Understanding Trinitarian Dogma: Getting Inside the Mind of the Greek Fathers
Fr. Paul Martin
Preface
Many find trinitarian dogma difficult. They believe it best to affirm it without thinking much about it. So today I’ll talk about this dogma in a way that I hope will be clear to those of us who are not theologians. Trinitarian dogma is not theoretical. It is Scriptural. It is divine revelation, and it is accessible. If you take the time to reflect on this mystery, you will learn more about God and about yourself (since you are in God’s image!). You will begin to see how trinitarian dogma can illuminate your own life. For our God is not a distant god. He is our personal God, and this is a fact of history confessed in our Creed and celebrated in Orthodox worship.
But there is another reason for learning about trinitarian dogma. Christianity is in crisis, with many Muslims now finding a home in America and the West. Muslims, Jews and advocates of Far Eastern religions deny the Trinity, and all Christians must be prepared to defend our faith when challenged by non-Christians who do not understand that our faith is strictly monotheistic. Especially today, in a multi-cultural world, we must become knowledgeable about all aspects of our faith, beginning with this most fundamental of Church dogmas.
Introduction
The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was formed by the Greek Church fathers in the 4th century. For the sake of convenience, many call it simply the Nicene Creed, after the 1st Ecumenical Council held at Nicea in the year 325, but it came to completion at the 2nd Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople in the year 381.
As Christ’s Body, we Orthodox say the Creed (“the Symbol of Faith”) at every Divine Liturgy. Here it is:
I believe in one God, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not created, of one essence with the Father through Whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried; And He rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father; And He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life (zoodochos, ζωοδόχος), Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the prophets.
In one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.
Amen.
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The problems faced by the Church fathers who penned our Creed were twofold. At Nicea, they needed to articulate a response to the Alexandrian priest Arius, who argued that the Son was created by the Father and was therefore of a different essence or nature. Arius was leading many astray, so it was crucial that the Church clarify her understanding of the Son as the divine Word (the Logos of John 1:1) Who is one with the Father and thus divine, exactly as the Father is divine. Then, at the 2nd Ecumenical Council, the fathers formed our theology of the Holy Spirit, articulating how the three divine Persons must be understood as subsisting in one God, thus countering the charge of polytheism, the existence of multiple gods. By the end of the 4th century, Christian trinitarian theology was formalized as dogma. This was mainly the work of three Cappadocians: St. Basil the Great, his brother St. Gregory Nyssa, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus.
And it depended on the formulation of precise terminology.
Ousia and Hypostasis
Two Greek words have key importance in Orthodox trinitarian theology: ousia (οὐσία), meaning “nature, essence, substance, or being”, and hypostasis (ὑπόστασις), meaning “manifestation”. In pre-Christian Greek philosophy, these terms were seen to be synonymous: hypostasis was taken to have the same meaning as ousia and both terms referred to something’s nature. But given the New Testament’s revelation of three manifestations of divine nature—the three divine Persons—the Greek fathers realized that new wine requires new wine skins (ref. 9:17, Lk. 5:37), and so they set about the task of rethinking the philosophy of being— that is, ontology. And in doing so, they defined the concept of personhood, which is a hallmark of Western civilization, setting Christianity apart from all other world religions, cultures, and philosophies.
The Greek word hypostasis is a compound term consisting of the prefix hypo (ὑπό), meaning “under” or “below”, and stasis (στάσις), meaning “standing”. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Church fathers came to see that this term could be applied to the Son and the Holy Spirit, those two divine hypostases or manifestations (Persons) that stand under the authority of the one single hypostasis from Whom they receive their divine being, their uncreated nature (ousia)—the Father. For the Father “stands” on Himself—He IS God, He IS divine being, He IS divine, uncreated nature—while the Son and the Spirit stand under the Father, receiving their divine, uncreated nature from the Father. Nothing can stand above the Father, and we can know absolutely nothing about the Father, except what is revealed to us by the Son (cf. Matthew 11:27)—for the Father and the Son are one (cf. Jn. 10:30).
Nature is Manifested in Persons
The Greek fathers who defined Christian trinitarian theology understood that the nature (ousia) of anything must be brought into existence to have stasis or “standing”—that is, to be realized. Human nature, for instance, does not exist as an abstraction or a mere idea. Human nature is always manifested— hypostatized in a specific person or persons as that which is held equally in common, for human nature is one. And so these fathers declared that divine nature is hypostatizedin three divine Persons, and that the Source of divine nature must be understood as the Person of the Father, the one God by nature as revealed in Holy Scripture. For it is the Father Who shares His divine nature with the Son and the Holy Spirit.
This is the theology of divine Unity in Diversity as revealed in Holy Scripture and articulated by the Greek fathers.
To the patristic mind, which is the mind of the Orthodox Church, divinity is both personal and hierarchical: the Father as God, the single Source of divinity, comes first among equals, then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit. Although the Son and the Holy Spirit have the very same uncreated nature received from the Father and are therefore equal to the Father—of one essence with the Father—their equality is expressed in two different ways, as revealed in Holy Scripture.
Eternal Begottenness and Eternal Procession
According to the Creed, the Son is “begotten of the Father before all ages”—He is eternally begotten of the Father. The word “begotten” was carefully chosen by the Greek Church fathers with reference to Matthew 1:1-17, the genealogy of Jesus Christ “Son of David” according to the flesh (the forty-two generations beginning with Abraham who begets Jacob, proceeding to Jesse who begets David the King, and ending with “Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ”). Jesus Christ is made “incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary”, as stated in the Creed, but He is begotten of the Father. For Jesus Christ has no human father. God is His Father, and He takes human flesh from the Virgin Mary who completes the generations leading to Christ. Thus, Christ’s eternal begottenness is understood analogically—just as human beings beget other human beings, God begets God. This is how we know that the Son is of the very same nature, essence or being as the Father, and that Jesus Christ, as the one and only God-man, has two natures (divine and human) that become one in His Person at the Incarnation. But the manner of this becoming is beyond our grasp, for it is “without change, without confusion, without separation, and without division” (as clarified at the Council of Chalcedon in 451). It is characteristic of the Greek fathers to go only so far in applying logic to mystery. We can know no more about Jesus Christ’s eternal begottenness or about the Incarnation than what is stated in the Creed, which closely references Holy Scripture.
But what about the Holy Spirit? Is He begotten of the Father? He is not. According to Holy Scripture, He proceeds from the Father, and this is precisely understood as His eternal procession from the Father, which is a way of saying that the Source of His being is the Father. This understanding is Scriptural, as Jesus affirms:
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me (Jn 15:26).
In other words, while Jesus Christ sends the Holy Spirit to us in time, this “Comforter”—this “Spirit of truth” Who testifies of Christ and is one with the Father by nature—is outside of space and time. The dogma concerning the Holy Spirit (“Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the prophets”) was added to the Creed at the 2nd Ecumenical Council in Constantinople to affirm the ontological (absolute) equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.
A Western Innovation
This is why the Orthodox Church rejects the filioque, the Western doctrine holding that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son (filioque is a Latin term meaning “and the Son”) and is therefore ontologically subordinate to the Son. This understanding is neither Scriptural nor logical. For while it is proper to say that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son to us in time, it is improper to say that the Holy Spirit has His Source in both the Father and the Son—since both the Holy Scriptures and logic dictate that there can be only one divine Source, one God. Besides, the filioque leads to a heterodox understanding of divine ousia, as some abstract, impersonal nature shared by all three Persons, while Holy Scripture reveals that the Source of divinity is the Person of the Father. For this Source must be Personal; it cannot be abstract.
The Greek Church fathers strictly adhered to both Testaments of Holy Scripture when articulating Christian trinitarian theology. They said that we could know no more about God than what is revealed to us, and they understood the function of each divine Person as distinct: the Father is the unbegotten divine Source, the Son is His only-begotten eternal Word or Logos Who gives meaning and order to the cosmos, and the Holy Spirit is the Life-giver (zoodochos, ζωοδόχος) Who proceeds from the Father. But the Father is the Creator, not the Holy Spirit, as some wrongly say. For the Father created “all things visible and invisible” (as stated in the Creed). Thus, St. Irenaeus of Lyons (125-202) could rightly call the Son and the Holy Spirit “the two hands of God” by Whom all of creation is sustained.
Three Metaphors
Although merely suggestive, metaphors can shed some light on trinitarian dogma. There are many, but I’ll mention three. Some like the egg metaphor: an egg is one thing consisting of three parts, a shell, the egg-white, and the yoke (although God does not have parts!). Tradition ascribes to St. Patrick the metaphor of a three-petaled clover having a common stem; the petals are distinct and yet the clover is one, drawing life from the stem. In his Epistle 38, St. Basil the Great provided what I think is one of the best analogies. He likened the Trinity to a rainbow. He said, “A rainbow’s brilliance is both continuous and divided”; the colors are distinct and variegated, and yet they are unconfused, making a wondrous oneness as the sun shines through mist. The rainbow exists because of the sun. These three metaphors provide us with mental images that may be helpful, but no metaphor can articulate trinitarian dogma. And the fathers needed to articulatethis fundamental mystery in new, precise terminology, to address heresies that had been articulated in philosophical terms.
Our Liturgical Affirmation and Celebration of Trinitarian Dogma
The trinitarian dogma of the Orthodox Church is affirmed by faithful Orthodox Christians in all the world to this day. There is indeed one God—the unbegotten Father, from Whom the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds. There is one divine nature (ousia) belonging to the Father and shared equally among the divine hypostases, the three divine Persons. This dogma is fundamental to our faith; it is Creedal. But it is important to understand that it is not only affirmed, it is celebrated at every Divine Liturgy. For all members of the Church—all who have been baptized into Christ and receive His Body and Blood within “the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church”—become sons and daughters of the Father through the Son and by grace have Christ’s Father for their Father. And it is the Holy Spirit, the Life-giver, Who abides in the faithful, Who inspires the faithful, Who comes down to bless the faithful at the Consecration of the Divine Liturgy—so that we and our gifts of bread and wine become one with Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ by the uncreated grace of the Holy Spirit—that divine Person Who proceeds from the Father to guide that Community instituted by Jesus Christ, “the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church”—the Body of Christ.