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(Athanasian Creed).
A study written by David Hill
In this article we discuss part of the Athanasian Creed (circa 8th
Century A.D.) in the light of contemporary theological analysis.
The purpose of including this article in this publication is to highlight
the degree of confusion that still exists in theological circles regarding
the doctrine of the Trinity. What is deemed to be a bulwark of
the Christian faith, on examination, proves to be no more than a concept
which has a long history of being rubberstamped as fundamental
yet never adequately defined.
Historically, the Creed, complete with damnatory clauses in its prologue
and epilogue, was formulated to protect the Catholic (meaning universal)
doctrine of the Trinity against a number of diverse theories of the Godhead.
The Creed is still regarded by some as the single shared belief of mainstream
Christianity, and a useful standard to discriminate between Christian
denomination and religious cult. However, several eminent theologians
have recently voiced their concern, along with the Catholic theologian
Karl Rahner, that “despite their orthodox confession of the Trinity,
Christians are, in their practical life, almost mere monotheists.”
Theologians of all persuasions are now re-examining the doctrine of the
Trinity and although there is considerable diversity in their perspectives,
many are united in an attempt to show that the Trinity is both pertinent
to the Christian faith and relevant to practical worship.
The Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity
Karl Rahner ruefully admits that,
should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false,
the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.
Emil Brunner makes the surprisingly bold comment that:
we must honestly admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did not
form part of the early Christian – New Testament – message,
nor has it ever been a central article of faith in the religious life
of the Christian Church as a whole, at any period in its history.
It would seem that while the doctrine of the Trinity can claim to be
an accepted dogma of the Christian Church, it is not possible to speak
of it as being universally understood. Even among those who claim to understand
the doctrine there are a varying range of interpretations. This is not
a new development in the question but goes back to the very founders of
the doctrine.
One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity
Within contemporary trinitarian perspectives the distinctives of at
least two ancient strands of theological tradition are evident. The Augustinian
influence in the West focuses on the scriptural principle of the oneness
of God and formulates its theology of God's apparent threeness
from that starting point. The Eastern concept, in the tradition of the
Cappadocian Fathers, begins with acknowledgment of the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit and from those three develops its theology of the
unity of God. The inclusive clause in the Creed “one God in
Trinity, and Trinity in Unity” embraces both viewpoints. It avoids
giving priority to either concept offers no compromise or synthesis of
the two. Both schools of thought therefore coexist as heterodoxy (diversity
of belief) within orthodoxy (uniformity of belief) and while each hold
a “doctrine of the Trinity”, their differences remain unreconciled.
The lack of precision within the term “Trinity” is supplemented
in the Athanasian Creed by the clause “Neither confounding the Persons
or dividing the Substance”. This qualification was designed to counter
the three major doctrinal alternatives that were considered in the fourth
century. They were Arianism, Apollinarianism and Sabellianism. However,
while this addition excludes extremist views, it lacks the detail to limit
a range of contemporary positions which vary from moderate Modalism (one
God with three modes) to virtual Tritheism (Three Gods). As it stands,
the Creed tolerates a variety of theories and therefore cannot function
as a test of doctrinal uniformity. It is rather a definition of the outer
limits of ecclesiastically acceptable theological speculation. Contemporary
theological work on the doctrine of God tends to push at these creedal
boundaries.
Neither confounding the Persons
The Scriptures speak of one God and the doctrine of the Trinity upholds
this truth. It cannot therefore be reduced to a simple belief in three
gods. Yet if we speak of three things, whatever they may be, it is first
necessary to identify a commonality between the individual units that
make up that group of three. To solve this problem, the Church Fathers
reluctantly settled on the Greek term hypostasis and the Latin
term persona although their precise definitions are still matters
of debate. St. Basil wrote,
There is one God and Father, one Only-begotten, and one Holy Ghost.
We proclaim each of the hypostases singly; and, when count we must,
we do not let an ignorant arithmetic carry us away to the idea of a
plurality of Gods. For we do not count by way of addition, gradually
making increase from unity to multitude, and saying one, two, and three,
— nor yet first, second, and third.
Similarly Rahner holds that:
When we say: “there are three persons in God, …. we generalise
and add up something which cannot be added up, since that which alone
is really common to the Father, Son, and Spirit is precisely the one
and only Godhead, and since there is no higher point of view from which
the three can be added as Father, Son, and Spirit.
Dissatisfaction with the term “person” in trinitarian theology
has continued despite its traditional use. Karl Barth wrote, “'Person'
as used in the Church doctrine of the Trinity bears no direct relation
to personality”. He noted Augustine's acknowledgment of the inadequacy
of language in respect to “person” in particular. Barth preferred
to substitute the Cappadocian term “mode of being” for “person”.
Similarly Rahner defines personality as a “distinct manner of subsisting”.
Disfavour with the word “person” is frequently associated with
its modern connation of individuality which when applied to “God
in three persons” inevitably invokes a tritheistic concept. Brunner
concludes that,
the idea of “Three Persons” is to be regarded with misgiving.
It is indeed impossible to understand it otherwise than in a tri-theistic
sense, however hard we may try to guard against this interpretation.
Karl Barth
Karl Barth is representative of those modern scholars whose theology
preserves the unity of the Substance and discounts the contemporary understanding
of “person” in the doctrine of the Trinity. Barth voiced concern
that retention of the term “person” (in his view now obsolete)
would erroneously lead to an understanding of God which consisted of “three
distinct centres of consciousness, three self-conscious beings”.
The clause “Neither confounding the Persons” is directed against
Sabellian modalism and Barth's position seems closest to this boundary.
John Thompson says of Barth,
His view of the Trinity is more Western than Eastern, stemming
primarily from Augustine but, rather than basing it on the one divine
substance as so much Western thought does, he follows the Cappadocians
and understands God's revelation as that of the one divine Lord who
exists as subject in three distinct personal modes of being.
Barth believed that, “The reality of God encountered in his revelation
is his reality in all the depths of eternity.” From his understanding
of this revelation Barth developed a doctrine of God within the framework
of trinitarian theology which emphasised the One God in Trinity. He applied
the modern sense of the word “personality” to the single essence
of God who is One Person (centre of consciousness) in three modes of existence.
Followers of the Barthian concept readily defend it against the charge
of Modalism. Barth himself vigorously opposed the Sabellian notion of
one God appearing at different times in three different ways. However,
in opposition to Barth, Hodgson writes,
The ground of his assertion appears to be the conviction that the
other view necessarily involves tritheism. If this be so, then it would
seem that his thought is governed by considerations which are essentially
rationalistic rather than biblical. Instead of allowing the empirical
evidence of the biblical revelation to revise his idea of unity, he
insists on making that evidence conform to the requirements of his a
priori conception of unity.
Karl Rahner
Rahner believes that the three “distinct manners of subsisting”
are not temporary roles for the sake of salvation history but are inherent
in God. What God is, is who God is. His thesis is that:
“The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and the
immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity.” There can
be no “confounding of the persons” because they each exist antecedently
in the immanent Trinity in accordance with the self-revelation of God
to us in the economic Trinity. Consequently Rahner rejects the notion
that any one of the three persons of the Trinity could have become incarnate.
For the Father is by definition the Unoriginate, the one who is
in principle “invisible”, who reveals himself and appears
precisely by sending his Word into the world. The Word is, by definition,
immanent in the divinity and active in the world, and as such the Father's
revelation. A revelation of the Father without the Logos and his incarnation
would be like speaking without words.
From the starting point of God's self-revelation and self-communication
as given in salvation history he understands that what God is for us
God is in Himself. Unlike Barth, Rahner does not advocate the replacement
of the word “person” but rather suggests that the term “distinct
manner of subsisting” be used as an adjunct for the purpose of clarification.
While Rahner, a Jesuit, is content to retain the traditional language
of the Church, he nonetheless differentiates between the “primordial
utterance of revelation” and the Church's understanding of the gospel
at any point in its history.
Through the Church's shared experience of Christ, the eternal
truth of God is more fully perceived and more authentically formulated.
Thus revelation becomes progressively actualized through the Church's
creative reflection on the gospel. Hence the ancient conciliar formulae
about the Trinity or Christ are necessarily inadequate formulations
of the truth.
Rahner is criticised for basing his understanding of the Eternal on
an extrapolation backward from the incarnation. Rahner's theological approach
“from below” is decried for collapsing the immanent Trinity
into the economic, "thereby making God dependent on his historical
manifestation". Rahner maintains however, that a theology
without a true concept of person “will have great trouble
avoiding a hidden pre-reflective tritheism”.
Dividing The Substance
Less concerned with a shift from the historic meaning of “person”
are those who maintain a concept of God that acknowledges three centres
of consciousness. Baillie suggests that the tendency to sharpen the distinctions
between the persons of the Trinity to the detriment of the unity of the
Substance owes its current resurgence to the 1918 Gifford Lectures of
Prof. Clement C. J. Webb. The concept which was refined in Hodgson's The
Doctrine of the Trinity has had significant influence in Anglican
theology. In a movement away from Augustinian thought, the notion of a
social relationship between three distinct personal beings resembles the
Cappadocian analogy of three individual men alongside each other. Among
the contemporary subcribers to this school of thought is Millard Erickson
who writes,
the Trinity must be understood as fundamentally a society. The
Godhead is a complex of persons. Love exists within the Godhead as a
binding relationship of each of the persons to each of the others.
Erickson refers to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as members of
the Trinity and uses the crass analogy of Siamese twins to illustrate
their interdependence. In contrast to Rahner's thesis he maintains that
the person of the Trinity who become incarnate did so voluntarily in conjunction
with the decision of the other two persons. Erickson further proposes
that,
there are no references to the Father begetting the Son or the
Father (and the Son) sending the Spirit that cannot be understood in
terms of the temporal roles assumed by the second and third persons
of the Trinity respectively. They do not indicate any intrinsic relationship
among the three.
At certain points in his work Erickson seems to have difficultly with
the orthodox doctrine of the eternal sonship of the second person of the
Trinity. He quotes Wolfhart Pannenberg who maintains that a doctrine of
the eternal generation of the Son cannot be adequately proved from Scripture.
Pannenberg also argues against Barth that Father, Son and Holy Spirit
should be understood “not merely as different modes of being of the
one divine subject but as living realisations of separate centres of action.”
Facing the social conception of the Trinity is the question of the “personality”
of God. Is there a personality of God or is personality only to
be found in God? If there is a personality of God (in addition
to the three persons) it is difficult to avoid the implication of a fourth
"person" in God. An alternative is to depersonalise the concept
of God and regard “it” as an ideal union of three persons. Both
these options present difficulties. Proponents of the societal Trinity
also encounter the criticism that the concept reduces each person to a
mere part of God. This charge is frequently answered with an appeal
to the Cappadocian doctrine of the perichoresis which teaches that
the whole of God is in each of the three Persons. However the Cappadocian
Fathers "did not go the whole way with the idea that the Persons
are three distinct personalities in a “social” unity even of
the highest kind". In fact they spoke in some cases of the
three Persons as God's three “modes of existence”.
Conclusion
Since the Enlightenment the creeds and dogmas of Christendom have been
subject to diminishing reverence and increasing critical analysis. It
is to be expected that a doctrine which stands at the core of Christian
theology though not explicit in the Bible would come under the scrutiny
of a broad spectrum of scholars. Out of the scholarship of the nineteenth
century emerged a variety of opinions, many of which could not be classed
as trinitarian.
Higher standards of education today demand a more plausible and intelligible
doctrine of the Trinity, yet despite the variety of theologies which are
essentially trinitarian there still lacks a working model of the Godhead
which may be universally promulgated in order to enhance the layperson's
understanding of God. Stephen Davis confesses “that we really do
not know in what way God is one and in what different way he is three”.
Christian theology appears to have failed to confine God within the limits
of a concise formula.
Although Christians may agree that we worship one God in Trinity,
and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons or dividing the
Substance their faith will inevitably find expression in worship practices
which are based on their collective understanding of God. These may vary
from a “mere monotheism” which directs worship exclusively to
the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit; to a “virtual tritheism”
which offers prayer singularly to each Person according to office. By
definition the self-revelation of God belongs in the spiritual realm rather
than in the intellectual realm. If the self-revelation of God is indeed
spiritually discerned, we must confess that we are neither equipped with
adequate language nor with the concepts of reference to express what is
essentially ineffable. Yet for the sake of the proclamation of the Christian
faith we are forced agree with Rahner:
The modern theological task demands of the Church a willingness
to reformulate new questions and raise new issues, where agreement with
traditional doctrine cannot be guaranteed in advance.
Footnotes and bibliography available upon request. Email: davhil@ozemail.com.au
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