Reading List - Trinity

Seite 1

William G. Rusch, ed., The Trinitarian Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980) (especially pp. 1-27)

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III.16-19.

Chapter 16

Irenaeus refutes the Valentians, who say there was a "Christ" and a "Savior" who descended upon the man Jesus at his baptism, completing the work of the Father to draw humanity into the Pleroma.

Irenaeus shows from the Gospel writers that Jesus and the Christ were not separated but were really one and the same: the Christ descended from above and was born of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary.

This necessary suffering of Christ was foretold by the prophets in the Old Testament. Even Paul himself "did not know" of a Christ apart from Jesus or of a Savior apart from Jesus. Jesus is the Christ and Savior, the Son of God. There is not two substances, but one in Christ.

The preeminent Word = God; Christ made invisible, visible (Col 1:15), the impassible passible; Jesus was fully divine and fully human, and in taking up humanity, he made God supreme in the ultimate things and corporeal things, ie "drawing all things to himself"

Jesus fulfills the will of the Father because he himself is the Savior and the Word, the pre-eminent plan of salvation and access for all humanity to the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and be partakers of the divine nature.

Chapter 17

The apostles could have said that the Christ descended upon Jesus through his ministry, but they say clearly that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, the very one who was promised to be poured out to all peoples to make them one in fellowship and renew their hearts in the newness of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is necessary to bind humanity to the Father through the Son, just as water is necessary to bind flour and make it dough.

Chapter 18

Jesus "commenced afresh" the line of human beings, so that what we had lost through Adam (access to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit), we might have reestablished through Christ. Fallen man could not restore himself to communion with God. Nor could a creature (even one assumed or descended upon by an impassible being) restore humanity to God, because God - who is eternal and invisible - needed to restore humanity and invisibility to eternity; it was "necessary" that he do this (Matthew 16:21)

Jesus tells his disciples to "take up their cross and follow him" (Matthew 16:24-25). Jesus would not tell his disciples to do anything he would not himself do, namely suffer for the good of others, the good of the Father's will. IN THIS WAY, JESUS SANCTIFIES HUMAN SUFFERING, BECAUSE HE TRULY HAS DONE IT HIMSELF.

God is either lying or leading humanity astray when he commends them to take up their crosses if the Christ "flew away" from Jesus at his suffering. Also, humanity would be above God in some way because they would experience something - suffering - that God himself did not experience.

Salvation through Christ's passion: God created humanity and all Creation as good and to live in communion with him; humanity chose to turn away from communion with God (sin), and so death (eternal separation from God) came into the world; man needed to repair this breach, but man could not do so in their fallen state apart from God himself becoming man, so as to break the bonds of death and manifest the resurrection. Jesus passed through every stage of life, recapitulating creation and restoring all of humanity to God.

Chapter 19

To defraud the incarnation of the pure generation of God is to defraud the raising of humanity to communion with God.

Jesus was made able to bear scorn and ridicule, but even all of this was taken up into his divine nature. Thus, we who were far from incorruptibility and immortality could have had no access to incorruptibility and immortality, were it not for God in Christ, anointed by and sending the Spirit, who himself God was incorruptibility and immortality, who took up corruptibility and mortality into his divine nature and so subsuming it made us sons and daughters of God by his free adoption.

Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate, Books I, VIII, IX and X (Hyde Park, NY; New City Press, 1991).

Focuses mostly on Immanent Trinity. His explanations are focused on immaterial reality of God.

Analogies of Trinity

Beloved, Lover, and Love

God is related in the love expressed between them, the object of love, and the one who loves.

Memory, Understanding, and Will (different functions all pertaining to the mind)

Comes from Trinitarian understanding of the mind

Airs on a Trinity that feels very disembodied, not attached to matter

Memory has a specific function of bringing from the past something to consider

Understanding has a specific function of analyzing something in the present

Will is to use our free will to enact something into materiality, ie to do something

Pseudo-Dionysius, “The Mystical Theology,” in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (Classics of Western Spirituality), trans. Colm Luibheid (New York, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 135-141.

The foundation of understanding the Trinity is faith, surrender.

Living in "unknowing inactivity of all knowledge" (1) with God is deification, sanctification.

Pseudo-Dionysius wants to affirm that God can be affirmed by his attributes (3), but he can also be denied beyond every denial (4-5).

When affirming God (Positive theology) we start from what is loftiest (Truth, Being, Goodness, Cause, Beauty) and descend down to what we have experience of in our daily lives (presence, being in a sunset, being in drunkenness and rage). Still we could never affirm that which God is, because he is beyond every assertion.

When negating God (Negative theology - apophatic) we start from what is most clearly not God (material being, shape, pain) and ascend up to what we could consider to be most lofty (Truth, Being Goodness, Cause, Beauty). Still we could never deny that which God is, because he is beyond every denial. The most we could do would be to make assertions or denials of what is "next to it [God]".

The higher one climbs - after being purified in the senses and soul - the less words one has to deny or affirm God. We speak of what we have experience of, and when we contemplate God in his inmost being, we do not have experience or knowledge of him, only a holy and wholly unknowing. We praise at most the "hidden image" (2) after we clear away every obstacle from language of God, just as a sculptor clears away clay.

Pseudo-Dionysius refers to the ascent of Moses on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19-20) when we passes through those who are unintelligible of God's oneness and trinity, past the trumpets and praises of God, until he sees not even God himself (because God is invisible), but the silence of where he dwells.

By renouncing all that the mind may conceive, the Christian (here, Moses) "belongs completely to him who is beyond everything" (1)

Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God, trans. Philotheus Boehner, O.F.M, ed. Stephen F. Brown (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993).

Talks about the "six vestiges" of God as revealed in Creation, the mind, and God himself

2 chapters: Outer

2 chapters: Inner

2 chapters: Above

Being and Goodness itself

1 chapter: Contemplation of the Triune God itself

Trinitarian pattern in Creation, Scripture, and Tradition is reflected in the structure of Journey; trinitarian pattern in examples given, ex. apprehension, delight, and judgment or power, wisdom, and goodness

We go in and through Creation to arrive at contemplation of God instead of around it; goes "through and in the senses, created world" rather than coming to God in spite of it. Irenaeus would be proud; Gnostics would be sad :)

Karl Rahner, The Trinity (Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997). (esp. vii to xxi)

Speaks of "Immanent" and "Economic" Trinity

Immanent: the Trinity in its relation to other persons; the Trinity in its essence

Economic: the Trinity revealed in time and salvation history

** In and through salvation history, we are able to meet the Trinity. The immanent Trinity is the economic trinity. We cannot consider the Trinity in its essence apart from the economic Trinity its involvement with Creation.

Mystery and human's relationship with Mystery

"Whither": there is a spark of the Trinity that draws humans to God himself. God is the Source of divine life and its end.

Rahner's understanding of Trinity is Christo-centric: he defines Mystery of God in and through Christ.

The word "person" comes from the Greek prosopon, which is a theatrical mask. Jesus is the one who leads us to the Father, because he is God himself.

The use of the word "person" is contaminated by modern use of "person." The way the Fathers use "person" is inherently relational

Rahner proposes, "Three subsistent modes of subsistence."

"The only way we understand an immanent mystery is if an immanent mystery speaks" ("but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" (Hebrews 1:2)

The beatific vision is God's full self-disclosure, which can only be known in full in heaven but can be seen in partitions through the self-revelation of the Trinity in the Kingdom at hand now

“The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology,” Theological Investigations 4.36-73

Seite 2

The doctrine of the Trinity is, according to the Catholic Church, the “central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them” (CCC # 234). Trace the normative historical narrative of the formulation of a Trinitarian doctrine of the mystery of God from its biblical foundations up through major fourth century developments, including the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople, with particular attention to what is at stake for human salvation. How did extra-mural pressures affect or catalyze these developments? In your response, consider especially how theological language and categories function in Trinitarian reflection: how, for instance, do the concepts of “person” and “relation” develop in the history of the theology of the Trinity up to contemporary reflection (Cappadocians, Augustine, Rahner)? Employing at least two of the following figures, explore how the precision and specificity of the language employed in historical and theological ways of naming God as both unity and trinity relate to the broader notion of mystery as a positive category rather than simply a deficit of discursive knowledge (Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, Pseudo-Dionysius, Bonaventure, Augustine, Rahner).

Seite 3

The Question :)

History of Trinitarian Doctrine

Biblical foundations

Trinitarian pattern evident from Scripture, though not in a defined, doctrinal way.

"Spirit" hovering over the waters, speaking through the prophets

"Father" present in communicating with the patriarchs, kings, first humans

"Son" as the logos that is the perfect and full expression of the Father

Philo of Alexandria (Jewish philosopher who speaks of God in terms of the logos)

Apostolic Fathers

No advancement in doctrine, but they start to talk about the unity of the trinity and speak of Christ as pre-existent spiritually even as a "supreme angel." The trinitarian formulas are present.

Christ is named as God, and the Spirit inspires.

Ignatius of Antioch: On his upcoming martyrdom: "Let me imitate the passion of my God" (Letter to the Romans). For Ignatius, there is no question that Jesus is in any degree lesser than the Father, but rather that he is has a divine role n creation and redemption.

Patristic Apologists

Name Jesus as the logos of the Father's mind, him being distinct from the Father.

Irenaeus

Can trace "economic Trinity" back to writings of Irenaeus: Spirit and Christ working together to carry out the mission of salvation for the one personage (Father)

Irenaeus disputes the Valentians, who claim that the Christ or Savior descended upon Jesus in his mission from the Father. Irenaeus shows from Scripture that Jesus truly is the Son of God descended as Christ from the Father, existing as the pre-eminent Word, anointed by the descent of the Holy Spirit.

Christ truly did suffer for humanity, and the Spirit really does fulfill the mission of the Trinity and binds all of humanity together.

Irenaeus speaks of Christ and the Holy Spirit as "God's hands:" he acknowledges the full role of both the Spirit and the Son in the divine mission/economy of God.

Monarchianism (modulism); dynamic monrchianism (adoptionists)

Evolve because of a desire to preserve the unity of God, his oneness (Jesus was adopted by God the Father at his baptism, but not his co-equal Son before time)

Tertullian (uses the term trinitas to speak of God)

The Godhead is 3 in economy of salvation, where they can be perceived; but 1 in substance

Origen

Uses the term homousious (of the same substance).

Origen speaks of the "relation" between Father, Son, and Spirit as eternal.

The Word's eternal generation is in the Holy Spirit.

Arius

Heresy leads to Councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381)

Wants to preserve the oneness of God, and is thus hesitant to name Christ as God, for God not be one.

Arius, priest: Christ was not God himself, but rather a creature, albeit the most perfect creature.

IMPORTANT FOR SALVATION: If Christ was not divine, then his death did not fully save us; only if Son is co-eternal can he give eternal life.

Athanasius was main champion against Arius.

Council of Nicea (325)

Bishops denounce Arius and establish the term of homoousios to speak of the Father and Son being of the same substance.

Nicene Creed begins to be formulated

Council did not talk about the sharing in substance between the Spirit, Son, and Father

POLITICAL INFLUENCE: Council called by Emperor Constantine in order to preserve unity in his kingdom. Constantine needed to restore order among the leaders of the Church, the bishops who were quarreling.

Athanasius

Clears up language regarding Christ being homoousios from being simply anti-Arian to being a term all its own.

The teaching of Arius was grounded in the co-eternity of the Father and Son for the sake of salvation. Only an eternal being could give us eternal life.

The Father is only the Father because there is a Son. Likewise, the Son is only the Son because there is a Father. Therefore, there cannot be a "time when he was not," because the substantia of the Father and Son, their procession, is tied up in one another. The Holy Spirit must be as divine as the Son if he is to bring humanity to communion with the Father and the Son.

Council of Constantinople (381)

Cemented 3 hypostases (persons) and 1 ousia (being). solidified Nicene Creed thanks to Athanasius and Cappadocian Fathers.

Cappadocians and Gregory of Nazianzus

3 hypostases, 1 nature, 1 divine action

Augustine (5th century)

Focused on unity: Trinity is one substance that acts with one will.

Each person possesses divine nature in particular way(s)

Distinction in "relation" and "order:" Father begets Son, Son is begotten, Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son

His analogies do not prove or name fully the Trinity; Mystery could never be removed. The very substance of all things is "love." Because love is everywhere, traces of the Trinity can be found everywhere, too.

Council of Ephesus (431)

Idea of hypostatic union between divine and human natures of Christ is discussed here, against Nestorius.

Mary is named as the "Mother of God"

Council of Chalcedon (451)

hypostatic union (Jesus fully human and fully divine; 2 natures, 1 person) and Nicene Creed are cemented.

The Church has not had need to call another Council regarding the Trinitarian Doctrine in 16 centuries because there has not been political pressure to do so. On the one hand, this points to a positive alignment of Church unity. On the other hand, the lack of a definitive council leads to a lack of development of certain aspects of Trinitarian doctrine, namely pneumatology.

Language of Trinitarian Doctrine, especially "person" and "relation" as it relates to salvation (Cappadocians, Augustine, Rahner)

Three "persons": not three locii of existing consciousnesses, but rather three subsisting modes of "relation" to each other.

for example, Memory, Understanding, and Will are only defined in their relation to one another and the actions they perform in relationship with one another.

"We will learn more from looking at the lines of the triangle (relation) rather than looking at the points of the triangle (persons)

Use two of the following authors to speak about the unity and trinity of the triune Godhead as a positive category of knowledge (Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, Pseudo-Dionysius, Bonaventure, Augustine, Rahner)

Positive category is only established so that we can contemplate God in his eternal mystery under his proper character, free from error and in line with the "lights of truth" of doctrine

Seite 4

Outline

Bible

Trinitarian pattern, even when the circumstances did not demand it

Jesus: the Father and I are one (John's Gospel)

"Go, therefore... and baptize in the name of..." (Matt 28:19)

"your bodies is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19)

"Christ did these things in the flesh" (1 Pet. 4)

Church Fathers

Expounded on trinitarian pattern in Scripture

Took Trinity as given

Justin Martyr: Logos is divine, Logos is God

Apologists

Use grecan philosophy to distinguish between immanent logos and expressed logos. Logos expressed at the Incarnation.

Irenaeus

Logos is eternal with the Father. There is no distinction between the Logos and the Son, who is one with the Father.

The Spirit is like "dough," binding the Father and Son and humanity together.

Monarchianism, Tertullian, and Hypolytus

Monarchianism wished to preserve unity of God, said there was one God in different emanations.

Tertullian used term Trinitas.

There was one substance in different aspects.

Origen

Economy is immanent trinity, brings up idea of eternal generation

Used the homoouisia generally

Hierarchical trinity in which Jesus and Spirit are subordinate to the Father (Exaggerated in Arius' position)

Arius

"There was once when the son was not." The Son was created (before time and ages) by the Father.

"Wisdom is the firstborn of all creation" (Prov. 8:22); "The Father is greater than I"

Trying to maintain the transcendence, immanence of the Trinity that God is one.

Inability to believe God would stoop to humanity (Phil 2:8)

Athanasius

Arius is pushing human ideas on God.

The Son is eternally generated from the Father. The Spirit must be as divine as the Son if he is to bring humanity in relationship with God.

Language of homoouisia is not important, but its meaning is: God is one in being.

Salvation is not possible in Arius' theology. The Son, created, would not be doing it for humanity, but rather humanity saving itself; for the Logos' sake glorifying his own state as a demigod.

Son can't even be "second in command" if he is created, then the Father would be above him.

Council of Nicea (325)

homoouisia is accepted as doctrine

hypostasis and substancia both meant "being".

Cappadocians

homoouisia is priveleged above homoiouisia (Son is "like" the Father)

hypostasis is meant to distinguish between relations of being, rather than being itself.

hypostases of the Trinity find unity in their relations with each other: the Father begets, the Son is begotten, and the Spirit proceeds

Council of Constantinople (381)

Cemented Nicene Creed; expounded upon the prominence of the Spirit.

Defined that Father and Son are "one in being;"

Augustine (400s)

emphasizing God's unity insofar as God's substance, action, and will. Begins with Scripture in economic Trinity and moves to Immanent Trinity.

"You can't love what you don't know." We do not love the unknown, but we love what we do know about God and are inspired to know God more always; we find God through an encounter with him.

epekstasis: eternal progress; perfection found in pursuing the "moving target" of God.

Analogies: Beloved, Lover, Love; Memory (recalls from past), Understanding (analyzes in the present), Will (does something); the structure of the soul models the Trinity

Augustine says even through all these analogies, his work on understanding has not given a definition of the Trinity.

This "failure" is not a failure as such, but it is rather the journey with God that is important. The structure of the work incapsulates the encounter with Mystery: Augustine starts with: you can't know anything and ends with this same though.

Augustine insists: you must believe in order to understand. We can't begin the pursuit of

Pseudo-Dionysius (~400s - 500s)

Ends by saying God is beyond all assertion and negation, but he also begins with prayer: must have faith in order to understand God, be beheld by God more.

We ascend to God by leaving behind the senses and everything, so that we will be uplifted to the ray of the "divine shadow"

Apophatic theology: clears aside every obstacle to the "pure view" of the hidden image, which reveals beauty; as a sculptor clears away the stone. Begins with many words and ascends to God until we are left completely speechless. Apophatic theology

This pursuit is for the sake of coming nearer to God, who is unapproachable darkness. Like Moses, we ascend to where God dwells; we ascend to belonging to God, rather than possessing God in knowledge, i.e. God belonging to us.

Bonaventure (1100s)

One cannot ascend beyond oneself unless he or she begins with prayer (prologue), and ends in prayer (chapter 7)

Ask for grace, not learning, prayer not diligence in reading

Trinitarian structure of God reflected in the trinitarian structure of his work. Trinitarian pattern repeated in his examples: power, wisdom, and goodness

3 pairs and 1 reality:

God can be known through the vestiges of his universe. We can know of God in and through creation. "Open your eyes."

You can see God in the image of the soul. Memory, Intelligence (Understanding), Will. "Enter into yourself."

Can't have any of these capacities without the other. Each faculty supports the other.

One in substance, though distinct.

God is Being and Goodness

Our affection passes over entirely to God (rest; love for its own's sake; dying to one's self

Rahner: The Concept of Mystery

Problem: mystery is spoken of as simply a statement, not as a communication of grace; Rahner seeks to reclaim the concept of mystery

Mystery is not a lack of knowledge or reason, nor is it provisional, it is the pre-suppostion of our relationship with God, who, as Mystery, is the source and end of Christian life.

Man is the subject of mystery, the being oriented to mystery.

God is incomprehensibility, unknowing, infinity; God is Mystery, not in a lacking, finite sense, but in his Otherness.

The Whither of transcendence is the foundation of man, its reaching forward.

The beatific vision is meant to give us peace in the knowledge that unknowing is Love itself; the Trinity is presented as the divine incomprehensibility, mystery.

Grace is the possibility of being drawn near, being beheld by God, the possibility of an absolute self-communication of the mystery.

God as Mystery is the condition for the mysteria stricta dicta: all mysteries participate in and point to the ultimate Mystery, the Whither, the primordial Mystery.

Trinity, Incarnation (hypostatic union), Beatific Vision. These are named as such, because "it is only through revelation (event and word) that we can know that such a thing is actual and possible. This is grace: the possibility of surrendering to God in faith.

Because these mysteries are mysteries only known by revelation, they are God's very self, insofar as they bring us into contact with God as he is, precisely as Mystery. --> The mysteries flow into one another: The life of the Trinity carries itself to be incarnated in the union of human nature with the Logos, and the incarnation fulfills in its own being what we call the inner divinization of the human nature in Christ (beatific vision)

In the mysteria stricte dicta, the Trinity is the God-ward aspect of the two absolute self-communications of God, which are the hypostatic union and grace which grows into glory (beatific vision), which both must be something of God himself, because they really are self-communications of God in formal causality.

Immanent trinity becomes the economy of salvation, because God gives himself so fully in his absolute self-communication to the creature. "Self-communication of God to the world" is Scripture.

God, as the Whither that has drawn nigh, it is Father as the underivative; it is Son, as the principle which acts and expresses itself in history; it is the Spirit, as that which is given and accepted by us. This as is the nature of God in himself, which gives distinction in God himself, while also possessing one and the same nature.

"God has imparted himself to us through Jesus Christ in his Spirit as he is in himself." This he does so that the inexpressible nameless mystery which reigns above us should also be in itself the immediate blessedness of the spirit which knows, and transforms itself into love."

Rahner: The Trinity (1960s)

Defines person as "distinct manner of subsisting" in terms of relation and not independence in being.

5 dimensions of personhood

Unoriginatedness (The Father is the ultimate cause)

Paternity

Filiation

Spiration

Procession

Language of appropriations

The whole Trinity equally shares in a saving act, but an activity can be appropriated to a divine person

Incarnation involves all 3 persons of the Trinity, but the action of salvation by death on the Cross is appropriated to the Son.

It would be wrong to say that the Incarnation could have been done by any of the three persons. It is only in the nature of the Son, who is Love for the Father, to be incarnate in the flesh.