Holy Trinity

ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU

The Trinity is what Christians eventually came to refer to as the New Testament witnesses to a faith in Jesus as the Son of God, who as a result of his unique relation to the Father, reveals the Father and offers the eschatological gift of salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament itself does not give any definitive or creed-like statements about God as Trinity. What the earliest followers and interpreters of Jesus do is to continue to speak about Jesus and interpret his life, sayings, and deeds, together with the salva­tion he offers, in terms of Jesus’ relationship to the Father and the Spirit.

Although there existed a variety of interpretations of Jesus in the earliest formulations of Christianity, two positions became predominant. The first consists of understanding Jesus as a divine mediator, but not generally seen as divine in the same degree as God the Father (often known as Pre-Nicene subordinationism); the second affirms Jesus as of equal divinity with the Father. It is important for the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity to notice that these two positions share many common assumptions: (1) that Jesus is the Messiah and, as such, the one who fulfills the promise of salvation; (2) that this salvation consists in the bringing of creation into some form of renewed contact with the divine; and (3) as mediamediator of this contact between divinity and creation, Jesus is revealed as the divine Son of God. The core of the debates of the identity of Christ in the 2nd and 3rd centuries gravitated around the question of the degree and nature of divinity ascribed to Jesus by the church.

These two parallel trajectories would ultimately culminate – and critically so – in the famous controversies of the 4th century between St. Athanasius of Alexandria and the Nicene theologians, and the so-called “Arians.” Athanasius would stand in continuity with Sts. Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyon in empha­sizing salvation as humanity’s freedom from death and corruption, and that this freedom requires a conceptualizing of the God-world relation in terms of a communion between the created and the uncreated. The unequivocal declaration of the co-equal divinity of the Son with the Father occurs first in Athanasius, who argues that there is no freedom from death and corruption, and hence no eternal life, without a communion of the created with the full divinity as revealed in the person and work of Christ.

What the debate between Athanasius and the Arians makes fundamentally clear is Athanasius’ prioritization of a grammar of divine-human communion in discourse about God’s relation to the world. The Arians did not deny the necessity of creation’s communion with the divine; nor did they deny that such a communion required mediation; but their particular understanding of divine simplicity forced them to reduce the mediator to something in between the uncreated and created, with the net effect being both the negation of their own notion of divine simplicity and the denial of real communion with the fullness of the divine life. St. Athanasius was not attempting to reject the notion of divine

Plate 30 Contemporary icon of the Divine Trinity (after Rublev). By Eileen McGuckin. The Icon Studio: www.sgtt.org.

life. St. Athanasius was not attempting to reject the notion of divine simplicity, but rather attempting to radical­ize it so that it allowed for communion between two ontologically distinct realities: the uncreated and the created. Such a radicalization requires conceptualizing God in terms of distinctions that do not negate the unity of God’s eternal being. For his theology, in God’s being, there is Father and Son, with the Son being of co­equal divinity with the Father, and who mediates the created to the uncreated by being united to humanity, incarnated as Jesus. For Athanasius, anything less than this affirmation negates the possibility of divine-human communion and thus the possibility of creation’s overcoming of death and corruption, i.e., annihilation. It would thus be wrong to see the 4th- century debates as simply about the divinity of the Son. The debates are also about understanding God, whose simplicity is such that God’s being is freedom to be in communion with creation through the death and resurrection of the incarnate Son.

After Athanasius, the three Christian thinkers most credited with further elabo­rating the Christian doctrine of the Trinity are those who have usually been called the Cappadocian fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa. These Christian thinkers were responsible for two important contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity: the clear affirmation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit and the further clarification of trinitarian language. In On the Holy Spirit, St. Basil defends the divinity of the Holy Spirit on the basis of the Spirit’s activity in bringing creation into communion with the uncreated. On the basis of the patristic axiom that only God can effect communion between the uncreated and created, if the completion of this communion is left to the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is evidently of co-equal divinity with the Father and the Son. In Oration 31, St. Gregory the Theolo­gian went further than his friend Basil in explicitly declaring that the Holy Spirit is God, consubstantial with Father and Son. If, then, we understand that the full doc­trine of the Trinity is no less than the affir­mation of the co-equal divinity of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, without negating monotheism, then the unequivo­cal and explicit declaration of this affirma­tion comes in the 4th century. It would be wrong, however, to see this doctrine as a late Hellenized form of Christianity, since the patristic formulation simply gives expres­sion to the God who offers communion with God’s life in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, and in so doing, is in direct continu­ity with the New Testament apostolic wit­ness of the eschatological salvation offered in the person of Jesus.

The questions and challenges to Christian proclamations of Jesus as fully divine necessitated the use and creation of categories beyond the earliest apostolic witnesses of Jesus. In order to express the unity and distinctions within the trinitarian Godhead, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa employed the use of the distinction between ousia (essence, nature) and hypos­tasis (person, proprium). Although these categories are derived from Greek philoso­phy, they were given new meaning within the context of the trinitarian controversies.

Ousia refers to the divine essence, that which as uncreated is ontologically distinct from creation and is possessed by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; hypostasis refers to that which is distinct in the Godhead, i.e., that the Father is neither Son nor Holy Spirit, that the Son is neither Father nor Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit is neither Father nor Son. Metropolitan John Zizioulas (b. 1931) has recently claimed that the use of these terms by the Cappadocian fathers did more than simply indicate sameness and distinction in God, but inaugurated an ontological revolution. His claim has sparked a wide debate in contemporary Orthodox theology over the proper interpretation of the Cappadocians and over the implications of the doctrine of the Trinity.

During the patristic and medieval period there emerged a controversy between Latin and Greek Christendom around the so- called filioque clause, which refers to the affirmation of the procession of the Holy Spirit “From the Father and from the Son» This theological speculation is attributed to Augustine of Hippo, but he was never condemned in Greek Christendom for this particular theological claim. The contro­versy began when the phrase “and from the Son” was inserted into the Latin version of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and was increasingly prayed with this inser­tion during the Latin Mass. Its insertion into the creed in Latin Christendom was then used to amplify the differences between Latin and Greek Christendoms, which gradually became alienated the one from the other for a variety of reasons, not least of which were political and cultural. The inclusion of the filioque in the creed eventually led to a response by Byzantine intellectuals, most notably by Photius in his Mystagogy. The problem with the filioque is not the theological speculation per se of the Holy Spirit’s relation to the Father and the

Son; there is ample evidence of this kind of speculation in the Christian thinkers of Greek Christendom. The real issue is its inclusion into the creed, which raises such speculation to the level of a dogmatic truth, which then becomes an occasion for exac­erbating and hardening divisions between Christian communions. The fact that the filioque per se should not be a cause for divisions among Christians was reiterated in a recent statement (October 2007) pro­duced by the North American Orthodox- Catholic Theological Consultation.

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 there is little evidence of any extensive theological thinking on the doctrine of the Trinity. The first signs of a revival of trinitarian theology occur in 19th-century Russia. From the 19th century forward, three basic trajectories emerge within contemporary Orthodox theology of the Trinity: the SophiologyofSergius Bulgakov; the apophaticism of Vladimir Lossky; and the relational ontology of John Zizioulas. Each in his own way attempted to interpret further the patristic understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

In 19th-century Russia, trinitarian speculation reemerges with the Sophiology of Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), which received its most sophisticated theological development in Sergius Bulgakov’s (1871–1944) trilogy, On Divine Humanity. At its core, Bulgakov’s Sophi- ology is a trinitarian theology. The key to understanding Bulgakov’s trinitarian theology is to, literally, decipher what he means by Sophia, which has been the chief stumbling block to fully appreciating Bulgakov’s work. The question that must be posed to Bulgakov is the following: why is the concept of Sophia necessary for trinitarian theology?

In the end, Sophia is identified with homoousios in Bulgakov’s system. Sophia is, quite simply, the ousia of God hypostatized in the tri-hypostatic self­revelation of God; but, as such, it is no longer simply ousia. Bracketing the self­revelation of the Father in the Son and the Spirit, Bulgakov argues that the Father remains undisclosed. It is only in the self­revelation of God in the Son and the Holy Spirit that all that God is finds expression by being revealed, and only in this self­revelation that all that God is, actually is. There is thus an identification in Bulgakov between the self-revelation of God to Godself and the fullness of God’s existence. In this fullness of God’s existence, ousia is no longer an apophatic concept indicative of impenetrable mystery and transcendence of the Absolute; ousia is Sophia. Sophia, for Bulgakov, then, is God’s being as the self­revelation of the Father in the Son and the Holy Spirit.

As the very being of God, Sophia must necessarily refer to God’s relation to the world, and not simply to the intra­trinitarian relations. If the self-revelation of God in the Logos and the Holy Spirit is the revelation of all that God is, then God’s relation to creation and humanity is to be included in all that God is. Bulgakov is not here arguing for the eternity of a creation that is restricted by time and space. If, how­ever, all theology is grounded in the premise that God has revealed Godself as creator and redeemer, it becomes impossible for Bulgakov to conceive the thinking of the divine that does not include God existing as eternally relating to creation in some way. Therefore, God’s self-revelation as the reve­lation of all that God is, is also God’s being as love, and, to this extent, being as the freedom to create and redeem what is not God; in short, as eternally relating to creation. Replying to those who argued that he was making creation constitutive of the being of God, Bulgakov explicitly denied the charge. For Bulgakov, it is impossible to conceive of God’s being as not already existing as an eternal relation to creation, even if that means that God is not compelled to realize this creation in time and space.

Together with Georges Florovsky (1893–1979), Vladimir Lossky (1903–58) was responsible for inaugurating the move­ment most influential within contemporary Orthodox theology known as the “neo­patristic synthesis.” For Lossky, the doctrine of the Trinity is a revealed fact and the goal of theology is to find the proper language to express the antinomic belief of God’s unity-in-distinction. The revelation of the divine-human communion in the incarna­tion, for Lossky, demands that theology be apophatic, which is not simply defining God in terms of what God is not. Apophaticism, according to Lossky, is the rejection of the rationalization of theology; that is, the understanding of knowledge of God in terms of rational propositions rather than a mystical union that transcends reason. If the ultimate goal is for the Christian to progress toward union with the divine, then the purpose of dogma is not to arrive at propositions of faith to which one must give assent, but rather to express the antinomy of divine-human communion so as to guide the Christian toward this telos (goal). The distinction between ousia and hyposta­sis functions, therefore, is simply to indicate the antinomy, without attempting to give a definitive understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Another crucial antinomy for Lossky is that between the essence and energies of God. The essence of God refers to the impenetrable mystery of God, while the energies refer to that aspect of God in which creation participates and is deified. It is not necessarily clear in Lossky how the antinomy of essence-energies coheres with the trinitarian antinomy of ousia- hypostasis, other than the trinitarian persons conveying the energies of God. In other words, if God relates to creation through God’s energies, it is not clear in Lossky how God’s being as Trinity is the same as God’s freedom to be in communion with creation. A tension also exists in Lossky between his apophatic approach to the Trinity and his more Kataphatic state­ments about personhood as being freedom from the necessity of death and the corrup­tion inherent in created nature, and as that term which indicates irreducibility and uniqueness.

John Zizioulas is responsible for the most influential and the most controversial con­temporary Orthodox trinitarian theology. The controversy centers on his theology of personhood, which he links directly to the distinction between ousia and hypostasis given by the Cappadocian fathers. It would be a mistake, however, to place Zizioulas in the camp of theologians who espouse a “Social Trinity”: his theological under­standing of personhood is not simply a derivation from a community of three eternal, self-conscious persons. The basis for his theology of personhood is the divine-human communion experienced in the Eucharist.

This personal understanding of divine- human communion in Christ informs Zizioulas’ trinitarian theology, especially his understanding of the monarchy of the Father. According to Zizioulas, the source of God’s trinitarian being is God the Father. The net result is that being is critically identified with personhood and not with essence, as it was in Greek philosophy. The emphasis on the monarchy of the Father, the distinction between hypostasis and ousia, the identification of hypostasis and prosopon, and the distinction between the uncreated and the created (all of which are informed by the experience of divine- human communion in the Eucharist), are nothing short of an “ontological revolution” in philosophy and Christian theology, as Zizioulas sees it. The emphasis on the monarchy of the Father is especially important for Zizioulas, since only if God is free from the necessity of nature can God be free to be in communion with creation. If God is confined to the necessity of nature, then God cannot give what God does not have, and thus created existence is destined to the death and corruption inherent in created nature.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, for Zizioulas, is a revolution in ontology insofar as it gives expression to the being of God who in freedom and love is in communion with the ontological other – creation; but the ontological implications of such a communion are such that for the first time in philosophy and theology primacy has been given to the concepts that were thought by the ancient Greeks not to have ontological content: ideas such as person, relation, uniqueness, irreducibility, and free­dom (the “accidentals” of Greek thought).

Zizioulas’ interpretation of the Cappa­docians has come under fire from several patristic scholars for reading into the fathers a theology that is simply not there. That notwithstanding, it could be argued that Zizioulas’ understanding of person- hood as a relational event of freedom and uniqueness is that which is logically implied in the high patristic doctrine of the Trinity, especially if this doctrine is governed by the Christian grammar of divine-human com­munion. What is clear, around this period, is that the goal was to avoid anti-Nicene interpretations, because something less than full communion with the One God would be given, and not simply because there was concern to safeguard an already given faith in a God who is three and one. Hypostasis is appropriated so as to indicate distinctions within God that would allow for communion with the “true” God in the person of the Son; the language of ousia simply cannot do that work. Within the context of the grammar of the doctrine itself, hypostasis is that category which emerges as an attempt to make sense of the God who, in love and freedom, is incar­nate in Jesus Christ. Thus, the reworking of hypostasis and prosopon emerges against the background of a grammar of divine-human communion. What was being settled in these patristic controversies, therefore, was not simply language that would identify what is common or particular in God, but the very language of divine-human com­munion itself.

Each of these contemporary Orthodox trajectories share in common an under­standing of the doctrine of the Trinity as the Christian expression of God’s being as free to be in communion with what is not God. The disagreement lies in the implications of this consensus of divine- human communion for trinitarian theol­ogy. In the future, Orthodox trinitarian theology faces at least two issues. First, the perennial question of patristic herme­neutics: is the question of God as Trinity a settled one; or (if one agrees that the settling of the question of God is an impossibility for faith), what might consti­tute authentic amplification of the classic patristic theology? Second, Orthodox thought is in serious need of a theology that integrates two not so manifestly com­patible strands of thought: apophaticism, together with its essence-energies distinc­tion, and the classically formulated doctrine of the Trinity.

SEE ALSO: Berdiaev, Nikolai A. (1874–1948); Bulgakov, Sergius (Sergei) (1871–1944); Cappadocian Fathers; Christ; Deification; Eucha­rist; Fatherhood of God; Filioque; Florovsky, Georges V. (1893–1979); Holy Spirit; Incarna­tion (of the Logos); Lossky, Vladimir (1903–1958); Patristics; Solovyov, Vladimir (1853–1900); Sophiology; Soteriology

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Bobrinskoy, B. (2001) The Mystery of the Trinity.

Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Bulgakov, S. (1933) L’Orthodoxie. Paris: Alcan. Hanson, R. P. C. (1988) The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Lonergan, B. (1976) The Way to Nicaea. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd.

McGuckin, J. A. (2001) St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Papanikolaou, A. (2006) Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press. Zizioulas, J. (1985) Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.