El término «Trinidad» no es un término bíblico, y no estamos usando el lenguaje bíblico cuando definimos lo que se expresa como la doctrina de que hay un Dios único y verdadero, pero en la unidad de la Divinidad hay tres coeternos y Personas iguales, iguales en sustancia pero distintas en subsistencia. Una doctrina así definida puede ser mencionada como una doctrina Bíblica solo en el principio de que el sentido de la Escritura es Escritura. Y la definición de una doctrina bíblica en tal lenguaje no bíblico puede justificarse solo en el principio de que es mejor preservar la verdad de la Escritura que las palabras de la Escritura. La doctrina de la Trinidad reside en la Escritura en solución; cuando se cristaliza a partir de su solvente, no deja de ser bíblico, sino que solo se hace más claro. O, para hablar sin figura, la doctrina de la Trinidad nos es dada en la Escritura, no en una definición formulada, sino en alusiones fragmentarias; cuando reunimos la disjecta membrana en su unidad orgánica, no estamos pasando de la Escritura, sino entrando más a fondo en el significado de la Escritura. Podemos establecer la doctrina en términos técnicos, suministrados por la reflexión filosófica; pero la doctrina declarada es una doctrina genuinamente bíblica.

 

De hecho, la doctrina de la Trinidad es puramente una doctrina revelada. Es decir, encarna una verdad que nunca ha sido descubierta, y es indescifrable, por razones naturales. Con toda su búsqueda, el hombre no ha podido descubrir por sí mismo las cosas más profundas de Dios. En consecuencia, el pensamiento étnico nunca ha alcanzado una concepción trinitaria de Dios, ni ninguna religión étnica presente en sus representaciones del Ser Divino alguna analogía con la doctrina de la Trinidad.

 

Triadas de divinidades, sin duda, ocurren en casi todas las religiones politeístas, formadas bajo influencias muy diversas. A veces, como en la tríada egipcia de Osiris, Isis y Horus, es la analogía de la familia humana con su padre, madre e hijo lo que se basa en ellos. A veces son el efecto del mero sincretismo, tres deidades adoradas en diferentes localidades se unen en la adoración común de todos. A veces, como en la tríada hindú de Brahma, Vishnu y Shiva, representan el movimiento cíclico de una evolución panteísta y simbolizan las tres etapas del Ser, el Devenir y la Disolución. A veces son el resultado aparentemente de nada más que una extraña tendencia humana a pensar en tres, lo que le ha dado al número tres la posición generalizada como un número sagrado (por lo tanto, H. Usener). No es más de lo que se esperaba, que una u otra de estas tríadas debería señalarse de vez en cuando como la réplica (o incluso la original) de la doctrina cristiana de la Trinidad. Gladstone encontró la Trinidad en la mitología homérica, siendo el tridente de Poseidón su símbolo. Hegel lo encontró muy naturalmente en el Trimurti hindú, que de hecho es muy parecido a su noción panteante de lo que es la Trinidad. Otros lo han percibido en el Triratna budista (Soderblom); o (a pesar de su grosero dualismo) en algunas especulaciones del parseeismo; o, más frecuentemente, en la tríada nocional del platonismo (p. ej., Knapp); mientras que Jules Martin está bastante seguro de que está presente en la doctrina neo-estoica de los «poderes» de Philo, especialmente cuando se aplica a la explicación de los tres visitantes de Abraham. En los últimos años, los ojos se han vuelto más bien hacia Babilonia; y H. Zimmern encuentra un posible precursor de la Trinidad en un Padre, Hijo e Intercesor, que descubre en su mitología. No debería ser necesario decir que ninguna de estas tríadas tiene el más mínimo parecido con la doctrina cristiana de la Trinidad. La doctrina cristiana de la Trinidad encarna mucho más que la noción de «trinidad», y más allá de su «trinidad», estas tríadas no tienen nada en común.

 

Como la doctrina de la Trinidad es indescifrable por la razón, tampoco puede ser probada por la razón. No hay analogías en la naturaleza, ni siquiera en la naturaleza espiritual del hombre, que está hecho a imagen de Dios. En su modo de ser trinitario, Dios es único; y, como no hay nada en el universo como Él a este respecto, tampoco hay nada que pueda ayudarnos a comprenderlo. Sin embargo, se han hecho muchos intentos para construir una prueba racional de la Trinidad de la Trinidad. Entre estos hay dos que son particularmente atractivos y, por lo tanto, han sido presentados una y otra vez por pensadores especulativos a través de todas las edades cristianas. Estos se derivan de las implicaciones, en un caso, de la autoconciencia; en el otro, del amor. Se dice que tanto la autoconciencia como el amor exigen para su propia existencia un objeto sobre el cual el yo se coloca como sujeto. Si concebimos a Dios como consciente de sí mismo y amoroso, por lo tanto, no podemos evitar concebirlo como abrazando en su unidad alguna forma de pluralidad. Desde esta posición general, ambos argumentos han sido elaborados, sin embargo, por varios pensadores en formas muy variadas.

 

El primero de ellos, por ejemplo, es desarrollado por un gran teólogo del siglo XVII, Bartholomew Keckermann (1614), de la siguiente manera: Dios es un pensamiento consciente de sí mismo: y el pensamiento de Dios debe tener un objeto perfecto, existiendo eternamente ante él; este objeto para ser perfecto debe ser Dios mismo; y como Dios es uno, este objeto que es Dios debe ser el Dios que es uno. Es esencialmente el mismo argumento que se populariza en un famoso párrafo (73) de «La educación de la raza humana» de Lessing. ¿No debe Dios tener una representación absolutamente perfecta de sí mismo, es decir, una representación en la que se encuentra todo lo que hay en él? ¿Y se encontraría todo lo que está en Dios en esta representación si su realidad necesaria no se encontrara en ella? Si todo, todo sin excepción, que está en Dios se encuentra en esta representación, no puede, por lo tanto, seguir siendo una mera imagen vacía, sino que debe ser una duplicación real de Dios. Es obvio que argumentos como este prueban demasiado. Si la representación de Dios de Sí mismo, para ser perfecto, debe poseer el mismo tipo de realidad que Él mismo posee, no parece fácil negar que Sus representaciones de todo lo demás deben poseer realidad objetiva. Y esto sería tanto como decir que la eterna coexistencia objetiva de todo lo que Dios puede concebir se da en la idea misma de Dios; y eso es panteísmo abierto. La falla lógica radica en incluir en la perfección de una representación cualidades que no son propias de las representaciones, por perfectas que sean. Una representación perfecta debe, por supuesto, tener toda la realidad propia de una representación; pero la realidad objetiva es tan poco apropiada para una representación que una representación que la adquiere dejaría de ser una representación. Este defecto fatal no se trasciende, sino que solo se oculta cuando el argumento se comprime, como lo es en la mayoría de sus presentaciones modernas, en efecto a la mera afirmación de que la condición de autoconciencia es una distinción real entre el sujeto pensante y el objeto de pensamiento, que, en el caso de Dios, estaría entre el ego sujeto y el ego objeto. Sin embargo, por qué deberíamos negarle a Dios el poder de la contemplación de sí mismo que disfruta cada espíritu finito, salvo a costa de la hipostatización distintiva del contemplante y el yo contemplado, es difícil de entender. Tampoco está siempre claro que lo que obtenemos es una hipostatización distinta en lugar de una sustancialización distinta del contemplativo y contemplado, por ejemplo, no dos personas en la Deidad, sino dos Dioses. Mientras tanto, el descubrimiento de la tercera hipóstasis, el Espíritu Santo, permanece en todos estos intentos de construir racionalmente una Trinidad en el Ser Divino, un rompecabezas permanente que encuentra solo una solución muy artificial.

 

El caso es muy similar con el argumento derivado de la naturaleza del amor. Nuestras condolencias están con ese viejo escritor valentiniano, posiblemente fue el propio Valentinus, quien razonó, tal vez fue el primero en razonar, que «Dios es todo amor», pero el amor no es amor a menos que haya un objeto de amor. » Y salen aún más ricos a Agustín, cuando, buscando una base, no para una teoría de las emanaciones, sino para la doctrina de la Trinidad, analiza este amor que Dios está en la triple implicación del «amante», «el amaba «y» el amor mismo «, y ve en este trinario de amor un análogo del Dios Triuno. Sin embargo, solo requiere que el argumento así ampliamente sugerido se desarrolle en sus detalles para que su artificialidad sea evidente. Ricardo de San Víctor lo resuelve de la siguiente manera: pertenece a la naturaleza del amor que debería recurrir a otro como caritas. Este otro, en el caso de Dios, no puede ser el mundo; ya que tal amor al mundo sería excesivo. Solo puede ser una persona; y una persona que es igual a Dios en la eternidad, poder y sabiduría. Sin embargo, dado que no puede haber dos sustancias divinas, estas dos personas divinas deben formar una y la misma sustancia. Sin embargo, el mejor amor no puede ajustarse a estas dos personas; debe convertirse en condilectio por el deseo de que un tercero sea amado de la misma manera que se aman. Así, el amor, cuando está perfectamente concebido, conduce necesariamente a la Trinidad, y dado que Dios es todo lo que puede ser, esta Trinidad debe ser real. Los escritores modernos (Sartorius, Schoberlein, J. Muller, Liebner, más recientemente R. H. Griutzmacher) no parecen haber mejorado esencialmente una afirmación como esta. Y después de todo lo dicho, no parece claro que el Ser completamente perfecto de Dios no pueda suministrar un objeto satisfactorio de Su amor todo perfecto. Decir que, en su propia naturaleza, el amor se comunica a sí mismo y, por lo tanto, implica un objeto distinto del yo, parece un abuso del lenguaje figurado.

 

Quizás la prueba ontológica de la Trinidad no está en ningún lugar más atractiva que Jonathan Edwards. La peculiaridad de su presentación radica en un intento de agregar plausibilidad mediante una doctrina de la naturaleza de las ideas espirituales o ideas de cosas espirituales, como el pensamiento, el amor, el miedo, en general. Las ideas de tales cosas, insta, son solo repeticiones de ellas, de modo que el que tiene una idea de cualquier acto de amor, miedo, ira o cualquier otro acto o movimiento de la mente, simplemente hasta ahora repite el movimiento en cuestión; y si la idea es perfecta y completa, el movimiento original de la mente es absolutamente reducido. Edwards presiona esto tanto que está listo para sostener que si un hombre pudiera tener una idea absolutamente perfecta de todo lo que tenía en mente en cualquier momento pasado, realmente, a todos los efectos, volvería a ser lo que estaba haciendo. ese momento. Y si pudiera contemplar perfectamente todo lo que está en su mente en un momento dado, tal como es y al mismo tiempo que está allí en su primera y directa existencia, realmente sería dos en ese momento, sería dos veces una vez: «La idea que tiene de sí mismo sería volver a ser él mismo». Este es ahora el caso con el Ser Divino. «La idea de Dios de sí mismo es absolutamente perfecta y, por lo tanto, es una imagen expresa y perfecta de Él, exactamente como Él en todos los aspectos … Pero lo que es la imagen expresa y perfecta de Dios y en todos los aspectos como Él es Dios, a todos los efectos, porque no hay nada deficiente: no hay nada en la Deidad que la convierta en la Deidad, pero sí algo que responda exactamente a ella en esta imagen, lo que, por lo tanto, también hará que la Deidad «. Al alcanzar la Segunda Persona de la Trinidad, el argumento avanza. «De esta manera, la Deidad engendrada del amor de Dios [¿teniendo?] Una idea de Sí mismo y mostrando en una Subsistencia o Persona distinta en esa idea, se produce un acto muy puro, y una energía infinitamente sagrada y sagrada surge entre el Padre y el Hijo que se ama y se deleita mutuamente … La Deidad se convierte en todo acto, la esencia Divina misma fluye y es como si se respirara en amor y alegría. De modo que la Divinidad allí se destaca en otra forma de Subsistencia, y allí procede la Tercera Persona en la Trinidad, el Espíritu Santo, a saber, la Deidad en acto, porque no hay otro acto sino el acto de la voluntad «. La inconclusión del razonamiento yace en la superficie. La mente no consiste en sus estados, y la repetición de sus estados no lo duplicaría ni triplicaría. Si así fuera, deberíamos tener una pluralidad de Seres, no de Personas en un solo Ser. Ni la perfecta idea de Dios de sí mismo ni su perfecto amor de sí mismo se reproducen. Se diferencia de su idea y de su amor a sí mismo precisamente por lo que distingue a su ser de sus actos. Cuando se dice, entonces, que no hay nada en la Deidad que lo convierta en la Deidad, pero lo que tiene algo que responde a su imagen de sí mismo, es suficiente para responder, excepto la Deidad misma. Lo que le falta a la imagen para convertirla en una segunda Deidad es solo una realidad objetiva.

 

Sin embargo, a pesar de que todo este razonamiento se considera como una demostración racional de la realidad de la Trinidad, está muy lejos de no tener ningún valor. Nos lleva a casa de una manera muy sugestiva la superioridad de la concepción trinitaria de Dios sobre la concepción de Él como una mónada abstracta, y por lo tanto aporta un importante apoyo racional a la doctrina de la Trinidad, cuando una vez esa doctrina nos ha sido dada por revelación. Si no es posible decir que no podemos concebir a Dios como autoconciencia eterna y amor eterno, sin concebirlo como una Trinidad, parece bastante necesario decir que cuando lo concebimos como una Trinidad, nueva plenitud, riqueza , se le da fuerza a nuestra concepción de Él como un Ser consciente y amoroso, y por lo tanto lo concebimos más adecuadamente que como una mónada, y nadie que alguna vez lo haya concebido como una Trinidad puede nunca más satisfacerse con un monadista Concepción de Dios. Por lo tanto, la razón no solo realiza el importante servicio negativo a la fe en la Trinidad, de mostrar la coherencia de la doctrina y su coherencia con otra verdad conocida, sino que le brinda este apoyo racional positivo de descubrir en ella la única concepción adecuada de Dios como espíritu autoconsciente y amor vivo. Por lo tanto, por difícil que sea la idea de la Trinidad en sí misma, no se nos presenta como una carga adicional sobre nuestra inteligencia; más bien nos trae la solución de las dificultades más profundas y persistentes en nuestra concepción de Dios como Ser moral infinito, e ilumina, enriquece y eleva todo nuestro pensamiento de Dios. Por consiguiente, se ha convertido en un lugar común decir que el teísmo cristiano es el único teísmo estable. Eso es tanto como decir que el teísmo requiere la concepción enriquecedora de la Trinidad para darle un control permanente sobre la mente humana: la mente encuentra difícil descansar en la idea de una unidad abstracta para su Dios; y que el corazón humano clama por el Dios viviente en cuyo Ser existe esa plenitud de vida para la cual solo proporciona la concepción de la Trinidad.

 

Se siente tan fuertemente en amplios círculos que una concepción trinitaria es esencial para una idea digna de Dios, que existe en el extranjero una falta de voluntad profundamente arraigada para permitir que Dios se haya dado a conocer de otra manera que no sea una Trinidad. Desde este punto de vista, es inconcebible que la revelación del Antiguo Testamento no sepa nada de la Trinidad. En consecuencia, IA Dorner, por ejemplo, razona así: «Si, sin embargo, y esta es la fe de la cristiandad universal, una idea viva de Dios debe pensarse de alguna manera después de una moda trinitaria, debe ser antecedente probable que las huellas de la No puede faltar la Trinidad en el Antiguo Testamento, ya que su idea de Dios es viva o histórica «. Sin embargo, si realmente existen rastros de la idea de la Trinidad en el Antiguo Testamento, es una buena pregunta. Ciertamente no podemos hablar ampliamente de la revelación de la doctrina de la Trinidad en el Antiguo Testamento. Es un hecho claro que ninguno de los que han dependido de la revelación incorporada en el Antiguo Testamento nunca han alcanzado la doctrina de la Trinidad. Es otra pregunta, sin embargo, si puede no existir en las páginas de los giros de expresión del Antiguo Testamento o. registros de sucesos en los que uno ya conoce la doctrina de la Trinidad puede ver indicios de una implicación subyacente de la misma. Los escritores más antiguos descubrieron insinuaciones de la Trinidad en fenómenos como la forma plural del nombre Divino Elohim, el empleo ocasional con referencia a Dios de pronombres plurales («Hagamos al hombre a nuestra imagen», Génesis i. 26; iii. 22; xi. 7; Isa. Vi. 8), o de verbos plurales (Génesis xx. 13; xxxv. 7), ciertas repeticiones del nombre de Dios que parecen distinguir entre Dios y Dios (Sal. Xlv. 6 , 7; cx. 1; Hos. I. 7), fórmulas litúrgicas triples Num. vi. 24, 26; Es un. vi. 3), cierta tendencia a enfatizar la concepción de la Sabiduría (Prov. Viii.), Y especialmente los fenómenos notables relacionados con las apariciones del Ángel de Jehová (Gen. xvi. 2-13, xxii. 11. 16; xxxi. 11,13; xlviii.15,16; Ex. Iii.2, 4, 5; Jueces xiii. 20-22). La tendencia de los autores más recientes es apelar, no tanto a textos específicos del Antiguo Testamento, como al «organismo de revelación» en el Antiguo Testamento en el que se percibe una sugerencia subyacente «de que todas las cosas deben su existencia y persistencia a una causa triple «, tanto con referencia a la primera creación como, más claramente, con referencia a la segunda creación. Pasajes como Ps. xxxiii. 6; Es un. lxi 1; lxiii. 9-12 Hag. ii. 5, 6, en el que Dios y Su Palabra y Su Espíritu se unen, co-causas de efectos, se aducen. Se señala una tendencia a enfatizar la Palabra de Dios por un lado (por ejemplo, Génesis i. 3; Salmo xxxiii. 6; cvii. 20; cxlvii. 15-18 Isa. Lv. 11); y, especialmente en Ezek. y los Profetas posteriores, el Espíritu de Dios, por el otro (por ejemplo, Génesis i. 2; Isa. xlviii. 16; lxiii. 10; Ezequiel ii. 2; viii. 3; Zac. vii. 12). Sugerencias – en Isa. por ejemplo (vii. 14; ix. 6) – de la Deidad del Mesías son apelados. Y si la aparición ocasional de verbos y pronombres plurales que se refieren a Dios, y la forma plural del nombre Elohim no se insiste en ellos como evidencia en sí misma de una multiplicidad en la Divinidad, sin embargo, se les presta cierto peso como testigos de que «el Dios de revelación no es una unidad abstracta, sino el Dios vivo y verdadero que en la plenitud de su vida abraza la más alta variedad «(Bavinek). El resultado de todo esto es que generalmente se siente que, de alguna manera, en el desarrollo de la idea de Dios en el Antiguo Testamento hay una sugerencia de que la Deidad no es una simple mónada, y que por lo tanto se hace una preparación para la revelación de la Trinidad aún por venir. Parecería claro que debemos reconocer en la doctrina del Antiguo Testamento la relación de Dios con Su revelación por la Palabra creadora y el Espíritu, al menos el germen de las distinciones en la Divinidad que luego se dieron a conocer plenamente en la revelación cristiana. Y apenas podemos parar allí. Después de todo, a la luz de la revelación posterior, la interpretación trinitaria sigue siendo el más natural de los fenómenos que los escritores más viejos interpretaron francamente como insinuaciones de la Trinidad; especialmente de aquellos relacionados con las descripciones del Ángel de Jehová, sin duda, pero también de una forma de expresión como la que nos encontramos en el «Hagamos al hombre a nuestra imagen» de Génesis i. 26 — para seguramente el versículo 27: «Y Dios creó al hombre a su propia imagen», no nos anima a tomar el versículo anterior como anunciando que el hombre debía ser creado a imagen de los ángeles. Esta no es una lectura ilegítima de las ideas del Nuevo Testamento en el texto del Antiguo Testamento; solo está leyendo el texto del Antiguo Testamento bajo la iluminación de la revelación del Nuevo Testamento. El Antiguo Testamento puede compararse con una cámara ricamente amueblada pero con poca luz; la introducción de la luz no aporta nada que no hubiera estado antes; pero saca a la luz una visión más clara de lo que hay en él, pero antes solo era débil o incluso no se percibía en absoluto. El misterio de la Trinidad no se revela en el Antiguo Testamento; pero el misterio de la Trinidad subyace a la revelación del Antiguo Testamento, y aquí y allá casi aparece a la vista. Así, la revelación de Dios en el Antiguo Testamento no se corrige con la revelación más completa que la sigue, sino que solo se perfecciona, se extiende y se amplía.

 

Es un viejo dicho que lo que se hace patente en el Nuevo Testamento estaba latente en el Antiguo Testamento. Y es importante que la continuidad de la revelación de Dios contenida en los dos Testamentos no se pase por alto u oculte. Si encontramos alguna dificultad para percibir por nosotros mismos, en el Antiguo Testamento, puntos definidos de apego para la revelación de la Trinidad, no podemos evitar percibir con gran claridad en el Nuevo Testamento abundante evidencia de que sus escritores no sintieron incongruencia alguna entre su doctrina de La Trinidad y la concepción de Dios en el Antiguo Testamento. Los escritores del Nuevo Testamento ciertamente no eran conscientes de ser «iniciadores de dioses extraños». Para su propia comprensión, adoraron y proclamaron solo al Dios de Israel; y pusieron no menos estrés que el Antiguo Testamento sobre Su unidad (Jn. xvii. 3; I Cor. viii. 4; I Tim. ii. 5). Entonces, no colocan a dos nuevos dioses al lado de Jehová para que sean servidos y adorados; conciben a Jehová como Él mismo a la vez Padre, Hijo y Espíritu. Al presentar a este Jehová como Padre, Hijo y Espíritu, ni siquiera traicionan ningún sentimiento al acecho de que están haciendo innovaciones. Sin aparente recelo, se apoderan de los pasajes del Antiguo Testamento y los aplican indistintamente a Padre, Hijo y Espíritu. Obviamente ellos se entienden a sí mismos y desean ser entendidos, como exponiendo en el Padre, Hijo y Espíritu al único Dios que es el Dios de la revelación del Antiguo Testamento; y están lo más lejos posible de reconocer cualquier brecha entre ellos y los Padres al presentar su concepción ampliada del Ser Divino. Esto puede no equivaler a decir que vieron la doctrina de la Trinidad en todas partes enseñada en el Antiguo Testamento. Ciertamente equivale a decir que vieron al Dios Triuno a quien adoraron en la revelación del Dios del Antiguo Testamento, y no sintieron incongruencia al hablar de su Dios Triuno en los términos de la revelación del Antiguo Testamento. El Dios del Antiguo Testamento era su Dios, y su Dios era una Trinidad, y su sentido de la identidad de los dos era tan completo que no se les planteó ninguna duda.

 

Sin embargo, la simplicidad y la seguridad con que los escritores del Nuevo Testamento hablan de Dios como una Trinidad tienen una implicación adicional. Si no traicionan ningún sentido de novedad al hablar de Él, esto es indudablemente en parte porque ya no era una novedad, por así decirlo. Es claro, en otras palabras, que, mientras leemos el Nuevo Testamento, no estamos presenciando el nacimiento de una nueva concepción de Dios. Con lo que nos encontramos en sus páginas es una concepción firmemente establecida de Dios subyacente y dando su tono a todo el tejido. No es en un texto aquí y allá que el Nuevo Testamento da su testimonio de la doctrina de la Trinidad. Todo el libro es trinitario hasta la médula; toda su enseñanza se basa en la asunción de la Trinidad; y sus alusiones a la Trinidad son frecuentes, superficiales, fáciles y seguras. Es con miras a la puntualidad de las alusiones al mismo en el Nuevo Testamento que se ha observado que «la doctrina de la Trinidad no se escucha tanto como se escucha en las declaraciones de las Escrituras». Sería más exacto decir que no se inculca tanto como se presupone. La doctrina de la Trinidad no aparece en el Nuevo Testamento en proceso, sino como ya se hizo. Ocupa su lugar en sus páginas, como lo expresa Gunkel, con un aire casi de queja, ya «completamente completo» (vollig fertig), sin dejar rastro de su crecimiento. «No hay nada más maravilloso en la historia del pensamiento humano», dice Sanday, con la mirada puesta en la aparición de la doctrina de la Trinidad en el Nuevo Testamento, «que la forma silenciosa e imperceptible en que esta doctrina nos resulta tan difícil. , tomó su lugar sin lucha – y sin controversia – entre las verdades cristianas aceptadas «. La explicación de este notable fenómeno es, sin embargo, simple. Nuestro Nuevo Testamento no es un registro del desarrollo de la doctrina o de su asimilación. En todas partes presupone la doctrina como la posesión fija de la comunidad cristiana; y el proceso por el cual se convirtió en posesión de la comunidad cristiana se encuentra detrás del Nuevo Testamento.

 

No podemos hablar de la doctrina de la Trinidad, por lo tanto, si estudiamos la exactitud del habla, como se revela en el Nuevo Testamento, más de lo que podemos hablar de ella como se revela en el Antiguo Testamento. El Antiguo Testamento fue escrito antes de su revelación; El Nuevo Testamento después de él. La revelación misma no se hizo de palabra sino de hecho. Fue hecho en la encarnación de Dios el Hijo, y el derramamiento de Dios el Espíritu Santo. La relación de los dos Testamentos con esta revelación es, en un caso, la de preparación para el mismo, y en el otro, la de su producto. La revelación misma se encarna solo en Cristo y el Espíritu Santo. Esto es tanto como decir que la revelación de la Trinidad fue incidental y el efecto inevitable del logro de la redención. Fue en la venida del Hijo de Dios a semejanza de la carne pecaminosa ofrecerse a sí mismo un sacrificio por el pecado; y en la venida del Espíritu Santo para convencer al mundo del pecado, de la justicia y del juicio, que la Trinidad de las Personas en la Unidad de la Divinidad fue de una vez por todas revelada a los hombres. Aquellos que conocieron a Dios el Padre, quienes los amaron y dieron a su propio Hijo para morir por ellos; y el Señor Jesucristo, que los amó y se entregó una ofrenda y sacrificio por ellos; y el Espíritu de Gracia, que los amaba y habitaba dentro de ellos un poder que no era ellos mismos, haciendo justicia, conocía al Dios Triuno y no podía pensar o hablar de Dios de otra manera que no fuera la triuna. La doctrina de la Trinidad, en otras palabras, es simplemente la modificación forjada en la concepción del único Dios por su completa revelación de sí mismo en el proceso redentor. Esperó necesariamente, por lo tanto, a la finalización del proceso redentor para su revelación, y su revelación, como necesariamente, yacía completa en el proceso redentor.

 

De este hecho central podemos comprender más completamente varias circunstancias relacionadas con la revelación de la Trinidad a la que se ha hecho alusión. Podemos entender, por ejemplo, por qué la Trinidad no fue revelada en el Antiguo Testamento. Puede llevarnos una pequeña forma de comentar, como ha sido costumbre comentar desde la época de Gregorio de Nazianzus, que la tarea de la revelación del Antiguo Testamento era fijar firmemente en las mentes y los corazones del pueblo de Dios el gran verdad fundamental de la unidad de la Trinidad; y hubiera sido peligroso hablarles de la pluralidad dentro de esta unidad hasta que esta tarea se hubiera completado por completo. La verdadera razón del retraso en la revelación de la Trinidad, sin embargo, se basa en el desarrollo secular del propósito redentor de Dios: los tiempos no estaban maduros para la revelación de la Trinidad en la unidad de la Deidad hasta la plenitud de la Trinidad. había llegado el momento de que Dios enviara a su Hijo a la redención, y su Espíritu a la santificación. La revelación en palabras debe esperar a la revelación, de hecho, a la que aporta su explicación necesaria, sin duda, pero de la que también deriva su significado y valor. La revelación de una Trinidad en la unidad Divina como una mera verdad abstracta sin relación con el hecho manifestado, y sin importancia para el desarrollo del reino de Dios, habría sido ajena a todo el método del procedimiento Divino, ya que está expuesta a nosotros. en las páginas de las Escrituras. Aquí, la elaboración del propósito Divino proporciona el principio fundamental al cual todo lo demás, incluso las etapas progresivas de la revelación misma, es subsidiario; y los avances en la revelación están siempre estrechamente relacionados con el logro avanzado del propósito redentor. Sin embargo, también podemos entender, por el mismo hecho central, por qué es que la doctrina de la Trinidad se encuentra en el Nuevo Testamento más bien en forma de alusiones que en la enseñanza expresa, por qué se presupone en todas partes, viniendo solo aquí y allá en expresión incidental, que formalmente inculcado. Es porque la revelación, que se hizo en los casos reales de redención, ya era propiedad común de todos los corazones cristianos. Al hablarse y escribirse unos a otros, los cristianos, por lo tanto, hablaron de su conciencia trinitaria común y se recordaron mutuamente su fondo común de creencias, en lugar de instruirse mutuamente sobre lo que ya era propiedad común de todos. Debemos buscar, y encontraremos, en las alusiones del Nuevo Testamento a la Trinidad, más bien evidencia de cómo la Trinidad, creída por todos, fue concebida por los maestros autorizados de la iglesia, que los intentos formales, por su parte, mediante declaraciones autorizadas, para llevar a la iglesia al entendimiento de que Dios es una Trinidad.

 

La prueba fundamental de que Dios es una Trinidad es suministrada por la revelación fundamental de la Trinidad, de hecho: es decir, en la encarnación de Dios el Hijo y el derramamiento de Dios el Espíritu Santo. En una palabra, Jesucristo y el Espíritu Santo son la prueba fundamental de la doctrina de la Trinidad. Esto es tanto como decir que toda la evidencia de cualquier tipo, y de cualquier fuente derivada, que Jesucristo es Dios manifestado en la carne, y que el Espíritu Santo es una persona divina, es una evidencia de la doctrina de la Trinidad; y que cuando vamos al Nuevo Testamento en busca de evidencia de la Trinidad debemos buscarla; no solo en las alusiones dispersas a la Trinidad como tales, numerosas e instructivas como son, sino principalmente en toda la masa de evidencia que el Nuevo Testamento proporciona de la Deidad de Cristo y la personalidad Divina del Espíritu Santo. Cuando hemos dicho esto, hemos dicho en efecto que toda la masa del Nuevo Testamento es evidencia de la Trinidad. Porque el Nuevo Testamento está saturado de evidencia de la Deidad de Cristo y la personalidad Divina del Espíritu Santo. Precisamente lo que el Nuevo Testamento es, es la documentación de la religión del Hijo encarnado y del Espíritu derramado, es decir, de la religión de la Trinidad, y lo que queremos decir con la doctrina de la Trinidad no es más que la formulación. en lenguaje exacto de la concepción de Dios presupuesta en la religión del Hijo encarnado y del Espíritu derramado. Podemos analizar esta concepción y presentar pruebas para cada elemento constitutivo de la misma a partir de las declaraciones del Nuevo Testamento. Podemos mostrar que el Nuevo Testamento en todas partes insiste en la unidad de la Deidad; that it constantly recognizes the Father as God, the Son as God and the Spirit as God; and that it cursorily presents these three to us as distinct Persons. It is not necessary, however, to enlarge here on facts so obvious. We may content ourselves with simply observing that to the New Testament there is but one only living and true God; but that to it Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are each God in the fullest sense of the term; and yet Father, Son and Spirit stand over against each other as I, and Thou, and He. In this composite fact the New Testament gives us the doctrine of the Trinity. For the doctrine of the Trinity is but the statement in well guarded language of this composite fact. Throughout the whole course of the many efforts to formulate the doctrine exactly, which have followed one another during the entire history of the church, indeed, the principle which has ever determined the result has always been determination to do justice in conceiving the relations of God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit, on the one hand to the unity of God, and, on the other, to the true Deity of the Son and Spirit and their distinct personalities. When we have said these three things, then – that there is but one God, that the Father and the Son and the Spirit is each God, that the Father and the Son and the Spirit is each a distinct person – we have enunciated the doctrine of the Trinity in its completeness.

 

That this doctrine underlies the whole New Testament as its constant presupposition and determines everywhere its forms of expression is the primary fact to be noted. We must not omit explicitly to note, however, that it now and again also, as occasion arises for its incidental enunciation, comes itself to expression in more or less completeness of statement. The passages in which the three Persons of the Trinity are brought together are much more numerous than, perhaps, is generally supposed; but it should be recognized that the for- mal collocation of the elements of the doctrine naturally is relatively rare in writings which are occasional in their origin and practical rather than doctrinal in their immediate purpose. The three Persons already come into view as Divine Persons in the annunciation of the birth of Our Lord: ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,’ said the angel to Mary, ‘and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is to be born shall be called the Son of God; (Lk. i. 35 m; cf. Mt. i. 18 ff.). Here the Holy Ghost is the active agent in the production of an effect which is also ascribed to the power of the Most High, and the child thus brought into the world is given the great designation of «Son of God.» The three Persons are just as clearly brought before us in the account of Mt. (i. 18 ff.), though the allusions to them are dispersed through a longer stretch of narrative, in the course of which the Deity of the child is twice intimated (ver. 21: ‘It is He that shall save His people from their sins’; ver. 23: ‘They shall call His name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God-with-us’). In the baptismal scene which finds record by all the evangelists at the opening of Jesus’ ministry (Mt. iii. 16, 17; Mk. i. 10, 11; Lk. iii. 21, 22; Jn. i. 32-34), the three Persons are thrown up to sight in a dramatic picture in which the Deity of each is strongly emphasized. From the open heavens the Spirit descends in visible form, and ‘a voice came out of the heavens, Thou art my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.’ Thus care seems to have been taken to make the advent of the Son of God into the world the revelation also of the Triune God, that the minds of men might as smoothly as possible adjust themselves to the preconditions of the Divine redemption which was in process of being wrought out.

 

With this as a starting-point, the teaching of Jesus is Trinitarianly conditioned throughout. He has much to say of God His Father, from whom as His Son He is in some true sense distinct, and with whom He is in some equally true sense one. And He has much to say of the Spirit, who represents Him as He represents the Father, and by whom He works as the Father works by Him. It is not merely in the Gospel of John that such representations occur in the teaching of Jesus. In the Synoptics, too, Jesus claims a Sonship to God which is unique (Mt. xi. 27; xxiv. 36; Mk. xiii. 32; Lk. x. 22; in the following passages the title of «Son of God» is attributed to Him and accepted by Him: Mt. iv. 6; viii. 29; xiv. 33; xxvii. 40, 43, 54; Mk. iii. 11; xv. 39; Lk. iv. 41; xxii. 70; cf. Jn. i. 34, 49; ix. 35; xi. 27), and which involves an absolute community between the two in knowledge, say, and power: both Mt. (xi. 27) and Lk. (x. 22) record His great declaration that He knows the Father and the Father knows Him with perfect mutual knowledge: «No one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son.» In the Synoptics, too, Jesus speaks of employing the Spirit of God Himself for the performance of His works, as if the activities of God were at His disposal: «I by the Spirit of God» — or as Luke has it, «by the finger of God» – «cast out demons» (Mt. xii. 28; Lk. xi. 20; cf. the promise of the Spirit in Mk. xiii. 11; Lk. xii. 12).

 

It is in the discourses recorded in John, however, that Jesus most copiously refers to the unity of Himself, as the Son, with the Father, and to the mission of the Spirit from Himself as the dispenser of the Divine activities. Here He not only with great directness declares that He and the Father are one (x. 30; cf. xvii. 11, 21, 22, 25) with a unity of interpenetration («The Father is in me, and I in the Father,» x. 38; cf. xvi. 10, 11), so that to have seen Him was to have seen the Father (xiv. 9; cf. xv. 21); but He removes all doubt as to the essential nature of His oneness with the Father by explicitly asserting His eternity («Before Abraham was born, I am,» Jn. viii. 58), His co-eternity with God («had with thee before the world was,» xvii. 5; cf. xvii. 18; vi. 62), His eternal participation in the Divine glory itself («the glory which I had with thee,» in fellowship, community with Thee «before the world was,» xvii. 5). So clear is it that in speaking currently of Himself as God’s Son (v.25; ix. 35; xi. 4; cf. x. 36), He meant, in accordance with the underlying significance of the idea of sonship in Semitic speech (founded on the natural implication that whatever the father is that the son is also; cf. xvi. 15; xvii. 10), to make Himself, as the Jews with exact appreciation of His meaning perceived, «equal with God» (v.18), or, to put it brusquely, just «God» (x. 33). How He, being thus equal or rather identical with God, was in the world, He explains as involving a coming forth on His part, not merely from the presence of God (xvi. 30; cf. xiii. 3) or from fellowship with God (xvi. 27; xvii. 8), but from out of God Himself (viii. 42; xvi. 28). And in the very act of thus asserting that His eternal home is in the depths of the Divine Being, He throws up, into as strong an emphasis as stressed pronouns can convey, His personal distinctness from the Father. ‘If God were your Father,’ says He (viii. 42), ‘ye would love me: for I came forth and am come out of God; for neither have I come of myself, but it was He that sent me.’ Again, He says (xvi. 26, 27):’ In that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you that I will make request of the Father for you; for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that it was from fellowship with the Father that I came forth; I came from out of the Father, and have come into the world.’ Less pointedly, but still distinctly, He says again (xvii. 8): ‘ They know of a truth that it was from fellowship with Thee that I came forth, and they believed that it was Thou that didst send me.’ It is not necessary to illustrate more at large a form of expression so characteristic of the discourses of Our Lord recorded by John that it meets us on every page: a form of expression which combines a clear implication of a unity of Father and Son which is identity of Being, and an equally clear implication of a distinction of Person between them such as allows not merely for the play of emotions between them, as, for instance, of love (xvii. 24; cf. xv. 9 [iii. 35]; xiv. 31), but also of an action and reaction upon one another which argues a high measure, if not of exteriority, yet certainly of exteriorization. Thus, to instance only one of the most outstanding facts of Our Lord’s discourses (not indeed confined to those in John’s Gospel, but found also in His sayings recorded in the Synoptists, as e.g., Lk. iv. 43 [cf. j Mk. i. 38]; ix. 48; x. 16; iv. 34; v.32; vii. 19; xix. 10), He continually represents Himself as on the one hand sent by God, and as, on the other, having come forth from the Father (e. g., Jn. viii. 42; x. 36; xvii. 3; v.23).

 

It is more important to point out that these phenomena of interrelationship are not confined to the Father and Son, but are extended also to the Spirit. Thus, for example, in a context in which Our Lord had emphasized in the strongest manner His own essential unity and continued interpenetration with the Father («If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also»; «He that hath seen me hath seen the Father»; . ,, «I am in the Father, and the Father in me ; «The Father abiding in me doeth his works,» Jn. xiv. 7, 9, 10), we read as follows (Jn. xiv. 16-26): ‘And I will make request of the Father, and He shall give you another [thus sharply distinguished from Our Lord as a distinct Person] Advocate, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth . . . He abideth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I come unto you. . . In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father. . . . If a man love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him and we [that is, both Father and Son] will come unto him and make our abode with him. . . . These things have I spoken unto you while abiding with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.’ It would be impossible to speak more distinctly of three who were yet one. The Father, Son and Spirit are constantly distinguished from one another — the Son makes request of the Father, and the Father in response to this request gives an Advocate, «another» than the Son, who is sent in the Son’s name. And yet the oneness of these three is so kept in sight that the coming of this «another Advocate» is spoken of without embarrassment as the coming of the Son Himself (vs. 18, 19, 20, 21), and indeed as the coming of the Father and the Son (ver. 23). There is a sense, then, in which, when Christ goes away, the Spirit comes in His stead; there is also a sense in which, when the Spirit comes, Christ comes in Him; and with Christ’s coming the Father comes too. There is a distinction between the Persons brought into view; and with it an identity among them; for both of which allowance must be made. The same phenomena meet us in other passages. Thus, we read again (xv. 26):’ But when there is come the Advocate whom I will send unto you from [fellowship with] the Father, the Spirit of Truth, which goeth forth from [fellowship with] the Father, He shall bear witness of me.’ In the compass of this single verse, it is intimated that the Spirit is personally distinct from the Son, and yet, like Him, has His eternal home (in fellowship) with the Father, from whom He, like the Son, comes forth for His saving work, being sent thereunto, however, not in this instance by the Father, but by the Son.

 

This last feature is even more strongly emphasized in yet another passage in which the work of the Spirit in relation to the Son is presented as closely parallel with the work of the Son in relation to the Father (xvi. 5 ff.) . ‘But now I go unto Him that sent me. . . . Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away the Advocate will not come unto you; but if I go I will send Him unto you. And He, after He is come, will convict the world . . . of righteousness because I go to the Father and ye behold me no more. . . . I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you into all the truth; for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak, and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me: for He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I that He taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you.’ Here the Spirit is sent by the Son, and comes in order to complete and apply the Son’s work, receiving His whole commission from the Son – not, however, in derogation of the Father, because when we speak of the things of the Son, that is to speak of the things of the Father.

 

It is not to be said, of course, that the doctrine of the Trinity is formulated in passages like these, with which the whole mass of Our Lord’s discourses in John are strewn; but it certainly is presupposed in them, and that is, considered from the point of view of their probative force, even better. As we read we are kept in continual contact with three Persons who act, each as a distinct person, and yet who are in a deep, under lying sense, one. There is but one God – there is never any question of that – and yet this Son who has been sent into the world by God not only represents God but is God, and this Spirit whom the Son has in turn sent unto the world is also Himself God. Nothing could be clearer than that the Son and Spirit are distinct Persons, unless indeed it be that the Son of God is just God the Son and the Spirit of God just God the Spirit.

 

Meanwhile, the nearest approach to a formal announcement of the doctrine of the Trinity which is recorded from Our Lord’s lips, or, perhaps we may say, which is to be found in the whole compass of the New Testament, has been preserved for us, not by John, but by one of the synoptists. It too, however, is only incidentally introduced, and has for its main object something very different from formulating the doctrine of the Trinity. It is embodied in the great commission which the resurrected Lord gave His disciples to be their «marching orders» «even unto the end of the world»: «Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit» (Mt. xxviii. 19). In seeking to estimate the significance of this great declaration, we must bear in mind the high solemnity of the utterance, by which we are required to give its full value to every word of it. Its phrasing is in any event, however, remarkable. It does not say, «In the names [plural] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost»; nor yet (what might be taken to be equivalent to that),»In the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost,» as if we had to deal with three separate Beings. Nor, on the other hand, does it say, «In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,» as if «the Father, Son and Holy Ghost» might be taken as merely three designations of a single person. With stately impressiveness it asserts the unity of the three by combining them all within the bounds of the single Name; and then throws up into emphasis the distinctness of each by introducing them in turn with the repeated article: «In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost «(Authorized Version). These three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, each stand in some clear sense over against the others in distinct personality: these three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, all unite in some profound sense in the common participation of the one Name. Fully to comprehend the implication of this mode of statement, we must bear in mind, further, the significance of the term, «the name,» and the associations laden with which it came to the recipients of this commission. For the Hebrew did not think of the name, as we are accustomed to do, as a mere external symbol; but rather as the adequate expression of the innermost being of its bearer. In His name the Being of God finds expression; and the Name of God – «this glorious and fearful name, Jehovah thy God» (Deut. xxviii. 58) – was accordingly a most sacred thing, being indeed virtually equivalent to God Himself. It is no solecism, therefore, when we read (Isa. xxx. 27), «Behold, the name of Jehovah cometh»; and the parallelisms are most instructive when we read (Isa. lix. 19):’ So shall they fear the Name of Jehovah from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun; for He shall come as a stream pent in which the Spirit of Jehovah driveth.’ So pregnant was the implication of the Name, that it was possible for the term to stand absolutely, without adjunction of the name itself, as the sufficient representative of the majesty of Jehovah: it was a terrible thing to ‘blaspheme the Name’ (Lev. xxiv. 11). All those over whom Jehovah’s Name was called were His, His possession to whom He owed protection. It is for His Name’s sake, therefore, that afflicted Judah cries to the Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble: ‘0 Jehovah, Thou art in the midst of us, and Thy Name is called upon us; leave us not’ (Jer. xiv. 9); and His people find the appropriate expression of their deepest shame in the lament, ‘We have become as they over whom Thou never barest rule; as they upon whom Thy Name was not called’ (Isa. lxiii. 19); while the height of joy is attained in the cry, ‘Thy Name, Jehovah, G6d of Hosts, is called upon me’ (Jer. xv. 16; cf. II Chron. vii. 14; Dan. ix. 18, 19). When, therefore, Our Lord commanded His disciples to baptize those whom they brought to His obedience «into the name of . . . ,» He was using language charged to them with high meaning. He could not have been understood otherwise than as substituting for the Name of Jehovah this other Name «of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost»; and this could not possibly have meant to His disciples anything else than that Jehovah was now to be known to them by the new Name, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The only alternative would have been that, for the community which He was founding, Jesus was supplanting Jehovah by a new God; and this alternative is no less than monstrous. There is no alternative, therefore, to understanding Jesus here to be giving for His community a new Name to Jehovah and that new Name to be the threefold Name of «the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.» Nor is there room for doubt that by «the Son «in this threefold Name, He meant just Himself with all the implications of distinct personality which this carries with it; and, of course, that further carries with it the equally distinct personality of «the Father» and «the Holy Ghost,» with whom «the Son» is here associated, and from whom alike «the Son» is here distinguished. This is a direct ascription to Jehovah the God of Israel, of a threefold personality, and is therewith the direct enunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity. We are not witnessing here the birth of the doctrine of the Trinity; that is presupposed. What we are witnessing is the authoritative announcement of the Trinity as the God of Christianity by its Founder, in one of the most solemn of His recorded declarations. Israel had worshipped the one only true God under the Name of Jehovah; Christians are to worship the same one only and true God under the Name of «the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.» This is the distinguishing characteristic of Christians; and that is as much as to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is, according to Our Lord’s own apprehension of it, the distinctive mark of the religion which He founded.

 

A passage of such range of implication has, of course, not escaped criticism and challenge. An attempt which cannot be characterized as other than frivolous has even been made to dismiss it from the text of Matthew’s Gospel. Against this, the whole body of external evidence cries out; and the internal evidence is of itself not less decisive to the same effect. When the «universalism,» «ecclesiasticism,» and «high theology» of the passage are pleaded against its genuineness, it is forgotten that to the Jesus of Matthew there are attributed not only such parables as those of the Leaven and the Mustard Seed, but such declarations as those contained in viii. 11,12; xxi. 43; xxiv. 14; that in this Gospel alone is Jesus recorded as speaking familiarly about His church (xvi. 18; xviii. 17); and that, after the great declaration of xi. 27 ff., nothing remained in lofty attribution to be assigned to Him. When these same objections are urged against recognizing the passage as an authentic saying of Jesus’ own, it is quite obvious that the Jesus of the evangelists cannot be in mind. The declaration here recorded is quite in character with the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel, as has just been intimated; and no less with the Jesus of the whole New Testament transmission. It will scarcely do, first to construct a priori a Jesus to our own liking, and then to discard as «unhistorical» all in the New Testament transmission which would be unnatural to such a Jesus. It is not these discarded passages but our a priori Jesus which is unhistorical. In the present instance, moreover, the historicity of the assailed saying is protected by an important historical relation in which it stands. It is not merely Jesus who speaks out of a Trinitarian consciousness, but all the New Testament writers as well. The universal possession by His followers of so firm a hold on such a doctrine requires the assumption that some such teaching as is here attributed to Him was actually contained in Jesus’ instructions to His followers. Even had it not been attributed to Him in so many words by the record, we should have had to assume that some such declaration had been, made by Him. In these circumstances, there can be no good reason to doubt that it was made by Him, when it is expressly attributed to Him by the record.

 

When we turn from the discourses of Jesus to the writings of His followers with a view to observing how the assumption of the doctrine of the Trinity underlies their whole fabric also, we naturally go first of all to the letters of Paul. Their very mass is impressive; and the definiteness with which their composition within a generation of the death of Jesus may be fixed adds importance to them as historical witnesses. Certainly they leave nothing to be desired in the richness of their testimony to the Trinitarian conception of God which underlies them. Throughout the whole series, from I Thess., which comes from about 52 A.D., to II Tim., which was written about 68 A.D., the redemption, which it is their one business to proclaim and commend, and all the blessings which enter into it or accompany it are referred consistently to a threefold Divine causation. Everywhere, throughout their pages, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit appear as the joint objects of all religious adoration, and the conjunct source of all Divine operations. In the freedom of the allusions which are made to them, now and again one alone of the three is thrown up into prominent view; but more often two of them are conjoined in thanksgiving or prayer; and not infrequently all three are brought together as the apostle strives to give some adequate expression to his sense of indebtedness to the Divine source of all good for blessings received, or to his longing on behalf of himself or of his readers for further communion with the God of grace. It is regular for him to begin his Epistles with a prayer for «grace and peace» for his readers, «from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ,» as the joint source of these Divine blessings by way of eminence (Rom. i. 7; I Cor. i. 3; II Cor. i. 2; Gal. i. 3; Eph. i. 2; Phil. i. 2;II Thess. i. 2;I Tim. i. 2;II Tim. i. 2; Philem. ver. 3; cf. I Thess. i. 1). It is obviously no departure from this habit in the essence of the matter, but only in relative fullness of expression, when in the opening words of the Epistle to the Colossians the clause «and the Lord Jesus Christ» is omitted, and we read merely: «Grace to you and peace from God our Father.» So also it would have been no departure from it in the essence of the matter, but only in relative fullness of expression, if in any instance the name of the Holy Spirit had chanced to be adjoined to the other two, as in the single instance of II Cor. xiii. 14 it is adjoined to them in the closing prayer for grace with which Paul ends his letters, and which ordinarily takes the simple form of, «the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you» (Rom. xvi. 20; I Cor. xvi. 23; Gal. vi. 18; Phil. iv, 23; I Thess. v.28; II Thess. iii. 18; Philem. ver. 25; more expanded form, Eph. vi. 23, 24; more compressed, Col. iv. 18; I Tim. vi. 21; II Tim. iv. 22; Tit. iii. 15). Between these opening and closing passages the allusions to God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are constant and most intricately interlaced. Paul’s monotheism is intense: the first premise of all his thought on Divine things is the unity of God (Rom. iii. 30; I Cor. viii. 4; Gal iii. 20; Eph. iv. 6;I Tim. ii. 5; cf. Rom. xvi. 22; I Tim. i. 17). Yet to him God the Father is no more God than the Lord Jesus Christ is God, or the Holy Spirit is God. The Spirit of God is to him related to God as the spirit of man is to man (I Cor. ii. 11), and therefore if the Spirit of God dwells in us, that is God dwelling in us (Rom. viii. 10 ff.), and we are by that fact constituted temples of God (I Cor. iii. 16). And no expression is too strong for him to use in order to assert the Godhead of Christ: He is «our great God» (Tit. ii. 13); He is «God over all» (Rom. ix. 5); and indeed it is expressly declared of Him that the «fullness of the Godhead,» that is, everything that enters into Godhead and constitutes it Godhead, dwells in Him. In the very act of asserting his monotheism Paul takes Our Lord up into this unique Godhead. «There is no God but one,» he roundly asserts, and then illustrates and proves this assertion by remarking that the heathen may have «gods many, and lords many,» but «to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him» (I Cor. viii. 6). Obviously, this «one God, the Father,» and «one Lord, Jesus Christ,» are embraced together in the one God who alone is. Paul’s conception of the one God, whom alone he worships, includes, in other words, a recognition that within the unity of His Being, there exists such a distinction of Persons as is given us in the «one God, the Father» and the «one Lord, Jesus Christ.»

 

In numerous passages scattered through Paul’s Epistles, from the earliest of them (I Thess. i. 2-5; II Thess. ii. 13, 14) to the latest (Tit. iii. 4-6; II Tim. i. 3, 13,14), all three Persons, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, are brought together, in the most incidental manner, as co-sources of all the saving blessings which come to believers in Christ. A typical series of such passages may be found in Eph. ii. 18; iii. 2-5,14, 17; iv. 4-6; v.18-20. But the most interesting instances are offered to us perhaps by the Epistles to the Corinthians. In I Cor. xii. 4-6 Paul presents the abounding spiritual gifts with which the church was blessed in a threefold aspect, and connects these aspects with the three Divine Persons. «Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministrations, and the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in all.» It may be thought that there is a measure of what might almost be called artificiality in assigning the endowments of the church, as they are graces to the Spirit, as they are services to Christ, and as they are energizings to God. But thus there is only the more strikingly revealed the underlying Trinitarian conception as dominating the structure of the clauses: Paul clearly so writes, not because «gifts,» «workings,» «operations» stand out in his thought as greatly diverse things, but because God, the Lord, and the Spirit lie in the back of his mind constantly suggesting a threefold causality behind every manifestation of grace. The Trinity is alluded to rather than asserted; but it is so alluded to as to show that it constitutes the determining basis of all Paul’s thought of the God of redemption. Even more instructive is II Cor. xiii. 14, which has passed into general liturgical use in the churches as a benediction: «The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.» Here the three highest redemptive blessings are brought together, and attached distributively to the three Persons of the Triune God. There is again no formal teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity; there is only another instance of natural speaking out of a Trinitarian consciousness. Paul is simply thinking of the Divine source of these great blessings; but he habitually thinks of this Divine source of redemptive blessings after a trinal fashion. He therefore does not say, as he might just as well have said, «The grace and love and communion of God be with you all,» but «The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.» Thus he bears, almost unconsciously but most richly, witness to the trinal composition of the Godhead as conceived by Him.

 

The phenomena of Paul’s Epistles are repeated in the other writings of the New Testament. In these other writings also it is everywhere assumed that the redemptive activities of God rest on a threefold source in God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; and these three Persons repeatedly come forward together in the expressions of Christian hope or the aspirations of Christian devotion (e. g., Heb. ii. 3, 4; vi. 4-6; x. 29-31; 1 Pet. i. 2;ii. 3-12; iv. 13-19; I Jn. v.4-8; Jude vs. 20, 21; Rev. i. 4-6). Perhaps as typical instances as any are supplied by the two following: «According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ» (I Pet. i. 2); «Praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life» (Jude vs. 20, 21). To these may be added the highly symbolical instance from the Apocalypse: ‘Grace to you and peace from Him which is and was and which is to come; and from the Seven Spirits which are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth’ (Rev. i. 4, 5). Clearly these writers, too, write out of a fixed Trinitarian consciousness and bear their testimony to the universal understanding current in apostolical circles. Everywhere and by all it was fully understood that the one God whom Christians worshipped and from whom alone they expected redemption and all that redemption brought with it, included within His undiminished unity the three: God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, whose activities relatively to one another are conceived as distinctly personal. This is the uniform and pervasive testimony of the New Testament, and it is the more impressive that it is given with such unstudied naturalness and simplicity, with no effort to distinguish between what have come to be called the ontological and the economical aspects of the Trinitarian distinctions, and indeed without apparent consciousness of the existence of such a distinction of aspects. Whether God is thought of in Himself or in His operations, the underlying conception runs unaffectedly into trinal forms.

 

It will not have escaped observation that the Trinitarian terminology of Paul and the other writers of the New Testament is not precisely identical with that of Our Lord as recorded for us in His discourses. Paul, for example – and the same is true of the other New Testament writers (except John) – does not speak, as Our Lord is recorded as speaking, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so much as of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. This difference of terminology finds its account in large measure in the different relations in which the speakers stand to the Trinity. Our Lord could not naturally speak of Himself, as one of the Trinitarian Persons, by the designation of «the Lord,» while the designation of «the Son,» expressing as it does His consciousness of close relation, and indeed of exact similarity, to God, came naturally to His lips. But He was Paul’s Lord; and Paul naturally thought and spoke of Him as such. In point of fact, «Lord» is one of Paul’s favorite designations of Christ, and indeed has become with him practically a proper name for Christ, and in point of fact, his Divine Name for Christ. It is naturally, therefore, his Trinitarian name for Christ. Because when he thinks of Christ as Divine he calls Him «Lord,» he naturally, when he thinks of the three Persons together as the Triune God, sets Him as «Lord» by the side of God – Paul’s constant name for «the Father» – and the Holy Spirit. Question may no doubt be raised whether it would have been possible for Paul to have done this, especially with the constancy with which he has done it, if, in his conception of it, the very essence of the Trinity were enshrined in the terms «Father» and «Son.» Paul is thinking of the Trinity, to be sure, from the point of view of a worshipper, rather than from that of a systematizer. He designates the Persons of the Trinity therefore rather from his relations to them than from their relations to one another. He sees in the Trinity his God, his Lord, and the Holy Spirit who dwells in him; and naturally he so speaks currently of the three Persons. It remains remarkable, nevertheless, if the very essence of the Trinity were thought of by him as resident in the terms «Father,» «Son,» that in his numerous allusions to the Trinity in the Godhead, he never betrays any sense of this. It is noticeable also that in their allusions to the Trinity, there is preserved, neither in Paul nor in the other writers of the New Testament, the order of the names as they stand in Our Lord’s great declaration (Mt. xxviii. 19). The reverse order occurs, indeed, occasionally, as, for example, in I Cor. xii. 4-6 (cf. Eph. iv. 4-6); and this may be understood as a climactic arrangement and so far a testimony to the order of Mt. xxviii. 19. But the order is very variable; and in the most formal enumeration of the three Persons, that of II Cor. xiii. 14, it stands thus: Lord, God, Spirit. The question naturally suggests itself whether the order Father, Son, Spirit was especially significant to Paul and his fellow-writers of the New Testament. If in their conviction the very essence of the doctrine of the Trinity was embodied in this order, should we not anticipate that there should appear in their numerous allusions to the Trinity some suggestion of this conviction?

 

Such facts as these have a bearing upon the testimony of the New Testament to the interrelations of the Persons of the Trinity. To the fact of the Trinity – to the fact, that is, that in the unity of the Godhead there subsist three Persons, each of whom has his particular part in the working out of salvation – the New Testament testimony is clear, consistent, pervasive and conclusive. There is included in this testimony constant and decisive witness to the complete and undiminished Deity of each of these Persons; no language is too exalted to apply to each of them in turn in the effort to give expression to the writer’s sense of His Deity: the name that is given to each is fully understood to be «the name that is above every name.» When we attempt to press the inquiry behind the broad fact, however, with a view to ascertaining exactly how the New Testament writers conceive the three Persons to be related, the one to the other, we meet with great difficulties. Nothing could seem more natural, for example, than to assume that the mutual relations of the Persons of the Trinity are revealed in the designations, «the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,» which are given them by Our Lord in the solemn formula of Mt. xxviii. 19. Our confidence in this assumption is somewhat shaken, however, when we observe, as we have just observed, that these designations are not carefully preserved in their allusions to the Trinity by the writers of the New Testament at large, but are characteristic only of Our Lord’s allusions and those of John, whose modes of speech in general very closely resemble those of Our Lord. Our confidence is still further shaken when we observe that the implications with respect to the mutual relations of the Trinitarian Persons, which are ordinarily derived from these designations, do not so certainly lie in them as is commonly supposed.

 

It may be very natural to see in the designation «Son» an intimation of subordination and derivation of Being, and it may not be difficult to ascribe a similar connotation to the term «Spirit.» But it is quite certain that this was not the denotation of either term in the Semitic consciousness, which underlies the phraseology of Scripture; and it may even be thought doubtful whether it was included even in their remoter suggestions. What underlies the conception of sonship in Scriptural speech is just «likeness»; whatever the father is that the son is also. The emphatic application of the term «Son» to one of the Trinitarian Persons, accordingly, asserts rather His equality with the Father than His subordination to the Father; and if there is any implication of derivation in it, it would appear to be very distant. The adjunction of the adjective «only begotten» (Jn. i. 14; iii. 16-18; I Jn. iv. 9) need add only the idea of uniqueness, not of derivation (Ps. xxii. 20; xxv. 16; xxxv. 17; Wisd. vii. 22 m.); and even such a phrase as «God only begotten» (Jn. i. 18 m.) may contain no implication of derivation, but only of absolutely unique consubstantiality; as also such a phrase as «the first-begotten of all creation» (Col. i. 15) may convey no intimation of coming into being, but merely assert priority of existence. In like manner, the designation «Spirit of God» or «Spirit of Jehovah,» which meets us frequently in the Old Testament, certainly does not convey the idea there either of derivation or of subordination, but is just the executive name of God — the designation of God from the point of view of His activity – and imports accordingly identity with God; and there is no reason to suppose that, in passing from the Old Testament to the New Testament, the term has taken on an essentially different meaning. It happens, oddly enough, moreover, that we have in the New Testament itself what amounts almost to formal definitions of the two terms «Son» and «Spirit,» and in both cases the stress is laid on the notion of equality or sameness. In Jn. v.18 we read: ‘On this account, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because, not only did he break the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God.’ The point lies, of course, in the adjective «own.» Jesus was, rightly, understood to call God «his own Father,» that is, to use the terms «Father» and «Son» not in a merely figurative sense, as when Israel was called God’s son, but in the real sense. And this was understood to be claiming to be all that God is. To be the Son of God in any sense was to be like God in that sense; to be God’s own Son was to be exactly like God, to be «equal with God.» Similarly, we read in I Cor. ii. 10,11:’ For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For who of men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God.’ Here the Spirit appears as the substrate of the Divine self-consciousness, the principle of God’s knowledge of Himself: He is, in a word, just God Himself in the innermost essence of His Being. As the spirit of man is the seat of human life, the very life of man itself, so the Spirit of God is His very life-element. How can He be supposed, then, to be subordinate to God, or to derive His Being from God? If, however, the subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father in modes of subsistence and their derivation from the Father are not implicates of tbeir designation as Son and Spirit, it will be hard to find in the New Testament compelling evidence of their subordination and derivation.

 

There is, of course, no question that in «modes of operation,» as it is technically called – that is to say, in the functions ascribed to the several Persons of the Trinity in the redemptive process, and, more broadly, in the entire dealing of God with the world – the principle of subordination is clearly expressed. The Father is first, the Son is second, and the Spirit is third, in the operations of God as revealed to us in general, and very especially in those operations by which redemption is accomplished. Whatever the Father does, He does through the Son (Rom. ii. 16; iii. 22;v. 1,11, 17, 21; Eph. i.5; I Thess. v.9; Tit. iii. v) by the Spirit. The Son is sent by the Father and does His Father’s will (Jn. vi. 38); the Spirit is sent by the Son and does not speak from Himself, but only takes of Christ’s and shows it unto His people (Jn. xvii. 7 ff.); and we have Our Lord’s own word for it that ‘one that is sent is not greater than he that sent him’ (Jn. xiii. 16). In crisp decisiveness, Our Lord even declares, indeed: ‘My Father is greater than I’ (Jn. xiv. 28); and Paul tells us that Christ is God’s, even as we are Christ’s (I Cor. iii. 23), and that as Christ is «the head of every man,» so God is «the head of Christ» (I Cor. xi. 3). But it is not so clear that the principle of subordination rules also in «modes of subsistence,» as it is technically phrased; that is to say, in the necessary relation of the Persons of the Trinity to one another. The very richness and variety of the expression of their subordination, the one to the other, in modes of operation, create a difficulty in attaining certainty whether they are represented as also subordinate the one to the other in modes of subsistence. Question is raised in each ease of apparent intimation of subordination in modes of subsistence, whether it may not, after all, be explicable as only another expression of subordination in modes of operation. It may be natural to assume that a subordination in modes of operation rests on a subordination in modes of subsistence; that the reason why it is the Father that sends the Son and the Son that sends the Spirit is that the Son is subordinate to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son. But we are bound to bear in mind that these relations of subordination in modes of operation may just as well be due to a convention, an agreement, between the Persons of the Trinity – a «Covenant» as it is technically called – by virtue of which a distinct function in the work of redemption is voluntarily assumed by each. It is eminently desirable, therefore, at the least, that some definite evidence of subordination in modes of subsistence should be discoverable before it is assumed. In the case of the relation of the Son to the Father, there is the added difficulty of the incarnation, in which the Son, by the assumption of a creaturely nature into union with Himself, enters into new relations with the Father of a definitely subordinate character. Question has even been raised whether the very designations of Father and Son may not be expressive of these new relations, and therefore without significance with respect to the eternal relations of the Persons so designated. This question must certainly be answered in the negative. Although, no doubt, in many of the instances in which the terms «Father» and «Son» occur, it would be possible to take them of merely economical relations, there ever remain some which are intractable to this treatment, and we may be sure that «Father» and «Son» are applied to their eternal and necessary relations. But these terms, as we have seen, do not appear to imply relations of first and second, superiority and subordination, in modes of subsistence; and the fact of the humiliation of the Son of God for His earthly work does introduce a factor into the interpretation of the passages which import His subordination to the Father, which throws doubt upon the inference from them of an eternal relation of subordination in the Trinity itself. It must at least be said that in the presence of the great New Testament doctrines of the Covenant of Redemption on the one hand, and of the Humiliation of the Son of God for His work’s sake and of the Two Natures in the constitution of His Person as incarnated, on the other, the difficulty of interpreting subordinationist passages of eternal relations between the Father and Son becomes extreme. The question continually obtrudes itself, whether they do not rather find their full explanation in the facts embodied in the doctrines of the Covenant, the Humiliation of Christ, and the Two Natures of His incarnated Person. Certainly in such circumstances it were thoroughly illegitimate to press such passages to suggest any subordination for the Son or the Spirit which would in any manner impair that complete identity with the Father in Being and that complete equality with the Father in powers which are constantly presupposed, and frequently emphatically, though only incidentally, asserted for them throughout the whole fabric of the New Testament.

 

The Trinity of the Persons of the Godhead, shown in the incarnation and the redemptive work of God the Son, and the descent and saving work of God the Spirit, is thus everywhere assumed in the New Testament, and comes to repeated fragmentary but none the less emphatic and illuminating expression in its pages. As the roots of its revelation are set in the threefold Divine causality of the saving process, it naturally finds an echo also in the consciousness of everyone who has experienced this salvation. Every redeemed soul, knowing himself reconciled with God through His Son, and quickened into newness of life by His Spirit, turns alike to Father, Son and Spirit with the exclamation of reverent gratitude upon his lips, «My Lord and my God!» If he could not construct the doctrine of the Trinity out of his consciousness of salvation, yet the elements of his consciousness of salvation are interpreted to him and reduced to order only by the doctrine of the Trinity which he finds underlying and giving their significance and consistency to the teaching of the Scriptures as to the processes of salvation. By means of this doctrine he is able to think clearly and consequently of his threefold relation to the saving God, experienced by Him as Fatherly love sending a Redeemer, as redeeming love executing redemption, as saving love applying redemption: all manifestations in distinct methods and by distinct agencies of the one seeking and saving love of God. Without the doctrine of the Trinity, his conscious Christian life would be thrown into confusion and left in disorganization if not, indeed, given an air of unreality; with the doctrine of the Trinity, order, significance and reality are brought to every element of it. Accordingly, the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of redemption, historically, stand or fall together. A Unitarian theology is commonly associated with a Pelagian anthropology and a Socinian soteriology. It is a striking testimony which is borne by F. E. Koenig («Offenbarungsbegriff des AT,» 1882, 1,125):: J have learned that many cast off the whole history of redemption for no other reason than because they have not attained to a conception of the Triune God.» It is in this intimacy of relation between the doctrines of the Trinity and redemption that the ultimate reason lies why the Christian church could not rest until it had attained a definite and well-compacted doctrine of the Trinity. Nothing else could be accepted as an adequate foundation for the experience of the Christian salvation. Neither the Sabellian nor the Arian construction could meet and satisfy the data of the consciousness of salvation, any more than either could meet and satisfy the data of the Scriptural revelation. The data of the Scriptural revelation might, to be sure, have been left unsatisfied: men might have found a modus vivendi with neglected, or even with perverted Scriptural teaching. But perverted or ne glected elements of Christian experience are more clamant in their demands for attention and correction. The dissatisfied Christian consciousness necessarily searched the Scriptures, on the emergence of every new attempt to state the doctrine of the nature and relations of God, to see whether these things were true, and never reached contentment until the Scriptural data were given their consistent formulation in a valid doctrine of the Trinity. Here too the heart of man was restless until it found its rest in the Triune God, the author, procurer and applier of salvation.

 

The determining impulse to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the church was the church’s profound conviction of the absolute Deity of Christ, on which as on a pivot the whole Christian conception of God from the first origins of Christianity turned. The guiding principle in the formulation of the doctrine was supplied by the Baptismal Formula announced by Jesus (Mt. xxviii. 19), from which was derived the ground-plan of the baptismal confessions and «rules of faith» which very soon began to be framed all over the church. It was by these two fundamental principia — the true Deity of Christ and the Baptismal Formula — that all attempts to formulate the Christian doctrine of God were tested, and by their molding power that the church at length found itself in possession of a form of statement which did full justice to the data of the redemptive revelation as reflected in the New Testament and the demands of the Christian heart under the experience of salvation.

 

In the nature of the case the formulated doctrine was of slow attainment. The influence of inherited conceptions and of current philosophies inevitably showed itself in the efforts to construe to the intellect the immanent faith of Christians. In the second century the dominant neo-Stoic and neo-Platonic ideas deflected Christian thought into subordinationist channels, and produced what is known as the Logos-Christology, which looks upon the Son as a prolation of Deity reduced to such dimensions as comported with relations with a world of time and space; meanwhile, to a great extent, the Spirit was neglected altogether. A reaction which, under the name of Monarchianism, identified the Father, Son, and Spirit so completely that they were thought of only as different aspects or different moments in the life of the one Divine Person, called now Father, now Son, now Spirit, as His several activities came successively into view, almost succeeded in establishing itself in the third century as the doctrine of the church at large. In the conflict between these two opposite tendencies the church gradually found its way, under the guidance of the Baptismal Formula elaborated into a «Rule of Faith,» to a better and more well-balanced conception, until a real doctrine of the Trinity at length came to expression, particularly in the West, through the brilliant dialectic of Tertullian. It was thus ready at hand, when, in the early years of the fourth century, the Logos-Christology, in opposition to dominant Sabellian tendencies, ran to seed in what is known as Arianism, to which the Son was a creature, though exalted above all other creatures as their Creator and Lord; and the church was thus prepared to assert its settled faith in a Triune God, one in being, but in whose unity there subsisted three consubstantial Persons. Under the leadership of Athanasius this doctrine was proclaimed as the faith of the church at the Council of Nice in 325 A.D., and by his strenuous labors and those of «the three great Cappadocians,» the two Gregories and Basil, it gradually won its way to the actual acceptance of the entire church. It was at the hands of Augustine, however, a century later, that the doctrine thus become the church doctrine in fact as well as in theory, received its most complete elaboration and most carefully grounded statement. In the form which he gave it, and which is embodied in that «battle-hymn of the early church,» the so-called Athanasian Creed, it has retained its place as the fit expression of the faith of the church as to the nature of its God until today. The language in which it is couched, even in this final declaration, still retains elements of speech which owe their origin to the modes of thought characteristic of the Logos Christology of the second century, fixed in the nomenclature of the church by the Nicene Creed of 325 A.D., though carefully guarded there against the subordinationism inherent in the Logos-Christology, and made the vehicle rather of the Nicene doctrines of the eternal generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit, with the consequent subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father in modes of subsistence as well as of operation. In the Athanasian Creed, however, the principle of the equalization of the three Persons, which was already the dominant motive of the Nicene Creed – the homoousia – is so strongly emphasized as practically to push out of sight, if not quite out of existence, these remanent suggestions of derivation and subordination. It has been found necessary, nevertheless, from time to time, vigorously to reassert the principle of equalization, over against a tendency unduly to emphasize the elements of subordinationism which still hold a place thus in the traditional language in which the church states its doctrine of the Trinity. In particular, it fell to Calvin, in the interests of the true Deity of Christ – the constant motive of the whole body of Trinitarian thought – to reassert and make good the attribute of self-existence (autotheotos) for the Son. Thus Calvin takes his place, alongside of Tertullian, Athanasius and Augustine, as one of the chief contributors to the exact and vital statement of the Christian doctrine of the Triune God.

 

Article «Trinity» from The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia , James Orr, General editor, v. v, pp. 3012-3022. Pub. Chicago, The Howard-Severance Co. 1915 .