The Theological Tasks
This chapter tells the story of how, in the early Christian centuries, the trinitarian consciousness formed in the NT evolved into a doctrine of the Trinity, which in turn consolidated itself in creeds and theology.[1] We want to pay special attention to discerning the main developments as attempts both to resolve the many problems and to give at least tentative answers to urgent questions. While this is, of course, best done by roughly following chronological order, it also goes without saying that no comprehensive account can be given in a primer such as this one. And at times, the chronological order is replaced by a thematic structure. What may be called “informed selectivity” of the materials is the principle followed here.
The goal of this discussion, in other words, is to set forth a theological reading of the early trinitarian tradition in terms of its main developments, key issues, and critical questions. It is useful to remind ourselves of the truism that we need to know history in order to understand the present. The deeper one goes into the rich tapestry of trinitarian history, the more meaningful it will be to engage contemporary trinitarian theologies in the postmodern global village.
As mentioned in the introduction, my purpose is not to seek to reconstruct or challenge the standard “mainline” scholarly reading of the history of the trinitarian doctrine.[2] Indeed, this survey will pay attention to scholarly divergences. Nevertheless, the current account follows well-known and well-established scholarly insights and instincts in interpreting the basic sources on which the reading of the history is based.
Now, what were the urgent tasks facing the earliest Christian theologies in the postbiblical period? It is helpful to list them here even though many of them have already been alluded to in the biblical section:[3]
- As long as the Spirit was not differentiated from the Son as a separate hypostatic[4] entity, it was difficult to say if the Spirit was the power or influence of the Father (filling or empowering the Son) or something else less than a person. In other words, how do we distinguish Son and Spirit without separating them in a way that would threaten to truncate the trinitarian doctrine? This distinction was quite unclear in the theologies of the second and third centuries.[5]
- As long as the distinction between the Son and Spirit was ambiguous and, subsequently, the hypostatic nature of both in the process of being more precisely defined, the relation to Logos/Word and Wisdom was confusing. To take an example, what is the relation of the Son to the preexistent Wisdom of Proverbs 8:22–23? Or should we ask, like some early theologians did, what is the relation of the Spirit to Wisdom?
- While affirming the deity of the Son (and later the deity of the Spirit), early theologians also brought about the major problem in relation to the monotheism of Jewish-Christian faith.
- Having gradually affirmed the deity of both Son and Spirit, the major challenge to Christian theology was to negotiate between two extremes: tritheism, the belief in Father, Son, and Spirit as “separate gods,” on the one hand, and modalism, the idea of lack of personal distinctions in the one Godhead, on the other hand. Modalism, which may take more than one form, insists on the unity of the Godhead to the point where the names Father, Son, and Spirit are just that—names. They denote various manifestations or modes of being of the one and same Godhead.[6]
- Often, resolution of this question was attempted by resorting to subordinationism, the subjecting of the Son and Spirit under the Father. Again, this can happen in more than one way, for example by treating the Father as the “source” (arche) of the two. Early heresies, especially Arianism (according to which Christ was a creature rather than an uncreated deity) and various types of mon-archianist views (both modalistic and dynamic versions), were efforts to reconcile the seemingly impossible equation between strict monotheism and the idea of three equal divine beings sharing one Godhead.
- From early on, the Christian East and West developed not only distinctive approaches to spirituality and theology in general but also encountered severe linguistic problems directly related to a key issue in the trinitarian (and christological) doctrine, namely the meaning of hypostasis (“person[hood]”). Not only did it take time for both Eastern and Western theologians to begin to understand what the other meant with key concepts, but even more to agree on a common meaning, somewhat independent from purely linguistic and etymological meanings. Any field of inquiry entails an established, often technical terminology; the doctrine of the Trinity is no exception. Often, however, it takes time for this terminology to be developed in a way that would clarify the discourse.
Let us begin by investigating the very earliest developments on the way to the Councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381), the first definitive ecumenical attempts by the church catholic to come to a shared understanding and basic consensus.
Clarifying the Divine Triad
Son of the Father
As we saw in the preceding chapter, the origin of the trinitarian doctrine lies in the mutual and intimate relationship between the Father and Son as depicted on the pages of the NT. Hence, the Father–Son relationship is the proper place to begin. The very earliest postbiblical Christian thinkers, the so-called Apostolic Fathers (Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Theophilus of Antioch, Hermas, and others), were hardly in a place to offer much clarification, let alone constructive thinking. What they did was to robustly confess strict monotheism and share the deep and wide consciousness of “the conception of a plurality of divine Persons” based on the economy of salvation, namely that “God had made Himself known in the Person of Jesus, the Messiah, raising Him from the dead and offering salvation to men through Him, and that He had poured out His Holy Spirit upon the Church.”[7] Although the doctrine of Christ’s preexistence prior to the incarnation, an essential trinitarian asset, was still to some extent in the making, it seems like the Apostolic Fathers took the idea for granted. Similarly, they strongly affirmed Christ’s role in creation and redemption. But when it came to the more precise formulation as to how to understand Christ’s deity, more often than not they were drawn to the “theory that the divine element in Christ was pre-existent spirit” or a “supreme angel” or something similar.[8] The prominent patristic scholar J. N. D. Kelly’s conclusion puts the Apostolic Fathers’ view of God in perspective: “Of a doctrine of the Trinity in the strict sense there is of course no sign, although the Church’s triadic formula left its mark everywhere.”[9]
The first developed attempt to clarify the Son–Father relation...
