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The Holy Trinity
Introduction
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not merely an "article of
faith" which men are called to "believe." It is not simply a dogma
which the Church requires its good members to "accept on faith."
Neither is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity the invention of scholars
and academicians, the result of intellectual speculation and
philosophical thinking.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity arises from man's deepest
experiences with God. It comes from the genuine living knowledge of
those who have come to know God in faith.
The paragraphs which follow are intended to show something of
what God has revealed of Himself to the saints of the Church. To grasp
the words and concepts of the doctrine of the Trinity is one thing; to
know the Living Reality of God behind these words and concepts is
something else. We must work and pray so that we might pass beyond
every word and concept about God and to come to know Him for ourselves
in our own living union with Him: "The Father through the Son in the
Holy Spirit" (Eph 2: 18-22). | [Back to top]
The Holy Trinity revealed
In the Old Testament we find Yahweh, the one Lord and God, acting toward the world through His Word and His Spirit. In the New Testament the "Word becomes flesh" (Jn 1:14). As Jesus of Nazareth, the only-begotten Son of God becomes man. And the Holy Spirit, who is in Jesus making him the Christ, is poured forth from God upon all flesh (Acts 2:17).
One cannot read the Bible nor the history of the Church without being struck by the numerous references to God the Father, the Son (Word) of God and the Holy Spirit. The New Testament record, and the life of the Orthodox Church is absolutely incomprehensible and meaningless without constant affirmation of the existence, interrelation and interaction of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit towards each other and towards man and the world. [Back to top]
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Wrong Doctrines of the Trinity
The main question for the Church to answer about God is
that of the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. According to Orthodox Tradition, there are a number of wrong
doctrines which must be rejected.
One wrong doctrine is that the Father alone is God and that
the Son and the Holy Spirit are creatures, made "from nothing" like
angels, men and the world. The Church answers that the Son and the Holy
Spirit are not creatures, but are uncreated and divine with the Father,
and they act with the Father in the divine act of creation of all that
exists.
Another wrong doctrine is that God in Himself is One God who
merely appears in different forms to the world: Now as the Father, then
as the Son, and still again as the Holy Spirit. The Church answers once
more that the Son and Word is "in the beginning with God"(John 1:12)
as is the Holy Spirit, and that the Three are eternally distinct. The
Son is "of God" and the Spirit is "of God." The Son and the Spirit are
not merely aspects of God, without, so to speak, a life and existence
of their own. How strange it would be to imagine, for example, that
when the Son becomes man and prays to his Father and acts in obedience
to Him, it is all an illusion with no reality in fact, a sort of divine
presentation played before the world with no reason or truth for it at
all!
A third wrong doctrine is that God is one, and that the Son
and the Spirit are merely names for relations which God has with
Himself. Thus, the Thought and Speech of God is called the Son, while
the Life and Action of God is called the Spirit; but in fact -- in
genuine actuality -- there are no such "realities in themselves" as the
Son of God and the Spirit of God. Both are just metaphors for mere
aspects of God. Again, however, in such a doctrine the Son and the
Spirit have no existence and no life of their own. They are not real,
but are mere illusions.
Still another wrong doctrine is that the Father is one God,
the Son is another God, and the Holy Spirit still another God. There
cannot be "three gods," says the Church, and certainly not "gods" who
are created or made. Still less can there be "three gods" of whom the
Father is "higher" and the others "lower." For there to be more than
one God, or "degrees of divinity" are both contradictions which cannot
be defended, either by divine revelation or by logical thinking.
Thus, the Church teaches that while there is only One God,
yet there are Three who are God -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit -- perfectly united and never divided yet not merged into one
with no proper distinction. How then does the Church defend its
doctrine that God is both One and yet Three? [Back to top]
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One God
One God, One Father
First of all, it is the Church's teaching and its deepest experience that there is only one God because there is only one Father.
In the Bible the term "God" with very few exceptions is used primarily as a name for the Father. Thus, the Son is the "Son of God," and the Spirit is the "Spirit of God." The Son is born from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father -- both in the same timeless and eternal action of the Father's own being.
In this view, the Son and the Spirit are both one with God and in no way separated from Him. Thus, the Divine Unity consists of the Father, with His Son and His Spirit distinct from Himself and yet perfectly united together in Him.
One Divine Nature and Being
What the Father is, the Son and the Spirit are also. This is the Church's teaching. The Son, born of the Father, and the Spirit, proceeding from Him, share the divine nature with God, being "of one essence" with Him.
Thus, as the Father is "ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally the same" (Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom), so the Son and the Spirit are exactly the same. Every attribute of divinity which belongs to God the Father -- life, love, wisdom, truth, blessedness, holiness, power, purity, joy -- belongs equally as well to the Son and the Holy Spirit. The being, nature, essence, existence and life of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are absolutely and identically one and the same.
One Divine Action and Will
Since the being of the Holy Trinity is one, whatever the Father wills, the Son and the Holy Spirit will also. What the Father does, the Son and the Holy Spirit do also. There is no will and no action of God the Father which is not at the same time the will and action of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
In Himself, in eternity, as well as towards the world in creation, revelation, incarnation, redemption, sanctification, and glorification -- the will and action of the Trinity are one: from the divine Father, through the divine Son, in the divine Holy Spirit. Every action of God is the action of the Three. No one person of the Trinity acts independently of or in isolation from the others. The action of each is the action of all; the action of all is the action of each. And the divine action is essentially one.
One Divine Knowledge and Love
Since each person of the Trinity is one with the others, each knows the same Truth and exercises the same Love. The knowledge of each is the knowledge of all, and the Love of each is the Love of all.
If taken in distinction, each person of the Trinity knows and loves the others with such absolute perfection, knowledge, and love that there is nothing unknown and nothing unloved of each in the others, and all in all. Thus, if the creaturely knowledge of men can unite minds in full unanimity, and if the creaturely love of men can bring the divided together into one heart and one soul and even one flesh, how incomparably more perfect and absolutely uniting must be the oneness when the Knowers and Lovers are eternal and divine.
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The Three Divine Persons
In Orthodox terminology the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are called three divine persons. Person is defined here simply as the subject of existence and life -- hypostasis in the traditional church language.
As the being, essence or nature of a reality answers the question "what?", the person
of a reality answers the question "which one?" or "who?" Thus, when we
ask "What is God?" we answer that God is the divine, perfect, eternal,
absolute ... and when we ask "Who is God?" we answer that God is the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The saints of the Church have explained this tri-unity of God
by using such an example from worldly existence. We see three men.
"What are they?" we ask. "They are human beings," we answer. Each is
man, possessing the same humanity and the same human nature defined in
a certain way: created, temporal, physical, rational, etc. In what they are, the three men are one. But in who
they are, they are three, each absolutely unique and distinct from the
others. Each man in his own unique way is distinctly a man. One man is
not the other, though each man is still human with one and the same
human nature and form.
Turning to God, we may ask in the same way: "What
is it?" In reply we say that it is God defined as absolute perfection:
"ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing,
and eternally the same." We then ask, "Who is
it?", and we answer that it is the Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. In who God is, there are three persons who are each absolutely
unique and distinct. Each is not the other, though each is still divine
with the same divine nature and form. Therefore, while being one in what they are; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Three in who they are. And because of what and who
they are -- namely, uncreated, divine persons -- they are undivided and
perfectly united in their timeless, spaceless, sizeless, shapeless
super-essential existence, as well as in their one divine life,
knowledge, love, goodness, power, will, action, etc.
Thus, according to the Orthodox Tradition, it is the mystery
of God that there are Three who are divine; Three who live and act by
one and the same divine perfection, yet each according to his own
personal distinctness and uniqueness. Thus it is said that the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit are each divine with the same divinity, yet
each in his own divine way. And as the uncreated divinity has three
divine subjects, so each divine action has three divine actors; there
are three divine aspects to every action of God, yet the action remains
one and the same.
We discover, therefore, one God the Father Almighty with His
one unique Son (Image and Word) and His one Holy Spirit. There is one
living God with His one perfect divine Life, who is personally the Son,
with His one Spirit of Life. There is one True God with His one divine
Truth, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Truth. There
is one wise and loving God with His one Wisdom and Love, who is
personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Wisdom and Love. The
examples could go on indefinitely: the one divine Father personifying
every aspect of His divinity in His one divine Son, who is personally
activated by His one divine Spirit. We will see the living implications
of the Trinity as we survey the activity of God in his actions toward
man and the world.
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The Holy Trinity in Creation
God the Father created the world through the Son (Word) in
the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is present in all that exists, making
it to exist by the power of the Spirit. Thus, according to Orthodox
doctrine, the universe itself is a revelation of God in the Word and
the Spirit. The Word is in all that exists, causing it to be, and the
Spirit is in all that exists as the power of its being and life.
This is most evident in God's special creature, man. Man is
made in the image of God, and so he bears within him the unique
likeness of God which is eternally and perfectly expressed in the
divine Son of God, the Uncreated and Absolute Image of the Father.
Thus, man is "logical"; that is, he participates in God's Logos
(the Son and Word) and so is free, knowing, loving, reflecting on the
creaturely level the very nature of God as the uncreated Son does on
the level of divinity.
Man also is "spiritual"; he is the special temple of God's
Spirit. The Breath of God's Life is breathed into him in the most
special way. Thus, among creatures man alone is empowered to imitate
God and to participate in His life. Man has the competence and ability
to become a Son of God, mirroring the eternal Son, reflecting the
divine nature because he is inspired by the Holy Spirit as is no other
creature. Thus, one saint of the Church has said that for man to be a
man, he must have the Spirit of God in him. Only then can he fulfill
his humanity; only then can he be made a true Son of God, likened to
him who is only-begotten.
On the most basic level of creation, therefore, we see the
Trinitarian dimensions of the being and action of God: the Word and the
Spirit of God enter man and the world to allow them to be and to become
that for which the Father has willed their existence.
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The Holy Trinity in Salvation
With man's failure to fulfill himself in his created
uniqueness, God undertakes the special action of salvation. The Father
sends forth His Son (Word) and His Spirit in yet another mission. The
Word and the Spirit come to the Old Testament saints to make known the
Father. The Word, as it were, incarnates himself in the Law (in Hebrew
called the "words") which is inspired by the Spirit. The Spirit
inspires the prophets to proclaim the Word of God. Thus, the Law and
the Prophets are revelations of God in His Word and His Spirit. They
are partial revelations, "shadows" (as the New Testament calls them),
prefiguring the total revelation of the "fullness of time" and
preparing its coming.
When the time is fulfilled and the world is made ready, the
Word and the Spirit come once more -- no longer by their mere action
and power, but now in their own persons, dwelling personally in the
world.
The Word becomes flesh. The only-begotten Son is born as a
man, Jesus of Nazareth. And the Spirit who is in him is given to all
men to make them also sons of the Father in an eternal development of
attaining His perfection by growing forever "to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:13).
Thus, in the New Testament we have the full epiphany of God,
the full manifestation of the Holy Trinity: the Father through the Son
in the Spirit to us; and we in the Spirit through the Son to the
Father. [Back to top]
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The Holy Trinity in the Church
The life of the Church is the life of men in the Holy Trinity. In the Church all become one in Christ, all put on the deified humanity of the Son of God. "For as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal 3:27). The unity of the Church is the unity of many into one, the one Body of Christ, the one living temple of God, the one people and family of God.
Within the one body there are many individual members. Many "living stones" constitute the living temple. Many brothers and sisters make up the one family of which God is the Father. The unique diversity of each member of the one Body of Christ is guaranteed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Each unique person is inspired by the Spirit to be a true man, a true son of God in his own distinct way. Thus, as the Body of the Church is one in Christ, the one Holy Spirit gives to each member the possibility of fulfilling himself in God and so of being one with all others in calling God "Father" (See 1 Cor 12).
The Church, then, as the perfect unity of many persons into one fully united organism, is a reflection of the Trinity itself. For the Church, being many unique and distinct persons, is called to be one mind, one heart, one soul and one body in the one Truth and Love of God Himself. The calling of the Church to be one in all things is the prototype of the vocation of all mankind which was originally created by God as many persons in one nature, ultimately destined by God for ever-more-perfect growth in free unity of Truth and Love, in the life of God's Kingdom.
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The Holy Trinity in the Sacraments
The sacraments of the Church portray the Trinitarian character of the life of God and man. Each person is baptized
by the Holy Spirit into the one humanity of Christ. Being baptized,
each person is given the "seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit" of God
in chrismation to be a "christ", i.e. an anointed son of God to live the life of Christ.
In marriage the unity of two into one
makes the new unity a reflection of the unity of the Trinity, and the
unity of Christ and the Church. For the family of many persons united
in one truth and love is indeed the created manifestation of the one
family of God's Kingdom, and of God Himself, the Blessed Trinity.
In penance once more we renew our
new life as sons of the Father through the grace of Christ by the power
of the Holy Spirit, forgiven and reunited into the unity of God in His
Church.
In holy unction the Spirit anoints the sufferer to suffer and die in Christ and so to be healed and made alive with the Father for eternity.
The priesthood itself, the ministry
of the Church, is nothing other than the concrete manifestation in the
Church of the presence of Christ by the same Holy Spirit who makes
accessible to all men the action of the Father and the way to
everlasting communion in and with Him.
Finally, the "mystery of mysteries," the Holy Eucharist,
is the actual experience of all Christian people led to communion with
God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit through Christ the Son
who is present in the Word of the Gospel and in the Passover Meal of
His Body and Blood eaten in remembrance of Him. The very movement of
the Divine Liturgy -- towards the Father through Christ the Word and
the Lamb, in the power of the Holy Spirit -- is the living sacramental
symbol of our eternal movement in and toward God, the Blessed Trinity.
Even Christian prayer is the revelation of the Trinity,
accomplished within the third person of the Godhead. Inspired by the
Holy Spirit, men can call God "our Father" only because of the Son who
has taught them and enabled them to do so. Thus, the true prayer of
Christians is not the calling out of our souls in earthly isolation to
a far-away God. It is the prayer in us of the divine Son of God made to
His Father, accomplished in us by the Holy Spirit who himself is also
divine.
For we have received the Spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry Abba! Father! The Spirit itself bears witness
that we are children of God … for we know not what we should pray for
as we ought; but the Spirit itself intercedes for us … (Rom 8:15-16, 26) [Back to top]
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The Holy Trinity in Christian Life
The new commandment of Christian life is "to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48). It is to love as Christ himself has loved. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). Men cannot live the Christian life of divine love in imitation of God's perfection without the grace of the Holy Spirit. With the power of God, however, what is impossible to men becomes possible. "For with God all things are possible." (Mk 10:27)
The Christian life is the life of God accomplished in men by the Spirit of Christ. Men can live as Christ has lived, doing the things that he did and becoming sons of God in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, once more, the Christian life is a Trinitarian life.
By the Holy Spirit given by God through Christ, men can share the life, the love, the truth, the freedom, the goodness, the holiness, the wisdom, the knowledge of God Himself. It is this conviction and experience which has caused the development in the Orthodox Church of the affirmation of the fact that the essence of Christianity is "the acquisition of the Holy Spirit" and the "deification" of man by the grace of God, the so-called theosis.
The saints of the Church are unanimous in their claim that Christian life is the participation in the life of the Blessed Trinity in the most genuine and realistic way. It is the life of men becoming divine. In the smallest aspects of everyday life Christians are called to live the life of God the Father, which is communicated to them by Christ, the Son of God, and made possible for them by the Holy Spirit who lives and acts within them.
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The Holy Trinity in Eternal Life
At the end of the ages Christ will come in the glory of
God the Father, He will make the Father known throughout all creation.
The Holy Spirit will fill all things and enable all to be in union with
God through Christ for eternity. Again we have the presence and action
of the Holy Trinity.
What we know and experience now in the world as members of
the Church will be manifested in power in the life of the kingdom to
come. The essence of life everlasting is the life of the Holy Trinity,
the same eternal life given to us already in the mystery of faith. And I saw no temple in the city, for the
Lord God Almighty and the Lamb (Christ) are the temple of it. And the
city had no need of the sun … for the glory of God did lighten it, and
the Lamb (Christ) is the light thereof…
And the throne of God and the Lamb (Christ) shall be in it, and his servants shall see him … and they shall see his face…
And the Spirit and the Bride (the Church) say Come!
(Rev 21:22; 22:3, 17)
In the eternal life of the Kingdom of God, the Holy Trinity will fill
all creation: the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Every man
enlightened by Christ in the Spirit will know the invisible Father.
"And this is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). Such knowledge is possible only by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, "the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph 1:23; 2:22).
Come O Ye People! Let us adore the Three-Personal Godhead, the Son in the Father with the Holy Spirit.
For before all time the Father gave birth to the Son, co-eternal and co-enthroned with Himself.
And the Holy Spirit was in the Father, glorified with the Son.
Adoring One Power, One Essence, One Divinity, let us cry:
O Holy God who made all things by the Son through the cooperation of the Holy Spirit!
O Holy Mighty through whom we know the Father and through whom the Holy Spirit comes ino the world!
O Holy Immortal, the Spirit, the Comforter, who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son!
O Most Holy Trinity! Glory to Thee!
(The Vespers of Pentecost) [Back to top]
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