“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]
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[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.
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