Early Efforts at Understanding the Trinity Contribution of the Early Church Fathers

Irenaeus The starting point: the economic trinity. This means the divine activity of the triune God in creation and salvation history. Reflection on God then must begin with this - it must start from the biblical data, the data of God's self-revelation in history. One has to start from the actual faith and the evidence of the bible. Without this starting point, speculation about the trinity can become "flights of fancy."

Economic Trinity - the triune God in the economy of salvation Immanent Trinity - inner life of the triune God in himself..

The trinitarian doctrine stresses on the salvific dimension of the Trinity. This is what ultimately matters, since God's revelation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is made through God's saving action. Irenaeus stresses the pre-existence of the Son and his true communion with the Father. He emphasizes the intimate relationship of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father and with one another by describing them as the Father's two hands.

Origen the Trinity as an eternal dynamism of communication: it is not a reality complete in itself but as a process in everlasting realization. God is one but not alone. As light gives brightness, so the Father originates the Son (Logos) and Father and Logos originate the Holy Spirit. Origen was the first to use the word hypostasis (individual) to characterize the three divine persons in God..

The distinction between the Persons is everlasting, thereby avoiding modalism. But his understanding of the dynamism of the Trinity produces a strong tendency to subordinationism: the Father lets the Son come out of himself, and then the Holy Spirit. They are not three origins, but rather the Son and Spirit are derivations of one origin of all divinity and action, the Father. This view of the Trinity as an play of relationships and communications based on three distinct Persons became a fruitful source for later development of trinitarian thought.

Tertullian He has created a language of trinitarian orthodoxy that would avoid the pitfalls of both modalism and subordinationism. He coined the term trinitas and the formula which came to express true faith in the triune God: "one substance, three persons"

Tertullian's central thesis: "the trinity derives from unity itself Tertullian's central thesis: "the trinity derives from unity itself." God is not just single, but one. God is an entity not closed in on himself, but a reality in process, a self-distribution constituting second and third persons who form part of God's substance and action. These two persons are distinct but not divided, different but not separate.

The process is eternal, since the Father is always generating the Son out of himself; the same Father through the Son also eternally generates the Holy Spirit. SUBSTANCE is what embodies the unity of the divine Three; PERSON denotes what distinguishes them. In God there exists the unity of equal substance in Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the diversity of Persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which derives from this substance. This substance, by eternally communicating itself, maintains communion and unity with its communications. In other words, the unity of God is always a unity of Persons; the oneness of God results from the Three.

Thus, Tertullian laid down the basic lines of Trinitarian understanding. However, he did not work out the relationship between the three persons.

Cappadocian Fathers The three great theologians of Cappadocia in Asia minor: St. Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa and their friend Gregory of Nazianzen. They developed what was lacking in Tertullian - reflection on the relationship between the three divine persons. Their starting point: not the unity of the divine nature but the three divine persons as the basic reality.

The unity that forms the essence of the Persons springs from the COMMUNION and relationship between them. [the trinitarian koinonia or communion - perichoretic relationship]. Faith in the Trinity affirms the objective existence of three Ones, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but does not believe them separate and unrelated. Faith in the Trinity sees the Persons eternally related in an infinite communion. So we can say: the three persons form one communion. Perichoresis (circumincession - the interpenetration of the Persons) is not added to the constitution of the divine persons; it is at their origin, simultaneous with them and constitutive of them.]

To avoid Tritheism we need to consider the peculiarity of each Person, which is always defined in relation to the others, beginning with the Father, source and origin of all divinity. The peculiarity of the Father -to be ungenerated, and to form the source of all divinity The peculiarity of the Son - to be eternally generated by the Father, receiving all his substantial reality from the Father The peculiarity of the Spirit - to proceed from the Father through the Son

The communion between the three is full, since the Father does everything by the Word in the Holy Spirit. The Trinity can only be conceived of as an interplay of mutual relations of truth and love. Their great contribution is to clarify the teaching about the Holy Spirit being truly God, one of the divine persons.

Augustine For him, God is not the Father (as for the majority of Eastern theologians) but the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the only true God - God is the Trinity. The questions that Augustine tried to answer: How are we to believe in one God and a Trinity of Persons? Does proclaiming the oneness of God not preclude any personal differentiation? And does not maintaining personal differentiation do away with God's oneness?

To resolve the problem, Augustine adopts the category of RELATIONSHIP used by the Greek Fathers. Unity belongs to the divine substance (essence or nature) which coexists in each divine persons making the three consubstantial. The Father is eternally Father through having a Son The Son is eternally Son through being the Son of the Father and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit from everlasting through being breathed out by the Father and by the Son. None of them has a beginning or an end.

To elucidate unity in trinity and trinity in unity, Augustine produced two analogies with human beings who are created in the image and likeness of God. He speaks of MIND, KNOWLEDGE AND LOVE or MEMORY, INTELLIGENCE AND WILL. Each of these terms contain the others: the mind knows and loves, knowledge supposes mind and love, love implies mind and knowledge. The three form the human soul. These analogies give us a pale reflection of the unity and distinction that exists in the Trinity.

For Augustine, the three Persons are three respective subjects: that is, they are concerned with one another and related to one another. Being means being-for-itself. Person means being in relation to others or with others. According to Augustine, you will see the Trinity when you see love.

What to call what Differentiates in God: Prosopon (from the Greek - mask). It is what differentiates God. The Greeks used the term to describe what in God is three. Prosopon designates an specific individual reality. (it can be applied to a horse or a plant). Applied to the Trinity it means there are three in God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three are different, specific, objective. What each prosopon is like, this term does not tell us.

Tertullian translated prosopon into the Latin persona, which designated the specific human individual ( a horse or a plant cannot be called a persona). So when Tertullian said that there are three Persons in God, he meant to say that in God there are three specific, distinct, objective realities - Father, Son and Holy Spirit; therefore, three objective individualities. So we can say that in God there are three prosopa or personae, that is specific individualities, which the New Testament calls Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

What to call what unites in God: Hypostasis expresses the unity of God, it is what unites the three persons. Hypostasis - from the greek word - "what lies under" . It is used as a synonym for ousia, essence. Essence is that by which a thing is what it is. So in God there is one hypostasis, one ousia or essence, and three Persons. hypostasis was translated into Latin as substantia. So substance means the same as essense, what underlies, is constant, stable. So the Latins said that in God there are one substantia, and three personae, one substance and three persons.

The Greeks found themselves obliged to abandon the term prosopon since the word had come to be used by the modalists to spread their heresy. For the sake of clarity, they replaced prosopon with hypostasis. (thus, three hypostaseis and one ousia) But surely hypostasis was reserved for expressing the unity of God, so how could it now be used to designate what differentiates God? The explanation is that hypostasis is not just an abstract expression meaning "substance" but it could also express an "objective subsisten reality".

Confusion and Clarification of Terms Confusion arose when Latins translated the new sense in which hypostasis used when applied to the three Persons. Instead of translated as persona, they translated literally as substantia (substance, nature, essence). And this was clearly a heresy implying that God had three nature or substance (tri-theism). Thus, they went back to using the term prosopon.

This confusion began in Antioch at the end of the fourth century This confusion began in Antioch at the end of the fourth century. Two bishops had a dispute and created two factions. The first followed Bishop Melecius in conserving the term “three hypostases” for three persons and was supported by the Cappadocian Fathers (this faction risked being understood as supporting tri-theism or subordinationism). The other faction followed Bishop Paulinus, supported by Pope Damasus and St. Athanasius of Alexandria and held the term “three prosopa” (this ran the risk of being understood as modalism.

Agreement was finally achieved by St Agreement was finally achieved by St. Gregory of Nazianzen at the Council of Constantinople in 381 by establishing the equivalence between Greek hypostasis and the Latin persona. The bishops at the council sent a profession of faith to Pope Damasus: we believe in the one divinity and power and substance (ousia) of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the equal dignity and the co-eternal rule in three perfect hypostases (hypostaseis), that is three perfect persons (prosopa).” This combines the two classic technical terms: one essence or substance (ousia) and three persons (hypostaseis or prosopa).

Are Hypostasis and Person Real Equivalents? The Greek and Latin theologians were trying to express the same faith in different words. But the words they used have different connotations and do not always suggest the same reality in Greek as in Latin. The real intention: God co-exists in three distinct subsistents, the distinction between which is not something merely verbal or metaphorical, but something real and definite. Formulation using Christological dogma as paradigm: what in Christ is one (divine person of the Son) is multiple in the Trinity (three persons), what is Christ is multiple (two natures, divine and human) is one in the Trinity (one ousia, substance or nature).

The words used by the Greeks and Latins do have different connotations. The Greeks use hypostasis to express what differentiates in God. In its normal use it designates just something individual and distinct from another (it could be applied to an animal or a plant as well a to a human being, its emphasis being on objectivity, not subjectivity). Applied to the Trinity: there are three objective realities co-existing and distinct from one another – Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the Holy Trinity. (while use in reference to God it may take on a charge of subjectivity, this is not implied by the word itself).

The Latin word persona has a dimension of subjectivity: it impies a conscious subject, not merely an objective and definite reality. So when applied to the Trinity, persona connotes the idea of three bearers of the divine attributes in equal measure – the Three are equally living, life-giving, creators of all, saving ,etc. Thus, the word person evokes three divine Beings.

Are hypostasis and person real equivalent? Yes, in the sense that both Greeks and Latins sought to express that God means three “realities” and therefore God is Trinity. Yes, in the sense that prosopon include a personalist preference. But not in the sense that hypostasis is used without dimension of subjectivity implicit in the Latin persona. Hypostasis affirms the objectivity of the three divine persons and persona their subjectivity.

Although the connotations are different, they complement each other: in the sense that what is objective when we speak of God is God’s nature (ousia or substantia) and what is subjective is the three persons (personae or hypostaseis). The derivation of the Latin understanding of person has gone through a process of deepening in Western theology.

Next meeting: Jan. 9, 2004 Boff, Trinity & Society, “Dogmatic Understanding of the Trinity”, pp. 65-77