The Trinity

Introduction

1~T is instructive to trace the history of such a -*- doctrine as the divinity of Christ, and his relation to the Father, and see what different forms it has assumed at different times, and how the doctrine, as now received in the Christian church, has been built up, little by little, as the result of many controversies. Such an historic sketch may serve as a fitting introduction to the present volume.

The doctrine of the true and proper divinity of Christ, early in the history of the church, met with direct and earnest opposition. In the first century there were those who held that Christ was simply a man like other men, save that the divine wisdom was conferred on him more fully than on other men, and on this account he was called the Son of God, and was in a sense divine. This doctrine — essentially that of the modem Socinians and Unitarians — was held bv the Ebiomtes. a sect of Jewish tendencies.

VI INTRODUCTION.

which arose near the close of the first century. Gibbon, Priestley, Baur, and others, have sought to find in this the original type of Christianity ; but such is not the fact.

The Ebionites held that this divine illumination of Jesus took place at some time during his earthly life, previous to which special illumination he had no more of the divine element, no more wisdom, than other men. On the other hand, there were those, as Theodotrcs and his followers, and the disciples of Artemon, in the second century, who, while in common with the Ebionites rejecting the proper divinity of Jesus, maintained that he was from the very first of his life under the peculiar influence of the divine spirit, and that his conception was out of the usual course of nature. The scientific and skeptical spirit of the age was represented by the school of Artemon, who rejected as false or fabulous whatever passed the limits of the understanding.

Closely allied to these were the views of Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch in the third century, who seems to have rejected entirely the proper divinity of Christ.

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But the church doctrine of the divinity of Christ found its most general, most permanent, and most dangerous opposition, in the doctrines and disciples of Arius, in the early part of the fourth century, and onward. The true humanity, not less than the true divinity of Jesus, was, in fact, denied by the Arians. They held that he was a created being, neither eternal nor self-existent, the first and chief of all created intelligence, existing as such before his incarnation, hence not properly a human soul, nor yet, in the highest sense, divine ; though far exalted above all other created beings, and endowed by the Father with certain divine attributes.

Indeed, as we shall presently see, the views of many of the early church fathers, long prior to the time of Arius, were decidedly in this direction. They regarded the Son as a being not only numerically distinct from the Father, before the incarnation, but of derived existence, and in an important respect, then tore, subordinate. The Arianism of the fourth century is, in fact, but the matured result of views widely prevalent in the Christian church at a much earlier period.

Till INTRODUCTION.

Among those who recognized the great central truth of the divinity of Christ, there prevailed, almost from the first, widely divergent views. On the one hand, the Monarchian, or Patri-Passian view, which lost sight of the distinction between the Logos and the Father, and regarded the names Father and Son as only different modes of representing the same being, or different relations of the same being to our world. On the other hand, the view more generally held made prominent the distinction between the Father and the Logos, and even went so far as r in some instances, to represent the latter as God only in a secondary sense. Of the former class — Monarchian — were Praxeas, JVoetus, and, with some modification, Sabellius, according to whom not the whole Deity, as the Monarchians generally held, but an efflux or emanation from Deity entered into and inspired the humanity of Christ. This emanation is the Logos, or Word. In like manner the Holy Spirit is an emanation from the unrevealed Deity. Thus, in the process of self-revelation, God becomes triune. In himself he is unity, and unrevealed. This selfexpression of Deity is the ground of all existence,

INTRODUCTION. IX

and is likened to the emanation of a ray from the sun.

Of the other party of Trinitarians in the early church, making prominent the distinction between the Father and the Logos, the chief teachers were Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. Justin Martyr' holds that the Logos was begotten in the beginning, before all creation, by the will of the Father. The distinction between the two is real, mimerical, and not merely nominal; not merely as the light differs from the sun. As the words which man utters in speech detract nothing from his nature in substance, but leave these wholly unimpaired, so the generation of the divine "Word leaves the divine nature wholly unimpaired. Another favorite figure of writers of this school, to illustrate the relation of the Son to the Father, was the emanation of a ray from the body or disk of the sun, which detracts nothing from its source. In common with other Christian teachers of the time, Justin Martyr does not regard the Logos as originally, and eternally, a distinct hypostasis from the Father, but as only the divine reason or intelligence in the Father, becoming

X INTEODUCTION".

a separate substance or being only when God said, " Let there be light." Then the reason, previously dwelling as the thought in the divine mind, becomes a distinct rational being, the Son of the Father. The unity of the two is merely a unity of purpose, will, or sentiment.

The Logos, then, of Justin was neither a self-existent, independent, nor eternal being, nor is he one with God in any strict and proper sense, but numerically distinct. He conies forth from the Father, derives his being from him, and that in time, or at the creation of the world, and is Deity only in a subordinate sense. Similar were the views of Theophilus and Tatian.

Clement of Alexandria admits the separate existence or hypostasis of the Logos prior to the creation of the worlds, but as numerically distinct from the Father, and dependent on him as a derived being. He is the copy of the Father — 0e6<; £x Otoh — God from God — subordinate to the Father, though superior to men and angels. T^rtullian seeks to hold both the distinction and the unity of the two. In his treatise against Praxeas he says: "Before all

INTRODUCTION. XI

things the Deity was alone; yet not alone, for he had with him that which he had in himself, namely, his reason" — meaning by this the Logos, or Word. This divine Word proceeds from the Deity, is derived from it, and a portion of it, as the stream from the fountain, or a ray of light from the sun. The unity of the two he compares to that of the root and the trunk of a tree, which are two things, yet conjoined ; or the stream and the fountain, which are two, yet one. Still the Father, as the source of being, is other and greater than the Son, who proceeds from and is a portion of him.

The idea of personal distinction and subordination was carried yet further, or at least made more emphatic, by Origen, who uses the term Son in such a way as clearly to imply a derived existence, and gives definite shape to the incomprehensible dogma of eternal generation. The Son thus eternally begotten is not, as with Tertullian, the divine reason merely, or the word spoken, but a personal subsistence; not, however, self-subsistent, but of derived origin, not partaking the divine essence, which belonge to the Father alone, but another and secondary

Xll INTRODUCTION.

nature. Hence he calls him 9s6<; feurepoc; — a Deity of second rank. The unity of the two, with Origen, as with Justin and Clement, is harmony of will, agreement, society, a moral unity, as Paul and Apol los are one. The Son is not, however, a creation, or a created being, but begotten ; and herein the writers now named differ from the Arians — a difference sometimes lost sight of by subsequent teachers, since we find Dionysius, pupil of Origen, representing the Son as the creation and work of the Father, as a ship is the work of the builder, and Gregory Thaumaturgus also calling him a creation — xri<n<;.

These views finally culminated in Arianism. Indeed nothing is plainer, than that, as already said, the distinctive principle of Arianism — that is, the essential and original subordination of the Logos to the Father — was a doctrine prevalent in the Christian church long before the time of Arius; and that even in the long and bitter controversy which then arose, the absolute Deity of the Logos, in the modern Trinitarian sense, as equal with the Father, was not held by the church fathers, even of the Athanasian party. With all the zeal of that party against

INTRODUCTION. XUL

Arianism, and in defense of the true and proper divinity of Christ, it neither held the doctrine of numerical unity of being or substance, nor yet the full equality of the Son with the Father. An essential difference between the two lies in fact upon the very face of the creed put forth by the Nicene Council. "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, seen and unseen ; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father," etc. The one God then, of the Nicene creed, is the Father, and is clearly distinguished from the being subsequently named, the one Lord Jesus Christ. True, this Son of God is spoken of as a begotten and not a created being ; in this respect the error of the Arians is fully met ; but still a being distinct from the one God first named, derived from him, and subordinate to him — God from God, light from light — and not an independent and self-existent being. The Nicene fathers nowhere affirm, or imply the numerical unity of substance, or being, of the Son and the Father, nor the full equality of the former with the latter. When they call the Son t5/jtoo6<T£o? with the Father, they mean simply that

XIV INTKODUCTION.

the two have a common nature, that they share the Godhead in common ; not that he is self- existent, independent, or equal with the Father. This thej not only nowhere affirm, but both by implication and express statement deny. The Father and Son are one as belonging to a common genus — individuals under a common class, namely that of Deity. Thiswas the point specially in dispute with the Arians, who placed the Son, not in the rank of Deity, but in the class of created beings.

Professor Shedd, in his History of Doctrine, endeavors to show that the Nicene fathers maintained that the Son was derived from the Father, merely as to his personality, and not as to his substance, or essence. But Athanasius distinctly recognizes the nbcia — being or essence — of the Son as distinct from that of the Father, and derived from it —

the other an obaia dyewyros. The Son, then, is derived from the Father as to his substance or essence, and not merely as to the distinction of personality.

Athanasius, in one passage at least, uses the term dfioouffios as equivalent to 6fxo<t>ur;<;, that which per-

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tains to individuals of a common nature, or genus. In like manner Gregory of Nazianzen regards the persons of the Godhead as 6/j.oougioc, in the same sense that Adam, Eve, and Seth are oixoobatoi — that is, as possessing a common nature. Their unity is simply unity of purpose and operation. Basil the Great explains the word 6fioob<nov, in the same manner, as denoting simply unity of rank, or the same dignity of nature with the Father, and says the word was chosen to express this idea. Gregory of Nyssa understands the same thing by it, and illustrates it by reference to Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, who, he says, were not three obaiai — three natures or essences — but only one, and are called three men only by a figure of speech. Chrysostom uses the term quite in the JSTieene fashion when he says, by way of illustrating the relation of the Son to the Father, that Adam and Eve were d/ioo&atot, and that children are 6/ioovatot with their parents, — that is, partake of the same nature, or belong to a common species. Indeed, Athanasius uses almost the lame expression to illustrate the same thing. "We men, consisting of a body and a soul, are all of one

XVI INTRODUCTION.

nature and essence — [xiaq tyuozux; xa\ obaiaq — but we are many persons." Are we then all one man?

Bishop Bull, in his defense of the Nicene creed, cites the fathers as maintaining that the Father is the fountain, origin and principium of the divinity which is in the Son ; that he is ahcoq rod 6tod, author of the Son, and ahtov rod ehai, author of his being. Here, again, it is not of personality, as Shedd thinks, but of essence {obaia) and being (to ehac), that these fathers are speaking. It is the divinity of the Son that they derive from that of the Father as its origin and principium. " They all with one breath," says Bull, "taught that the divine nature and perfections belong to the Farther and Son, not collaterally or coordinately, but subordinately — that is to say, that the Son has the same divine nature in common with the Father, but communicated by the Father."

The view of Augustine approximates more nearly to the Sabellian in making the work of the Son to be that really of the whole Trinity. He compares the distinction of persons in the Trinity to that of memory, intelligence, and will, in man. This makes introduction: xvti

the most of the divine unity, while it reduces to a minimum the individuality of the persons.

It was not until the fifth, or possibly even the seventh century, that the doctrine of the Trinity received its most definite and positive form, in what is now known as the Athanasian creed — improperly so called, — whose statements, apparently contradictory, now asserting, and in the next breath retracting, and denying, are so worded, with utmost care, as to exclude the various erroneous opinions that might on either side arise. The key to its apparent contradictions — as when it affirms that the Father is eternal, the Son eternal, and the Spirit eternal ; yet there are not three who are eternal, but only one — non tres ceterni, sed unus wternus — is perhaps to be found in the fact already stated, that the Kicene fathers understood, by the unity of God, merely a generic unity, shared by several persons all belonging to the same rank or class ; so that while each is God, there is still but one God ; just as there are many who share the human nature, yet the human nice is one.

There are certain metaphysical theories of the

XV1U •INTRODUCTION.

Trinity, of a later date, which deserve a passing notice. From the first, there have been in the Christian church minds of a certain order, devout, learned, speculative, inclined to the Platonic methods of thought, who have sought by means of that philosophy to solve the highest problems of the Christian faith. The Logos of Plato is the eternal reason, dwelling ever in the Supreme Being, and essential to the very idea of God. From this, as starting point, the Platonic fathers deduced their Trinity in the following manner : The divine mind exerted upon itself, contemplating its own perfections, gives rise to the personal subsistence of the Son ; and as the divine mind must eternally have been active, and have been eternally thus employed, it must have been from eternity giving rise to the personal existence of the Son. Among English divines Dr. Ilorsley, Dr. Chauncey, and others, have taken this view. Similar is the theory of Melancthon, and from the same source — that is, the Platonic philosophy. The Logos is God's thought, bearing his image, and receiving personality from him. In like manner, among the Germans Olshausen makes the Son to

INTRODUCTION. XIX

be the self-consciousness of the Father, his knowledge of himself, so that the Father dwells in the Son ; but as these faculties revert again to himself, this return gives rise to the third person, or the Holy Spirit. Professor Shedd, in his History of Doctrine, takes substantially the same view, in a note in which he attempts to illustrate the doctrine from the sphere of the human self-consciousness. The theory is essentially Platonic in spirit and Hegelian in form.

In the sixteenth century we find the doctrine of the simple humanity of Christ brought again into prominence in the teaching of Socinus, who holds that Christ is by nature a mere man, but that since his resurrection all power is committed to him, as ruler of the universe. Hence he is properly called God, and is a proper object of worship. Indeed, Socinus would acknowledge no one to be a Christian who does not worship Christ. He is the Saviour of men, not merely by his teaching, but as priest and intercessor, and especially by his power exerted in their behalf as Lord and King.

The Subelliaii view is wry nearly reproduced in

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the theory of Swedenborg, who holds that Christ is none other than Jehovah, the one only true God, assuming a material form and human body in the womb of Mary.

Then, again, comes up, if not indeed the Arian view, at least something closely approximating to it, in the theory of Doctor Watts, the Christian psalmist, who maintains the preexistence of the human soul of Christ as the highest of all created souls. Becoming incarnate, it empties itself of this superiority, and assumes a human body. After the resurrection it becomes again what it was originally.

The Pantheism, so widely prevalent at the present day, rejects the true and proper divinity of Christ, by making a like divinity to be the common property of the race. The whole world is but the manifestation of God, and the God-man is the human race as a whole. The real incarnation is from eternity. Thus ScheUing, in his earlier philosophy, and after him Strauss, deny that there was in Christ any special union of the divine and human elements, more than may be realized in others. Strauss affirms this union of the whole human race.

INTRODUCTION. XXI

To this the view of Schleiermacher seems closely to approximate, if it be not, indeed, essentially the same. He holds that Christ was the ideal man, the type of the race. He had no preexistence, but was a new creation. He is, however, God in the human form, man being the manifestation of God on the earth — his modus existendi. In other men he is but imperfectly developed, the God-consciousness being in them overpowered by the world-consciousness; while in Christ it predominated, and controlled his whole life. As thus ideally perfect he awakens the God-life in others. He is simple man, yet as the perfect type of humanity, he is divine ; and of this divinity we may all partake by faith.

According to the view of Dorner, Eorard, and other modern theologians of Germany, the divine Logos comes into the humanity of Jesus so completely, and so fully identities himself with it, as not to bave his own separate consciousness and will, nor yet the man his, but they are one — one ego, one consciousness, one will — all dualism of activity and consciousness being excluded. This would seem certainly to be at once the more simple and the

XXU INTRODUCTION.

more sensible view, as regards the much-disputed question of the union of the two natures in Christ.

But we must not protract this discussion. We have sketched in brief outline, as was proposed, the chief historical opinions which have arisen, from time to time, in the Christian church, respecting the divinity of Christ, and his relation to the Father. They have been held and put forth, for the most part, by men of sincere and devout mind and earnest purpose, to whom truth was dear and the Christian faith sacred. Mistaken they may have been in their veiws — as some of them, indeed, must have been, where they so widely differ from each other — but it is not for us to sit in judgment on their motives, much less to repronounce on them the anathemas of the Athanasian creed.

One thing is evident from this survey of opinions. With all the thought bestowed upon it, and all the care of councils and the zeal of sectaries, the relation of the divine and human elements in the person of Christ has never been so clearly defined and established as to preclude the necessity of further thought and inquiry on the subject. The

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Nicene creed, in its original form, was intended by the Council, which, after a long and bitter controversy, at last adopted it, as a final settlement of the whole question. It was to stand to all time as the ultimate decision of the Christian church on this difficult and much-vexed problem. It was to be a finality, — so it was intended, and so it was received by the emperor, the bishops, and the churches of Christendom. It was little less than a divine inspiration ; it was to be the end of all controversy, — fixing the faith of the entire Christian world for all future time, unaltered and unalterable. So it did, indeed, for a time remain. The Council of Sardica decree that no second creed shall ever appear! The Council of Ephesus go further, and declare that whosoever shall compose any other creed shall be deposed from the ministry, if a clergyman, and excommunicated, if a layman! It is a somewhat interesting and instructive fact that, with the exception of one or two eastern sects, the entire Christian world, to-day, whenever it repeats the ancient formulary of its faith, called the Nicene creed, conies fully and directly under this ban of deposition and exconiinu-

XXIV INTRODUCTION.

nication, — for the Nicene creed, as now universally received and repeated, is not that drawn up at the Council of Nice, and pronounced a finality and the end of all controversy by the Council of Ephesus, but the form adopted and sanctioned by the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, in which certain very important omissions and alterations of the original were made. Nor is the formula of Chalcedon itself altogether a finality, as the multiplied and almost innumerable creeds of Christendom to-day attest.

As Dean Stanley well remarks, in respect to this matter: ''Every time that the creed is recited, with its additions and omissions, it conveys to us the wholesome warning that our faith is not, of necessity, bound up with the literal text of creeds, or with the formal decrees of councils. It existed before the creed was drawn up ; it is larger than the letter of any creed could circumscribe. The fact that the whole Christian world has altered the creed of Nicsea, and broken the decree of Ephesus, without ceasing to be catholic or Christian, is a decisive proof that common sense, after all, is the supreme

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arbiter and corrective even of cecumenical councils." — (History of Eastern Church, p. 246.

No creed yet enunciated can claim to be a finality in this matter. There is still room for doubt, for conjecture, for earnest investigation. On a question of such moment to the world, it is perfectly idle to fall back upon the statements of the Nicene Council, or the carefully-adjusted self-contradictions of the so-called Athanasian Creed, and say, Here we rest; this is the end of all controversy and all question. Every sincere attempt of any candid, thoughtful, earnest mind to solve the problem, or cast light upon what is confessedly mysterious, is, on the contrary, to be welcomed as a step in the right direction, whether the views put forth accord with our own or not.

The work which follows is such an attempt, sincere and earnest, on the part of a devout and thoughtful mind, to cast light on a subject of acknowledged difficulty. The question discussed is one of momentous importance — essential, it may be called, to the right understanding of the Christian system; and, whatever may be thought of the particular views which the author maintains — some of which, indeed,

XXVI INTRODUCTION.

are not in accordance with the views of the present writer,— it is impossible not to give him credit for sincerity, ability, fairness, and thoroughness of discussion, and a truly Christian spirit.

The general view of the author may be thus summed up: He believes the Bible to teach, — 1. That there is but one God, the Father of all. 2. That Christ is the Son of God, begotten of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost ; that in this Son, thus begotten, God dwelt — the whole Deity, and not merely the second person of the Trinity, as usually taught. 3. That the Holy Ghost, sustaining thus to Christ the relation of Father, is none other than God the Father; in other words, is the spirit of God, and no more a distinct person from him than the spirit of a man is a distinct person from the man himself. L That the Divine Trinity— the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — are not a trinity of persons, but the three essentials of one God in Christ, — the Father being Deity; the Son, the human nature in which Deity becomes incarnate; the Holy Ghost, God working in us through his Son, — a trinity first coming into existence when God be-

INTRODUCTION. XXV11

came incarnate in the person of Jesus. Such are, in brief, the main positions of the present work. It will be perceived, at once, how nearly they approach, in general direction, the views already stated as Monarchian, and also those of Swedenborg. If the work serve to awaken fresh interest, and prompt to new and diligent investigation, it will not be without good results.

Chapter I. The Question Stated

WE believe that all Scripture is given by inspiration, and that whatever it teaches we should therefore receive as from heaven. If it reveals to us the one living and true God, and declares that beside him there is no other, we will believe it. If, while it teaches that " the Lord our God is one Lord," and that he is " God alone," it declares further, that there is in this unity a Trinity, or that there are three distinct persons, agents, or spirits, and that these three are one God ; that they are all equal in power and wisdom, and that while each one of these persons is very and eternal God, the everlasting Jehovah, there are, nevertheless, not three Deities, but one Lord ; however incomprehensible this may be, and however unreasonable and even absurd it may appear, we will not dispute it. If this is clearly the language of Inspiration, we should accept it as a fact, and here let the

matter rest. 1

V THE TRINITY.

And, indeed, this is the position which Trinitarians have generally taken. They admit that they cannot understand it, and declare that it is a mystery which no one can explain. They believe it to be true, because they understand it to be the doctrine of the Bible. No one can comprehend how there can be three persons, each one of whom is supremely divine, and yet only one God ; but then they say that there are a great many other things which are equally incomprehensible, and which we nevertheless know to be true. If we cannot understand some of the most ordinary operations of God in nature, it should not be thought strange that we cannot understand the doctrine of the Trinity. And if the Unitarian replies that he does not reject the doctrine because it is beyond his comprehension, or his power to reason, but because it is contrary to it; because the proposition that there are three and yet absolutely but one, is self-contradictory and absurd; the only answer the Trinitarian has ever been able to give is, that though it may seem to be contradictory, yet it is true, because God, as he believes, has declared it.

But the objector still demands whether we are to believe a certain thing to be true in reference to the Deity, which, if he had not revealed it, we would from the very nature of the mind which he has given us, instantly reject as false. Can we, they ask, believe that "things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other," and at the same time admit that in some cases they are not equal % or that " the whole is equal to all its parts," and then declare that in some instances this is not true ?

We could readily believe that the Father is God, and that the Son is God, and that the Holy Ghost is God, if we were willing to admit that the terms Father and Son and Holy Ghost were only different names given to the same person. But to assert that these are the names of different and distinct persons, and that they are all one God, and yet that each one is God, is to assert that three persons are one Being, and that each one of these persons is that very same Being. It would be declaring that a part is equal to the whole; that one, which is a part of three, is not only equal to it, but that one is three, and three are one i and that things which are equal to the same tiling are that thing, and yet that they are not the same, but different. Again, when we say, as above, the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, we predicate of Father and Son and Holy Ghost, which are the subjects of these three propositions, the same identical Being, and then declare that the subjects are so many different persons.