THEO 237: GOD ONE AND TRIUNE

Finals Reviewer

THESIS 1: Unbelief today has shifted, for various social, cultural, and ecclesial reasons, from atheism to indifference. At the same time,
Trinitarian theology all too often suffers from a number of weaknesses in its content, proclamation, and integration into human life
today. The resulting “eclipse of God,” and the “exile” of Trinitarian theology to “the far country,” call for a renewal in the study of this
most central mystery of our Christian faith.

GENERAL IDEA: Is there any relevance for talk of God in a world that seems to not mind Him or even appreciate what He is? The challenge
of theology today is precisely to confront this culture, not to show itself to be some other discipline, or perhaps some other-worldly
endeavour that is reminiscent of the mental gymnastics that characterizes the medieval ages; rather, it must show itself as a means to
understand what is revealed and given to us through faith, and in the course of doing so, to better understand ourselves in the world.
Eventually, the Catholic Christian cannot avoid the question of the uniqueness of the Trinitarian God, who shows us, in faith, that He has
everything to do in our lvies, because in Him lies the ultimate meaning and purpose that the human being searches for, whether
consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally

THE PROBLEM OF UNBELIEF

1-BELIEF
-belief as a fundamental religious demand (to help our unbelief – Mk 9:24) – human condition is to have both belief and unbelief

a-Ratzinger – unbelief as a temptation to the believer, inasmuch as belief as a temptation and threat to the non-believer
-TO BE HUMAN IS TO BELIEVE IN SOMETHING (capax dei, homo religiosous, desiderium natural)
b-Referring to Buber – there is always a GREAT PERHAPS
c-CONCLUSION: both the believer and the unbeliever share doubt and belief – these two realities cannot be escaped
-faith is present against doubt, for the other through doubt and in the form of doubt – the basic pattern of man’s destiny – yet necessary
to see and understand the finality of his existence – IN THE CREATIVE TENSION BETWEEN BELIEF AND UNBELIEF

-from this we draw that the question of “new atheism” is not new, for it has been there in its different forms – the reality, however, is that
they cannot escape from God nor from faith (the painstaking proof to prove how faith is “stupid”)

VATICAN II AND ATHEISM

1-Opening of the Council does not have any agendum on atheism (as a pastoral and cultural phenomenon)
2-First serious consideration of atheism was in the Cold War – vs. Marxism, Communism, Materialism
-Bishops wanted to be treated in the familiar, 19 th century framework – shows the faulty reasoning that would deny the existence of God –
further agenda would be ideologies as political versions of atheisms
3-Gradually, bishops showed the less political, less intellectual aspects of the loss of faith – a REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE – it is a
pastoral problem after all!
-led to another revolutionary consideration: acknowledgement of the Church’s own faults
4-Problem of unbelief came at the forefront of ecclesial consciousness – a Council in the age of atheism (considered by Paul VI as the most
serious problem of our time
5-GS – fourteen different types that can be simplified into 4 kinds
a-Intellectual-Materialistic forms of denial – comes from scientistic mentality
b-More humanistic forms – over-emphasis on freedom
c-Stemming from distorted images of God
d-Passive victims of social change which do not really choose to reject God or religion
6-Some observations: New sense of the complexity of unbelief, New level of sympathetic understanding, and a desire for mutual
dialogue between believers and nonbelievers

MORE CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS

1-MERTON – unbelief hides a demand for a more comprehensive notion – current images and concepts do not satisfy, and thus they tend
to turn away and think otherwise
2-PJP-II – a full understanding of unbelief comes only in the light of faith – seeing through it as a problem that disturbs the human being’s
inner life—spirit, mind, and heart
3-“Death of God” as “death” of the human person – there is a dreading nihilism that emerges, a loss of meaning that cannot be replaced
or satisfied by any mundane reality
4-Contemporary shift in the problem of unbelief – not so much as a militant denial but a drifting away from the believing community

*Peter Kreeft – atheism and agnosticism? The former seems to be better because of COMMTMENT
-sheds light to a greater problem: how about those who say they believe but do not really commit?

2-GOD
THE GOD OF PHILOSOPHERS
1-Kasper – praise over Aquinas – God as the ultimate, ungrounded Ground, the Supreme God, the Ultimate End (Ipsum Esse Subsistens,
Actus Purus)
2-Anselm’s IQMCN – intellectual demonstration of God’s Supreme Mystery unfathomable
-not a superlative, but a comparative that can never be matched (si comprehendis, non Deus est, as Augustine would say it earlier)

WALTER KASPER, On Theology and God

#3-theology as accountable speech (logos) about God (theos)
#13 – Following the Aristotelian description of the sciences, Theology takes GOD as the starting point, transmitted in the church’s
confession
-from there, justifies this talk at the bar of reason
-INTENTION: give an account of the hope that finds expression in the confession of God (1 Peter 3:15)
-fides quaerens intellectum
-in the process trying to make sense of all these in the midst of unbelief and the “eclipse of God” (Buber) – a faith that has with it atheism
that makes its home in the heart – MAKES FAITH A QUESTION
#3.2 – To say God is to bring the most heavy-laden of all human words
-vs. Fundamentalist and relativist understanding that either bring violence or render God-speech meaningless
#12 – Despite the mutilated and defiled state of the word “God,” it is still possible to raise it fromt he ground and set it over an hour of
great care

MORE EXISTENTIAL DESCRIPTIONS OF GOD

1-Luther – raises the question of WHAT GOD MEANS FOR ME? The God whom we turn to in distress and consolation, the ones which you
attach your heart to
2-Tillich – Ultimate Concern (or that which concerns us)
3-Bultmann – the reality that determines all
4-Ebeling – the MYSTERY of reality
5-RAHNER – The Holy Mystery, the origin and end present in loving freedom, nameless and not at our disposal; rather, at whose complete
disposal we exist

THE THREE FORMS OF THE SUBJECT OF GOD

-MONOtheism, POLYtheism, Atheism – but in all these forms, one sees man’s concern with the questions of God

SOME TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS THAT HOLD

1-God as the One who threatens and disrupts our lives, one whom we cannot live without
2-both immanent and transcendent – distant and absent, yet present and near
3-A thousand names to refer to Him, yet cannot be captured totally by any one, defying all categories, and not even a sui generis because
he may not and cannot be confined to a class or genus or category
4-The One we can easily forget, yet to whom we turn when there isn’t anything else.
5-The Mystery and Paradox
-Daniélou: The danger of speaking about God is that whenever we say something true, it is also stands as untrue. And yet when we speak
of our knowledge of Him, we recognize Him as both unknown and well-known
-indeed, God is the Horizon, and our talk is Asymptotic

3-BELIEF IN GOD “TODAY”

THE SEARCH FOR GOD TODAY: Theology in the “far country”
-The responsibility of the Church (GS 4)

A-God in a hurting world – with an excess of suffering (e.g., 9/11)

B-God is missing but not missed (J. Vives) – it seems that we are far from God despite His desire to be near to us
-Thus the need to relate our God-talk to texistential situation of human beings
-not a need among others, but an EXISTENTIAL NEED (concerns our becoming what we are meant to be)
-On the New Evangelization: the priority is integral faith formation – a genuine and simple faith but needs to be deeper, more than
festivities or events; rather, these events should take us to the core of our being where we find God and encounter Him (Bacani)

1A. In your own pastoral context, what seems to be the biggest problem today: atheism, or agnosticism, or indifference
-personal experience (as a former university instructor): loss of the relevance of God (indifference, from which atheism and agnosticism
surface
So what if God exists or doesn’t exist? It seems to be easier to believe that God does not exist, because there is no need for us
to refer to an aspired future. The condition that we are now is livable enough, but also problematic enough
What relevance is there for God to be when the very people who profess his existence live as if there is no God (see: abuses of
power, personality, loss of boundaries)?
Better look for other answers to the problem of life! (money? Power? Fame? Relevance?) – esp. in age of anger, in emergence of
incidences of abuse and harassment
-from a pastoral perspective, the task is to show that God is relevant in such a way that our hearts and minds are drawn to Him and His
relevance in our life – needs to seriously engage culture, praxis, community values, rather than stay within the walls of a Church that
already believes
Requires sufficient awareness, tools for analysis, synthesis, and application

1B. From our whole semester’s course, what do you think are the more effective ways of bringing Trinitarian belief “back from the far
country”?
-to profess what we believe, practice what we preach: how do we reach out to a people who thirst for God’s love and understanding? A
more PASTORAL approach that is grounded on GOOD THEOLOGY
-capacity to articulate and reflect on ethos of our communities: Asian context, the problem of atheism and indifference, intellectualism,
postmodern, post-secular, and even post-truth culture
-in our age: emphasis on RELATIONSHIPS (esp. the questioned ones re friendship, community, family, in a technological age) – creates a
new atmosphere of doubt and suspicion, but also sows seeds and situations in which theology can enter in diversity! (non-monopoly of
truth, inter-religious / intercultural / interpersonal dialogue, defeat of secularism that gives way for other forms and expressions of truth
to emerge)

THESIS 2: The doctrinal-pastoral course on the living God of Christian faith seeks to understand, interiorize, and proclaim the Trinitarian
mystery as the central vivifying Truht/Reality which responds to the deepest questions of the human heart. Theological reflection on
the human person’s search for God today leads the Christian theologian to approach the Trinity as effectively made known in salvation
history, as experience in the liberating Gospel of the crucified and risen Lord within the social witness of the Church, and as inviting a
fitting response of faith, obedience, and worship

GENERAL IDEA: How does one approach the theology of the Trinity, other than seeing it s a wordplay of concepts? The doctrinal-pastoral
approach emphasizes more the relevance of the theology of the Trinity in our lives, without diluting and watering down the concepts that
surround it. Hopefully, this articulation of our faith in God who is One and Triuneenables us to see what it brings to light about ourselves
and our world, and how we act and respond to the signs of the times, within our own particular (Filipino and Asian) contexts.

A DOCTRINAL-PASTORAL APPROACH TO THE TRINITY

DOING THEOLOGY (particularly: GOD ONE AND TRIUNE)
-Doctrinal-pastoral approach – related to understanding doctrine and how it applies in (or is challenged by [at least in articulating it])
actual context – especially in Filipino and Asian context

WHAT IS THE OBJECT OF THIS DOCTRINAL-PASTORAL COURSE: The study of God as One-and-Triune
-Relevance is brought out in understanding the Trinity as the CENTRAL MYSTERY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE (Cf. CCC 234; Le Guillou)
-How and to what extent the Trinity illumines and transfigures the whole world through the communion of the Church (an urgent,
ecumenical, and missionary task

WHAT NOT TO DO: A Trinitarian Theology Behaving Badly

1-Appeal to MYSTERY
-It is TRUE that the Doctrine is a MYSTERY, in its theological sense (cf. Augustine’s narrative)
-Ratiznger – Theology of the Trinity is primarily “negative” – draws toward recognition of the insolubility of God’s Mystery – the final word
after all explanations, for God escapes any reduction, seen when we try to reduce Him to the scope of our own comprehension – the
right way is to learn to renounce the attempt to comprehend and leave Him uncomprehended
-to NOT see it as a complete formula; otherwise, it becomes a piece of BAFFLED THEOLOGY
-This confession does not mean renouncing the search for greater sense
-Mystery is never an excuse; The Church makes sense of the Mystery
-the concept of “Mystery” is therefore not an excuse for laziness (but clear that Mystery reminds us that there is more to it than merely
an occasion for a sacrificium intellectus in the face of a formula of apparently unintelligible verbalisms (Rahner)
2-A SEPARATED THEOLOGY
-Dogma and theology as a superstructure, out of touch with current contexts – true esp. of Trinitarian theology when ingested without
reflection
-“immanent Trinity” (Trinity considered in Himself) and “economic Trinity” (Trinity considered in the economy / history of salvation) were
radically separated, no soteriological relevance nor existential human meaning
CHALLENGE: To show the link between doctrine and life
3-“DENZINGER THEOLOGY” (Cf. Rahner) – cut-and-pste definitions because of “carefulness” – and because of that we have not advanced
intellectually
4-A MATHEMATICAL CONUNDRUM – thefutility of an arithmetical aspect that leads us to say “either just One or Three” because we
cannot reconcile them mathematically (cf. Sheed)
5-LINGUISTIC HURDLES – Language seems to be surrounded by an “impenetrable cloud” – a dark and confusing doctrine
-it seems that the point of complicated language seems to be not valued – a matter of being accurate and accountable, not so much as
something meant to confuse

WHAT SHOULD WE AIM FOR?

1-Breaking out of the “mere monotheist” mindset (cf. Rahner)
-the problem is that most Catholics seem to adopt a modalistic way of understanding the Trinity (thus, A GOD WITH DIFFERENT FACES or
FORMS)
-to move from apparent monotheism to TRINITARIAN faith
2-Rediscovering the roots and meaning of our belief in the Trinity in the biblical narratives (the concrete salvation history)
-the beginnings: Jesus of Nazareth (which means that, as Cunningham notes, the doctrine of the Trinity arose from a concrete historical
problem)
-The story of Jesus as the story of the Trinity (Jn 14:8-9 : He who has seen me has seen the Father) – suggests the undivided nature of the
Trinity
- The doctrine of the Trinity is the GRAMMAR of Jesus’ life and thus of Christian life (cf. Huang)
3-Rediscovering the Mystery of the Trinity as saving and re-creating
-note the distinction between IMMANENT AND ECONOMIC TRINITY – a merely conceptual / logical distinction
-theologically useful because it leads to a greater emphasis on God’s inner life
-Questions that surround the relationship between these two notions – important because they emerge out of a real desire to understand
God (1 Pet 3:15: Be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to acoount for the hope that is in you)
-Take note, however, that the mysterium salutis cannot be reduced to a mysterium logicum
4-The need to SPEAK RIGHTLY of the Trinity - the issues surrounding early heresies enabled the Christian tradition to develop an
understanding of and language for the Triune God
-an ARESNAL OF ORTHODOX TEACHING – conceptually and terminologically precise (in Three persons vs. The wrong notion of a God WITH
three Persons)
-There is a “great poverty from which our language suffers” due to the mystery of the Trinity, and yet we strive for “accountable speech”
so we can teach others rightly, that we might pray rightly
-maintaining the tension between incomprehensibility and the desire to understand that which is intelligible
5-With that the need to PRAY RIGHTLY
-doing theology on the Trinity cannot be separated with the way we pray
-speech about God cannot be fruitful if not brought to God (cf. JPII on theologians today)
-Evagrius sees the tight connection between the theologian and the pray-er
-Gregory Nazanzien is one of the theologians who were able to bridge theology and prayer together (see Dogmatic Poems 31)

THE CONTEXT: Philippine and Asian context

1-Studying the Trinity as believers (cf. Tagle)
-Church in Asia is being invited to unite itself more closely to the trinity in view of learning how to serve and be united
-The Church being sent on mission to the peoples of Asia: thirst, hunger, and yearning for life
-the aim: the Church as an icon of the Trinitarian mission and communion on Asian soil, a beauty to behold
2-Another challenge: bridging the worsening Muslim-Christian relations (brought about by fundamentalism on both sides
-Christianity, like Islam, is a monotheistic religion
-BUT: We are not merely monotheistic
-the need is to dialogue with Islam as the most radical of all monotheistic religions (self-ordained task to defend the oneness of Allah and
declare it)
-Great monotheistic religions appeal to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – but experience them differently
a-Our God and Your God is One (Surah 29:46) – an address to the people of the Book
b-But Christianity differs in such a way that it believes Jesus as the revelation of the perfect Revealer showing us the community of divine
persons – accused as well of blasphemy in the Quran for saying that one is of the three
-How do we resolve? To say that we both are in one reality, but experience it uniquely and differently. It is there where fruitful and
meaningful dialogue can emerge (cf. T. Michel) – thus to say YES and NO as answer on belief in the same God

2A. How do you personally understand and experience the Trinity as answering “the deepest questions of the human heart”?
-The theology of the Trinity speaks to our own being about its very depths, its nature, its meaning, and its significance – who we are is
answered by the very answers that we receive about God
-Through this, we are awakened to the “natural desire for the supernatural,” led to find it in our understanding, affect, and praxis (head,
heart, hand + holy longing)
-Thus, each element of our understanding is important in our Christian life. While it is true that what is more emphasized are our own
ways of being, such Christian way of being human cannot be separated from the God that one believes to be as the Source and End.

2B. Do the people you serve in your apostolate believe in and understand the Trinity? If yes, what reinforces their belief If no, why not?
-Most likely yes, but such an understanding seems to also be not articulated, and its implications not fully lived out.
-Probably because it is not that explicitly questioned and addressed.
-There is a need to articulate it on the level of its significance and relevance in the daily lives of the people whom we encounter in the
context of the apostolate.

THESIS 3: God’s progressive self-revelation through Jesus Christ begins in the OT’s confessional narrative of the redemptive acts of the
one, living, just God, the all-holy, whose covenant with His people is manifested through Word, Wisdom, and Spirit. The NT reveals
God as the unique personal God of love, sending Jesus Christ His Only Son, filled with the HS, to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven on
earth. Paul’s tripartite formulas express this Trinitarian pattern of specific salvific roles of Father, Son, and Spirit. John develops a fuller
Trinitarian theology from the missions of the Son/Word and the Spirit, the latter related expressly to both Father and Son

GENERAL IDEA: Why speak of God as One and Triune? We see that the Truth about God is rooted not only on what is passed on to us part
of Tradition, but also and equally importantly in the Scripture, since taken together they are the two channels of God’s Self-Revelation. In
the Scripture, we already see the Trinitarian belief in God, which can be traced back even in the time of the Old Testament.

GOD IN THE SCRIPTURES

-The distinct character of Christianity – the specificity of Jesus Christ, and how the ultimate meaning of life is approached by virtue of the
Incarnation
-QUESTION: Who is Jesus Christ? WHO IS THIS GOD? And How concretely has he revealed Himself?

The Approach: Two channels of the same Mystery

1-The Scriptures as the primary Christian Source (the soul of theology – DV 24)
2-Improved knowledge AND deeper personal awareness of God’s presence to us, an improved ability to discern this presence in our daily
lives and the lives of others
-not a static acquisition of information, but a lived, existential, dynamic encounter of loving and believing
-Jn 17:3 – an intimate knowledge (Eternal life as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent)
3-The two phases of particular approach
a-Study of the biblical general view of God (especially as portrayed by the theologies of the OT)
b-Study of the Trinitarian development within the Biblical revelatory data, focusing on the mystery of Jesus Christ, Son of the Father and
bearer of the Spirit (rationale: It is Christ that made us TRINITARIAN monotheists!)
4-The necessity of “accountable speech”
-A position we take in paying attention to the uses of religious discourse (cf. O’Collins)
-Theologian not as a spokesman for God but as a “watchman” of language in the presence of God, bound by the task of getting things
straight

I AM WHO AM: The God of Abraham and Jacob

The Place of God in Sacred Scripture

1-Cunningham – The doctrine of the Trinity arose from a very concrete historical problem
2-Starting point: the historical narrative of Israel’s discovery of God, His dealings with Israel – CLIMAX IN JESUS CHRIST
-from this we conclude: TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY’s starting point is the SACRED SCRIPTURES
3-Biblical theology can then be described as theology of “recital or proclamation of the acts of God” taken with inferences drawn from
them
-SS relates a certain history in a confessional manner, as the recounting is itself a central religious act of the worshipping community
-thus Bib Theo – the confessional recital of the redemptive acts of God in a particular history (Israel) (cf. G. E. Wright)
4-Biblical writings, however, do not present a systematic doctrine on God
-They focus on WHO GOD IS and WHAT GOD HAS DONE AND IS DOING [within HUMAN EXPERIENCE]
-Presence-absence / likeness-unlikeness, divine personality are known in the course of responding to his self-communication and
invitation to follow him (obedience, faith, worship)
-power and activity, his might acts are mirabilia Dei

-God, then, is not so much the “object” of Biblical thought, but its subject – the One who speaks, initiates dialogue, hwo freely invites,
calls, and promises
*Bouyer – it is God’s Word who questions us

THE OLD TESTAMENT

1-The name of God
A-the implication of having a “name” or “being named” – self-disclosure (hence the seriousness of the 2 nd commandment vs. MAGIC)
-Knowing someone’s name – to have a relationship with him (Ex 3:13-14: “The God of your ancestors;” “I am who am”)
-Also a certain claim on the person, a power or hold (Mk 1:34b – “Jesus would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him”)
-Changing of one’s name – involves a change of status or personality (Abram  Abraham; Jacob  Israel)
-Conferring a name on someone – an act of power, expression of authority, assertion of ownership (e.g. Prophets speaking in the name [or
in the power and authority] of Yahweh

3 Outstanding possibilities of interpretation

1-“I am who am” – Thomist interpretation of esse as essence
2-uncontollable, autonomy
3-God’s continuing presence
-YHWH is not meant to pronounce
-Name as the integrating part of the person – revealing the inner identity of the person
*Without a name, there is no real existence; the supreme threat to the wicked is TO HAVE NO NAME (Job 18:17 – the memory of persons
perishing from the earth; Prov 10:7 – the memory of the righteous is a blessing, while the names of the wicked “will rot”)

2-God’s name: YHWH (the tetragrammaton, a PARADOX)

-By revealing his name, God gives his eternally guaranteed permission for Israel to “call upon him” and be heard
-Raatzinger: He is handing himself over to men that he can be called upon by them” (not so much expressing his inner nature, making
himself nameable)
*By doing this, he enters into CO-EXISTENCE with them, he puts himself within their reach, he is “there”
-The mysterious literal meaning of YHWH – “I am who am” – either “none of your business,” or “I will be there with you” as a continuing
presence in his creation, his being-there with us; also, a self-referential term for Aruinas (expressing Himself as Himself, existence as self-
subsistent, returning to itself as reference)

-Three outstanding possibilities emerge

a-Augustine – “I am the being who is always and forever; b-St. Thomas – “I am what I am,” the sole one capable of defining the infinite,
ever-actual fullness of my existence
-though sounding abstract, BUT never lost sight of the economic thrust of the name (-am-there-with-you)
c- -The need for a more economic, soteriologial, “practical” relation – to say that Jesus is the God-is-with-us s to believe in the Incarnation;
his name is Emmanuel, God-is-with-us

*Louis Bouyer – the generic plural Elohim – a word that refers to someone whose identity escapes us
-and whoever takes hold of it possesses the very personality with which he knows how to name
-All go back to the Supremely free grace of the sovereign God
-also indicates the GENEROSITY OF GRACE
-revealing His name is opening to His intimate life, His personality. And in this giving, He also discloses Himself

-The nature of God – not a philosophical essence, but one who shows his intimate self-discloure
-the living God of Jer 10:9-10 (the Lord as the true God, the living God and the everlasting King) and Dt 5:26 (knowledge of the voice of
the Living God might consume one)
-OT as progressive revelation of the one God, a painful and slow progress toward the unicity and exclusiveness of Yahweh
-Prophets’ task – to constantly strive to purify the popular conceptions and cults of “gods”
=prophetic voices stack and layer different ways of understanding together – Justice (Amos), Mercy (Hosea, holiness (Isiah), tender
compassion (Jeremiah)
-Monotheism proclaimed concretely – the First Commandment – the Lord your God who frees you. Thus, no other Gods should be
worshiped
-The absolute power and will of God as nothing compared to other powers – hence the continuing need for purification and renewal

The characteristics of God

i-Holiness –
-in frequency and stress – taken with exaltedness, with brilliance and radiance, of majesty, with those of separation, differentness (Hos
11:9 – God the Holy One in our midst), and inaccessibility (Is 45:15 – the God who Hides Himself) – SET APART
-Deus revelatus tamquam absconditus (1 Kgs 8:12- the Lord dwelling in Darkness)
-the inspiration for Otto’s mysterium tremendum et fascinans, which draws us to worship (Ex 15:11 – God’s majesty, unlike no other) and
to moral demands (Ps 99:1-5 – a call to worship the Lord who is Holy), seeing our own uncleanness (Is 6:5 – in seeing the Lord, I have
seen myself as a man of unclean lips)
-this holiness forms the background for OTs monotheism, and even of understanding YHWH as Love, that contains “jealousy” vs. “other
gods” (Ex 20:5, 34:14, Dt 4:24 – the First Commandment)
-a rightful jealousy because He has claimed us and has become faithful to us
ii-Loving Kindness – HESED
-representing YHWH’s fundamental relationship with Israel, a covenant relationship which includes help, fidelity, love; manifested in acts
and not mere sentiments (Ex 34:6 – The Lord who is gracious and merciful)
-YHWH does HESED – he shows fidelity (emet) and truth (constancy and not caprice)
-God’s non-despotic wrath, but is rather a righteous judgment, a personal reaction to sin, transient, motivated by love (Ps 30:5 – the
Lord’s anger is for a moment, his favour is for a lifetime)
-Dives in Misericordia 52 –
a MASCULINE aspect – grace and fidelity (hesed, emet) – as hendiadys (two words combined for a particular idea)
a FEMININE aspect – responsibility for the loved one, as in a mother’s to her child (rahamim)
iii-Justice – TSEDEQ
-not primarily of the moral order, but a personal quality that transcends all laws
-God acting not in terms of impartiality nor in universal norms (while these are good);
-RATHER: out of his own nature and covenantal relationship
-tsedeq and hesed going together – the key to the whole divine plan of salvation (Is 42:6, 21; 45:8, 13; 46:13 – the Lord’s righteousness
and salvation) – in two ways of understanding it: (a) as covenant relation, (b) in its universal extension, until the eschatological
consummation

3-God’s Manifestations
a-Shekinah and Merkabah
-SHEKINAH – “tent-dweller” – a wanderer who accompanies Israel in their earthly sojourn – the TRANSCENDENT becoming IMMANENT
-combines the ideas of otherness and closeness –a traveller who is always a stranger to this earth, yet close to His Own (Bouyer)
-MERKABAH – the power which sets Israel in motion, urges the people on – the “chariot of fir” in which this God traverses the universe –
unstoppable, encourages us to follow Him (Bouyer)
-By his SHEKINAH, he is close and yet “strange,” manifesting Himself according to the capacities of the human being (Bouyer)
-On the MERKABAH – remains free of all earthly bonds, soaring above the highest heavens
-the FINAL HOPE: He may call to join Him, carried up to heaven, the man whom He has condescended to allow to see something of
Himself
-put briefly: SHEKINAH as transcendent immanence, MERKABAH as immanent transcendence

b-Wisdom, Word, and Spirit (HOKMAH; DABAR; RUACH || SOPHIA, LOGOS, PNEUMA) (cf. O’Collins) – OT ways of speaking of God’s
activity in the world
-personified agents of divine activity, but NOT formally recognized as persons, but with personal characteristics
i-Wisdom (Hokmah / Sophia)
-Prov 8:22-23, 27, 30-31 – the Lord who establishes the heavens, set me up befor the beginning of the earth, the master workman
-Wisdom 7:22-23 – the eschatological aspect – wisdom as penetrating everything
-NOTE: This is a feminine image, said to be since the beginning, co-creating yet created, related to Torah and God’s creative and salvific
work – a “face” that “dialogues” with God
ii-Word (Dabar / Logos) – found with and in God, powerfully creative
iii-Spirit (Ruach / Pneuma) – another way of describing God’s creative, revelatory and redemptive activity, with an eschatological aspect
-these concepts are fluid and often interchangeable or paired – significant even in the Christian faith, where it developed

O’Collins – vivid personifications as both identified with God and the divine activity and distinguished from God – an opening to a
tripersonal recognition of the One God
-a giant leap from mere personifications (anthropomorphic representations) to distinct persons
-thus a preparation by foreshadowings and by an already existing terminology
In reference to the NT
-Spirit is revealed by Jesus as personal, proceeding from God, while “Word” and “Wisdom” will be identified with Jesus Himself. Some
comparisons:
*Wisdom speaks – (Sir 24:8) - commanded by God to make a dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance
*Jn 1:14 – The word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, full of grace and truth; we ahve beheld his glory, as of the only Son from
the Father
*Prov 9:1-6 – Wisdom builds her house, invited the simple ones to eat of her bread and drink of her wine
*Mt 11:25-30 – God has revealed the truth not to the wise, but to the little ones. All things have been delivered to [Jesus] by my Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son, and any one tow hom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Take my yoke, for it is easy and its
burden light

BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST: God in the New Testament
The Mystery of the Son in the NT- the Trinitarian face of the story of Jesus
-Jesus refers to Himself [obliquely] as the Son and to God as the Father – he acted like the Son in knowing and revealing the truth about
God.
-Jesus then expresses a unique filial consciousness and as laying claim to a unique filial relationship with God – whom he addressed as
ABBA

Biblical data on a Triune God

1-the Johannine data

-God called Father 119 times in John, with 123 in the rest of the NT; Son appears 52 times in John, with 57 in the rest
-Father as the source of (a) Jesus powers (1:14, 18; 5:19-30), (b) salvation (3:16; 1 Jn 4:9-10, 19), and the end of salvation (17:3)

Jesus’ Divinity
-Prologue (1:18) – synthesis of Word and Wisdom – personification of Wisdom and the Glorification of Torah (two OT strands)
-Christ as Wisdom truly personified, the true Word of God through whom comes grace and truth
-A very “high Christology” which lays claim to Jesus as:
Pre-existent before material creation
Co-creator
Identified as God
Came into the world
Sent by the Father
Economic mission
Returning to the Father
-Jn 20:28 - Thomas (“My Lord and my God!”) – the only moment Jesus was addressed as God

“Ego eimi” (reference to Ex 3:14; Jn 6:20, 8:24, 28, 58)

The bread of life (6:35); Light of the world (8:12); Door of sheepfold (10:7); Good shepherd (10:11, 14); Resurrection and life
(11:25); Way, truth, life (14:6)’ Vine (15:5)

Jesus’ glory manifesting his divine presence (1:14)

Jesus’ relationship with the Father
Son as dependent on the Father (5:19); Father as greater than the Son (14:28); Son’s teaching is the Father’s (7:16); Unity between Son
and Father (10:30, 38; 17:21-23); Unique relationship (5:17-18; 20:17); Love of the Father toward the Son (5:20); Son and Father glorifying
one another (17:4-5); Reciprocity or correspondence between Father and Son (5:17, 21; 17:10); The “Johannine meteorite” in Mt 11:27
and Lk 10:22 – knowledge of the Son and the Father – resonances with the sense of John as described above

The Holy Spirit (Jn 14-16)

-The Paraclete (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) – the one “called alongside” – para kletus, a defense attorney, a helper – Jesus had a personal term
for the Spirit
-the Spirit (14:26), the Spirit of Truth (14:17, 15:26, 16:13)

The Holy Spirit in relation to the Son

-Proceeds from the Father (15:26)
-Given by the Father at the intercession and behest of Jesus, and in Jesus’ name (14:26)
-Sent by Jesus (16:7) from the Father (15:26)
What the Holy Spirit does
-With us forever (14:16), dwells with us and is in us (14:17)
-Teaches, brings to remembrance all that Jesus told us (14:26)
-bears witness to Jesus (15:26), does not speak on his own authority (16:13), speaks what he hears, declares to us the things that are to
come (16:13), and in so doing glorifies Jesus (16:14)
-guides us into all the truth (16:13)
-“convinces” (RSV trans., but others would name it as convict, reprove, show or prove the wrongness of) the world regarding sin,
righteousness, and judgment (16:8-11)

2-The Pauline data

-1 Cor 12 – Paul writes of the Spirit’s “gifts,” “working” and “manifestation” from his own experience
1 Cor 14:18 – “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all)
-1 Cor 12:3-11 – the Spirit as the power that provides the capacity to believe;
-the varieties of gifts, but of the same Spirit
-varieties of service, but the Same Lord; varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all
-to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit, to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, to another the
utterance of knowledge acc to the same Spirit, to another faith, to another healing, etc.

QUESTION: What does the Spirit do? Is the list of gifts exhaustive?
Cyril of Jerusalem: In each person, the Spirit reveals His presence in a particular way for the common good! (De Spiritu Sancto)

-G. Fee: Paul’s triadic formulas express his triadic experience of God as Savior. Encounter with God in salvation (as Father, Son and HS)
alone accounts for the expansion and transformation of his theological language of God and of God’s saving work
-Explicit triadic texts (2 Cor 13:14, 1 Cor 12:14-16, Eph 4:4-6) – succinct encapsulations “salvation in Christ” in triadic terms, at times in
semi-creedal fashion, but always in non-reflective, presuppositional ways

2 Cor 13:14 – the exhortation in mass (the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit)
1 Cor 12:4-6 – varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; varieties of service, but the same Lord; varieties of workin, but the same God who
inspires all
Eph 4:4-6 – one Body and one spirit, called to one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
us all, who is above all and through all and in all
Eph 2:18 – through [Jesus] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father
Eph 3:14-17 – I bow the knees before the Father that... he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit... and that
Christ may dwell in your hearts
Eph 5:18-20 – be filled with the Spirit... singing and making melody to the Lord... forever giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
to God the Father
Rom 1:1-4 – Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ... promised the gospel concerning his Son, descended according to the flesh and designated
Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness bu his resurrection from the dead
Rom 8:14-16 – All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God, when we cry Abba, it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our
spirit that we are children of God
Gal 4:4-7 – God sent forth his Son, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. And because you are sons, God has sent
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts

IN SUMMARY
O’ Collins – Paul does not abandon his Jewish faith professed by the shema (Dt 6:4; cf. Rom 3:29-30 – the same God of Jews and gentiles;
Gal 3:20 – God is one, 1 Cor 8:4-6 – there is only One God)
-But at the same time, this monotheism is Christological and Pneumatological – an original and new development
-Based on the existing Christian tradition and his own experience – sets Jesus and the Spirit alongside the Father or God (ho theos)
-Pauline treatment about the trinity therefore provides the foundation and starting point for that doctrinal development (cf. 1 Cor 8:6,
with Jn 1:3, Heb 1:2)

-Some obvious limits present: No NT author says anything about the activity of the Spirit in creation, where the OT presents divine Spirit
as operative in the original creation, this thought is not as such picked up by the NT
-Nevertheless: NT points to F-S-HS as the truest and most intimate revelation of God

3A. What does the Bible have to do with Trinitarian faith?

-Scriptures, as the soul of theology, legitimizes and grounds our accountable speech on God as Divine Revelation
-It is in the Scriptures in which we have a written account of how the Judaeo-Christian tradition tells the story of and pictures God

3B. Is there a need today to use SS much more in our teaching and preaching? Why?
Based on the answer above, a resounding yes. We are constantly challenged to ground parts of our Tradition and connect it with Scripture
-Thus the need to take seriously SS, perhaps compared to other Churches and congregations that ground their teachings on misguided
/fundamentalist interpretation of the Scriptures  the call to clarify and present a wider, more comprehensive, and richer perspective
that the Catholic tradition greatly values

4C. How can we use the Bible more in teaching and preaching about the Trinity? How can we use it more effectively?
-Establish the connection between the theology of the Trinity and its biblical foundations – show that it is also about us
*the Trinity is not just any baffled theology, but brings with it the narrative of the relationship between God and His people
-Use the variety of genres (poetry, history, literature) to tell of this narrative and show the Trinity’s presence in His works

THESIS 4: Faced with various early heresies (especially those in the third and fourth centuries), Christian tradition gradually and
painstakingly developed an understanding of the Triune God as three, equal and distinct Persons who are One in Being. This
understanding is articulated by such theologians as Augustine of Hippo, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory of Nyssa and Richard of St. Victor,
and in the conciliar declarations of Nicea, Constantinople I, Lateran IV, and Florence. Bonaventure gives us a useful summary: in God
we can discern one nature, two processions, three persons, four relationships, and five notions. All this conceptual and terminological
precision, while helpful, must refrain from reducing the mysterium salutis to a mere mysterium logicum.

GENERAL IDEA: This thesis answers the question and grounds the importance of what it means for God to exist, as received by Revelation,
as both One and Three. The early history of Christianity finds that this truth about God has to be articulated in order to prevent confusion
and misunderstanding, though this does not mean that this very truth is not accepted as such. Rather, it is because it is believed that the
reality of the Trinity is strongly asserted against these rather misunderstood contexts. But more importantly, the way God is known and
defined in the doctrine of the Trinity tells something about who we are.

THE HISTORICAL EMERGENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

PRIMARILY: The FOUNDATIONAL and SYSTEMATIC articulation arose out of the need to articulate that which was revealed primarily in
SACRED SCRIPTURE and its continuity with what is not written but actively practiced, that is, TRADITION
1-Scriptural approach gives way to both historical and systematic approach
2-Continuity and discontinuity in the movement from Scripture to Tradition
-Bouyer – Bible is left to incomprehensibility when separated from Tradition. Tradition places the Scriptures in a living environment, its
proper atmosphere
Tradition is also continuous and discontinuous
-Continuous insofar as it is living and open to change
-Discontinuous in a way that there is newness, growth, and development
3-The development of Doctrine
-A central notion in the Reformation Debates
-The challenge is to answer the question of doctrinal amplification: does it extend the biblical norms of Christian belief without sufficient
warrant?
-OR, because there is a continuum of inspired understanding between early and later interpretations, is the emergence of later normative
doctrine integral to what God brings about as guided response to His revelation? For the Catholic, YES this is this case.

Vincent de Lérins (c. 434) – “what was believed everywhere, always, and by all”) -suggests that NO doctrinal interpretation was to be
accepted except by UNIVERSAL CONSENSUS
-DOCTRINAL PROGRESS: developed in the course of years, in time and sublimated by age (picked up by Newman, Tubingen)
=Mohler – Development cannot but be an UNFOLDING which from the start is given in its fullness, in such a way that the later originates
from the earlier in a living, gradual tradition
=Newman – SS begins a series of developments which it does not finish

-“Development” as an unavoidable way of designating the issue – neither it nor any other single analogy can be an adequate
characterization of the process
-Can continuity be adequately described by a single category and still respect the discontinuity and transformation that history
introduces?
= to say that it has no breaks would be unrealistic
=Challenge of any theory of development is to see historical change as the matrix within which Christian identity is consistently
reappropriated in a LIVING STREAM of tradition (McDade)

4-In the case of the Trinity – there is a transition from the biblical level of discourse to that of theological understanding
-JC Murray – the questions raised were NEW, INEVITABLE, LEGITIMATE, and DEMANDED AN ANSWER
-And this is valid because of our trust in the guidance of the HS (Jn 16:14 – When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you all into
truth”)
..........................................................................................
J.C. Murray, The Problem of God
Four comments on Arius’ position
1-New – the problem had been stated in the intersubjective category of presence iwth its attendant dynamic categories
2-Inevitable – if Arius had not asked it, someone else would have – accounted for by the desire to understand further
3-Legitimate – the reasons for raising the question is sound and theologically founded (Creator and creature as something that is rational
and grounded in faith)
4-Demanded an answer – It has to be decisively defined, given the gravity and the entailing consequences of the question
...........................................................................................
From Scriptures to Theological Categories

1-A broad historical survey

A-The doctrine of DIVINE MONARCHY

-Jews were emphatically monotheistic (the rest are mere idols) - the Lord is the “living God,” the one Lord
-Monotheism is thus proclaimed concretely in terms of CULT, SERVICE, CONFESSION, AND ETHICAL LIVING (cf. The SHEMA, First
Commandment)
Is 45:20 – “They keep on praying to a god who cannot save
Jer 2:11 – “The nations that changed gods do not have any god at all”
Ps 115:3-8 – “Our God is in the heavens! The others are the work of human hands”
Jer 10:10 – “The Lord is the true God!”
Dt 6:4 – “Hear, O Israel”
-Jesus the faithful Jew – related to the Lord as both His God and Father (Jn 20:17 – Go to my breathren and say to them that I am
ascending to my Father and Your Father, my God and Your God)
-relationship is unique to himself and shared with us – and thus the normative Christian way of speaking of God (cf. Eph 1:3 – “Blessed be
the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ
-This is followed by early Christian theology and described God as the Father – cf. Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian)
-Reference is made to “God,” it is always the Father who is meant
B-Problems with monarchianism: MODALISM AND SUBORDINATIONISM
-Strong emphasis on the monas-arche – not surprising that the problem of Christ may lead to “easy solution” – to say that he is a “mode
of being” of the one God, “less divine” – a divine, superior creature inferior to God)
-This strong emphasis led to a heretical stand (cf. Tertullian, Adv. Praxean) – developed into two forms
1-Subordinationist – aimed to preserve the divine monarchy by subordinating the Son and the Spirit to the One God
2-Modalist – preserve the monarchy by understanding F-S-HS as three modes (modi) or faces (prosopa) of the one divinity – a flat
differentiation that does not account for real distinction between persons
-Not surprising that there are subordinationist tendencies
Origen: ho theos and thos (article distinguishes one from the other)
-ho theos = the Father = autotheos (God in the proper sense)
-while the Son as deuteron theos, but also theos
-at best, ambiguous, yet there is a subordinationist tone to it
*note that it was a time when homoousios has not been properly defined, and Origen at best struggles with the correct term – no
definitive and right word yet
-O’Collins – Origen favoured a certain “subordinationism” which highlighted the place of the Father as the ultimate principle – the
ungenerated source of the Son that led to a picture of the “subordinate” Mediator – along the lines of middle Platonism
-H. Rondet – Origen may have been subordinationist in his theology of the Trinity – notes that this may have influenced his teaching on
prayer
*On Prayer – Origen writes that we should not pray to someone who himself prays, since Christ prays to His Father, adoration can be given
only to the Father
 Father
----
Son
---
Hs
====
Created World

-Tertullian would also have the same subordinationist tendency: the Logos that exists prior to the creation of the world is only perfected in
his “complete birth” in creation
-Son proceeds from the Father rightly, but the Father alone possesses the entire fullness of divinity

Only in the 4th Century did the question of subordinationism become acute

C-ARIUS – a priest and director of the school of exegesis in Alexandria, an influential teacher and ascetic, an intellectual disciple of Origen
-desire to protect the oneness of God – as purely one, monas, indivisible and self-sufficient
-MAIN POINT: the Logos does not have to exist, although the Father wills it so. Thus the attribution: “There was a time when [the Logos]
was not.” – Arius taught that the Logos/Son must be a creature, though still superior to other creatures. He is God not by a true essence
BUT BY GRACE
Father
===
Son
---
Spirit
---------------
Created World
THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA (325 CE) – called by Constantine to bring peace to the Church and empire; attended by 220 bishops
Father – Son – HS
====
Created world
-Athanasius’ homoousios, not merely homoiousios
-the important question: Did Nicaea produce peace, agreement, and unquestioned reception?

Between Nicaea and Constantinople 1

-it seemed that that Athanasian homoousion party was victorious
-Arius was deposed and exiled, but the victor of the orthodox position was short-lived – Pro-Arian bishops and emperors dominated in the
next 50 years, and the entire question was reviewed again and again, the understanding of the orthodox position was clarified, developed,
and fine-tuned
-it is not unusual that many people did not even hear the “creed” of Nicea (eg. Hilary of Poitiers – only in his exile was he able to hear of
the assertion in Nicaea)
-it was a time of great confusion: Socrates the Historian – it’s like a battle by night because both parties seemed to be in the dark about
the grounds on which they were hurling abuse at each other
*Newman found it significant that the belief of Nicaea was held not by the priests and bishops, BUT BY THE LAITY!

INTERLUDE: THE CAPPADOCIAN SETTLEMENT

-the homoousios did not satisfy many people – it is unfamiliar, unbiblical, ambiguous and inevitably tainted with Gnostic and heretical
associations in the past
-a linguistic hurdle exists: ousia and hypostasis (substance and person) had equivalent meanings during that time
-In other words, there is a LACK OF CONCEPTUAL TOOLS for adequately expressing the unity of being and distinction of persons

The Cappadocian Contribution – the theological shorthand: one ousia in three hypostaseis
-Gregory the Nazianzene, Oration 21 On the Great Athanasius, 35 – the one denotes the nature of the Godhead, the other the properties
of the three -with this fomula, which now clearly distinguishes between ousia and hypostasis, Christian theology can now speak
simultaneously of a unity of being in God as well as a true distinction in persons
-An important achievement as well – between the Christian East / Greek and West / Latin – despite the different set of words, they point
to the same reality
2-Symbol and Creed
Terminologies
a-Regula fidei (the rule of faith) – summaries of Christian teaching – wide variety in wording but similar in content, based on apostolic
preaching – content corresponds to the Apostles’ Creed (in many aspects)
b-Symbolon (symbol)
-originally meant half of a broken object – used as a method of verification for different people hold the broken parts together
-“transposed” to the language of faith – a sign of recognition and communion between believers
-Symbolon eventually evolved to mean a GATHERING, COLLECTION OR SUMMARY
*Of what? The principal truths of the faith, therefore serving as the first and fundamental point of reference for catechesis (cf. CCC 188)
-therefore: CREDO means the same as symbolon – shows that there is a close relationship between faith that is taught (regula fidei) and
the faith professed – but they had somewhat different function
*The former as summary, the latter as affirmation
-Ratizinger: belief in the Trinity is communion, belief is TO BECOME COMMUNION
-the “I” of creed-formulas is the collective “I” of the believing Church to which the individual “I” belongs in his/her belief – the “I” of the
credo thus embraces the transition from the individual “I” to the ecclesial “I”

The Apostles’ Creed

-a baptismal confession of faith - -received text occurs in the 8 th century, but the contents are essentially an expansion of the positive form
of the questions asked of candidates for Baptism at Rome ca. End of 2 nd century
-Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition – threefold inquiry of belief in the Trinity: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit (and in the
Church, and the resurrection of the flesh)
-its early conception shows that there is already a Trinitarian and Christological center

The Creed of Nicaea

– a reformulation of wording which expresses IRREFORMABLE content
-The Western approach proceeds monotheistically from the One Being of God, and then speak in Trinitarian language of the F-S-HS – not
the case in the Nicaean creed
-instead, it starts with the Father as the “summit of unity” in which the Son and Spirit are comprehended – thus a GENETIC conception of
the divinity, in which the divinity originates in the father and streams forth in the Son and the Spirit – AN EASTERN APPROACH

Four key affirmations:

1-from the essence of the Father
2-true God from true God – expresses an order that does not express a descending hierarchy, inferiority, or subordination
3-begotten, not made – distinguishes between “begetting” and “creation,” gennesis and genesis
4-one in being with the Father – homoousios – significant because it is a non-scriptural term that defines belief

The Creed of Constantinople 1 – 56 years after Nicaea

-The divinity of the Spirit was put simply in Nicaea – very little to say because the status of the Spirit had not yet become the subject of
controversy
*Basil the Great – no question was raised, and the opinion was exposed to no attack
-the crisis of Macedonius (semi-Arian bishop of Constantinople) and the Macedonians (“Pneumatomachians”) – denied the divinity of the
Spirit
--the serving spirit, an interpreter of God, perhaps the king of angelic beings – the Spirit was either a creature or an intermediate being
between God and creatures
-THE OPPOSITION PARTY: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazanzius, Gregory of Nyssa

The dispute: the 374 incident when Basil replaced the traditional liturgical doxology
FROM: Glory to the Father through the Son in HS
TO: Glory to the Father with the son and the Holy Spirit
-Basil’s On the Holy Spirit provided justification
-The intervention of Athanasius – arguing from the viewpoint of soteriology – HS can give us a share in divine nature, can divinize us, only
if He Himself is God
IMPORTANT: the issue was not a speculative problem but a fundamental question of salvation

HS is then confessed as the Lord and giver of life, proceeding from the Father [FOR THE WEST: and from the Son]
-Thus, while Constantinople I does not explicitly call him “divine,” these phrases serve that purpose – these are exclusive titles and
characteristics attributed to the Father and the Son
A final comment: The Cappadocian settlement is often associated with the creed of Constantinople I, but the formula appears nowhere
there
-BUT: the two terms ousia and hypostasis do occur together in the letter addressed by the Synod of Constantinople to the Western
Bishops
=teach us to believe in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: to believe in one divinity and power and essence
(ousia) of the F, S, and HS; in their dignity of equal honor and in their coeternal reign, in three most perfect subsistences (hypostaseis) or
three perfect persons (prosopa).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed1

I believe in One God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in One Lord Jess Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. [From the essence of the Father, God
from God,] Light from Light, True God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were
made [things in heaven and things on earth]. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was
incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilte, he suffered death and was buried, and
rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He
will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his Kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is
adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
..............................................................................

The Athanasian Creed

-Wrongly attributed to Athanasius, must have been writeen in the 5 th century by an anonymous author in Southern France
-K.N.D. Kelly: the Christological heresy being attached by the creed is Nestorianism (and not Apollinarianism), must ahve been composed
after 428 CE
-the creed acquired enormous authority, to the point of being placed on an equal footing witht he Nicene creed, and used in the liturgy
(rhythmic and thus became popular), especially in the West where it became the classical formula of Trinitarian faith
-two halves of the subject matter: first deals with the Trinity, and the second on the Incarnation
................................................................................
The Quicumque Vult (whoever wishes), or the “Athanasian creed”
-significant in the Council of Orange

-We distinguish among the persons, but we do not divide the substance – WHAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHES
-uncreatedness, eternity, omnipotence, etc
-we have to think this, in our desire to be saved.

AFTER THE FOURTH CENTURY: Further Clarifications by the Church Fathers on the Trinity

FOUR CLASSIC TREATISES ON THE TRINITY

Augustine, De Trinitate
A-Preliminary Remarks
-the challenge of reading Augustine synthetically, as a whole, instead of doing it bits and pieces (Barnes)
-the Western essentialist approach to the Trinity, beginning with the substance or being of God
-a view that is challenged:
*Weinandy: Augustinian approach moves from the three to one, thus puts less stress on the significance of the relationship between
persons (much like Anselm’s IQMCN)
*Boff: Augustine stresses God as the Trinity of the Eastern theologians: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
B-Key Points
1-one principle for understanding the Son’s divinity and humanity
2-equality in sending and being sent
1
Do not occur in Nicaea. [Do not occur in Constantinople but appears in Nicaea]. Normative today but not in either Nicaea or Constantinople.
Text is normally recited at Mass in accordance with the new English translation.
3-two modes of coming forth from the Father, contra arius
4-accountable speech about God
5-there is no quaternity
6-analogy of love = lover + love + beloved
7-psychological analogies = memory + understanding + will
C-A question on psychological analogies: do they really work? Perhaps of limited usefulness
-not concrete or tangible realities, beside the fact that people are not used to such categories
-most serious weakness: fails in bringing out the core truth of God’s threeness = RELATIONALITY
*the analogy of three faculties in one person affirm the oneness of God, without emphasis on the relatedness of distinct persons
*for Ratzinger, a decisive mistake: projection of the divine persons into the interior life of the human person as intra-psychic processes,
thus a failure to make the transfer from Trinitarian personhood to the human person in all its immediate impact

Hilary de Poitiers, De Trinitate

-De Trinitate as a defense of the divinity / CONSTUBSTANTIALITY of the Son with the Father – a giving that does not have remainder or loss
-The Son as Only-Begotten – a “birth” that is not temporal and is not a loss of anything else
-the only distinction? Begetter and the Only-Begotten – the Mystery of the Father to be the Author of the Birth, but it is no degradation to
the Son to be made the perfect image of his Author by real birth
-In what sense, then, is the Father greater? It is through His authority to give, but that does not make the Son less, for to him it is given to
be one with the Giver
-that which is “proper” to the Father and Son: God the Father to exist without birth, and God the Son to exist always through birth
-Being Second does not mean less or inferior to the First (as implied in the prayer that ends De Trinitate)

Gregory of Nyssa
-NOT THREE GODS – in defense of the unity of the Trinity, arguing from scriptural revelation as witness to one and the same action by
Father, Son, and Spirit – conjoined divine operation
-Every action originated from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, perfected in the Holy Spirit
*This is rephrased in other places
-Wrought by the Father, prepared by the Son, depends on the will of the Spirit
-Issuing from the Father, brought into operation by the Son, perfecting its grace by the power of the Spirit
-beginning with the Father, advancing through the Son, completed in the Holy Spirit
Gregory was quick to point out that there is no “delay, existent or conceived, in the motion of the Divine Will from the Father, through the
Son, to the Spirit” – it is perfectly united throughout
-whole Godhead sees or beholds, and Scripture attributes the act of seeing equally to the Three Persons
-THUS: it is the whole Godhead that saves, yet they are not on this account called in the SS as three saviours
-F-S-HS alike give sanctification, and life, and light, and comfort, and all graces

What then distinguishes between the Persons? Gregory proposes the language of causa
-The cause (F), of the Cause (S), in that which is of the Cause (HS)
-QUICK CLARIFICATION: The word does not connote “nature” (as in metaphysics), but we indicate the difference in the mode of existence.
Language of causality tells us how the Divine Person exists, but not what He is (cause language denotes the notes / notions and not the
divine essence

On the divinity of the Spirit

-the divine attributes of the Father and the Son are contemplated in the HS: immortality, blessedness, goodness, wisdom, power, justice,
holiness
-the Lord as Father, Son, and Spirit – thus we consider that it is right to think that that which is oined to the Father and the Son is not
separated from them

Gregorian “accountable speech” – the Holy Spirit as indeed from God and of the Christ; the Father is always Father, and in Him the Son,
and with the Son the Holy Spirit
The analogy of three torches
-Advantage: Fire from another fire is still fire
-Disadvantage: Spatial consideration does not apply to the Trinity

Richard of St. Victor

The “Fittingness of the Trinity
a-Full and perfect goodness as supreme charity. The exercise of charity requires an “other” – thus a plurality of persons within God – one
to offer love, the other to return love
-Not the same charity directed toward a creature – in fact, disordered if that is the case (loving that which should not be supremely loved
b-From the plurality, Richard proceeds with reasonable analysis of supreme charity: it is more excellent to wish that another be loved
equally by the one you love supremely and by whom you are supremely love – a SHARING with a third in God (con-dilectus: loved with)
-God’s Supreme happiness: the “sweetness of loving” and the delights of charity are magnified by such a sharing – that both may be able
to share delights of that kind, it is necessary for them to have someone who shares in love for a third
-God’s perfect benevolence: where supreme and totally perfect benevolence exists in either person, it is necessary that each with equal
desire, should seek out a sharer of his excellent joy
c-The CONCLUSION: God cannot be simply a monad – perfect and supreme love has to be offered, though given away only to an Other
who is supremely worthy (ie another Divine Person)
-This Supreme Love cannot be simply mutual, but one that is shared – when a third person is loved by two harmoniously and communally,
and affection of two is fused into one affection by the flame of love for the third – thus sharing of love cannot exist among any less than
three persons
d-A schema therefore is formed:
F S: supreme love offered
S  F: supreme love returned
F  HS: spreme love for the Son shared with the Spirit
S  HS : supreme love for the Father shared with the Spirit
HS  Father + Son: supreme shared love returned to Father and Son

THE KEY HERESIES

Hermeneutic key: tension between One and Three must be upheld
1-Modalism (Sabellius, Monarchians, Monists)
2-Subordinationism (Arius, Adoptionists, INC)
3-Tritheism
-Error lies in its affirming the existence of three divine equal Persons without affirming their reciprocal inte-relatedness – thus juxtaposed
or distinguished as they were three separate natures or substances

-Pope Dionysius to Dionysius of Alexandria – warned against distinguishing “so much” that they become separate beings
--speaking against those who divide, dismember, and so destroy the divine monarchia into three powers and separate hypostaseis into
three Godheads
-other examples include:
a-Roscellinus – three souls / angels that are separate and unrelated – condemned by the Synod of Soissons (1121)
b-Joachim di Fiore – Three as more loosely related, and unity as merely “collective and apparent” thus inessential (meaning: not derived
from a principle intrinsic to all three Persons perichoretically related to one another) – condemned by Lateran IV (1215) – in short, they
just happened to be together
Ratzinger: The different controversies and heresies that we have sanity are not mere gravestones to the vanity of human endeavour.
Rather, they are ciphers which help us to truly understand. They are bricks of a cathedral, which are of course useful when not understood
alone but inserted in something bigger

A useful diagram: The Triangle

Three sides represent the three significant concepts that define the Trinity. Let
AB = One God
BC = Three Equal Persons
AC = Three Distinct Persons
Three vertices represent three heresies due to a failure to uphold one of the three elements. Let:
point A = subordinationism (sans equality of persons)
point B = modalism (sans distinction of persons)
point C = Tritheism (sans unity of Divine Ousia)

AFTER THE FOURTH CENTURY: FURTHER CONCILIAR PRONUNCIATIONS

LATERAN IV: Affirmation of our Creed

-Council that clarifies and differentiates the Catholic faith against those of the Waldensians and the Cathars
-against Joachim di Fiore, who thought of three distinct Ages as revelations of the Persons

Clarified that there is only One God in Three Persons who are together as One – they do not work separately across time
a-Affirmation of consubstantiality, Sameness and difference of Three Persons (ND 19)
-the undivided Trinity according to its common essence and distinct according to the proper characteristics o the persons, communicated
the doctrine of salvation to the human race
b-Christological affirmation: the salvation brought by Jesus Christ (ND 20)
-the one person in two natures

What this affirms: The Three Persons operate and exist in One God, and that their activity cannot be divided. The whole Trinity is at work
in the entirety of salvation history, from the creation of the world, to its redemption, to its work of advocacy (ad-vocatus). The Father, the
Son, and the Spirit is.

FLORENCE: On the filioque and the concept of perichoresis

-An unsuccessful attempt at reconciling the East with the Western filioque
-Makes room for the Eastern formula of the Spirit proceeding FROM the Father THROUGH the Son – insists on the specifically Western
emphasis on the Spirit proceeding from both the F + S
-vs. Jacobites provides a synthesis of Trinitarian faith
Upholds the filioque
Contains the Anselmian formula – everything is one where there is no opposition of relationship
Teaches the mutual indwelling of the divine persons
-How Florence tries to reconcile: the languageof “cause” and “principle” of the subsistence of the HS
*the father gave everthgin to the Son except being Father, the Son eternally from the Father, the HS proceeds from the Son
*but maintains the legitimacy and accuracy of the Filioque

PERICHORESIS – dancing around one another (?) – a dubious etymology

-Boff: in-dwelling, contained in another, being in another - CIRCUMINSESSIO (sedere + circum = seated around)
-One Person in the others, surroundin the others on all sides, occupies the same space as the others, fills them with its presence
-SECOND MEANING: more active – signifies the INTERPENETRATION or INTERWEAVING of one Person with the others and in the others –
seeks to express the living and eternal process of relating intrinsic to the Three Persons, that each always penetrates the others
CIRCUMINCESSIO – permeate, com-penetrate, interpenetrate
-THUS: Perichoresis is a good term to designate what we have seen to be meant by KOINONIA – active reciprocity, clasping of two hands –
this process of communing (interpenetrating) forms their very nature

The words of FLORENCE: Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the HS; Son wholly in the father and wholly in the HS; the HS wholly in
the Father and wholly in the Son
-Perichoresis also describes the relation between the human and divine natures in the person of CHRIST

A SUMMARY OF THE FAITH: Bonaventure’s BREVILOQUIUM

-a rather easy way of understanding the Trinity, though not to be simplistically used
-1 nature
-2 processions / emanations (of the Son, of the Spirit)
-3 distinct and equal persons (F-S-HS)
-4 relationships: fatherhood & sonship; aspirating & aspirated
-5 notions: unbegottenness, fatherhood, sonship, breathing out, being breathed out
This rather codified understanding should, however, not lead us to REDUCE the mysterium salutis to a mysterium logicum
-The truth of the Trinity is also the truth about ourselves and our own existence. Therefore, accountable speech is necessary not only
because we speak about God, but also because we speak about the mystery of our own being in the process
-However, the tendency to demand accuracy in speech is sometimes reduced to a demand to fulfil the rules of logic, that sometimes we
seek to make sense of the Trinity just for the sake of rendering it rational and understandable. We must be careful of such reductions that
we reduce the truth to an answer to a simple epistemological inquiry that satisfies the mind that searches for sufficient reasons. Yes,
reasons are given, but the reality of the Trinity is infinitely greater and more meaningful than the words and concepts that we use to
speak of it.
*Boff: sense off aith tells us that the mystery of the Trinity should be the deepest source, closest inspiration and brightest illumination of
the meaning of life that we can imagine

4A. What is the continuing value of classical and traditional Trinitarian theology, notwithstanding its often difficult language and concepts?
What, in your opinin, can still be understandable (or made more understandable) to people today?
I-OUSIA – HYPOSTASIS – SUBSTANTIA
Ousia – noun from the Greek verb einai, to be (ergo: that which is) – in Latin, substantia (that which stands under)
-Philosophically: o-s denotes a number of things, interrelated yet distinct
 =Platonic use: no precise definition – can mean something is (essence), that which is (the existent), and the state of being
something (existing / general existence)
=N indication that authors attempted to be consistent in use of ousia
-Before Nicea – no agreement about the use of the term in relation to God – inappropriate because it refers to any existent being (God is
beyond Being, so to speak)

Hypostasis – may philosophical meanings into two main senses: (1) primordial essence or (2) the individuating principle, subject, or
subsistence (there is a close relationship between these terms, insofar as Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics is concerned)
-Pope Dionysius condemns in 262 those who divide the triune God as three individual hypostaseis – use of it refers to (1) – GOD DOES NOT
HAVE THREE ESSENCES
-Origen’s use of God as three individual hypostaseis (vs. Sabellians)– uses (2) – F / S / HS indeed as individuating principles, metaphysically
speaking
-CONFUSION! : compounded across the East-West divide by the fact that hypostasis literally meant “to stand under”! (as with ousia, sub-
stare)
-Interesting note: East fears Western modalism, and the West fears Eastern tritheism

The settlement of the controversy – a more exact Christian definition of hypostasis, one that differentiates it from substantia (the same
when we speak of creatures, but definitely different in the case of God)
-Cappadocian settlement – ousia is to hypostasis as to koinion is to to idion
TO KOINION – specific or generic nature (what is common with the Three Persons)
TO IDION – what is specific to each of the person, different from the others
Note that what is TO IDION among the Trinity is being the specific person (Father as Father, etc.) and the way that they
are related to each other (Sender / Sent / Breathed Out / Begetter, etc.)
-HYPOSTASIS  more of PROSOPON or PERSONA, rather than OUSIA or SUBSTANTIA
In other words, a Christian innovation toward precision – harnessing Greek and Latin terms toward new meanings – the final form
becomes MIA OUSIA, TREIS HYPOSTASEIS / UNA SUBSTANTIA, TRES PERSONAE

II-HOMOOUSIOS – the sensitive point of the Nicene symbolon

-Suspicion is justifiable, because:
*Gnostic in origin, and thus a non-biblical term
*Previously condemned in the case against Paul of Samosata in 269 – a materialistic understanding of the sameness (absolute
identification of the Father with Christ)
*Thus, the very word was not completely unambiguous – layered with meanings and contexts
-Nicene use:
*HOMO – “same being” with the Father  the same ousia but not a distinct one. Totally different individuals who have a shared
being or essence
*HOMO – “of one being”  but not in a modalistic sense
-The Nicene clarification: The Son is of the ousia-hypostasis of the Father. The son likewise possesses the essentially unique and indivisible
divine being proper to the Father. Unity and not merely the sameness of being is thus clear as a conclusion rom the whole tenor o the
confession (the same goes for the SPIRIT!)

III-PERSON
-The term Person was out of obligation – to say that there are three such that are neither distinct substantiae
-PROSOPON – Gk., “a look towards”  persona, Lat. “sounding through”

Ratzinger on the Notion of Person

1-Concept grew out of Christian reflection – WHO IS GOD and WHO IS CHRIST
2-Prosopographic exegesis – God speaks, is in DIALOGUE
3-PERSON as RELATION – being related as person itself, person exists only as RELATION  the Thomistic actus (self-communicating,
relating toward another)
4-Ratzinger on the mistake of Augustine, and that of Boethius’ “individual substance of a spiritual nature”  both are too essentialist and
would emphasize oneness at the cost of the multiplicity that exists in One God

The Ultimate Importance of the Notion of Person: The phenomenon of dialogue existing in one God, of differentiation and of relationship
in one substance  relatio having a new significance – not merely an Aristotelian accident, but something that is ESSENTIAL
-Logos is also DIA-LOGOS – reciprocal exchanges of conversation

SOME CLARIFICATIONS:
1-Crosby on incommunicability – connotes and denote unrepeatability – a differentiation that certainly is NOT AN ISOLATION
-God’s divinity is incommunicably his own, the divine Persons being incommunicable as distinguished by virtue of their relationships with
one another (e.g. as that of being Father belonging only to the Father, etc.)
2-Kasper – a personalist approach: the human being as Dasein – uniquely his own, a subsistens intentionale
-thus the person cannot be subordinated and sacrificed to any higher goal, value, coherence or whole; personhood is the BASIS OF ITS
UNCONDITIONAL DIGNITY – never a means but always an end in itself

Three Interrelated Classical Meanings

1-Augustine – in relation to another
-adopted by Aquinas – subsistent relation; Ratzinger – being related essentially as the person is itself – person exists as relation
2-Boethius – an individual substance of a rational nature – connects personhood with individuality and rationality / spirituality and infinity
-nothing about freedom, history, interrelatedness, analogical – focuses on the what rather than the who; on the level of essence
3-Richard de Saint Victoire – as an incommunicable existence of a rational nature
-rationality as a dominant characteristic, existence as improvement – that which Kasper connects with Dasein
-Incommunicable, unrepeatable, irreducible – the Person as existents

-Relation to modern us of persona: includes notions of personal autonomy or freedom; consciousness; subjectivity – may not be applied
to God
Why? In god there is only one subjectivity which has a plural subject; ONE SUBSTANTIAL CONSCIOUSNESS which is really possessed by
three distinct, divine, conscious, free persons

IV-PROCESSION, GENERATION, SPIRATION

-East: procession used only for the HS coming forth from the F; for the coming forth of the S is “generation”
-West: dual processions: S from F, HS from F AND S (FILIOQUE)
-Mode of procession is specified: Son by generation, Spirit by spiration – terminology, however, does not give really material content to
the reality, which remains a mystery – Coffey notes that spiration is “just as lacking in positive meaning” as procession

Hilary of Poitiers – respecting the great mystery of the eternal generation – a secre confined to the Trinity – means that we should not ask;
rather, that we should not pin it down to certain anthropomorphic concepts
Gregory of Nazianzus – the depths of God is so unspeakable and transcending all words
*Both these two show the “poverty of our language,” thus of our understanding – our words do not unveil the mystery

V- NOTIONS / NOTES – distinguishing characteristics which allow us to know the person as themselves (five)
F – 1&2 – begetting, originating
S – 3 – being begotten
F +S – 4 – breathing out
HS – 5 – being breathed out
-these notions have the character of events – they happen as distinct, atemporal, and relational
-Anselm’s axiom – IN God all is one where there is no opposition of relation
-Persons alone establish difference or distinction; all the rest is one and eqully shared
-Boff: distinction of Persons with reference to the Father – not summed up or exhausted by saying that they are distinct – merely clarify
that one is not the other
-Distinction exists to make communion possible – eneveloped in an eternal movement of love, inseparable from one another GOD AS
IN COMPLETE ADN ETERNAL COMMUNION

VI – PERICHORESIS (see Florence)

VII – APPROPRIATION – God as He is turned toward creation
-NOTE: All economic activity is common to the three persons
Nevertheless, we often attribute certain actions to oe in particular, because of a certain affinity with that Person (F – creation / S
– redemption / S – sanctification
*They are appropriated by or to one, even though they belong to all three
The same applies in assigning particular properties / qualities to a Person, despite them having belonged to the Three

WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL OF THESE DISTINCTIONS? Primarily because it concerns our lives!
-The Trinity is the peak of a metaphysical / philosophical and theological / religious question of our age: the One and the Many – united as
one people in our diversity, connected to one God and yet from varying religious traditions, one destiny yet in varying conditions
-MOST IMPORTANTLY: what binds us as one but in the end respects our distinction and difference – grounded in our understading of the
Trinity. It cannot just be merely monotheistic (though it works to a certain extent but does not capture the Catholic worldview and
perspective), nor can it slide to polytheistic assumptions (lest we lose our identity and our One Source and End)

AMONG ALL THESE, WHAT CAN STILL BE UNDERSTANDABLE (or made more understandable today?)
-Personally, it is the relationships of the Three in One that have to be clarified: more closely related to the often taken-for-granted notion
that GOD IS LOVE – God is both essence and relation. The way He is essence (ipse subsistens) is clear for us, but it seems that we also have
to emphasize how He is ACTUS PURUS, dynamically is, dynamically relating within Persons, and toward all creation
-what is needed is to emphasize an understanding of how that Love Is and how it pours toward the rest of creation, as products of this
outpouring love

4B. Which heresy poses the greatest challenge today (either in its explicit forms of in more hidden ways? (Give examples)
-Generally, any easy, mathematical, geometric, and convenient explanation of the Trinity stands as a threat – not so much on the nature of
God misunderstood but our own nature as rooted in God misunderstood
-BUT MORE SPECIFICALLY: Various contemporary forms of Arianism or otherwise a modalism that sees God as working different functions
on history
-On Arianism – INC phenomenon, because it is easier to explain. It also is a call for us to take a look at our way of articulating the truth.
Are we being too highfaluting regarding Mystery that we forget that it can also be understood without being watered down? IN reverse,
are we being too simplistic that others regard us as those other religions? We need to rethink our catechism to keep Catholics within the
Church and invite others (without force or coercion) to share our faith
-on modalisms: Reducing God to our anthropomorphic representations: God’s multiplicity is not taken together with the unity of His
essence. It’s as if God is at work with different masks in our life, whereas it is the same God that is at work in all our experiences.
*especially in the image of an Angry God of the OT juxtaposed with the Merciful and Kind God of the NT – this is an assumption that “new
atheists” have attacked; however, it lies on a misunderstanding of the One God who reveals Himself in so many ways without multiplying
Himself
*bastardized notion of God that is a retrogression: framing the One God to the “older gods” of mythology – a misappropriation of
concepts – misleads people toward conclusions that the gods of myths are reflected on the God we believe in and how we behave in the
Church (as a power that tries to grab and take hold of the world, despite our sinful history)

4C. Analogies and metaphors o the Trinity vary in their sutability, pastoral usefulness, and theological correctness. Which ones in your
opinion are least useful or correct? Which are the more promising ones?
The least useful ones: essential / substantial definitions that are too concentrated on oneness (Augustine’s analogy of love and the
psychological analogies) – enables us to see in our daily experience the oneness of the Trinity through various activities in one subject.
However, it misses the point on relationships (indeed a decisive mistake)
The most useful ones: The mystic articulation of Richard of St. Victor: the concept of condilectus – language is easy to understand, and the
argument is easy to follow, more “phenomenological” and “existential” (and with carefulness, the notion of the family, as a contemporary
way that calls for the reconsideration of what it means by family)
But the hermeneutic key of Augustine remains: ANALOGY! All are analogies!

THE USE OF ANALOGIES IN EXPRESSING THE NATURE OF THE TRINITY

-overarching principle: major similitude (Lateran IV)

SIGHT
1- LIGHT: least material, thus most suitable
-Trinity s three torches (but be wary of Tritheism) – Nazianzus and Nyssa uses this analogy
2-SUN (Platonic Sun?) – the Father and Son ~ disk and radiance (based on Heb 1:3) (Justin, Origen, Augustine)
-the Nazianzene also uses this, comparing the Trinity to three suns, but rejects all physical analogies
-Tertullian – Sun/Ray/Apex; Root/Branch/Fruit; Source/River/Canal (disadvantageous: too material and spatial
3-RAINBOW – Gregory of Nyssa – a unity in diversity
4-Concentric CIRCLES – used in Christian art, but not found among patristic writings, used in 15 th cent by Joachim di Fiore

HEARING/SOUND
1-WORD – with Scriptural basis
-Ignatius of Antioch – Son as the unlying mouth, through which the Fther spoke; Jesus as the Father’s word
-Marius Victorinus: Father is the eloquent silence | Son as Father’s mouth ] Spirit as the voice
-ADVANTAGE: More organic, shows the co-inherence of Persons
2-MUSIC: Trinity as an instrument with different keys, each playing a different note but creating beautiful music together
HUMAN PERSON
1-Tri-personal: Lover / Beloed / Love – but one could argue the incompleteness of this analogy, since love is not a person in the strict
sense
2-Unipersonal: faculties within a single person, from Augustin to Jung (Father as deep self, Son as ego, HS as ego self/axis)
-de Margerie: Man as PERSONAL and FAMILIAL

HUMAN FAMILY
-PJPII – God in his most inner mystery is a FAMILY! – bearing fatherhood, sonship, and familial love
-again, PJPII – divine we is the eternal pattern of the human we
-thus, we can say that the Trinity is the model of familial life, not the other way around. HE IS FAMILY, and our understanding of the family
only proceeds from Him

Some Notes:
-Terms such as father, person, and family can have many meanings –a development of Christian thought, but must be noted that it is
laden with too much context and history that it must be used with carefulness
-also note that this is not commonly used in Tradition

4D. How would you personally integrate and articulate ethe question of the Trinity’s relevance? If you are asked, “why should we believe
int he Trinity”? or “what is the significance of our Trinitarian faith?” How would you respond?
THE SHORT ANSWER: Who they are tells us who we are as ourselves and as part of this world. God’s Revelation is also the revelation of
our true selves as individuals and communities

BUT WHO IS THE TRINITY, PRECISELY?  prompts us to a review of the persons

THE FATHER? WHY FATHER?

1-The father as the unoriginated Origin
-Fatherhood known through Jesus’ Sonship – expresses filial relationship both in the temporal and in the eternal order
Known through the Son at the level of historical mediation, through the Spirit at the level of interior witness
-Jesus’ existence is eternally turned toward the Father in/by the Spirit
For the Son to be sent is to be known as coming from the Father; for the Spirit to be sent is to be known in his procession from
the Father
-The Father is the sender, the source and thus the distinguishing property of the Father: innascibilitas / ingenitum

2-Fatherhood of God is not the first word, but forms the center of reference – for our first word directs Himself towards the Father
-Father touches something in God, ontologicaly, and not merely descriptively – we acknowledge Him to be Father pure and simple, the
source of all things

3-God is Father in a proper and singular way, not corporeal. Only He is Father without conjunction, of one, of the only begotten
-He is Father alon, He is Father toally and everything, from the beginning and without end (thus: ABSOLUTUM)

4-Father as the ARCHE of divinity – Greek Fathers ground the unity of God in the Father, and not in the divine nature, recognizing Him as
the source of both the Son and the Spirit. But then, this is also authoritatively taught int eh West
=Florence: the Father is from Himself, the UNORIGINATED ORIGIN
=Toledo XI (675) – Father is the source and origin of the whole Godhead
-Father gives completely to the Son and to the Spirit, without loss or gain
-Father is the summit of the Trinity, the “RECAPITULATOR of MONARCHY – a life which eternally descends from the Father in the Son and
returns to the Father with th Son through the Spirit – an ascent-descent; exitus-reditus
-Everything in God proceeds from the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit, back to the Father (the same with the whole of creaturely
reality) – we, on the other hand, are transported with the Spirit ito the Son and, through being heirs, referred to the Father (through the
Son, in the Spirit

5-With this, a natural conclusion: the telos of the Church’s worship – through Christ we offer worship to the Fther
-No feast of the Father, for everything is directed to Him, thus all liturgical events REMEMBER and MAKE PRESENT the Father through the
Son in/by the HS
-Ordinary liturgical prayer – subordinative: to F, by S, in HS ; but also COORDINATIVE – offered to the F and to the S and to the HS  both
are correct and legitimate

B-WHY NAME GOD THE FATHER?

-PJPI – Our father, even more our Mother – what can we say to this?

1-Biblical facts: Ot uses male and female images, but while the Bible compares God with women, it never addresses God AS MOTHER
-The use of Father as the potter, the one who forms!
-In NT and explicit teaching of Jesus – calls God “Abba” – that HE IS ABBA – a more affectionate and familiar address of adult children
2-Fatherhood, however, is not equivalent to maleness, as God is pure spirit, transcending (both/and) masculinity and femininity – what
Revelation teaches us, and therefore we are not authorized to replace or whatever reason
3-God’s Fatherhood has to do only with his being the SOURCE
-Father is the origin and Source – of His own, of the two other Persons, and of all Creation
-Bouyer-Father that transcends all experiences of Fatherhood
-Human Fatherhood does not define him, in the same way that fatherhood does not define male humans
-fatherhood is much more than a function, but a subsistent relation by virtue of which everything exists which shall ever exist
-A modest recommendation: WE CONTINUE TO ADDRESS GOD ONLY AS FATHER
*JPI’s exact meaning: comparison of God as a mother – to describe in feminine terms of imagery
*Keeping the traditional teaching in the way that tradition has taught it – Father as source by analogy, with both MASCULINE and
FEMININE images
-Cyprian of Carthage – It is God Himself who has allowed us to call Him Father, and not some mere anthropomorphizing

THE HOLY SPIRIT: THE THIRD PERSON

1-Rediscovering the HS
-WHY? “Suffering from neglect or misunderstanding” – not so much as to who He is but what He means in our Christian life
-And yet, there is a “charismatic renewal which bears dangers and weaknesses
The Spirit as being focused on the spectacular or dramatic
Separating the Spirit’s work from that of Christ
Spirituality becomes centered on feelings
More fundamentally, divorced rom solid theology
-This presents a twofold challenge: to bring back pneumatology and ensure its connection with Christology
2-The Spirit as Person and personal – Is Spirit still only a Jewish personification of God’s activity?
-Two things about the NT presentation of the HS that responds to Christian insistence of the personal spirit
a-as having a distinct existence
NT contains numerous references to the HS
Pauls’ use of triadic formulas, and the baptismal formula – the equality of the Persons
The Spirit is referred to having existing in his own right, that we can rule out hte possibility that we simply deal with a
mode of divine action (Christological reference: to send the Spirit!)
b-as having a personal cause / power
Biblical events attest to the Spirit as a personal agent with personal result, not merely a “force”
-In this regard,
O’Collins – Scriptures attest to the personal actions of the Spirit
Danielou – Christ Himself presents the Spirit as a new intercessor, and puts Him on the same level as Himself- thus a personal
presence

-The Spirit therefore shows the personlike characteristics of loving, purposeful activity, being the origin and sustainer of all the activity
that binds us together vertically, horizontally, and eschatologically

3-Some theological issues:

a-Why three and not just two? Well, simply it is a matter of divine revelation, and correspondingly a matter of faith
-there are reasonable answers for this coming from philosophy
*Kasper – Love going beyond itself, toward a third Other – shows that the Persons exist as relations, in which the one nature of God exists
in three distinct and no-interchangeable ways. They are subsistnet relations
*Boff – a sensible number given that love does not exclude, and communion is not entirely possible – perfection is achieved because
there is an opening and union of opposites in the third – thus it is not arbitrary – for there dwells an impulse of unification, communion,
and eternal synthesis of those who are distinct in an infinite, living, personal, loving, and absolutely fulfilling whole
Being three avoids solitude (in saying that there is only One), and overcomes separation and exclusion (in being Two only) –
there is never a narcissistic contemplation, for the third figure is the difference, the openness, communion
b-On the Filioque
-Original creed of Nicaea and Constantinople did not contain the filioque – although it was already affirmed earlier. Augustine mentioned
it in about 400 AD – the Father and the Word, from whom the HS principally (principaliter) proceeds
-Filioque was widely accepted and probably added into the Creed by the 6 th cent (590s)
-By a negative argument: Creed does not explicitly mention that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone – for the Son is always implied
whenever the Father is mentioned (based perhaps on the Johannine affirmation)
-PHOTIUS (820-97) – formulated the doctrine – EK MONOU TOU PATROS – a way of saying that the HS proceeded from the F through the S
– 2 processions FROM THE FATHER ALONE
*In Aquinas, we see the Fathera s the principium or fons totius trinitatis – an obvious conclusion is that the Son derives from the Father
his power to produce the Spirit with the Father
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-The concern of Eastern Christians –
*Filioque would jeopardize the Father’s monarchy
*Confusion of the persons, in such a way that the Son becomes another Father
*Diminish the Spirit’s distinct personality as proceeding from the Father alone
-in the end, it was about political and doctrinal reasons that led to the disastrous breach of unity
-Lyons and Florence – both attempts that tried to reconcile the two sides – but the Greek clergy rejected the concessions
-In effect, Filioque continues to be an engaging source of reflection for many theologians today
Boff, would say: Trinity is more sensible with the Filioque at hand – supported by the perichoresis, as the Spirit’s presence as having
proceeded from both the Father and the Son makes Him more involved, more intimate with the other Two persons
-thus, we can also say that in the Trinity, there is a relationship between each other and with creation as PATREQUE, FILIOQUE, AND
SPIRITUQUE (the Father begetting the Son in the HS – an articulation that has ecumenical potential) – interpenetrating the reality of each
Person among each other
c-Pneumatology and Christology
-Jn 14:15-17 – God’s indwelling in and through the Spirit, sent by the Father through the Son
-Word and Spirit are therefore inseparable in their salvific work – “two hands” performing the same work
*Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, no other work but that of Christ – th
*No Christology without pneumatology, and no pneumatology without Christology
d-HS and prayer – it is the HS that inspires prayer!
-Christian worship is worship of the Father, through the Son, in or b the Spirit – worshipping the Father in spirit and truth (Jn 4:23-24), as
the Spirit helps us to pray (Rom 8:26-27; Eph 6:18, Jude 20  exhortation to pray in the Spirit
-Ignatius of Antioch – earthly longings have been crucified, in me there is left no desire but only a murmur of living water that whispers –
THE SPIRIT’S WORK! (cf. Jn 7:38 )
-Congar: the Church as a whole is sacramental in its nature. But this is true only in and through Christ, who is the great and primordial
sacrament of salvation
*THUS: an absolutely supernatural work that is divine and deifying – Church is sure because God works in it
*But because God is the principle of this activity, the Church has to pray earnestly for his intervention as a grace
*To profess our belief in the Church is conditioned by our belief in the Spirit – means that the life and activity of the Church is an epiclesis,
a calling forth of the Spirit to do His work in us