The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (part 2 of 2)

“God and his Word and his Spirit are... one God”

    If the Trinity is the one God and Father plus two other persons who fully share his nature and divinity, how is this not three gods? The early Church Fathers often use the relationship between common human nature and particular human persons to illustrate commonality (substance) and particularity (hypostasis) in general, as it also applies to the Trinity. But in the case of multiple human persons, they are referred to as multiple humans, whereas we don’t refer to the three divine persons as three gods. St. Gregory of Nyssa addresses this question in one of his letters to a fellow bishop, Ablabius.

To Ablabius, on “not three gods”

    Ablabius was a fourth-century bishop about whom we know very little, other than that Gregory of Nyssa wrote three letters to him (letters 6, 21, and the one under consideration). [1] Apparently, he was presented with a dilemma by non-trinitarian interlocutors which he couldn’t answer, and he wrote to St. Gregory of Nyssa to help solve the problem. Gregory explains the dilemma at hand as follows:

...we are at first sight compelled to accept one of two erroneous opinions, and either to say “there are three gods,” which is unlawful, or not to acknowledge the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, which is impious and absurd.

The argument which you state is something like this: Peter, James, and John, while belonging to the one human nature, are said to be “three humans”; and it is not absurd by any means that those who are united according to nature, when they are more than one, are enumerated in the plural on the base of the name of nature. So, if in such a case usage permits it and nothing prohibits to say “two” of those that are two or “three” of those that are more than two, how then do we, confessing in the mystical dogmas three hypostases and not admitting any difference between them according to the nature, combat in a certain way the confession of faith from the moment that we speak of the one divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but prohibit to speak of “three gods”?

    St. Gregory goes on to say that to find a solution to this problem would be ideal, but even if one isn’t found, we must keep the tradition received by apostolic succession and ask the Lord for a solution. If he bestows a solution upon anyone by grace, then we should give thanks, but if not, we must hold our faith unchangeably. (As we will see, he does believe there to be a valid solution to the problem.) He offers a first solution, rhetorically directed at uneducated people, which he dismisses as inadequate:

Perhaps one might seem to touch the point if he were to say (speaking offhand to simple-minded people), that the definition refused to reckon gods in any number to avoid any resemblance to the Greek polytheism, lest, if we too were to enumerate the deity, not in the singular, but in the plural, as they are accustomed to do, there might be supposed to be also some community of doctrine.

This answer, I say, if made to more guileless people, might seem to be of some weight. But in the case of the others who require that one of the alternatives they propose should be established (either that we should not acknowledge the divinity in the three, or that, if we do, we should speak of those who share in the same divinity as three), this answer does not provide any solution of the difficulty. And hence we must make our reply at greater length, tracing out the truth as best we may; for the question is no ordinary one.

    This first answer isn’t incorrect – we must avoid speaking of “three gods” so that the difference between pagan polytheism and Christian trinitarianism is made clear – but it’s also not sufficient. The answer should satisfy the more simple-minded or guileless of faithful believers, who don’t know (or care) about metaphysics, but it won’t satisfy those who are making the argument in the first place. Nor does this answer tell us in what way trinitarianism is relevantly different from polytheism (which, as we will see, St. Gregory’s final answer does).

    His second answer is directed toward pagan (Neoplatonist) philosophers, and addresses the metaphysics of “nature” (physis):

We thus say above all that the habit to name in the plural, with the very name of nature, those who are divided by nature and to say “many humans,” which is equivalent to saying “many human natures,” is an improper use of the word. That this is so may become clear to us from the following:

When we call someone, we do not name him according to nature, to avoid that the commonness of the name leads to some error. For each of those that listen could think to be he himself the one called, given that he is called not with a particular appellative, but based upon the common name of nature. But in pronouncing the word imposed upon him as proper – I intend that which signifies the subject – we distinguish him from the multitude. Thus there are many who participate in the nature, for example disciples, apostles or martyrs, but one alone in all is human, if it is true, as it was said, that “human” is constituted not by that which is proper of each one, but of that which is common to the nature. Human, in fact, is Luke or Stephen, nevertheless, if someone is human, this does not mean certainly that he is also for that reason Luke or Stephen.

However, the concept of the hypostases admits division, by the properties that are manifested in each one, and are considered numerically, according to composition. The nature is on the other hand one, united in itself and a perfectly indivisible unity, which does not augment by addition nor diminish by subtraction; but that which it is, is one and remains one, even if it appears in multiplicity: undivided and permanent and perfect, that is, not divided in the individuals that participate in it.

And as “crowd,” “people,” “army,” and “assembly” are all said in the singular, even if each is thought in the plural, so, according to the more exact manner of expression, one could also properly speak of one human, even though those in whom that same nature is manifested are a multitude. It would then be far better to correct our erroneous habit and not extend any more the name of nature to the multiplicity, rather than, as slaves of this habit, to transfer this error also to the divine dogma.

    St. Gregory of Nyssa gives this argument in greater detail in his other treatise To the Greeks, on the commonality of concepts. As we will see, this is not his final answer to the problem, but it’s still worth looking at. In both works, he rejects the Neoplatonic view that universals (i.e., nature/substance) are divisible collections of particulars, in favor of the view that universals are one and indivisible. [2] This is because universals (like “human”) refer to what is common: what it is to be human is the same in Luke and Stephen (hence we can’t pick them out of a crowd by saying “human”), and even though Luke has the whole “human,” for Stephen to be human is not for Stephen to be Luke. Furthermore, adding and subtracting human beings doesn’t change what it is to be human, which shows that human nature can’t be a (mere) collection.

    If this argument is correct, then common nouns that signify universals (like “human”) can only properly be used in the singular. St. Gregory appeals to collective nouns (“crowd,” “people,” “army,” “assembly”) as similar examples. [3] These nouns are collective because they refer to items whose proper parts can’t be referred to by the same name (i.e., a member of the crowd is not also a crowd). Likewise, universals don’t have proper parts that can be referred to by the same name, because they are indivisible and have no proper parts at all. [4] The whole universal is present in each particular, and can’t be divided between them. Therefore, Luke is a human and Stephen is a human, but they are not parts of “human,” hence strictly speaking there is only one human.

    St. Gregory goes on to say that even though referring to “many humans” is strictly wrong, it isn’t dangerous (“no harm results from the mistaken use of the name”). However, referring to “three gods” is dangerous, and we are constrained by Scripture (he cites Deut 6:4) to confess “one God.” In his treatise To the Greeks, he explains that because humans are born and die, we are constrained to count humans, but there is no such change in the Trinity. Furthermore, humans come from different causes, whereas the Trinity comes from the Father alone. “Therefore... we proclaim one God, one Cause [the Father] together with those who are caused by him [the Son and the Holy Spirit], since he co-exists with them.”

    Does St. Gregory of Nyssa’s argument here succeed? I’m not so sure that it does, and even if it does, it seems precarious to tie the doctrine of the Trinity to both metaphysics and grammar that were just as controversial in the fourth century as they are today. Fortunately, his final answer (which is directed not to the uneducated, nor to Neoplatonist philosophers, but to Christian philosophers like himself and Ablabius) doesn’t rely on such controversial metaphysics.

Most people think that the word “divinity” [theotēs] is based in nature. And as the heaven and the sun or another of the elements of the cosmos are denoted by those particular words that indicate the subjects, thus, also in reference to the supreme and divine nature, they say that the word “divinity” was fittingly adapted to that which is manifested, as a sort of proper name. But we, following the teachings of the Scripture, have learned that the divine nature cannot be designated with any name, and is ineffable. And we say that any name, either formulated by human usage or transmitted by the Scriptures, is useful to interpret that which is thought of the divine nature, but does not include the signification of the nature itself.

    St. Gregory’s final answer to the question starts from the apophatic assertion that the divine nature is ineffable, hence “divinity” and “God” don’t apply to the nature in itself. Rather, they refer to “the things around the divine nature” (tōn peri tēn theian physin). For example, when we say the divine nature is “incorruptible,” we say that the nature doesn’t undergo corruption, but we don’t say what it is that is not corrupted. Likewise, when we say “life-giving,” we indicate an action, but not what it is that performs the action. These names tell us what we can and can’t know about the divine nature, but they don’t tell us what that nature is in itself.

Therefore, considering the diverse activities [energeias] of the supreme power [dynameōs], we adapt the appellatives from the activities known to us. And we say that one of the activities of God is also the activity of watching and observing and, so to speak, to see, by which he sees all from above and regards all, seeing the thoughts and penetrating with the power of his gaze to the invisible things. Therefore we think that “divinity” [tēn theotēta] has received its name from vision [tēs theas] and that he who has the regard [tōn theōron] on us is called God [theos] both by custom and by the teaching of the Scriptures.

    The etymology of “God” (theos) from a verb like “to behold” (theaomai) was common in the ancient world. Gregory takes this to the logical conclusion that “God” and “divinity” are agent nouns, referring to the doer of a certain action (beholding), rather than a proper or common noun. Elsewhere he adduces Scriptural support for this claim, since other beings – including mere humans like Moses – are called gods (Exod 7:1; Num 22; 1 Sam 28:13; Ps 96:5; Jer 10:11), “god” can’t refer to an individual or a nature (Ad Eustathium). However, neither is the term “god” entirely disconnected from nature, since in metaphysics, natures ground certain powers (dynameis) which are expressed in certain activities (energeiai). [5] This is made clear in a passage from St. Gregory’s To the Greeks:

For [”God”] signifies the substance, not in that it represents what the substance is (that is obvious, since the “what” of the divine substance is beyond our understanding and mental grasp), but in that it hints at the appropriate characteristic by which we can lay hold of it – just as being able to neigh or to laugh, being what we call “natural characteristics,” signify the natures of which they are characteristics [idiomata].

Now it is a characteristic of the eternal substance to which Father and Son and Holy Spirit belong to survey and understand [theōrein] and know all things: not just what takes place in action, but even what is grasped in the mind. This is proper to that substance alone, since it is the cause of all things, has made all things, and reigns over all things as its own productions, presiding over all human affairs by some appropriate but ineffable word of command. Understood on this basis, the noun “God” signifies, properly speaking, that substance which truly rules all things as creator of all.

    Natures or substances, like hypostases, have their own characteristics (idiomata) which are powers and activities. Although to be divine, that is, to behold all things, is not what the divine nature is, it is a proper characteristic of the divine nature. Therefore, St. Gregory’s second and third answers to the question are not disconnected; but the question of the number of gods in the Trinity is, properly speaking, a question about activity and not nature. Thus, he asks:

Consider whether this activity is properly of only one of the persons affirmed by faith to be in the Holy Trinity, or if the power extends to the three persons... Scripture attributes the act of beholding equally to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. David says, “Behold, O God [i.e., the Father] our defender” [Ps 84:9], and from this we learn that beholding is a proper activity of God, so far as God is conceived, since he says, “Behold, O God.” But Jesus also sees the thoughts of those who condemn him and question why by his own power he pardons people’s sins. For it says, “Jesus, beholding their thoughts” [Matt 9:4]. And of the Holy Spirit also, Peter says to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” [Acts 5:3] showing that the Holy Spirit was a true witness, aware of what Ananias had dared to do in secret, and by whom the manifestation of the secret was made to Peter.

    In response to this, St. Gregory of Nyssa anticipates that someone will point out that three people who perform the same kind of action are still called three – e.g., three philosophers, three farmers, three shoemakers – and so all the more we should refer to “those who are contemplated in the same activity” (i.e., the Trinity) as “three gods.” He begins his answer by articulating an account of how activities are individuated in the case of humans:

For humans, even if they exercise in much the same activity, complete their own affairs separately, each one alone, without participating exactly, in the proper activity, with those that exercise the same profession. For, even in the case of different orators, the profession, which is one, has the same name in the different orators, while those that exercise it act each one alone, one and the other pronouncing discourses in their own way. Therefore among humans, the activity of each being divided inside the same profession, one speaks in a proper way of many humans, since each one is separated in a proper environment, according to the particular conditions [idiotropon] of activity.

On the other hand, regarding the divine nature, we have not learned that the Father accomplishes something by himself, in which the Son does not participate, or that the Son in his turn operates something without the Spirit. But every activity which from God is propagated to creation and is called according to the various conceptions, has its origin from the Father, continues through the Son, and is accomplished in the Holy Spirit. For this reason the name of activity is not divided in the multiplicity of those who act, since the care of something is not exclusive to each one in particular. But all that is realized, regarding either our providence or the economy and order of the universe, is realized in a certain manner by the three, but the things that are realized are not in fact three.

    Just as in the case of beings, activities can belong to the same kind (e.g., oration), but are individuated by their own particular conditions. We can properly speak of multiple orators because, although their activities are of the same kind, each one has a different style of oration and does so at a different time and place. This is precisely what is not the case in the Trinity, because each activity of God is the same one from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

    For example, the Scriptures tell us that our life is from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but we don’t have three lives (nor does each divine person give us one-third of a life), therefore there is only one action and properly speaking one life-giver. Likewise, we read that God the Father judges all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit (Isa 4:4; Matt 12:28; John 5:22; Rom 3:6), yet there is only one judgment. St. Gregory concludes, “the name derived from activity cannot be divided among many where the result of their mutual activity is one.”

Therefore, every good reality and every good name, depending on the power and will without principle [i.e., the Father], are carried to completion in the power of the Holy Spirit by means of the Only-Begotten God, without interval of time or of space, since there does not exist any duration in the movement of the divine will from the Father through the Son to the Spirit, nor is it thinkable; and one of the good names and good concepts is that of “divinity.” Thus it would not be reasonable to divide the name in a multiplicity, since the unity in activity impedes the plural enumeration... Thus neither are they three gods, according to the meaning assigned to the term “divinity,” even though this appellation belongs to the Holy Trinity.

    This is the conclusion of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s third (and final) answer to the question of the number of gods in the Trinity. Because “God” properly refers to an activity, and every activity of the Trinity is one (proceeding from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit), the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God (and one Creator, one Savior, one Judge, etc.). Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are not additional deities who could potentially disagree with or thwart the will of God, but they are precisely the ones through whom and in whom the will of the Father is accomplished (hence, they are “the Word of God” and “the Spirit of God”).

    Does this agree with the customary use of language (unlike Gregory’s second argument)? I think so, even though the activity of the Trinity is far removed from what we’re used to as humans. The activities of humans are necessarily divided up because of our materiality: two people cannot act in the same way at the same place and time. But consider this example, given by Beau Branson in his dissertation. [6] Suppose, per impossibile, that there were three human beings unbound by the constraints of materiality, who always did (exactly) the same thing with one result, and they work for a general contractor. Would he be justified in telling you that he has “three painters” and charging you triple the man-hours for their one activity of painting? This would be extremely misleading if not false. But this scenario, which is impossible in the human case, is precisely the case for the immaterial persons of the Trinity.

    St. Gregory continues his letter to Ablabius by returning to his second answer, in case Ablabius’ opponents refuse to concede that “God” refers to activity rather than nature. Whether “God” refers to one or the other, the result is the same: “The Father is God; the Son is God; and yet by the same proclamation there is one God, because no difference of either activity or nature is contemplated in the divinity.” Finally, he considers whether this argument leads to the identity of persons in the Trinity (i.e., modalism). It does not, because there is a difference of cause between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; this difference belongs to “the how it is” (to pōs einai), rather than the nature, “the what it is” (to ti einai). Therefore, we rightly proclaim the distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while confessing them to be one God.

Unity of will and activity

    St. Gregory of Nyssa’s argument in Ad Ablabius shows in what sense the Trinity is one God, and how the relationship between the three divine persons is relevantly different from three human beings or pagan polytheism. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share numerically one activity and will, which is impossible in the case of humans and certainly unlike the Greek gods. Because “God” according to its etymology refers to an activity, the Trinity is one God and not three. Therefore, although “God” as a proper noun refers to the Father as the sole cause of everything else, each of the divine persons are equally predicated “God” since they share the divine nature and activity, and together the three are one “God” since their activity is one (cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or 31.14).

    The collective use of “God” to refer to the Trinity isn’t found in the New Testament or the early Fathers prior to the fourth century. However, the gospel of St. John does explain the unity of God the Father and Jesus Christ in terms of the unity of their works (e.g., John 5:17-30; 10:25-38; 14:8-12). The view that “God” (theos) refers to an activity goes back to Plato, who derived it from theō, “to run” (Cratylus 397d), and was picked up by Philo of Alexandria, who interpreted it as “the creative power” (Abr 121). St. Justin Martyr understood “God,” among other titles, as “appellations derived from his good deeds and works” (2 Apology 6). St. Theophilus of Antioch derived theos from tithēmi, “to place,” or theō, “to run” (Autol 1.4-5). Clement and Origen of Alexandria likewise understood the divine names, including “God,” to refer to his power and activities (Clement, Stromata 5.12; Origen, On Prayer 24.2-3; De Princ 1.1.6). [7]

    St. Justin Martyr says that the reason the Word (i.e., Jesus) is called various names, including “God,” is because “he ministers to the Father’s will, and was begotten by an act of the Father’s will” (Dial 61). Likewise, St. Theophilus of Antioch states that the Word, “being God,... whenever the Father wills, he sends him to any place” (Autol 2.22). St. Irenaeus of Lyons says that the Son is named “God” because “he is the visible of the Father” (Adv Haer 4.6.6), yet “in the substance and power of his [i.e., the Father’s] being there is shown forth one God” (Epid 47). St. Hippolytus of Rome insists that although we speak of three persons, we “shall not, indeed, speak of two gods but of one,” because:

The Father decrees, the Word executes, and the Son is manifested, through whom the Father is believed on. This economy of harmony leads back to the one God [i.e., the Father], for there is one God. (Against Noetus 14)

I do not mean that there are two gods, but that it is only as light from light, or as water from a fountain, or as a ray from the sun. For there is but one power, which is from the All; and the Father is the All, from whom comes this power, the Word. (Against Noetus 11)

In his dialogue with Heraclides, Origen of Alexandria stated that there is a sense in which we refer to two gods (i.e., the Father and the Son), but they are one God because “the power is one.”

    In the Nicene period, St. Athanasius describes the unity of Father and Son in terms of icon theology: the Father is the one God, while the Son as his perfect image is called the one God (Orat c. Ar 3.3-6). This is not to the exclusion of identity of activity, since he goes on to explain the numerical identity of activity between the Father, Son, and Spirit (3.10-15). St. Basil also uses icon theology to describe how there are not three gods (De Spir Sanct 18.45-47), but affirms that all of God’s names refer to his activities rather than his substance (Letter 234), and that “in every activity, the Holy Spirit is indivisibly united with the Father and the Son” (De Spir Sanct 16.37-40). St. Gregory of Nazianzus says that God’s nature cannot be defined, but we know about him by the things he has made (Or 28.3-17), and derives “God” (theos) from theō, “to run,” or aithō, “to burn” (30.17-19). He explains the unity of the Trinity not only in terms of nature, but also “a union of mind and an identity of motion” (29.2), and that they aren’t “divided in will or parted in power” (31.14).

    In summary, all of the elements of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s answer in Ad Ablabium were present in Christian theology before him, although he was the first to clearly articulate them in this way. After the fourth century, the identity of will, power, and activity in the Trinity was widely agreed upon, [8] and was repeatedly affirmed at the ecumenical Council of Constantinople III in 681. [9] For example, Pope Agatho’s letter which was endorsed by Constantinople III states:

...as we confess the Holy and inseparable Trinity, that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to be of one divinity, of one nature and substance, so we will profess also that it has one natural will, power, activity, dominion, majesty, potency, and glory. And whatever is said of the same Holy Trinity essentially in singular number we apprehend as from the one nature of the three consubstantial persons, having been so taught by canonical logic.

    Finally, St. John of Damascus writing in the eight century begins his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by affirming the ineffability of God’s substance and nature (1.1-2). We can only make positive statements about “the things around the nature,” not the nature itself (1.4). The word God is “indicative of his activity” and is derived from theō, “to run,” or aithō, “to burn,” or theaomai, “to see” (1.9; all of these etymologies are found in the earlier Fathers). The Trinity, however, has no “difference of will, or intention, or activity, or power, or anything else that in us gives rise to a real and complete division” (1.8). At the end of his discussion of the Trinity, he says,

Owing to the three hypostases, there is no compoundness or confusion; while, owing to their being consubstantial and dwelling in one another, and being the same in will, and activity, and power, and authority, and movement (so to speak), we recognize the indivisibility and unity of God. For God and his Word and his Spirit are in reality one God. (Expos 1.8)

I don’t think there’s a better one-sentence summary of the doctrine of the Trinity than that. This sums up the monarchy of the Father (because the first person of the Trinity is “God” simpliciter); the unity of will and activity in the Trinity (because Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are “his Word” and “his Spirit”); and the fact that this Trinity is really “one God.”

Conclusion

    The doctrine of the Trinity is not really metaphysically complex, at least, it’s not supposed to be. The statements of the Creed are enough: there is one God, the Father; and one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, true God from true God, consubstantial with the Father; and the Holy Spirit, the Lord, who proceeds from the Father and is conglorified with the Father and the Son. The purpose of this doctrine isn’t to idly speculate about God, but to explain how we can come to truly know him: only through his Son Jesus Christ, in his Holy Spirit, because Christ is the icon of the invisible God who perfectly reveals his will and activity to us.

    Any metaphysical speculation about the Trinity is only meant to defend and give substance to these basic affirmations. [10] In what ways are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit similar and different? How are they one God and not three? Even so, St. Gregory of Nyssa’s answers to these questions don’t really rely on a lot of metaphysics. The similarity and difference in the Trinity is the same as the common human nature shared by individual human beings. The Trinity are one God because “God,” according to Scripture and reason, refers to an activity, and the will and activities of God the Father are perfectly and indivisibly enacted through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.

    In conclusion, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a logical problem to be solved. It is the confession of the revelation of God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, which is experienced in the liturgical life of the Church. The final word of the Church is therefore not analysis, but praise:

Come, O people, / let us worship the divinity in three persons: / the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit. / For the Father timelessly begot the Son, co-eternal and co-enthroned with him; / and the Holy Spirit was in the Father and is glorified with the Son. / We worship one power, one substance, one divinity, / and we say: “Holy God, / who created all things through your Son with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit; / Holy Mighty, through whom we know the Father, / and through whom the Holy Spirit came to dwell in the world; / Holy Immortal, comforting Spirit, / who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son. / O Holy Trinity, glory to you!” [11]

______________________________

[1] Anna M. Silvas, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters, 140-142, 187-189; although it’s not certain that all of these letters were written to the same individual.

[2] See both Richard Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” Vigiliae Christianae 56, no. 4 (2002): 372-410; and Johannes Zachhuber, “Once Again: Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” Journal of Theological Studies 56 (2005): 75-98; who despite their differences agree that St. Gregory of Nyssa believed in the indivisible oneness of universals, and disagreed with the Neoplatonists on this point.

[3] Here he is once again drawing on the ancient Greek grammarians, who often used the same words as examples of collective nouns: Dionysius Thrax, Grammar 14; Apollonius Dyscolus, Syntax 1.67.

[4] This interpretation of St. Gregory of Nyssa is drawn from Beau Branson, The Logical Problem of the Trinity (2014), 123-134.

[5] Aristotle first made the distinction between dynamis (“power” or “potential”) and energeia (“activity” or “act”). This view is clearly articulated by St. Gregory of Nyssa in a fragment of a letter to Xenodorus preserved by St. Maximus the Confessor: “For we say that activity [energeian] is the natural power [dynamin] and movement of each substance without which a nature neither is nor is known.”

[6] Branson, Logical Problem, 191-193.

[7] David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction (2023), 119-122.

[8] However, the view that “God” refers to activity rather than nature fell out of popularity in the West after the fourth century. St. Ambrose of Milan, who was strongly influenced by the Cappadocians, affirmed that the name “God” (along with his other names) refer to his power and activity, and that the unity of divinity in the Father and the Son is a unity of activity (De Fide 1.1.6-3.25). St. Hilary of Poitiers, on the other hand, states that the name “God,” when applied to the Trinity, refers to the indivisible divine nature (De Trin 7.11-13). St. Augustine affirms that every name applied to God either refers to substance or relation, and “God” is a name of the substance (De Trin 5.2-8).

It’s hard for me to see how this doesn’t collapse into either tritheism or modalism. Unless we accept St. Gregory of Nyssa’s controversial metaphysics and grammar, according to which there is only “one human,” we would either have to say that there are three gods (i.e., three instantiations of the divine nature), or that there is only one instantiation of the divine nature. It seems like the latter is what later Latin theologians want to affirm, but not without difficulty (see for example the Fourth Lateran Council). On the other hand, if “God” refers to an activity, then the Trinity can be one God without any obvious danger of modalism.

[9] Scott M. Williams, “Discovery of the Sixth Ecumenical Council’s Trinitarian Theology: Historical, Ecclesial, and Theological Implications,” Journal of Analytical Theology 10 (2022): 332-362.

[10] Along these lines, it’s interesting to note that many of the later theological conflicts and dogmatic decisions of the Church are already present in ‘seed form’ in the fourth century. The Fathers wrote about the relationship between substance and hypostasis (cf. the Fourth and Fifth Ecumenical Councils), between will and activity, on the one hand, and substance and hypostasis, on the other (cf. the Sixth Ecumenical Council), icon theology (cf. the Seventh Ecumenical Council), and the distinction between God’s substance and activities (cf. the Palamite controversy). These later disagreements were not about idle metaphysical speculation, as opposed to the concrete matters of faith, but were precisely about how we can truly access God through faith in his Son Jesus Christ.

[11] Pentecost Vespers, Doxastikon (Tone 8, attr. Leo VI).

The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (part 1 of 2)

“But the God who is over all has a special mark of his own hypostasis: that he is the Father” - St. Gregory of Nyssa, Letter to Peter 4

“For God and his Word and his Spirit are in reality one God.” - St. John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith 1.8

    In modern Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity is often equated with a certain set of propositions (that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each God, that they are not each other, and that there is one God). The role of analytic and systematic theology is to figure out how these propositions are consistent with one another. [1] But this is a complete error! These propositions may be true, but the doctrine of the Trinity is not a sterile set of propositions. It’s a hard-won belief that is primarily defined in the Nicene Creed of 381 and experienced in the liturgical life of the Church.

    As a starting point, we should look at the Creed which originally defined the doctrine of the Trinity for the universal Church, and is still recited weekly by most Christians. Here are the relevant portions of the Creed:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; light of light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father; by whom all things were made... [2]

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified...

This must be the starting point for any proper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. However, it’s not very detailed about the Trinity, apart from these basic points. Some questions still remain: for example, how can the Father and the Son both be “true God” if we believe in only “one God”? And to whom, or what, are Christians referring when we say “God”? [3]

     In order to better understand the doctrine of the Trinity, it’s important to look at its historical and theological background. In the aftermath of the Council of Constantinople I which produced the Creed, the orthodox Church was actually defined in terms of communion with certain bishops, including St. Damasus of Rome, Diodore of Tarsus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. [4] It’s safe to say that if they don’t have the (or at least an) orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, then no one does. The one with the most (surviving) writings on this topic is St. Gregory of Nyssa, so we can turn to him to understand the meaning of the Creed in more detail. In these posts I will delve into two of his letters in particular, Ad Petrum and Ad Ablabium, to get a fuller understanding of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

“The God who is over all... is the Father”

    The Creed begins with the dogmatic declaration that the “one God” is “the Father Almighty.” It also declares that Jesus Christ is “true God of true God” and “of one essence with the Father,” and that the Holy Spirit is “the Lord” who is “worshipped together with the Father and the Son.” This raises a few questions. What is the metaphysical relationship between God the Father and the Son such that “God” is truly predicated of both? (Likewise, that the Holy Spirit is “Lord” with the “one Lord Jesus Christ” and is also worshipped?) In what sense is the “one God” the Father if we believe in the Trinity? The letter of St. Gregory of Nyssa to his brother St. Peter of Sebaste helps answer these questions.

To his brother Peter, on the difference between ousia and hypostasis

    In order to understand the commonality and difference between the divine persons of the Trinity, the Cappadocian Fathers (including St. Gregory of Nyssa) brought in the metaphysical concepts of ousia (often translated as essence or substance) and hypostasis (often translated as person or subsistence). Today, these words are somewhat opaque since we don’t share the same philosophical background as the ancient theologians. Fortunately, there is a letter written by St. Gregory of Nyssa to his brother Peter that explains the meaning of ousia and hypostasis. [5] He begins by laying out the question at hand:

Since many fail to distinguish in the mystic dogmas the substance [ousia], which is common, from the principle of the hypostases, they fall into ambivalent notions and think that it makes no difference at all whether they say ‘substance’ or ‘hypostasis’. Consequently some who accept such notions uncritically are happy to speak of ‘one hypostasis’ in the same breath as ‘one substance’, while others who assert three hypostases think that they are bound by this confession to assert an equal number of substances. For this reason, so that you too may not succumb to similar notions, I have put together a short treatise for you as a memorandum on this topic. (Ad Petrum 1a-c) [6]

    He goes on to define substance and hypostasis in grammatical terms: 

In the whole class of nouns, expressions used for things which are plural and numerically diverse have a more general sense, as for example ‘man’. For anyone who employs this noun indicates the common nature, not limiting it to any particular man known by such a term. For ‘man’ has no more reference to Peter than it has to Andrew, John or James. The commonality of what is signified extends alike to all ranked under the same name and requires some further distinction if we are to understand not ‘man’ in general, but Peter or John.

But other nouns have a more individual signification, in that what is contemplated in the thing signified is not the commonality of nature but a circumscription of a some reality, which, as far as its individuality goes, has no communion with what is of the same kind, as for example, Paul or Timothy. For such an expression no longer has reference to what is common in the nature, but by separating certain circumscribed conceptions from the general idea, expresses them by means of their names.

When several are taken together, as for example, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, and one seeks a definition of the substance of these human beings, no-one will give one definition of substance for Paul, another for Silvanus, and yet another for Timothy. No, whatever the terms used to indicate the substance of Paul they will also apply these to the others, and they are consubstantial [homoousioi] with one another who are designated by the same definition of substance. But when someone who has ascertained what is common turns his attention to the individual properties by which the one is distinguished from the other, the definition by which each is known will no longer tally in all particulars with the definition of another, even though it may be found to have certain points in common. (Ad Petrum 2)

    Up to this point, St. Gregory has just been describing the grammatical difference between common and proper nouns, as found in various ancient Greek grammarians. [7] The common noun refers to the ousia (substance), which has a shared definition between individuals of the same kind, whereas proper nouns refer to individuals which are distinguished by individual properties (idiomata) that are not shared. Individuals are consubstantial (homoousios) if they share a common definition of substance, and so two human beings such as Paul and Timothy are consubstantial.

This then is what we affirm: what is spoken of individually is indicated by the expression ‘hypostasis’. For when someone says ‘a human being’, it strikes upon the ear as a somewhat diffuse concept due to the indefiniteness of its meaning. Though the nature is indicated, that thing which subsists and is indicated by the noun individually is not made clear. But if someone says ‘Paul’, he shows the nature as subsisting in that which is indicated by the noun.

This therefore is the hypostasis: not the indefinite notion of the substance, which finds no instantiation because of the commonality of what is signified, but that conception which through the manifest individualities gives stability and circumscription in a certain object to the common and uncircumscribed. (Ad Petrum 3a-b)

    The ousia doesn’t have “standing” (stasis) outside of a hypostasis (“standing-under”), as for example humanity doesn’t exist outside of individuals like Paul. Gregory goes on to provide a Scriptural example: Job 1:1 refers to “a man,” but individualizes by saying “a certain one,” and giving the name, location, individual qualities (idiomata) of the soul, and external circumstances of Job, which distinguish him from other individuals such as his friends (Ad Petrum 3c-d). He continues: “Transpose then to the divine dogmas the same principle of differentiation which you acknowledge with regard to substance and hypostasis in our affairs, and you will not go wrong.”

Whatever your thought suggests to you as the Father’s mode of being for it is idle for the soul to insist on any discrete conception because of the conviction that it is above all conception you will think also of the Son, and likewise of the Holy Spirit. For the principle of the uncreated and of the incomprehensible is one and the same, whether in regard to the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. For one is not more incomprehensible and uncreated and another less so. (Ad Petrum 3e-f)

    Note that the divine nature, according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, is precisely “the Father’s mode of being” which is shared with the Son and the Holy Spirit. This mode of being isn’t defined by a positive attribute, since “it is above all conception,” but by the negations “uncreated” and “incomprehensible” (and “beyond... any such quality”: 3g). In addition to the common nature that is shared, “the distinction in the Trinity [must] be kept unconfused by means of the notes of differentiation” (Ad Petrum 3g).

    How do we find the individual properties of the divine persons? Gregory points to Scripture, which shows that every good thing comes from the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:6, 11); not only from the Holy Spirit, because “the author and cause of the supply of good things... is the only-begotten God” (John 1:3, 18; Col 1:17); and we are further led to the conclusion that “there is a certain power subsisting without generation and without origin which is the cause of the cause of all that exists. For the Son, through whom are all things, and with whom the Holy Spirit is always conceived of inseparably, is from the Father. For it is not possible for anyone to conceive of the Son if he has not been illumined beforehand by the Spirit” (Ad Petrum 4a-c).

    This order of revelation – in the Holy Spirit, through the Son, from the Father – lets us properly distinguish the persons and their idiomata:

Since the Holy Spirit, from whom the whole supply of good things flows forth upon creation, is attached to the Son with whom he is comprehended inseparably, and has his being dependent on the Father as cause, from whom indeed he issues, he therefore has this distinguishing sign of its individual hypostasis, that he is known after the Son and with him, and that he has his subsistence from the Father.

The Son who makes known “the Spirit who issues from the Father” [Jn 15.26] through himself and with himself, and who alone shines forth as the only begotten from the unbegotten light, has no communion with the Father or the Holy Spirit in the distinguishing marks of individuality. He alone is known by the signs just stated.

But the God who is over all has as a special mark of his own hypostasis that he is Father and that he alone has his subsistence from no cause, and again it is by this sign that he is recognized individually. (Ad Petrum 4d-f)

    The individual properties which define the divine persons are their internal relations, which we know by revelation, since God the Father is revealed through the Son in the Holy Spirit. It’s important to note that for St. Gregory of Nyssa, the members of the Trinity are the Holy Spirit, the Son, and God – whose particular property is to be the Father. 

    This is no accidental statement, since Gregory makes the same point in his response to the neo-Arian Eunomius, where he agrees with Eunomius’ statement that “he is always and absolutely one, remaining uniformly and unchangeably the only God” – that is, “if he is speaking about the Father,” because “he who confesses that the Father is always and unchangeably the same, remaining the one and only God, holds fast the word of godliness, if in the Father he sees the Son, without whom the Father neither is nor is named” (Contra Eunomium 2.5). The one God is the Father, and therefore cannot be conceived at any time apart from the Son, contrary to the Arian claim that the Son is an ex nihilo creation.

    St. Gregory has explained the distinctions between the persons, but he reiterates that “when it comes to being infinite, incomprehensible, uncreated, uncircumscribed by any place and all such qualities, there is no variation in the life-giving nature—of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit I mean” (Ad Petrum 4g-h). The ousia which is beyond all comprehension is shared invariably between the persons.

    Furthermore, there is no other uncreated reality or ‘void’ which could separate the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so they are undivided and cannot be properly conceived apart from one another (Ad Petrum 4i). We know the Spirit only as the Spirit of Christ and of God (Rom 8:9; 1 Cor 2:12), so anyone who mentions the Spirit also confesses the Father and the Son (4k). The Son cannot be conceived apart from his Father, nor apart from his Spirit in whom he works all things (4l). And the Father cannot be properly conceived apart from his own Son and Spirit (4m). Gregory uses the (imperfect) analogy of a rainbow, which clearly has different colors, yet there is no intervening space that we can point to as a definite division between one color and another (4n-5g).

     Gregory ends this explanation by concluding: “Therefore, since reason has contemplated in the Holy Trinity both that which is common and that which is distinctive, the principle of commonality is to be referred to substance, while hypostasis is the distinguishing mark of each” (Ad Petrum 5h). He proceeds to offer an exegesis of Hebrews 1:3, which isn’t totally relevant for our purpose here, but is nevertheless interesting – see footnote for more details. [8]

The monarchy of God the Father

    St. Gregory of Nyssa’s explanation shows exactly what is the metaphysical relationship between the divine persons and their nature: it’s the same as the relationship between human individuals and their human nature. “God” as a name applies uniquely to the Father, since he is the ultimate cause of everything else including the Son and the Spirit – in fact, Gregory says that God is the person with the individual property of being the Father. This doesn’t contradict Nicene orthodoxy, since what the orthodox say is that the Trinity is equal in nature (homoousios), not in causal priority. The unbegottenness of the Father is his individual property, not a property of the nature, hence he can cause the Son and the Spirit and share his own nature fully with them. Thus the Creed says that the Father is God simpliciter, while Jesus Christ is “true God from true God... of one essence with the Father.”

    The belief in one God who is the Father can be traced back to the New Testament, where “God” (ho theos), when used as a proper noun, nearly always designates the Father of Jesus Christ. [9] This pattern of usage continued into the Apostolic Fathers. [10] The second-century Christian apologists and third-century theologians continued to use “God” (ho theos) in the sense of a unique title of the Father, but expanded the predicative usage of “God” (theos) for Jesus Christ, which is already found in the New Testament as well. [11] The Arian controversy at the outset of the fourth century was not about whether the Son is also the one God, but whether the one God is intrinsically the Father or not. Arius actually took the negative position, since his claims entailed that God is only extrinsically the Father insofar as he creates and begets the Son at some time. [12]

    This view was upheld by St. Basil the Great, the first of the Cappadocian Fathers and the brother of St. Gregory of Nyssa. In his homily against the Sabellians and Eunomians, he argues that John 1:1 (with its predicative use of theos for the Word) and 14:9 (“he who has seen me has seen the Father”) imply both the consubstantiality and distinction of the Son from God the Father (Sab 2). But in response to the Sabellians who claim that this implies two gods, he states:

There is one God because there is one Father. But the Son is also God, and there are not two gods because the Son has identity with the Father. For I do not behold one divinity in the Son and another in the Father... But when I say “one substance,” do not think that two are separated from one, but that the Son has come to subsist from the Father, his principle [archē]. The Father and the Son do not come from one substance that transcends them both. For we do not call them brothers, but confess Father and Son. There is an identity of substance because the Son is from the Father, not made by a command but rather begotten from his nature, not separated from him but the perfect radiance of the Father, who himself remains perfect... There are not two gods because there are not two Fathers. Whoever introduces two first principles introduces two gods. (Sab 3-4)

Basil’s position is clear: the Father is the one God because he is the sole first principle (mono-archē), which is known as the monarchy of the Father. The Son is predicatively God because he shares the nature of the Father (not an abstract divine nature, which would make them brothers), but this doesn’t introduce another first principle.

    St. Basil was also the first to use ousia and hypostasis to describe the Trinity, and he defines them as his brother does: “the distinction between substance and hypostasis is the same as that between the general and the particular, as for instance between the animal and the particular man” (Letter 236.6). But just like his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, he does not see God as an abstract nature but a particular person. Basil lists the members of the Trinity as “one God and Father, one Only-Begotten Son, and one Holy Spirit” (De Spir Sanct 18.44).

    St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the other Cappadocian Father, also upheld the monarchy of the Father. [13] He clearly states, “There is one God because the Son and the Spirit are referred back to a single Cause” (Or 20.7). [14] “The three have one nature: God. The principle of unity is the Father, from whom the other two are brought forward and to whom they are brought back” (Or 42.15). The Theologian “define[s]... our orthodox faith” in this way:

...one God, unbegotten, the Father; and one begotten Lord, his Son, referred to as God when he is mentioned separately, but Lord when he is named in conjunction with the Father, the one term on account of the nature, the other on account of the monarchy; and one Holy Spirit proceeding, or, if you will, going forth from the Father, God to those with the capacity to apprehend things that are interrelated, but in fact resisted by the impious though so recognized by their betters and actually so predicated by the more spiritual. (Or 25.15)

The Father is the one God because he is the first principle (the monarchy), and is uniquely referred to as “God” when mentioned alongside the Son and the Spirit. But the Son and the Spirit are also referred to as “God” on account of their shared nature with the Father.

    In light of these statements, we can interpret the more controversial passages from St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ orations:

We have one God because there is a single divinity, and the things that issue from the One refer back to him, even if Three are believed in. For one is not more or less God; nor is one before and another after; nor are they divided in will or parted in power; nor are there any of the properties of divisible things, even if it is possible to perceive them. But if we have to put it succinctly, the divinity is undivided among things that are divided, as if among three suns that are related to one another there were a single co-mingling of their light. So when we look at the divinity and the First Cause and the Monarchy, what appears to us is One; but when we look at the things in which the divinity exists, and the things that exist from the First Cause timelessly and with equal glory, there are Three that are worshipped. (Or 31.14)

Each one is God when considered in himself; as the Father so the Son, as the Son so the Holy Spirit; the Three are one God when considered together; each one God because consubstantial; one God because of the Monarchy. No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the glory of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any one of the Three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light. (Or 40.41)

The three most ancient opinions about God are anarchy [atheism], polyarchy [polytheism], and monarchy [monotheism]... Monarchy is that which we hold in honor. But it is a monarchy that is not limited to one person, for it is possible for Unity if at variance with itself to come into a condition of plurality; but one which is made of an equality of nature and a union of mind, and an identity of motion, and a convergence of its elements to unity – a thing which is impossible to the created nature – so that though numerically distinct there is no severance of substance. Therefore Unity having from all eternity arrived by motion at Duality, found its rest in Trinity. This is what we mean by Father and Son and Holy Spirit. (Or 29.2)

These passages could be taken to interpret, contrary to St. Basil, that the divine nature is the first principle and the three divine persons derive from it. But interpreted in light of the monarchy of the Father, it’s clear that when Gregory refers to “the One” from whom the others are derived, he is referring to the Father. He is the Unity who, by sharing his nature, moved to Duality (with the Son) and rested in Trinity (with the Holy Spirit; cf. Maximus the Confessor, Amb 23).

    In a characteristically dense and difficult passage (Or 40.41), St. Gregory of Nazianzus distinguishes three senses in which we speak of “God” (see italicized, bolded, and underlined above). There is a sense in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together are truly (the) one God; each one is predicatively God because they share one nature; and the Father is the one God because of his monarchy.

    Sometimes a dichotomy is made between the “Western” view that the Trinity is (the) one God and the “Eastern” view that the Father is the one God, but both views are articulated by Sts. Gregory of Nazianzus and (as I will show in my next post) Gregory of Nyssa. Both statements are orthodox and true in different senses, but after the doctrine of the Trinity was clearly laid out in the fourth century, it became more common to speak of the Trinity as (the) one God. I think this manner of speaking was overemphasized in the West to the detriment of the monarchy of the Father, but Western theologians like St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas still used “God” to refer to the Father in a unique sense. [15]

    The first anathema at the Council of Constantinople II in AD 553 insists “that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have one power and authority, that there is a consubstantial Trinity, one divinity to be worshipped in three hypostases... There is only one God and Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things.” This statement from the sixth-century ecumenical council still clearly equates the one God with the Father, as the first person of the Trinity, and insists that the Trinity is three hypostases which share one substance and divinity.

    Finally, let’s look at St. John of Damascus from the eighth century and his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Like the earlier Fathers, he starts by arguing for the existence of God, and then argues for the hypostatic reality of the Word of God and the Spirit of God (Expos 1.3-7). Thus, he says,

We believe in one God, one principle without principle [archēn anarchon], uncreated, unbegotten... one substance, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one principle, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three perfect hypostases and worshipped with one worship... (We believe) in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, in whom we have also been baptized. (Expos 1.8)

The “one God” here is unbegotten (agennētos), which John later in the same passage affirms to be a property of hypostasis and not substance. Therefore, he affirms that the one God is an individual (the Father), whose substance, divinity, power, etc., are shared between three individuals, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He concludes his discussion of the Trinity:

Owing to the three hypostases, there is no compoundness or confusion; while, owing to their being consubstantial and dwelling in one another, and being the same in will, and activity, and power, and authority, and movement (so to speak), we recognize the indivisibility and unity of God. For God and his Word and his Spirit are in reality one God. (Expos 1.8)

    “For the Christian faith there is, unequivocally, but one God, and that is the Father” (Fr. John Behr, The Nicene Faith, II:307). This is certainly the view which is found in the New Testament, in the Nicene Creed, and in the early Fathers who formulated the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The trinitarian faith is a faith in the one God and Father, who eternally begets the Only-Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and produces the Holy Spirit, with whom he shares his divine nature. [16]

______________________________

[1] For example, see my old post (from when I was a unitarian) arguing against the logical consistency of trinitarianism – in which I made the ridiculous claim that the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity can be formulated while “ignoring claims about eternal generation and procession” – or my more recent post arguing for the consistency of a Thomist-inspired theory of the Trinity.

[2] The removal of the section of the Creed about the Incarnation is unfortunate, since the foundational hypothesis of all Christian doctrine is the person of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. Note that the second person of the Trinity, according to the Creed, isn’t “the Word of God,” or any other such title abstracted from the concrete historical life of Jesus of Nazareth, but precisely “one Lord Jesus Christ.” However, my purpose here is to explain the doctrine of the Trinity only, so the section about the Incarnation isn’t directly relevant.

[3] Or rather, to whom should we be referring, since Christians may disagree about to whom or what the name “God” most properly refers.

[4] Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian code and novels and the Sirmondian constitutions (1952), 440.

[5] This letter is attributed by some manuscripts to Gregory’s brother, St. Basil of Caesarea, but the scholarly consensus today is that the manuscripts which attribute it to St. Gregory of Nyssa are correct. Even if it was written by Basil, his brother Gregory shared the same metaphysical framework.

[6] Translation from Anna M. Silvas, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (2007), 249-250.

[7] Apollonius Dyscolus, Syntax 2.22, 45; Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions 7.57-58.

[8] St. Gregory of Nyssa seeks to answer the question: if the individual property of the Father’s hypostasis is to be unbegotten, how can the begotten Son be the “imprint of his hypostasis”? He argues that this phrase is to be understood in light of the previous phrase, “the brightness of his glory,” that the Son is distinct from the Father but inseparable from him. Moreover, whoever sees the “imprint” of the Son becomes aware of the “hypostasis” of the Father, because whoever sees the Son sees the Father (John 14:9). He is the perfect image of the invisible God (Col. 1:16) and his Goodness (Wis. 7:26). Therefore, he must be exactly like the Father in all respects apart from his begottenness, so that we can discern “all that the Father has” (John 16:15) through the Son (Ad Petrum 6-8). This argument partially explains Gregory’s Scriptural reasoning for the Son’s consubstantiality with God the Father, through the lens of icon theology.

[9] Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations (1982), I:143-146; Murray Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (1992), 40-47.

[10] See especially 1 Clement 46.6; 58.2; 59.2-4, along with the confessions in the Martyrdoms of Ignatius and Polycarp, but this usage is found all throughout their writings.

[11] See especially Justin Martyr, 1 Apol 13; 61; 2 Apol 6; Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autol 1.7; 2.15; Athenagoras of Athens, Legatio 10; 24; Tertullian, Against Praxeas 13; Irenaeus, Adv Haer 2.1.1; 28.1-4; 30.9; 3.6.1-12.15 (which is all about proving that the one God is the Father, against the Marcionites); 4.1.1-5.5 (likewise); Hippolytus, Against Noetus 14; Ref 10.28-30; Novatian, De Trin 30-31; Origen, De Princ 1.1-3; CommJohn 2.12-33. St. Athenagoras’ confession of “a God, and a Son his Word, and a Holy Spirit, united in substance [ousia], the Father, the Son, the Spirit” (Legatio 24) closely anticipates St. Gregory of Nyssa’s more detailed formulation in Ad Petrum.

[12] The very first charge which St. Alexander of Alexandria brings against Arius is that “God was not always a Father, but there was a time when God was not a Father.” Arius’ statement of faith notably does not include the confession of “one God, the Father,” but rather “one God, alone unbegotten, alone eternal” (Athanasius, De Synodis 16).

[13] Although this is not uncontroversial, see Christopher Beeley, “Divine Causality and the Monarchy of God the Father in Gregory of Nazianzus,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 2 (2007): 199-214.

[14] Translation from Beeley, “Divine Causality,” 211. For another translation see Martha Vinson, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations (2003), 111: “The oneness of God would, in my view, be maintained if both Son and Spirit are causally related to him alone without being merged or fused into him and if they all share one and the same divine movement and purpose, if I may so phrase it, and are identical in essence.” The second part of this sentence corresponds to the argument in St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Ad Ablabium, which I will show in my next post.

[15] There are many instances where St. Augustine uses “God” as a name for the Father, in line with the convention of his time, even though he states that “the Trinity is the one and only and true God” (De Trin 1.2.4). Aquinas says that “Father” is applied to God as a personal name because “God is the Father of the Son from eternity” (Summa Theologiae 1.33.3).

[16] According to some definitions of trinitarianism and unitarianism, this would count as unitarian. For example, Dale Tuggy (“Tertullian the Unitarian,” 180) defines “trinitarian Christian theology” as the belief that there is one God which or who in some sense contains or consists of three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are equally divine; and “unitarian Christian theology” as the belief that there is one God who is numerically identical with the Father of Jesus and is not numerically identical with anyone else. Tuggy elsewhere (“On Counting Gods,” 197) defines “god” in terms of ultimacy, that is, “all else comes from him, but he comes from nothing else.”

By these definitions, every Christian prior to the 1500s – when some Protestants began to claim that the Son exists a se just as the Father does – was a “unitarian”. That is, they believed in one person from whom all else (including the Son and the Spirit) comes, who comes from nothing else, who is numerically identical with the Father of Jesus and not with anyone else. Even the fourth-century Fathers who explained the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity turn out to be “unitarians” since they assert that the Father is the one God and the sole principle (mono-archē) of everything else. Clearly something has gone badly wrong in Tuggy’s definitions, and the identity of the one God with the Father is compatible with the orthodox, trinitarian faith.

Final response to Concordant critics

    Some of the Concordant brethren who responded to my original post about Scripture, the Church, and Christ have offered further rebuttals. I do want to respond again, but since I don’t want to get bogged down in this debate, this will be my last word on the topic. I will move on to other related topics in the future, such as the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

Drew Costen

    Drew expanded his blog post, “Some thoughts on Catholic and Orthodox views of Scripture,” to answer my earlier response. I’ll respond to what I think are his most important points, and pass over the parts where I think we just have no common ground for me to even answer (such as his response to my citation of Irenaeus about the unity of faith in the early Church).

As far as apparent contradictions in the Bible go when we read it as an inerrant whole, there have been lots of books and articles written over the years providing potential resolutions to basically all of them, and as long as we have even one possible resolution to any seeming contradiction that doesn’t contradict any other parts of Scripture in doing so, that’s enough to prove that the Bible at least probably doesn’t actually contradict itself (in its original languages in the original manuscripts, anyway). And since, again, if the Bible does have any actual contradictions, it can’t be the word of God or the authoritative basis of any theological claims, which once again means that nothing in it can be used to defend the authority of any of the so-called “orthodox” denominations of the Christian religion, and which again means that the authority of any of these denominations can only be assumed, with no foundational basis outside of that assumption itself.

    I want to clarify my position, since I’m not sure I was clear about this before: I do not believe that the Scriptures have contradictions. My point in the other posts was that, apart from imposing a unifying framework upon the texts, there are certainly tensions / apparent contradictions between the texts. This should be self-evident if we look at how non-believers interpret the Scriptures – the “books and articles” that Drew mentions were all written by people who do presuppose a unifying framework, which is already the case when we consider the texts as Scripture.

The problem is, we need a basis for trusting this “church” you’re referring to (aka the Christian “church” in some form, which I don’t consider to be the church called the body of Christ, or even the church called the Israel of God, since its doctrines contradict both of these churches’ doctrines as taught in the Bible when it’s read consistently all the way through as the inerrant word of God) before we can trust that its so-called “canon of truth” is actually true, and if your claims about the Bible (that it does have errors in the form of contradictions in it when read consistently as an inerrant whole) are true, we can’t use the Bible as a basis for this “church’s” authority anyway, so all we can do is take their word for it that they’re an authoritative church created by God, and I see no reason whatsoever to believe their claim that it is has any truth to it at all...

    One must have certain canon(s) of faith in order to interpret the Scriptures, and reconcile their apparent contradictions. Drew is taking the second part of my original post in isolation and wondering what reason I have to trust the early Church’s canon of faith, rather than the canons of faith of the Concordant sect (although he wouldn’t phrase it like that). But the second part of the argument can’t be isolated from the first part: the reason that the early Church’s canon of truth is the correct one for interpreting the Scriptures is because this is the Church that gave us the Scriptures (on which, see my response below to Aaron). If we reject the early Church’s canon of faith, and their very plausible claim that this canon is apostolic, then we lose our basis for accepting the New Testament Scriptures and the similar claim (made by the early Church) that they are apostolic.

    By the way, like I said above, I don’t believe that the Bible has “contradictions in it when read consistently as an inerrant whole”. On the contrary, it’s precisely when we read the Scriptures “consistently as an inerrant whole” that we can see past the surface-level apparent contradictions, and discern the intent of the divine author.

ALLNGLKNV

    Concordant Discord user “ALLNGLKNV” asks me the following question:

Andrew Simple question: even if one be not a Christian - if one treat the Bible as a compilation of fictional, fantastical stories - could one still coherently interpret it in a way that resolves all the contradictions contained therein?

Like, taking the view that the Bible is not the Word of God, merely a fictional but well-made and internally concordant text?

    You could, since any apparent contradiction can be interpreted away. But you wouldn’t have a reason to do so unless you presupposed some unifying framework (like you said, “taking the view that the Bible is... [a] well-made and internally concordant text”). Then you would have to make some decisions about which ‘side’ of the tension / apparent contradiction is prioritized in your interpretation. (Everyone who reads the Scriptures as a unified whole does this, whether they realize it or not.) That is the role played by the “canon of faith” when interpreting Scripture.

Aaron Welch

    Aaron also gave a further response on the Discord server, which I reproduce in part below. Once again, I’ll respond to the points that I think are more important, and ignore the parts that are mostly repetitive.

It seems to be Andrew’s belief that, in order for the Christian leaders of the late 4th century to have recognized and officially accepted the correct books that constitute the Greek Scriptures, they needed to be believers, and to have belonged to what Paul referred to as “the ecclesia of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). According to this assumption, if the Christian leaders of the 4th century hadn’t been members of the “true Church,” we wouldn’t have gotten the canon-affirming outcome reflected in Athanasius’ list, and no one today could be justified in believing that we have a Bible with all the correct, inspired books.

However, I don’t think there’s any good reason to accept the validity of this assumption. We need not believe that Athanasius and other Christian leaders of the late 4th century were members of the same ecclesia referred to in 1 Tim. 3:15 in order to believe that these men were able to correctly identify all of the inspired books of Scripture, and accept as “canon” the books that Athanasius listed in his letter. It’s my understanding that the “canon-affirming” state of affairs reflected in Athanasius’ letter was historically determined by, and only happened because of, the apostolically-influenced circumstances of the 1st century (such that what took place in the late 4th century was inevitable given what took place in the 1st century).

What I think Andrew needs to demonstrate (but what I don’t think he has demonstrated) is that, if people didn’t belong to the “true Church” (due to not believing the most fundamental, essential truths that should characterize all who do belong to the “true Church”), they would’ve been unable to correctly identify which books are Scripture (and which aren’t), and that what took place near the end of the 4th century (i.e., a complete listing of the books of Scripture) couldn’t have happened if the kind of doctrinal apostasy that I believe happened during the post-apostolic era did happen. If he can’t demonstrate this, I don’t see why anyone should agree with him that what (to him) “seems arbitrary and inconsistent to accept” is, in fact, arbitrary and inconsistent.

    The argument that I’m making is epistemological, like I said in my original post. The only reason that we have our present list of the books of Scripture is because the Church officially recognized these texts (and not others) as Scripture in the late 4th century, and passed them down across the centuries, which I think Aaron concedes. Unless we trust the discernment of the Church from the 2nd to 4th century and beyond, we have no reason to trust that those texts are actually Scripture. Even though the Scriptures are ontologically prior to the 4th-century (and modern) Church, that Church is epistemologically prior to the Scriptures, since we wouldn’t trust the Scriptures without her. As an analogy, Jesus Christ is the visible icon of the invisible Father: God the Father is ontologically prior to the Son, but the Son is epistemologically prior to the Father, since we could not know God apart from him.

    Aaron tries to avoid this conclusion by claiming that the present list of Scriptural books was a foregone conclusion by the end of the 1st century. The 4th-century ‘apostate’ Church only recognized those texts (and not others) as Scripture because the 1st-century ‘apostolic’ Church recognized them (and not others). I don’t know how else to respond, other than to say that this is historically false. As I pointed out before (and see below), there were books that some in the pre-4th-century Church recognized as inspired which we now don’t, and there are some books that we recognize as inspired for which we have no evidence that anyone before the 3rd century recognized as inspired. (That’s not to say that no one did, but again, this argument is epistemological: we only rely on what we can know now.)

    In fact, we have no evidence that anyone in the 1st century recognized any of the New Testament texts as inspired, rather than the authoritative (but not inspired) writings of the apostles. How do we know that the Corinthian community, or even Paul himself, believed that Paul’s letters to them were inspired by God in the same way that they believed the Hebrew Bible was inspired? Simply put, we don’t, so Aaron’s rebuttal fails on historical grounds.

Andrew’s appeal to certain non-canonical books does not support the claim with which he begins the above paragraph. The Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter aren’t in the New Testament because, during the apostolic era of the 1st century, these 2nd century books were completely unknown to believers. Thus, unlike the writings of the apostles and their associates that were being read, copied and circulated both during and after the 1st century, neither the Shepherd of Hermas nor the Apocalypse of Peter were accepted as inspired/authoritative by believers during that time. And any works that weren’t known to be inspired/authoritative during the apostolic era of the 1st century were doomed to be rejected later. Conversely, I believe it was inevitable that those works that were recognized as inspired and authoritative during the apostolic era of the 1st century would be recognized by Athanasius and other Christian leaders of the 4th century as such (not because Athanasius and other Christian leaders of the 4th century were believers, but because of the historical circumstances themselves).

The fact that there was some debate/controversy regarding the status of the Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter in the first few centuries following the apostolic era is perfectly consistent with the fact that it was due to their non-existence (and thus non-acceptance by believers) during the apostolic era that ultimately resulted in them not being listed by Athanasius and represented in the New Testament today. Athanasius’ list reflects a state of affairs that ultimately existed because of what was the case during the apostolic era.

    Once again, my response will be epistemological: how do you know that, for example, the Apocalypse of Peter was unknown to 1st-century believers? After all, non-believing scholars today would make the same claim about 2 Peter on historical grounds! The only reason you believe that 2 Peter and not the Apocalypse of Peter is apostolic is because the Church ultimately accepted it as apostolic. (You can point to scholars who argue for 2 Peter’s apostolicity, but the only scholars who make this claim are those who are already committed to its apostolicity because they are Christian.) If the Church had accepted the Apocalypse of Peter instead (or in addition), then you would believe on the same grounds that it is apostolic. Hence, your beliefs about apostolicity still rest on the discernment of the Church, and the late 4th-century Church is still the standard by which you retroactively judge claims about Scripture from preceding centuries.

It seems to be Andrew’s understanding that, when I referred to “streams,” I had in mind “the true Church.” But that’s not what I had in mind. I was simply referring to people/communities who recognized/accepted as inspired/authoritative the books that are inspired/authoritative. While I do think that the earliest “streams” consisted exclusively of believers, I see no reason to think that the majority of people/communities who continued to recognize/accept as inspired/authoritative the books that are inspired/authoritative were also believers (or generally doctrinally sound).

    Thanks for clarifying. I definitely was misunderstanding you about that. I still want to clarify that I don’t believe the late-4th-century Church pulled its list of Scriptural texts out of nowhere. This was definitely the result of a historical process which began in the 1st century and culminated (for the most part) in the late 4th century. The end of this process, however, definitely wasn’t a foregone conclusion in the late 1st century, and our acceptance of the Scriptures rests on the discernment of the 2nd to 4th century Church.

I think it’s interesting that we have far more historical evidence (and thus reason to believe) that the Christians of the 2nd century were premillennialists who believed that Christ’s second coming will follow (and put an end to) the reign of a man who will fulfill the scriptural prophecies concerning the Antichrist than we have historical evidence that these same 2nd century Christians held to some of the main doctrines promulgated by the Seven Ecumenical Councils.

    I agree with that characterization and I don’t have a problem with it. Much like their list of Scriptural books, the pre-4th-century Church was quite vague and diverse about their doctrinal commitments (at least compared to the later Church). The Church’s understanding of true Scripture and true doctrine both began to crystallize around the same time, in the 4th century, when Roman persecution ended and the Church had strong (often state-enforced) unity for several centuries. Although I may not like the way in which this unity was sometimes enforced, I can’t deny that this Church is the only reason I believe in the Scriptures, and it would be inconsistent for me to also reject her doctrine.

Responding to Concordant critics

    Since I published my post about the Scriptures, the Church, and Christ last week, some of my Concordant former brethren have offered rebuttals on their Discord server. In this post, I’ll try to answer them to the best of my ability. In summary of the conclusions from my earlier post, my position is that the Scriptures cannot be properly interpreted apart from (1) the community of faith, which is the modern Church in communion with the 2nd through 4th century Church that traditioned the Scriptures; (2) the canon of truth, which is the early creed that developed into the Nicene Creed and governs the interpretation of the Scriptures, what is central vs. peripheral; and (3) the person of the crucified and risen Christ, who is the hypothesis of the Christian faith, prior to any Scriptures.

Drew Costen

    The first response to look at is Drew Costen’s, which he later posted on his blog as “Some thoughts on Catholic and Orthodox views of Scripture”:

To put it simply, if the Bible actually contradicts itself at all in its actual meaning (not referring to types of “contradictions” that can be resolved by understanding the difference between the two Gospels, of course), we can’t trust any of it to be true since we can’t know which parts are true and which aren’t. And if the Bible as a whole is true, there’s no way that the majority of the Christian (especially Orthodox and Catholic) doctrines can be true, as I believe my own eBook proves quite definitively (which is why I do think Andrew should re-read the whole book carefully). And if someone is going to say that we need to interpret the Bible based on the interpretations of the Catholic magisterium (or whatever the Orthodox equivalent of that is), since taking the context of the Bible as a whole into consideration completely contradicts their supposed interpretations — which I would argue aren’t actually interpretations at all, but are really just eisegesis, since there’s no actual way to get pretty much any of their doctrines out of the Bible if we’re assuming the Bible is inerrant, which means they have to be reading their doctrines into it instead — they might as well just throw the Bible out altogether and simply say their doctrines are simply based on some supposed apostolic chain of tradition (which is basically what they’re claiming anyway), because they have absolutely zero scriptural authority to base their doctrines on (which they don’t need anyway, as they claim to be the authority), especially since Scripture is really not only just superfluous to their authority and doctrines, but is actually a hindrance to them when it’s taken seriously.

To put it simply, they can’t refer us to Scripture as a basis for their authority (or, really, for any of their doctrines), since if Scripture is true, then Scripture as a whole contradicts basically everything they teach, and if Scripture as a whole isn’t true, we can’t trust any of it, and we then would have no reason to believe the parts they’re “interpreting” as the basis of their authority and doctrines are even true to begin with. So as logical as their bibliological — and even their epistemological — claims might seem to be at first glance, these claims have irreconcilable problems, at least as far as I can tell.

    Drew presents us with a dilemma: either the Bible contradicts itself, or it doesn’t and “the Bible as a whole is true”. If the Bible contradicts itself, then there is no standard to tell us which parts are true and which aren’t, and any faith which claims to be based on Scripture (such as Catholicism and Orthodoxy) is baseless. If the Bible doesn’t contradict itself, then it does contradict orthodox Christian belief (such as the Trinity and Incarnation) and supports Concordant doctrine instead.

    I believe that the view outlined in my post is able to thread the horns of this dilemma. First, it’s clear that apart from any framework of unity and inspiration laid upon the texts, the Scriptures do contain contradictions. This is the value of historical criticism: it allows us to view the texts as texts in themselves, apart from our frameworks of belief. Historical criticism shows us that the texts, considered merely as such, do have contradictions between themselves – and not just minor ones, like the number of fighting men in Israel (2 Sam 24:9; 1 Chron 21:5), but major developments, such as between polytheism and monotheism in ancient Israelite religion.

    However, I do not concede that there are contradictions within the Scriptures. When we consider the texts not merely as texts, but as Scripture, we’re already imposing a unifying framework upon them. Drew does this in his response (probably unconsciously) when he refers to “the Bible as a whole”. This unifying framework cannot come from within Scripture itself, but must be imposed from outside. As Drew hints at in his post, the framework which one chooses tells us, not so much “which parts are true and which aren’t”, but which parts are central and which are peripheral. For example, should the Hebrew Bible texts which (in their original context and considered in themselves) support polytheism be made central and be used to interpret the texts which support monotheism, or vice versa?

    This issue is precisely what I was talking about in my original post when I argued for the need for a “canon of truth,” the term that the early Church used to refer to its unifying framework. The canon provides a standard which isn’t foreign to the Scriptures (because its language and associations are drawn entirely from Scripture), but is imposed upon them and determines their center and periphery. For example, the canon opens with a declaration of faith in “one God, the Father Almighty,” which tells us that the monotheistic texts of Scripture are central and must be used to interpret the other texts.

    Finally, Drew seems to assume in his argument that if the Bible were irreconcilably contradictory, there would be no basis for Christian faith. This isn’t correct. As Irenaeus pointed out in the 2nd century, even the regions of the Church which had no Scripture (because they were illiterate) shared the same faith. This is because the foundation of Christian faith is not a text or collection of texts, but the person of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, faith in whom has been passed down by his apostles and their successors, as it would have been even if they left no writings at all (Adv Haer 3.4.1-2).

Aquadude

    Another response was offered by “Aquadude” on the Concordant Discord server. He writes,

Never made sense to me how the church would need to be the final authority of scripture, especially considering Ezra was entrusted with compiling the OT, it doesn’t seem right that scripture would be canonized by an authority who are given no direct orders from God unlike the prophets. There was a RevaGo video that said that Paul was the final authority in compiling the Old and [N]ew [T]estament together, which makes the most sense to me.

https://youtu.be/627LWhattTM?si=3fToZ5BsrOE5SFoH

Also since you mentioned there no evidence being a New Testament until the late fourth century, how heavily are we supposed to rely on what was documented historically? Some people throw out half of Paul’s letters and even the Gospel of John because they are not dated early enough, just as an example.

    I appreciate these good-faith concerns. First, in the video that “Aquadude” shares, Colossians 1:25 (“to complete the word of God”) and 2 Timothy 4:11-13 (“bring the scrolls, especially the parchments”) are taken as evidence that Paul compiled the entire Bible in the first century. Unfortunately, while this is a nice story, it doesn’t match the historical evidence at all which shows that the list of New Testament books remained fluid until it crystallized into its present form in the 4th century (see my previous post). Therefore, even if Paul compiled the modern Bible in the first century, it was immediately lost and independently recovered by a gradual process in the 2nd to 4th century Church.

    [As an aside: the two verses to which “RevaGo” appeals don’t support the idea that Paul compiled the Bible in its present form. Paul tells us exactly what he means by “the word of God” in Colossians, and it isn’t the physical text of the Bible, but “the mystery… Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:25-27). The reference to “scrolls” in 2 Tim 4:13 hardly indicates every one of the books of Scripture in their present order.]

    The concern that the early Church wasn’t “given… direct orders from God” to compile the Scriptures is a legitimate one. However, the example of Ezra “compiling the OT” doesn’t support this concern, in fact, it helps to alleviate it. Ezra himself was given no “direct orders from God” that are recorded in Scripture; rather, we read that “the hand of the Lord was upon” him (Ezra 7:6, 28), which rather suggests indirect guidance. Likewise, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would “guide you [collectively] into all truth” (John 16:13). If we believe that the present list of Scriptural books is correct, then the discernment of Scripture must have been such guidance.

    As for the fact that “some people throw out half of Paul’s letters and even the Gospel of John because they are not dated early enough,” this proves my point exactly. Apart from the discernment of the 2nd through 4th century Church, there are some books of Scripture that wouldn’t even be considered authentic. We would have very little reason to believe, for example, that 1 and 2 Timothy were really written by Paul. If you do believe that they were written by Paul, this is only because the Church throughout history has recognized those texts as authentic and inspired.

Aaron Welch

    Concordant blogger Aaron Welch – who, let me reiterate, has been a great influence on me and my journey of faith, and to whom I dedicated my original post – also offered some responses on the Discord server. I think it’s worth reproducing his latest response in full, in which he explains his view of the historical reception of Scripture:

I believe that every inspired document that comprises the Greek Scriptures was recognized as inspired and authoritative by believers wherever these documents were available/known to believers. To be clear, I’m not saying that, in the first century, every believer or ecclesia was aware of/had in their possession every inspired document. What I’m saying is that any inspired book or collection of inspired books (regardless of how complete or incomplete the collection was) that was known to/available to any believers during the apostolic era would’ve been recognized as inspired/authoritative, and that, from the time that an inspired document was written (and began to be read and copied/circulated among believers) until the time of Athanasius, there was an unbroken chain (or rather various “unbroken chains”) of believers and professing believers who, collectively, recognized the inspiration and authority of every work that comprises the Greek Scriptures. And it is ultimately because of this state of affairs that we have in possession today translations of copies of the full collection of inspired writings that we now have. The very fact that a complete list of inspired documents was able to be recognized in the 4th century is due to the fact that all of these inspired books had, since the apostolic era, been recognized as inspired/authoritative by unbroken chains of believers/professing believers.

Think of it like various “streams” of believers and professing believers who were aware of (and thus recognized as inspired/authoritative) incomplete collections of inspired books of Scripture. At first, all of the “streams” were relatively small, but they all gradually grew bigger (with some being larger than others, depending on the location and number of believers). These “streams” continued to grow and combine until the majority of believers/professing believers had become aware of the full collection of inspired books (and this “stream” continues today). But the “stream” that was comprised of Scripture-affirming Christians in the 4th century only existed because of the streams that existed before them. It’s not like there was ever a time when all the “streams” disappeared, and then “the Church” of the 4th century “saved the day” so that we can now have the complete collection. No; the believers and/or professing believers of the 4th century were simply a continuation of the streams that began during the apostolic era.

To continue my “streams” analogy, we could say that, after the apostolic era ended, the “streams” became increasingly more contaminated and polluted by erroneous beliefs and practices (including beliefs that contradict the truth of the evangel). However, this “contamination” did not, for the most part, involve a rejection of Scripture, or a denial of its authenticity and inspiration. Those who began to hold to beliefs and interpretations of scripture that contradict the evangel (and other scriptural truth) did not realize they were doing so. They continued to affirm the inspiration of Scripture, and continued to profess faith in the evangel (as they understood it). Thus, there is no inconsistency in believing that, while we wouldn’t have the Bible we have today if it weren’t for those who came before us (including the Christians of the 4th century) - for it was necessary that they, and those before them, affirm the authenticity and inspiration of all Scripture - we need not (and should not) assume that the majority of Christians and Christian leaders of any post-apostolic era were actually members of the body of Christ, or that their doctrine was generally sound.

    Aaron’s analogy of “streams” is helpful, but he oversimplifies the picture. It’s not the case that all the books that are now in the New Testament, and no others, were recognized as inspired from the beginning, and that as communities of believers came into contact with one another they recognized the inspiration of each others’ texts and built the present New Testament. There were non-canonical books, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter, which were recognized as inspired by some but ultimately rejected, and canonical books, such as 2 Peter and Revelation, which were known and rejected by some but ultimately accepted.

    It is only by appealing to the standard that crystallized in the late 4th century that we can retroactively see which Scriptural streams were legitimate and which were not. There were some streams that died out, some that got larger or smaller over time, and many streams gradually came together from the 2nd century onward until they formed the “river” of the New Testament in the 4th century. I don’t see how Aaron’s claim that the streams became “contaminated and polluted” before that point, to the extent that they failed to be true streams at all (“not… actually members of the body of Christ”), does anything but reduce the credibility of the New Testament to nothing. It seems arbitrary and inconsistent to believe that the early Church was guided by God in its reception of Scripture, but not in its reception of doctrine.

    One of Aaron’s claims is confusing to me, but maybe I’m misunderstanding him:

It’s not like there was ever a time when all the “streams” disappeared, and then “the Church” of the 4th century “saved the day” so that we can now have the complete collection. No; the believers and/or professing believers of the 4th century were simply a continuation of the streams that began during the apostolic era.

This is precisely the argument that I’m making. Concordantism claims that the true Church almost disappeared, if not completely, before the 4th century, and the day was saved in the 19th century when A. E. Knoch (with his one year of biblical Greek classes) recovered the true faith of the apostles. The claim that the Church of the 4th century was a continuation from the apostolic era is the one I’m making (along with the rest of mainstream Christianity), and this is how we can trust that the Scriptures which were compiled into the 4th century are truly inspired.

    Aaron offered a few other responses on the Discord server, and I’ll respond to some of the points he made, although most of his points were reiterated in his last response (which I pasted above).

Andrew, so does this mean that you’re now a “futurist” with regard to the prophesied “fourth kingdom” of Daniel 7 and its final, saint-persecuting ruler? I know that the Eastern Orthodox Church affirms (in accord with what was the dominant view among of the patristic writers) that, before Christ’s return, there’s going to be a specific, literal human individual who’s going to fulfill the prophecies concerning the “Antichrist”/”Man of Lawlessness.”

Also, something that I find a bit puzzling is why the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn’t affirm the premillennial doctrinal position (according to which Christ will return to earth to establish a literal, physical, one-thousand-year kingdom). For we know that the main eschatological view of early patristic writers (roughly 2nd to early 4th century) was premillennialism. Instead, the EOC affirms the amillennial position (an eschatological view that’s historically associated more with Augustine, and which found its first systematic expression in his work, City of God).

    The only fully dogmatic beliefs in Eastern Orthodoxy are the doctrines promulgated by the Seven Ecumenical Councils. The Scriptures and the “consensus of the Fathers” are also non-negotiable parts of Tradition, which are open to interpretation (hence one can’t point to their own interpretation of Scripture or the Fathers and claim that it’s dogmatic). The rest of Tradition, including local councils, liturgical hymns, and iconography, is important but ultimately open to negotiation.

    I’ve been attending an Orthodox parish for some time now, and I can’t recall hearing a single word about a future individual Antichrist. This view was not promulgated by any ecumenical council, and the early Fathers held diverse views about Antichrist (although most did believe in such a future individual). It is hardly to be found in the liturgical life of the Church. The Creed, which (as the canon of faith) determines the center and periphery of our faith, only declares that “[Jesus Christ] shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end.” It’s safe to say that insofar as the belief in a future individual Antichrist is a part of Tradition, it is extremely peripheral. I don’t believe in such a future individual, but because this belief is so peripheral to Christian faith, I could certainly be convinced otherwise.

    Amillennialism is also not a dogmatic position of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but it’s much less ambiguous. The Creed and the hymns relating to the Last Judgment associate Christ’s return with the final judgment and the end of history as such. I think it’s overstating the case to say that the main view of the 2nd to 4th century Fathers was premillennialism (chiliasm). Probably the majority of the 2nd century Fathers were chiliasts (e.g., Epist Barn 15; Justin Martyr, Dial 80-81; Irenaeus, Adv Haer 5.23-35; Hippolytus, Comm Dan 4.23-24), but this was also tied to a chronological framework that’s been disproven since Christ didn’t return after several hundred years. Clement and Origen of Alexandria opposed chiliasm, and by the 4th century most Fathers were amillennialists, which is reflected in the Creed. In his City of God, Augustine just systematized what was already the received wisdom in his day.

Andrew wrote: “In fact, these same texts to which Aaron appeals (1 and 2 Timothy, 1 John, 2 Peter and Jude) show every indication from the outside of having been composed pseudonymously in the second century, after the alleged apostasy took place! Apart from the early Church’s acceptance of these texts as authentic and inspired, there would be no basis to interpret them in the way that Aaron does.”

I believe we have just as little reason to believe that the texts to which I appealed were “composed pseudonymously in the second century” as we have reason to believe that the other writings that comprise the Greek Scriptures were “composed pseudonymously in the second century.”

Here are some articles that I believe demonstrate the authenticity of Paul’s pastoral letters… In support of the authenticity of Peter’s second letter… In support of the authenticity of John’s letters…

It’s also worth noting that Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 69–155 AD) explicitly referenced and quoted both 1 and 2 Timothy in his Letter to the Philippians (specifically, Polycarp quotes 1 Timothy 6:10 and 1 Timothy 6:7 in chapters 3 and 4, connecting these citations to his praise of Paul and thus demonstrating his reliance on them as Pauline and authoritative).

    Aaron later realized, correctly, that I meant in my original post “that we would, today, have no reason to think that they’re authentic and inspired apart from what took place [or better, culminated] in the 4th century”. In fact, this is precisely the case with his response! Every one of the articles that Aaron linked to was written by people with prior commitments to the authenticity and inspiration of those texts. The only reason that they have such prior commitments is because they belong to Christian communities that accept the list of Scripture which developed in the 2nd to 4th century Church! Aaron even appeals to Polycarp’s acceptance of 1 and 2 Timothy, even though he argues that Polycarp fell away from the truth in the very post to which I was responding!

As far as what Andrew referred to as “the alleged apostasy,” I don’t think that even he can deny that, during the first few centuries of “church history,” a progressive change/transition in ecclesiastic organization/governance took place, and that, by the fourth century, the organization of “the church” was quite different than it was during the apostolic era…

While those who belong to the institutional Christian church (whether eastern or western) will undoubtedly say that this development in ecclesiastic organization and governance was a good thing, I see it as just an outward sign of (and as coinciding with) the doctrinal apostasy that I believe did take place.

    This is true, although not quite so drastic. The Church developed from a two-fold structure of presbyter-bishops and deacons in the 1st century, to a three-fold structure of bishops, presbyters, and deacons in the 2nd century, and ultimately crystallized in the 4th century into the structure of patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, priests, deacons, and monastics that’s (more or less) found in the Orthodox Church today. In its ideal form, from which the concrete Church unfortunately departed at times, this structure is not built on power over others but on a process of mutual consensus (e.g., Apostolic Canon 34; I Nicaea 5-6; Antioch 19).

    Merely describing the historical reality in this way doesn’t involve a value judgment (whether this was “a good thing” or “apostasy”). However, it was during this same period (2nd to 4th centuries), and within the same developing ecclesial structure, that the list of Scriptural books was also developed. Like I said earlier about doctrine, it seems arbitrary and inconsistent to accept the present form of Scripture as divinely inspired, while rejecting the structure of the Church that produced it as corrupted to the extent that it wasn’t even the true Church.

Nash

    Another question was posed to me by “Nash” who is curious how an ex-unitarian trinitarian would interpret certain passages.

Curious about Mark 10:18 in particular. The only response I ever really hear is “oh, so you don’t think Jesus is good?” which is pretty easy to refute just by considering other sinless characters, such as the archangels. (Who nobody considers to be God, yet are also clearly “good” in a sense that’s shy of the untemptable moral perfection that God alone possesses per this verse)

    This is easier to answer if we abandon later and Western concepts of what the Trinity means, and enter the mind of the early Church. The Creed dogmatically declares that the “one God” is “the Father Almighty”. We know God as the Father, and as such he cannot be conceived apart from his Son Jesus Christ, who is the perfect image of the Father, sharing in everything that he is except for being Father. Therefore, Jesus Christ is not God simpliciter, but as the Creed says, “Light of [or ‘from’] Light, true God of true God… of one essence with the Father”. In the words of Basil of Caesarea, “There is one God because there is one Father. But the Son is also God, and there are not two gods because the Son has identity with the Father” (Sab 3).

    It’s also true that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. As Gregory of Nyssa argues in his famous Letter to Ablabius, this is because the term “God” (theos) according to its etymology refers to an activity (theasthai, “beholding”), not to the divine nature, which is incomprehensible to us and beyond all naming. The activity of the Trinity is perfectly unified. For example, there are not multiple salvations or judgments, but one salvation and one judgment which is operated from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are precisely the ones through whom and in whom the will of the Father is enacted. In other words, the Trinity is God and his Word and his Spirit, and this is one God (cf. John of Damascus, De fide orth 1.8).

    Returning to Mark 10:18, Jesus says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” In the early Church, “God” in this passage was understood to refer to the Father (Clement of Alexandria, Paed 1.8; Origen, De Princ 2.5.4; Contra Celsum 5.11; CommJohn 1.254; 6.245). Basil of Caesarea shares the same reading, and he adds,

…even in this passage the Son does not speak to the exclusion of himself from the good nature. But since the Father is the first Good, we believe the words “no one” to have been uttered with the understood addition of “first”… Otherwise how can this passage fall in with the rest of the evidence of Scripture, or agree with the common notions of us who believe that the Only-Begotten is the image of the invisible God, and image not of the bodily figure, but of the very Deity and of the mighty qualities attributed to the essence of God, image of power, image of wisdom, as Christ is called “the power of God and the wisdom of God”? (Letter 236.1)

Many people are called “good” in Scripture, so it must be that no one but God is good in some absolute sense. God is the first absolute Good, but not to the exclusion of Jesus Christ who is the perfect image of God the Father, who is therefore also the absolute Good (cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium 11.1).

    It’s also worthwhile to look at the context of the verse. The young ruler who refers to Jesus as “good teacher” (Mk 10:17) certainly doesn’t have absolute divine Goodness in mind. Jesus is the one who introduces the idea of divine Goodness into the conversation, and he doesn’t explicitly deny it for himself: “why do you call me good?” This was taken up by some 4th century and later Fathers, who argue that the merely human term “good teacher” was not proper enough for Jesus, and so he hinted at his own divine Goodness (e.g., Hilary of Poitiers, De Trin 9.15-18; John Chrysostom, Hom Matt 63.1). Indeed, after reiterating the second tablet of the Decalogue (commandments about fidelity to other humans), rather than quoting the first tablet (about fidelity to God) to the young ruler, Jesus exhort him to give away his possessions and “follow me” (Mk 10:19-22).

    These two interpretations of Mark 10:18 are not mutually exclusive. In his question to the rich young ruler, Jesus directs the glory of absolute Goodness to his Father, while not denying (and even hinting at) the same glory for himself. This is perfectly consistent with the properly-understood doctrine of the Trinity.