particular relationship between me and my
father that really exists independent of my awareness of it. It is a strange kind of reality, however, in
that it is radically dependent on the subjects or substances that are in
relationship towards other things. If
there were not substantial realities in our world, there would be no
possibility of relations (there would not be any distinction between things
making relations possible).
The Thomistic contribution to the Trinity, then, was to say that
although there is only one “substance” of God, making it forever true that God
is radically one, there are three subsistent relations in this one
God. In other words, unlike in this
world where there is an ontological priority in substances, in God relation has a kind of
priority so that the very meaning of the divine persons is
found in their relation to each other. Apart
from the relations there is no distinction in God. There are three such relations (paternity, filiation, spiration)
that are constituted by their very relationship to each other and not by any
underlying substantial distinction.
This “heavy” thought is worth pondering over and over again. Our greatest problem is conceptualizing how
there can be three personal subsisting relations without three corresponding
substances. This is the mystery of the
Trinity. Persons are constituted not by distinct
substances but by distinct relations. The
Father begets (paternity), the Son is begotten (filiation), and the Holy Spirit
proceeds (spiration).
We should now briefly look at the biblical data that lies at the root of
this profound mystery.
1.
There is one God. It can hardly be argued that Scripture does
not affirm this starting-truth.
Deuteronomy 6.4 clearly affirms that God is one as do various texts
scattered throughout the rest of the Bible.
As opposed to the surrounding peoples, the Israelites were to have a
single God to Whom their worship was to be directed.
2.
This God
is known as “Father.” It is quite clear
that Jesus’ favorite title for God was “Father.” It is this title or name that is used as the primary one in the
model prayer that Christ gave His people to use (Mat. 6:9). Even so, Jesus distinguished between His
unique relationship to the Father and that between creatures like ourselves and
God (Jn. 20:17). Here is suggested a
unique kind of sonship between Jesus and God, His Father. This will be a vital source of reflection on
the Trinity as we proceed.
3.
This God is known as “Son.” There are many lines of reasoning that have
been used to support the conclusion that the Jesus presented in the New
Testament understood Himself to be uniquely the “Son of God.” As indicated under number two, we will
return to this expression in order to see exactly what it means. It is sufficient here, however, to simply
identify Jesus and “Son of God.” That
this person is understood to be “God” is a conclusion that may be drawn from
the way in which Jesus speaks about the meaning of His relationship to the
Father and also from various other indicators.
For example, Mark’s Gospel is unique among the Synoptics in that it does
not include a great deal of Jesus’ teachings but prefers rather to allow the
reader to come to an understanding of Who Jesus was based on recording the actions of Christ. For instance, Jesus displays power over
nature in His walking on the water. He
displays power over life and death in raising others from the dead and,
ultimately, returning to life after His death on the cross. The reader must then decide what these, and
other, sorts of miraculous activities suggest.
They force the reader to conclude that Jesus was more than a man. In fact, He was the Son of God (Mark
1:1). Additionally, there is also a
collection of texts that appear to directly call Jesus God, and these serve as
confirmation for our interpretation of the rest of the biblical data (See Jn.
1.1, 20:28).
4.
This God is known as “Holy Spirit.” It is quite clear that the Scriptures speak
about the Holy Spirit in such a way that we must affirm that He is understood
as God (see Acts 5:3-5, Mat. 28:19).
There appear to be at least two senses of “Holy Spirit” in the New
Testament. One is as a reference to
God’s intervention in the course of human history. This use is especially present in Luke’s writings. The frequency with which Luke uses “Holy
Spirit” in his work that is evidently quite interested in offering an
historically sound rendition of the life of Jesus (Luke 1:1-4) suggests that he
wants us to see history as “guided along” towards its divine end or goal by the
work of God’s Spirit or activity in the world.
In other texts, however, “Holy Spirit” takes on a more specific sense in
distinction from the Father and the Son and it is also in these texts and others
that the Holy Spirit is seen as more than divine influence or activity but is
none other than God Himself as a personal subject. The Spirit may be “grieved” (Eph. 4:30), lied to (Acts 5:3-5), be
“sent” and “testify” (Jn. 14:26) and various other activities that are
indicative of personal subjectivity and interaction.
5.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct
from each other so that they engage in personal interrelationships that force
us to affirm that there are personal distinctions or relations within the one
true God. The reader should note that we
are at this point allowing the data to control our conclusions. There are countless persons who have stopped
with the first four points offered above and go to work on developing a view of
God’s nature. The movement with which I
was associated for a number of years took the first of these points and made
the rest fit a definition of “one” in the context of God that did not allow for
the Trinity. The Arians, as already
mentioned, essentially took the first two points and refused to allow that the
Son of God could truly be God with the Father.
Our point here is simply that the Father relates to the Son as does
the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son.
Clearly the most numerous of such examples would have to be the
relationship between the Father and the Son described in the Gospels. Perhaps the most clear of these in the
Synoptics would be Matthew 11:27 in which Jesus, referring to Himself in
relationship to the Father as “Son,” speaks of a mutual “knowledge” between the
Father and the Son. The ability to have
knowledge is an indication of personhood and rationality. That each the Father and the Son have such
personhood is presupposed by their ability to know and their
distinct personhood is indicated by the interaction of knowledge between the
persons in their relation of knowledge.
John’s Gospel is filled with such examples. In the very first verse the Word, the Son of God (v. 14, 18), is with, or, as the Greek
word implies, in relation towards, God and, yet, mysteriously the Word Himself
is identified as “God.” Holding that
there is only one God, then, we are driven to the conclusion that the one God
is interiorily related as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The same is true of the Holy Spirit since He
is “sent” in the name of the Son, “teaches” words Christ taught His disciples,
“testifies” of the Son, “proceeds” from the Father, speaks what He “hears,”
etc. (John 14:26, 15:26, 16:13).
The biblical picture should be taking on some focus at this point. We are confronted with a collection of
truths. We are to affirm that there is
only one God but we come to find that this God has revealed Himself in a
variety of ways. Among these ways of
revelation are three in particular which have added significance since they are
revealed as standing in relationship not only to us as human beings but in
relationship towards each other. This
poses a very special problem.
The Sabellians, the ancient counterpart to my youthful modalism or
belief that God was one person but had performed several “roles” throughout the
history of redemption, were quite satisfied with the observation that God had
many relations towards us or to the world.
That is not so problematic. The
problem emerges whenever one takes seriously the interior relations in God
Himself. In my conversations with and
reading of those who reject the Trinity in favor of some other approach to the
biblical material, it is here that opponents will retreat into some deductive
system that will refuse to incorporate this kind of data that necessarily
forces one to face the question of how the one God can relate within Himself
without compromising His unity.
Some have been willing to grant an “economic” Trinity or temporary
adoption of “roles” by God for our sake.
In other words, God appears to be a Trinity but this is really only a
temporary situation that will end whenever the purpose of such roles or
distinctions has been fulfilled. This,
again, is unsatisfactory for several damaging reasons.
First, to say that the economic (temporary) and immanent (eternal)
Trinities are not necessarily connected is to deny that we have knowledge of
God in time and space that reflects on His eternal state. In other words, the Trinitarian approach
admits an economic or temporary manifestation of God in human history but this
in turn becomes a “window” into the eternal life of God. To deny that such is the case moves one in
the direction of agnosticism concerning what God is eternally since no valid
connection can be made or drawn from divine actions in history without some
inconsistency or arbitrariness. Second,
there is a deeper, but related, problem that surfaces and that is the charge
that the Scriptures would be misleading in what they reveal about God if He has
chosen to do and say things that do not accurately reflect His inner life. In other words, in order for God to
internally relate as He makes Himself known in time, the ontological
basis for this kind of reality must be rooted in the eternal nature of
God. We would have to seriously
question whether or not God is misleading or deceptive if we deny the
connection between the two realms (eternal and temporal). Finally, the Scriptural problems continue to
emerge. There are various texts in the
New Testament that support the claim that the relations between the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit preexist the incarnation as well as the creation of the
world. It is such texts as these, in my
judgment, that forever forbid a solution to the Trinitarian problem by an
appeal to temporary manifestation in contrast to the eternal state of God. (See John 1:1, 17:5, 24, Hebrews 1:1-3.)
Special Points
We have traveled far in a few short pages. We have examined the difficult question of how we should approach
Sacred Scripture given the kind of collection of books that it is. We tried to argue that our approach should
be fundamentally an inductive one since this will allow all of Scripture to
speak on a matter in the various genres and contexts used and only then should
we begin the process of systematizing the data that we have collected. Failure to perform this patient procedure
leads to a premature adoption of a principle that in turn is used to “explain
away” data that is relevant to the subject that falls outside of that
principle.
With the subject of the Trinity, we have argued that Scripture supports
each of the major aspects of this teaching but the teaching itself presents
special problems. These problems arise
from our inability to find a sufficient conceptual basis for the
teaching. The teaching itself affirms
that God is both three and one. God’s
oneness is truly one of substance. This
unity of substance makes it impossible to conceive of any division or
separation in God. We are nonetheless
driven by the data to affirm that there are distinctions (not separations)
in the divine being but they are not substantial distinctions but relational
ones. The divine persons are then constituted by the relations
in which they stand towards each other.
We call our knowledge and discussion of God analogous because our
language and concepts are inadequate to fully and identically describe
God. What God has done in time and
space, however, as the source of our being and perfections reveals what God is like
eternally. We may then legitimately
move from the economic Trinity, or the three-fold relationship of God revealed
in the context of human salvation, to the immanent Trinity, or what God is like
internally throughout eternity.
There remain two points that I would like to highlight before concluding
this article. The first of these is a
more careful look at the crucially important expression, Son
of God. The other matter is the practical
relevance of the Trinity which can be most clearly seen by reflecting on the
nature of love and its meaning as gathered from the New Testament.
Son of God. We have
suggested at several points that our language about God is analogous or anthropomorphic. These theological terms are different in
meaning but they point to a similar fact:
Human language seriously fails to capture the fullness of God’s reality. Analogous language affirms that something of
the truth of God is to be found in a limited way in the creation. Although woefully limited and lacking, the
perfections of creatures mirror the perfections of the Creator. When a great painter produces a work of art,
the work itself is a kind of extension of its author. The link between creature and Creator is the grounds of the
affirmation that human language can in fact move towards a true, but limited,
expression and contemplation of divine truth.
Anthropomorphic language, on the other hand, notes that much of our
language about God involves the application of human terminology or
physical/mental features to the divine nature.
We find numerous references to God’s movements from heaven to earth, the
“right hand of God,” the “nostrils” of God, the “eyes” of God, the “feet” of God,
etc. Proverbs 15:3, for example, speaks
the “eyes of the Lord” that are in “every place beholding the good and the
evil.” It would be absurd to take such
language in a radically literal way and say that there are eyeballs in every
single space of the universe. The fact
of the matter is that eyeballs are only instruments of a deeper power or
ability, sight. It is through sight
that we are able to be present in a particular place and observe what is taking
place. For the “eyes of God” to be in
“every place,” then, would clearly suggest that the presence of God is
everywhere. There is no place where
God’s active “sight” and observance is not to be found.
A two-fold procedure is involved in understanding this kind of language
that pervades our Bible. We must first
locate the central truth that is intended in the anthropomorphism. In our example of sight, the central truth
is the omnipresence of God. Secondly we
must strip away all the limitations found in human instances of sight, or
whatever is discovered as the central truth, so that a valid application may be
made to the infinite God.
The use of the expression, “Son of God,” or, more briefly, “Son,” for
Jesus Christ is an expression that must be handled as we do all such uses of
human terminology when applied to God.
We are clearly in the realm of anthropomorphism since the primary source
of information about Father/Son relationships comes from human experience as
well as relationships between other kinds of creatures.
In accord with our stated procedure, then, we must discover what central
ideas are indicated by the use of the terms Father and Son. Several things should come to mind. First, it is clear that if one is truly a
“son” of his father, he shares the same nature as his father. Human fathers have human sons. There are no human fathers of dogs or cats
or bears. The generation of a son is
the generation of a particular kind of being and that “kind” is determined by the
nature of the one generating or begetting that son. Second, just as it is true that the son is of the same nature as
the father, it is equally true that the son and the father are different precisely because
they have distinct “awarenesses” and relationships towards each other. The father is not identical or the
same as the son. The father is distinct
from the son because the son is a distinct center of awareness having his own
“perspective” and, in our case, set of experiences (Although they are very much
shaped, in an ideal home, by and with the father.). Third, there is a fundamental equality between the
father and son so far as being is concerned.
The father is no more a “man” than is the son. One may be more experienced or “manly” than the other but the
fundamental nature or reality provides a grounds of equality. This does not mean, however, that there are
not relationships of subordination or submission or, unfortunately, of abuse
between “men.” We are simply saying
that the relationship of father and son indicates equality yet
distinction. What this distinction
might mean is yet to be seen in our context.
Fourth, it must be emphasized that the son receives his nature from
his father. In other words, there is a
priority of the father to the son inasmuch as the father communicates to the
son his nature but the nature that is communicated is fully
the
same as his own so that the son is equal yet dependent in a sense upon the
father as “giver of life” to him.
When we turn to the use of Father/Son terminology in the New Testament,
we find many texts that are consistent with the description here given of what
these terms mean. John 5:18 states that
the Jews sought to kill Christ because He said that “God was His Father, making
Himself equal with God.” Clearly
the way Jesus was claiming to be related to the Father, God, implied that He
was properly the Son of God so it followed that He shared the divine
nature. As Son He would share in
fundamental equality with God. As we discovered,
this is one of the foremost meanings of the expression, “Son of God.”
At the same time, John’s Gospel frequently emphasizes a dependence of
the Son on the Father that has troubled many.
Immediately following the text cited above, Jesus states, “The Son can
do nothing of Himself” (John 5:19).
This appears to be a denial of equality. Yet again Jesus goes on to state, “That all men might honor the
Son, even as they honor the Father.” (v.
23). Apparently turning in the opposite
direction again, Jesus states, “For as the Father has life in Himself, so
has He given to the Son to have life in Himself” (v. 26). Notice carefully what is happening. Jesus is declaring His dependence on the Father yet
at the same time is affirming His fundamental equality with the
Father. He can do nothing of Himself,
receives life from the Father, etc. He
is equal, receives the same honor, has life in Himself. Going back to our brief look at the
implications of the Father/Son relationship, we can easily accommodate this
kind of language. Sons have equality
yet receive their natures and life from their fathers. These two facts are clearly incorporated into Jesus’ teachings
here about His own identity.
If we have identified the meaning of the Father/Son relationship when
applied to Christ and God as indicating an equality of nature yet distinction
of persons, one as paternal (Father) and one as filial (Son), our task is not
yet complete unless we “strip away” all that is incompatible with talk about
God. Clearly what must be stripped away
are all elements that limit human relationships temporally or in
time. In other words, whatever is true
in the divine nature must be so eternally.
This follows from the biblical notion of the divine immutability. The relationships of generation in this
world come to be since they are relations of temporary creatures who in turn stand in
relationships with prior creatures who are causes of their own generation. With God there is no such “chain” of causality. God is self-explanatory and therefore we
need go no further than God Himself to find the source and cause of all that He
is. If it were asked, “How did Mark
McNeil come to be the son of his father?” one may easily reply by giving an
account of my parents and all the circumstances involved in my conception and
birth. When it is asked how the Son of
God came to be the Son of His Father, one humbly replies that such has always
been the case and therefore the Father eternally begets the Son
and the Son is eternally begotten of His Father. The human instance of generation then fails to fully express the
infinite reality of divine paternity and filiation but it nonetheless gives us
a “window” into this marvelous truth.
In addition to stripping away all time-constraints, we must also strip
away all physical limitations. God is
Spirit (John 4:24). Remember,
anthropomorphic language begins with a truth about God and finds some way in
which it is embodied in physical creatures.
The physical must be left behind, however, since God, considered in His
eternal nature, is not physical but is immaterial or spiritual. We are then speaking here of a generation of
the Son and a relationship within God that is of a spiritual nature. This is no doubt why analogies from the mind
and thought were not only popular throughout the history of the Church but,
apparently, also in John’s thinking (John 1:1).
The Father and the Son are then divine persons, equal in nature yet
distinct in person. The Son depends on
the Father as source of His life and being yet is not thereby diminished in His
own deity. He is truly, “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God. Begotten not made. One in Being with the Father.”
This dependence of the Son on the Father does not lead to
subordinationism or inequality, as it did in Arianism, simply because we are
affirming that the identical nature and reality of the Father is fully
communicated to the Son so that an identity of “being” (ousia) is present. Arius wanted to distinguish between the
substance of the Father and that of the Son and therefore was forced to say
that the Son was “made” by the Father sometime in the past. The Trinitarian reply, however, was that the
Son was “begotten” by the Father which, in its full meaning, implies a full communication of
the divine nature which can only mean that the Son is truly equal with the
Father and is therefore eternally related to His Father. The Trinitarian view can accommodate both
the dependence and the equality, no other view can.
More time would need to be devoted to a similar analysis that can be
made of the Holy Spirit. The unique
“procession” of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son along with analysis
of the idea of “spirit,” which in both biblical languages brings to mind
“breath” and “wind,” gives rise to the image of the Holy Spirit as the
“spiration” or breath of the Father and the Son together. The close identification of the Holy Spirit
with the “love” of God also suggests that the Spirit is to be understood as the
“bond” or movement of the Father and Son out from themselves in a “shared” love
or expression of love that is perfectly present in God as the Third Person of
the Trinity. We now turn our attention
more specifically to this profound concept of love and its relationship to the
Trinitarian faith.
Love. It is appropriate
that we conclude this look at the Trinity with some comments on the most
profound and practical aspect of Trinitarian faith. During my youth, I often heard preachers criticize the Trinity as
a matter of faith claiming that it was “impractical” and “didn’t excite
anyone.” My pastor claimed that he had
never heard a Trinitarian deliver a sermon on the Trinity with any enthusiasm
or conviction at all. This was, he
claimed, because the doctrine itself was so devoid of meaning and “thrill”
that, despite being unbiblical, it was nothing more than a “mind-game” that no
one understood and therefore did not contemplate.
After years of studying these matters, I can truthfully say that it is
the faith of the Triune God that I find most compelling in the Christian
faith. I am reminded of Aristotle’s
point that the most certain and foundational truths are those that are farthest
from our immediate awareness. He was
referring, of course, to the most basic principles of reason that are used in
all discourse and thought yet rarely reflected upon themselves (if ever). My application is to the faith of the
Trinity which underlies all that is uniquely Christian. How is this so?
We are told in perhaps the most famous text in all the Bible, “God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” (John 3:16). We discover
later, according to the same writer, that God has given His Son because He is love (1 John
4:8-9). It is remarkable that God is
not said to “have” love or “show” love but is rather said to be love. This strong statement suggests that the term
love is identified with God in such a way that His being is the essence of love
and all other instances of love in this world are instances of the love that is
perfected in God. This would have to be
true if God is truly love. To the
extent that I “have” love, then, I am participating in what is identical with
the nature of God.
We must be careful here to allow the
Scripture to guide us into understanding what “love” means. John 3:16 is a powerful “clue.” The love of God is expressed in a profound
“gift,” the gift of Himself. Jesus
Himself stated that there is no higher love than that a man lay down his life
for his friends (John 15:13). Love’s
most perfect expression, then, is found in the gift of one’s self for and
toward another. The Scriptures, then,
set forth the death of Christ on the cross as, first and foremost, the most
profound display of love ever seen in human history. One can conceive of no greater condescension than that the One
Who had all power and authority choosing to assume the humble state of a man
and then choosing to endure the shame and pain of the Cross (Philippians
2:6-10).
We cannot stop with the revelation of divine love in time and space,
however, since we are told that, “God is love.” We are led to believe that love is something most perfect in God
and that what happened in the Christ-event is an expression of that eternal
reality. Christ gives us insight into
this reality when He prayed to His Father, “you loved me before
the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
Could we expect anything less than this? Is it possible that God could truly be called “love” without
there being internal relations in His nature?
No, if love is truly most perfect in the gift of one’s self to another,
it follows of necessity that God would have to eternally give Himself internally to Another. It does not work, as some have argued, to
say that it is sufficient to say that God “loved” His creation eternally
because we would then have to affirm that God is not perfect in
Himself but depends on something outside of His nature for His
perfections. It is from this flawed
reasoning that we find the occasional suggestion that God created “because He
was lonely.” This is a far-cry from the
God of Scripture. God creates, not to complete
Himself, but out of a sheer act of freedom in which, for our benefit, God
invites creatures to mysteriously share in His eternal perfection in love (See
John 17:20-26). If God is three
persons, we can see that love is always present in God since the Divine Persons
eternally and perfectly give themselves to each other. Only imperfectly is this reflected in human
experience but the imperfect examples are the summit of human happiness and
fulfillment. It is those who have
chosen to give their lives in service to others that are most fulfilled. It is those who have chosen to live selfish
lives that are most miserable. It is in
dying, then, that we come to live. It
is in loving or giving ourselves to another, that we come to find happiness. It is in selfishness that we find the
essence of hell. Heaven itself, then,
is an invitation for us to enter into the “oneness” of God in love.
Conclusion
Through much of my Christian experience a great deal of time and energy
was expended on apologetics or offering defenses of the Christian faith to
those who misunderstand or reject our faith.
The most profound arguments or reasons, however, for my continued faith
in Jesus Christ are not those that are most easily expressed. To the contrary, the most profound reason
for my being a Christian is the Trinity.
This is because I find in the faith of the Triune God not only the most
sound conclusions based on the Scriptural data but also the most profound
vision of human existence known to man.
That the God of the universe is fundamentally love, not arbitrary power,
is incredible. That the appearance of
God in this world was in the form of a lowly “servant” of the world Who gave
His life on the Cross, is the most incredible scandal thinkable. At its heart, however, the Christian Gospel
affirms what every heart needs and longs for. We need to “die to ourselves.” We need to live by
love. We need to come to
understand that the reason for being in this universe is that we might share
the divine life which is, at its heart, self-giving.
You see, the Trinity is not only a dogma of Christian faith, but is a
source of the most profound practical truths imaginable. The Trinity has implications for how I treat
my family. The Trinity has implications
for how I look at all other human beings.
The Trinity has implications for the profession that I choose to spend
my few days in this world practicing and how that will be done. The Trinity has implications for what I will
consider the goal and purpose of my existence.
In sum, we have come far and wide to get to this point. It is hoped that those who have endured this
“introduction” will be challenged to dig deeper into these truths. The effort is richly rewarding and, I
believe, life-changing.