A Rational Explanation of the Trinity

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Sep 1 2005, 11:47 AM']RESPONSE:

I think the Catholic "It's a mystery!" claim is vastly overplayed.

"God is beyond God"? Really? And if we claim that we know God is infinite, than that is at least one aspect that is not beyond any form of human comprehension.

What about his very existence? Can we know of that, or was Vatican II wrong on that point?

(When I was in the third grade, I used to tell Sister Josephine that evidently my homework had disappeared. "It's a mystery!" Somehow she didn't buy that explanation, but used the same one when contradictions about God were pointed out to her).
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The Byzantine tradition does not have the same conception of "mystery" that holds in the West. In the East the mystery is by its nature incomprehensible, and so the idea of using reason to speculate on God's nature is thought of as something bordering upon sacrilege.

But I doubt that you are familiar with the Byzantine theological tradition, and so we will simply continue to talk past each other in this thread.

As far as contradictions are concerned, the Eastern tradition thrives upon them, not as things to be solved, but as a revelation of the mystery of God's incomprehensibility ([i]akataleptos[/i]). Thus, God is three and one, the kingdom is now and yet future, Christ is God and man, etc., they are mysteries which surpass human understanding, and not simply because man is a finite being, but primarily because the mystery itself, by its very nature, eludes intellectual comprehension, and can only be spiritually experienced.

Blessings to you,
Todd

[White Knight]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Sep 1 2005, 05:56 PM']RESPONSE:

No. The story which emerged in the fourth century is there. Not the information. The information may be what you are told to believe and, of course, you can't question it because it's a mystery, don't you know.

Perhaps I can present the creation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Especially the thinking of the Arians, Tertullian, and Valentius.

Keep in mind, the fourth century saw the foundations of Catholic dogma.

LittleLes
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You obviously, dont get the point, ethier that or your completely ignoring the evidence which was presented to you. the Fullness of the Trinity is a Mystery. period.

[Socrates]

[quote name='White Knight' date='Sep 1 2005, 06:56 PM']You obviously, dont get the point, ethier that or your completely ignoring the evidence which was presented to you. the Fullness of the Trinity is a Mystery. period.
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Les isn't interested in the truth, only in bashing the Church and Catholic teaching. This should be apparent to everyone by now. Let's not feed the troll.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='White Knight' date='Sep 1 2005, 06:56 PM']You obviously, dont get the point, ethier that or your completely ignoring the evidence which was presented to you. the Fullness of the Trinity is a Mystery. period.
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RESPONSE:

No "evidence" was presented about the fullness of the Trinity. As one writer summarized, its "mystery" is essentially an inherent irrationality.

The Father is "unbegotten, " the Son is "begotten," and the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from both. And yet it is claimed that they are all God. Then why would it not be possible to go the other way?

And they are all of the same substance, yet don't have eachother's identity. See the contraduction!

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Sep 1 2005, 07:37 PM']Les isn't interested in the truth, only in bashing the Church and Catholic teaching.  This should be apparent to everyone by now.  Let's not feed the troll.
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RESPONSE:

The "truth" is not identical with the apologist's party line.

I'm interested in separating fact from fiction. After all, "Instructing the ignorant" is the first "spiritual work of mercy."

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Sep 2 2005, 04:11 AM']RESPONSE:

No "evidence" was presented about the fullness of the Trinity.  As one writer summarized, its "mystery" is essentially an inherent irrationality.
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The mystery of the Trinity is not irrational, rather it is meta-rational. It is beyond man's intellect, but then God is beyond all categories of human thought.

In other words, the paradoxes within theology are the revelation of God.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Sep 2 2005, 04:11 AM'][. . .]

The Father is "unbegotten, " the Son is "begotten," and the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from both. And yet it is claimed that they are all God. Then why would it not be possible to go the other way?

And they are all of the same substance, yet don't have eachother's identity. See the contraduction!
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This theological formulation holds only within the Western tradition. As a Byzantine I do not hold to the doctrine of the Trinity in this way.

The Father alone gives hypostatic existence to the Son and the Spirit, the former through an ineffable generation, and the latter through an incomprehensible spiration or procession. Generation and procession are distinct, but how they are distinction is unknown. Again, you are trying to solve the mystery, while in the East the mystery is the revelation, and as such it is to be experienced, not solved.

Salvation is not reducible to an act of intellection on man's part; instead, it is the elevation of man, through the divine energy, into the uncreated life and glory of God. Man, in the divine energy, bridges the gulf between created and uncreated, and in the process he himself becomes uncreated by grace.

[Jake Huether]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 2 2005, 07:33 AM']This theological formulation holds only within the Western tradition.  As a Byzantine I do not hold to the doctrine of the Trinity in this way.

The Father alone gives hypostatic existence to the Son and the Spirit, the former through an ineffable generation, and the latter through an incomprehensible spiration or procession.  Generation and procession are distinct, but how they are distinction is unknown.  Again, you are trying to solve the mystery, while in the East the mystery is the revelation, and as such it is to be experienced, not solved.

Salvation is not reducible to an act of intellection on man's part; instead, it is the elevation of man, through the divine energy, into the uncreated life and glory of God.  Man, in the divine energy, bridges the gulf between created and uncreated, and in the process he himself becomes uncreated by grace.
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Apotheoun,

Your insights are most appreciated. However, I am slightly offended (whether you care or not - just want to get this off my chest) by the way you keep throwing around the fact that your are from the Eastern Tradition. We are both under one head, who is the Pope. We both profess the same Creed. We believe the same truth. And as such, we hold the SAME doctrine of the Trinity. I don't understand how you can say, "I do not hold to the doctrine of the Trinity in this way", when we believe the same truth of the Trinity.

As a Byzantine Catholic you may word things differently, you may understand them differently – not that you understand a different doctrine, but rather that your understanding of it comes from a different angle or such, but if the doctrine you hold is different, we are not under the same Pope for sure. That is the meaning of Catholic (universal). Our doctrine is the same.

Everything you’ve said so far is how I’ve taken the “western” doctrine of the Trinity to mean. I fail to see how the west and the east conflict. Or is it a function of my intellect? Am I seeing a “wester” doctrine in “eastern” light, whereas most see it in it’s own light…

I’m having difficulty understanding why you keep making the distinction between east and west, as if one were more Catholic than the other…

I don’t want to de-rail this topic. But I thought it was interesting that both your and my understanding of the Trinity coincided; yet you have to say that the west sees it differently. I’m of the western Tradition and I see exactly what you are saying.

In other words, I don’t think LittleLes sees this doctrine in a western sense or in an eastern sense. He doesn’t see it at all. So I fail to realize the need to brand yourself Easter – when in reality you are simply Catholic, like me…

Maybe it’s just me.

God bless

[Jake Huether]

[quote]The Father is "unbegotten, " the Son is "begotten," and the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from both. And yet it is claimed that they are all God. Then why would it not be possible to go the other way?

And they are all of the same substance, yet don't have eachother's identity. See the contraduction!  [/quote]

I don't see the contradiction.

Substance is what makes something WHAT it is. God is God.

You fail to see that Person doesn't describe what, it describes who.

Who is God? God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

If you "go the other way" so that the Son is unbegotten or that the Holy Spirit doesn't proceed from both, then the Father isn't the Father, the Son isn't the Son, and the Holy Spirit isnt' the Holy Spirit!

Don't you see? This is what makes each Person WHO He is. While What they are remains the same. They each are God. That is what they are. And each being God, they must be One God - since infinity cannot be divided. Yet, The Father is the Father, not the Son or the Holy Spirit. The Son is the Son, not the Father or the Holy Spirit. and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, not either of the other. They are each who they are, because each other is who He is. Yet they are all God in WHAT they are!

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Jake Huether' date='Sep 2 2005,0708AM'][. . .]  However, I am slightly offended (whether you care or not - just want to get this off my chest) by the way you keep throwing around the fact that your are from the Eastern Tradition.  [. . .][/quote]

We are under one head, but we have very different theological traditions, and if that is offensive to some people, so be it. I am not Western by choice.

I'm more than willing to have a discussion of the differences between the Eastern and Western views of the Trinity, because they are quite different. Moreover, the Pope accepts that they are different and has encouraged the Eastern Catholic Churches that are in communion with him to de-latinize their liturgies and theology and be fully Eastern in their way of living the faith.

The thing that is often interesting to me, is when Western Catholics tell me as an Easterner that the differences between the Eastern and Western views on the various doctrines of the faith are merely semantical. Most of the people who tell me this haven't investigated the Byzantine tradition at all.

Blessings to you,
Todd

[Jake Huether]

[quote]We are under one head, but we have very different theological traditions, and if that is offensive to some people, so be it.  I am not Western by choice.[/quote]

Ah, okay. You have a different theological tradition. That seems much better. In your last post you said that you "don't hold the doctrine of the Trinity in this way".

I realize now that we both have the same doctrine. But it is "in this way" that you see it, as opposed to "in that way". Haha.

We're cool. I thought you were saying you had a different doctrine. It's just that you view the same doctrine from a different theological tradition. Which is why your explenation was jiving with my knowledge of it.

[quote]I'm more than willing to have a discussion of the differences between the Eastern and Western views of the Trinity, because they are quite different.  Moreover, the Pope accepts that they are different and has encouraged the Eastern Catholic Churches that are in communion with him to de-latinize their liturgies and theology and be fully Eastern in their way of living the faith.[/quote]

I'd be interested... I'll PM you, if you don't mind.

[quote]The thing that is often interesting to me, is when Western Catholics tell me as an Easterner that the differences between the Eastern and Western views on the various doctrines of the faith are merely semantical.  Most of the people who tell me this haven't investigated the Byzantine tradition at all.[/quote]

I must admit, I haven't investigated it. I merely missread what you wrote. If you had said that you hold a different doctrine, then it would have forced me to beleive, if you are under the same Pope, that it must be a simple semantics slip. But I see now that the doctrine is the same, but the theological view is different.

[quote]Blessings to you,
Todd[/quote]

Much appreciated...

I'm un-offended now. :

[Myles Domini]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm#V"]The old Catholic encyclopedia's article on the Holy Trinity[/url] may come from a text that offers an out of date perspective on the theology of East ecumenically speaking I think it offers a fair appraisal of the diffrerences between the Occident and Orient in Triadology:

[/QUOTE]V. THE DOCTRINE AS INTERPRETED IN GREEK THEOLOGY
A. Nature and Personality

The Greek Fathers approached the problem of Trinitarian doctrine in a way which differs in an important particular from that which, since the days of St. Augustine, has become traditional in Latin theology. In Latin theology thought fixed first on the Nature and only subsequently on the Persons. Personality is viewed as being, so to speak, the final complement of the Nature: the Nature is regarded as logically prior to the Personality. Hence, because God's Nature is one, He is known to us as One God before He can be known as Three Persons. And when theologians speak of God without special mention of a Person, conceive Him under this aspect. This is entirely different from the Greek point of view. Greek thought fixed primarily on the Three distinct Persons: the Father, to Whom, as the source and origin of all, the name of God (Theos) more especially belongs; the Son, proceeding from the Father by an eternal generation, and therefore rightly termed God also; and the Divine Spirit, proceeding from the Father through the Son. The Personality is treated as logically prior to the Nature. Just as human nature is something which the individual men possesses, and which can only be conceived as belonging to and dependent on the individual, so the Divine Nature is something which belongs to the Persons and cannot be conceived independently of Them.

The contrast appears strikingly in regard to the question of creation. All Western theologians teach that creation, like all God's external works, proceeds from Him as One: the separate Personalities do not enter into consideration. The Greeks invariably speak as though, in all the Divine works, each Person exercises a separate office. Irenaeus replies to the Gnostics, who held that the world was created by a demiurge other than the supreme God, by affirming that God is the one Creator, and that He made all things by His Word and His Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit (Adv. haer., I, xxii; II, iv, 4, 5, xxx, 9; IV, xx, 1). A formula often found among the Greek Fathers is that all things are from the Father and are effected by the Son in the Spirit (Athanasius, "Ad Serap.", I, xxxi; Basil, "De Spiritu Sancto", n. 38; Cyril of Alexandria, "De Trin. dial.", VI). Thus, too, Hippolytus (Con Noet., x) says that God has fashioned all things by His Word and His Wisdom creating them by His Word, adorning them by His Wisdom (gar ta genomena dia Logou kai Sophias technazetai, Logo men ktizon Sophia de kosmon). The Nicene Creed still preserves for us this point of view. In it we still profess our belief "in one God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth . . . and in one Lord Jesus Christ . . . by Whom all things were made . . . and in the Holy Ghost."

B. The Divine Unity

The Greek Fathers did not neglect to safeguard the doctrine of the Divine Unity, though manifestly their standpoint requires a different treatment from that employed in the West. The consubstantiality of the Persons is asserted by St. Irenaeus when he tells us that God created the world by His Son and His Spirit, "His two hands" (Adv. haer., IV, xx, 1). The purport of the phrase is evidently to indicate that the Second and Third Persons are not substantially distinct from the First. A more philosophical description is the doctrine of the Recapitulation (sygkephalaiosis). This seems to be first found in the correspondence between St. Denis of Alexandria and St. Dionysius of Rome. The former writes: "We thus [i.e., by the twofold procession] extend the Monad [the First Person] to the Trinity, without causing any division, and were capitulate the Trinity in the Monad without causing diminution" (outo men emeis eis te ten Triada ten Monada, platynomen adiaireton, kai ten Triada palin ameioton eis ten Monada sygkephalaioumetha -- P.G., XXV, 504). Here the consubstantiality is affirmed on the ground that the Son and Spirit, proceeding from the Father, are nevertheless not separated from Him; while they again, with all their perfections, can be regarded as contained within Him.

This doctrine supposes a point of view very different from that with which we are now familiar. The Greek Fathers regarded the Son as the Wisdom and power of the Father (I Cor., 1:24) in a formal sense, and in like manner, the Spirit as His Sanctity. Apart from the Son the Father would be without Hls Wisdom; apart from the Spirit He would be without His Sanctity. Thus the Son and the Spirit are termed "Powers" (Dynameis) of the Father. But while in creatures the powers and faculties are mere accidental perfections, in the Godhead they are subsistent hypostases. Denis of Alexandria regarding the Second and Third Persons as the Father's "Powers", speaks of the First Person as being "extended" to them, and not divided from them. And, since whatever they have and are flows from Him, this writer asserts that if we fix our thoughts on the sole source of Deity alone, we find in Him undiminished all that is contained in them.

The Arian controversy led to insistence on the Homoüsia. But with the Greeks this is not a starting point, but a conclusion, the result of reflective analysis. The sonship of the Second Person implies that He has received the Divine Nature in its fullness, for all generation implies the origination of one who is like in nature to the originating principle. But here, mere specific unity is out of the question. The Divine Essence is not capable of numerical multiplication; it is therefore, they reasoned, identically the same nature which both possess. A similar line of argument establishes that the Divine Nature as communicated to the Holy Spirit is not specifically, but numerically, one with that of the Father and the Son. Unity of nature was understood by the Greek Fathers as involving unity of will and unity of action (energeia). This they declared the Three Persons to possess (Athanasius, "Adv. Sabell.", xii, 13; Basil, "Ep. clxxxix," n. 7; Gregory of Nyssa, "De orat. dom.," John Damascene, "De fide orth.", III, xiv). Here we see an important advance in the theology of the Godhead. For, as we have noted, the earlier Fathers invariably conceive the Three Persons as each exercising a distinct and separate function.

Finally we have the doctrine of Circuminsession (perichoresis). By this is signified the reciprocal inexistence and compenetration of the Three Persons. The term perichoresis is first used by St. John Damascene. Yet the doctrine is found much earlier. Thus St. Cyril of Alexandria says that the Son is called the Word and Wisdom of the Father "because of the reciprocal inherence of these and the mind" (dia ten eis allela . . . ., hos an eipoi tis, antembolen). St. John Damascene assigns a twofold basis for this inexistence of the Persons. In some passages he explains it by the doctrine already mentioned, that the Son and the Spirit are dynameis of the Father (cf. "De recta sententia"). Thus understood, the Circuminsession is a corollary of the doctrine of Recapitulation. He also understands it as signifying the identity of essence, will, and action in the Persons. Wherever these are peculiar to the individual, as is the case in all creatures, there, he tells us, we have separate existence (kechorismenos einai). In the Godhead the essence, will, and action are but one. Hence we have not separate existence, but Circuminsession (perichoresis) (Fid. orth., I, viii). Here, then, the Circuminsession has its basis in the Homoüsia.

It is easy to see that the Greek system was less well adapted to meet the cavils of the Arian and Macedonian heretics than was that subsequently developedby St. Augustine. Indeed the controversies of the fourth century brought some of the Greek Fathers notably nearer to the positions of Latin theology. We have seen that they were led to affirm the action of the Three Persons to be but one. Didymus even employs expressions which seem to show that he, like the Latins, conceived the Nature as logically antecedent to the Persons. He understands the term God as signifying the whole Trinity, and not, as do the other Greeks, the Father alone: "When we pray, whether we say 'Kyrie eleison', or 'O God aid us', we do not miss our mark: for we include the whole of the Blessed Trinity in one Godhead" (De Trin., II, xix).

C. Mediate and Immediate Procession

The doctrine that the Spirit is the image of the Son, as the Son is the image of the Father, is characteristic of Greek theology. It is asserted by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus in his Creed. It is assumed by St. Athanasius as an indisputable premise in his controversy with the Macedonians (Ad Serap., I, xx, xxi, xxiv; II, i, iv). It is implied in the comparisons employed both by him (Ad Serap. I, xix) and by St. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxxi, 31, 32), of the Three Divine Persons to the sun, the ray, the light; and to the source, the spring, and the stream. We find it also in St. Cyril of Alexandria ("Thesaurus assert.", 33), St. John Damascene ("Fid.orth." I, 13), etc. This supposes that the procession of the Son from the Father is immediate; that of the Spirit from the Father is mediate. He proceeds from the Father through the Son. Bessarion rightly observes that the Fathers who used these expressions conceived the Divine Procession as taking place, so to speak, along a straight line (P. G., CLXI, 224). On the other hand, in Western theology the symbolic diagram of the Trinity has ever been the triangle, the relations of the Three Persons one to another being precisely similar. The point is worth noting, for this diversity of symbolic representation leads inevitably to very different expressions of the same dogmatic truth. It is plain that these Fathers would have rejected no less firmly than the Latins the later Photian heresy that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. (For this question the reader is referred to HOLY GHOST.)

D. The Son

The Greek theology of the Divine Generation differs in certain particulars from the Latin. Most Western theologians base their theory on the name, Logos, given by St. John to the Second Person. This they understand in the sense of "concept" (verbum mentale), and hold that the Divine Generation is analogous to the act by which the created intellect produces its concept. Among Greek writers this explanation is unknown. They declare the manner of the Divine Generation to be altogether beyond our comprehension. We know by revelation that God has a Son; and various other terms besides Son employed regarding Him in Scripture, such as Word, Brightness of His glory, etc., show us that His sonship must be conceived as free from any relation. More we know not (cf. Gregory Nazianzen, "Orat. xxix", p. 8, Cyril of Jerusalem, "Cat.", xi, 19; John Damascene, "Fid. orth.", I, viii). One explanation only can be given, namely, that the perfection we call fecundity must needs be found in God the Absolutely Perfect (St. John Damascene, "Fid.orth.", I, viii). Indeed it would seem that the great majority of the Greek Fathers understood logos not of the mental thought; but of the uttered word ("Dion. Alex."; Athanasius, ibid.; Cyril of Alexandria, "De Trin.", II). They did not see in the term a revelation that the Son is begotten by way of intellectual procession, but viewed it as a metaphor intended to exclude the material associations of human sonship (Gregory of Nyssa, "C. Eunom.", IV; Gregory Nazianzen, "Orat. xxx", p. 20; Basil, "Hom. xvi"; Cyril of Alexandria, "Thesaurus assert.", vi).

We have already adverted to the view that the Son is the Wisdom and Power of the Father in the full and formal sense. This teaching constantly recurs from the time of Origen to that of St. John Damascene (Origen apud Athan., "De decr. Nic.", p. 27; Athanasius, "Con. Arianos", I, p. 19; Cyril of Alexandria, "Thesaurus"; John Damascene, "Fid.orth.", I, xii). It is based on the Platonic philosophy accepted by the Alexandrine School. This differs in a fundamental point from the Aristoteleanism of the Scholastic theologians. In Aristotelean philosophy perfection is always conceived statically. No actlon, transient or immanent, can proceed from any agent unless that agent, as statically conceived, possesses whatever perfection is contained in the action. The Alexandrine standpoint was other than this. To them perfection must be sought in dynamic activity. God, as the supreme perfection, is from all eternity self-moving, ever adorning Himself with His own attributes: they issue from Him and, being Divine, are not accidents, but subsistent realities. To these thinkers, therefore, there was no impossibility in the supposition that God is wise with the Wisdom which is the result of His own immanent action, powerful with the Power which proceeds from Him. The arguments of the Greek Fathers frequently presuppose this philosophy as their bssis; and unless it be clearly grasped, reasoning which on their premises is conclusive will appear to us invalid and fallacious. Thus it is sometimes urged as a reason for rejecting Arianism that, if there were a time when the Son was not, it follows that God must then have been devoid of Wisdom and of Power -- a conclusion from which even Arians would shrink.

E. The Holy Spirit

A point which in Western theology gives occasion for some discussion is the question as to why the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is termed the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine suggests that it is because He proceeds from both the Father and the Son, and hence He rightly receives a name applicable to both (De Trin., xv, n. 37). To the Greek Fathers, who developed the theology of the Spirit in the light of the philosophical principles which we have just noticed, the question presented no difficulty. His name, they held, reveals to us His distinctive character as the Third Person, just as the names Father and Son manifest the distinctive characters of the First and Second Persons (cf. Gregory Thaumaturgus, "Ecth. fid."; Basil, "Ep. ccxiv", 4; Gregory Nazianzen, "Or. xxv", 16). He is autoagiotes, the hypostatic holiness of God, the holiness by which God is holy. Just as the Son is the Wisdom and Power by which God is wise and powerful, so the Spirit is the Holiness by which He is holy. Had there ever been a time, as the Macedonians dared to say, when the Holy Spirit was not, then at that time God would have not been holy (St. Gregory Nazianzen, "Orat. xxxi", 4).

On the other hand, pneuma was often understood in the light of John 10:22 where Christ, appearing to the Apostles, breathed on them and conferred on them the Holy Spirit. He is the breath of Christ (John Damascene, "Fid. orth.", 1, viii), breathed by Him into us, and dwelling in us as the breath of life by which we enjoy the supernatural life of God's children (Cyril of Alexandria, "Thesaurus"; cf. Petav., "De Trin", V, viii). The office of the Holy Spirit in thus elevating us to the supernatural order is, however, conceived in a manner somewhat different from that of Western theologians. According to Western doctrine, God bestows on man sanctifying grace, and consequent on that gift the Three Persons come to his soul. In Greek theology the order is reversed: the Holy Spirit does not come to us because we have received sanctifying grace; but it is through His presence we receive the gift. He is the seal, Himself impressing on us the Divine image. That Divine image is indeed realized in us, but the seal must be present to secure the continued existence of the impression. Apart from Him it is not found (Origen, "In Joan. ii", vi; Didymus, "De Spiritu Sancto", x, 11; Athanasius, "Ep. ad. Serap.", III, iii). This Union with the Holy Spirit constitutes our deification (theopoiesis). Inasmuch as He is the image of Christ, He imprints the likeness of Christ upon us; since Christ is the image of the Father, we too receive the true character of God's children (Athanasius, loc.cit.; Gregory Nazianzen, "Orat. xxxi", 4). It is in reference to this work in our regard that in the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed the Holy Spirit is termed the Giver of life (zoopoios). In the West we more naturally speak of grace as the life of the soul. But to the Greeks it was the Spirit through whose personal presence we live. Just as God gave natural life to Adam by breathing into his inanimate frame the breath of life, so did Christ give spiritual life to us when He bestowed on us the gift of the Holy Ghost.

VI. THE DOCTRINE AS INTERPRETED IN LATIN THEOLOGY
The transition to the Latin theology of the Trinity was the work of St. Augustine. Western theologians have never departed from the main lines which he laid down, although in the Golden Age of Scholasticism his system was developed, its details completed, and its terminology perfected. It received its final and classical form from St. Thomas Aquinas. But it is necessary first to indicate in what consisted the transition effected by St. Augustine. This may be summed up in three points:

He views the Divine Nature as prior to the Personalities. Deus is for him not God the Father,but the Trinity. This was a step of the first importance, safeguarding as it did alike the unity of God and the equality of the Persons in a manner which the Greek system could never do. As we have seen, one at least of the Greeks, Didymus, had adopted this standpoint and it is possible that Augustine may have derived this method of viewing the mystery from him. But to make it the basis for the whole treatment of the doctrine was the work of Augustine's genius.
He insists that every external operation God is due to the whole Trinity, and cannot be attributed to one Person alone, save by appropriation (see HOLY GHOST). The Greek Fathers had, as we have seen, been led to affirm that the action (energeia) of the Three Persons was one, and one alone. But the doctrine of appropriation was unknown to them, and thus the value of this conclusion was obscured by a traditional theology implying the distinct activities of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
By indicating the analogy between the two processions within the Godhead and the internal acts of thought and will in the human mind (De Trin., IX, iii, 3; X, xi, 17), he became the founder of the psychological theory of the Trinity, which, with a very few exceptions, was accepted by every subsequent Latin writer.
In the following exposition of the Latin doctrines, we shall follow St. Thomas Aquinas, whose treatment of the doctrine is now universally accepted by Catholic theologians. It should be observed, however, that this is not the only form in which the psychological theory has been proposed. Thus Richard of St. Victor, Alexander of Hales, and St. Bonaventure, while adhering in the main to Western tradition, were more influenced by Greek thought, and give us a system differing somewhat from that of St. Thomas.

A. The Son

Among the terms empIoyed in Scripture to designate the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is the Word (John 1:1). This is understood by St. Thomas of the Verbum mentale, or intellectual concept. As applied to the Son, the name, he holds, signifies that He proceeds from the Father as the term of an intellectual procession, in a manner analogous to that in which a concept is generated by the human mind in all acts of natural knowledge. It is, indeed, of faith that the Son proceeds from the Father by a veritable generation. He is, says the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, begotten before all worlds". But the Procession of a Divine Person as the term of the act by which God knows His own nature is rightly called generation. This may be readily shown. As an act of intellectual conception, it necessarily produces the likeness of the object known. And further, being Divine action, it is not an accidental act resulting in a term, itself a mere accident, but the act is the very substance of the Divinity, and the term is likewise substantial. A process tending necessarily to the production of a substantial term like in nature to the Person from Whom it proceeds is a process of generation. In regard to this view as to the procession of the Son, a difficulty was felt by St. Anselm (Monol., lxiv) on the score that it would seem to involve that each of the Three Persons must needs generate a subsistent Word. Since all the Powers possess the same mind, does it not follow, he asked, that in each case thought produces a similar term? This difficulty St. Thomas succeeds in removing. According to his psychology the formation of a concept is not essential to thought as such, though absolutely requisite to all natural human knowledge. There is, therefore, no ground in reason, apart from revelation, for holding that the Divine intellect produces a Verbum mentale. It is the testimony of Scripture alone which tells us that the Father has from all eternity begotten His consubstantial Word. But neither reason nor revelation suggests it in the case of the Second and Third Persons (I:34:1, ad 3).

Not a few writers of great weight hold that there is sufficient consensus among the Fathers and Scholastic theologians as to the meaning of the names Word and Wisdom (Proverbs 8), applied to the Son, for us to regard the intellectual procession of the Second Person as at least theologically certain, if not a revealed truth (cf. Suarez, "De Trin.", I, v, p. 4; Petav., VI, i, 7; Franzelin, "De Trin.", Thesis xxvi). This, however, seems to be an exaggeration. The immense majority of the Greek Fathers, as we have already noticed, interpret logos of the spoken word, and consider the significance of the name to lie not in any teaching as to intellectual procession, but in the fact that it implies a mode of generation devoid of all passion. Nor is the tradition as to the interpretation of Proverbs 8, in any sense unanimous. In view of these facts the opinion of those theologians seems the sounder who regard this explanation of the procession simply as a theological opinion of great probability and harmonizing well with revealed truth.

B. The Holy Spirit

Just as the Son proceeds as the term of the immanent act of the intellect, so does the Holy Spirit proceed as the term of the act of the Divine will. In human love, as St. Thomas teaches (I:27:3), even though the object be external to us, yet the immanent act of love arouses in the soul a state of ardour which is, as it were, an impression of the thing loved. In virtue of this the object of love is present to our affections, much as, by means of the concept, the object of thought is present to our intellect. This experience is the term of the internal act. The Holy Spirit, it is contended, proceeds from the Father and the Son as the term of the love by which God loves Himself. He is not the love of God in the sense of being Himself formally the love by which God loves; but in loving Himself God breathes forth this subsistent term. He is Hypostatic Love. Here, however, it is necessary to safeguard a point of revealed doctrine. It is of faith that the procession of the Holy Spirit is not generation. The Son is "the only begotten of the Father" (John 1:14). And the Athanasian Creed expressly lays it down that the Holy Ghost is "from the Father and the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding." If the immanent act of the intellect is rightly termed generation, on what grounds can that name be denied to the act of the will? The answers given in reply to this difficulty by St. Thomas, Richard of St. Victor, and Alexander of Hales are very different. It will be sufficient here to note St. Thomas's solution. Intellectual procession, he says, is of its very nature the production of a term in the likeness of the thing conceived. This is not so in regard to the act of the will. Here the primary result is simply to attract the subject to the object of his love. This difference in the acts explains why the name generation is applicable only to the act of the intellect. Generation is essentially the production of like by like. And no process which is not essentially of that character can claim the name.

The doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit by means of the act of the Divine will is due entirely to Augustine. It is nowhere found among the Greeks, who simply declare the procession of the Spirit to be beyond our comprehension, nor is it found in the Latins before his time. He mentions the opinion with favour in the "De fide et symbolo" (A.D. 393); and in the "De Trinitate" (A.D. 415) develops it at length. His teaching was accepted by the West. The Scholastics seek for Scriptural support for it in the name Holy Spirit. This must, they argue, be, like the names Father and Son, a name expressive of a relation within the Godhead proper to the Person who bears it. Now the attribute holy, as applied to person or thing, signifies that the being of which it is affirmed is devoted to God. It follows therefore that, when applied to a Divine Person as designating the relation uniting Him to the other Persons, it must signify that the procession determining His origin is one which of its nature involves devotion to God. But that by which any person is devoted to God is love. The argument is ingenious, but hardly convincing; and the same may be said of a somewhat similar piece of reasoning regarding the name Spirit (I:36:1). The Latin theory is a noble effort of the human reason to penetrate the verities which revelation has left veiled in mystery. It harmonizes, as we have said, with all the truths of faith. It is admirably adapted to assist us to a fuller comprehension of the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion. But more than this must not be claimed. It does not possess the sanction of revelation.

C. The Divine Relations

The existence of relations in the Godhead may be immediately inferred from the doctrine of processions, and as such is a truth of Revelation. Where there is a real procession the principle and the term are really related. Hence, both the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit must involve the existence of real and objective relations. This part of Trinitarian doctrine was familiar to the Greek Fathers. In answer to the Eunomian objection, that consubstantiality rendered any distinction between the Persons impossible, Gregory of Nyssa replies: "Though we hold that the nature [in the Three Persons] is not different, we do not deny the difference arising in regard of the source and that which proceeds from the source [ten katato aition kai to aitiaton diaphoran]; but in this alone do we admit that one Person differs from another" ("Quod non sunt tres dii"; cf. Gregory Nazianzen, "Or. theol.", V, ix; John Damascene, "F.O.", I, viii). Augustine insists that of the ten Aristotelean categories two, stance and relation, are found in God ("De Trin.", V, v). But it was at the hands the Scholastic theologians that the question received its full development. The results to which they led, though not to be reckoned as part of the dogma, were found to throw great light upon the mystery, and to be of vast service in the objections urged against it.

From the fact that there are two processions in Godhead, each involving both a principle and term, it follows that there must be four relations, two origination (paternitas and spiratio) and two of procession (filiatio and processio). These relations are what constitute the distinction between the Persons. They cannot be digtinguished by any absolute attribute, for every absolute attribute must belong to the infinite Divine Nature and this is common to the Three Persons. Whatever distinction there is must be in the relations alone. This conclusion is held as absolutely certain by all theologians. Equivalently contained in the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, it was clearly enunciated by St. Anselm ("De process. Sp. S.", ii) and received ecclesiastical sanction in the "Decretum pro Jacobitis" in the form: "[In divinis] omnia sunt unum ubi non obviat relationis oppositio." Since this is so, it is manifest that the four relations suppose but Three Persons. For there is no relative opposition between spiration on the one hand and either paternity or filiation on the other. Hence the attribute of spiration is found in conjunction with each of these, and in virtue of it they are each distinguished from procession. As they share one and the same Divine Nature, so they possess the same virtus spirationis, and thus constitute a single originating principle of the Holy Spirit.

Inasmuch as the relations, and they alone, are distinct realities in the Godhead, it follows that the Divine Persons are none other than these relations. The Father is the Divine Paternity, the Son the Divine Filiation, the Holy Spirit the Divine Procession. Here it must be borne in mind that the relations are not mere accidental determinations as these abstract terms might suggest. Whatever is in God must needs be subsistent. He is the Supreme Substance, transcending the divisions of the Aristotelean categories. Hence, at one and the same time He is both substance and relation. (How it is that there should be in God real relations, though it is altogether impossible that quantity or quality should be found in Him, is a question involving a discussion regarding the metaphysics of relations, which would be out of place in an article such as the present.)

It will be seen that the doctrine of the Divine relations provides an answer to the objection that the dogma of the Trinity involves the falsity of the axiom that things which are identical with the same thing are identical one with another. We reply that the axiom is perfectly true in regard to absolute entities, to which alone it refers. But in the dogma of the Trinity when we affirm that the Father and Son are alike identical with the Divine Essence, we are affirming that the Supreme Infinite Substance is identical not with two absolute entities, but with each of two relations. These relations, in virtue of their nature as correlatives, are necessarily opposed the one to the other and therefore different. Again it is said that if there are Three Persons in the Godhead none can be infinite, for each must lack something which the others possess. We reply that a relation, viewed precisely as such, is not, like quantity or quality, an intrinsic perfection. When we affirm again it is relation of anything, we affirm that it regards something other than itself. The whole perfection of the Godhead is contained in the one infinite Divine Essence. The Father is that Essence as it eternally regards the Son and the Spirit; the Son is that Essence as it eternally regards the Father and the Spirit; the Holy Spirit is that Essence as it eternally regards the Father and the Son. But the eternal regard by which each of the Three Persons is constituted is not an addition to the infinite perfection of the Godhead.

The theory of relations also indicates the solution to the difficulty now most frequently proposed by anti-Trinitarians. It is urged that since there are Three Persons there must be three self-consciousnesses: but the Divine mind ex hypothesi is one, and therefore can possess but one self-consciousness; in other words, the dogma contains an irreconcilable contradiction. This whole objection rests on a petitio principii: for it takes for granted the identification of person and of mind with self-consciousness. This identification is rejected by Catholic philosophers as altogether misleading. Neither person nor mind is self-consciousness; though a person must needs possess self-consciousness, and consciousness attests the existence of mind (see PERSONALITY). Granted that in the infinite mind, in which the categories are transcended, there are three relations which are subsistent realities, distinguished one from another in virtue of their relative opposition then it will follow that the same mind will have a three-fold consciousness, knowing itself in three ways in accordance with its three modes of existence. It is impossible to establish that, in regard of the infinite mind, such a supposition involves a contradiction.

The question was raised by the Scholastics: In what sense are we to understand the Divine act of generation? As we conceive things, the relations of paternity and filiation are due to an act by which the Father generates the Son; the relations of spiration and procession, to an act by which Father and Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit. St. Thomas replies that the acts are identical with the relations of generation and spiration; only the mode of expression on our part is different (I:41:3, ad 2). This is due to the fact that the forms alike of our thought and our language are moulded upon the material world in which we live. In this world origination is in every case due to the effecting of a change. We call the effecting of the change action, and its reception passion. Thus, action and passion are different from the permanent relations consequent on them. But in the Godhead origination is eternal: it is not the result of change. Hence the term signifying action denotes not the production of the relation, but purely the relation of the Originator to the Originated. The terminology is unavoidable because the limitations of our experience force us to represent this relation as due to an act. Indeed throughout this whole subject we are hampered by the imperfection of human language as an instrument wherewith to express verities higher than the facts of the world. When, for instance, we say that the Son possesses filiation and spiration the terms seem to suggest that these are forms inherent in Him as in a subject. We know, indeed, that in the Divine Persons there can be no composition: they are absolutely simple. Yet we are forced to speak thus: for the one Personality, not withstanding its simplicity, is related to both the others, and by different relations. We cannot express this save by attributing to Him filiation and spiration (I:32:2).

D. Divine Mission

It has been seen that every action of God in regard of the created world proceeds from the Three Persons indifferently. In what sense, then, are we to understand such texts as "God sent . . . his Son into the world" (John 3:17), and "the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father" (John 15:26)? What is meant by the mission of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? To this it is answered that mission supposes two conditions:

That the person sent should in some way proceed from the sender and
that the person sent should come to be at the place indicated.
The procession, however, may take place in various ways -- by command, or counsel, or even origination. Thus we say that a king sends a messenger, and that a tree sends forth buds. The second condition, too, is satisfied either if the person sent comes to be somewhere where previously he was not, or if, although he was already there, he comes to be there in a new manner. Though God the Son was already present in the world by reason of His Godhead, His Incarnation made Him present there in a new way. In virtue of this new presence and of His procession from the Father, He is rightly said to have been sent into the world. So, too, in regard to the mission of the Holy Spirit. The gift of grace renders the Blessed Trinity present to the soul in a new manner: that is, as the object of direct, though inchoative, knowledge and as the object of experimental love. By reason of this new mode of presence common to the whole Trinity, the Second and the Third Persons, inasmuch as each receives the Divine Nature by means of a procession, may be said to be sent into the soul.[QUOTE]

PS) Just a note. Lets not take offence towards each others' perspectives (even LittleLess' after all he's a regular poster and even if he often refuses our answers he does raise controversial issues, which probably burn in the minds of many of the lurkers here at phatmass). The West has always had a tendency to look at the Trinity in a way that tends towards modalism and the East in a way that tends towards subordinationism. Both schools have their origin in the age of the Apostolic Fathers and are equally as antiquated and venerable. If Our Fathers' in the faith could co-exist in the Church in spite of the diverging ways in which the Latins and Greeks look at Almighty God I dont believe we should make an issue out of it either.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 2 2005, 08:33 AM']
This theological formulation holds only within the Western tradition. As a Byzantine I do not hold to the doctrine of the Trinity in this way.

RESPONSE:

Yes. You've hit upon another thread that perhaps we can cover later. There are different versions for the doctrine of the Trinity.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 2 2005, 08:29 AM']The mystery of the Trinity is not irrational, rather it is meta-rational.  It is beyond man's intellect, but then God is beyond all categories of human thought.

In other words, the paradoxes within theology are the revelation of God.
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[/quote]

RESPONSE:

That's the "traditional" way of explaining a contradiction when apologists have just run out of creativity!

Behod! Another mystery!

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Myles' date='Sep 2 2005, 09:41 AM'][url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm#V"]The old Catholic encyclopedia's article on the Holy Trinity[/url] may come from a text that offers an out of date perspective on the theology of East ecumenically speaking I think it offers a fair appraisal of the diffrerences between the Occident and Orient in Triadology:

[/quote]

RESPONSE:

Yes indeed! Different strokes for different folks.

Have you ever thought of simply summarizing the material and then giving a citation? It would save a lot of space and evidence that you've read the material!