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August 08, 2005
Ch.X. Q.64. Three Divine Persons
THE rational considerations which pantheists formulate in their effort to discredit the notion of Divine personality really make, as we have seen,1 for belief in the existence of more than one Person in the Godhead. But the truth that there are three Divine Persons is made known to us through supernatural revelation only, which teaches us to believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as co-equal and co-eternal sharers in the one Divine essence.
2. Finite personality is conditioned by contraposition of ego and non-ego. This seems to suggest the likelihood of such a contra-position in God. Thus (a) self-consciousness is attended by the distinction between ego and non-ego; (b) love implies an object of love; (c) all action implies the distinction between state and relation. Such conditions are not satisfied by creaturehood, for the Eternal requires an eternal contra-position, and God is not dependent upon the creature for self-determination. Moreover, God is simplex; so that, if He is personal, there can be nothing impersonal in Him. Subject and object must alike be personal, if there be such distinctions in Him.2
3. We must not be led by such rational suggestions to think that reason can discover the number of Persons in God or demonstrate that number when once revealed. Certain well meant attempts, based on finite analogies, have been made to construct a rationale of the Trinity. No doubt they have a basis of truth; but they are more suggestive than final, and when unduly pressed tend to unwarrantably anthropomorphic conceptions of God. Thus it is urged that there must be a principle of origin in the Godhead, in which all that is Divine inheres, and this principle is the Father, who is called the unoriginate source of the Godhead. But the Father contemplates, and requires an infinite object of contemplation reflective of Himself. His thought conceives that object, His Personal Word, in Whom He beholds His own Image. But there can be no schism or dualism in the Godhead. Love unites the Father and the Son, and the bond of love is a Person, the Holy Ghost, Who receives the essence of Both by proceeding from Both.3
4. We cannot imagine a being who is numerically one in essence and at the same time three in person. Yet there is no logical contradiction between the phrases "One Divine Essence," and "Three Divine Persons," for essence and person are not synonymous terms.4 Furthermore, a distinction of Persons in God does not, as in the case of man, involve separation, or plurality of individuals.5 God is one individual and solus. He is also a personal individual; not because He is one Person, which He is not, but, because the manner of His subsistence is personal.6
5. The personal distinctions in the Godhead are real and eternal; but they are internal, and consist with numerical unity of essence. The two truths, indivisible unity of essence and tri-personal subsistence, are to be held together; and the manner of holding each should be such as to allow for the other.7 If we contemplate the unity too exclusively, we may fall into the Sabellian heresy, which regarded the Divine Persons as mere dramatis personae. If, again, we dwell solely on the tri-personality, we may become tritheistic. Ten¬dencies in both directions appear frequently.8
1 Cf. Q. Ixiii. 3.
2 St. Thos., Summa, I., xxx.; Schouppe, Elementa , Tr. VI., §§ 82-88; Martensen, Dogmatics, § 55.
3 Forbes, Creed, pp. 122-124; Mason, Faith of the Gospel, ch. ii. §6; Martensen, §56; Owen, Dogmatics, ch. v., §9; Lacey, Elem. of Doctrine, pp. 81-83; Dale, Christian Doctrine, pp. 152-153; Stone, Outlines, pp. 22-24.
4 Richey, Truth and Counter Truth, p. 13.
5 Strong, Syst. Theol., p. 160.
6 Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. li. 1; Liddon, Divinity of Christ, pp. 438, 439; St. Thos., I., xxx. 4; Wilhelm and Scannell, Manual, Vol. I., p. 311.
7 Richey, Introd. and pp. 14, 15; St. Thos., I., xxxix., esp. 1.
8 Liddon, p. 33; Strong, p. 160. Cf. Q. Ixii. 4, 5.
Posted by Debra Bullock at August 8, 2005 06:22 PM
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