A commonplace of contemporary trinitarian theology is the priority it grants to the narrative and symbolic discourse of Christian worship and proclamation over the leaner, conceptual discourse of theological theory itself. Theology continues to employ conceptual forms of thought in probing the meaning of Trinity, but recently deepened appreciation of the more spontaneous discourse of lived Christian praxis\u2014both biblical and ongoing in the life of the church\u2014suggests a more conscious subordination of trinitarian theory to what might be called the \u201c\ufeffsemantic aim\ufeff\u201d of Christian proclamation and worship.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Narratives and symbols express cognitive meanings and refer to reality just as more \u201c\ufeffliteral\ufeff\u201d forms of discourse do. They perform this semantic function indirectly and in a more complex way, involving not only an interplay of multiple meanings but an interplay of cognition with human affection and aspiration. Symbols are often said to make the realities to which they refer present. This is so because they orchestrate the participant\u2019s experience of the reality which they disclose, however ineffably. In religion such forms of discourse are so closely bound to the faith experience to which they give access that they are the primary and indispensable carriers of living religious tradition. Theological reflection which is truly \u201c\ufefffaith seeking understanding\ufeff\u201d participates in the rich semantic aim of the primary discourse, tentatively providing sharper focus and, as needed, critical discrimination. What is important, though, is that theology take the \u201c\ufeffsurplus of meaning\ufeff\u201d of this primary discourse as its starting point and that it return again and again from the autonomous conceptual structures, which it rightly employs, to the primary discourse for its heuristic stimulation and its corroboration.<\/p>\n
In between this primary Christian discourse and theology there is the genre of doctrine. As teaching is a function of proclamation, so doctrine overlaps and participates in the function of the primary discourse. Doctrine is an attempt to communicate clearly the cognitive and moral discernments of the Christian faith experience. As such, it diminishes the tensive interaction which constitutes the discourse of worship and proclamation and overlaps theology, mixing the conceptual thought forms of theology with the ordinary language of common sense. Through the centuries the word \u201c\ufeffdoctrine\ufeff\u201d has commonly been associated with officially sanctioned church teaching entailing various levels of intended binding authority. Since the nineteenth century the word \u201c\ufeffdogma\ufeff\u201d has come to designate doctrinal definitions of the highest level of church teaching authority. Although the church\u2019s dogmas commonly have used the conceptually refined language of theology, it is generally acknowledged that the intention of the dogmas is not to canonize theological systems of thought, which are historically relative. Karl Rahner has helpfully suggested that a dogma is \u201c\ufeffa linguistic<\/i> ruling on terminology which must not be mistaken for the thing itself or respectively must not be confused with a statement which can be made only by starting from the thing itself\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffTheological Investigations<\/i> 5, p. 54\ufeff). A dogmatic definition might well be viewed, then, as a kind of \u201c\ufeffgrammatical rule\ufeff\u201d of Christian discourse the intent of which is to preserve from aberration the implicit \u201c\ufeffgrammar\ufeff\u201d or semantic structure of the originary discourses of doctrine and theology.<\/p>\n
The meanings of these terminological distinctions between primary discourse, doctrine, dogmas, and theology overlap even as they are defined here. They certainly were not sharply delineated from one another in the history of the church. However their discrimination is essential if we are to make sense of the history and meaning of Trinity in our current context.<\/p>\n
In this article the term \u201c\ufeffTrinity\ufeff\u201d shall refer primarily to the divine Mystery Itself as the divine Mystery is experienced and expressed in the primary discourse of Christian worship and proclamation. The interweaving doctrinal, theological, and even dogmatic articulations of the Trinity will be surveyed and interpreted in light of their respective relations to the primary meaning.<\/p>\n
<\/i>The basic Hebrew experience of God has been aptly and succinctly described in terms of a \u201c\ufeffproper name\ufeff\u201d and an \u201c\ufeffidentifying description\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffRobert Jenson, The Triune Identity<\/i>\ufeff). Israel experienced her God as the \u201c\ufeffone who\ufeff\u201d encountered her in the saving events of her history. The encounter was conceived according to the model of a personal self-introduction by means of a proper name, \u201c\ufeffYahweh,\ufeff\u201d and an identifying description which was always a saving event of Israel\u2019s history accomplished by Yahweh, e.g., \u201c\ufeffI am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffExod 20:2\ufeff). The sequence of saving events which came to constitute Israel\u2019s history (Heilsgeschichte<\/i>) eventually extended from the first saving act of creation to the final Day of Yahweh.<\/p>\n
This distinctively Israelite mode of experiencing God accentuates the personal aspect of the divine Mystery as the \u201c\ufeffone encountering\ufeff\u201d via the mediation of historical events. Similarly, as \u201c\ufeffLord of all history,\ufeff\u201d God\u2019s unity and transcendence of history are preserved. God\u2019s active agency in history was evocatively expressed in such stabilized, yet dynamic, metaphors as \u201c\ufeffSpirit of God,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffWord of God,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffWisdom of God,\ufeff\u201d etc., without jeopardizing God\u2019s unity and transcendence. At times these metaphors were used to express poetically a radical sense of God\u2019s immanence to creation; e.g., \ufeffPsalm 51\ufeff suggests an identity between the divine Spirit and the human spirit renewed through repentance; some of the Wisdom songs suggest an identification of the Wisdom of God with the immanent ultimate meaning of creation (\ufeffJob 28\ufeff, \ufeffProv 8\ufeff, \ufeffSir 24\ufeff, \ufeffWis 7\ufeff). By the time of Christ these Jewish symbols of divine immanence were often represented with a high degree of autonomy vis-\u00e0-vis God, but scholars are in increasing agreement that this does not imply that they had come to represent distinct realities. They represented the agency within creation of Yahweh the one transcendent Lord of all.<\/p>\n
<\/i>Father<\/strong><\/i>. The God to whom the whole \ufeffNT<\/a>\ufeff witnesses is this same Yahweh, but now the identifying description is the historical event of Jesus culminating in the communal experience of Easter. For various reasons the sacred proper name of Yahweh had become reserved for special occasions and was replaced in ordinary usage by other appellatives and other more generic names of divinity. It is clear, nevertheless, that the God of \ufeffNT\ufeff witness is this same Yahweh whom Jesus called Father (Abba<\/i>) and who is now decisively reidentified as \u201c\ufeffhim who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffRom 4:24\ufeff; see also \ufeffRom 8:11\ufeff, \ufeff1 Pet 1:21\ufeff, etc.). What is new for the understanding of God in this \ufeffNT\ufeff witness is the sometimes subtle but ever present identification of Jesus with the divinity of \u201c\ufeffthe one\ufeff\u201d who raised him. The Spirit of God is the same Spirit of prophetic and later Judaism (see \ufeffabove\ufeff), but now usually spoken of in reference to God\u2019s saving event in Jesus.<\/p>\n In attempting to understand the \ufeffNT\ufeff witness it is important that we not anachronistically read back later doctrinal and theological formulations and apply such adjectives as \u201c\ufeffadoptionistic,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffprimitive,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffundeveloped,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffelemental,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffmerely functional,\ufeff\u201d etc., to the \ufeffNT\ufeff teaching. The presumption here is that the rich originary discourse of the \ufeffNT\ufeff witness says The Son<\/strong><\/i>. The \ufeffNT\ufeff identifies \u201c\ufeffGod\ufeff\u201d with the Father whose reign Jesus proclaimed and \u201c\ufeffwho raised him from the dead.\ufeff\u201d Nevertheless, the ascription of divinity to Jesus is pervasive in the \ufeffNT\ufeff if we do not limit the evidence to texts which explicitly call Jesus \u201c\ufeffGod\ufeff\u201d (theos<\/i>). Raymond Brown (Jesus God and Man<\/i>) identifies three clear such instances (\ufeffHeb 1:8\u20139\ufeff, \ufeffJohn 1:1\ufeff, \ufeffJohn 20:28\ufeff) and five probable instances (\ufeffRom 9:5\ufeff, \ufeffTit 2:13\ufeff, \ufeffJohn 1:18\ufeff, \ufeff1 John 5:20\ufeff, \ufeff2 Pet 1:1\ufeff) in which Jesus is called God. If we grant, that the language of metaphor, symbol, hymn, narrative, etc., is not \u201c\ufeffmerely functional\ufeff\u201d and is capable of predicating meaning of reality, the force of the \ufeffNT\ufeff witness to Jesus\u2019 divinity becomes more evident. This is especially so in the frequent application to Jesus of the \ufeffOT<\/a>\ufeff metaphors of divine immanence. Jesus is identified in hymns (\ufeffCol 1:15\u201320\ufeff, \ufeffHeb 1:1\u20134\ufeff, \ufeffJohn 1:1\u201314\ufeff) and gospel logia<\/i> (Matthew) with the very Wisdom of God which in the sapiential poetry of the \ufeffOT\ufeff was the divine presence immanently grounding the meaning of creation (\ufeffsee\ufeff above). The divinity of Wisdom is most clearly affirmed in \ufeffWisdom 7\ufeff and \ufeff8\ufeff which like the other sapiential poems provides imagery which is echoed in the \ufeffNT\ufeff hymns.<\/p>\n Similarly, Paul\u2019s metaphorical description (\ufeff1 Cor 15:35\u201353\ufeff) of the resurrection body, which he obviously associates with his experience of the risen Lord, as incorruptible (en aphtharsia<\/i>), glorious (en dox\u0113<\/i>), and powerful (en dynamei<\/i>) is a subtle yet sure ascription to the risen Jesus of characteristics associated with divinity in Hellenistic-Jewish religion at that time. This Pauline text reflects both the experiential and the eschatological nature of the earliest Christian discernment of Jesus\u2019 divinity.<\/p>\n The image of sonship only gradually came to convey a firm sense of Jesus\u2019 divine status in the \ufeffNT\ufeff. Indeed, there is broad consensus among exegetes that Jesus, during his earthly life, addressed God as Father (Abba<\/i>) with a degree of intimacy not typical of Jewish tradition, and that this reflected a profoundly personal and unique experience of God by Jesus, undoubtedly underlying his urgent call to proclaim the inbreaking of the reign of God. Nevertheless, the title \u201c\ufeffSon of God\ufeff\u201d initially was confessed of Jesus in light of his Easter exaltation, celebrated as the fulfillment of the royal messianic psalms (e.g., \ufeffPs 2\ufeff and \ufeffPs 110\ufeff). Its initial connotation was messianic and in a sense \u201c\ufeffadoptive\ufeff\u201d in that it was associated with the moment of royal enthronement (e.g., \ufeffRom 1:3f\ufeff). The messianic character of this title is illustrated by its frequent coupling with the messianic christos<\/i> (e.g., \u201c\ufeffthe Christ, the Son of God\ufeff\u201d). On the other hand, the tendency of this title to take on subtle divine connotation within the Easter experience of the early church is already suggested by \ufeffRom 1:4\ufeff: \u201c\ufeffappointed Son of God in power (en dynamei<\/i>) through resurrection from the dead.\ufeff\u201d In the Gospel of John the \u201c\ufeffSon\ufeff\u201d imagery combines with the preexistent Wisdom imagery to provide the most explicit \ufeffNT\ufeff confession of Jesus\u2019 divinity. That the Word (logos<\/i>) of \ufeffJohn 1\ufeff is Wisdom can be seen in the obvious resonances with the sapiential poetry and is corroborated by parallel usage of sophia<\/i> and logos<\/i> in the judaism of the time. This Johannine Word\/Son which \u201c\ufeffwas God\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffJohn 1:1\ufeff), \u201c\ufeffwas with the Father in the beginning,\ufeff\u201d and \u201c\ufeffcame down from heaven,\ufeff\u201d was to become the dominant model for construing the divinity of the Son in Christian theology.<\/p>\n The acclamation of Jesus as \u201c\ufeffLord\ufeff\u201d (Kyrios<\/i>) within the worship of Greek speaking communities which used the Septuagint version of the \ufeffOT\ufeff is another example of powerful yet subtle attribution to the risen Jesus of divine status. Kyrios<\/i> was used widely in the Greek \ufeffOT\ufeff as a divine appellative. Its double appearance in \ufeffPs 110:1\ufeff, \u201c\ufeffThe Lord said to my Lord \u2026,\ufeff\u201d in the context of liturgical celebration of Jesus Easter exaltation (see\ufeffabove\ufeff) was a natural poetic suggestion of Jesus\u2019 divine status. That this acclamation went beyond poetic suggestion to worshipful confession is evident in the early hymn in \ufeffPhilippians 2\ufeff: \u201c\ufeff\u2026 God highly exalted him \u2026 So that at Jesus\u2019 name every knee must bend \u2026 and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father: Jesus Christ is Lord!\ufeff\u201d(\ufeff9\u201311\ufeff). Likewise, in such Pauline texts as \ufeff1 Cor 8:6\ufeff and 1 Cor \ufeff12:5\u20136\ufeff the Lordship of Jesus is placed in parallel with the divinity of the one God. While more ambiguous in its ascription of divinity to Jesus than the Word\/Son imagery of John, the \ufeffNT\ufeff confession of Jesus\u2019 Lordship does retain a stronger sense of the intrinsic role which Jesus\u2019 concrete history and resurrection played in the \ufeffNT\ufeff experience of God. This is of no minor importance to a contemporary trinitarian theology concerned with a fuller retrieval of the \ufeffNT\ufeff witness.<\/p>\n Holy Spirit<\/i>.<\/strong> The divine status of the \u201c\ufeffSpirit of God\ufeff\u201d can similarly be seen as pervasive in the scriptures if one appreciates the metaphorical structure and semantic aim of the \ufeffOT\ufeff and \ufeffNT\ufeff pneumatology in its original context. The \ufeffOT\ufeff Spirit of God (r\u00fbach YHWH<\/i>) was the very reality of God in the creature empowering with life (e.g., \ufeffPs 104:29\u201330\ufeff), prophecy (e.g., \ufeffMic 3:8\ufeff), just discernment (e.g., \ufeffIsa 28:5\u20136\ufeff), holiness (e.g., \ufeffPs 51:12\u201313\ufeff), and an eschatological kingdom of ineffable justice, peace and freedom (e.g., \ufeffIsa 11\ufeff) etc. The metaphorical identification of the divine Spirit with the immanent creaturely agency in these texts is striking; e.g., the converted human spirit is poetically identified with the Spirit of God.<\/p>\n The Holy Spirit of the \ufeffNT\ufeff is this same Spirit of God now identified as the Spirit of Christ in the light of the Easter experience. \ufeffRom 8:9\ufeff illustrates this connection clearly: \u201c\ufeffYou are not in the flesh but in the spirit<\/i> since the Spirit of God<\/i> dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ<\/i>, does not belong to him.\ufeff\u201d The first use of \u201c\ufeffspirit\ufeff\u201d in this text\u2014spirit (pneuma<\/i>) as opposed to flesh (sarx<\/i>)\u2014is common in the Pauline and Johannine \ufeffNT\ufeff writings. In this case spirit refers to the condition of divine empowerment as opposed to the creature living on its own by its own creaturely resources (flesh). The derivation of such pneumatic empowerment from the Easter experience is evidenced in \ufeff1 Cor 15:35\u201353\ufeff where Paul metaphorically identifies the risen Lord as \u201c\ufefflife-giving spirit\ufeff\u201d and sums up his description of the resurrection body with the expression \u201c\ufeffspiritual body\ufeff\u201d (s\u014dma pneumatikon<\/i>). In this context \u201c\ufeffspiritual\ufeff\u201d carries the connotation of divine status as did the preceding adjectives \u201c\ufeffincorruptible,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffglorious,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffpowerful\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffsee\ufeff above). As the text of \ufeffRom 8:9\ufeff indicates, this spiritual empowerment is due to the Spirit of God (=Spirit of Christ) dwelling in us. Paul attributes to the indwelling Spirit the empowerment: to love (\ufeffRom 5:5\ufeff), to call God \u201c\ufeffFather\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffRom 8:15\ufeff), to pray (\ufeffRom 8:26\ufeff), to be free (\ufeff2 Cor 3:17\ufeff), to prophesy (\ufeff1 Cor 12:10\ufeff), etc., Paul\u2019s metaphorical identification-in-difference of the Spirit with the risen Lord ought not be judged in the light of John likewise uses the spirit\/flesh antithesis (\ufeffJohn 3:1\u201310\ufeff; \ufeff6:63\ufeff). The dominant form of divine empowerment which John attributes to the indwelling Spirit is \u201c\ufeffnew life.\ufeff\u201d This new life is not simply ascribed to the Spirit but actually identified with the Spirit<\/i> (\ufeff4:10\ufeff; \ufeff7:39\ufeff; \ufeff20:22\ufeff).<\/p>\n A distinctive aspect of the Johannine pneumatology is the use of the term Paraclete (parakl\u0113tos<\/i>) to denote the Spirit in certain functions which, as it were, compensate for the absence within the Christian community of the physical, earthly presence of Jesus who was by implication the first paraclete; e.g., the Paraclete abides with the disciples of Jesus teaching and guiding them, reminding them of the teachings of Jesus, and witnessing to and for them. The Paraclete imagery, which for the most part is restricted to \ufeffJohn 14\u201316\ufeff, is the high point of the biblical personification of the Spirit. The Paraclete is clearly differentiated from the Father and the Son and is spoken of as \u201c\ufeffproceeding\ufeff\u201d from the Father (\ufeff15:26\ufeff) and as being \u201c\ufeffsent\ufeff\u201d either by the Father (\ufeff14:26\ufeff) or by the Son from the Father (\ufeff15:26\ufeff; \ufeff16:7\ufeff). This language will heavily influence the later formulation of trinitarian doctrine. It should be noted that the word \u201c\ufeffproceeds\ufeff\u201d (ekporeuesthai<\/i>), which the later Greek theology and doctrine would apply to the eternal inner life of God, is judged by current biblical scholarship to refer in its original Johannine context to the temporal gift of the Paraclete associated with the Son\u2019s return to the Father. Although the Paraclete is differentiated from the Son as \u201c\ufeffanother paraclete\ufeff\u201d (\ufeff14:16\ufeff), a similar metaphorically tensive identification exists between the Johannine Paraclete and the risen Jesus as in the Pauline pneumatology between the risen Lord and the Spirit. This subtle identification-in-difference is captured by Raymond Brown\u2019s succinct summation: \u201c\ufeffIt is our contention that John presents the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit in a special role, namely, as the personal presence of Jesus in the Christian while Jesus is with the Father\ufeff\u201d (\ufeffThe Gospel according to John XIII\u2013XXI<\/i>, p. 1139\ufeff).<\/p>\n <\/i>The very passages which express the powerful \ufeffNT\ufeff testimony to the divinity of the Father, Son, and Spirit likewise reveal the emergence, especially in early worship and proclamation, of a threefold pattern in the Christian experience of God. As Jesus taught them, the early christians prayed to God as Father. This prayer was made in solidarity with Jesus who was most properly the Son and whose special relationship with God was shared by his followers. At times Jesus the Son was the object of worship in the context of recognition of his divine exalted status (e.g., \ufeff2 Pet 3:18\ufeff; \ufeffRev 1:5\u20136\ufeff). The Spirit of God is never the specific object of worship in the \ufeffNT\ufeff. This was not due to vagueness or doubt about the divinity of the Spirit but to the spontaneous experiential realization that the Spirit was the very divine presence immanently empowering them to pray, to prophesy, to love, to live. Numerous \ufeffNT\ufeff triadic formulae of diverse literary genre and formulation suggest the gradual linguistic stereotyping of this experiential pattern in the direction of the classic Christian doxological and confessional forms: \u201c\ufeffTo the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit\ufeff\u201d and \u201c\ufeffFrom the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.\ufeff\u201d The variety of greeting and benediction formulae in the Pauline epistles reveal this pattern even when they are not explicitly triadic. The great commissioning text of \ufeffMatt 28:19\ufeff (\u201c\ufeff\u2026 baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit\ufeff\u201d) along with the overtly triadic pattern of the accounts of Jesus\u2019 baptism in the Jordan, demonstrate the intimate connection already in \ufeffNT\ufeff times between the triadic pattern of experience and Christian baptism. This liturgical connection will be the primary carrier of trinitarian faith into the post-\ufeffNT\ufeff period.<\/p>\n It is important to recognize the essential continuity between this triadic \ufeffNT\ufeff experience of God and the \ufeffOT\ufeff experience of Yahweh. God the Father is Yahweh, \u201c\ufeffthe one who has done things.\ufeff\u201d Jesus<\/i> is the new, distinctive event which God has wrought as an act of final and decisive identification\u2014i.e., Jesus in his concrete life, death, and destiny as discerned in Easter faith. The eschatological identification of Jesus\u2019 Easter destiny with the decisive reign of God, which Jesus proclaimed, and hence ineffably with the very reality of God is the very heart of the distinctive \ufeffNT\ufeff experience of God. The more protologically oriented imagery of Wisdom\/Word, which, as we have seen, affirms Jesus\u2019 divinity and universal significance, must always presuppose and never fully replace the eschatological. The eschatological imagery emphasizes the temporality of the \ufeffNT\ufeff experience of God and preserves the important tension between the \u201c\ufeffalready\ufeff\u201d and the \u201c\ufeffnot yet\ufeff\u201d of the final saving event. Protological imagery alone would tend toward the a-temporality of myth and the denigration of Jesus\u2019 concrete humanity. 1 John reacts to such misreadings of the Johannine Christology\u2014already in \ufeffNT\ufeff times\u2014by more sharply focusing the \u201c\ufeffhigh\ufeff\u201d Johannine Christological imagery on the concrete humanity of Jesus. Finally, in the \ufeffNT\ufeff experience the Spirit is the very divine immanent presence realizing now in anticipation the eschatological event realized in Jesus. As such, the Spirit is never the explicit object of \ufeffNT\ufeff worship, nor is the Spirit ever represented in \ufeffNT\ufeff discourse as interacting in an interpersonal way with the Father and the Son, except as the immanent ground of human prayer to God; e.g., \ufeffRom 8:15\ufeff; \ufeffGal 4:6\ufeff.<\/p>\n This \ufeffNT\ufeff experiential trinitarian pattern continued on into the liturgical life of the second century Christian communities and is reflected without marked change in the earliest post-\ufeffNT\ufeff extant literature. A major shift of context, however, took place in the mid-second century as the Christian proclamation encountered the Greek interpretation of deity.<\/p>\n <\/i>Christians (the \u201c\ufeffapologists\ufeff\u201d conversant with the then dominant philosophy of middle-Platonism seized the opportunity to proclaim and elucidate the Christian message in a thought form which was meaningful to the educated classes of the widespread Hellenistic society. This movement, which Catholic theology has generally evaluated positively, will have an enormous impact on the development of Christian theology. God in middle-Platonic thought was monotheistic and transcended the world, and like the Judeo-Christian God was the absolute ground of all that is. Unlike the God of Christian proclamation, this God of Greek philosophy was not experienced via historical encounter but was inferred as the ultimate and absolute ground or principle (arch\u0113<\/i>) of the perishable world. The experience of the perishability of the temporal-material world was deep within the Hellenic psyche. The God whose existence they inferred was radically different from this world: imperishable, a-temporal, immaterial, unchangeable, impassible, etc. The radical otherness, transcendence, and ineffability of this absolute principle was so extreme by the mid-second century, that they had to postulate intermediary principles between the absolute principle and the finite world.<\/p>\n Confident that the God they preached was the Father of Jesus Christ and the salvation they proclaime This creative adaptation of the Hellenic philosophical context for the defense and proclamation of the Christian message expresses well the universality inherent in the Christian understanding of God and the capacity of the gospel to speak effectively to the soteriological concerns of a distinctive cultural context. However, it raises important questions for our assessment today of its impact upon the development of the Christian doctrine of God. Protestant scholars to this day are disturbed by the troubled juxtaposition of two ultimately conflicting notions of God: the concrete living God disclosed in revelation, and the timeless absolute of middle-Platonism. Traditionally, catholic theology has more positively evaluated the philosophical notion of God, tempering its negations with a more positive ontology, yet recognizing both religiously and philosophically the limits and indirectness of all reference to God. Today both protestant and catholic theologians, remaining consistent with their traditions but in light of our contemporary historical consciousness, are assessing more carefully the historical impact of the Hellenic view of deity on Christian thought and life. To what extent did the Hellenic concern for the timelessness, immateriality, and radical otherness of the divine inform the context in which the church formulated its understanding of the God experienced in the triadic discourse of its worship, proclamation and biblical texts?<\/p>\n <\/i>Until the third century, the \u201c\ufeffthree\ufeff\u201d of the divine Triad in church life and theology were referred to concretely, i.e., as \u201c\ufeffthe Father,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffthe Son,\ufeff\u201d \u201c\ufeffthe Holy Spirit.\ufeff\u201d There existed as yet no generic term for the three. This changed in the third century with Tertullian and Hippolytus in the west and Origen in the east.<\/p>\n The West<\/strong><\/i>. The reinforcement of Hebraic monotheism with the strong monotheism of the Hellenic arch\u0113<\/i> had a profound impact upon western Christianity. By the third century the temptation was extreme \u201c\ufeffmonarchianism\ufeff\u201d (i.e., stress on the unity of God) in the various forms of \u201c\ufeffmodalism\ufeff\u201d i.e., the tendency to diminish the distinction between the \u201c\ufeffthree\ufeff\u201d of the divine triad by considering them merely as temporary modes or aspects of, or even mere names for the one arch\u0113<\/i>. Both Hippolytus and Tertullian reacted to this extreme monarchianism by stressing the \u201c\ufeffeconomy\ufeff\u201d of the divine life. Irenaeus had already used the word \u201c\ufeffeconomy\ufeff\u201d (oeconomia<\/i> = organization, distribution) in reference to the unfolding of God\u2019s plan in the history of salvation. Tertullian uses it to refer to God\u2019s own self-distribution<\/i> in connection with the saving history. It becomes here a trinitarian term expressing the unity between God\u2019s inner life and salvation history. It is this \u201c\ufeffeconomy \u2026 which distributes the unity into trinity (trinitas<\/i>)\ufeff\u201d (Praxeas 2.4). This is the first known use of the term \u201c\ufefftrinity.\ufeff\u201d Tertullian uses the term \u201c\ufeffperson\ufeff\u201d (persona<\/i>) as a generic term for the three of the divine economy. Persona<\/i>, like the Greek term pros\u014dpon<\/i> used by Hippolytus, was an everyday word for the human individual connoting specifically the aspect of distinctive individuality<\/i> established by one\u2019s social role.<\/p>\n Tertullian emphasized equally the unity of the three persons by stating that they are of \u201c\ufeffone substance.\ufeff\u201d Scholars debate as to how literally Tertullian intended the subtle stoic materialistic connotation associated with his use of the word \u201c\ufeffsubstance.\ufeff\u201d What is generally agreed upon is the enormous impact of Tertullian on the terminology of subsequent Latin trinitarian theology\u2014e.g., person, \u201c\ufeffof one substance,\ufeff\u201d economy, trinity. Another subtle but important Tertullian usage, that will differentiate the style of western from eastern theology, is his tendency to identify the name \u201c\ufeffGod\ufeff\u201d with the divine substance: \u201c\ufeffGod is the name for the substance, that is, the divinity\ufeff\u201d (Hermogenem 3). In the east as in the \ufeffNT\ufeff \u201c\ufeffGod\ufeff\u201d is always equated with the Father.<\/p>\n The East<\/strong><\/i>. Origen appropriated the philosophy of middle-Platonism more systematically than the apologists and Tertullian had. The Father is the absolute, unoriginated origin (arch\u0304<\/i>). The Son is his Word (logos<\/i>) mediating between the Father\u2019s absolute unity and the multiplicity of creation. However, the Son\u2019s generation from the Father is eternal:<\/i> \u201c\ufeffThere never was a time when the Son was not.\ufeff\u201d This concept of \u201c\ufeffeternal generation\ufeff\u201d was an adaptation of the middle-Platonic doctrine that the whole world of spiritual beings was eternal. The Son is eternally derived (or generated) from the very being of God and hence is of the Father\u2019s essence, but second to the Father. Origen was vague about the status of the Spirit, although he does say that the Spirit \u201c\ufeffis ever with the Father and the Son; like the Father and the Son it always was, is, and will be.\ufeff\u201d Likewise, the Spirit is \u201c\ufeffassociated in honor and dignity with the Father and the Son.\ufeff\u201d Origen, like Tertullian coined a generic term for the \u201c\ufeffthree\ufeff\u201d of the divine triad. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are \u201c\ufeffthree hypostaseis<\/i>\ufeff\u201d (=individuals). This term does not as such connote personhood in the modern sense of the term but distinct individuality.<\/p>\n Origen\u2019s major contribution to the formulation of the trinitarian doctrine is the notion of eternal generation. His generic term for the \u201c\ufeffthree\ufeff\u201d (hypostasis<\/i>) will be adopted and refined in the fourth century. The troublesome legacy of Origen\u2019s trinitarian thought is the implied inferiority or subordination of the Spirit to the Son and of the Son to the Father (subordinationism). This will be corrected in the fourth century.<\/p>\n <\/\ni>The problem inherent in the Christian adaptation and appropriation of the Hellenic notion of deity and the related tendency of logos<\/i> Christology to prescind from Jesus in the direction of the preexistent Son all come to a head with Arius at the turn of the fourth century. The church will wrestle with these issues theologically and dogmatically, first as they relate to the divinity of the Son and then to the divinity of the Spirit.<\/p>\n Arius<\/i>.<\/strong> Arius took the implications of the Hellenic idea of God quite seriously. If to be divine is to be the absolute arch\u0304<\/i>\u2014i.e., to be unoriginated, utterly underived in any sense\u2014then only the Father is God. The Son as originating<\/i> from the Father before time is indeed our Savior, but precisely as originating from, or being begotten of, the Father, the Son does not possess the essence of divinity, i.e., absolute unoriginatedness. The Son is the first of creation, produced from nothing by an act of the Father\u2019s will. Recent scholarship has shown a strong soteriological<\/i> concern in Arius\u2019 theology (\ufeffR. Gregg & D. Groh, Early Arianism<\/i>\ufeff). To be our Savior and the model of our growth in virtue and holiness the Son must have been capable of change and moral choice, and hence not divine. This soteriological concern, if indeed important for Arius, would simply demonstrate the concern for salvation underlying the whole fourth century trinitarian struggle. A major argument against Arius will be that a created redeemer could not have redeemed us. The trinitarian debates, while heavily political and often involving abstruse speculation about the ineffable reality of God, were at root concerned with salvation.<\/p>\n Nicaea<\/strong><\/i>. The Council of Nicaea (325) directly condemned the position of Arius. The creed of Nicaea states that the Son is \u201c\ufeffbegotten, not created, one-in-being (homoousion<\/i>) with the Father.\ufeff\u201d Further, the council condemns those who say, \u201c\ufeff \u2018\ufeffThere was a time when he did not exist\ufeff\u2019 and \u2026 \u2018\ufeffHe was made from nothing,\ufeff\u2019 \u2026 alleging that the Son of God is mutable or subject to change \u2026\ufeff\u201d<\/p>\n Clearly the intention of the council was to affirm apodictically the full divinity of the Son. It is difficult to sort out contextual factors from the essential intention of the definition. The Hellenic stress on divine immutability and concern about the Son as pre-existent were certainly contextual factors shred by the Arians and the council. The council did significantly qualify the excessively abstract Hellenic identification of the deity with \u201c\ufeffunoriginatedness\ufeff\u201d by affirming that the Son is both fully divine and \u201c\ufeffbegotten.\ufeff\u201d However ineffably, then, the divinity is both unoriginate and begotten.<\/p>\n Athanasius and the Cappadocians<\/strong><\/i>. Initially the acceptance of the Nicaean settlement was fragile. The following fifty years were filled with confusion and often bitter dispute over the implications of homoousios<\/i>. In what sense is God one? How is God yet three?<\/p>\n Athanasius led the response to the first question. At the time the word homoousios<\/i> could have meant \u201c\ufeffof like essence\ufeff\u201d or \u201c\ufeffof the same essence.\ufeff\u201d Athanasius argued that the Son was of the same essence as the Father\u2014not simply sharing the same generic essence as human beings share the same essential humanity but rather the same identical<\/i> essence. He then argued that as the Son was of the same essence as the Father, so the Spirit was of the same essence (homoousion<\/i>) as the Son. By this time the status of the Spirit had become theologically vague and was being challenged by the semi-Arian \u201c\ufeffTropici.\ufeff\u201d<\/p>\n The Cappadocians<\/strong>, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa, followed up on Athanasius\u2019 insistence on the identity of essence of the \u201c\ufeffthree,\ufeff\u201d but their primary concern was to respond to the second question above: \u201c\ufeffHow is God yet three?\ufeff\u201d<\/p>\n Basil never did explicitly apply homoousion<\/i> to the Spirit. Whether for reasons of tactful irenicism or of theological subtlety, he affirmed the divinity of the Spirit in a way that would have a lasting impact. Basil fostered a shift in the doxological formula within his church of Caesarea. In place of the traditional doxology, \u201c\ufeffto<\/i> the Father, through<\/i> the Son, in<\/i> the Holy Spirit,\ufeff\u201d he encouraged that praise be directed \u201c\ufeffto the Father, with<\/i> the Son and<\/i> the Holy Spirit.\ufeff\u201d His own response to criticism that he was innovating tends to confirm the rather limited pre-history of the practice that he was encouraging. His brother, Gregory of Nyssa, was probably the person responsible for having the \u201c\ufeffinnovation\ufeff\u201d inserted into the revised creed of I Constantinople (381) in the form \u201c\ufeffthe Holy Spirit \u2026 who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.\ufeff\u201d Positively, this change powerfully affirms the divinity of the Spirit. A negative result\u2014certainly unintended by Basil\u2014is that by making the Spirit the object of worship it lessens the experiential sense of the Spirit as immanent source<\/i> of worship. It tends to place the divine Mystery entirely over-against the worshipper, diminishing the sense of envelopment implied in the \ufeffNT\ufeff experiential pattern.<\/p>\n If the \u201c\ufeffthree,\ufeff\u201d then, possess one identical essence, how are they three? The Cappadocians cumulatively formulated the answer to this question in terms of origin and mutual relations. They took the ambiguous word hypostasis<\/i>, which could be used either as a synonym for \u201c\ufeffessence\ufeff\u201d (ousia<\/i>) or as connoting a distinct individual reality. They employed it in this latter sense and applied it as a generic term for the \u201c\ufeffthree.\ufeff\u201d In what sense are they distinct? The biblical evidence provides a distinguishing characteristic (idiot\u0113tes<\/i>) for each of the \u201c\ufeffthree.\ufeff\u201d The Father is distinguished as \u201c\ufeffungenerated\ufeff\u201d (This is consonant with the early Christian equation of the Father with God, and further with the Greek appreciation of God as \u201c\ufeffunoriginated origin\ufeff\u201d or arch\u0113<\/i>). The Son is distinguished as \u201c\ufeffgenerated,\ufeff\u201d and the Spirit as \u201c\ufeffproceeding.\ufeff\u201d These distinguishing characteristics connote mutual relatedness or more specifically mutually interrelated \u201c\ufeffmodes of coming to be\ufeff\u201d (tropoi hyparxeos<\/i>). In every other respect the \u201c\ufeffthree\ufeff\u201d are identical. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father and is really distinct from the Father only<\/i> in that the Son is generated and the Father is the generator. Likewise, the Spirit proceeds \u201c\ufeffout of the Father and receives from the Son,\ufeff\u201d differing from each of the others only<\/i> as the one proceeding. The Trinity, then, is one absolutely simple, concrete, individual, infinite essence (ousia<\/i>) subsisting without multiplication<\/i> in three really distinct modes, characterized respectively as ungenerated, generated, and proceeding, in the order just delineated.<\/p>\n The Cappadocians were acutely aware of the inadequacy of these formal terms to express the ineffable divine Mystery, but they were convinced that the biblical language followed this logic. Nyssa\u2019s argument from the identity of the divine activity to the identity of the divine essence illustrates this. According to the \ufeffNT\ufeff, every divine action in creation is done by all three together: the divine action \u201c\ufeffhas its origin in the Father, proceeds through the Son, and reaches completion in the Holy Spirit.\ufeff\u201d Thus none of the hypostases possesses a separate operation of its own, but one identical power is exercised by them all. (N.B.: For the Cappadocians the prepositional pattern \u201c\ufefffrom, through, in\ufeff\u201d is still operative here!) Another point illustrated by this example is that whenever the Cappadocians attempted to speak of the divine Mystery Itself (theology), they always spoke in terms of salvation history (economy).<\/p>\n Later councils and synods will make additions to this dogma of 381 but these additions are usually viewed as refinements or explicitations of the original dogma. For example the definition by the Council of Florence (1442) of the co-inherence (perichor\u0113sis, circuminsessio<\/i>) or mutual indwelling of the divine persons is an explicitation of the true identity of substance. The so-called Florentine principle, \u201c\ufeffIn God all is one where there is no opposition of relation\ufeff\u201d (1442), was already operative in the logic of Athanasius and the Cappadocians assumed by Constantinople (381), before it was explicitated by Anselm.<\/p>\n <\/i>The subsequent theological history of the Trinity is long and detailed. Since it follows two separate trajectories\u2014east and west\u2014we shall briefly focus on a dominant figure in each tradition as we generally characterize the history.<\/p>\n The West<\/i>. Augustine\u2019s pervasive influence on western trinitarian theology is generally recognized. Unfortunately Augustine\u2019s access to the nuanced reflections of the Cappadocians was limited, but it is quite clear that he completely accepted the trinitarian dogma and took as a major task to reflect upon and teach this \u201c\ufeffrule of faith\ufeff\u201d that the Trinity is God, one identical substance, subsisting in three persons. This formulation reflects the distinctive style of Augustine\u2019s theology: God is identified with the divine substance, and the one substance is considered before the three persons. In itself the linguistic alteration of identifying \u201c\ufeffGod\ufeff\u201d with the divine substance rather than with the Father was not problematic. It was in accord with the logic of the dogma and was occasionally done even by the Cappadocians. The problem is that this attenuates the sense of modal differentiation which is implied when the one identical essence is identified in order with each of the three distinct modes of being (without being multiplied). For the Cappadocians the divine substance is \u201c\ufeffmodified\ufeff\u201d with each modal differentiation. In other words, the hypostasis characterized by \u201c\ufeffgeneration\ufeff\u201d is not simply a relation within<\/i> the divine essence, rather it is<\/i> the divine essence in an eternally distinct mode. Overlooking this modal differentiation leads to more abstract results when one applies the principle that \u201c\ufeffIn God all is one where there is no opposition of relation.\ufeff\u201d This is nowhere clearer in Augustine than in his frequent use of what later will be called \u201c\ufeffappropriation.\ufeff\u201d<\/p>\n Augustine always insists\u2014as the Cappadocians did\u2014that when God acts in creation he acts as one principle and that we appropriate the activity to one or other of the persons as it is symbolically fitting. The reasons for this are that the Bible seems to do it this way and further that opposition of relation is not involved, hence the activity should be predicated to the Trinity as one. An important difference here from the Cappadocians is that for them the modal pattern was preserved. God\u2019s creation, for example, was one divine action but it was accomplished from the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. The difference in effect is more than verbal, for with mere \u201c\ufeffappropriation\ufeff\u201d there is a weakening of the linkage to the trinitarian experiential pattern. In Augustine\u2019s hands this was offset by constant appeal to biblical language and the experiential pattern of his own interiority.<\/p>\n Augustine\u2019s emphasis on the Spirit\u2019s proceeding from the Father and<\/i> the Son (\ufeff<\/i>filioque<\/i>\ufeff<\/i>), acting as one principle, is similarly based jointly upon biblical citations and the application in an abstract way of the principle demanding unity where relation is not applicable. Once again Augustine beautifully elaborates this abstractly derived notion into his doctrine of the Spirit as the \u201c\ufeffbond of love\ufeff\u201d in the Trinity.<\/p>\n Augustine\u2019s trinitarian theology is best known for its numerous trinitarian analogies. A point often overlooked is the intensely experiential pattern reflected in some of these analogies. Many of the analogies are rather tenuous examples of how three things may in a sense also be one. However, when Augustine reflects on his personal appropriation of his own being (\ufeff<\/i>esse<\/i>\ufeff<\/i>), his knowing (nosse<\/i>) of this being, and his freedom (velle<\/i>) in this being, it is evident that the analogy\u2014which is still an analogy\u2014is closest to the ineffable Trinity.<\/p>\n It is only in the Middle Ages that some of these analogies are systematically developed into theories\u2014still analogical\u2014of the Trinity, e.g., Richard of St. Victor (lover, beloved, love), and Thomas Aquinas (mind, self-knowledge, self-love). In the hands of these great medieval theologians, the distinction between immanent and economic Trinity\u2014already present in Augustine and the eastern Fathers\u2014is becoming stronger, but a vital connection is always retained between the two. The later western tradition will tend more to separate the consideration of God\u2019s inner life from the economy of salvation by using as the starting point of its reflection the formal statements of the dogma rather than the narratives of salvation history.<\/p>\n The East<\/i>.<\/strong> Trinitarian theology in the east was spared the extreme formalization, which gradually occurred in the west, by reason of the fact that eastern trinitarianism remained in closer contact with liturgical and monastic spirituality. Nevertheless, it inherited the same \u201c\ufefftranscendentalizing\ufeff\u201d tendency of the Hellenic view of deity as a-temporal and immutable.<\/p>\n Gregory Palamas (1296\u20131359) represents this tradition well. As a hesychast monk (Hesychasm was a mystical monastic spirituality which strongly emphasized the experiential presence of God in prayer.), he reacted to the extreme intellectualism of western trinitarian theology. Palamas\u2019 primary concern was to affirm the reality of communion with God<\/i>. He rejects as inadequate the western notion of \u201c\ufeffcreated grace\ufeff\u201d in favor of the richer \u201c\ufeffdivinization\ufeff\u201d (the\u014dsis<\/i>) of the early Greek Fathers. In a real sense the Christian \u201c\ufeffbecomes divine.\ufeff\u201d To account for this, Palamas distinguishes between the divine \u201c\ufeffessence\ufeff\u201d (which is absolutely transcendent and unchangeable), the three \u201c\ufeffhypostases,\ufeff\u201d and the \u201c\ufeffuncreated energies.\ufeff\u201d The uncreated energies constitute God\u2019s radically immanent activity and presence in the creature. This attempt to do justice to God\u2019s immanence as \u201c\ufeffdivinization\ufeff\u201d is receiving attention in contemporary theology. It is noteworthy though, that, for Palamas, the second and third hypostases were so identified with God\u2019s transcendent, incommuni <\/i>There are several points of wide consensus in contemporary trinitarian theology. First, the separation of the immanent from the economic Trinity is unacceptable. What we know of the divine Mystery in Itself, we know through its unfolding in the history of salvation, hence the return to biblical discourse as a starting point. Second, the trinitarian term \u201c\ufeffperson,\ufeff\u201d if retained, should be used with care to avoid suggesting a multiplicity of operations (e.g., intellect, will) within God contrary to the dogma. Third, the trinitarian biblical discourse and our own \u201c\ufeffhistorical consciousness\ufeff\u201d demand a more careful consideration of the implications of this doctrine for divine immanence in creation and the \u201c\ufeffdifference\ufeff\u201d that this makes for God.<\/p>\n The trinitarian theology of Karl Rahner, though not heavily biblical in its provenance, has contributed significantly to the addressing of these concerns. The primary focus of Rahner\u2019s theology is the immanence of grace as a true \u201c\ufeffdivinization.\ufeff\u201d He speaks of a real \u201c\ufeffself-communication\ufeff\u201d of God in which the divine reality becomes \u201c\ufeffthe innermost constitutive element\ufeff\u201d of the creature. This self-communication of God, or this \u201c\ufeffbecoming\ufeff\u201d of God in history, takes place in the incarnation and in grace. It entails a threefold modal differentiation in God, in that it is a real becoming of God in the otherness of created history. Rahner prefers modal language reminiscent of the Cappadocians to the \u201c\ufeffperson\ufeff\u201d language of the west for the reason expressed above. The one infinite divine essence initially identified with the unoriginated \u201c\ufeffmode of subsistence\ufeff\u201d which we call Father is fully expressed in the humanity and person of Jesus in a second \u201c\ufeffmode of subsistence\ufeff\u201d which we call logos or Son, and is given in grace as the \u201c\ufeffmode of subsistence\ufeff\u201d which we call Holy Spirit. Having thus so strongly affirmed the immanence of the Trinity to history, Rahner then seems conversely to affirm the immanence of the historical divine self-enactment to the Trinity when he proclaims repeatedly: \u201c\ufeffThe economic Trinity is<\/i> the immanent Trinity and the immanent Trinity is<\/i> the economic Trinity.\ufeff\u201d The first part of the slogan he affirms and corroborates explicitly with the argument that God\u2019s self-communication was not a true self-communication unless the divine Mystery presented Itself as it is eternally. It is not clear how strictly Rahner intends the converse to be taken. On the one hand, on the rare occasions when he speaks of the Trinity in abstraction from the economy to deal with a question like the pre-existence of the logos<\/i>, he says such things as, \u201c\ufeff\u2026 the second (mode of subsistence) is exactly identical with God\u2019s ability<\/i> to express himself in history,\ufeff\u201d suggesting that God actually<\/i> becomes triune only in history. On the other hand, he insists repeatedly on the absolute immutability of God in himself, at times speaking as if the processions within God were distinct from the missions in history.<\/p>\n <\/i> We might formulate the essential task facing trinitarian theology as the catalytical unlocking of the meaning inherent in the primary discourse of the tradition in the context of our historically conscious modern world. \u201c\ufeffHistorical consciousness\ufeff\u201d involves more than a sense of the past. It takes seriously the history in which we live and our responsibility for it. We value freedom as the capacity creatively to imagine finer possibilities and to be drawn into a new future. We cherish this temporal structure of the \u201c\ufeffbecoming of our being,\ufeff\u201d although with people of every age we experience its fragility and perpetual perishing. Our historically conscious culture is in sharp contrast to the classical culture within which the doctrine of God was formulated. Catholic theology in the past several decades has become well aware of this cultural shift and is only beginning to appropriate its implications for the doctrine of God. This involves profoundly difficult philosophical problems.<\/p>\n Is God absolutely immutable? Scholars generally agree that the \u201c\ufeffsteadfastness\ufeff\u201d of will which the Bible ascribes to God is different from the unchangeability of God which is universally predicated of God since the interface with Hellenic culture. For Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and Aquinas it is clear that unchangeability is virtually identifiable with God\u2019s nature as infinite plenitude of being (\u201c\ufeffI am\ufeff\u201d). How can the infinite plenitude of being become? Assuming with these great theologians that \u201c\ufeffinfinity of being\ufeff\u201d is a valid limit-concept referring to a reality beyond our comprehension, might not an ineffable \u201c\ufeffbecoming\ufeff\u201d be possible for the Infinite without entailing an increase of its perfection or a multiplicity of infinity, and hence contradiction? Is not such ineffable capacity to become already suggested in the modal terminology of the Cappadocians where the \u201c\ufeffthree\ufeff\u201d are characterized as \u201c\ufeffmodes of coming to be\ufeff\u201d (tropoi hyparxeos<\/i>), although the Cappadocians themselves would predicate unchangeability even of these modes?<\/p>\n Another related philosophical problem revolves around necessity and freedom. Necessity to be is implied in the absolute plenitude of God\u2019s being. God could not<\/i> not be, since the divine essence is \u201c\ufeffto be.\ufeff\u201d On the other hand, Christian theology has always viewed God as free, but this freedom extends only to possible creation and not to God\u2019s own being, as if the divine being were completely determined by necessity. God certainly could not choose not to be, but if freedom is as primordial to God\u2019s being as the Christian claim \u201c\ufeffGod is love\ufeff\u201d suggests, might it not be that the \u201c\ufeffmodes\ufeff\u201d of God\u2019s being are rooted in God\u2019s eternal freedom?<\/p>\n Then there is the relationship between the infinite and the finite. Rahner often paraphrases Hegel to the effect that the truly infinite cannot be thought of only as the opposite of the finite; it must also transcend this opposition, and be the unity of itself and the other to which it gives rise. For the finite to exist \u201c\ufeffoutside\ufeff\u201d the infinite would deny the infinity of the infinite. Rahner, of course, holds that God creates freely, but if God does create, a radical participatory immanence of some degree must be involved.<\/p>\n Finally there is time and eternity. In Greek thought eternity was timeless. Augustine, whose description of time is classic, views time primarily in terms of its perishability and contrasts it sharply to God\u2019s eternity, which is God\u2019s very substance and hence simply is<\/i>. However, in view of our historical consciousness of time as \u201c\ufeffbecoming\ufeff\u201d and as \u201c\ufeffpossibility to be,\ufeff\u201d and further, of God\u2019s immanence to this becoming, might we not conceive of eternity as the ineffable fullness of time in God\u2019s everlasting future? This is described in various ways by theologians. White-headian process theologians speak of God \u201c\ufeffprehending\ufeff\u201d time. Rahner even says \u201c\ufeffit is in<\/i> time, as its own mature fruit, that \u2018\ufeffeternity\ufeff\u2019 comes about.\ufeff\u201d Wolfhart Pannenberg views God\u2019s eternity as future<\/i> vis-\u00e0-vis time. For him biblical eschatology entailed precisely this shift to the futurity of God\u2019s absolute future. The reign of God which Jesus proclaimed was this divine future and hence God\u2019s very being. In the Christian experience of Easter Jesus was discerned as identified<\/i> with this reign.<\/p>\n These preliminary reflections on the relative as well as absolute, or immanent as well as transcendent aspects of God\u2019s essence, are intended to free the originary trinitarian discourse of proclamation and worship to bespeak for our time the divine relati Three possibilities open up, corresponding to each of the divine \u201c\ufeffthree\ufeff\u201d: first, we can retrieve the biblical identification of the Son, the Word, with the concrete life and person of Jesus<\/i>. Rahner speaks of Jesus\u2019 history as \u201c\ufeffthe history of God,\ufeff\u201d as the \u201c\ufeffdivine drama of God-in-process,\ufeff\u201d and says that God \u201c\ufeffhas done himself\ufeff\u201d in Jesus. The incarnation is not the extension of a procession which took place in the primal past of God\u2019s eternity but an event of divine free<\/i> self-determination, unfolding historically in the mode of full divine self-expression in the life and person of Jesus, climaxing in the resurrectional identification of Jesus with God\u2019s reign. Jesus did not \u201c\ufeffbecome\ufeff\u201d divine; his life and destiny were a \u201c\ufeffbecoming\ufeff\u201d of God in time for eternity.<\/p>\n Second, the biblical identification of our life in grace with the very Spirit of God, which was grasped in the early eastern theology of divinization, can again take on its original vivid sense of divine immanence. The Spirit does not simply cause our holiness or love but constitutes<\/i> it within us. The Spirit is God\u2019s full infinity of being in the \u201c\ufeffmode of coming to be\ufeff\u201d in the creature.<\/p>\n Third, a proper sense of divine temporality might enable us to grasp how the deepest intention of the philosophical notion of God relates to the biblical God. As the apologists realized, the biblical God was the arch\u0113<\/i>, the \u201c\ufeffunoriginated origin,\ufeff\u201d from whom are all things. What biblical eschatology, culminating in the life and destiny of Jesus, adds is that the same arch\u0113<\/i> is also the eschaton<\/i> to whom are all things. The Cappadocians in different formulations associated two distinct distinguishing characteristics (idiot\u0113tes<\/i>) with the first divine \u201c\ufeffmode\ufeff\u201d: unoriginateness and paternity. Later theologians debated as to which of these was truly constitutive of the first hypostasis. If we allow freedom to be equiprimordial with God\u2019s necessity, we might say that God is necessarily unoriginate<\/i> (the philosophical notion of God), but eternally has chosen to be \u201c\ufefffor us\ufeff\u201d as Father<\/i>, and to have a future including our history through Jesus, his Son, in his Holy Spirit (the \ufeffNT\ufeff God).<\/p>\n Recent concern within feminist theology with the patriarchal structure of the trinitarian symbolism is sometimes addressed by noting the feminine gender and imagery associated with Spirit (r\u00fbach<\/i>) in the \ufeffOT\ufeff and in early Syrian Christianity. Retrieval of this feminine dimension would be noteworthy, especially if it is true that religious experience which stresses transcendence tends toward symbolization in the form of archetypal fatherhood, and that which stresses immanence toward symbolization in terms of archetypal motherhood. Whatever form linguistic sensitization may take to open us to the \u201c\ufefffeminine\ufeff\u201d in God and diminish the possibility that our very experience of the divine reinforce the evils of sexism, its purpose would be greatly enhanced by the liberation of the inner divine symbols of immanence from captivity within a divine nature conceived as exclusively absolute.<\/p>\n Rahner has been criticized for preferring the abstract term \u201c\ufeffmode of subsistence\ufeff\u201d to \u201c\ufeffperson\ufeff\u201d in his trinitarian theology. It is said we do not relate to abstractions as we do to persons. This criticism misses the point as to the purpose of theology and its relation to the primary trinitarian discourse which informs our Christian experience. Trinitarian \u201c\ufeffperson\ufeff\u201d itself is an abstract theological term introduced, as we have seen, in the third century to connote distinct individuation. Neither of these terms is at home in worship or proclamation. These abstract terms, as theological, serve to guide our understanding and preserve the integrity of our experience of the one God, \u201c\ufeffin whom we live move and have our being,\ufeff\u201d and whom we address as Father when we pray with<\/i> Jesus in<\/i> their Spirit.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Bibliography: <\/b>Jean Ladri\u00e9re, \u201c\ufeffLe discours th\u00e9ologique et le symbol, \ufeff\u201d Revue des sciences religieuses<\/i> 49, 1\u20132, Strasbourg, 1975, pp. 116\u201341. J.D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making<\/i>, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980. Michael Fahey & John Meyendorff, Trinitarian Theology East and West<\/i>, Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1977. Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ<\/i>, New York: Crossroad, London: S.C.M., 1984. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith<\/i>, New York: Seabury Press, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1978.<\/p>\n
\nmore<\/i> and not less than the understandably more abstract language of later theology and even doctrine. The clarifications provided by these latter forms of discourse can be better appreciated when considered within the contexts of their later formulation.<\/p>\n
\n later trinitarian dogma as an unfortunate confusion due to its early stage of development. Rather it is a vital link to be retrieved in modern trinitarian reflection, with due respect to the later dogma\u2019s emphasis on differentiation.<\/p>\nC) The Trinitarian Structure of NT Experience<\/h3>\n
II. POST-\ufeffNT\ufeff THEOLOGICAL AND DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT<\/h3>\n
A) The Interface with Greek Thought<\/h3>\n
\nd was that of Jesus, the apologists adapted much of the Hellenic world-view for their purpose. The Father was the (arch\u0113<\/i>,) a personal rather than abstract absolute origin of all things. To the Father were attributed, on the one hand, the personal characteristics of the biblical God and, on the other hand the negative attributes of the absolute arch\u0113<\/i>: unoriginated, unchangeable, immovable, impassible, etc. The Son was the divine logos<\/i> which bridged the abyss between God and the world. This logos<\/i> doctrine, while intended to be in continuity with the Johannine doctrine, was decidedly more Hellenic in character. The stoic distinction between the immanent word (logos endiathetos<\/i>) and the expressed word (logos prophorikos<\/i>) was employed either implicitly or explicitly by the various apologists. Originally the immanent Word was present in the mind of God as an idea is present in a human mind. In preparation for creation the Word was uttered forth and begotten as Son. This Son\/Word was God\u2019s agent in creation and was present from the beginning to reveal truth universally. In Jesus the Word became human. Whereas the Johannine Word\/Wisdom imagery focused on expressing the universal significance of the Jesus-event, making Jesus<\/i> the referent of the discourse, the logos<\/i> doctrine of the apologists shifts the emphasis to the Son \u201c\ufeffin the beginning,\ufeff\u201d and at times gives scant attention to Jesus, the incarnate logos<\/i>. This new emphasis on the preexistent Word apparently occasioned some confusion for the understanding of the Spirit. References to the Spirit became notoriously sparse in the writings of the apologists, and the references, when explicit, are often vaguely related to the Word. Theophilus, the first writer to use the term \u201c\ufefftriad\ufeff\u201d of God, identified the triad as God, Word, and Wisdom<\/i>, reflecting the shift that had taken place from the \ufeffNT\ufeff Johannine logos<\/i> theology.<\/p>\nB) The Emergence of Theological Terminology<\/h3>\n
D) The Trinitarian \u201c\ufeffProblem\ufeff\u201d and the Dogmatic Settlement<\/h3>\n
E) Subsequent Theology\u2014East and West<\/h3>\n
\ncable essence that they could not have been conceived as the immanent divine energies which they were in the \ufeffNT\ufeff.<\/p>\nF) Current Trinitarian Theology<\/h3>\n
Karl Rahner<\/h3>\n
The Agenda for Trinitarian Theology<\/i><\/h3>\n
\nvity as well as absoluteness in accordance with its full biblical intention.<\/p>\nConclusion<\/h3>\n