Holy Trinity.

   In the tradition of Eastern Christianity the Holy Trinity is the mystery of the living God encountered in personal prayer, worship and daily life. In speaking about the Holy Trinity, we must not regard the matter primarily as an intellectual challenge, as if we were to analyze a complex theological doctrine or paradigm, but rather as a profound mystery revealed and celebrated in the life of the community of faith. The mystery is none other than the personal disclosure of the plentitude of the living God as Father, Son and Spirit, a mystery both transcendent and immanent, which is the ground of the good news of salvation and the source of all blessings. And the key to that mystery is the person of Christ in whom the Father is revealed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

        The above text of the great commission emphasizes the status of Jesus as the risen Lord who declares: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt. 28:18). Who has given all authority to the risen Christ? It is God the Father in whom all authority in heaven and on earth resides. The words concerning the authority of Jesus sum up the christology of Saint Matthew evidenced in significant passages throughout the Gospel. Chief among them are the account of the birth of Jesus as Emmanuel/”God with us” (Mt. 1:23), the texts of the baptism and transfiguration of Jesus where He is manifested as the Father’s “beloved Son” (Mt. 3:17; 17:5), and the majestic prayer of Jesus in Mt. 11:25-27:

I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these

things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes . . .

All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son

except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to

whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Full divine authority radiates from the risen Christ. In His presence, the disciples prostrate themselves in an act of worship. By this divine authority, which Jesus as risen Lord and unique Son of God possesses, He commissions His followers to make disciples of all nations. One part of the commission is to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19), a most ancient trinitarian formula no doubt known and used by the community of the Evangelist Matthew as a baptismal confession. Because the risen Jesus, by His manifested status as Lord and Son of God, possesses full divine authority, He can be placed on the same level and in the same sequence along with the Father and God’s Spirit. Christian faith and worship expresses a momentous understanding of God as Trinity. Of course, to draw a nuanced distinction, we must say that the reference is not quite trinitarian in the sense of presupposing the developed trinitarian problematic and doctrine of the fourth century, but rather “triadic” in that it gives prototheological expression to the early Christian experience and belief in God as Father, Son and Spirit.

        There are other triadic texts in the New Testament that, directly or indirectly, bear decisive trinitarian implications. For example, the account of the baptism of Jesus highlights the divine sonship of Christ, who is identified as the “beloved Son” by the voice of the Father, and upon whom the fullness of the Spirit descends (Mt. 3:16-17). In 2 Cor. 13:13 Saint Paul ends with the blessing, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you,” a familiar benediction in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. In Eph. 4:4-6 we find another direct triadic text having the marks of an early Christian confessional formula: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.” Many more New Testament texts and even entire chapters, can be produced which, implicitly or explicitly, presuppose and reflect the richer early Christian understanding of God as Trinity (e.g., Acts 1:1-5; 1 Cor. 12:1-6; 2 Cor. 3; Rom. 1:1-6; 5:1-5; 8:1-17; Eph. 5:18-20; Jn 4:10-14; 14:15-24; Rev. 1:4-6). All these texts originate not from one author or one congregation but from the entire life of the early Church to which they bear testimony. In other words, the Christian understanding of God as Trinity arises from primary revelatory ground, the corporate religious experience of the early Christians in response to the ministry of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. Knowledge of the Holy Trinity expresses the heart of Christian faith, piety and worship.

        Despite this evidence from the New Testament, two objections have often been raised against the view of God as Trinity. One objection is at the popular level and the other at a sophisticated one, but both comparably superficial, equally false and correspondingly dangerous. The popular one holds that the gods of all religions are basically the same. All religious people, it is said, seek to climb to the same mountain but from different sides. In ancient times, a similar idea was expressed that there were many gods bearing many names, Zeus, Apollo, Baal, Serapis, and numerous others, but all referred to the same reality. In biblical perspective, nothing could be further from the truth. This sort of syncretistic view of God is diametrically opposed to the Jewish and Christian view of God as the living God of Abraham, Jacob and Isaac. It is against the polytheism of the times that the Hebrew Prophets raised their voices and proclaimed the God of Israel as the only true and living God. The biblical teaching about God developed precisely in polemical rejection of idolatry, that is, the rejection of the many gods of paganism seen as false gods and humanly devised idols.  We read in Dt. 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” This core Old Testament confession of faith, while affirming loyalty to the true and living God of Israel, intends to reject and exclude the worship of pagan deities, for example, Baal the fertility god of Canaan, or Moloch to whom children were offered as sacrifice. Heaven forbid that the name of the Holy One of Israel, the Father of Jesus Christ, should be mentioned in the same breath with such gods!

        A community’s beliefs about God and its worship of God directly impact on the community’s life and values. It is for this reason that Saint Paul was extremely concerned about the eating of idol meats by Christians in Corinth, a custom bound up with the celebration of pagan feasts and the worship of pagan deities. It was an issue to which the Apostle Paul devoted concentrated attention in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (chaps. 8-10). He did not necessarily deny the existence of false deities but he utterly rejected their standing. He writes: “Indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’ — yet for us there is one God, the Father . . . and one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:5-6). At the end of his pastoral admonitions Saint Paul uses stronger language:

What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is

anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not

to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the

the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of

the Lord and the table of demons (1 Cor. 10:19-21).

The second, modern and more sophisticated objection to the trinitarian view of God may be traced back to German theologians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Perhaps the greatest exponent of this position was Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) who argued that the development of dogma was part and parcel of the “hellenization” of Christianity. According to this view, the trinitarian doctrine was fatally influenced by Greek philosophical thought and was not derived from the witness of Scripture. The Bible speaks of the saving activities of God, so it was claimed, not the metaphysical nature of God. Church dogma allegedly developed on the basis of philosophical principles and abstractions, not the living faith of the Bible. The Church Fathers were presumably lured into the realm of pagan thought, dangerously leaning toward tritheism, and thus departed from the good ground of Jewish monotheism.         

        That argument about the hellenization of Christianity has now grown stale. One reason is the fact that ancient cultures and religions were not sealed off from one another. The impact of Hellenic language and culture was already felt by the Jews in Alexandria, Palestine and elsewhere, beginning with Alexander the Great, several centuries prior to the rise of Christianity. More importantly, biblical scholarship during the last half century has emphasized the Jewish background of the New Testament, including the Gospel of John, the Pauline Epistles and the Book of Revelation, documents which contain primary christological and triadic texts. It can be further argued, as many biblical scholars do, that the whole stream of the biblical tradition, including the Old Testament, is to speak of God not as an isolated singularity or exclusive monad. God existed and acted by means of His personified Wisdom or Logos and by the power of his Spirit. In this perspective, the Jewish heritage already bears intimations of the plentitude of God — Yahweh existing and revealing Himself through His Wisdom and Spirit, the two “hands” of God according to Saint Eirenaios, in relational and reciprocal terms.

        Nevertheless, the decisive step to the experiential understanding of God as Holy Trinity is taken in the New Testament. This understanding is centered on the person and saving work of Christ whom the early Christians came to exalt and worship as Lord and Savior. This crucial step was not at all a denial of monotheism but a movement to a richer, more expansive understanding of monotheism based on Jesus’ ministry, particularly His death and resurrection. The Apostle Paul, “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil 3:5), shows not the slightest concern that he is compromising the Jewish legacy of monotheism when he proclaims the risen Christ as Lord, the One who bears the Name above every name (Phil 2:11). With startling and disarming ease he is able to appeal to God and to Christ in the same breath attributing to them equal divine prerogatives. For example, he writes in 1 Cor. 8:6: “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”  Similarly the Evangelist John draws from the Old Testament the concept of personified Wisdom to proclaim the pre-existence of the Divine Logos or Word, whom he names as eternal God, the Only Son and Revealer of the Father (Jn 1:1, 18; cf. 20:28). According to the Evangelist John, Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnate God, not the Father but the Son, distinct from the Father yet united with him, the One who fully shares the Name and deep being of God, and therefore who shares all the divine prerogatives of life and judgment, including the sending forth of the Spirit who proceeds from the Father (Jn 1:14; 8:24,28,58; 10:30; 14:9-11; 15:26). Presenting Jesus’ ministry against the background of Jewish life and thought — Temple, Jewish festivals, Old Testament events and concepts — the Gospel of Saint John provides the single richest resource of the Christian understanding of God as Trinity.

        Let me add a personal note with regard to the argument that the idea of God as Holy Trinity is a metaphysical abstraction, a result of philosophical speculation by the Church Fathers. Growing up in the Church, I recited the Creed as I recited the Lord’s Prayer. I never thought of the Creed as something abstract or distant. I took for granted that all others in the Church did the same and thought in the same way. Just as we prayed, “Our Father, who art in heaven . . . ,” so also we prayed, “I believe in one God, Father Almighty . . . and in one Lord, Jesus Christ . . . and in the Holy Spirit . . .” I still do and so does my congregation. The Creed is a confession of faith summarizing what the Scriptures proclaim. It helps us to recall and praise the name and saving work of God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — in salvation history. The Creed in essence is liturgically rooted and has become an integral part of liturgy. It grew out of the life experience and the prayers of the Church. It still functions as a prayer, a hymn, a song of faith, proclaims the good news of salvation in confessional and doctrinal language.

        As a theological student and later professor of theology, I have spent considerable time reading the Church Fathers, such as Saint Ignatios of Antioch, Saint Justin the Martyr, Saint Athanasios, the three Cappadocians, and others. While doing so, I have always wondered whether the detractors of the trinitarian understanding of God had read the same Church Fathers I was reading. It was obvious to me that the Church Fathers were primarily students of the Bible. Having in view the whole history of salvation, they focused on Christ, His teaching and healing ministry, and the central events of salvation — incarnation, death and resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit. They thought and argued issues as intellectuals of their time, and in the process used a few key philosophical terms, such as ousia (essence or substance), hypostasis (subsistence, person) and homoousios (of the same essence or substance), in order to defend and secure the right teaching about what they considered to be primarily an ineffable mystery as expressed in the Bible. However, their dominant terminology, basic categories and focal attention was thoroughly biblical.

        For example, Saint Athanasios in his Letters to Serapion mainly intends to demonstrate the divinity of the Son, whereas St. Basil in his work On the Holy Spirit is concerned to do the same with regard to the Spirit. But both rely on Scripture and arguments drawn from Scripture. And the chief argument in both cases, supported by numerous biblical texts, is utterly clear and overpowering: if Scripture attributes to the Son and the Spirit titles, prerogatives, powers and activities which belong to God the Father, then the conclusion is inescapable that the Son and the Spirit belong to the same uncreated realm of the being and life of God. It was such thoroughly biblical considerations that guided the Church Fathers to formulate a full trinitarian doctrine as reflection on Scripture and the data of Christian worship since apostolic times.

        I conclude the first part of this study with a brief description of my understanding of God as Trinity, the central mystery of faith, as I see it in Scripture and the Church Fathers, a perspective which I find utterly coherent and compelling. God is primarily God the Father, the source of deity and of all life. As Scripture abundantly attests, the Father is the primary cause and actor behind creation, revelation and redemption. But the Father is not alone, an isolated, solitary deity. He acts and reveals Himself, again according to Scripture, through His Son and by the power of His Spirit.

        The trinitarian theology of the Church Fathers, reflecting on this mystery, helps us to understand that the Son and the Spirit are not separate deities but exist in eternal communion and union with the Father. The Father gives all that He is to the Son, except Fatherhood (the attribute of being Father), because the Son is the Son and not the Father, and it was the Son who assumed human flesh, died on the Cross and was resurrected on the third day for our salvation. The Father equally gives all that He is to the Spirit, except Fatherhood and Sonship, because the Spirit is not the Father, nor the Son, and it was the Spirit who was revealed on the day of Pentecost. Thus the Trinity is one God, Father, Son and Spirit, sharing all things — existence, essence, sovereignty, kingdom, will and activities in creation and the work of salvation.

        The patristic principle that in God as Trinity all things are shared safeguards monotheism, while the principle that the attributes of being Father, Son and Spirit are not shared requires and safeguards Trinity. How do we know this? We know it not from purely rational analysis or philosophical speculation but from historical revelation enshrined in the witness of Scripture. We know it from the fact that, according to Scripture, it is the Father who sends the Son to the world and not the reverse. It is the Son who becomes incarnate, neither the Father nor the Spirit. And it is the Spirit who was revealed on Pentecost. Accordingly we affirm the full unity of the one true God disclosed in three distinct persons, dwelling in one another and sharing all things, yet being truly distinct persons without losing their unity. Such in brief terms is the trinitarian teaching of Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers.