1
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY
In Chapter Two we saw that
the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ in history forced the Church to think
deeply about the nature of God Himself. Heretical conclusions about who Jesus
Christ was were thrown out. Each of these heresies, it turned out, had a false
view of the nature of God. They either compromised the Creator-creature
distinction, or they insisted upon a solitary monotheism. The Church finally
realized that only a Trinitarian monotheism “fit” the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
In this appendix we will
explore more fully this Trinitarian doctrine. Critics, of course, have strongly
and consistently attacked this truth all through Church history. They sense the
threat it poses to their rebellion against God because it is the foundation of
the authority, saving work, and final judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their
primary attack has been to ridicule it as contradictory religious nonsense. We
will show that far from being illogical, the Trinity is the very basis for
human language and logic! The Trinity, in fact, is the presupposition of all of
Christianity.
Following that discussion we
will look at specific biblical passages and then present the doctrine of the
Trinity. After that, we will look at some illustrations of the triunity of God
in the creation around us. Finally, the appendix will close with an exhortation
to apply this doctrine in a very practical way in the Christian life.
The pagan mind, as we saw in
Part II of this series, always seeks to be its own autonomous authority, a
wholly self-centered perspective, “free” of any submission to God. It
recapitulates the fall by seeking to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil rather than submit to the authority of the Word of God. Inevitably,
such a perspective produces some version of the Continuity of Being in which
all reality is viewed as one. The pagan mind of flesh creates its own divine
vision which contains everything from the gods and goddesses to man to animals
to the elements. However, because man’s mind is limited or finite, such a
vision can go only so far. Beyond that limit lies Pure Chance or Fate.
Such thinking keeps
unbelievers from being able to justify their two major tools: language and
logic. Both of these tools are tied up with a vexing problem, the question of
the “One and Many.” This
question asks whether that which unifies (the One).2 or that which
distinguishes (the Many) is the most ultimate. If the One is most important,
then differences between good and evil, lightness and darkness, personality and
non-personality are merely insignificant surface features of one great
amorphous unity—the Continuity of Being. On the other hand, if the Many are
most important, then all of the pieces of the universe are not tied together; Pure
Chance or Fate reigns. As we’ve seen in previous parts of this series, pagan
thought rides a perpetual see-saw, oscillating between these two extreme
positions.
Very practical results
follow from which extreme is taken. In politics, for example, advocates of the
One generally promote totalitarianism (such as King Ahab in the OT who demanded
that Baalism be the spiritual unifier of his kingdom), whereas advocates of the
Many gravitate to ideological or ethnic splinter groups and finally toward
outright anarchy (such as the epoch of the Judges in which everyone did what
was right in their own eyes). In family life, advocates of the One practically
erase individuality in order to save the family at all costs while those who
advocate the Many break up the home for the sake of individual “rights.” In
fact, right now the United States is heading toward both extremes very rapidly.
The “hippie” generation is now in power with its selfish emphasis upon
individual rights—rights to divorce, to abort fetuses, and to do drugs. To keep
society together, however, there is increasing emphasis upon totalitarian rules
and regulations that progressively destroy liberty—rules that impose secularism
upon all school children, that take away guns from everyone, and that establish
universal identity in terms of a Social Security
number. Common experience
teaches us that somehow there has to be a “balance” between the extremes.
Language Requires the One
and the Many in Balance. The most serious problem, however, concerns the very
foundational tools of thought itself. [1] Let’s look at a simple predicative
sentence such as “the sky is blue” or “my car is blue.” We all use these type
of sentences every day without any thought about what we are assuming reality
is like. These simplest of assertions assume that we can know individual things
such as the sky or a car. Here are the Many. These assertions also assume that
such individual things can be classified and share common characteristics. They
are part of a One. Such classification is daily taken as universally common to
all mankind. The One and the Many seem to be in perfect balance for if we dared
to overemphasize the Many—the individual objects themselves—we would wind up
knowing nothing about everything (since each object couldn’t be classified with
any other with knowable properties). On the other hand, if we dared to
overemphasize the One—the
properties or classes—we would wind up knowing everything about nothing (since
the properties would become mere abstractions divorced from everyday
occurrences). Again there has to be a balance.
Further illustrations of the
language problem can be seen in your ordinary filing system and accounting. Why
have filing systems? We want lots of individual things and pieces of information
(the Many), but we also want to see the “big picture”, the meaning of all the
individual things (the One). Why have accounting formats? We need records of
individual transactions (the Many), but we also need to get an overall view of
net worth, debt ratios, and trends (i.e., the meaning or value of the whole,
the One). In filing things and doing accounting we all intuitively assume some
sort of balance between the One and the Many, whether we give it much thought
or not.
The problem for the pagan is
this: he has never been able to give an account for this fundamentally
needful balance in the very heart of his thinking. In moments of elation and
optimism, he worships the One like Nimrod built Babel. In moments of despair
and pessimism, he submerges himself in the Many like Solomon in Ecclesiastes.
Nevertheless, throughout all his days, every sentence he speaks bears
witness to an elusive balance of the One and the Many that is at utter odds
with his professed beliefs.
Logic Requires the One and the
Many in Balance. The other foundation tool of human thought is logic. Logic
works on language, and it, too, needs a balance between the One and the Many.
Like language, however, it is left by unbelief without a foundation. From the
ancient pagan philosopher Aristotle down to modern logicians like Russell and
Whitehead formal logic has relied upon ideal, abstract, “pure” categories,
symbolized by “empty” marks on paper (the One again). These categories must be
perfectly stable and sharp, or the rules of inference don’t work.
This extreme adherence to
the One, however, is perpetually frustrated with the Many circumstances in
everyday life. A few decades ago when the “new math” replaced traditional
arithmetic in American schools, parents and students alike found that its heavy
emphasis upon abstract formal logic didn’t help at all in making change at the
local store. In fact many students (and their parents!) didn’t understand it. A
given instance involving numbers or inference in the everyday world is often a
complicated mixture of opinion, perspective, and associated meanings. A
classroom test that seemed clear to the teacher often comes back with
surprising interpretations by the students, interpretations the teacher never
expected. The “pure” categories of Aristotle simply don’t exist in the real
world.
Pagan thought, therefore,
finds itself relying upon logical rules of inference (the One) in the midst of
a world of instances (the Many) with absolutely no explanation of why logic
works so much of the time.
As we’ve noted repeatedly in
this series, the difference between pagan and biblical thinking lies in the
Creator-creature distinction. The pagan insists upon one kind of
reality, one level of being; the Christian insists upon two kinds
of reality and two levels of being. How, then, do the pagan and the
Christian differ in dealing with the One and the Many question?
We have seen a number of
times in this series that the pagan is inevitably left with a never-ending
oscillation between his Continuity of Being (One) and his idea of Chance or
Fate (Many). In this view the One and the Many are competitive. Some pagan
thinkers, therefore, such as Aristotle try desperately to seek a temporary
peace between the two, a sort of “cease-fire” around a golden mean. Pagans have
to do something like Aristotle in order to utilize language, logic, filing
systems, accounting, and social stability. The Bible-believing Christian, on
the other hand, sees the One and the Many in creation as derivative of the One
and Many in the Creator. How do the One and the Many fit together in Him? After
rephrasing the question in these terms, it is immediately apparent that the
Triunity of God provides the answer. The Trinity doctrine states that in
God’s being, which is ultimate reality, both the One and the Many coexist in
non-competitive harmony. God has absolute unity and has absolute individuality.
No Aristotelian “cease-fire” is needed; eternal harmony prevails.
As we shall see shortly, the
Triune Creator, existing as One and as Three, thinks and speaks with unity and
diversity. Man as a finite replica of his Creator thinks and speaks in a
similar fashion. His language and logic, therefore, bear witness to their
origin in the Triune Creator. Out of this view, historically, have come the
only human political structures that have honored simultaneously the authority
of the state and the authority (rights) of the individual. As Rushdoony writes:
“Whatever other influences may have been at work, it is apparent that, in the
shaping of the United States, a truly Christian concept of the one and the many
was a decisive, if often unrecognized, presupposition.”[2]
Thus to the hasty critics
who call the Trinity as a contradiction we respond by saying that, just as he
lacks a basis for knowledge and ethics, his language and logic are floating in
thin air. Somehow they are “just there” barely able to survive the tug-of-war
between the One and the Many in everyday use. Moreover, the pagan can’t even back
up his claim of a contradiction in the Trinity doctrine without violating his
own “pure” abstract logic categories. To apply his logic, he must invest the
terms “God,” “Trinity,” “three,” and “one” with meanings that he brings from
his own worldview which contaminates the “purity” of his abstract, objective
categories! To tell us of his unbelief he resorts to using language like the
One and the Many coexist after all just as the Trinity doctrine implies!
In light of the often
repeated criticism that the Trinity doctrine was imported into the Church from
the surrounding pagan culture, the believer should be well aware of the
biblical data supporting this doctrine. In the present section the OT data will
be presented first, then the NT data.
OT SUPPORTING DATA.
Most people err concerning
OT monotheistic through because they read the OT through the eyes of medieval
and modern Judaism. The OT, they believe, teaches that God is a simple unity and
that His triune nature is only revealed beginning in the NT. This picture of OT
monotheism, however, is one that was built up after OT times by Judaism in
reaction against Christian Trinitarian claims. The late-medieval rabbi,
Maimonides, for example, taught that God was “absolutely one” using the Hebrew
word yachid to describe what he thought was proper Jewish monotheism.
Maimonides, however, went far beyond the ancient Jewish OT sources. Even the
famous Sh’ma (Deut. 6:4) uses the Hebrew word echad not yachid. Echad means
“one” like yachid, but it allows for an inner multiplicity in that oneness.
Echad is used in such OT passages as Genesis 1:5 and 2:24 where it clearly
refers to a “one” in which there is differentiation. Yachid, on the other hand,
is never used in the OT to describe God’s personal essence.[3]
The OT obviously taught
clear-cut monotheism, but it did not teach the rigid, absolutely unified
monotheism of post-biblical Judaism.[4] The OT differentiation within the “unity”
of God appears in at least four ways. Plurality of God’s Self-References.
One body of relevant OT data consists of the use of the plural pronouns by God
when speaking of Himself (Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa. 6:8). What is the
explanation for these first person plurals? Some have argued that the plurals
in the creation narrative (Gen. 1:26) must refer to God and the angels. This
view is contradicted by Psalm 8:5 and Hebrews 2:5-18 that expressly deny that
man was created after the pattern of the angels. It also conflicts with clear
statements that God alone created man (Gen. 2:7, 22; Isa. 44:24).
Therefore, this plurality in Genesis 1:26 must be a plurality within His Being,
not a plurality of the divine council made up of God and angels as shown in I Kings
22:19-22. Others seek to explain this plurality as “merely” a plural of majesty
or the “regal ‘we’”. Such an explanation is thoughtlessly shallow. Why should
there have arisen in human language a plurality of majesty if it wasn’t due to
the prior truth of the plurality of God? It is not “merely” a plural of
majesty; it is a plural of majesty that is incomprehensible in depth and
richness—referring to the plurality of Being in God.
The Angel of Yahweh. Another OT indication of
the plurality within the one God surrounds the mysterious Angel of Yahweh
figure. To perceive what this strange figure reveals, one must thoroughly
appreciate the extreme antagonism through the Bible to worship of any created
being, including any angel (Isa. 42:8; Acts 10:26; 14:11-15; Rev. 19:10). As a
figure apparently distinct from God, the Angel of Yahweh occurs throughout the
OT carefully distinguished as a person having his own identity (e.g., Gen.
24:7, 40; I Chron. 21:15-18; Isa. 63:9; Zech. 1:12-13). Nevertheless, this very
figure is at the same time identified with and worshipped Yahweh God Himself
(Gen. 16:7-13; 22:11-18; 31:11-13; 48:15-16; Exod. 13:21 cf. 14:19; Judg.
6:11-23; 13:9-20)! One can easily conclude that in this instance the OT teaches
that at least two persons of some sort are distinguishable within the one God.
In light of NT insistence
that no one has ever seen God in His fullness (John 1:18; 6:46; I Tim. 6:15-16;
I John 4:12), one can only conclude that this Angel of Yahweh who was seen face
to face was the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, in preincarnate
form. The word God in the four passages just quoted can then be understood to
refer to the First Person of the Trinity, God the Father, Who is never really
seen.
The Wisdom or Word of Yahweh. A third type of relevant
OT data concerns the Wisdom or Word of Yahweh. When God reveals Himself to his
OT prophets, it is declared that the “Word of Yahweh came” to them (e.g., Isa.
2:1; 38:4; Jer. 2:2,4,11,13; Ezk. 20:2; Hos. 1:1). This Word is sent to do
things for God (Isa. 55:10-11). It delivers the elect from judgment (Ps.
107:20) and controls nature (Ps. 147:15). Moreover, this Word is clearly
distinguished from every part of creation (Ps. 33:6-9). Not only is the Word
distinguished from all of creation, but it is distinguished from the Creator in
Proverbs 8:22-31. Before creation the Word existed, yet it existed with an
identity separate from Yahweh (Prov. 8:22-26).
By the end of the OT era
Jewish thought had developed this concept of the Word of Yahweh. Aramaic
translations and commentaries on the OT, called Targums, frequently mentioned
the divine Word of Yahweh. Dr. David L. Cooper relates some of this early
Jewish thinking:
“We shall begin with Genesis
19:24 which reads in the American Revised Version as follows: ‘Then Jehovah
rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of
heaven. . . .’ Jonathan Ben Uzziel [a Targum] renders the original text of this
passage as follows: ‘And the Word of the Lord caused to descend upon the people
of Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord of heaven.’ Here we see
that the Jehovah who rained the fire is called ‘the Word of Jehovah.’ The
translator then used the term, ‘the Word of Jehovah,’ in referring to the One
in the sacred text called Jehovah.”[5].7
After mentioning many such
instances in the Targums concerning the Word of Jehovah as well as other
instances where the same practice of translation was
used concerning the Spirit
of Jehovah, Cooper concludes:
“From the quotations I have
noted, it becomes clear that the official ancient interpretation of the
synagogue was that the Word of Jehovah and the Holy Spirit were divine
personalities and were distinguished from the one who is called Jehovah. From
all the facts which we have learned thus far, we see that Moses and the
Prophets were Trinitarians, and the great leaders of Israel in pre-Christian
times were likewise Trinitarians. In view of these facts, then, we can assert
with all confidence that Christians who worship the Holy Trinity. . .are simply
worshipping the same God who revealed himself to Abraham.”[6]
Explicit OT References to
the Trinity.
At least two OT passages explicitly mention the three divine persons of the
Trinity. In Isaiah 48:16 Yahweh speaks (note context in 48:12): “From the
time that it was, there I am: and now the Lord Jehovah has sent me and his
spirit.” Three divine figures are thus seen: Jehovah the First
and Last (the Son; cf. Rev.
1:17), the Lord Jehovah (the Father), and his Spirit (the Holy Spirit). Isaiah
61:1 also mentions the Trinity: “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me;
because Jehovah has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. . . .”
Three divine figures are here again observed: the anointed Jehovah (see the
immediate context of “me” in 60:22 where the noun antecedent of pronoun is
clearly Jehovah; and see also Jesus’ use of the passage in Luke 4:16-21), the
anointing Jehovah (the Father), and the Spirit of Jehovah (the Holy Spirit).
The OT, therefore, has a very definite complexity to its monotheism, a complexity that anticipated greater revelation in NT times about the Trinity. During OT times, when God was giving the biblical framework to this people, He did not emphasize His triune nature, probably because of the surrounding pagan tendencies toward polytheism. (One observes the same danger in the Church age when the Trinity is dissolved into gross tri-theism by Mormonism.) Nevertheless, God did reveal enough of His inner complexity that future revelation would hang together with the OT revelation as one recognizable body of truth.
NT SUPPORTING DATA.
Since Chapter Two provided
the NT data supporting the full deity of Jesus Christ, the only remaining area
of NT pro-Trinity data concerns the full deity of the Holy Spirit. Is the Holy
Spirit in the NT text fully a divine Person, or is the Holy Spirit only an
impersonal, shadowy influence, a vague “it”? If He is a fully divine person
within the Godhead together with the divine Father and Son, the Trinity is
present in the NT. Conceptually, the general term spirit is visualized in the
Bible as breath
or wind, something that is
active but that is never seen directly (John 3:8).
Humankind is sometimes seen
as a body of water stirred up and blown about by spiritual forces (Daniel 7;
Eph. 4:14). When a speaker would verbally teach someone, he would be said to
“pour out his spirit” (Prov. 1:23). In simple physical terms the speaker would
be using his breath to form words with his throat, mouth, and lips. “Pouring
out of the spirit”, scripturally, does not refer to some non-verbal outburst.
To the contrary, it emphasizes revelation and communication of thought
content through spoken human language. Three agents are thus involved in
any self-disclosure: the speaker, the words, and the spirit. Since it already
has been shown in the OT that Yahweh had His Word, it should not be surprising
that Yahweh had His Spirit which, like the Word, was fully divine, yet
distinct. The NT continued that OT picture. NT verses speak of the Holy Spirit
as fully divine. In Acts 5:3-4 Ananias and his wife lie to the Spirit which is
described by Peter as lying to God Himself.
Clearly the Spirit cannot be
vague impersonal influence from God because one cannot be said to lie to an “it.”
In II Corinthians 3:17 the terms Lord and Spirit are used synonymously. In I
Thessalonians 3:11-13, besides God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
another Lord is mentioned who sanctifies the believer into holiness before the
other two figures. This other Lord can be none other than the Holy Spirit (cf.
Rom. 5:5). A similar picture occurs in II Thessalonians 3:5 where one Lord
directs believers’ hearts toward God the Father and Jesus Christ. In Acts
28:25-27 the Holy Spirit is claimed to be the speaker of the words of Isaiah
6:9-10, words which the OT clearly ascribes to Yahweh Himself (Isa. 6:8). Again
in Hebrews 10:15-17 OT words ascribed to Yahweh (Jer. 31:31-34) are ascribed
instead to the Holy Spirit. These NT verses are not accidental slips; they
portray consistent biblical teaching about the deity of the Holy Spirit.[7]
Two NT passages provide
classical locations where everything but the word Trinity is used. In Matthew
28:19 the baptismal formula is said to be in the name (note singular form) of
the three persons together. Such a sacred formula would never include a mere
creature in such close association with the Creator. All three persons are
being called God together in this NT reference. Besides this baptismal formula,
the famous Pauline benediction of II Corinthians 13:14, too, brings all three
persons together as a unity.
In both the OT and the NT,
therefore, ample data exists to support the Trinity doctrine. These evidences
together with the obvious lack of any similar idea in the surrounding pagan
world show why the Church finally settled upon the Trinity doctrine in its
great creeds. Critics are wrong to say that this great doctrine was not
originally in Israel and the early Church but only came into prominence within
the Church from outside pagan sources.
We’ve looked at the
preliminary issue of how the Trinity concept is related to the greatest
philosophic problem of all time, the One and Many dilemma. We’ve also seen that
this truth emerges from both the OT and NT texts. Now we will take care to
state the doctrine so that it will be clear what the Trinity is and what it
isn’t.
Mainstream Christianity
(until recent years when Modernism destroyed orthodox theology everywhere) had
always held to the Trinity doctrine. The Nicean Creed as usually recited in
Western churches says:
“I believe in one God the
Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and
invisible:
And in one Lord Jesus
Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; Begotten of His Father before all worlds
[God of God], Light of Light, Very God of Very God; Begotten, not made; Being
of one substance [essence] with the Father; by whom all things were made. . . .
And [I believe] is the Holy
Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father [and the
Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; . .
. .”[8]
The Articles of Religion of
the Protestant Episcopal Church also states the Trinity doctrine clearly:
“Article I: There is but one
living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite
power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all
things both visible and
invisible. And in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one
substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”[9]
The Presbyterian Westminster
Confession of Faith defines the Trinity in these words:
“There is but one only,
living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure
spirit, invisible, without godly, parts or passions; immutable, immense,
eternal, incomprehensible,
almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute. .
. .
In the unity of the Godhead there
be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost: the Father is of none, neither begotten, not
proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost
eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.”[10] I will state the classical
Trinity doctrine in five distinct propositions:
I. God is Absolutely One. God cannot be divided into
parts. He is not a divine being who can be described (as pagan thought tries
inevitably to do) by prior categories or attributes. As stated in Part II of
this series, God is not made up of a menu of (Q)ualities such as righteousness,
justice, omniscience, and love. Isaiah 40:25 clearly denies that there is any
such prior category to which God can be likened or classified. Any such
categories comprehended by man are (q)ualities that themselves derive from the
Creator. Our sense of geometry and space derive from His Omnipresence. Our
sense of time derives from His Eternality. His attributes, therefore, are not
impersonal Ideals thought by man; they are (Q)ualities of His personal
character. God is each one of these characteristics entirely. All of
God is involved in righteousness, all of God is involved in justice, and
so on.
II. God is Absolutely Three. God always has and always
will exist with three distinguishable persons, not one or two or four, but
three. There was no change at the creation of the universe. Before creation He
had this threeness; after history ends He still will have this triunity. Dr.
Vern Poythress, with earned doctorates in both mathematics and theology,
discusses this part of triunity with great insight:
“God has an aggregative
nature, in the sense that the various Persons of the Godhead, and His
attributes, are distinguished from one another. This is the eternal foundation
for the science of set theory. . . .’Believe in God, believe also in me’
(John 14:1). . . .’[The Father] will give you another Counselor. . .’
(14:16). . . .The personal names Father, Son, and Spirit already imply that
there are distinct ‘aggregates’ within the Godhead.’[11]
III. God’s Threeness Refers
to Modes of Being, Not Just Roles. While it is true that one can distinguish the
roles the Father, Son, and Spirit play in the plan of salvation, these role differences
are not all of what distinguishes the three. Theologians refer to these role
differences as the “economic trinity.” However, even if there were no plan of
salvation, God would still have a distinguishable threeness. It is, in fact,
from this prior threeness, called the “ontological trinity,” that the different
roles of the Father, Son, and Spirit in the plan of salvation come from.
Defining the threeness of God only in terms of roles leaves the door open to
the heresy of Modal Monarchianism discussed in Chapter Two.
The Subordination Within the
Trinity Does Not Refer to Essence. Although the Son “is begotten” from the Father,
and the Spirit “proceeds” from both the Father and the Son, this subordination
within the Trinity doesn’t diminish the essence of either the Son or the
Spirit. The term “only begotten” in no way refers to a creative act as the
Nicean Creed made clear (“Begotten, not made”). This term, instead, has
in view the love of the Father for the Son modeled on a finite scale by
Abraham’s love for his miraculously born son Isaac (Gen. 22:2,12)(see Appendix
B). It describes the relationship between the Father and the Son, not the
derivation of the Son from the Father. The term “proceeds” in no way refers to
origination as the Westminster Creed made clear (“the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding
from the Father and the Son”). This term has in view the sending of the Spirit
to do the work planned by the Father such as in creation (Gen. 1:2) and
building the Church (John 14:16; 16:7), and this work is work that God alone
can perform. It describes the relationship of the Spirit to the Son and the
Father. The apparent subordination of the Son and the Spirit
cannot, therefore, refer to
any lesser essence in these Divine Persons.
With Respect to the Salvation
of Man the Triunity Is Perceived With Both Threeness and Oneness. The workings
of the Trinity in the plan of salvation as revealed to man (i.e., revelation of
the “economic Trinity”) show both threeness and oneness. The Father is never
seen according to John 1:18. Dr. Leon Morris comments on this text:
“There are some passages like Exod. 24:9-11 which explicitly affirm that some men have seen God. What then does John mean? Surely that in His essential being God has never yet been seen of men. Men had their visions of God, but these were all partial. The theophanies of the Old Testament did not and could not reveal God’s essential being. But Christ has now made such a revelation. As Calvin puts it, ‘when he says that none has seen God, it is not to be understood of the outward seeing of the physical eye. He means generally that, since God dwells in inaccessible light, He cannot be known except in Christ, His lively image.’”[12]
The Son is the center of
revelation whether as the Angel of Yahweh in the OT or as Jesus Christ in the
NT. The Holy Spirit, like the Father, is never seen directly. The Father is
looked upon as the source of every blessing (Eph. 1:3) whereas the Son is
perceived as bringing the blessings about in history (Eph. 1:6-10). The Holy
Spirit applies and reveals the Son’s work (Rom. 8:26; I Cor. 2:6-16). Thus the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit are seen in three distinct roles. Nevertheless,
as difficult as it is to understand, this threeness alternates with a oneness.
Poythress expresses it well:
“The incomprehensibility of
God’s aggregative nature is expressed by facts such as the mutual indwelling of
members of the Trinity, and the inter-penetration of attributes. . . .(John
14:10-11). Somehow we find that all the members of the Trinity participate, in
their own ways, in even those works which we associate most distinctly with one
particular member of the Trinity. In a certain sense, the members of the
Trinity are not distinguished, because there is only one Lord (Deut.
6:4-5).”[13]
The Trinity doctrine cannot
be stated as a comprehensively clear concept because of man’s finiteness and
its limitations on attaining the godlike universal categories Aristotle and
other pagan thinkers required for their autonomous logic but never found. Biblical
logic, on the other hand, by recognizing its creature limitations knows that it
has a firm foundation in God’s triune nature as we shall see below.
DOCTRINAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
Of the numerous attempts to
illustrate the Trinity from the created order the most intriguing examples were
first noted by Professor Nathan R. Wood over sixty years ago in a little book
entitled, The Secret of the Universe.[14] Chief among Wood’s illustrations was
the triunity of space, mass/energy, and time. These three terms can basically
describe any natural phenomenon.[15] We can evaluate proposed illustrations of
the Trinity.12 such as Dr. Wood’s by substituting its features into the five
Trinitarian propositions discussed above.
The first proposition stated
that God is absolutely one; He cannot be divided into parts; He is each
attribute and person entirely. Wood speaks to this feature:
“Each one of the three
[space, matter/energy, and time] is itself the whole. For the physical universe
is all of it space. . .realized in motion and in successiveness. It is also all
of it matter or motion, embodying space, and existing as successiveness. It is
also all of it time, space, and motion in the form of successiveness.”[16]
The universe is absolutely
one; it cannot be divided into parts; it is each part entirely.
The second Trinitarian
proposition stated that God is absolutely three; He always has and always will
exist with three distinguishable persons, not one or two or four. Wood notes
the absolute threeness of the universe: “The three are so much three that no
one of the three can exist without the other two. For space, potential
activity, comes into full existence only in actual motion; and this motion
exists inevitably as successiveness, which is time. . . .Secondly, matter or
motion is of course that potential activity of space realized. It cannot exist
except as the embodiment of space. And on the other hand motion exists as
successiveness, or time. . . .Thirdly, time in turn exists only as space comes
into motion and motion into successiveness. Time in the physical world cannot
exist except as the result of space and motion.”[17]
The third proposition
describing the Trinity insisted that the threeness refers to modes of God’s
being, not just god’s various roles. Quite obviously in Wood’s illustration of
the universe, the threeness does not refer to roles the universe does but to
modes of being of the universe. Space, matter- energy, and time denote things
the universe is, not things it does.
The fourth proposition
mentioned above specified that the subordination within the Trinity does not
refer to essence. The Son and the Spirit are not any less God than the Father.
Nevertheless, there is a certain progression revealed in the Bible that moves
from the Father through the Son to the Spirit. The cosmic triune model of Wood
also demonstrates this same kind of subordination. Wood points out:
“Space is the source. It is
space which is traversed and measured or divided up by the rate of motion, with
time as a result. Motion links space and time together; it emerges from space
and issues in time; and it can be measured and expressed only in terms of both
space and time.
Time is commensurate with
space to this extent, and only to this extent,.13 that since time is the
product when motion emerges and traverses space, time is commensurate with
space through motion.”[18]
Thus Wood has shown that
there is a parallel triunity in the universe which has a certain progression
that moves from space through motion to time. Nonetheless, one cannot argue
that space is superior to motion or time. All are equally true essence.
Finally, the fifth
proposition about the Trinity noted that the three divine persons are perceived
by man distinctively. Perception centers in the Son; the Father and the Spirit
remain unseen. In wood’s model man’s direct observation centers on
matter/energy; space and time are invisible in themselves.
Wood further showed that
each one of the cosmic trinity—space, matter/energy, and time—is a triunity in
itself. Space and time each have three dimensions. Wood argued that
matter/energy, too, has three dimensions, viz., energy itself, motion which is
energy manifested, and phenomena which are differentiations in motion. Wood’s
model is one of the most complete illustrations of the Trinity known. Other
models of the Trinity can be compared by using the five Trinitarian
propositions discussed previously. The fact that such models exist can never be
used to prove the Trinity, but their existence can be used to illustrate the
Trinity and to show that the concept is not utterly foreign to everyday
experience in the real universe. Indeed, everyday experience due to creation
reveals the nature of the Creator!
If the Trinity doctrine
expounds the heart of God’s character, the implications must be momentous. What
do these momentous implications look like in everyday life? We shall look at
three areas: the One and the Many problem in everyday life; the core of
personal relationships; and the nature of logic in everyday thinking.
THE ONE AND MANY IN EVERYDAY
LIFE
We said above that the
Trinity lies behind the One and the Many dilemma. On the Creature level of being
the One and the Many eternally exist in balance and harmony: God is at once One
Person and also Three. On the creature level of being examples of the One and
the Many abound from filing systems to accounting, from language to logic, and
in each political structure. In everyday life involving these activities all
men—believer and unbeliever alike--intuitively assume a balance between the
One and the Many.
Let’s observe further
examples that show even more details of the One/Many Trinity in everyday life.
We noted in Part II of this series that human society is built upon certain
structures or “divine institutions”: (DI#1) responsible labor; (DI#2) marriage;
(DI#3) family; and (DI#4) civil government. To marriage, family, and civil
government Professor Henry Krabbendam adds the local church and the work place.
He calls these “one and many spheres” which possess “authority structures” that
define relationships between superior and inferior participants (husband-wife,
parent-child, government-subject, elder-member, and employer-employee). Such
spheres and structures, writes Krabbendam, constitute part of the knowledge of
God constantly seen mentioned in Romans 1:18-20:
“[They] are so endemic to
created reality and are such an indelible part of its tapestry that any
individual at any given place and at any given time finds himself without fail
in one or more [of them]. Nobody can ever extricate himself from them. . . .The
tapestry of created reality with [these spheres and structures] is a reflection
of the Trinitarian God. Because God is God, he puts the stamp of his being
inevitably and indelibly upon all of his creation. . . .Literally, every part,
every aspect, every phrase,
every sphere, every
structure reflects the being of God. All men ‘bump’ into God at all times, in
all places, in all settings, and in all circumstances. Divine manifestation, in
short, in spite of any and all attempts to hold it at arms’ length or to
suppress it, is irrepressible.”[19]
Indeed every attempt of
sinful man to live out his independent impulse conflicts with these spheres and
structures and the Trinity behind them. “Self centeredness in the one-and-many
spheres, and self assertion in the authority structures are declarations of war
against both God and the neighbor. They are marked by hate and conflict, and
result in sin and chaos. On the other hand, the God-centeredness and
neighbor-centeredness that image the Triune God in self-denial,
self-sacrifice, and submission promote peace. They display love and harmony and
produce holiness and prosperity.”[20](Emphasis added)
When modern feminism began
in the 1970s with its attack upon the divine institution of marriage (DI#2),
some evangelical female authors tried to import it into the evangelical
movement. To accept secular feminism, however, required one to deny that
equality of being could coexist with the classic husband-wife relationship. Yet
if the classic marriage authority structure is grounded in the Trinity
structure, then overturning it logically forces one to deny the Trinity! As
I discuss in Chapter Three, these authors tried hard to get around this problem
but in the end failed. They had become so confused about the subordination
issue that they couldn’t comprehend the central doctrine of the Christian
faith.[21].
PRIMACY OF THOUGHT AND VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
The Trinity provides the
archetype for personal relationships. What implications follow from this fact?
One key area of personal relationships which is strongly downgraded today in
pagan society is the area of shared thinking and verbal communication between
creatures made in God’s image. This is so both at the philosophical level where
language as a truth carrier is under tremendous attack and at the street level
where emotional outbursts are substituted for thoughtful speech. In evangelical
circles the same trend is occurring even with respect to the greatest of all
personal relationships—that between God and man! God’s Word to man, the Bible,
is no longer taught systematically and in depth; and man’s verbal response to
God, prayer, often ranges from trite babble to unintelligible sounds mislabeled
as “speaking in tongues.” Modern hymnbooks as tools of corporate worship
reflect increasingly a substitution of the song writer’s private feelings
for God’s publicly revealed truths. Such tendencies simply recapitulate
what pagan oriental religions experienced centuries ago. Without a personal
Triune Creator, there is no eternal, absolute basis for interpersonal
communication: the gods, men, and nature all coexist inside a vast impersonal
cosmos. Dr. Lit-sen Change, a Christian convert from Zen Buddhism wrote of
this oriental viewpoint: “The following statement ascribed to Bodhi-Dharma, the
founder of Zen in China, is most clear on this point:
A special transmission
outside the scriptures,
No dependence upon words and
letters,
Direct pointing to the soul
of man,
Seeing into the nature and
attainment of Buddhahood.
To Zen, scriptures are only
so-called ‘fingers pointing to the moon’ or a ‘ferry boat in which to cross a
stream.’ As the finger and boat are simply the means and not the ends, so are
the scriptures or words. [Zen teachers] never take them as the canon of truth.
Therefore, to Zen, neither logic nor metaphysics is to be relied upon for insight.”[22]
The pagan mind tends to
establish a barrier between verbal expression and its accompanying emotion. In
modern literature classes, obsessed as they are with twentieth century
linguistic theory, prose and poetry are often separated in this regard with
poetic form being treated as “beyond” verbal communication. This error was
noted decades ago by evangelical apologist Francis Schaeffer:
“What form is to the artist,
words are in general communication. The use of words clearly defined and dealt
with rationally gives form and certainty in communication. . . .Poetry
undoubtedly adds something to prose form. In the Psalms something is
communicated to us which would not be so in a bare prose account. . . .However,
if there is an absolute divorce between the defined verbalization rationally
comprehended on the one hand and (for example) bare poetic form on the other,
no certain communication comes across to the reader. The most the reader can do
is to use the bare poetic form as a quarry out of which his own emotions can
create something.”[23]
In other words, there is no
longer a personal relationship between the author and the reader. Such a void
follows from the pagan deception that there can be no personal relationship between
the divine Author of Scripture and the human reader because the God of the
Bible, in this view, doesn’t exist.
By contrast the biblical
position is that “it is not good that man be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Adam through
the thought and verbal expression of naming animals learned of his need for a
helper made like him to whom he voiced the first human conversation (Gen.
2:23). Analogously, at the Creator’s level of being, the Triune God is not
alone. The Father and the Son had eternal conversation (John 17:5, 24; I Pet.
1:20). At the core of personal relationships whether at the Creator
level or at the creature level lies thought and language, twentieth century
philosophers to the contrary notwithstanding. The Triunity of God, therefore,
preserves His self-sufficiency. He depends upon no being outside of Himself for
functioning as a communicating person. By contrast, the solitary monotheism of
later Judaism and Islam, virtually require God to create beings outside
of Himself in order that He might not be alone. Such denials of the Trinity
thus deny also the self-sufficiency of the personal God.
LOGIC IN EVERYDAY THINKING.
A third practical
implication of the truth of the Trinity concerns how we all use logic in
ordinary everyday thinking. Such street use of logic is quite unlike the
“modern math” that was injected into public education a decade ago. Such formal
logic consists of mechanical rules to manipulate symbols on paper (or now on
computer screens!).
Symbolic manipulation,
however, even though it might be valid by specified rules, cannot yield meaning
until the symbols are interpreted in terms of everyday language. We need to
know specific cases or occurrences in the real world in order to fill in any
abstract formal logic with meaningful content. The clerk in the corner store
has to work with specific currency to make change, has to recognize genuine
dollar bills from counterfeit bills, and has to relate the money to the items
purchased.
Poythress has shown how the
Trinity is the basis for all such logic in everyday life. Using such passages
as John 5:19 (“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father
do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise”) he
notes that it compares to formal implication: “the Father does ‘x’ .the Son
does ‘x’. The symbol “” is the symbol for formal implication. Thus if the
Father resurrects, the Son resurrects (John 5:21). Clearly, however, this
formal implication doesn’t work for every imaginable ‘x’. If the Father begets
the Son, it is not true that the Son begets the Son.
“Such a substitution is
obviously not an appropriate instance within the intended range of (x). The
universality of “(x)” extends over all the usual attributes of God, but does
not include actions unique to one Person of the Trinity. Since God is
incomprehensible, we cannot specify beforehand exhaustively all the instances
that will or will not be within the range of (x), though we have a general
idea. In general, we may say that [a specific predicate] must be a genuine
instantiation of the generality
expressed in [the
implication statement]. A genuine instantiation of something. . .is what it is
by virtue of being in analogical relation to the [Creator level truth], namely
the Word as an instantiation of God in John 1:1.”[24]
Poythress here uses
“instantiation” to refer to the quality of the Trinity manifest in John 1:1
where the Word exists as a specific Person, an instance or instantiation of
God. He notes further that “the Word was with God” showing an associational aspect
of the Trinity: the personal context in which the Word exists. Finally
Poythress notes the classificational aspect in the clause “and the Word
was God” where the category “God” is given. Thus from the Trinity, there is
revealed three aspects to all genuine logic rather than the one
classificational aspect Aristotle and his pagan followers have insisted upon.
Poythress continues:
“The point of these
observations is that derivation by substitution is never the merely mechanical
process that many specialists in logic imagine it to be. . . .We must always
judge whether a given case has the right sorts of instantiation,
classification, and association. The judgment relies on appeal to a standard.
And the ultimate standard is no other than God Himself, in his Triunal
character. . . .Within a Christian framework, the analogical character of
categories makes it necessary to check on the content or meaning of each
statement, and to evaluate it within a larger network of contexts, including
the context of persons who are reasoning, the situation being reasoned about,
and ultimately the context of God himself. . . .Within a biblical worldview,
logic is. . .Trinitarian.”[25]
Without the orthodox doctrine
of the Trinity obtained from the data of Scripture, man is left in a morass of
confusion: the claims of Jesus Christ mean nothing intelligible; the problem of
the One and Many lies unsolved; man’s personal relationships lack a clear
model; and logical thought has no foundation. The orthodox Trinity doctrine of
the Christian Church did not arise from outside Greek philosophy for the simple
reason that the pagan world never had such an idea. On the contrary, the
Trinity doctrine was painfully articulated only after centuries of discussion
during which many of the cultic heresies were tested by the Scriptures and
found wanting..18
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
Almighty!
Early in the morning out
song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful
and Mighty!
God in Three Persons,
blessed Trinity.
END NOTES FOR APPENDIX A
1. Credit for this insight
goes to scholars in the Van Til camp such as R. J. Rushdoony, Vern S.
Poythress, and Greg L. Bahnsen.
2. Rousas J. Rushdoony, The One
and The Many, Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1971, p. 19.
3. Years ago an excellent
study of this point was published by the American Board of Missions to the
Jews. The author was a Hebrew Christian rabbi, Leopold Cohn and it was entitled
“Do Christians Worship Three Gods?”
4. Aubrey Johnson, The One
and The Many in the Israelite Conception of God, Cardiff: University of Wales
Press, 1961 [1942], p. 37.
5. David L. Cooper, The God
of Israel, Los Angeles: Biblical Research Society, 1945, p. 89.
6. Ibid., p. 93.
7. Further discussion of the
personal deity of the Holy Spirit may be found in any standard work of
pneumatology such as those by Kuyper, Walvoord, and Ryrie.
8. Philip Schaff, The Creeds
of Christendom. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977 [1877], II, 58f.
9. The Book of Common Prayer
(New York: Morehouse-Gorham Co., 1944, p. 603.
10. The Confession of Faith
(Inverness, Scotland: Eccleslitho, North Church Place, 1970), pp. 24-27. The
Confession was issued in 1647.
11. Vern S. Poythress, “A Biblical
View of Mathematics,” Foundations of Christian Scholarship, Vallecito, CA: Ross
House Books, 1976, p. 181.
12. Leon Morris, The Gospel
According to John, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1971, p. 113.
13. Poythress, p. 181.
14. Nathan R. Wood, The
Secret of the Universe, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1955 [1936].
15. Some phenomena are
described indirectly in terms of motion of matter in space over time such as
temperature and electric charge.
16. Wood., p. 139.
17. Ibid., p. 138.
18. Ibid., p. 160.
19. Henry Krabbendam,
“Cornelius Van Til: The Methodological Objective of a Biblical Apologetics,”
The Westminster Theological Journal, Westminster
Theological Seminary, 57
(1995), 130-131.
20. Ibid., p. 132..19
21. Letha Scanzoni and Nancy
Hardesty, All We’re Meant To Be, Waco, TX: Word Books, 1974.
22. Lit-Sen Chang, Zen
Existentialism, Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1969, p.
32f.
23. Francis Schaeffer, The
God Who Is There, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968, p. 112f.
24. Vern S. Poythress,
“Reforming Ontology and Logic in the Light of the Trinity: An Application of
Van Til’s Idea of Analogy,” The Westminster Theological
Journal, Westminster
Theological Seminary, 57 (1995), 206.
25.
Ibid., 206f.