9: History of the Doctrine of the Trinity

Question 1

What was the problem of the early church that brought into being the discussion about the Trinity?

Answer 1

• “How do we affirm monotheism in light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ?”
• Affirming both the Shema and the divinity of Christ

Question 2

What are the four methods/traditions in talking about the Trinity in the early church?

Answer 2

1. Adoptionism
   
   • Jesus became son of God by divine appointment
2. Identity
   
   • No distinction between the Father and son
3. Subordinationism
   
   • Jesus is less God than the Father
4. Distinction
   
   • The three persons are separate but all divine within a monotheistic understanding of God

Question 3

What are the two major forms of Adoptionism?

Answer 3

1. Ebionites
2. Dynamic Monarchianism

Question 4

What are some characteristics of the Ebionites?

Answer 4

1. Represented a Jewish-Christian synthesis
   
   1. Synthesis of YHWHism, Pharisaic commitment to the law for salvation, and Jesus
2. Jesus interpreted through YHWHism and the Mosaic law
3. Jesus’s mission was exemplary rather than redemptive
4. Jesus becomes a prophet of the law
5. Anti-trinitarian

Question 5

What is the definition of Monarchianism?

Answer 5

Defended the monarchy, unity, or simplicity of God over-against the polytheism and dualisms of Gnosticism.

Question 6

What are some rationalist presuppositions of Monarchianism?

Answer 6

1. Divine Simplicity: God is a simple being. He is nondivisible
2. Monotheism: God is one
3. Radical Transcendence: The dichotomy between spiritual and material reality
4. The idea of an incarnation is nonsensical and impossible

Question 7

What is meant by “simplicity”?

Answer 7

• God is not composed of parts as is everything else that exists. This attribute of God is, of course, related to many others, such as his changelessness. If God has no parts, God cannot change, since there are no parts for him to lose or gain.

Question 8

Who was one major proponent of Monarchianism?

Answer 8

Theodotus of Byzantium (ca.190)

“If the Father is one and the Son another, and if the Father is God and Christ God, then there is not one God, but two Gods are simultaneously brought forward, the Father and the Son.”

Question 9

What is another name for the Identity method/tradition?

Answer 9

Modalistic Monarchianism (Modalism)

Question 10

What is the difference between Modalists and Dynamic Monarchists?

Answer 10

The Modalists also emphasized the unity and simplicity of God, but unlike the Dynamic Monarchians, the Modalists did not want to limit or deny the deity of Christ.

Question 11

What are the fundamental commitments of Modalism?

Answer 11

1. Divine simplicity (no parts)
2. The unity of God. God is one (monotheism)
3. Christ is God

Question 12

What was the contribution of Praxeas (c. 210) to Modalism?

Answer 12

1. Father is the godhead (Monarchianism)
2. God projects himself in different ways according to historical circumstances

Question 13

What was the contribution of Sabellius to Modalism?

Answer 13

1. If Christ is God then he must be identical with the Father; otherwise, he could not be God
2. Patripassionism - the Father also suffered at the cross

Question 14

What is the ontological analogy in Modalism?

Answer 14

1. The Father is the sun
2. The Son is the sun (The Father) as it is seen
3. The Spirit is the sun (The Father) as is it felt within our hearts

Question 15

What is the historical analogy in Modalism?

Answer 15

1. The Old Testament: The age of the Father
2. The Gospel era: The age of the Son
3. The Epistolary era: The age of the Spirit

Thus, God wears 3 different masks (prosopoi), or plays 3 different historical roles, as he performs a number of operations.

Question 16

What does the term “economic Trinity” refer to?

Answer 16

• the manifestation of the three persons of the Trinity in relationship to the world, particularly in regard to the outworking of God’s plan (economy) of salvation”

Question 17

What was Tertullian’s contribution to the Trinitarian issue?

Answer 17

• real distinction between persons, not substance
• coined the term trinitas
• began to use the terms persona and substantia
• Biblical and historical portrayal rather than philosophical
  
  • “God is essentially one but becomes three in his relating to history.”

Question 18

What was Origen of Alexandria’s contribution to Derivation (Subordinationism)?

Answer 18

• As a platonist, he was more interested in philosophical reflection
• The Father alone is God in the proper sense, for he alone is ungenerated (unchanging).
• The Son is divine only as he participates in the Father; The Holy Spirit is divine, but not quite deity.
• eternal generation of the Son

Question 19

What does the term “immanent (ontological) Trinity” refer to?

Answer 19

• A theory of the Trinity concerned to explain the internal workings and relationships among the three persons of the Trinity.
• Statements about the immanent Trinity seek to give language to the inexpressible mystery of what God is like apart from reference to God’s dealings with creation

Question 20

What was Arianism’s contribution to Derivation (Subordinationism)?

Answer 20

• The Father is the source of all things.
• Being generated, the Son is a creature of the Father
• The Son cannot be of the Father’s essence. If he were, the divine essence would be capable of being divided or communicated, and God would no longer be simple
• “There was a time when he was not”
• The Son was the first of all creatures (tertium quid)

Question 21

What was Arianism’s appeal?

Answer 21

• Made it easy to conceive:
  
  • how the Son could suffer and die
  • Jesus’ descent from heaven, a heavenly creature (tertium quid) being transformed into a human being, but not an incarnation of God.
• Protected:
  
  • the transcendence of God
  • the oneness of God

Question 22

What were the three affirmations of the Council of Nicea?

Answer 22

• The Son is homoousios (consubstantial) of the Father (ὁμοούσιον τῳ πατρι)
• Christ is true God of true God
• Christ is begotten not made (γεννηθεντα ου ποιηθεντα)

Question 23

What are some trinitarian terms?

Answer 23

• essence/nature (gr.: ousia, lat.: essentia/substantia)
• person (gr.:hypostasis/prosopon, lat.: persona)
• of the same stuff (gr.: homoousion, lat.: consubstantia)
• interpenetration (gr.: perichoresis, lat.: circuminsessio)

Question 24

What was Athanasius of Alexandria’s contribution to the Trinitarian issue?

Answer 24

• The recognition that the doctrine of the Trinity is not the result of theological speculation, but rather divine action in history.
• Recognition of the limits of theological language in relationship to describing God

Question 25

What was Athanasius defense against Arius (Arianism)

Answer 25

1. Only God can save
2. Jesus is the Savior
3. Therefore, Jesus is God
4. No creature can redeem another creature
5. According to Arius, Jesus is a creature.
6. Therefore, according to Arius, Jesus cannot redeem humanity.

Question 26

What was the contribution of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed to Trinitarian dialogue?

Answer 26

1. Standarized trinitarian language
   
   • one ousia in three hypostases
2. Included the Holy Spirit
3. Omitted the anathemas against Arians
4. Set the creedal understanding of God in the Eastern church
5. Established Trinity as the Christian doctrine of God

Question 27

How are Nicea and Constantinople compared?

Answer 27

1. As Nicea was concentrated on the Son; Constantinople was concentrated on the Spirit.
2. Beginnings of Western/Eastern church split
   
   • Constantinople shifts the focus from one ousia to three hypostases
3. Subtle softening of subordinationism in the East

Question 28

What was the Filioque controversy?

Answer 28

1. Constantiople said that the Spirit “proceeded from the son.”
2. In a synod in Toledo (589), the phrase “and from the son” (filioque) was added
   
   • This became binding on the Western church, but the Eastern church rejected it.
   • This became the division between the Catholic and the Orthodox tradition

Question 29

Why did the Eastern church reject the filioque clause?

Answer 29

they thought that the procession of the Spirit from the Son violated the monarchy of the Father.

Question 30

What were some characteristics of the Western church?

Answer 30

1. The essence of God has precedence over the persons.
2. If the Spirit is understood as a bond of love between the Father and the Son (Augustinian analogy), it may be asked whether he is properly considered to be a person in his own right.
3. Threat = modalism
4. Trinity became more a mathematical conundrum than a matter of everyday life and worship

Question 31

What were some characteristics of the Eastern church?

Answer 31

1. Starts with the three persons
2. The monarchy of the Father is a key factor.
   • The Father, rather than the divine essence, is the fount of the divine nature in the Son and the Spirit.
3. threat = tritheism; monarchy of the Father as a safeguard
4. a “Biblical and Orthodox subordinationism” is maintained, with the Father being the origin of all divine being and action.
5. The Trinity is more central to the life and worship

Question 32

As New Testament believers, should we begin with 3 or 1?

Answer 32

1. The OT emphasizes the oneness but, as revelation is progressive, the NT tells us more about God’s identity than the OT does
2. Both Deut.6 and 1 Cor.8:6 reveal the one God of the biblical story.
   
   • Yet in the NT, the one God is understood in terms of the distinction of the Son from the Father’s person. The mystery is the one.