By Jim J. McCrea
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The greatest mystery of the Christian faith is that of the Trinity - that three persons exist in one God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each of the persons is truly God, and the persons are distinct from each other. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit (This is opposed to the error of modalism which states that Father, Son, and Holy spirit are merely different functions or offices of one person). Yet there is only one God and not three. This seems to assert the contradiction that 1=3. This article will attempt to explain how this paradox can be solved from a philosophical perspective.
The next greatest mystery of the Faith is that of the Incarnation. The doctrine of the Incarnation asserts that God the Son - that is, the second person of the Trinity assumed a human nature and walked the earth as one of us. God became man without ceasing to be God. Jesus Christ, therefore, has two natures which exist in one person, which is Himself. He is God and man at the same time. This is paradoxical, because we have a being who is infinite and finite at the same time.
The mystery of the Trinity was contemplated early in the history of the Church. St. Augustine, in his work The Trinity, discusses the notion of three persons in one God. He considers, at first, the Father and the Son. If they are distinct persons, how can they be one God? The theology of the Church teaches that the Father begets the Son, and the Son is begotten by the Father. That is why the Father is called the Father, and the Son is called the Son. (This cannot be thought of in terms of physical generation. This is because God is pure spirit. The generation of the Son from the Father may be thought of being analogous to light emanating from a lamp - or more precisely, as light emanating from light [Nicene creed]. The Father does not first exist and then generate the Son. The generation of the Son is eternal - that is, the Father always has been generating the Son, and always will be. This generation is not something willed into existence as creatures are. It is as eternally necessary as the being of the Father Himself) St. Augustine says that the sole point of distinction between the Father and the Son is the fact that the Father begets the Son, and the Son is begotten by the Father. No other difference exists. By extension, the only point of distinction between the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and not the other way around. The persons are distinguished from each other by what theologians call their "relations of origin." Their relations of origin are the only points of distinction between the persons.
The logical consequence of this, is that when the persons are considered absolutely and in themselves, apart from their relations, they are identical. This means that they are the same being, which means that they are the same God, which means that there is only one God. The persons are identical with respect to being, and distinct with respect to relation. Another way to say it, is that they are identical with respect to "what" they are, but distinct with respect to "who" they are. This explains how each of the distinct persons can be God, and yet there is only one God.
The second paradox to be explained here, is that of how two natures (human and divine) can exist in the one person who is Jesus Christ.
The nature of God, according to the theologians is to be both infinite and simple. He is infinite, in that there is no limit to his being or his attributes. He is infinite goodness, intelligence, and power (among other things). He is simple in that there is no composition in God. He is not as a human, in being composed of different parts. His simplicity is absolute. His various attributes are identical with his being. The intellect, will, power, and being of God are all the same thing, and his essence is identical to his existence. This is true of all three persons of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. How can it be that the Son, with these attributes of God, can be man at the same time?
It says in The New Catholic Encyclopedia that the incarnation of the Son, as man, could involve no change within the Son himself. It had to have involved an alteration in nature alone. This is because the Son, being God, is immutable, which means that it is impossible for him to change. It is a true teaching of the Church that God the Son, as Jesus, took flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary in her womb. A human body developed for Jesus, as it does for any human being, and a human soul was created for him, directly by God, to infuse the body the moment it began to exist. Body and soul were assumed, or taken up into the person of God the Son, so that the human being that walked the earth as Jesus, was truly God the Son. Even though the body and soul of Jesus are created realities, the uniting of these with the person of the Son prevented the body and soul of Jesus from acquiring their own personhood (as happens with the rest of us). Even though Jesus is truly human, because his human nature was taken up into the person of the Son, we say that Jesus is a divine and not a human person. This joining of that human body and soul with the person of God the Son is technically known as the "hypostatic union."
Jesus, or God the Son, being truly human, has everything that pertains to the "what" of being human. Not only does he have a true human body and soul, but he also has a true human intellect and will. He has true human feelings, memory, and imagination. Although "what" he is is truly God and "what" he is is also fully man, "who" he is is exclusively God the Son; the second person of the Trinity. It is also a teaching of sound theology that anything done by or to Christ is done by or to his person as it exists in two natures, and is not done by or to one nature in isolation, as if the two natures were two different persons. It can, therefore, be validly stated that God died on the Cross and that Jesus maintains the universe in existence. Although the former was done in his human nature and the latter is done in his divine nature, both are done by Jesus Christ who is both God and man.
The traditional formula states that Christ is like us in all things but sin. Some have argued that this makes Christ different from being truly human. The truth is, because Christ is without sin, he is more human than the rest of us. We become less human - that is, less real - to the extent that sin resides within us.
PART II: The Psychology of the Trinity
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In part II we shall delve into the Trinity in more detail. In “PART I” we mentioned that the Father begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. St. Thomas Aquinas discussed this in more detail. The Son is termed, by theologians, as the Wisdom of God - or as the first part of the Gospel of John says, the Word of God. St. Thomas mentions that God the Father being intelligent, thinks. Being infinite and simple, he thinks a single thought which is itself infinite and simple. This thought contains all possible truth (This simplicity is not poverty as we may be accustomed to think, but infinite focus, depth, integration, and unity). This thought is as real as himself and is equal to himself. It is as living as himself, and is another person, who is his Son, who is begotten by him by his act of thinking. The Father then loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. This is a single mutual love. This love is also infinite and simple, and is as real as the Father and the Son. It is as living as the Father and the Son, and is a distinct person who is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from them according to their act of love.
Here, it appears that there is a distinction of essence amongst the persons of the Trinity. We have just described the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as Thinker, Thought, and Love respectively. Yet it is true, as mentioned in part I, that the persons are identical in being, so they should be identical in essence. How do we explain this disparity? We explain it by saying that the Father is not only Thinker, but Thought and Love as well. The Son is not only Thought, but Thinker and Love as well. The Holy Spirit is not only Love, but Thinker and Thought as well. If God is absolutely simple, all three attributes are identical to each other in each of the persons. A given attribute does not preclude the others.
Each person, therefore, has everything that the others do. Even though the Father and the Son are one being, and they each have all the attributes proper to God, the Son is called the thought of the Father because the Son is generated specifically by an act of intellection by the Father. Similarly the Holy Spirit being one being with the Father and the Son, also has all the attributes of the Godhead. He is called the love between the Father and the Son because he proceeds specifically by the love between the Father and the Son.
We will now delve deeper into the psychology of the Trinity. To do this, we shall utilize a concept employed by the Catholic existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel. This concept is known as "intersubjectivity." Intersubjectivity is the principle of one person's awareness of another person's awareness of a given thing. For example, if you are aware of a chair standing in a room, intersubjectivity would be operative if I were not only aware of the chair myself, but also aware of your awareness of that chair. My awareness would embrace your awareness and its object. I would literally share in your consciousness of the chair. Any form of true relating between persons, which must necessarily involve empathy, utilizes the principle of intersubjectivity.
The principle of intersubjectivity applies to the persons of the Trinity in an absolutely perfect manner. As mentioned above, the Son is the thought generated by God the Father. In the Son, the Father sees everything about Himself, for the Son is an exact copy of the Father. The Father sees the Son as "other" - as a thou. He understands Himself, as an I, being aware of the otherness of the Son. Conversely the Son, from his point of view, is aware of himself, as an I, being aware of the Father as a thou. "YOU are my Son, the beloved; with YOU *I* am well pleased." (Luke 3:22) [emphasis added]. From this, a principle may be deduced. What the Father sees as the Son, is essentially the Son's awareness of the Father. Because of the divine simplicity the Son and the Son's awareness of the Father are identical. The Father sees his own being reflected in the Son. Conversely, when the Son sees the Father, he essentially sees the Father's awareness of the Son, because likewise the Father and the Father's awareness of the Son are identical. In the Father's awareness of the Son and the Son's awareness of the Father, we have the full and perfect operation of intersubjectivity. The intersubjectivity is so perfect and complete that the awarenesses of the Father and the Son form a single act of consciousness.
What about the Holy Spirit? How does he fit into the act of consciousness of the Father and the Son? To understand this, we must first state an important principle taught by theologians. This principle states that the persons of the Trinity indwell each other - that is, each person does not exist outside of the others. When the Father begets the Son, he is begotten within the Father. When the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, he proceeds within the Father and the Son, and not externally to them. When we say that the Father sees "only" the Son as his perfect and absolutely simple thought, he implicitly sees the Holy Spirit. This is because the Holy Spirit indwells the Son. Because the Holy Spirit also indwells the Father, the Son implicitly sees the Holy Spirit in seeing the Father. The Holy Spirit in indwelling the Father and the Son, sees all that the Father and the Son do. The Father in seeing the Son, implicitly sees all of creation because, as mentioned above, the Son is the Wisdom of God. The Son contains all possible truth.