Special Revelation and the Trinity

Special Revelation and the Trinity Undoubtedly, in response to all those who seek to ground the doctrine of the Trinity on rational grounds, it must be maintained that the knowledge of this doctrine is solely due to God's special revelation. Scripture is the only and final basis for the doctrine of the Trinity; reason can at most, posteriori, somewhat elucidate this doctrine through thought. Nevertheless, the arguments brought forth to clarify the dogma of the Trinity are not entirely devoid of value.

Firstly, Scripture itself allows us this freedom when it says that the entire creation, especially humanity, is a work of the Triune God.

Certainly, all God's works outwardly are undivided and characteristic of all three Persons: in these works, the Unity of God is emphasized much more than the distinction of Persons. However, in that Unity, diversity cannot be absent. And Scripture itself indicates this by stating that all creatures bear traces, and humans will display the image of the Trinity. Despite the fact that sin objectively veils the revelation of God in His works and subjectively dims our vision, it cannot be denied a priori that the enlightened understanding, through revelation, can discern traces of that God who, in Scripture, is known as Triune in His manner of existence and operation.

Furthermore, all these reasonings are undoubtedly not capable of proving the dogma of the Trinity. None of them can or should be the basis of our faith. We would abandon truth to the mockery of our opponents if we accepted it on such weak grounds as our reason can provide. But these reasonings are nevertheless capable of refuting various objections raised against the dogma; they have the power to demonstrate that what revelation teaches is neither impossible nor unreasonable; and they are able to argue that the faith of opponents is inadequate and inconsistent with reason itself. The doctrine of the Trinity is not as absurd as it appeared to superficial rationalism of

earlier and later times. It has not been overturned by a calculation that one cannot be three and three cannot be one. Rather, philosophy has repeatedly returned to the doctrine of the Trinity, even in this century, and has at least somewhat recognized its rich meaning and deep significance. Finally, these reasonings uncover and preserve the connection between nature and grace, between creation and recreation. It is the same God who creates and sustains us and who recreates us in His image. Grace indeed transcends nature but is not at odds with it. Restoring what has been corrupted by sin, grace also illuminates and perfects what remains of God's revelation within it.

Reflective reason places the doctrine of the Trinity in the midst of the rich life of nature and humanity. The confession of the Christian faith is not an island in the ocean but a high mountain peak from which the whole creation is surveyed. And it is the task of the Christian theologian to clearly highlight God's revelation in its connection with and significance for all of life. Christian thought remains unsatisfied until all being is traced back to the Triune God, and the confession of the Trinity of God is placed at the center of our thought and life. The analogies and proofs brought forth for the Trinity do not serve to demonstrate the dogma, but they serve primarily to demonstrate the manifold utility and rich significance contained in this confession for the life and knowledge of creatures. Ultimately, they are born not out of a desire for empty speculation and inappropriate curiosity but out of a deep religious concern. If God is Triune, then that must be of the highest significance because it is only from, through, and to God that all things exist.

For the time being, the Trinity reveals to us God as the truly Living One. Already by the church fathers it was observed that the error of deism and pantheism, of monism and polytheism, was avoided by the Trinity, and the truth hidden in all those ideas about God was included in the Trinity. Deism digs a gulf between God and His

creature, abolishes their relationship, and holds for God nothing but an abstract Unity, a pure being, a monotonous and uniform existence, it satisfies neither the head nor the heart, it is the death of religion. Pantheism brings us closer to God but makes Him equal to the creature, erases the boundary line between Creator and creature, deprives Him of His own Being and life, and undermines religion.

But the Christian doctrine of the Trinity reveals God as essentially distinct from the world and yet as partaking in its own blessed life.

God is a plenitude of being, πληρωματος ουσιαν. He is not barren, άγονον. He is the absolute Being, the Eternal, Who is and was and is to come, but in that Being, the Ever-Living, the eternally generating.

Attempts have been made to derive the Trinity from the thought and will of God from His love, goodness, perfection, etc. Intended as philosophical constructions of the doctrine of the Trinity, they all leave much to be desired. The construction from thought does not lead to a distinction of Persons, does not clarify the procession of the third Person, and must, with a view to this, pass over to and supplement itself with the construction from the will of God. The derivation of the Trinity from love encounters the same objections and fails to highlight the procession of the Holy Spirit. But it is true that these and all other attributes acquire life and reality through the Trinity. Outside and without it, they are mere names, sounds, empty concepts. As attributes of a Triune God, they begin to live for the head and the heart. It is through understanding them that we learn that God in Himself, even apart from the world, is the independent, the Eternal, the All-Knowing, the All-Good, Love, Holiness, and Glory. The Trinity reveals to us God as the Fullness of His, the true

Life, the eternal beauty. In God, too, there is Unity in diversity, diversity in Unity. Yes, this order and harmony are present in Him in an absolute way. In creatures, there is only a weak analogy to this.

Either unity or diversity does not come into its own. Creatures exist in space and time, stand beside each other, and do not penetrate

each other. There is unity only through attraction, through will and affection, a moral unity that is breakable and shaky. And where there is deeper, physical unity, for example, between the faculties of one substance, there is lack of independence, and unity takes distinction back into itself. But in God, both are present; absolute Unity and absolute diversity. It is the same Being, borne by Three supposita.

Here is the highest communion, the communion of the same Beings, and at the same time the highest diversity, the diversity of Persons.

Therefore, if God is Triune, the three Persons cannot be thought of as anything other than homoousioi. Arianism in its various forms does not think of the Being of God and therefore does not satisfy thought.

If there are distinctions, not outside but in and within the Divine Being, then these distinctions, that is, these Persons, must all be of the same Being. Nothing can exist in God that is anything else or less than God Himself. There is no transition between Creator and creature. Father, Son, and Spirit all partake of the same Being and are truly God, or they sink down to the creature. There is no third possibility from a Christian standpoint. But in the same way,

Sabellianism in its various modes is condemned. For the homoousia of the three Persons has meaning and significance only if they are truly and really distinct from each other, as distinct bearers of the same substance. The diversity of subjects that appear alongside each other in the revelation of God, in creation and recreation, arises from the diversity that exists within the Being of God between the three

Persons. There could be no distinction in the Unity externally if it did not exist internally, ad intra.

Secondly, the doctrine of the Trinity is of the utmost importance for the doctrine of creation. This can only be upheld with the confession of a Triune God. Only through this is it possible, on the one hand, to maintain against deism the connection and, on the other hand, against pantheism the distinction between God and the world.

Creation cannot be thought of as mere chance nor as a selfdevelopment of the Divine Being. It must have its foundation in God and yet not form a moment in His inner life process. How could both of these be maintained other than by the Trinity of God? God's life is divinely rich; it is fruitful; there is action, production in it. And therefore, the doctrine of the Trinity also speaks of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit. Both of these acts are essentially distinct from creation; they are not immanent relations; the former is an opus ad extra; the latter is not self-sufficient; God does not need creation. He is life, salvation, glory in Himself. But still, creation is closely connected with this fertility of God. Firstly,

Athanasius rightly noted that if the Divine Being is barren and cannot communicate itself, there can be no revelation of God outwardly, i.e., no communication of God to and in His creature. The doctrine of the uncommunicability of the Divine Being through generation and procession to Son and Spirit entails that the world stands apart from, outside, and opposite to God. God is then absolutely hidden, abyss, the unconscious, ungrund; the world does not reveal Him; there can be no knowledge of God. On the contrary, the dogma of the Trinity teaches that God can communicate Himself, absolutely to the Son and Spirit, and therefore also relatively to the world. For the communication that takes place within the Divine

Being is, according to the thought of Augustine, the pattern, the archetype of God's work in creation. Scripture repeatedly points to the close connection between the Son and Spirit on the one hand, and creation on the other. The designations Father, Son (Word,

Wisdom), Spirit indeed indicate immanent relations, but they also reflect the relations present in the works of God externally between the three Persons. From the Father are all things; in the Son lie the ideas of all being; in the Spirit are the principles of all life. The generation and procession in the Divine Being are the immanent acts of God that make creation and revelation of God possible externally.

Finally, it can be explained that all works of God externally are only sufficiently known when their Trinitarian existence is understood.

The examples mentioned above are partly very far-fetched and in any case nothing more than analogies. But from Plato's philosophy to von Hartmann, it has always, consciously or unconsciously, returned to a triad of principles or arcai, from which creation as a whole and in its parts could be explained. There is a great truth in the fact that creation shows us everywhere vestiges of the Trinity. And because these vestiges are most clearly seen in man and he can even be called the image of the Trinity, therefore, as it were, he is urged by an immanent impulse everywhere to trace these vestiges. In the triad comes first from the completeness of the creature, the completeness of the system, the harmony of beauty. The higher something stands in the hierarchy of creatures, the more it strives towards the triad.

And even in the deviations of man in the religious sphere, there is still something of this effect to be observed. Schelling's attempt to interpret mythology in a Trinitarian way was still something more than a brilliant fantasy.

Thirdly, the Trinity is of the highest importance for the Christian religion. With the confession of God's Trinity, the entire Christianity, the entire special revelation, stands or falls. It is the core of the Christian faith, the root of all dogmas, the substance of the new covenant.

From this religious, Christian importance, the development of the church's doctrine of the Trinity has taken its beginning. It was truly not about a metaphysical doctrine or philosophical speculation, but about the heart and essence of the Christian religion itself. This is felt so deeply that all who still value the name of Christian recognize and honor a certain Trinity. In every

Christian confession and theology, the deepest question is this: how can God be One and yet threefold? And depending on how this question is answered, the Christian truth is more or less evident in all

parts of the doctrine. In the doctrine of the Trinity, the heart of the entire revelation of God for the redemption of humanity beats.

Prepared in the Old Covenant, it therefore becomes clearly evident in Christ. Religion can settle for nothing less than God Himself. In Christ, God comes to us Himself, and in the Holy Spirit, He communicates Himself to us. The work of redemption is thoroughly trinitarian. From, through, and in God are all things. It is one divine work from beginning to end, and yet threefold in distinction; it is concluded by the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. And accordingly, the Christian's life of faith reflects back on three principles, as the Dutch Confession of Faith states in article 9, that we know the doctrine of the Trinity both from the testimonies of Holy Scripture and from the workings of the three Persons, mainly from the One whom we feel within us. We know ourselves as children of the Father, redeemed by the Son, and in communion with both through the Holy Spirit. All salvation and blessing come to us from the Triune God. In that Name we are baptized; that Name is the sum of our confession; from that Name all blessings descend upon us; to that Name we offer eternal thanks and honor; in that Name we find peace for our hearts, peace for our consciences. The Christian has God above, before, and within.

Therefore, salvation in this and the coming life is connected to the doctrine of the Trinity, even though we cannot determine the extent of knowledge required for a sincere faith in this mystery.

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