Doctrine of the Trinity

Transcription

1 Doctrine of the Trinity ST506 LESSON 19 of 24 Peter Toon, DPhil Cliff College Oxford University King s College University of London Liverpool University This is the nineteenth lecture in the series on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Since we are to speak of the developing Greek Orthodox tradition, I begin with a prayer from Matins or Morning Prayer in the Greek Service Book. O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hast raised us up from our beds and hast gathered us together at this hour of prayer, grant us grace in the opening of our lips and accept our thanksgivings as we have power to make them. And instruct us in thy statutes for we know not how to pray as we ought unless thou O Lord by thy Holy Spirit dost guide us. Wherefore we beseech thee pardon, remit, forgive whatsoever sins we may have committed unto this present hour whether by word or deed or thought, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. For if thou wilt be extreme to mark iniquity, O Lord, Lord who shall stand? For with thee is redemption. For thou only art holy, a mighty Helper in the defender of our life and our song shall be ever of thee. Blessed and glorified be the might of thy kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever unto the ages of ages, Amen. I think that all of us are aware that in the last decade or so there has been a growing interest in the Orthodox Church and in Orthodox spirituality and Orthodox theology. I remember some years ago it was said of many people that they were on the Canterbury trail. That is, influenced by C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams and Tolkien and so on and searching after sacramentalism and liturgy, they were moving toward the Episcopal Church or the Anglican communion. But more recently, the trail has become the Antioch trail. That is, that part of the Orthodox Church which is centered on the patriarchate of Antioch where, as they are very keen to insist, believers were first called Christians. In the United States of America, the Antioch branch or the Antioch patriarchate of the Orthodox churches has been enlarged greatly in its membership through the accession of evangelicals and by people moving out of the Episcopal Church and out of the Roman Catholic Church toward Orthodoxy. The reason why they go is perhaps historical or 1 of 11

2 theological or liturgical. Whether those who go fully understand that to which they are going is another matter. But what I want to do this morning is to note the way in which the dogma of the Holy Trinity developed in the Orthodox tradition and, therefore, what is the tradition, because for the Orthodox, Scripture and tradition are fused, and they speak of the holy Tradition with the uppercase T. So what then is the holy Tradition? What is the tradition? What is the orthodoxy which is taught today in the Orthodox churches, and in particular by those that we know through the Russian, the Greek, and the Antioch patriarchates? If you ask or if you read the literature of these churches or if you go to the Divine Liturgy, as it s called, you will be told that orthodoxy is substantially the doctrine of the great Greek fathers as that is developed and expressed in the first seven ecumenical councils. And then it will be told you that this teaching, this orthodoxy is added to, not changed but added to, through the insights of what are often called Photianism and Palamism. What those words mean we shall come to in a moment or two. You will be told that Orthodoxy today maintains a consubstantial triad Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three distinct hypostases of one identical ousia. You will be told that there is no filioque in the orthodoxy of the Orthodox churches and that the unity in Trinity is a unity which starts from the Father in the eternity of the Godhead as the cause of the other two persons, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, what I want us to do now bearing in mind these claims made on behalf of Orthodoxy today which of course are sincerely stated and are in terms of the tradition accurate, I want to look back and see what are the focal points and what are the developments within that tradition that are worthy of our notice as we quickly seek to understand it. I want first of all to note the contribution of perhaps the most systematic of the later Greek theologians. And that is John of Damascus, who is often called the Damascene. He died around the year 750. And what John of Damascus did was to take over the Trinitarian doctrine of his great predecessors, especially in this case the Cappadocian theologians and Cyril of Alexandria who followed the Cappadocian theologians. And his most important work with the title The Source of Knowledge is divided into three parts. It s the last part which is most widely known and which is available in paperback in this country; it now is entitled De Fide Orthodoxa (On the Orthodox Faith). As I said, this third part is often treated as a book in itself and is so 2 of 11

3 published and so available today. It is an extremely valuable compilation or summa of Greek theology even though it doesn t have that philosophical ring about it that you find say in the work of the Western medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. But it does give you in a very clear and straightforward way the received orthodoxy, the doctrine of the Trinity. Let me just give you an example from the first part of De Fide Orthodoxa and the eighth section. Echoing the teaching of the councils of Nicea and Constantinople, he goes on to say, We [hat is, the Orthodox Church] believe in one Father alone without cause or generation, the Creator of all things but by nature the Father of only one, His only-begotten Son and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and producer of the most Holy Spirit. We believe also in one Son of God the only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father through whom all things are made, [You can see there he is quoting from the Niceno-Constantinopolitan tradition of confession. And he goes on] and in one Holy Spirit the Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the Father and rests in or on the Son. That is one way of expressing the relation of the Son to the Holy Spirit. He proceeds from the Father alone. And some then go on to say through the Son. But the tradition of understanding that we find in John of Damascus is this which is probably the majority understanding in the Orthodox churches. The one Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the Father and rests in or on the Son the object of equal adoration and glorification with the Father and the Son since He is consubstantial and coeternal, Lord of all creation deifying, sanctifying, proceeding from the Father and communicated through the Son, derived from the Father yet not after the manner of generation but after that of procession. In that brief quotation from De Fide Orthodoxa, you will see that the primary emphasis is upon what we have been calling the ontological Trinity or the essential Trinity or the immanent Trinity, but that this is also integrated with what we have been calling the economical Trinity, that is, God as God is toward us. And so we move in this statement from God as God is in Himself to 3 of 11

4 God as God is toward us. But God as God is in Himself is logically in his writing the foundation of God as God is toward us. And you ll notice that he makes these careful distinctions between generation and creation and between generation and procession even though he does not claim to have the understanding to grasp the depth of the difference. We have learned, he says, that there is a difference between generation and procession [generation of course relating to the Father and the Son and procession relating to the Father and the Spirit who also rests on the Son] but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand. You ll notice also that John of Damascus calls the Father only, only the Father, the producer of the Holy Spirit and says, We do not speak of the Son as cause or Father, but we speak of the Son both as from the Father and as the Son of the Father. And we likewise speak of the Holy Spirit as from the Father and call Him the Spirit of the Father. And we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son, but yet we call Him the Spirit of the Son. And we confess that He is manifested and imparted to us through the Son. There again you can see that there is a bringing together of both God as God is in Himself in terms of the relation within the eternal Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then he speaks of the procession out of God as it were into God s creation, into His faithful people. We confess that He is manifested and imparted to us through the Son. I encourage you to read all kinds of literature, but this is one of the classics of the Christian faith in terms of the Eastern orthodoxy. You can buy it for just four or five dollars De Fide Orthodoxa, John of Damascus. The next one, who is less accessible to us partly because translations are not so easily available, is the patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century by the name of Photius. His writings cover four massive volumes in the famous collection of Greek Patrology by Migne. And he is important from the Western point of view because it was he who gave what we may call the intellectual material and the firepower, to put it at a more colloquial level, to attack the Western development of doctrine known as the filioque. For Photius the filioque was an innovation, and he set about preparing and making available what we may call an arsenal of armory and firepower by which the Greeks could attack the doctrine of the filioque and defend their doctrine, the doctrine of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. And in this presentation of the defense of proceeding from the Father alone, you find in Photius a careful examination of the scriptural emphases. Here 4 of 11

5 he specializes in the gospel of John, as we would expect, that is, John chapters 14 through 16. Then he also collects material from the Fathers, that is, the Fathers who ve gone before John of Damascus, the ones we call the fathers of the patristic period. That is Photius. You can look him up in places like The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church for a quick introduction to his identity and his writings. The third person who we need to be aware of, there are others of course, but the one for whom I m giving time in this presentation is Gregory Palamas, 1296 to He was a monk from that holy mountain which some of you may have seen in your travels in northern Greece, Mount Athos. Gregory Palamas is important for various reasons, and he s come very much back into prominence in the last few decades partly because of academic discussion of his theology and somewhat of a contest between scholars of differing interpretations. But at the more practical and ordinary level, he s come back into the center of interest for those who are on the Antioch trail or on the Orthodox trail; because he is one around whom much of that teaching which is called these days spirituality is focused in the Orthodox tradition. In fact, with Gregory and with those whom he influenced and within their spirituality is that prayer which has become very popular for many people in search of an Eastern Orthodox, not a Buddhist spirituality, which is called the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. In the tradition of spirituality to which Gregory Palamas belonged, this prayer was recited over and over. And it was recited in parallel with a rhythm of breathing, so that as one breathed in, one said half of it; as one breathed out one said the other half. And it wasn t merely the union of the praying mind and the body, a kind of incantation. It s not intended to be an incantation at all. It s not intended to be the equivalent of an Eastern mantra. But rather it is a focusing which includes what we call traditionally in the West, meditation, that is, the considering and the praying mind. And the idea is that this prayer moves from the mind with the mind into the heart and becomes the prayer of the heart, of the soul, and thus is the prayer of the whole man. And this kind of prayer, this rhythm of breathing and praying thus involving the whole person was perfected as far as such things can be perfected by the monks on Mount Athos. And Gregory Palamas was at the center of that movement back in the fourteenth century. 5 of 11

6 I ve said all that to try to bring him into focus and to help you to see just how important he has become in the contemporary search for an Orthodox type of spirituality. But he is important in the tradition of Greek theology, of Eastern Orthodox theology, because not only did he make this contribution and have an important place in what we call spirituality or the doctrine of deification, but also because of a theological distinction which he made and which was the foundation of his doctrine of deification and his doctrine of spirituality. It is a distinction which has virtually not been used at all in the West by Western theologians, but it is a distinction which is very important for Greek Orthodox theology. And while it is not found in the seven ecumenical councils, it is claimed that the beginnings of it are found in the Cappadocian theologians. And then what is there in embryo as it were is developed by their later theologians, and at the center of these is Gregory of Palamas. The distinction made is the distinction between the divine essence or the divine ousia and the divine energies. Ousia is what a nature is in itself. The divine ousia, the divine essence, is God apart from all relations with the created world. That s the one side, the divine essence. The other side God is known, God is communicated, and God is participated in by creatures through what he called the uncreated, divine energies. An energy in this understanding is a nature expressing or manifesting itself. The energies are the uncreated and divine modalities of God s action in the world, creation, providence, wisdom, goodness, and so on. In order to develop this thought which is very important for understanding how the Orthodox thinking has developed, I want to turn to an essay which I would like you to read after I ve introduced you to it. It is an essay by the head of Saint Vladimir s Theological Seminary, which is the most well-known Orthodox seminary in North America. It s in New York State. And the essay comes in a book which again I commend to you. It is a book entitled Speaking the Christian God, and it s edited by an Episcopalian clergyman, Alvin F. Kimel, and published by William B. Eerdmans publishing in late In the essay by Thomas Hopko in this book under the general title of Apophatic Theology and the Naming of God, Hopko leads us into understanding of the divine essence, how the Greek Orthodox tradition thinks of the essence of God. By looking at this and listening to what he has to say and reading from John of Damascus and so on, we shall be able to grasp the way in which this distinction between the supraessential Trinity and the energies of the Trinity, the energies of God are distinguished and 6 of 11

7 how they become the structure of thinking in which Trinitarian thinking exists. So we turn to Thomas Hopko in his essay Apophatic Theology and the Naming of God. I m going to quote and comment as I go along. The radical difference between God and everything else that exists by God s power and will enters into human thought and speech not when the term essence is used abstractly or schematically to denote what a being is but when essence is used to indicate the content of a particular being or class of beings. When the term essence is used in this way, the Orthodox theological tradition claims that God s being or God s nature is unlike all others because everyone and everything beside God is God s creature. Now this does not simply mean that God s essence is different from all other natures in the sense that God is not man like man is not an angel. That s too simple an explanation. Rather it means that God is unlike everything else that exists besides Himself in such a way that the very term nature or essence cannot be applied to God as a category in exactly the same way in which it is used in relation to creatures. In this sense, it can be said that relative to God, the term essence [or the term being, substance, nature] is understood as indicative of something totally unlike anything and everything else that exists because it is God s nature to be this way because of who and what God is. As you can tell, that is an attempt in a precise way to speak not only of the transcendence of God which of course is very important to speak of, but it s to speak of God as God not merely as Being, the highest form of being but of God as unique essence. So he continues, When it comes to content, therefore, and not merely to form, when it comes to what God is in fact and not merely to what God is as a category of reality, Orthodox theology insists that God s being is radically different from all other beings. God is different as the only being that eternally and necessarily exists. God is different as the Maker of everything that exists besides Himself and His Word and His Spirit who are of one essence homoousios with Him the 7 of 11

8 Father. God is different in that the Father alone with His only-begotten Son and His Spirit is and has the fullness of being and life in contradistinction to everything else that is partial and incomplete. And God exists in His divinity in a manner absolutely incomprehensible to creaturely minds. He continues to explain that in Orthodox theology, the word supraessential or hyperousios in Greek indicates that the essence of God understood formally is supraessential when understood ontologically. In other words, it means that God s being abstractly or schematically considered is to be beyond all categories of being, non-being, and becoming when God s essence is considered in terms of its metaphysical content and reality. If you want to know how this works out practically as it were, this concept of the super essentiality or the supraessentiality of God or the hyperousios of God, then you have to turn to the Divine Liturgy. Because although the liturgies as we have received them, the liturgies of Saint John Chrysostom and of Basil the Great, were composed in the fourth and the fifth centuries, they were added to later. And as the emphasis on this hyperousios, this supraessentiality of God was developed, thus various phrases and prayers and acclamations and doxologies were added to the liturgy in order to express this theological development. Let me just give you an example from the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. There s much the same wording in that of the liturgy of Saint Basil the Great. O Lord our God, thy power is incomparable. Thy glory is incomprehensible. Thy mercy is immeasurable. Thy love for man is inexpressible. And again, for thou art God ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally the same thou and thine only-begotten Son and thy Holy Spirit. For holy art thou and all holy, thou and thine only-begotten Son and thy Holy Spirit. Holy art thou and all holy and magnificent is thy glory. This concept, this sense of the supraessential Trinity, was developed as I said by various Fathers. The ones that one needs to look out for in this are Saint Maximus the Confessor, who died 8 of 11

9 around 662, and then that intriguing theologian who is called Pseudo-Dionysius or Dionysius the Areopagite, whose writings again have become of great interest to the modern generation. And they are available in various editions in paperback today. Then there is Saint Simeon called the new theologian, who died around the year Again some of his writings are available. And then there is Saint Gregory Palamas whom I ve referred to who develops and expresses this real distinction between God s supraessence and in contrast but in perfect relation, God s divine actions and energies in and through and by which God personally reveals Himself in creation and through His Son s incarnation and through the descent of the Spirit from the Day of Pentecost. It is also expressed is this distinction between God s supraessence and His divine actions and energies in the dogmatic hymns (called in Greek the dogmatica) and the hymns addressed to the blessed Trinity called the Triadica which were written in this period, the seventh, eighth, ninth centuries and following and entered into the Orthodox liturgical worship. In fact, John of Damascus, from whom we ve already read and at whom we looked briefly, as you may know as you look at the traditional hymnbooks, he himself was a writer of hymns. And these have been used even in evangelical Protestant churches in modern times, as you will see if you look as I said at the various hymnbooks. But let me give you a quotation now to try to communicate something of this concept of the supraessential Trinity that God s true and real essence, God s true and real being in the most perfect sense of the word unique to Himself. I m quoting now again from his On the Orthodox Faith. The deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly nameless. Therefore, since we know not His essence, let us not seek for a name for His essence. Inasmuch then as He is incomprehensible, He is also unnamable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of all and contains in Himself the reasons and causes of all that is, He receives names drawn from all that is even from opposites. For example, He is called light and darkness, water and fire in order that we may know that these are not of His essence but that He is supraessential and unnamable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of all, He receives names from all His effects. Wherefore, of the divine names, some have a negative signification and indicate that He is supraessential. Some again have an affirmative signification as indicating that He is the cause 9 of 11

10 of all things. So He is spoken of as being and essence. And He is called reason and rational, wisdom and wise, intellect and intellectual, life and living, power and powerful. These then are the affirmations and the negations. But the sweetest names are a combination of both, for example, the supraessential essence, the Godhead that is more than God, the beginner that is above beginning and the like and so on. And these names are common to the whole Godhead whether affirmative or negative, and they are also used of each of the hypostases of the Holy Trinity in the very same and identical way and with their full significance. For when I think of one of the hypostases, I recognize it to be perfect God and perfect essence. But when I combine and reckon the three together, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I know one perfect God. The comment of Hopko is that Orthodox theological and liturgical texts unanimously affirm the conviction that the three divine hypostases of the Godhead with their proper names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not subject to apophatic qualification, as they re all metaphysical properties and metaphorical images attributed to God s essence. In this tradition, God s nature can be referred to with all possible names, images, and attributes that exist in the created order, abstract and concrete, positive and negative, spiritual and physical, masculine and feminine, animate and inanimate because the divine nature is the metaphysical source and exemplar of everything created. This is already clearly witnessed to in the Bible (say the Fathers), the primary source of Orthodox theology and worship. So everything that can possibly exist in creaturely form actually exists in a sense within the Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a transcendentally supra-eminent, incomprehensibly divine manner. This is known because God has revealed it to creatures by way of His divine actions and operations in and by which creatures become partakers of the divine nature through personal communion with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in God s self-disclosure. Or to put it another way, perhaps somewhat more accurately as well, creatures know this through their personal communion with God the Father through His divine Son and Word incarnate as Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son. In this theological vision and articulation, the hypostases of Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are never transcended and or negated. 10 of 11

11 They cannot be, because hypostases are not emanations, they are not manifestations of essence or of supraessence but are rather subjects of the supraessence that makes them what they are. How the supraessence or essence is actually enhypostasized in each person is unique to each person, to each hypostasis which is always a specific mode of existence of the supraessence that it shares in common with other persons of the same essence. So that in the case of God then, the divine essence, the divine being, the divine ousia which is supraessential in content is enhypostasized in three distinct and unique modes of divine existence that are personally named the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The church fathers of the Greek tradition rarely elaborate on the significance of the names of the three divine hypostases of the suprasubstantial, supraessential Trinity except to say that they are given by God and belong to Him in a uniquely divine manner and thus they are not negotiable. The names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for the three divine persons hypostases are never changed, are never amended or set aside. They are given and must be kept. Well, all that may have seemed rather complicated, but I hope it leads you to read something from the Orthodox theological tradition. And then you will see both its riches and some of the intellectual difficulties that face you in trying to understand its distinction between the supraessence of God and the energies of God in creation and in redemption. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 11 of 11