A Cup o’ Cappadocian (part 2)

Greetings everyone! Have you had your cup o' Cappadocian today? I thought not. Then sit back and relax while I fire up the espresso machine and steam the milk (2%, of course). And by the way, I'm gonna add a heapin' tablespoon of sugar for one or two of you, 'cause you need it!

Last time, we started talking about those wild and crazy Cappadocians. You remember those brothers, don't you? There's three of 'em: Big Basil and the two Gregs, sometimes known as Basil the Great, Gregory Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzus. These dudes were pretty smart. They described the Triune God as one ousia (substance, nature, essence) in three hypostases (persons). They used the term ousia (oo-SEE-uh) to capture the oneness or unity of the Godhead, that is, what is common to the divine Persons; then they grabbed hold of the Greek word hypostases (hi-PASTA-seez) to capture the diversity or distinctions within the Triune Godhead (the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father . . .). According to the "Cappadocian Settlement" of the Trinitarian controversies of the 4^th century, God eternally exists as mia ousia, treis hypostaseis (one substance, three persons). Man, the Cappies knew how to spit out a mouthful in a few words!

But we haven't even started appreciating how smart these brothers were. I guarantee you, all three of them graduated the 6^th grade! If we really want to appreciate their work, we gotta wrap our minds around some Greek philosophy. I know we'd all rather talk about fishin' or football or making biscuits, but we gotta do what we gotta do. So, like it or not, we need to know a smidgen ("a little bit" ) about the philosophical milieu (say what?) in which these boys lived and worked. So pay attention and try not to fall sleep.

In the Hellenistic (Greek) thought of the day, the divine (what the TV preachers call "Gawd") was regarded as an absolute unity, simple in its essence (substance) without characteristics of any kind and not subject to change (immutability). The divine was way up there, all by its lonesome: aloof, distant and unaffected by this world of dirt down here (impassibility). Furthermore, the divine was considered impersonal and arelational (lacking relationship), for relationship in the Deity was a "no-no," because it would compromise the all-important Greek insistence on divine simplicity (more in next post).

Against the philosophical milieu (there's that word again!) of their day, our boys the Cappies launched a philosophical revolution by countering the prevailing tendency of Greek thought, which was to view the divine as a simple undifferentiated essence. Because they began their thinking about God with God's redemptive acts in the economy (oikonomia) of salvation as revealed in the incarnate Son (and the gift of the Spirit), the Cappies found it necessary to clearly articulate the exact nature of the Father-Son relationship (LaCugna, pp. 60ff). In articulating the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son, they challenged the established view of Greek philosophy by giving ontological primacy to person over nature (i.e., substance, essence) (Schwöbel, pp. 52, 53). This may not sound like a big deal, but it is. Don't miss this point: In exact opposition to Greek philosophy, the Cappies give person (multiplicity!) greater ontological significance than unitary essence. This is important; it matters! It means we can start talking about God in terms of persons in relationship rather than in the then prevailing Greek notion of God as unitary (undifferentiated) substance. We don't have to retreat into "substantialist metaphysics" (sounds high falutin' don't it!), lost in deep philosophical contemplation of the divine essence considered apart from God's triune self-revelation in salvation history (oikonomia).

You see, the Cappies didn't think about God as simple, arelational substance (Augustine and Aquinas, however, would buy into that big time!). They understood that the Father-Son relationship is an eternal relationship characteristic of God's transcendent Being, not merely a temporary economic (historical) manifestation of the Godhead. Thus, they began their thinking about God in the very un-Greek way of persons in relationship. According to John Zizioulas (a big time Greek orthodox type):

If, therefore, we wish to follow the Cappadocians in their understanding of the Trinity in relation to monotheism, we must adopt an ontology which is based on personhood, i.e. on a unity or openness emerging from relationships, and not one of substance (Schwöbel, p. 52).

Similarly, John Sanders writes:

[The Cappadocians] emphasized divine relationality in their debates with Eunomius, [a neo-Arian bishop] who claimed that God was a simple essence (not composed of any parts) and so the Son and Spirit could not be fully God: God is devoid of internal relations [per Eunomius]. In response, the Cappadocians claimed that the terms "Father" and "Son" referred to the relation between the Father and Son. In so doing, they held that person, not substance, was the ultimate metaphysical category and thus claimed that God was supremely relational. The Father can beget the Son because the Father, as personal, has self-emptying love for another. God is then not alone, in isolation from relationships, but eternally related within the Godhead as Trinity. God is then not an "in-itself," apart from others, but the epitome of love in relation (Sanders, pp. 147-148. Here Sanders closely follows LaCugna, pp. 14, 63-66).

Do you see? Let me recap: Rather than develop a metaphysics of substance based on the Greek philosophical presupposition that God is utterly simple and arelational, the Cappadocians asserted that person is the supreme ontological principle and, in so doing, they understood the Godhead as eternally and supremely relational . Unlike the philosophers, they did not regard substance (ousia) as an abstract principle to be considered apart from the concrete particularities of the divine persons: Father, Son, and Spirit (LaCugna, p. 69; also see previous post). Rather, they saw that the divine persons in relationship among themselves constitute the "Being" of God (Gunton, p. 86). In the Cappadocians' trinitarian ontology, the Triune Persons exhaust the Godhead without remainder. As LaCugna notes, "[T]here is no ousia apart from the hypostases." Gunton (p. 86) asserts , "[T]ogether the persons in relation to one another constitute the 'being' of God. So the 'being' of God is simply what the persons are one to another." God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no fourth "something," no unknown substance, no substratum, hidden behind or lying beneath the Triune Persons.

To fully appreciate the Cappadocian contribution, we gotta compare their approach to the Augustinian-Thomist-Western approach to the doctrine of God. (We'll get more of the Augustinian-Thomist approach in future posts). Nowadays, just about everyone knows that the Eastern (Greek) theologians begin their articulation of the nature of God with the Triune Persons (diversity) and move from there to the essence (unity) of the Godhead. The Western (Latin) approach is just the opposite: Western theologians, following Augustine (who was deeply influenced by Neoplatonism) and, later, Thomas Aquinas (influenced by Aristotelianism), begin their articulation of the doctrine of God with the unitary substance (essence, nature) of God and from there work toward the Triune Persons (some would argue that they never quite get there). We'll explore why this is so in an upcoming post.

In relation to the Latin emphasis on the unitary substance, Western theology tends to speak of the Godhead as "three 'relations' subsisting in the 'Being' of God" (Gunton, p. 86). I have often tried to picture what the Latin theologians are getting at. To risk the absurd, it sounds like they are describing three eggs. Have you had a fried egg sandwich lately? I'll think I'll have one for lunch. Here's what you do: You break out the salt, pepper, mayo and Bunny Bread, slick down the cast iron skillet with bacon grease, then heat it up till the grease starts smelling oh so fine! Next, you crack three eggs on the edge of the kitchen counter, being careful not to let the egg white drip into the cutlery drawer, then you carefully drop the eggs into the skillet and sort of let them run together and become one big egg with three yokes staring up at you. Notice that the yokes are in the egg but they don't constitute the whole thing. There's a lot of egg white left over, surrounding the yokes. It seems to me that's how Western trinitarian theologians, following Augustine, describe the Trinity. The Persons do not constitute the Being of God; rather, they are just somehow in there ("subsisting" in the Being of God). The problem may be obvious to those of you who remember the previous post. Describing the Godhead as three "subsistences" in the Being of God seems to suggest that the Being of God is something more than the Triune Persons, a fourth "something" that underlies the divine Persons. According to Gunton (p. 87), "If you say that the persons are subsistences in the 'being' of God, then you are implying that the 'being' of God is different from the 'persons'. If something 'subsists' in God then what is this 'being'?" In Western (Latin) theology, it appears that the "real" Being of God remains hidden, lying somehow beyond God's Triune self-revelation in salvation history (oikonomia). That thought causes me to shudder, because it means that the "deepest truth" (Baxter Kruger) about God is not fully and accurately revealed in Jesus.

Not to worry, however! Let's look at the Eastern (Greek) approach as articulated by the Cappies, building on Athanasius. If we start with God's self-revelation in salvation history (oikonomia) as Father, Son and Spirit, we are immediately thrown into the arena of relationship, for "Father" and "Son" are relational terms: the Father loves the Son in the Spirit; the Son loves the Father in the Spirit. As Baxter Kruger has said often, "To say the name of Jesus is to say the Father's Son." And then we are right into the middle of the Triune Godhead, who eternally exists as Father, Son and Spirit. For the Cappies, the Triune Persons, in their perichoretic interrelatedness (relationship!), are the Being of God. The Triune Persons constitute the Being of God, so that there is no unrevealed fourth "something" left over, no "deep truth" about God that is hidden from us. Remember the Nicene assertion that Jesus is homoousios to Patri, that is, "of one substance with the Father." The Nicene Creedal language encapsulates the supremely assuring truth that when we look at Jesus, we see God as God is. Jesus is the self-revelation of God. As he himself said, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." There is no God hidden behind the back of Jesus (Torrance).

So here is a brief comparison of the Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) approaches to the doctrine of God:

• The West begins with speculation on the unitary substance of God , cast in terms of the substantialist metaphysics of Greek philosophy (speculation on the substance or being of God considered apart from God's self-revelation in salvation history), and subsequently construes the Godhead as three "subsistences" in the Being of God. Hence, Being appears to underlie the Triune Persons. Arguably, by starting with the unitary Being of God, the West never quite makes it to the Triune Persons and ends up with modalism (God as a unipersonal monad). As Colin Gunton (p. 87) says, "[I]f you scratch the surface of many Western theologians you find modalism."

• The East begins with the Triune Persons in relationship and subsequently understands the Being of God as constituted by the Triune Persons without remainder. Thus the Being of God cannot be considered in the abstract apart from the concrete particularities of the Father, Son and Spirit in their perichoretic interrelatedness; there is, therefore, no unknown God hidden behind the back of Jesus. Furthermore, in the Eastern approach, the doctrine of God is intimately united to God's salvific self-revelation in redemptive history in the incarnate Son and the gift of the Spirit (this is especially true of Athanasius, whom the Cappies followed). Note: For a doctrine of God to be biblical, it must be explicated in terms of God's salvific acts for us in the incarnate Son and the gift of the Spirit; that is, God as revealed. Hence, Theology Proper (the doctrine of God) must be united to Soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). This vital connection has been lost in the Western doctrine of God with frightening implications.

By giving "person" ontological priority over "substance" (being, essence), the Cappies (following Athanasius) turned upside down the Greek world with its distant, aloof, impersonal and uncaring deity. By beginning with God's Triune self-revelation, Big Basil and the two Gregs developed their doctrine of God in terms of the Father's relationship with the incarnate Son, who is homoousios to Patri. Thanks to Athanasius, the Cappies, and many others, we can rest in the profound assurance that in the infinitely loving, compassionate eyes of Jesus, we peer deeply into the heart of the Triune God, who is eternally God for us! Hurray for the Cappadocian Fathers! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout! P.S. We'll be getting to NeoPlatonism, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and substantialist metaphysics in upcoming posts. I know you can't wait!

References

Gunton, C.E. 2007. The Barth Lectures. Transcribed and edited by P.H. Brazier. London: T & T Clark. 285pp.

LaCugna, C.M. 1991. God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco. 434pp.

Sanders, J.E. 2007. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 384 pp.

Schwöbel, C. (ed). 1995. Trinitarian Theology Today. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 176pp.

A Cup o’ Cappadocian (Part 1)

How do you like your Cappadocian? Decaf or leaded? Whole milk or skinny? Whipped cream on top or naked? How about a shot of hazelnut syrup to sweeten us up a bit today? You look like you could use it! Chocolate chip cookie with that? Now we're talkin'! That'll be $6.75 please.

As good as that sounds, the kind of Cappadocian we'll be talking about today ain't available at Starbucks. Fact is, we gotta go back to the pre-Starbucks days, all the way back to the fourth century to learn about the theological trio known as the Cappadocian Fathers. In case you didn't already know it (And of course most of you do. Not!), Cappadocia was located in Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey. There were three Cappadocian Fathers: Big Basil, his little brother Greg and their cousin Greg (Basil the Great, Gregory Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzus). These dudes were major players in those days. In fact Gregory Nazianzus presided over the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (381 A.D) where they put the finishing touches on the Nicene Creed.

To appreciate what the Cappies did, you gotta get into a fourth century mind set. Remember, this was a time of great theological turmoil regarding the doctrine of God. Everybody was working late, burning the candles low, trying to figure out a way to talk about God that made sense of the biblical revelation. Face it: what would you do, Bubba? On the one hand, we've always believed in one God; yet on the other hand, God has lately fully revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit? I mean, give me a break! One? Three? What's going on here? How do we put this together in a way that half-way makes sense?

Not to worry though. We've got several options already making the rounds out there. There are always the subordinationists. They say the way to protect the unity (oneness) of God is to make the Son and Spirit junior gods, something less than the real thing. That way the Father can remain all alone in his unique oneness and we'll make both the Jews and the Greeks happy. These folks thought they had a winner. Then, of course, there were the modalists. You remember them, don't you? They've been around since the second century. They were saying that God is really just one person, not three. So what's the big deal about all this one and three stuff? (For the answer to that question, see my previous post entitled, "One or Three?"). Finally there were the tritheists who said, "What the heck. Let's call it three gods and let it go at that." But not many took them seriously. So basically, we've got to figure out a way to steer between the subordinationists on one hand and the modalists on the other. In other words, we've got to protect the oneness (unity) of God; we've got to account for all three persons of the Godhead (diversity), and we've got to keep everybody equal to avoid subordinationism and to keep Athanasius from comin' down on our heads!

But I know what you're thinking. Some bright folks are wondering: But what about Tertullian? All the way back in the second century he was saying that God was una substantia, tres persona (one substance, three persons). True enough, Bubba. But Tertullian was way over in western Africa writing in Latin, so he hadn't really caught on over in the eastern, Greek speaking part of the empire where the fireworks were really happening.

So here's the deal: This is what the Cappies were up against. How do we maintain the biblical revelation that God is one while also maintaining the equally biblical revelation that God eternally exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Many of us today could probably give a reasonable answer to that question. But remember, in the fourth century no one had clearly articulated a theology that maintained both the unity and diversity of the Godhead. This is what Big Basil and the two Gregs brought to the table (building on the work of Athanasius). Their formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is known as the "Cappadocian Settlement." Despite the influence of Augustine (who went off on his own track), so much of what we say about the doctrine of the Trinity today is rooted in the work of the Cappadocians. So pour a cup, kick back and relax, 'cause we're gonna be here a while. Here we go!

Based upon their understanding of the triune pattern of biblical revelation, the Cappadocians argued that God exists as one substance, essence, being or nature (Gr. ousia oo-SEE-ah) in three persons (hypostases hi-PASTA-seez) (Gonzales, 1987:287; cf Olson, 1999:174ff). For the Cappadocians, ousia (substance, essence, being or nature) is the unifying principle of the Godhead; hypostasis (hi-PASTA-sis, person) is the principle of distinction (cf Jenson, 1995:105). The Cappadocian formula (one ousia, three hypostases) preserves both the unity (oneness) and the diversity (threeness) of the Godhead. Thus, the Cappadocians articulated the trinitarian grammar that would allow the Church to speak of God as one substance or essence (ousia) in three persons (hypostases)—One in Three; Three in One. (The formal Cappadocian statement in Greek is mia ousia, treis hypostaseis, one substance, essence or nature; three persons). Cool!

Articulating a fine distinction between hypostasis and ousia to defend the ontological equality of the divine persons, the Cappadocians asserted that the Son is distinct from the Father in terms of hypostasis but equal in terms of ousia (substance or essence) (LaCugna, 1991:70). Did you get all that! The Cappadocians are boo-coo smart. Ousia gives us unity and equality. The Triune Persons are the same in ousia; hence, equally God. (They are all homo-ousios, "same substance." Remember our last post?) At the same time, the Triune Persons are distinct in terms of hypostasis (person). The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father. That gives us the multiplicity or diversity of the Godhead. So there you go. Goodbye subordinationism. Goodbye modalism. Hello trinitarian orthodoxy.

Let's sum it up real simple like:

• ousia (substance, essence, being, nature) accounts for the unity and equality of the Godhead. "Hear O Israel, The Lord is one."
• hypostasis (person) accounts for the diversity of the Godhead. The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father . . .
• We maintain unity, equality and diversity by saying that the Son is equal with the Father in terms of ousia, yet distinct in terms of hypostasis. The Father and Son are one substance or essence (ousia) but distinct persons (hypostases). Ditto with the Spirit.

Simple! Only took a few centuries to work it out!

Nevertheless, because of the Cappies' assertion that there are three distinct hypostases (persons) in the Godhead, some of the folks started hollerin' "Foul!" They thought Big Basil and the two Gregs were actually closet tritheists (believing in three gods, not one). So the Cappies had to get down to the real nitty gritty in their thinking. Here's what they came up with:

The distinction between substance (ousia) and person (hypostasis) does not mean that the three divine persons can be thought of as independent autonomous beings (Schwöbel, 1995:50). Rather, at the heart of the Trinity, the Cappadocians saw an interpersonal communion (koinonia) or fellowship, wherein communion is a function of all three persons of the Godhead. Hence, the being of God is interpersonal, that is, internally relational with each person related to the others in "reciprocal delight" (O'Collins, 1999:131, 132). In the Cappadocian doctrine of God, we see the incipient concept of perichoresis, that is, the "being-in-one-another" of the persons of the Trinity. "In a unique 'coinherence' or mutual penetration, each of the trinitarian persons is transparent to and permeated by the other two" (O'Collins, 1999:132). The concept of perichoresis precludes the charge of tritheism in Cappadocian theology with its inherent affirmation that the divine persons must be understood, not in terms of individual subjectivity, but in terms of intersubjectivity (O'Collins, 1999:132).

Wow! We gotta give that wild Irish Jesuit O'Collins some big time credit for that statement. The triune persons are not three separate Gods out there, each doing his own thing. Rather the three divine Persons exist in an eternal fellowship of "reciprocal delight" and harmony of will, intent, and purpose. In other words, the fellowship in the Godhead is a communion, not of individual subjectivity, but of INTER-subjectivity. Way to go, O'Collins! Cool stuff! (P.S. Much more needs to be said about perichoresis, but we'll leave that for another day. O'Collins captures the essential point).

As Zizioulas (Schwöbel, 1995:47) notes, the Cappadocians further avoided the charge of tritheism by suggesting that ousia was a general category that could apply to more than one individual. For example, humanity is a general category that applies to Larry, Mo and Curley, who are three hypostases (persons) that share a common ousia or nature (humanity). LaCugna (1991:67) develops the analogy further, noting also that Gregory of Nyssa compares the substantial unity (consubstantiality) of the divine persons to the consubstantiality of human persons. The word "humanity" can refer to more than one individual person. Larry, Mo and Curley are all humans, yet they remain distinct and unique individuals. While each person (or "stooge" in this case) retains his uniqueness and diversity, all three stooges share the same ousia (essence, nature, or substance). Their common ousia is humanity (anthropos). Because they possess the same ousia, the three hypostases—Larry, Mo and Curley—are homoousios (of the same substance). Similarly, the Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct hypostases who share one common ousia (theos or Godness); that is, they are three divine Persons who share the same essence, nature, or substance (they are homo-ousios). All are theos; that is, all are God. Said another way: What Father, Son and Spirit are is the same; who each is, is unique and distinct. [As an aside, Olson (1999:194) provides a simple but useful way to understand the Cappadocian formula, wherein "what-ness" (ousia) and "who-ness" (hypostasis) are distinguished. The Godhead may be described as three "who's" in one "what."]

Simply stated, the Cappies are trying to avoid the charge of tritheism by showing that three distinct "somethings" can share one nature, just as three people share the same human nature. That's great as far as it goes. But analogies are never perfect, and this one is fraught with difficulties. To be sure, many scholars have noted the problems, even dangers, in the Cappadocian analogy of three humans sharing a common nature. As Zizioulas (Schwöbel, 1995:48, 49) notes, the analogy of Larry, Mo and Curley is problematic because it refers to three people, whereas the Trinity is not three Gods, but one God. Moreover, human nature both precedes and continues after the existence of an individual human being. In other words, human nature exists apart from Larry, Mo and Curley. It existed before the Stooges took the stage and it continues after the last pie in the face is thrown. LaCugna (1991:69) warns, therefore, against the mistake of thinking of ousia in abstract terms, divorced from the three hypostases. For example, one may think of human nature in general, abstract terms apart from the concrete particularities of Larry, Mo and Curley, as when one says, "It's just human nature . . ." This kind of thinking, however, does not apply to the divine ousia. Unlike human beings, with God it is impossible to say that nature (substance, essence, being) precedes person or exists apart from it because the three persons of the Trinity do not share a pre-existing nature but rather coincide with it. In Cappadocian theology, ousia expresses concrete, not abstract, existence. "Each divine person is the divine ousia; the divine ousia exists hypostatically, and there is no ousia apart from the hypostases" (LaCugna, 1991:69).

Folks, I cannot overstate how important that last point is. We gotta get this if western Christianity is ever to fully return to the ancient catholic faith articulated by Irenaeus, Hilary, Athanasius, the Cappadocians and many others. So let's unpack LaCugna's last statement, "There is no ousia (substance, nature) apart from the hypostases (persons)." In plain speak, there is no unknown, mysterious, abstract essence of God (ousia) that exists apart from the Father, Son and Spirit as revealed in salvation history (oikonomia). If the ousia (substance, essence) of God existed apart from the Triune Persons, then the ousia of God would be a "fourth something," as Colin Gunton puts it, that exists in addition to the Triune Persons. And that is a major "no-no" because that would mean that the "deepest truth" (Baxter Kruger) about God is something other than what has been revealed in God's threefold self-revelation in salvation history as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Against the speculative theology of Thomas Aquinas and subsequent medieval scholasticism, there is no divine ousia to be considered in the abstract apart from the Triune Persons. The Triune Persons in their perichoretic interrelations are the ousia of God! The fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, dwelling eternally in reciprocal delight, is the ousia of God, and there is no ousia to be considered apart from that divine fellowship.

But wouldn't you know it, so much of the horrid awful-ness of the western doctrine of God comes right out of the tendency, inspired by Greek philosophy (the bane of the western doctrine of God), to talk about the ousia of God in abstract terms apart from God's threefold self-revelation in salvation history as Father, Son and Spirit. Yet if we talk about the essence of God as if it were something other than what has been revealed in Christ and the Spirit, we invariably end up with a god very different from the all-loving, self-sacrificing Triune God revealed in Jesus. In short, we end up with the immutable, impassible deity of Greek philosophy. If we follow Augustine and Aquinas and start with "substantialist metaphysics" (philosophical speculation on the substance or nature of God considered apart from God's triune self-revelation in salvation history), we end up with what Baxter Kruger calls the "omni-God," or what I call the "cosmic ogre" or "monster God." You remember him don't you, the all-powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient), ever present (omnipresent) pissed off deity who can't wait to send you to hell! But alas! I digress. More on this in future post.

Here's the essential point: Our speech about God must begin with God's self-revelation, not with our own speculative ideas about the Godhead. Methodologically, we always start with Jesus (or, as the Irish say, "JAY-sus!") and move from him to the Father and right into the heart of the Triune Godhead. That way we don't get distracted with speculative, "cosmological" proofs about the nature of God based on an unbiblical framework like Aristotilean metaphysics. Sorry, Thomas Aquinas. Brilliant saint that you are, I wish you had paid closer attention to Athanasius and less to Aristotle. Let's move on.

Regarding the problems in the Cappies' analogy of three human beings sharing a common nature: In the Triune God, the one (ousia) not only does not precede the many (hypostases) but, to the contrary, requires the many for its existence. It is, therefore, impossible to say that in the Triune God any one of the three divine persons exists apart from the others. As Zizioulas (Schwöbel, 1995:48) argues, "The three constitute such an unbreakable unity that individualism is absolutely inconceivable in their case. The three persons of the Trinity are thus one God, because they are so united in an unbreakable communion (koinonia) that none of them can be conceived apart from the rest." In short, the unity (ousia) and multiplicity (hypostases) of the Godhead are like two sides of a coin, wherein it is impossible for one to exist without the other. Unlike humanity, multiplicity in God does not involve a division of the divine nature nor does the unity of the Godhead (ousia) exist logically prior to or apart from the three divine persons (hypostases). Goodbye tritheism.

The Cappadocians, and their older contemporary Athanasius, contributed immeasurably to the settlement of the trinitarian controversies of the fourth century. As a result of their work, the second great ecumenical council at Constantinople (381 A.D.) added language to the creed developed at Nicæa to provide what is known to Christians throughout the world as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The council included the key Nicene affirmations regarding the deity of the Son and added language regarding the third person of the Trinity to assert that the Holy Spirit is Lord and giver of life and to be worshipped with the Father and Son (Jenson, 1995:107). The creed established the formal doctrine of the Trinity as worked out by Athanasius and the Cappadocians and is regarded as the orthodox summary of the faith by all major branches of the Christian Church (Olson 1999:173).

P.S. There is much more to be said about the Cappadocians and the philosophical revolution they launched by countering the prevailing Greek thought of the day. See you in Part 2 for another "Cup o' Cappadocian!"

References

Gonzalez, J.L. 1987. A History of Christian Thought (vol 1). Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 400pp.

Jenson, R.W. 1997. Systematic Theology (vol 1). Oxford: OUP. 244pp.

LaCugna, C.M. 1991. God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco. 434pp.

O'Collins, G. 1999. The Tripersonal God: Understanding and Interpreting the Trinity. New York, NY: Paulist Press. 234pp.

Olson, R.E. 1999. The Story of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 652pp.

Schwöbel, C. (ed). 1995. Trinitarian Theology Today. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 176pp.

God of God: One Substance with the Father

In the fourth century, amidst great theological controversy, the Church Fathers hammered out the foundational assertions of the Christian faith in the creed articulated at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (AD 325) and reaffirmed and elaborated at the second council at Constantinople (AD 381). The Creed, known today as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (or simply the Nicene Creed), is accepted by all branches of Christianity, including Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Eastern Orthodox. The Nicene Creed is trinitarian in its structure, addressing first the Father, then the Son and Spirit.

In regard to Jesus Christ, the Fathers went to great length to state in precise terms the New Testament witness that Jesus Christ is God. Carefully choosing their words, the Fathers asserted in the Creed that Jesus is "the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father (Greek: homoousios to Patri homo-oo-SEE-us toe PA-tree) . . ." The phrase, "being of one substance with the Father" (homoousios to Patri) means that Jesus is the same in being, nature, essence or substance as the Father. Just as our children are as fully human as we are (they share equally in our humanity), Jesus, the eternally begotten Son, is "just as God" as the Father; he shares equally in the Godness of the Father. To say that Jesus is "one substance with the Father" (homoousios to Patri) is to assert against the Arians that Jesus is not less than God. It is to assert against the semi-Arians (see previous post) that Jesus is not merely "like" God. To the contrary, Jesus is God—of the same essence, nature, or being as the Father. To be a bit more technical, the Father and Son are one in being (ousia) while distinct in personhood (hypostasis). In short, while Jesus is personally distinct from the Father (against modalism), Jesus is no less divine than the Father (against Arianism). Against all forms of ontological subordinationism, Jesus is fully divine, the eternally begotten Son of the Father, "God of God."

The Content of revelation

In sending his only begotten Son into the world, the Father does not send us mere information about himself. Nor does he send only a moral example, that is, a good man who shows us how to live a godly life. Rather than leave us floundering, lost in our darkness, trying to discover who God is, our loving Father sends the Son who is homoousios to Patri: the same in nature, essence, and being as the Father. Jesus Christ is nothing less than God toward us, God in our midst, and God for us! Revelation is the act of God's self-communication, wherein the Revealer and the Revelation are one. It is both God who reveals and God who is revealed. To say that Jesus is homoousios to Patri is to say that the content of God's revelation is God himself. In short, Jesus is The Revelation of God.

Because Jesus is "one substance with the Father," we have real and accurate knowledge of God, for God has revealed himself from a point within his own eternal Triune Being. Against the Greek philosophers who based their knowledge of God on rational speculation; against Augustine, who, under the influence of NeoPlatonism, looked inward to the human mind or soul to find "vestiges" of the Trinity (vestigias trinitatis); and against the medieval Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas, who used Aristotelian metaphysics to articulate "proofs" of God based on the observable, empirical phenomena in creation, God has revealed himself in accordance with his own nature by sending his divine Son, who is of the same essence or being as the Father (homoousios to Patri). Moreover, in sending his Son into the world, God has revealed himself in a form comprehensible to human understanding. The eternally begotten Son has come among us as a human being like us: the Son of Mary, Jesus of Nazareth. To know God, we look to Jesus, for only the Son knows the Father (Mt 11:27). He is the express image of God (Heb 1:3), the fullness of God in bodily form (Col 2:9).

Revelation and reconciliation

After asserting the ontological (having to do with being, essence, nature) oneness between the Father and the Son, the Creed immediately articulates the soteriological (having to do with human salvation) implications of homoousios to Patri. In accordance with the New Testament witness to Christ, the Creed describes Jesus as the one "Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate." The Apostle Paul tells us that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself (2Cor 5:19; Col 1:20; Eph 1:9,10)). According to Colyer (2001:78), "Throughout reconciliation, in all that Jesus Christ is and does for us, there is an unbroken homoousial relation in being and activity between the incarnate Son and God the Father." Not only are the Father and Son one in being, they are also one in agency, that is, in their creative and redemptive activity for us. The Nicene phrase, homoousios to Patri, clearly asserts that not only is there no division between the being of the Son and the being of the Father, but also there is no division in the acts of the Son and the acts of God (Torrance, 1995:137). The saving and reconciling acts of Jesus are nothing less than the very salvific acts of God "for us men and our salvation." According to Torrance (1996:5), we can never think accurately of God apart from God's saving and redemptive activity in Jesus. Torrance writes: "It is of course because God actively loves us, and actually loves us so much that he has given us his only Son to be the Saviour of the world, that he reveals himself to us as the Loving One, and as he whose Love belongs to his innermost Being as God. . . . It is precisely as this living, loving, and acting God that he has come to us in Jesus Christ and unites us to himself by his one Spirit . . . all in order to be our God and to have us for his people" (Torrance, 1996:5). "It is in the Cross of Christ," Torrance continues, "that the utterly astonishing nature of the Love that God is has been fully disclosed, for in refusing to spare his own Son whom he delivered up for us all, God has revealed that he loves us more than he loves himself" (Torrance, 1996:5; italics added).

Furthermore, the Nicene homoousion ("of one substance") applies not only to the ontological oneness of the Father and Son; it applies also to Jesus as the Son of Man. If Jesus is not of one substance with the Father (homoousiois to Patri), then his redemptive acts are not the acts of God and have no salvific effect, for only God can save. On the other hand, if Jesus is not homoousios (of the same substance) with us, that is, fully human as we are, then his saving actions do not reach us in the depths of our fallen humanity. As Colyer (2001:81) notes, following Torrance, if Jesus were not fully human like us, "All that Christ has done would have no connection with our side of the chasm between humanity and God created by human sin, guilt and alienation. To be mediator, Jesus Christ has to be as fully human as he is homoousios with God the Father." In the one person of Jesus Christ, both divinity and humanity are joined together in reconciling union. Jesus himself encompasses both sides of the relationship between God and humanity. As the Second Adam, Jesus has recapitulated (lit. "re-headed") the human race. He has reversed the Fall and undone the work of Adam (to borrow Baxter Kruger's phrase). By bringing his divine nature to bear upon human flesh, Jesus has sanctified humanity and presented us, redeemed and reconciled, to the Father. In the incarnate Son of God, who is both fully divine and fully human, the one who is the express image of the Father and the revelation of the Triune God, both revelation and reconciliation are one. In the incarnate Person of Jesus, revelation is reconciliation.

The Evangelical significance of the homoousion

As Torrance (1995:132) asks, what would it mean if Jesus were not homoousios to Patri? If Jesus were not "one substance with the Father," it would mean that God has not revealed himself in accordance with his own nature. It would mean that God remains inscrutable, unknown because unrevealed. It would mean that we cannot be sure that God is for us. According to Torrance (1995:133), "If what God is in himself and what he is in the Lord Jesus Christ were not the same, there would be no identity between God and the content of his revelation and no access for mankind to the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. Hence we would be left completely in the dark about God." If Jesus were not homoousios to Patri, God would appear to us something like what Dallas Willard called "an unblinking cosmic stare." As Torrance (1995:134) notes, if Jesus were not the revelation of God, our talk about God would be mere mythology, not theology. We would be left with nothing more than the remote, static, disengaged Unmoved Mover of Aristotle and Aquinas. Moreover, and far more disheartening, if Jesus were not homoousios to Patri, there would be no ontological (having to do with being) or epistemological (having to do with how we know what we know) connection between the love of Jesus and the love of the Father.

Thankfully, our loving Father is the God who chooses to reveal himself. He is the God who, in his sovereign freedom, determines to be God for us (God pro nobis)! In sending Jesus, God reveals himself as God eternally is. According to Torrance (1995:135), "The homoousion asserts that God is eternally in himself what he is in Jesus Christ, and, therefore, that there is no dark unknown God behind the back of Jesus Christ, but only he who is made known to us in Jesus Christ." As Jesus himself said, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9) and "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (Jn 14:11) and "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30). There is no other God than the God revealed in Jesus; there is no inscrutable deity whose purposes for us are uncertain. To know God, we must look to his Son, for Jesus is the self-definition of God. God is not different in his eternal being than in the loving, saving activity of Jesus for us. In short, the Father and Son are one in being and act. Thus, the evangelical significance of the homoousion is the incredibly good news that in the loving eyes of Jesus—the healer of the sick, the friend of sinners and outcasts, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world—we peer deeply into the very loving heart of the Triune God, for the heart of the Father is not different from the heart of the Son. Halleluiah!

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References

Colyer, E. 2001. How to Read T.F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian & Scientific Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 393pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1995. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1996. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons. London: T& T Clark. 260pp.

Athanasius contra mundi!

They called him the "Black Dwarf." But he stood treetop tall back in the fourth century. If he hadn't, we'd all be cycling two by two, passing out tracts and attending churches with no windows. Here's what happened:

The Arian controversy was not settled at the great convention in the balmy resort city of Nicæa (AD 325). Even with more than 300 conventioneers present, and despite a couple of months of all day meetings followed by casual conversations in the bar, sipping colorful drinks topped with paper umbrellas and orange slices, some of the boys still weren't satisfied with the (now orthodox) assertion that Jesus is homoousios to Patri: "of one substance with the Father." You remember: God of God, Light of Light, Of one substance with the Father . . .

The problem was the modalists. That's right, the ones that said God is one person who wears three different hats depending on the mood he's in. The modalists decided to "spin" homoousios and make it say, not same substance, but same person: in other words, the Father and Son are one person, not just one substance. That kind of spin wasn't hard to do in those days because the Greek words for person and substance were often used interchangeably. (That would get straightened out later).

Some of the other boys who had attended the convention didn't think much of what the modalists were up to. They didn't like the three-hat scenario. So they decided the best way to flank the modalists was to change same substance to "similar" or "like" substance." That way they could get around the modalist spin on homoousios (same substance) and say, "See! They're not one person 'cause their not the 'same'; they're similar." Here's how it works in the Greek language: they wanted to change homoousios (same or one substance) to homoiousios (similar or like substance). Only one little letter different. Did you catch it? Just one little-bitty "i" right there in the middle. But man, does it make a difference.

Constantine, who wanted to keep everybody happy to avoid more riots in the streets, decided to go along. Even though the emperor himself had contributed the word homoousios (same substance) to the convention (that's a popular rumor but I doubt it's true), he agreed to change the word by that one little letter "i" to homoiousios as the "official" assertion of the relationship between the Father and Son. This was a kind of "semi-Arian" compromise; maybe just enough to satisfy the Arians who said Jesus wasn't divine like the Father and, at the same time, satisfy those who were afraid of modalism. The compromise seemed so reasonable that pretty much everybody decided to become semi-Arians and adopt the new word, homoiousios.

Everybody but one that is. Enter the stalwart defender of Nicene orthodoxy: the Black Dwarf—six guns blazin', white hat gleaming in the desert sun—none other than the great Athanasius, the new senior pastor from Alexandria. Athanasius stood alone against the world (contra mundi). (Get ready. Here comes the serious stuff:J) Athanasius stubbornly refused to go along with the popular compromise to the Nicene language. He understood that the implementation of homoiousios ("like substance") was tantamount to asserting that Jesus is not God. As Athanasius realized, the difference between homoousios and homoiousios is the difference between the divine and the creaturely. The former says that the Son is God; the latter that the Son is merely like God (Olson, 1999:165). For Athanasius, the good news of human salvation was at stake with the reintroduction of the pre-Nicene subordinationism implied in the word homoiousios (i.e., Jesus as only similar to God is "less divine" than the Father; hence, ontologically subordinate). According to Athanasius, the Son must be God, not merely a creature, for only God can unite creatures to God. Salvation is not possible through a hierarchal chain from the Father through the intermediate Son, for an intermediary divides as much as it unites (Olson, 1999:164, 165). If the Son is not God in the same sense that the Father is God, then we are not saved, for only God can undo sin and bring us to share in the divine nature (Olson, 1999:169; cf. Gonzales, 1987:298; Torrance, 1995:149).

Athanasius rejected the "Arian disjunction" between the being of the Son and the being of the Father and confirmed the Nicene homoousion as showing that the Son belongs on the divine side of the Creator-creation relationship (Torrance, 1995:86). (NOTE: To get at what Torrance is saying, draw a vertical line with divinity on the left side and creation on the right. Where do we put the Son? Arius says on the right because, according to him, the Son is a created, not eternal, intermediary between the world-transcending Father and us. Athanasius, on the other hand, says put the Son on the left, because he is the eternally begotten (not made) Son who is "of one substance with the Father" (homoousios to Patri)). According to Athanasius, the Nicene homoousion asserts that God has become man in such a way as to give us access through the Son and Spirit to the Father himself (Torrance, 1995:130; cf Eph 2:18). The phrase homoousios to Patri ("of one substance with the Father") expresses the fact that what God is toward us, in the midst of us, and for us through the eternal Word made flesh, God really is in himself. In other words, God is, in the internal relations of his eternal being, the same Father, Son, and Spirit that he is in his redemptive activity for us in the incarnate Son and the gift of the Spirit (Torrance, 1995:130).

Moreover, Athanasius recognized the importance of relationality in the doctrine of the Trinity. For Athanasius, the fatherhood of God belongs eternally to God and defines the being of God (O'Collins, 1999:128). While God has not always been Creator, God is eternally Father (Torrance, 1995: 87). Athanasius articulated the fundamental trinitarian principle that the Father-Son relationship defines, at least in part, the word God (O'Collins, 1999:128). Following the Nicene creedal affirmation that the Son is "begotten, not made," Athanasius distinguished the divine operations of generation and creation to assert that God is inherently relational and generative. Against Arius, he argued that the denial of the eternal existence of the Son is a denial of the eternal fatherhood of God. Moreover, Athanasius asserted that one can know or say nothing of any one person of the Godhead in isolation from the other two (O'Collins, 1999:129, 130). The Athanasian (and Cappadocian) emphasis on relationality in the Godhead is markedly different from the Augustinian-Thomist-Western emphasis on the impersonal "substance" of the Godhead.

As the fourth century progressed, Athanasius was exiled numerous times by Constantine and the emperors that followed. Yet the Black Dwarf refused to compromise the Good News that Jesus is the revelation of God. Jesus is not merely like God; Jesus is God, the eternally begotten Son who has reconciled all things to the Father (2Cor 5:19). As theologian Roger Olson (1999:161) notes, without the steadfast determination of Athanasius to defend the full divinity of the Son, the Christian doctrine of God would closely resemble that of today's Jehovah's witnesses.

REFERENCES

Gonzalez, J.L. 1987. A History of Christian Thought (vol 1). Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 400pp.

O'Collins, G. 1999. The Tripersonal God: Understanding and Interpreting the Trinity. New York, NY: Paulist Press. 234pp.

Olson, R.E. 1999. The Story of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 652pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1995. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345pp.

Arians are Not Skinheads

Hey, everyone. Before we get started with the new post I wanted to mention something. Since this blog started, some friends and relatives have subscribed who have other things to do than study theology. So what I'm going to do is use the fancy theological lingo for the budding theologians among us and then translate it into street-speak for the normal people. So here we go!

In the fourth century, a real ruckus broke out between the popular deacon Arius, and his bishop Alexander. The fireworks started down around Alexandria (Egypt, not Louisiana). Like so many of the day, Arius wanted to protect the monarchy of the Father (mone-arche, "one principle"). That is, there is only one divine principle of Deity in the Godhead, and that is the Father. To say that the Son was divine would split up the Godhead, or so they thought, so they naturally agued that the Son was less than fully divine, sort of a subprime version of deity. Arius argued that the Son was a creature, a created being like the rest of us, yet he gave the nod to the Son's greatness by conceding that he was the first and greatest among creatures. To sum up his insistence that the Son was created and hence did not eternally exist, Arius maintained that "there was a time when he was not." Arius must have been very popular, for in Alexandria, riots broke out as his followers marched in the streets, carrying signs saying, "There was when he was not." (I'm not making this up!) Even in the pubs, people made up drinking songs in tribute to Arius' teaching. You have to give Arius credit: How many of us preachers and teachers have had people write drinking songs about what we have to say?

Now, I don't want to make the Arians out as bad guys. I doubt they were. The traditional text book view of them, however, is that they were Jesus-haters who couldn't accept his divinity. But recent scholarship says that ain't so. Arius' concern was primarily soteriological (having to do with human salvation). He thought that in order to be saved, we had to submit to the will of the Father in the same way the Son did. In other words, for Arius salvation meant imitation, doing what Jesus did just the way he did it. In order for that to be possible, the Son had to be a creature (a created being) like the rest of us, else we didn't stand a chance of imitating his submission to the Father's will. Where Arius got off on the wrong foot, however, is that he saw salvation as a matter of performance (imitation). We get saved if we perform well. Apparently, grace was something he did not understand, so he advocated a salvation by works. So that let's us in on the soteriological concerns that drove the Arians. Face it: His followers didn't riot in the streets because they were concerned with theological hair-splitting. They mistakenly thought their salvation hinged on the incarnate Son being a less than fully divine creature capable of imitation. But let's move on.

What were the philosophical and theological presuppositions that drove the Arians (and to a certain extent, the orthodox party)? Here's the deal: At the root of the Arian controversy was subordinationism, the view that Christ and the Spirit, in deriving their deity from the Father (as was the prevailing idea of the time), were in some way ontologically (having to do with the essence or being of something) subordinate to the Father. In short, they were less divine than the Father. Subordinationism was all over the place in those days, and here's why: The whole thing was based on Greek (read: pagan) philosophy. Remember, this whole Arian thing got started in Alexandria, one of the premier centers of Hellenistic (Greek) culture. According to Greek philosophers from Parmenides to Plato to Plotinus, the Divine is "immutable," which means, simply, that God does not change (Don't go quotin' script-cha out of context, now.). On the surface that sounds alright, but Baby, there are boo-coo problems with that idea (more in future posts). In academic jargon, the Greeks posited a dualism, an ontological gulf, between Deity and materiality (I like to wax academic occasionally. Ain't it fun!) Although the rest of us live in an imperfect world of constant change, according to Greek thought, Deity is remote, aloof, unmoved (unchanging), and utterly transcendent (way up there all alone by itself). In its static perfection, Deity is immutable; it does not change. Change in the Deity was ruled out from the beginning by Plato's maxim that any change in a perfect being could only be for the worse (We need to talk about that one Plato Baby). That means that the Divine can have no interaction with creation, for to do so would make it somehow conditioned (changed) by creation.

Alright, enuf! To the point: So what's a remote, unchanging Deity to do? You send a less than divine intermediary to deal with that world of dirt down there! So here it comes: The Greek notion of divine immutability, with its correlate that Deity can have no interaction with the world, led some Christian thinkers to assert that the Son (and later the Spirit) is a subordinate deity, that is, a less than fully divine intermediary between the world-transcending Father and creation, sort of a cosmic go-between, if you get my drift. See how that works? If the Big Guy, as fully divine, cannot dirty his hands with materiality (for that would induce change), then he sends the less than fully divine Logos (the preincarnate Son) to do the work for him. In short subordinationism allows the world-transcending Father to keep his hands clean while the ontologically subordinate (less than fully divine) Logos acts as intermediary to engage creation.

Here's another thing, and this is straight from Arius. If the Logos is divine, then the incarnation and suffering of Jesus would mean change in God, and that is a no-no. Therefore, the Logos is not divine. (Unfortunately, the orthodox party held a similar view and the way they handled the problem was not cool. More later.) And one more thing, Arius said that if the Son is begotten of the Father's substance (ousia: being, essence), then the being of God can be divided up (changed). See how it all gets back to the Greek notion of divine immutability? And one more one more thing, Arius argued that if the Son is "begotten" he must have a beginning in time. Hence, the slogan, "There was when he was not." (He didn't get the idea of eternal generation.) So the long of it is this: according to Arius, the incarnate Logos is a less than fully divine, created intermediary between God and the world. The short is this: Jesus ain't God. (Take heart, little ones; Arius was dead wrong!)

Catherine Mowry LaCugna, a Roman Catholic theologian, says that Christian thinking (both orthodox and not) in both the fourth century and today has been severely constrained by the philosophical presuppositions of Greek (pagan) thought. (BTW, many theologians today decry the Greek pagan influence on the "Christian" doctrine of God. Barth, Torrance, Gunton, Jenson, Kruger, Bloesch, Pinnock, Sanders, and many others say the same thing.) 

Moving on: All this fuss, including rioting in the streets of Alexandria (Can you believe it?) threatened the stability of the empire. So Constantine, who was no political dummy (he saw Christianity as the glue that could hold the empire together), convened a great council to settle the Arian controversy, and take care of a few other issues at the same time. That's right: You guessed it, Bubba. I'm talkin' 'bout the first great ecumenical council held at Nicaea in 325 A.D. This is where the Arian party and what would become the orthodox party went at it. To make a long story short, the Arians did not fair well at the convention. Fact is, they were shouted down by the many present who were appalled at some of their teaching. Under the leadership of Alexander of Egypt, and his young but brilliant compadre Athanasius, the Nicene theologians hammered out the words routinely read in churches all over the world. Jesus is God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Of one substance with the Father (homoousios to Patri), Begotten not made (a direct jab at the Arian assertion that the Logos was created). In short, the Nicene theologians asserted the now orthodox view that Jesus is fully God; he shares the divine substance (ousia) equally with the Father. Thankfully, the orthodox party did not allow Greek philosophy, with its notion of divine immutability, to rule the day. Instead, they relied on the biblical witness where Jesus himself says, "I and the Father are one," and "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." The Council of Nicaea proclaimed the Good News that Jesus really is the full revelation of God. He is not somehow less than or different from the Father. He is not merely like God; he is God. In short, he's the real deal!! In the loving eyes of Jesus, the very one who has united you, me, and the entire cosmos in eternal union with God, we peer deep into the very loving heart of God. Hooray!!

So let's end this post here. Here's the thing to remember: the Arian argument that Jesus was a subprime deity was rooted in the pagan presupposition of divine immutability. The world-transcending God can have no commerce with creation, so he sends a less than fully divine intermediary, the Logos to do the dirty work. The Nicene party (the good guys), however, held to the biblical revelation, relying on the words of Jesus himself rather than the presuppositions of Greek thought, to assert that the incarnate Son is very God. Jesus is the real enchilada!!

P.S. The Arian controversy did not end at Nicaea. It took a lot of work from Athanasius and those wild and crazy Cappadocians to finally put it to rest. But we'll get to that in a later post. Adios!

Who is God? Why Were You Born?

The title of this post consists of two questions. I put them together because the second question cannot be answered rightly without knowing the answer to the first question. The Genevan reformer, John Calvin, who is definitely a mixed bag for me, wisely noted at the beginning of his Institutes that in order to know ourselves we must first know God.

So before we can answer the second question, we must address the first: Who is God? How do we answer this question? Where do we begin (a methodological question)? How do we know (an epistemological question)? According to the great Athanasius, the stalwart defender of the orthodox faith in the 4^th C., our speech about God must begin with God's self-revelation in the incarnate Son, the historical Jesus Christ. The incarnate Jesus is the revelation of God. He is "of one substance with the Father" (Gr., homoousios to Patri). In his flesh and blood person, he is the fullness of God in bodily form (Col 2:9). As my pal, theologian Baxter Kruger, Ph.D., loves to say (and I paraphrase): To say the name of Jesus is to say the Father's Son and it is to say that God and the cosmos are eternally bound together in union. In his incarnate nature, the Son of God is the literal union of heaven and earth. He is all that the ancient Temple represented, the meeting place between God and humankind, walking on two sandaled feet! He has breached, in bodily form, the ancient dualism between deity and materiality that not only marked Greek philosophy but has been smuggled into much classical theism (i.e., the western doctrine of God). Jesus, the Son of God, takes us directly to the Father and, therefore, directly into the heart of the triune circle of the Father who loves the Son in the Spirit and the Son who loves the Father in the Spirit. In short, to speak the name of Jesus is to move immediately into the eternal circle of the triune fellowship of love. The apostle John tells us that God is love. As I said in a previous post (One Person or Three? That post fits well with this one BTW), love is not something God does; love is not an attribute (characteristic) of God, nor is love an accident of the divine nature in the Aristotelian sense of being incidental to God's nature; rather love is constitutive of that nature. God is love.

Now, what does God's essential nature of love have to do with the reason you and I were born? Because God has freely and sovereignly chosen to reveal his eternal threefold nature in time and space, that is, in the "economy" (oikonomia) of salvation, as the Father who loves the Son in the Spirit, we can make inferences as to why the God who is love creates. Since God exists eternally as a communal fellowship (koinonia) of eternal love, we can infer that there is no necessity in God's act of creation. In other words, God does not create from any lack or need in the Godhead. God does not need us for companionship, for he already exists in an eternal community of reciprocal love. Since God does not create out of necessity, we can conclude that creation itself arises from God's gracious, freely chosen act to be God for us. As Karl Barth says, from eternity past God determined that he would not be God without us. Before the creation of the world, God chose to include the human race in his triune circle of love. As the apostle Paul states, he predestined us to adoption (Eph 1:3-5). Moreover, nothing will stop God from achieving his eternal purpose for humanity, not even the sin of Adam. Even in the face of God's "No!" to sin, God's eternal "Yes!" to mankind remains, its clarion call undiminished by our shortcomings and failures. From eternity past, eons before the sin of Adam, the Father purposed to send his Son to unite divinity with creation so that the entire cosmos could forever be included in the triune circle of love. After all, what else is love to do. By its very nature, love is not self-centered; it is other-centered. Therefore, as an eternal fellowship of love, God freely and graciously chooses to extend the triune circle of fellowship to include the cosmos, and with it, all humanity.

With the stunning realization that God freely chooses to be God for us comes the equally stunning revelation that we are here on this earth in order to be included in the eternal great dance of the Father, Son and Spirit. So why were you born? You were born in order to share eternally in the blissful, joyous, perfectly harmonious and overflowing fellowship of the triune love of God. This is God's gracious gift to you and me, and like any real gift from a loving Giver, it is not conditioned upon our performance. God himself provided for us all the "performance" that was needed in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. All God asks of us is to enjoy and to share with one another the gift of love that the Father, Son and Spirit have so lavishly poured out upon us. And that's what I call Good News! Amen.

One Person or Three? Does it Matter?

One of the early distortions of the doctrine of the Trinity was modalism, a view of the Godhead articulated by Noetus and Praxeas in the second century and Sabellius in the third. Modalism (rhymes with commode-alism, a severe stomach malady) asserts that God is one person (not three) who plays different roles in his interaction with creation. In other words, the one-person God wears three different masks, like an actor in a Greek drama playing three different roles, or like a single actor in vaudeville playing Larry, Mo, and Curley all by himself. You get the idea, don't you? Sometimes God wears the Father mask; at other times, the Son or Spirit mask, and like that.

The more technically minded among our readers will want to know that there are two variants of modalism (McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 328, 329): 1) Functional modalism (associated with Praxeas). In this version, the three "persons" of the Godhead are merely three roles played by the one God at any given point in time. So the one person God switches masks as the need arises. (Could get confusing don't you think?) 2) Chronological modalism (associated with Sabellius): God plays successive roles at different times in salvation history. It's like he's the Father for a few centuries or so, then he's the incarnate Son for a relatively short while, and then he's the Spirit. (Talk about identity crisis!) In either case, the "three persons" of the Trinity are really just different aspects of the activity of the one-person God. That's the main point: for the modalists, God is one person, not three.

There is an obvious problem with modalism, however, and I know you astute readers out there have already figured it out (except for one or two, and you know who you are!): Modalism makes it look like Jesus was praying to himself in the Garden, like he was some sort of split-personality type. So what did he do? Answer himself by lowering his voice? The modalists have a problem there. But it gets even worse: Since modalism portrays God as one person playing three roles with no real distinction between the Father and Son, the ghastly but inevitable corollary is patripassianism, the heretical notion that the Father, incarnate in Jesus, suffered on the cross (O'Collins, Tripersonal God, 86). And that throws the Gospel passion story all out of whack!

Patripassianism notwithstanding, however, what's the problem with modalism anyway? Were the modalists bad men who wanted to start a cult? Or did they have legitimate, though mistaken, reasons for their assertions? Here's the deal: Because they were big on monotheism, the modalists feared that to assert the Son was a distinct person from the Father would sound like Christians were wild-eyed orgiastic polytheists who believed in more than one God. Not only that, the modalists wanted to guard the "unity" or "one principle" (mone-arche, "monarchy") of the Godhead by eschewing (huh?) any hint of division in God. In the Hellenistic philosophical milieu of the day, God was considered simple; hence, any suggestion of a division of the divine essence was verboten (Did you notice that I used a French word and a German word in the same sentence?) In other words, the modalists didn't like the idea that God was more than one person because that was like saying the divine "substance" (Greek: ousia or "essence") of God could be divided up, just like when you slice a 12-inch pizza into palm-sized pieces. To equate God with a cosmic pepperoni was not cool for the modalists.

Now you may think that modalism is an out of date, old-fashioned heresy that happened long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away; but there's where you're wrong Chewbacca! Fiddes (Participating in God, 4) cites a 1984 study in Great Britain wherein participants were asked, "How is it that God is three persons in one?" The typical answer for one-third of the sample surveyed was that "the three are one person: they're all one person." So you see, modalism is still with us. As preachers and teachers we have to wonder how many of our congregants are modalists without even realizing it.

To be sure, there are boo-coo (Cajun for the French "beaucoup") problems with modalism. Bloesch (God Almighty, 172) says that the modalists could affirm an economic Trinity, that is, a threefoldness in God's relationship to the world (aka oikonomia). They could not, however, affirm an ontological Trinity, that is, a threefoldness in God's eternal being (aka theologia). To put it in a bit more high-browed fashion, modalism asserts that God's revelation in salvation history as Father, Son, and Spirit is threefold only in relation to us and is not, therefore, indicative of the eternal being of God (I like that last phrase.). In plain speak, the modalists understood that God has revealed himself in time and space, that is, in salvation history (oikonomia), as Father, Son, and Spirit. Yet they couldn't bring themselves to believe that that's how God really and truly is in his eternal, intradivine nature (theologia). So the modalists ended up with a Trinity of names, but not a Trinity of persons.

Modalism leaves us with no knowledge of who God is eternally while it undermines God's faithfulness, for we cannot be sure God truly is as he has revealed himself in Christ. In short, modalism severs the vital connection between theologia (God in his eternal, intradivine relations) and oikonomia (God as revealed to us in salvation history). Let's do that again: Modalism severs the connection between God in se and God pro nobis. One more time: Modalism severs the connection between God ad intra and God ad extra. WARNING: Do not repeat these words to your spouse unless you are prepared to be taken as a fruitcake. I should know!

Now let's get down to the real nitty-gritty. There is a major, major problem in modalism. I expect many of you readers have already figured it out, but there's one or two of you that I know pretty well who ain't got it yet (you know who you are and so do I). So here's the deal. Let's start with the Apostle John's beautiful description of who God is. John says, "God is love." For John, love is not something God does, nor is it an attribute (characteristic) or accident (in the Aristotelian sense) of God's nature. God is love. The very essence of God is love. Love is who God is. Period. (And I don't want to hear any strident screams about "holiness" defined legally. Forget about it! Most of the readers of this blog will know what I mean.) But I digress.

Now then, what is love? There's no better place to find the answer to that question than in the apostle Paul's memorable treatise on love (1 Cor 13). According to Paul, love is patient, kind, gentle, does not seek its own, does not keep any record of wrongs. Notice that Paul is describing love in interpersonal terms (I have to thank my homey, theologian Robert Lucas, Ph.D., for that one). No wonder Paul describes love in interpersonal terms, for love, by its very nature, requires another. If God were only one person, as the modalists say, then God's love would be self-love, and that we call narcissism, not love. 

Moreover (you can tell I'm getting serious now), if God is a unipersonal monad, God cannot be eternally love; rather, God becomes love when he creates, thus making love an accidental quality of God rather than constitutive of the divine nature (I love that phrase!). Not only that, we cannot be certain whether creation exists merely to fill a need in God. If God is unipersonal, he may create out of a need for community. In that case, creation would not be God's free and gracious act for us but rather a self-fulfilling act in order to fill the one-person God's need for community. 

Finally, if God is aloof, remote, isolated, and alone (as Greek philosophy maintains) then we cannot be certain of God's purpose in creating us. Said another way, there are soteriological consequences to the modalists' assertion that God is unipersonal rather than tripersonal. Because God is a tripersonal fellowship of love, we can rest assured that God is favorably disposed to his creation. We cannot have that certainty if God is unipersonal rather than a triune fellowship of love. So you see, whether God is one person or three makes a difference—a lot of difference. I think our eternal destinies depend on the difference.

Let me close with a beautiful quote from John Sanders (The God Who Risks, 148) that bears upon our topic: "The Father can beget the Son because the Father, as personal, has self-emptying love for another. God is then not alone, in isolation from relationships, but eternally related within the Godhead as Trinity. God is then not an 'in-itself,' apart from others, but the epitome of love in relation." Wow! 

Thank you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Your threefold self-revelation in salvation history (oikonomia) allows us to rest in the assurance that all your triune activities toward the world derive from your compassionate heart of love. Amen.

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