2B: The Trinity

Question 1

What is the Trinity?

Answer 1

• for most Christians, God exists as three Persons - Father (Creator), Son (Redeemer) and Holy Spirit (Sustainer).
• Trinity was needed to define the relationship between the three Persons.

Question 2

What does the doctrine assert?

Answer 2

• The Father, Son and HS are three distinct persons
• Each person is fully God, the three are coexistent, coeternal and coequal
• there is only one God; the doctrine does not split God into three parts.

Question 3

Why was the doctrine of the Trinity needed?

Answer 3

• arose as the early church was faced with addressing problems of heresy.

e.g.:
+ Arianism: the belief that Jesus was the highest of al created being but not of the same substance as God
+ Sabellianism: the belief that Jesus was divine but not human
+ Adoptionism: the belief that Jesus was an ordinary man who became the Son of God only at his baptism

Question 4

Biblical foundations of the doctrine of the Trinity - OT:

Answer 4

• God refers to himself in the plural
• e.g. in Genesis 1:26-27, God refers to himself in the plural ‘Let us make humankind in our image’

Question 5

Biblical foundations of the doctrine of the Trinity - NT:

Answer 5

• Jesus is often referred to as God.
• e.g. John 1 says that Jesus was the word and that all things were created through him

Question 6

Biblical foundations of the doctrine of the Trinity - the Holy Spirit:

Answer 6

• referred to God
• John 14-23 the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is linked to the indwelling of Jesus and his father

Question 7

What is the Filioque Controversy - Council of Nicea?

Answer 7

• doctrine of the Trinity was first formalised at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE. The creed states simply that Christians believe ‘in the Holy Spirit’. There is no elaboration

Question 8

What is the Filioque Controversy - Council of Constantinople?

Answer 8

• 381 CE, the Nicene Creed was amended to contain the following ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father’.
• all churches represented at the Council has agreed to this new wording.

Question 9

What is the Filioque Controversy - Council of Toledo?

Answer 9

• In 529 CE, there was another change, ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son’.
• its inclusion in the Nicene Creed caused a controversy, which has lasted until this day

Question 10

Why was filioque added?

Answer 10

• to reflect the thinking of several influential theologians, e.g. Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Alexandria, all of whom had written of the HS proceeding ‘from the Father and the Son’
• idea has become widely accepted in the Latin-speaking west, but not in Greek-speaking east.
• however was added without the agreement of five patriarchs of the church (e.g. patriarchs of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and Constantinople)

Question 11

Is the filioque dispute still evident?

Answer 11

• lasted for six centuries, but did not itself divide the church.
• Pope Benedict VIII agreed to use the word for the first time at Mass in Rome in 1014 CE. Forty years later, Rome accused the Eastern Church of heresy for not accepting filioque.
• this charge, along with other issues based on misunderstandings between Greek and Latin traditions, led to the Great Schism of1054 CE which divided the Eastern and Western church and has continued to this day

Question 12

What is the Immanent Trinity?

Answer 12

• signifies what God is (i.e. the three Persons)

Question 13

What is the Economic Trinity?

Answer 13

• signifies what God does (i.e. creator, redeemer and sustainer)

Question 14

Immanent and Economic Trinity - Western church:

Answer 14

• accepted Augustine’s argument that humans can know the Trinity from their own experience as there are traces of the Trinity in the human soul. He doesn’t differentiate between the Immanent and Economic Trinity.
• since the HS acts within the Trinity as the bond of love between the Father and Son, it follows HS must proceed from both. Since the HS acts in humans to unite them too with the Father and Son, human beings can derive the nature from God from this experience

Question 15

Immanent and Economic Trinity - Eastern church:

Answer 15

• Augustine’s argument was unacceptable as human beings cannot base the doctrine of the Trinity on their own experience.
• this confuses the incomprehensible structure of the Trinity with its actions. It also makes the nature of God dependent upon human beings.
• therefore the Immanent Trinity is not the same as the Economic Trinity.

Question 16

Modern developments of the Trinity?

Answer 16

-Enlightenment theological found it problematic, as did Friedrich Schleiermacher who tried to reconcile Enlightenment theology with traditional Christian beliefs. He dismissed the Trinity in a 14-page appendix of ‘The Christian Faith’ (1821)

Question 17

Karl Barth’s development of the Trinity:

Question 18

Problems with the modern developments:

Answer 18

• for the Eastern Orthodox Church, its merging of the Immanent Trinity and Economic Trinity and its endorsement of the filioque clause make it a heresy. Suggests all three parts of the Trinity aren’t equal
• western theologians, including Moltmann, have complained the use of the term ‘Seinsweise’ instead of the term ‘Person’ to refer to members of the Godhead brings to mind the heresy of modalism. Modalism teaches that God is a single Person who has revealed himself in three different modes throughout history. As a result, there is the loss of coexistence.
• it does not distinguish between the Father, the Son and the HS
• sees the Father, Son and HS as one Hod in eternal repetition. This must mean all three Persons must exist after one another, never at the same time. This destroys the eternal unity of Godhead.

Question 19

Answers to the criticisms of modern development?

Answer 19

• the western church has for centuries accepted the merging of the Immanent Trinity and the Economic Trinity and the filioque clause
• ## while Barth does use ‘seinsweise’ he does so in order to avoid confusion about the word ‘person’ with ‘personality’ To say that God has three personalities is Tritheism. There are three modes but one personality.

Question 20

Answers to the criticisms of modern development?

Answer 20

• the western church has for centuries accepted the merging of the Immanent Trinity and the Economic Trinity and the filioque clause
• while Barth does use ‘seinsweise’ he does so in order to avoid confusion about the word ‘person’ with ‘personality’ To say that God has three personalities is Tritheism. There are three modes but one personality.
• Barth distinguishes the Father from the Son y the use of Greek term ‘Logos asarkos’ for the Son. This means the ‘Word without flesh’, i.e. God the Son as he lived in the Godhead, distinct from God the Father, before the incarnation. The Son of God is the title for the eternal Word, the Son of Man i the title for Jesus reincarnated. Thus while the three modes of being in the Godhead exist in perfect unity, the second mode has a distinct place, and becomes Jesus of Nazareth.