Relations Make the Trinity, Part 1

Christ commands, "Repeat after me."

This post (together with part 2), focuses on the Council of Florences’s fundamental principle for doing trinitarian theology: In divinis, all is one except where the opposition of relation INTERVENES.” (My dear wife, believe it or not, says that she fell in love with me from me uttering this all-important quotation so many times.)

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Creation makes us to say many names of God. First, we say that God is not many nor a composite–sayings which signify negative judgments removing these creaturely conditions plurality and compositeness from God, judgments often signified positively as that God is one and simple. Second, we say that he is wise and good–now, affirmative judgments positing these absolute perfections wisdom and goodness therein. And third, we say also that he is lord and creator–now, positing those relations to creatures which co-arise from our real relations subjecthood and creatureliness to God. These and many more names we say of God in de deo uno; and we are made (or at least can be made) to say these by the natural order, moving up from created effects to what must be their first cause.

Supernatural revelation, by addition, makes us to say new names of God. Now, we do not weakly and with stumbling ascend unto God; but rather he, “from his superabundant goodness,” powerfully and with certainty descends to us, Thomas says. “Natural reason,” he continues, “ascends through creatures into knowledge of God, [whereas] vice versa faith-knowledge descends from God into us in divine revelation.”

Such supernatural revelation is chiefly enclosed in holy Scripture, wherein are certain names uttered by the prophets and apostles–names like father, son, and holy spirit (inter alia). These names signify certain concepts which we compose to God, compositions or affirmative judgments which we then hold as true given the testimonies of these prophets and apostles whom we believe. Among those who testify are, e.g., Moses and John; but chief of all is Christ himself. Indeed, when it comes to doctrine about the holy Trinity (our focus here), it not only is very simple to begin, but it never gets so complicated that we leave our beginning:

Christ commands, “Repeat after me”; and so we do.

Thus, we have been given new names to say. Or rather, it is not the names which are new, nor the concepts which they signify. The concept fatherhood (or paternity) e.g., is usurped from with us and among creatures. Indeed, the same concept is used also in de deo uno–when we say that God is father i.e., of all creatures, a judgment which we are made to say again by nature. And likewise, all our concepts in de deo trino are usurped from creatures–whether this concept filiation, the concept signified by the name holy spirit, etc. None of these are new.

Rather, the judgments are new, the intellectual “is,” “is,” “is,” are new.

It is not as if we couldn’t make such judgments before: we were able, “physically,” to form the concepts before; we were able to make the judgments before. But what is new is that these judgments are now to be held as true, given the new and further evidence (as Lonergan would say) above and beyond the natural order, evidence not consisting of arguments, but of the authorities from holy Scripture. Once again, Christ commands, “Repeat after me,” and so we do.

But what does this really mean?

Reverting again to de deo uno, the judgment that God is father has its concept but likewise its verification from nature. The composition is “seen” as true by reflection upon the created order, and we are motivated to hold it as true through intellectual reasons. In short, we can prove or even demonstrate this judgment as true, and also the opposite judgment as false. Thus we proceed through arguments.

But in de deo trino, this judgment that God is father (notably a different one from the above) has its concept from nature yes, but not its verification. No intellectual reasons can motivate us to compose this concept; the truth in the judgment cannot be demonstrated, nor even proved, nor even suggested (!) by reflection upon the created order. Careful reflection will in fact yield nothing at all bearing upon this judgment and the issue of its truth or falsity.

In other words, nature here is neutral

–and yet this works both ways. For on the one hand, we therefore can resolve any argument which would seem to motivate toward the (false) negative judgment that God is not father. All such reasons are sophistical; and all arguments are “evidently solvable,” as the tradition would say. We thus can even go so far as to show that God being father is not impossible–albeit we cannot “convert” this to it being therefore possible, except in the very barest sense that whatever true judgments are had from nature, none of them can contradict this truth. (Perhaps something of an analogy for this would be saying that a lame man winning a footrace is possible, only in that there are no other opponents.) Yet on the other hand, we also cannot muster any argument which motivates us toward the (true) affirmative that God is father. Such reasons are likewise sophistical (!); and as Thomas notes in various places, these arguments (e.g., that in order to love, God must be a Trinity–a popular argument today) provoke the laughter of unbelievers, rightly as the arguments are silly, but sadly as the Trinity is not. Of course, the same holds for all our other judgments: not just that God is father, but also that he is son; that he is holy spirit; etc. In sum, and in the simplest of terms, although creation cannot suggest to us the holy Trinity, neither can it suggest to us otherwise. Nature here is neutral.

So there is, we might say, a “hole” regarding all the contradictions properly enclosed in doctrine about the holy Trinity–no intellectuality bearing upon the affirmative, none upon the negative (something about which the contemporary apologetics movement is hopelessly confused). Yet we ought to add that this does not mean that there is no intellectuality or intellectual reasons involved here: it is only that it bears not upon the judgments, but upon the persons whom we ought (intellectually!) to trust and, upon their word, hold these judgments. (This is a subsection of what is traditionally referred to as motives of credibility.) There are arguments to believe Christ, but not arguments to believe. Or to put it otherwise,

Everyone is, and intellectually speaking, obliged to heed Christ; no one is intellectually obliged to hold the Trinity.

And this brings us back to the new and further “evidence,” above and beyond the natural order, evidence not consisting of arguments, but of the authorities from holy Scripture. For by contrast to natural truths, to which we can proceed through arguments, we proceed only through these authorities of Christ, when it comes to these judgments. And this is exactly how Thomas begins, when he opens his de deo trino (ST I q 27 a 1 sc). What determines the (for him) very first question involving the holy Trinity; what makes us to hold the affirmative, not negative as true; what makes us compose the concept, not divide it, is “that thus says the Lord,” i.e., Christ. In favor of all these affirmatives (and, where applicable, negatives), e.g., that God is father, that he is son, and that he is holy spirit, is this that Christ says. And of course, there is beyond this the entire chorus of the prophets and apostles, all the company of saints, all resounding with the voice of God, all following Christ their director.

All this is the technical way of saying that we hold God as Trinity sola fide, by faith alone moved by divine testimonies. This is what Thomas means when in CT I c 36 he remind that certain truths have been known by philosophers i.e., from nature; whereas “other [truths] handed down from God to us… [philosophers] could not [conclude]” from nature, but “we are instructed above human sense through Christian faith.” And chief of these supernatural truths is this: “That although God, as was shown, is one and simple, nevertheless God,” as we are instructed through Christian faith, “is father, God is son, God is holy-spirit; and these three [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit],” although really distinct, nevertheless are “not three gods, but one God is.”

Well if Christ makes us to posit these concepts paternity, filiation, etc., in God, then what do we find upon doing so? This is the all-important question, as these concepts, which are relations, make the holy Trinity.

…to be continued in part 2.