C LASS 7
–
M AY 27: T HE T RINITY
How would you explain the Trinity to a 6-year-old?
The Basic Boundaries for Reflection on the Trinity: Between Modalism and Tritheism 1
1.
Modalism (Sabellianism): Modalism claims that “Father, Son, or Spirit […] do not stand for real distinctions, but are merely names that are appropriate and applicable at different times,” such that God is “not three persons, but one person with three different names, roles, or activities.” 2 a.
Basic analogy : ice, water, steam
2.
Tritheism: The error of tritheism views the Father, Son, and Spirit as three Gods.
The Standard for Orthodoxy for All Christendom: The Cappadocian (Social) Model
1.
Greek: three hypostaseis, one ousia . Often translated into English as “three substances, one essence.” a.
“In formulating a conception of God, the Cappadocians found two Greek synonyms helpful, ousia
(‘essence’) and hypostasis (‘center of consciousness’ or ‘independent reality’). They declared that
God is one ousia but three hypostaseis . The three ‘independent realities’ share the same will, nature, and essence (that is, the one ousia ). Yet each has special properties or activities.” 3
2.
Latin: tres personae, una substantia. E.g., Augustine writes, “There is a trinity of interrelated persons, and the unity of an equal substance.” 4
Augustine’s Psychological Model
1.
Analogical Methodology: “But the question here is, by what likeness or comparison with known things can we believe, so that we may also love the God who is not yet known?” 5
2.
Lesser Trinities: a.
Lover, Beloved, Love: “It remains to ascend from here and to seek for those higher things[.]” 6 b.
Mind, Knowledge, Love: i.
“And so there is a certain image of the Trinity: the mind itself, its knowledge, which is its offspring, and love as a third; these three are one and one substance. The offspring is not less, while the mind knows itself as much as it is; nor is the love less, while the mind loves itself as much as it knows and as much as it is.” 7 c.
Memory, Understanding, Will: i.
“Wherefore, when all are mutually comprehended by each one, and are comprehended as wholes, then each one as a whole is equal to each other one as a whole, and each one as a whole is equal to all together as wholes; and these three are one life, one mind, and one essence.” 8
1 Bonus: The Granville Sharp Rule: In Koine Greek (the Greek of the NT), when “and” ( kai ) connects two singular nouns of personal description of the same case, if the article “the” ( ho )—or any of its cases—precedes the first said noun and is not repeated before the second noun, both nouns always describe the same person. Two key examples:
Titus 2:13 ten makarian elpida kai epiphaneian tes doxes tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon Iesou Christou
2 Peter 1:1 the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and Savior our Jesus Christ. tou theou hemon kai soteros Iesou Christou of the God our and Savior, Jesus Christ.
2 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology , Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 360.
3 Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 60.
4 Augustine, The Trinity , trans. Stephen McKenna (Washington: Catholic University, 2002), bk. 9, chap. 1, p. 270.
5 Ibid., bk. 8, chap. 5, p. 255.
6 Ibid., bk. 8, chap. 10, p. 266.
7 Ibid., bk. 9, chap. 4, p. 274.
8 Ibid., bk. 10, chap. 11, p. 312.

Benefits of the Psychological Model
1.
It avoids tritheism, perhaps better than social model. a.
“The Cappadocians attempted to expound the concepts of common substance and multiple separate persons by the analogy of a universal and its particulars—the individual persons of the
Trinity are related to the divine substance in the same fashion as individual humans are related to the universal human (or humanity). […] Gregory of Nyssa suggested that, strictly speaking, we ought not to talk about a multiplicity of humans, but a multiplicity of the one universal human being.” 9 b.
But note Calvin’s modification of the social model: “Calvin held to a doctrine which said that the three persons were co-equal in their divinity and united with each other, not by sharing an impersonal essence, but by their mutual fellowship and co-inherence—the Cappadocian doctrine of perichoresis in God, applied at the level of person, not essence” (emphasis original).
10
2.
It gives a more precise explanation for the processions in the Godhead than the social model. a.
“From the most perfect of these analogies—the memory, understanding, and love of the human mind—he concluded that the processions in the Blessed Trinity take place after the manner of intellection and love. This explanation is far more satisfactory than that of the Greeks, who regarded the processions simply as donations or communications of the divine nature. For it shows what the Greeks could not show, namely, why there can be only two processions in the Trinity, how that of the Son differs from that of the Holy Spirit, and why the Holy Spirit must proceed both from the Son as well as from the Father.” 11
Drawbacks of the Psychological Model
1.
Augustine’s first Trinitarian model— lover-beloved-love
—makes the Spirit seem impersonal. This model has been extremely popular in the West and may be partially responsible for cessationism. a.
“The foundation of the triunity of God, therefore, lies in the eternal relationships between the
Father and the Son. They share a fellowship of love, which in concretized in the third person. As a result, the Holy Spirit is the bond between the Father and the Son.” 12 b.
“Western interpreters and followers of Augustine […] want to retain Augustine’s insistence that the Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity equal in rank to the other two. Yet it cannot be denied that although Western theology has always insisted on this point in theory, in practice it has frequently demoted and even depersonalized the Holy Spirit. Critics of Augustinian theology may well be right when they argue that this aberration is not an accident, and that theoretical protestations to the contrary reflect a dogmatic concern which is contradicted by the inner logic of the Augustinian system.” 13
2.
The models mind-knowledge-love and memory-understanding-will may tend toward modalism. a.
“For all his efforts to describe them, Augustine was never able to conceive of the persons of the
Trinity as having the same depth of reality which belonged to the one nature of God. For this reason, the accusations of modalism (Sabellianism) which have been made against him cannot be dismissed out of hand, although we may agree that they are an unfair representation of his views.” 14
Deliver me, O God, from the multitude of words with which I am inwardly afflicted in my soul; it is wretched in Your sight, and takes refuge in Your mercy. For I am not silent in my thoughts, even when I am silent in my words. And if, in truth, I thought only of that which pleased You, I would not, of course, ask You to deliver me from this multitude of words. But many are my thoughts, such as You know; they are the thoughts of men, since they are vain.
15
9 Erickson, Christian Theology , pp. 361-362.
10 Gerald Bray, The Doctrine of God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), p. 202.
11 Stephen McKenna, “Introduction,” in Augustine, The Trinity , trans. Stephen McKenna (Washington: Catholic University,
2002), p. xv.
12 Grenz, Theology , p. 71.
13 Bray, Doctrine of God , pp. 174-175.
14 Ibid., 175.
15 Augustine, Trinity , bk. 15, chap. 28, p. 524.