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Opening Statement Affirming the Trinity
Doctrine
First, I would like to thank Dave for having this
debate with me. I would like to begin by quoting some of the Early
Church Fathers who believed that Jesus is Divine.
Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD)
"Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in
Asia . . . predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and
unchanging, united and chosen through true suffering by the will of
the Father in Jesus Christ our God" (Ignatius of Antioch.Letter
to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).
"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord
with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the
Holy Spirit" (Ignatius of Antioch.ibid., 18:2).
"[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of
Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything
which is" (Ignatius of Antioch.Letter to the Romans 1
[A.D. 110]).
Aristides, Tatian, and Melito
(2nd century AD)
"[Christians] are they who, above every people of the earth,
have found the truth, for they acknowledge God, the Creator and maker
of all things, in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit" (Aristides.Apology
16 [A.D. 140]).
"We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk
nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man"
(Tatian the Syrian.Address to the Greeks 21 [A.D. 170]).
"It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of
intelligence to adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as
proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours,
real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism,
and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the
world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect
man, he gave positive indications of his two natures: of his deity, by
the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, of
his humanity, in the thirty years which came before his baptism,
during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he
concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God
existing before the ages" (Melito of Sardis.Fragment in
Anastasius of Sinai’s The Guide 13 [A.D. 177]).
Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180-199 AD)
"For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world
even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from
their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of
heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them; and in one Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the
Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and
the comings, and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion, and the
resurrection from the dead, and the bodily ascension into heaven of
the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the
glory of the Father to reestablish all things; and the raising up
again of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our
Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the
invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on
earth and under the earth . . . " (Irenaeus.Against Heresies 1:10:1
[A.D. 189]).
"Nevertheless, what cannot be said of anyone else who ever
lived, that he is himself in his own right God and Lord . . . may be
seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the
truth" (Irenaeus. ibid., 3:19:1).
Clement of Alexandria and Origen (c.
190-225 AD)
"The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient
beginning—for he was in God—and of our well-being. And now this
same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the
source of all our good things" (Clement of Alexandria .Exhortation
to the Greeks 1:7:1 [A.D. 190]).
"Despised as to appearance but in reality adored, [Jesus is]
the expiator, the Savior, the soother, the divine Word, he that is
quite evidently true God, he that is put on a level with the Lord of
the universe because he was his Son" (Clement of Alexandria.
ibid., 10:110:1).
"Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man,
he remained what he was: God" (Origen. The Fundamental
Doctrines 1:0:4 [A.D. 225]).
Tertullian (c. 210-220 AD)
"God alone is without sin. The only man who is without sin is
Christ; for Christ is also God" (Tertullian.The Soul 41:3
[A.D. 210]).
"The origins of both his substances display him as man and as
God: from the one, born, and from the other, not born" (Tertullian.The
Flesh of Christ 5:6–7 [A.D. 210]).
"That there are two gods and two Lords, however, is a
statement which we will never allow to issue from our mouth; not as if
the Father and the Son were not God, nor the Spirit God, and each of
them God; but formerly two were spoken of as gods and two as Lords, so
that when Christ would come, he might both be acknowledged as God and
be called Lord, because he is the Son of him who is both God and
Lord" (Tertullian. Against Praxeas 13:6 [A.D. 216]).
Hippolytus of Rome, Novatian,
Cyprian of Carthage, and Gregory the Wonderworker (3rd century AD)
"Only [God’s] Word is from himself and is therefore also
God, becoming the substance of God" (Hippolytus Refutation of
All Heresies 10:33 [A.D. 228]).
"For Christ is the God over all, who has arranged to wash away
sin from mankind, rendering the old man new" (Hippolytus of Rome.
ibid., 10:34).
"If Christ was only man, why did he lay down for us such a
rule of believing as that in which he said, ‘And this is life
eternal, that they should know you, the only and true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent?’ [John 17:3]. Had he not wished that he
also should be understood to be God, why did he add, ‘And Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent,’ except because he wished to be
received as God also? Because if he had not wished to be understood to
be God, he would have added, ‘And the man Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent;’ but, in fact, he neither added this, nor did Christ
deliver himself to us as man only, but associated himself with God, as
he wished to be understood by this conjunction to be God also, as he
is. We must therefore believe, according to the rule prescribed, on
the Lord, the one true God, and consequently on him whom he has sent,
Jesus Christ, who by no means, as we have said, would have linked
himself to the Father had he not wished to be understood to be God
also. For he would have separated himself from him had he not wished
to be understood to be God" (Novatian. Treatise on the Trinity
16 [A.D. 235]).
"One who denies that Christ is God cannot become his temple
[of the Holy Spirit] . . . " (Cyprian of Carthage. Letters 73:12
[A.D. 253]).
"There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is his
subsistent wisdom and power and eternal image: perfect begetter of the
perfect begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord,
only of the only, God of God, image and likeness of deity, efficient
Word, wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and
power formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father,
invisible of invisible, and incorruptible of incorruptible, and
immortal of immortal and eternal of eternal. . . . And thus neither
was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but
without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides
ever" (Gregory the Wonderworker Declaration of Faith [A.D.
265]).
The reason I am quoting the Early
Church Fathers is because the divinity of Christ was a controversial
doctrine then. The word Trinity was coined first by Tertullian, but it
doesn’t mean it wasn’t taught before. One example is the Didache.
"After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running]
water. . . . If you have neither, pour water three times on the head,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit" (Didache 7:1 [A.D. 70]).
The Trinity formula is the Father is
God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. So it’s Three Persons
in one God. Note that the Father and Jesus are both God but Two
different Persons. As Athanasius said,
"They [the Father and the Son] are one, not as one thing now
divided into two, but really constituting only one, nor as one thing
twice named, so that the same becomes at one time the Father and at
another his own Son. This latter is what Sabellius held, and he was
judged a heretic. On the contrary, they are two, because the Father is
Father and is not his own Son, and the Son is Son and not his own
Father" (Discourses Against the Arians 3:4 [A.D. 360]).
We find in Scripture that the Father
and Jesus are Two different Persons and one God. We read in the Bible:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God." (John 1:1)
Note that the Word was WITH God and
IS God. We see that the Word is a Person, and a distinct Person.
As Ludwig Ott said,
"The Logos, according to St. John, is neither an attribute nor
an impersonal power of God, but a Person…"The word was with
God". The preposition "with" expresses that the Logos
was side by side with God (therefore not in God) and co-ordinated to
God (cf. Mk. 9:19)…The Logos is a different Person from God the
Father. This follows from the fact that the Logos was with God, and
notably from the identification of the Logos with the Only-begotten
Son of the Father. " (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma pg 57)
Scripture says,
"And God said, Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth." - Genesis 1:26
We see that God uses "us"
and "our" while referring to Himself. If God is one Person,
why does He refer to Himself as if He is more than one? Also note that I
do believe that there is one God and Three Persons.
"And the Lord appeared unto him (Abraham) in the plains of
Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lift
up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he
saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself
toward the ground, And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in
thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little
water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves
under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye
your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to
your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said." - Genesis
18:1-5
We see that THREE men appeared to
Abraham and Abraham called them "My Lord."
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." - Matthew
28:19
This is probably one of the best
verses for the dogma of the Trinity. We see that it is ONE name, but
THREE different Persons. It says, "The Father," "The
Son," "The Holy Spirit." These are not titles, but
Persons.
"Modalism asserts that there is only one person in the
Godhead, it makes nonsense of passages which show Jesus talking to his
Father (e.g., John 17), or declaring he is going to be
with the Father (John 14:12, 28, 16:10) One office of a person cannot go
to be with another office of that person, or say that
the two of them will send the Holy Spirit while they
remain in heaven (John 14:16-17, 26, 15:26, 16:13–15; Acts 2:32–33)."
(San Diego: Catholic Answers, 2001)
The Catechism says,
232. "Christians are baptized 'in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' [Mt 28:19.] Before receiving the
sacrament, they respond to a three-part question when asked to confess
the Father, the Son and the Spirit: 'I do.' 'The faith of all
Christians rests on the Trinity.' [St. Caesarius of Arles, Sermo 9,
Exp. symb.: CCL 103, 47.]"
233. "Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their names, [Cf. Profession of
faith of Pope Vigilius I (552): DS 415.] for there is only one God,
the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: the Most Holy
Trinity."
234. "The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central
mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in
himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of
faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and
essential teaching in the 'hierarchy of the truths of faith'. [GCD
43.] The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of
the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, reveals himself to men 'and reconciles and unites with himself
those who turn away from sin'. [GCD 47.]"
235. "This paragraph expounds briefly (I) how the mystery of
the Blessed Trinity was revealed, (II) how the Church has articulated
the doctrine of the faith regarding this mystery, and (III) how, by
the divine missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit, God the Father
fulfils the 'plan of his loving goodness' of creation, redemption and
sanctification."
236. "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. Through the
oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the
theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God's works reveal who he
is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our
understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human
persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we
know a person, the better we understand his actions."
237. "The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense,
one of the 'mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known
unless they are revealed by God'. [Dei Filius 4: DS 3015.] To be sure,
God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation
and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost
Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason
alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son
and the sending of the Holy Spirit."
238. "Many religions invoke God as 'Father'. The deity is
often considered the 'father of gods and of men'. In Israel, God is
called 'Father' inasmuch as he is Creator of the world. [Cf. Dt 32:6;
Mal 2:10.] Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the
gift of the law to Israel, 'his first-born son'. [Ex 4:22.] God is
also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is
'the Father of the poor', of the orphaned and the widowed, who are
under his loving protection. [Cf. 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 68:6.]"
239. "By calling God 'Father', the language of faith indicates
two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and
transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and
loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also
be expressed by the image of motherhood, [Cf. Is 66:13; Ps 131:2.]
which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and
creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of
parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man.
But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and
can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought
therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between
the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends
human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and
standard: [Cf. Ps 27:10; Eph 3:14; Is 49:15.] no one is father as God
is Father."
240. "Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of
sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father
by his relationship to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in
relation to his Father: 'No one knows the Son except the Father, and
no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son
chooses to reveal him.' [Mt 11-27.]"
241. "For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the
Word: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God'; as 'the image of the invisible God'; as the
'radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature'. [Jn
1:1; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3.]"
242. "Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed
at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is
'consubstantial' with the Father, that is, one only God with him. [The
English phrases 'of one being' and 'one in being' translate the Greek
word homoousios, which was rendered in Latin by consubstantialis.] The
second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this
expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed 'the
only- begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light
from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial
with the Father'. [Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed; cf. DS 150.]"
243. "Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of
'another Paraclete' (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since
creation, having previously 'spoken through the prophets', the Spirit
will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them
'into all the truth'. [Cf. Gen 1:2; Nicene Creed (DS 150); Jn 14:17,
26; Jn 16:13.] The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine
person with Jesus and the Father."
244. "The eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is revealed in his
mission in time. The Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church
both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person,
once he had returned to the Father. [Cf. Jn 14:26; Jn 15:26; Jn
16:14.] The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus'
glorification [Cf. Jn 7:39.] reveals in its fullness the mystery of
the Holy Trinity."
245. "The apostolic faith concerning the Spirit was confessed
by the second ecumenical council at Constantinople (381): 'We believe
in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the
Father.' [Nicene Creed; cf. DS 150.] By this confession, the Church
recognizes the Father as 'the source and origin of the whole
divinity'. [Council of Toledo VI (638): DS 490.] But the eternal
origin of the Spirit is not unconnected with the Son's origin: 'The
Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God, one and equal
with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the
same nature. . . Yet he is not called the Spirit of the Father alone,.
. . but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son.' [Council of Toledo
XI (675): DS 527.] The Creed of the Church from the Council of
Constantinople confesses: 'With the Father and the Son, he is
worshipped and glorified.' [Nicene Creed; cf. DS 150.]"
246. "The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the
Spirit 'proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)'. The Council
of Florence in 1438 explains: 'The Holy Spirit is eternally from
Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from
the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one
principle and through one spiration... And, since the Father has
through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that
belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally
from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Son.' [Council of Florence (1439): DS
1300-1301.]"
247. "The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the
Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I,
following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already
confessed it dogmatically in 447, [Cf. Leo I, Quam laudabiliter (447):
DS 284.] even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to
recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in
the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the
eighth and eleventh centuries). The introduction of the filioque into
the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes
moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox
Churches."
248. "At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the
Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the
Spirit as he 'who proceeds from the Father', it affirms that he comes
from the Father through the Son. [Jn 15:26; cf. AG 2.] The Western
tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father
and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the
Son (filioque). It says this, 'legitimately and with good reason',
[Council of Florence (1439): DS 1302.] for the eternal order of the
divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the
Father, as 'the principle without principle', [Council of Florence
(1442): DS 1331.] is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as
Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from
which the Holy Spirit proceeds. [Cf. Council of Lyons II (1274): DS
850.] This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become
rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the
same mystery confessed."
249. "From the beginning, the revealed truth of the Holy
Trinity has been at the very root of the Church's living faith,
principally by means of Baptism. It finds its expression in the rule
of baptismal faith, formulated in the preaching, catechesis and prayer
of the Church. Such formulations are already found in the apostolic
writings, such as this salutation taken up in the Eucharistic liturgy:
'The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.' [2 Cor 13:14; cf. 1
Cor 12:4-6; Eph 4:4-6.]"
250. "During the first centuries the Church sought to clarify
her Trinitarian faith, both to deepen her own understanding of the
faith and to defend it against the errors that were deforming it. This
clarification was the work of the early councils, aided by the
theological work of the Church Fathers and sustained by the Christian
people's sense of the faith."
251. "In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the
Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain
notions of philosophical origin: 'substance', 'person' or
'hypostasis', 'relation' and so on. In doing this, she did not submit
the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to
these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable
mystery, 'infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand'. [Paul
VI, CPC # 2.]"
252. "The Church uses (I) the term 'substance' (rendered also
at times by 'essence' or 'nature') to designate the divine being in
its unity, (II) the term 'person' or 'hypostasis' to designate the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the real distinction among them, and
(III) the term 'relation' to designate the fact that their distinction
lies in the relationship of each to the others."
253. "The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but
one God in three persons, the 'consubstantial Trinity'. [Council of
Constantinople II (553): DS 421.] The divine persons do not share the
one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and
entire: 'The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the
Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e.
by nature one God.' [Council of Toledo XI (675): DS 530:26.] In the
words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), 'Each of the persons is
that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature.'
[Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 804.]"
254. "The divine persons are really distinct from one another.
'God is one but not solitary.' [Fides Damasi: DS 71.] 'Father', 'Son',
'Holy Spirit' are not simply names designating modalities of the
divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: 'He is
not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father,
nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.'
[Council of Toledo XI (675): DS 530:25.] They are distinct from one
another in their relations of origin: 'It is the Father who generates,
the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.' [Lateran
Council IV (1215): DS 804.] The divine Unity is Triune."
255. "The divine persons are relative to one another. Because
it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the
persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which
relate them to one another: 'In the relational names of the persons
the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy
Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their
relations, we believe in one nature or substance.' [Council of Toledo
XI (675): DS 528.] Indeed 'everything (in them) is one where there is
no opposition of relationship.' [Council of Florence (1442): DS 1330.]
'Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in
the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the
Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the
Son.' [Council of Florence (1442): DS 1331.]"
256. "St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called 'the Theologian',
entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of
Constantinople: Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for
which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion,
and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean
the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into
water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and
patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power,
existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way.
Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior
degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down. . . the
infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in
himself is entirely God. . . the three considered together. . . I have
not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its
splendour. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity
grasps me. . [St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 40, 41: PG 36,
417.]"
257. "'O blessed light, O Trinity and first Unity!' [LH, Hymn
for Evening Prayer.] God is eternal blessedness, undying life,
unfading light. God is love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God freely
wills to communicate the glory of his blessed life. Such is the 'plan
of his loving kindness', conceived by the Father before the foundation
of the world, in his beloved Son: 'He destined us in love to be his
sons' and 'to be conformed to the image of his Son', through 'the
spirit of sonship'. [Eph 1:4-5, 9; Rom 8:15, 29.] This plan is a
'grace (which) was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began',
stemming immediately from Trinitarian love.[2 Tim 1:9-10.] It unfolds
in the work of creation, the whole history of salvation after the
fall, and the missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued
in the mission of the Church. [Cf. AG 2-9.]"
258. "The whole divine economy is the common work of the three
divine persons. For as the Trinity has only one and the same natures
so too does it have only one and the same operation: 'The Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of creation but one
principle.' [Council of Florence (1442): DS 1331; cf. Council of
Constantinople II (553): DS 421.] However, each divine person performs
the common work according to his unique personal property. Thus the
Church confesses, following the New Testament, 'one God and Father
from whom all things are, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all
things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are'. [Council of
Constantinople II: DS 421.] It is above all the divine missions of the
Son's Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit that show forth the
properties of the divine persons."
259. "Being a work at once common and personal, the whole
divine economy makes known both what is proper to the divine persons,
and their one divine nature. Hence the whole Christian life is a
communion with each of the divine persons, without in any way
separating them. Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the
Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because
the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him. [Cf. Jn 6:44; Rom
8:14.]"
260. "The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the
entry of God's creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed
Trinity. [Cf. Jn 17:21-23.] But even now we are called to be a
dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: 'If a man loves me', says the
Lord, '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.] O my God,
Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish
myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in
eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave
you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply
into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your
beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you
there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my
faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative
action. [Prayer of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity.]"
We also read in Pope Dionysius "Against the
Sabellians"
1. Now truly it would be just to dispute against those who, by
dividing and rending the monarchy, which is the most august
announcement of the Church of God, into, as it were, three powers, and
distinct substances (hypostases), and three deities, destroy it. For I
have heard that some who preach and teach the word of God among you
are teachers of this opinion, who indeed diametrically, so to speak,
are opposed to the opinion of Sabellius. For he blasphemes in saying
that the Son Himself is the Father, and vice versa; but these in a
certain manner announce three gods, in that they divide the holy unity
into three different substances, absolutely separated from one
another. For it is essential that the Divine Word should be united to
the God of all, and that the Holy Spirit should abide and dwell in
God; and thus that the Divine Trinity should be reduced and gathered
into one, as if into a certain head--that is, into the omnipotent God
of all. For the doctrine of the foolish Marcion, which Gilts and
divides the monarchy into three elements, is assuredly of the devil,
and is not of Christ's true disciples, or of those to whom the
Saviour's teaching is agreeable. For these indeed rightly know that
the Trinity is declared in the divine Scripture, but that the doctrine
that there are three gods is, neither taught in the Old nor in the New
Testament.
2. But neither are they less to be blamed who think that the Son was a
creation, and decided that the Lord was made just as one of those
things which really were made; whereas the divine declarations testify
that He was begotten, as is fitting and proper, but not that He was
created or made. It is therefore not a trifling, but a very great
impiety, to say that the Lord was in any wise made with hands. For if
the Son was made, there was a time when He was not; but He always was,
if, as He Himself declares, He is undoubtedly in the Father. And if
Christ is the Word, the Wisdom, and the Power,--for the divine
writings tell us that Christ is these, as ye yourselves
know,--assuredly these are powers of God. Wherefore, if the Son was
made, there was a time when these were not in existence; and thus
there was a time when God was without these things, which is utterly
absurd. But why should I discourse at greater length to you about
these matters, since ye are men filled with the Spirit, and especially
understanding what absurd results follow from the opinion which
asserts that the Son was made? The leaders of this view seem to me to
have given very little heed to these things, and for that reason to
have strayed absolutely, by explaining the passage otherwise than as
the divine and prophetic Scripture demands. "The Lord created me
the beginning of His ways." For, as ye know, there is more than
one signification of the word "created;" and in this place
"created" is the same as "set over" the works made
by Himself--made, I say, by the Son Himself. But this
"created" is not to be understood in the same manner as
"made." For to make and to create are different from one
another. "Is not He Himself thy Father, that hath possessed thee
and created thee?" says Moses in the great song of Deuteronomy.
And thus might any one reasonably convict these men. Oh reckless and
rash men! was then "the first-born of every creature"
something made?--"He who was begotten from the womb before the
morning star?"--He who in the person of Wisdom says, "Before
all the hills He begot me?" Finally, any one may read in many
parts of the divine utterances that the Son is said to have been
begotten, but never that He was made. From which considerations, they
who dare to say that His divine and inexplicable generation was a
creation, are openly convicted of thinking that which is false
concerning the generation of the Lord.
3. That admirable and divine unity, therefore, must neither be
separated into three divinities, nor must the dignity and eminent
greatness of the Lord be diminished by having applied to it the name
of creation, but we must believe on God the Father Omnipotent, and on
Christ Jesus His Son, and on the Holy Spirit. Moreover, that the Word
is united to the God of all, because He says, "I and the Father
are one;" and, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in
Me." Thus doubtless will be maintained in its integrity the
doctrine of the divine Trinity, and the sacred announcement of the
monarchy. (Pope Dionysius. "Against the Sabellians")
In conclusion, I would like to say that the Trinity is
a historical as well as a Biblical doctrine. The Church has always held
this view and has defined it. To end, I would like to quote another
great Early Church Father.
"All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both
Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me
concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have purposed to teach, according
to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance
in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three
Gods, but one God: although the Father hath begotten the Son, and so
He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the
Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy
Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the
Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the
Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity." - (St.
Augustine of Hippo "On The Trinity" 4th century A.D.)
Word Count: 6255 (approx)
Apolonio Latar
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