Sunday, June 4th, is the great feast of the Blessed Trinity, the day on which we celebrate God’s innermost secret and the fundamental mystery of Christianity. If you happen to be thinking the existence of God is the fundamental Christian mystery, you need to recall that Vatican Council I formally defined that the existence of God could be known by human reason alone. That being the case, it’s not a revelation at all. The mystery of the three Persons in one divine nature, however, could never be known apart from God explicitly revealing it. Hence, the Blessed Trinity is the fundamental mystery of Christianity.

What we can know with certainty of the Blessed Trinity was well stated at the Council of Nicaea in 325, when the Council Fathers formally expressed what God had revealed of this mystery. Let us consider those parts of the Creed that specifically address God’s nature and the interrelationship of persons. Referring to the divine nature, the Creed says, “We believe in one God.” This, of course, was the belief of Israel, beginning with the patriarch Abraham approximately 3800 years ago, and is first stated explicitly by Scripture in Deuteronomy, which recounts the Law given to the Israelites after their exodus from Egypt: “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one” (Dt 6:4). The family Abraham came from was polytheistic, as was the entire world until God revealed Himself to Abraham. Thus, Abraham became the first person in human history to recognize the uniquity of God; up until that time, everyone was polytheistic (there were no atheists, for atheism is a modern ideology). The Creed says only one more thing about the divine nature; it is omnipotent. This is said explicitly in reference to the first person of the Blessed Trinity, “the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”

Regarding the persons of the Blessed Trinity, the Creed says this of the first person: “The Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” As you can see, the Father, is described in a mere fourteen words, a number that pales in comparison to what the Creed says of the second person, of whom there are one hundred and twenty-two words, almost ten times as many. Among those words are these regarding the relationship between the first two persons: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made consubstantial with the Father.” This tells us that the Father is, in some way, the person of origin in the Blessed Trinity, whereas the Son is begotten of the Father, and thus is not the person of origin (nor is the third person as we shall soon see). We must be careful here and recognize the infinite “distance” between time and eternity. The Son is born of the Father before all ages, that is, before there was time. Thus, the Son is in a state of eternal “begottenness” of the Father. We must note here that human sonship is limited by biological processes, and for this reason a human son is necessarily some number of years younger than his human father. There is no such biological limit for God; hence, the Son was the Father’s son before the creation of the universe. He did not need to become man in order to be the Son of God.

Let us probe these ideas a little further. A key phrase in the Creed, “light from light,” opens the way to some degree of understanding of the relationship between the Father and the Son, if we recognize that the phrase does not refer to physical light, which our eyes are sensitive to, but, rather, intellectual light. When we come to know something, we are enlightened, that is, our intellect has gained “light.” It has comprehended something, a new concept, idea, or word. The Creed tells us that the Son is begotten by way of the Father’s knowledge of Himself. Note that the infinite “light” that is the Father’s self-knowledge must be distinct from Himself in the same way that a thinker is distinct from his thought. On the other hand, the Father’s knowledge cannot lack anything that is found in the Father, for the Father knows Himself infinitely. Therefore, the Father’s knowledge of Himself must be equal to Himself, must be a divine person, and is therefore the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God and the Word of God, who proceeds from the Father by way of knowledge. Now, the Father eternally knows Himself; hence, His knowledge has always been with Him, which means the second person exists eternally as does the Father; the Son is eternally begotten by way of knowledge, and in this manner He proceeds from the Father. The Father possesses the divine nature unreceived, for He begets but is not begotten, whereas the Son possesses the divine nature fully, but as received from the Father by way of knowledge. It follows that the Son is consubstantial (i.e., of the same substance) with the Father because they both fully possess the one divine nature (i.e., substance). The Father possesses it unreceived and the Son possesses it as received from the Father. We can take this a step further by recognizing, as inferred above, that a concept is that which is intellectually comprehended. Thus, the Son, being the Father’s knowledge of Himself, is the intellectual conception of the Father. That is, the Son is eternally begotten by, eternally conceived by the Father.

Following the Creed’s statement on the Son, it speaks briefly of the Holy Spirit, to whom thirty-seven words are allotted: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and 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.” There are two key points the Creed makes about the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. Note that unlike the Son, who proceeds only from the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit as being the Spirit of the Father (Mt 10:20) and also as being the Spirit of the Son (Acts 16:7). Scripture also speaks of the Holy Spirit as being sent by the Father (Lk 11:13) and sent by the Son (Jn 16:7). The Father is never spoken of in Scripture as having been sent and the Son is only spoken of as having been sent by the Father. The Holy Spirit is spoken of as being sent in three ways: by the Father individually and by the Son individually, as noted above, and simultaneously by the Father and the Son (e.g., Jn 14:16, 26, 15:26). All of this is, of course, an image of proceeding, but the Creed doesn’t speak of the mode of the Holy Spirit’s proceeding from the Father and the Son. However, that problem is solved with this Scripture reference: “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand” (John 3:35). The love of the Father for the Son is necessarily infinite. Because the Son is the infinite image of the Father, the Son loves the Father infinitely as well, for “the Son [does] what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise” (Jn 5:19). Hence, the Father gives Himself completely to the Son, and the Son gives Himself completely to the Father. It follows that between the Father and the Son there is an infinite love-bond. Because the Father and the Son give themselves completely to this love-bond, there is nothing in the Father and nothing in the Son that is not in the love-bond. Hence, the Love-Bond is necessarily an infinite person, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who possesses the divine nature as received from the Father and the Son, and is a conception of the Father and the Son by way of love, just as the Son is the conception of the Father by way of knowledge.

What has been presented above should give us some insight into the manner in which we are made in the image of God: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). It is not unusual to hear people ask if we somehow look like God. That is to miss the fact that God is a spirit and spirits have no bodies. Therefore, we are not a physical image of God. But we are a spiritual image. Human nature consists of a spiritual soul substantially united to a material body. The principal faculties of the soul are the intellect and the will, and the principal operations of those faculties are knowing (intellect) and loving (will). It should be evident, based on what has been said above, that man’s operations of knowing and loving are finite images of the infinite knowing and infinite loving found in the divine nature by which the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. It is the image of these spiritual operations in the fundamental structure of human nature that testifies to man being made in the image of God. Hence, we can say with the Psalmist: “I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are your works!” (Ps 139:14).

Note: additional detail on this subject can be found at the following link:
https://dicklandkamer.wordpress.com/the-holy-trinity-procession-of-persons/