Chapter 9: Concluding This Part

1. Our Lord’s Teaching on the Trinity
   • Introduction
     • We can only wonder what those people thought who were the first to hear Jesus’ teaching on the Trinity. “But there is a great profit for ourselves, knowing the doctrine, in listening to those same words of Our Lord” (116-1). Some samples of that teaching follow below.
   • Regarding the Son
     • Matthew 11:27 speaks of the necessity of revelation for the Trinitarian doctrine, and it suggests the procession of the Son by way of knowledge (116-3):
       • “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt 11:27, Lk 10:22).
     • John 8:58 is an expression of self-existence and the timeless present of eternity:
       • “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am’” (Jn 8:58).
     • John 16:15 declares the equality of nature for the Father and the Son:
       • “All that the Father has is mine” (Jn 16:15).
     • John 10:30 speaks of the distinction of persons and the identity of nature for the Father and the Son:
       • “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30).
     • John 10:38 is a reference to Circuminsession (117-1) (i.e., “the utter repose of Three dwelling within one another”) (109-2):
       • “The Father is in me and I am in the Father” (Jn 10:38).
     • Recalling that nature is the source of operation, John 5:17, 19 gives us a statement of the identity of natures through an identity of operations with respect to the Father and the Son.
       • “My Father is working still, and I am working. . . . Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise” (Jn 5:17, 19).
   • Regarding the Holy Spirit:
     • John 16:13 tells us that the spirit is a person:
       • “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).
     • John 14:16 tells us that the Holy Spirit (Paraclete) is a person and is equal to the Son (the Son being the first Paraclete, that is, Consoler or Advocate):
       • “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you forever” (Jn 14:16).
     • Matthew 28:19 speaks of the equality of the three persons:
       • “Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Mt 28:19).
   • Manner in Which the Divine Nature Is Received
     • John 5:19 tells us the Son receives the Divine Nature from the Father via operations.
       • “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing’” (Jn 5:19).
     • John 16:13 tells us the Holy Spirit speaks according to what He has received from the Father and the Son.
       • “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak” (Jn 16:13).
     • According to John 16:14-15 the Holy Spirit speaks what He has received from the Son, who has, in turn, received it from the Father.
       • “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn 16:14-15).
   • Procession of Persons
     • In Scripture, the Father is never spoken of as having been sent. The Son is only spoken of as having been sent by the Father. And the Holy Spirit is spoken of sometimes as having been sent by the Father, at other times as having been sent by the Son, and at other times as having been sent by both the Father and the Son (118-2).
       • This “sending is not to be thought of as a command imposed but as the free decision of a nature possessed in total equality by each” (118-2).
     • The sending of the Son – always from the Father (118-2):
       • “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Mt 10:40, Lk 10:16).
       • “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me” (Mk 9:37).
       • “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (Jn 5:23).
       • “The Father who sent me bears witness to me” (Jn 8:18).
       • “For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak” (Jn 12:49).
     • The sending of the Holy Spirit – from the Father and the Son (118-2):
       • “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26).
       • “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Jn 20:22).
       • “But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me” (Jn 15:26).
     • Repeating what was mentioned above, “in this ‘sending’ we must see no glimmer of subordination of the Son and the Holy Spirit. They come to us by the divine will, which is their own as totally as it is the Father’s” (118-2).
2. The Trinity and Creatures: Appropriation
   • Theology and Economy
     • Up to this point in the book, we have been addressing the inner life of God as He is in Himself (theology). The references to the “sendings” of the Son and the Holy Spirit, that we have just heard, open up a new area of exploration: God’s action upon the universe (economy).
       • “The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (‘theologia’) and economy (‘oikonomia’). ‘Theology’ refers to the mystery of God’s inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and ‘economy’ to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life” (CCC 236).
     • The remainder of the book will be concerned with God’s operations on things external to Himself (economy) (119-1).
     • The operations of the Divine Nature on the created universe are the operations of three Divine Persons acting as one principle of operation. “There is no external operation of the Divine Nature that is the work of one Person as distinct from the others” (119-2).
     • Though the external operations of the divine nature are properly the work of all three divine persons, the New Testament and, consequently, the Liturgy frequently attribute divine operations to one Person or another.
       • Examples from Scripture:
         • “And the angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God’’” (Lk 1:35).
         • “Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven” (Lk 12:10).
         • “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26).
       • Examples from the Nicene Creed:
         • Creation is attributed to the Father: I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible (first article).
         • Creation is also attributed to the Son: I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God . . . through Him all things were made (second article).
           • “Omnipotence was needed to make something from nothing; so that it might not be just anything, but an ordered, purposeful system of things, Wisdom was needed too” (138-1).
           • Hence, as a work of Omnipotence, it is attributed to the Father; as a work of Wisdom, to the Son” (138-1).
         • Sanctification is attributed to the Holy Spirit: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life (eighth article).
       • Note that Redemption is attributed to the Son because it was carried out in the Son’s human nature; it is a work that truly belongs to the Son alone (119-3).
         • For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate (third and fourth articles).
   • Appropriation of the Divine Nature’s Operations
     • The theological word for attributing operations to one or the other of the Divine Persons is “appropriation” (119-4).
       • A study of the New Testament reveals a definite system of appropriations, especially “as we find St. Paul doing it of set purpose, upon a system learned from Our Lord Himself” (119-4).
     • By appropriation, we attribute an external operation of the Blessed Trinity to the divine person with whom that operation is most clearly associated (119-4):
       • “Works of origination and of omnipotence are appropriated to the Father” who possessed the Divine Nature unreceived (120-1).
       • Works of knowledge and wisdom are appropriated to the Son who proceeds from the Father by way of knowledge (120-1).
       • Works of divine love are appropriated to the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son by way of love (120-1).
     • As an example, consider the appropriation of sanctification to the Holy Spirit. There is an occasion where Scripture speaks explicitly of sanctification with respect to Father and the Son (120-2):
       • “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23).
     • However, for the most part sanctification is attributed to the Holy Spirit (120-2):
       • “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (1 Cor 6:19).
       • “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16).
       • “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law” (Gal 5:23-24).
     • Scripture speaks of the baptized Christian as being God’s temple:
       • “For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are” (1 Cor 3:17).
     • But it always refers to these temples exclusively as temples of the Holy Spirit. Scripture never speaks of us as being temples of the Father or temples of the Son.
     • The reason for this is that Sanctification is a gift that is given to us as an expression of God’s love for us. It follows that sanctification is appropriated to the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son by way of love (120-2).
   • Appropriations and the Divine Pedagogy
     • The reason we appropriate operations to the Persons of the Trinity is “to bring home to us the reality of the distinction between the Three, and what we may call the hypostatic character of each [of the three persons]” (120-2).
       • If we did not appropriate the operations, we would be inclined to think there was no real distinction among the three persons (120-2).
       • This could easily lead to a false understanding of the Trinity, as was the case with Sabellianism (modalism), which taught that the three Persons were just three different expressions (modes) of God, rather than being three distinct Persons.
         • Sabellius was a theologian (and heretic) of the third century.
     • Appropriation, on the other hand, continuously reminds us of the distinction of the Three Persons, thereby serving to keep us from defeating God’s purpose in revealing the Three Persons by making the Three Persons into One Person in our own minds (120-2).
     • The appropriations (120-2; also see Lagrange, “Reality,” p. 155):
       • First Person
         • Names: Father, Unbegotten, Ungenerated, Principle without principle
         • Appropriations: Creator, Power, Origin
       • Second Person:
         • Names: Son, Word, Image
         • Appropriations: Knowledge, Wisdom
       • Third Person:
         • Names: Holy Spirit, Love (Love-Bond), Uncreated Gift
         • Appropriations: Sanctification, Indwelling
   • Appropriation in the New Testament Letters
     • In the above examples, we have seen the use of appropriation in the Gospels. We also see in the letters of the New Testament, especially in the letters of St. Paul, where appropriation is used with thoroughness (121-2).
     • Before looking at some examples of St. Paul’s use of appropriation, let us note that the practice of using these appropriations accounts for a curiosity you may have observed in the Nicene Creed, where we speak of “one Lord, Jesus Christ” and then, a few sentences later, speak of the Holy Spirit as “Lord and giver of life.”
       • In the original form of the Creed, as composed at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), the third person of the Trinity was referenced as “Spirit,” in the phrase, “and in the Holy Spirit” (which is grammatically connected to the opening words of the Creed, “I believe,” and is in parallel to the “and in” that introduces the second person) (see John Laux, “Church History,” 112).
       • At the Council of Constantinople (380 AD), which reaffirmed the teaching of the Council of Nicaea, regarding the Arian heresy, and addressed the heresy of Macedonius, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the short phrase of the Creed that referenced the Holy Spirit was extended to:
         • “and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is together worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets” (Ibid., 123).
       • There is a further curiosity about this expansion of the Creed in that the Holy Spirit is spoken of as proceeding from the Father only. In 589 AD, the Third Council of Toledo added the phrase, “and from the Son,” (“filioque”) which was quickly adopted throughout the Western Church. At the time the “filioque” was first added, it was already present in ancient texts, so the addition was not an innovation (John Paul II, “The Spirit,” 298). In 1014 it was added at Rome. The addition was generally rejected by the Eastern Church, which preferred to hold to the formula from the Council of Constantinople; it has never gained general acceptance by the Orthodox and is considered to be an obstacle to East-West reunification.
     • Paul usually refers to the First Person as God, to the Second Person as Lord, and to the Third Person as Spirit, but he doesn’t use these terms invariably (121-2).
       • “Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who works all in all” (1 Cor 12:4-6).
     • Based on the same principle, we have another formula from St. Paul:
       • “From him [i.e., the Father, Origin] and through him [i.e., the Son, Divine Wisdom, Redeemer] and to him [i.e., the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier] are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:36).
     • A similar use of appropriation is found in the various opening prayers used for Mass. These prayers are typically directed to the Father, through the Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit:
       • “Almighty ever-living God [Father], grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, concluding prayer for the Divine Office, opening prayer for Mass).
   • Rejoicing in the Doctrine
     • Mankind has always feared a solitary God; in flight from this idea, the pagans imagined a multitude of Gods (e.g., Roman, Greek mythologies).
     • The Pagans had the right question (or quest), but the wrong answer. The right answer is the Holy Trinity’s multiplicity of persons in the one divine nature (122-3).
     • We return again to our earlier question, what is an adequate object for a love that is infinite? What is an adequate object for a Thinker Who is infinite? Not the angels, not us; the answer must be the Infinite Himself (122-4; also see 103-2).
     • Are we concerned that this sounds like infinite egoism?
       • If God were only one person, it would be difficult to rid ourselves of the idea that God’s love for Himself is an infinite egoism or an infinite narcissism. But with the multiplicity of Persons in the Blessed Trinity, the concern vanishes. What seemed like egoism is now recognized as an infinite necessity (123-1).
     • “The doctrine of the Trinity is reality about God. If we thrill to it, so much the better. But thrill or no thrill, let us keep hold of it and mentally live with it, for it is reality, and whether we perceive its effects on us or not, reality nourishes [the intellect]. And nothing else does” (123-2).