Chapter III:
CHAPTER III: WHICH CONTAINS THE GENERAL ARGUMENT FOR AFFIRMING THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY
The proof of this mystery.
§ 68. Now that we have explained both the general and special nomenclature, we proceed immediately to the factual material [
]. However, this will be occupied with demonstrating the majestic mystery of the Trinity from the Holy Scriptures and in refuting the arguments of our adversaries opposed to it. Accordingly, it will be both didactic (confirming) and elenctic (refuting).
We shall establish two sections of this factual material. The first will be constructive, in which the mystery of the Trinity will be confirmed with suitable arguments. The latter will be destructive, and with it we shall attack the antithesis of the Antitrinitarians, especially of the Photinians, and destroy their arguments. As far as the first, constructive, section is concerned, therefore, we must repeat here what we taught earlier: that the sublime mystery of the Trinity no less than the other dogmas of the Christian religion must be proved from the only and proper principle of theology, namely, from the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
As concerns the order and method by which this should be done, the opinions of those who have attempted it seem to vary without any prejudice of the matter itself and of heavenly truth. (1) Some put all the arguments into two classes, namely, to the expressed notation of any person of the Godhead and to the mystic and symbolic record of the three hypostases in letters and in words.
(2) Some establish seven classes of arguments: (a) from the form of Baptism; (b) from the name of God expressed in the plural; (c) from the action of God expressed in the plural; (d) from the tripled name of God; (e) from His most proper name, which is Jehovah; (f) from the ritual of blessing in the Levitical priesthood; (g) from examples.
(3) Some count eight classes of arguments, as does Bonaventure in Sent., bk. 1, dist. 2, who says that a plurality of persons is hinted at in Scripture: (a) By signification. Matt. 28:19: “Baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (b) By consignification. Gen. 1:1: “In the beginning Elohim created.” (c) By supposition, as when God is said to have begotten the Son (Ps. 2:7; Prov. 8:22). (d) By appropriation. Ps. 33:6: “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made.” John 1:3: “All things were made by Him.” (e) By repetition. Isa. 6:3: “Holy, holy, holy Lord.” (f) By word order. Ps. [67:6–7]: “May God bless us, our God; may God bless us.” (g) By connotation, in the act of sending. Gal. 4:4: “God sent His Son.” (h) By appearance. Gen 18:2: “Behold, three men were before him.” To these some add: (i) The condition of the construction, when the number of persons is shown by certain particles. Rom. 11:36: “Of Him, through Him, in Him are all things.”
§ 69. (4) Some establish these classes of arguments. They say that the Trinity can be proved: (a) From the perfect self-sufficiency of the Deity, which communicates itself to another either by means of begetting or by means of breathing. (However, we cannot prove the communication except a posteriori, namely, from the mystery of the Trinity first confirmed through Scripture. Consequently, it does not supply a special class of arguments. If we wish to draw an argument from communication considered in and of itself, we always come back to the question why the Father communicated Himself to no more and no less than two, that is, to the Son by begetting and to the Holy Spirit by breathing, so that in this way there are no more and no less than three persons.)
(b) From the revelation of the divine decree concerning the salvation of humanity, in which decree only three persons are found. For through the Son sent into the flesh and dead on the altar of the cross for the sins of humans, the Father reconciled humankind to Himself and wants to take into His grace those who believe in this Son of His and give them righteousness and eternal life, which will He reveals through the Holy Spirit in the word of the Gospel. (This argument also is not different from those that are taken from the Scriptures, because humans could have known nothing about this economy of our salvation outside of and beyond the Word. And if only this argument is assumed, it will hardly prove the subsistence of the Holy Spirit.)
(c) From the testimony of the holy words of the Old and New Testaments, implicit as well as explicit. (This alone is the proper, fitting, sufficient, and effective argument, as can be seen from what we said in our preface.)
(d) From the unanimous agreement of the Church set forth in uninterrupted succession in the ecumenical creeds and in the writings of the fathers. (This argument is secondary and draws no conclusion except by virtue of the third argument, for this consensus establishes the foundation of our faith for this reason: because in every detail it conforms with the Scriptures.)
(e) From the divine properties, which cannot be referred to any other than to the three persons of the one divine essence. (However, because nothing about those personal properties17 is evident except from the Holy Scriptures alone, therefore this must be referred to the third class of arguments.)
(f) From paradoxes that follow from the denial of this mystery. These are: a denial of God Himself, who has revealed Himself in this way; of Holy Scripture, which clearly proves the Trinity; of the angels, who daily sing their “Holy, holy, holy” to God; the contempt of the early and apostolic catholic Church, which confessed the Trinity; the removal of our firm consolation and the weakening of every article of faith; the recalling from hell of the heresies silently condemned by Christ and the apostles but clearly condemned by the Church; the violent twisting of Holy Scripture, which comes out of malicious arrogance; and, finally, the death and destruction of the soul. (However, these paradoxes have no place without this mystery first being demonstrated from the Scriptures. Rather, they are inferences and deductions, deduced from this mystery after it has been demonstrated rather than being the principal arguments of the thesis.)
(g) From the words “trinity, 
, 
, 
,” etc., which the Church has employed out of the need to speak against heretical insanities. (This argument belongs to the fourth nor can one shape an argument out of nonscriptural words unless the subject itself is first demonstrated from the Scriptures.)
(h) From similes. (However, these do not so much prove as illumine in some way or other a subject that has previously been demonstrated and proved, as we showed in the preface.)
Therefore only the third foundation, taken from Holy Writ, remains for affirming the mystery of the Trinity, and on this alone we also shall stand in this commonplace.
The general argument.
§ 70. Two kinds of arguments can be formed from Scripture to prove the Trinity. There is a general one that includes briefly all and everything the Scriptures have regarding this mystery. There are several specific ones that prove that mystery from distinct passages of Scripture. The general argument runs as follows: If there are three, each of whom the names “Jehovah” and “God” and the truly divine attributes, work, and glory befit, so that one of them is not another—yet there are not several gods but one true God—the consequence is that one divine essence subsists in three distinct persons or, what is the same, that there are three persons and one essence in God. However, there are three, each of whom the names “Jehovah” and “God,” as well as the truly divine attributes, work, and glory, befit—namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one of which is not another, yet there are not several gods but one true God. Therefore one divine essence subsists in three distinct persons, or, what is the same, there are three persons and one essence in God.
The logical sequence of the major premise is clear, because when the Church teaches that there are three persons of one and the same divine essence, that is, when she confesses the Trinity, she intends nothing other than that there are three, any one of whom is the true God—but in such a way that there are not three gods but one true God—and also that each of these three is distinct from the others because of a certain personal character. If our Antitrinitarian adversaries confessed this, they would also confess the doctrine of the Trinity. Augustine, De trinit., bk. 7, c. 4: “The necessity of speaking and debating allowed us to say ‘three persons’ not because Scripture says it but because Scripture does not contradict it. But if we said ‘three Gods,’ Scripture would contradict it and say, ‘Hear, O Israel; the Lord, your God, is one God.’ Why, then, are we not also permitted to say ‘three essences’ because similarly Scripture neither says it nor contradicts it? Or if ‘three essences’ is not said but ‘one essence’ because of the unity of the Trinity, why do we not, because of the same unity, say not ‘three substances’ or ‘three persons’ but ‘one substance’ and ‘one person’? For as the word ‘essence’ is common to them, so that each individually is called ‘essence,’ so also the word ‘substance’ or ‘person’ is common to them. For what we have said about persons according to our custom must be understood concerning substances according to the custom of the Greeks. They say ‘three substances and one essence’ in the same way as we say ‘three persons and one essence or substance.’ What, then, remains except for us to confess that these words were born out of the need to speak when there was need for the tiresome debate against the snares and errors of heretics?” Later, he adds: “We must deny three essences, lest one understand any diversity in the highest equality, and we must assert three persons or three substances, according to the Greek way of speaking, in order to avoid the error of Sabellius.” C. 6: “Why, then, do we say that these three are not at the same time one person (as we say they are one essence and one God), but we say that they are three persons (though we do not say they are three Gods or three essences), except because we want some single word to serve that meaning by which the Trinity is understood, so that we may not remain absolutely silent when asked, ‘What three?’ when we confess that they are three?” From these words of Augustine, it can be concluded why we claim that there is one essence but three persons in the Godhead: obviously not to introduce into the Church some new doctrine with those words but to explain and strengthen against the corruptions of the heretics the true way of thinking about God as it is set forth in the Scriptures. On the other hand, when Augustine says, “We say that there are three persons in God lest we remain absolutely silent,” this should be taken in this sense: that no word can explain worthily and sufficiently enough what those three are, yet we call them “persons” so that we may in some way declare our thinking about them, which we have taken from divine revelation, which is given in the Word.
§ 71. The confirmation of the minor premise is to be taken from those statements of Scripture that testify: (1) Concerning the Father, that He is true eternal God and a person distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit. (2) Concerning the Son, that He is true eternal God because the truly divine name, attributes, work, worship, and glory are attributed to Him and that He is a person distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit. (3) Concerning the Holy Spirit, that He is true eternal God to whom the truly divine name, attributes, work, worship, and glory are attributed no less and that He is a person distinct from the Father and the Son. (4) Concerning the unity of God or of the divine essence, that though they are three to whom the name “God” and the divine nature truly belong, nevertheless there is only one true God. If these four ideas are confirmed in order and distinctly, the dogma of the Trinity will also be confirmed, which says nothing else with that one word but that of these three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—there is one undivided divine essence, though they are separate persons, each of whom is distinguished from another by His own personal character.
§ 72. The Photinians concede (1) that the true God is one; (2) that the Father is true God, a person separate from the Son; (3) that the Son is a distinct person; (4) that the Son is “true God”; (5) that He is “the natural Son of God”; (6) that the Holy Spirit can be called God in the same way as the other attributes are said to be God.
However, they deny (1) that the Father is the First Person of the Deity, who from eternity has begotten the Son consubstantial to Himself, and in this way they deny that He is the eternal Father. Schmalz, Contra Frantz., disp. 1, p. 2: “Where does Holy Writ mention the eternal Father? He who is the Father is eternal, but He is not an eternal Father.” Catech. Racov., p. 65: “You should know that begetting from the essence of God is impossible in every way.” Socinus, Tract. de Deo, Christo et Spiritu s., p. 14: “For God to beget anyone of His own essence cannot happen.” Schmalz, Exam. 157 error., error 37, p. 13: “It is absurd and just short of blasphemy to say that God begets of His own substance.” We have proved the contrary in our locus [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5 (On God the Father and His Eternal Son)], § 153.
(2) They deny that the Son is eternal God and of one essence with the Father. Catech. Racov., p. 64: “Although Christ may be true God, nevertheless He is not of Himself the one God who is God through Himself and in the most perfect way, because only the Father is this God.” Ostorodt, Instit., p. 132: “We confess that the essence of Christ, namely, of Him as true man, is nothing else but a human essence.” Socinus, Defens. animadv., p. 407: “Although Christ may be true God, nevertheless He is not equally true God as His Father is.” We demonstrated the opposite in our locus [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5 (On God the Father and His Eternal Son)], § 14ff.
(3) They deny that the Son existed before He was born of Mary. Ostorodt, Cont. Tradelium, part 2, c. 6, p. 117: “Christ has not existed from eternity nor did He exist before He was born of Mary.” Schmalz, Contra Frantz., p. 65: “It has never been proved that He who was born of Mary existed before Abraham nor can it be proved. Nowhere is it written that the Word was made flesh.” Socinus, Animadv. assert. 1. Posn., p. 31, blasphemes in this way: “Who would have doubted that Christ never existed before the Virgin Mary, because He was born of that virgin and because that virgin was His mother! Would not He who hesitated on which of the two—He or His mother—was older be imitating Homer’s foolish Margites?” We asserted the contrary in our locus [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5 (On God the Father and His Eternal Son)], § 40ff.
(4) They deny that the Holy Spirit is God in such a way that He is also a person distinct from the Father and the Son. Socinus, Tract. de Deo, Christo et Spiritu s., p. 4: “Scripture never clearly and literally calls the Holy Spirit ‘God’ because He is not a divine person.” Schmalz, Exam. 157 error., p. 36: “We admit that the Holy Spirit can be called God in the same way as the other attributes are said to be God, but we deny that the Holy Spirit, accurately and properly speaking, is God because, whatever God may be, He must also be a divine person.” We showed the opposite in our locus On the Holy Spirit [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 6], namely, His true deity (§ 23ff.) and His personality (§ 99).
Therefore while those hypotheses [§§ 70–71] stand and are correctly established, the mystery of the Trinity will also stand and be confirmed. For this reason also, Socinus, in the aforementioned Tract. de Deo, Christo et Spiritu s., as he prepares to refute that argument in favor of our opinion, acknowledges that our confession of the Trinity can be proved firmly on the basis of those hypotheses, if those hypotheses stand upon the firm and unmoving foundation of divine truth.
§ 73. However, because we have provided the proof of those hypotheses elsewhere, we shall here omit a more detailed confirmation of this argument and merely point out that what Ostorodt argues here is in vain (Contra Tradel., part 2, disp. 1, p. 86):
If the dogma of the Trinity were in harmony with the truth, it would be completely necessary (because reason by no means concedes that there are three persons of one undivided essence) that, to produce confidence in it, it be written with express words—and indeed not in one place but in many—since this is done in other matters that are difficult to believe: for example, that God created heaven and earth, that He takes care of all things and especially of humans, that the resurrection of the dead and life eternal are going to be given to those who believe in Christ and obey Him.
We respond. (1) Matters that are taught once in the Scriptures are of equal truth and firmness with those that are repeated more often in it, because their truth and strength do not depend on more frequent repetition but on divine revelation. (See our Commonplace [XIX] On Justification through Faith, § 241, where we respond to a similar sophism of Bellarmine, to whom it seems strange “that it is said in Scripture only once, literally, that Christ was made sin for us,” though we nevertheless claim that the imputation of the righteousness of Christ is a fundamental article of faith.)
(2) Even if it were written a thousand times in Holy Scripture that God is one in essence and three in persons, our adversaries would still subvert the latter on the basis of the former. You see, because logic cannot reconcile these two, therefore they claim that one must depart from the literal sense of the words in some statements of Scripture that seem to be opposed to the unity established in other statements. Socinus, in the aforementioned Tract. de Deo, p. 5:
Even from this alone—that God clearly is taught to be one—it can justly be concluded that He is not three, because being one and being three are opposed to each other. For that distinction “one in essence, three in persons” is nowhere extant in Holy Writ and clearly conflicts with certain reason and truth. After all, it is quite certain that undivided essences are not fewer than persons, since “person” is nothing other than an undivided, intelligent essence.
So, then, Socinus infers from reason’s teaching that “there are as many essences as there are persons” that the statements of Scripture which are cited to affirm the Trinity must be explained otherwise than the literal sense of the words requires. He explains his thought more clearly in his Defens. animadv., p. 50. He says:
It is one thing not to grasp something with the mind and another thing to grasp with the mind that it cannot be; or to deny something because you cannot apprehend it and for this reason to deny something: because you recognize that it cannot be. The latter claims to have such power that it allows and compels the divine testimonies themselves to be interpreted in a way different from how they seem on the surface, however the words themselves sound.
We explained earlier what should be decided about that disgusting distinction. Here we note that the source and spring of the entire faith—or, rather, faithlessness—of the Photinians is disclosed to us in it. Because they have once convinced themselves that the judgment of reason is to be sought concerning whatever is to be considered contradictory in the mysteries of faith, therefore even if the trinity of persons were taught in express words a thousand times in Holy Writ, they would still twist all those passages of Scripture into a different sense after removing the literal meaning far from their eyes because reason judges that it militates against the unity of the divine essence. Thus Socinus argues (p. 136) against the begetting of the Son of God from the essence of the Father because he thinks such begetting is clearly impossible: “Begetting from the nature of God is from the genus of those things that cannot occur except either as divisible in some way (as the actual essence of God, which is wicked) or as totally communicable (which cannot happen without introducing more persons [supposita] than one, as they call them, any one of which is by nature God Almighty, something that implies an obvious contradiction).” From what source, however, does Socinus prove that this implies a contradiction? Surely only from reason. Therefore because of something absurd, he runs to the judgment of reason and departs from the clear letter of Scripture, which calls the Son “the Only Begotten” [John 1:14].
(3) Just because in Holy Writ the unity of the divine essence and the trinity of persons are not expressed literally and in express words, the Photinians cannot infer that this dogma should not be considered an article of faith, because “that Christ became God, that Christ ascended into heaven twice, that Christ is a human person, that there is free choice, that there is no original sin,” etc., are articles of faith as far as they are concerned, yet they have not yet demonstrated that these are extant in the Scriptures in exactly those words nor can they prove it. We have discussed this in greater detail in our preface to De Phot. Ostorodt himself writes (op. cit.): “Although the consequences cannot simply be rejected and though it is not necessary for anyone to become excessively superstitious in the area, as if whatever is set forth to be believed should be in the Scriptures in the same words, nevertheless we must accept it to the extent that those conclusions have their beginnings [principia] and foundation in the Word of God. Otherwise, we can reject them freely as the inventions of man.” I sum up: The dogma of the Trinity has its beginnings in the Word of God, as our general argument shows. Therefore the conclusions that are developed to establish this dogma cannot be rejected.
(4) All those passages of Scripture are pertinent for demonstrating the mystery of the Trinity in which the divine name, attributes, work, worship, and glory of God are attributed to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; in which the consubstantiality of these three is confirmed; in which the unity of the divine essence is asserted; in which the personal property and hypostatic character of each person is revealed; in which the real distinction of one person from another is established. If someone should wish to consider the number of each and every one of these passages, he will see that Ostorodt vainly desires that the dogma of the Trinity should have been written in more passages of Scripture.
§ 74. Now that we have said these things about our general argument, we can cite several specific arguments, some of which are taken from the Old Testament, some from the New. Although with respect to time the books of the Old Testament are earlier than the books of the New, yet in listing the specific arguments for our opinion, we shall use this order: in the first place we shall provide the four principal arguments from the New Testament; in the second place we shall add the two classes into which the passages of the Old Testament can be divided that serve to confirm the doctrine of the Trinity; and in the third place we shall add the rest of the passages of the New Testament.
As the explanation for this order we quote the devout teaching of Dr. Chemnitz (part 1, Loci, article De Deo, p. 79): “Because the things said of the trinity of persons in the most holy Godhead are marvelous and set far beyond any comprehension of creatures, therefore we must seek the testimonies of divine revelation, which are so firm, certain, and clear that the conscience can rest safely in them in this great mystery. And the testimonies should not so much be counted as pondered.” But now it is evident that the light of the New Testament is brighter than that of the Old. Augustine says (De civ. Dei, bk. 16, c. 26): “What is that which is said in the Old Testament except the concealment of the New, and what else is that which is called the New except the revelation of the Old?” Our Luther used to say: “The New Testament seems to me like the sun from which the Old Testament, like the moon, borrows its light.” Therefore when God wished to reveal Himself to the Israelites with a new work, for example, by freeing them from their Egyptian bondage, he said to Moses: “I am Jehovah, and I have appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make My name Jehovah known to them” (Exod. 6:3), because He had not yet given real being and fulfillment to His promises about their possession of the land of Canaan and because a clearer revelation soon came. In the same way also, concerning the marvelous work of incarnation and redemption which that bodily liberation prefigured, we can declare that the true Jehovah revealed Himself far more brightly and clearly in the Son, who is the Second Person of the Trinity and who was sent into the flesh, and in the Holy Spirit, who was poured out visibly on the day of Pentecost. The more clearly the name of Jehovah and the actual referent expressed by that name are revealed, the more deeply the divine benefits offered to mankind by the individual persons of the Godhead are sensed.
Therefore because God has revealed Himself far more clearly and visibly in the visible sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in the work of redemption provided by the Son, and in the preaching of the Gospel (through which the Holy Spirit bears witness of the Father and the Son) than in the time of the Old Testament, because of this, I say, we must look chiefly and especially to statements of the New Testament in proving the mystery of the Trinity. You see, as the Israelites in their liberation from Egyptian bondage knew the name “Jehovah” more clearly under types and figures, so also in their spiritual liberation from the kingdom and bondage of the hellish Pharaoh this same name became more clear and better known to the people of the New Testament. Jeremiah sees this when he prophesies (16:14–15): “Behold the days will come, says the Lord, when it will no longer be said: ‘The Lord 
lives who led your children out of the land of Egypt,’ but: ‘The Lord lives who led the children of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all lands,” namely, through the preaching of the Gospel and the beginning of the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah.
17 For example, unbegottenness, begetting, and breathing.