Craig Gaunt
10/31/09
Theology I
The most important truth of the Christian faith is the Trinity as without it, our faith is pointless because in this doctrine contains the Incarnation and our salvation. Sadly, because believers rely solely upon logic to describe it, it seems frustrating to do so, and it becomes neglected with the passing of time. More often then not, Christian writers of all eras have had to describe what the Trinity is not rather than what it is. In a short summary, the Church has always affirmed one God (monotheism) revealed in three divine, distinct persons all sharing one nature, and these persons are co-equal and co-eternal. In short, He is one God, one nature, but three persons. To an unbeliever, this concept is difficult to fathom logically, and there have been (and continue to be) those who attempt to redefine God in a way that either “makes more sense” to a fallen, finite human mind or caters to their own desires or preconceptions of how they want God to be. From the Gnostics and Arius in the early church to post-modernity giving rise to every ideology under the sun, there seems to be no shortage of those who want to use a misconstrued trinity to justify their worldview rather than submitting to the true Holy Trinity as revealed in Scripture.
Two hot points in the church’s history when it comes to regarding the Trinity were the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit being God the same as the Father and the Son. Although the Nicene Creed of 381 A.D. (the expanded version) helped later church fathers to articulate the Trinity (as they used it as both a foundation and a guide), this doctrine stretches as far back as the earliest days of the church. One of the ante-Nicene fathers to defend the humanity of Christ, His deity, and was even the first to coin the word “Trinity” was Tertullian (c.160 A.D.-220 A.D.). He used the baptismal creed as his paradigm to establish his writings expounding on the Trinity. His doctrine of the unity of God and Christ was a forerunner to future debates in the church. In the interest of space, we will briefly look at his writings that describe the Incarnation, specifically the humanity of Christ, which was denied by many heretical groups, most well-known being Gnostics.
Tertullian
Tertullian’s defense of Christ’s humanity starts from a different standpoint than what we find challenging Christian truths today in a post-modern society. In the present age and in light of countless evidence, very few people would deny that there was a historical figure named Jesus of Nazareth who lived and died in first-century Palestine, as this attested to in several extra-biblical sources. Although the burden of modern apologetics is to convince people that Jesus was God or even of the Virgin birth, during the days of the early church the challenge was to show Christ’s divinity and His humanity because the idea of “spirit beings” or ghosts were common in the Greek world and several early Christian sects. Furthermore, these fringe Christian groups twisted Scripture with Greek philosophy, even yanking verses completely out of their contexts to justify their claims. For instance, a common text was when Jesus asked “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Heretics like Cavils of Apelles and Marcion would argue this is proof of Jesus denying any earthly connections including having a physical body. Tertullian answered that Jesus did this to demonstrate that we also ought to deny our families to do the work of God.[1]
Realizing they had very little Scripture to support their beliefs, heretics turned to a common idea in Greek dualism: that the flesh is corrupt while the spiritual is good. If this is the case, then how could Christ dwell in the flesh at all? Some even argued that Christ had to have an angelic nature or some sort of “special flesh” that could not be human.[2] There is a somewhat similar thread of belief that is present in the theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses who believe that Christ was the archangel Michel rather than God. Tertullian had several bullet points to fire against these fools of the faith. First of all, he argued that Christ’s death proves His human birth, and no angel ever came with the purpose of being crucified or rising again.[3] He also argued that, by looking at Scripture, angels are never born nor do they die, even if they take on human flesh and perform human actions (Gen. 6:4).[4] Additionally, world anyone come confidently to Christ to be cleansed, healed, or freed of demons if He was anything but earthly flesh same as every other human?[5] Tertullian always used Scripture above all else and demonstrated that the gospels themselves testify to Jesus’ completely humanity in Matt. 1:1 which calls Him the Son of David, and John, arguably the highest Christological gospel, also testifies this in 8:40.[6] In Hebrews 1:5-14, it says that the Son is superior to the angels. He even said that Simeon’s declaration in Luke confirms Isa. 7:14 that Immanuel would be born of a human virgin.[7] Finally, by examining Scripture one can see that if Christ has nothing but an angelic nature why does He speak with His own authority rather than using “thus says the Lord” as other messengers of God have? (Zech. 1:14).[8]
Tertuillian also argues this point with salvation and philosophy as his main focus. If Christ would have taken on another nature, then that nature (whatever it was) would have been redeemed rather than humanity.[9] By taking the flesh and being perfectly sinless, Christ destroyed the sin in the flesh, purchasing our righteousness so we could be restored, but to consecrate a new birth, Christ would have to be of the old birth or flesh.[10] By having a human virgin mother and God as His Father, Christ is able to be the perfect sacrifice by being both completely God and completely human. Tertullian said that this scenario is not hard to imagine especially considering Paul’s comparison of Adam and Christ in Romans 5. As the first Adam received human flesh without a human father so also the second Adam received flesh without a human father.[11]
The humanity of Christ in today’s world is not often written about when it sadly needs to be. Gnosticism has not gone away at all but has reemerged in recent times under several guises, and Christians need to show that Christ was human as well as divine. He was not simply a spirit which leads people to knowledge or a mystical guru. We have no excuses in the church today because we have something that Tertullian did not have: the Nicene Creed. Tertullian was able to articulate Christ’s nature without it, and we have it. However, we spend countless efforts either citing Scripture in places where Christ showed obvious emotions, or scientifically reason that the Virgin birth could be possible under the right conditions. I was able to find no adequate text that did what Tertullian did: argue philosophically using Scripture holistically to prove Christ was human. However, again the demand to prove Christ’s humanity is not as dire as it had been during Tertullian’s time.
Athanasius
Another defender of the Christian faith was Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria who defended Christ’s deity in a time when many were accepting the false Arian view that Jesus was not of the same nature as God, but he was certainly better than anything else created. Athanasius also had another challenge to deal with. Even though he used Scripture to support his claims so did the Arians and they could charge Athanasius with using the Greek word homoousia, meaning “of the same nature or substance,” which is not found in Scripture. Despite all of these challenges, Athanasius used the New Testament to defend Christ’s deity and the Nicene Creed. By having the creed, he was able to sharpen his arguments so one can see how valuable the creed was to the church in defending the truth as he and several other church fathers used it as a measuring line. The creed is worded to say that Jesus is completely God, completely man, and not made of any substance but is of one substance with the Father. Athanasius took these words and articulated them to pen arguments against those who would say otherwise because, to him, this was not simply a battle over minor words within theology. Rather, it was literally a battle over the fate of human souls, and if they got this wrong at all they could be doomed for hell.[12] Plus, to stress the point, Arius and his followers were often quoting Scripture out of context and church tradition, but if the church’s local bishops bought into the Arian lie, the laity would follow suit in all likelihood.
Some of the Scriptures Arius used to show Christ’s lesser status was John 14:28; Luke 2:52; but most of all Prov. 8:22. This final verse mentions that the logos (which had long been held as another name for Christ) was created at the beginning.[13] Again this can be seen in contemporary minds when people regard Jesus as a “great moral teacher” and even may have been sent from God, but he was not God. The Bible shows, and Athanasius proves it, that this was not what the biblical writers thought of Jesus. The Arian arguments have not changed over time as modern theological descendents of them still try to stress the perfect sovereignty and “otherness” of the Father as well as the “illogical” idea of a Triune God. Similarly, the arguments of Athanasius have not changed that much except one may notice that modern treatments of Christ’s deity simple cite Scripture while Athanasius expounds on them and builds them into a philosophical superstructure.
Some of the main Scripture verses he arms himself with are Col. 1:16; Phil 2:5-11; and John 1:1-18. If Christ is created then that means the Trinity is not eternal and it “grew” to include three members, and what is worse, they may be of different natures or substances and who is to say that it may be added to or subtracted from?[14] To say that God created for Himself a son implies that God’s nature was imperfect and needed to have additions made to it.[15] Additionally, if the Arians wanted to show the complete “otherness” of God why would they say that God begot Christ in time at the beginning of creation? Begetting, Athanasius argued, is something man does not God. You cannot have an eternal Father (as the Arians affirmed) without an eternal Son of the same nature because then to whom was God a Father?[16] As light without radiance makes no sense, so the Father without the Son from eternity past makes no sense either.[17] Furthermore, if He is less than the Father, what cosmic act did Christ have to participate in so that he gained the titles of God (Col. 1:15), Son of God, or Wisdom (Prov. 8:22)? If He did this, does it mean that it was bestowed upon Him by works? And if this is so what does it mean for salvation by grace alone?[18] Another logical inconsistency for Athanasius is that Arians claimed the Son changed, and he argued that if his nature did change than he cannot even be like God who is unchangeable.[19] These questions reach far deeper than a simple explanation of “the Trinity makes no logical sense so therefore it cannot be true”.
Athanasius did not only pose these tough questions to Arians but also explained the Scriptures they pulled out of context to show how Jesus was fully man in the Incarnation. He was able to pull from the New Testament to show Christ’s complete divinity and humanity while heretics could not argue there way around the Scriptures that clearly pointed to the former. Sometimes Arians would use Phil. 2:9 to show how God exalted Jesus and gave him the name under all names, and they tried to argue that because God had to give it to Him, it was not his in the beginning. Athanasius shot back by saying that this verse (as well as all the others that seem to have Jesus denying Lordship) speak of Jesus in his incarnate state. In Phil. 2:9, Paul is speaking of God exalting Christ’s manhood after the Incarnation, and when Phil. 2:8-9 uses the words “humbled” and “exalted”, it refers to Christ’s humanity being exalted after his death and resurrection.[20] This is also the case of John 14:28. Athanasius explained that “greater” does not mean better, and it shows that Christ is begotten of the Father.[21] It is only by Christ humbling Himself and taking on the flesh of humanity that our salvation is secure because, in His death we all die, but in His resurrection, we all may be exalted.
The modern treatment of the Incarnation still refers to several of the same Scriptures (Col. 1:16-19). In addition the Nicene Creed is still called upon to provide the backdrop. Plus, like Athanasius, some theologians begin talking about the Incarnation in soteriological terms, saying that without it, we cannot know the Father and are still in our sins (Matt. 11:27). As Thomas F. Torrence says,
“We believe that if the Lord God himself had not actually come among us and become one with us and acted for us in the life and work of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of the Love of God, the Grace of Lord Jesus Christ and the Communion of the Holy Spirit, would be utterly wanting in any divine validity in its message of reconciliation, salvation, and redemption.”[22]
Torrance goes on to emphasize that Christ must be both completely man and completely God because it is the only way that a perfect sacrifice, bridging the infinite gap between man and God could be made.[23] Others echo Athanasius’ writings in that difference in function between members of the Godhead does not mean inferiority in nature, as some Arians argued. James R. White explains this further by saying that God in three persons each decided what role they would take in redemption: the Father would send, the Son would be sent, and the Holy Spirit would be sent by both the Father and the Son (John 15:26).[24] Besides citing a great deal of Scripture, White also uses John 1:1 to build a case for the Son’s eternal nature, noting that this verse says “in” the beginning not “at” the beginning.[25] Hence, the Logos was eternally with God. He goes further to exegete John 1:1 in a way that would have even impressed Athanasius. By writing the first verse of his gospel in such a way, John is establishing that the Word is eternal, the Word is personal, and the Word is deity.[26] If anything of this verse is changed, even by adding an article or preposition then the possibility of heresy could creep in the form of modalism, polytheism, etc.[27] White finally ties it together theologically by saying that to know Christ is to know the Trinity because God has revealed that we cannot know the Father outside the Son who comes to abide in us as believers by the Spirit.[28]
Augustine
For the last issue discussed in this paper regarding the equality of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, it is only proper to turn to the Western church’s most influential theologian, Augustine. No doubt the Holy Spirit was difficult to define. As challenging as it was to explain how Jesus was both God and man, at least the early church had oral tradition of His miracles, words, death, and resurrection. How does one go about explaining a spiritual force that has personhood? Again looking at the Nicene Creed will help here. The Holy Spirit was believed by the early church as the One who spoke to the prophets, inspiring them to write the words of Scripture (2 Pet. 1:21). However, both in the ancient world and in today’s church, the Holy Spirit is relatively unknown or, at most, seen as God’s helper or “force” in the world today. Simply, He is seen as God’s “errand boy” serving the Father and the Son as their subordinate similar to angels. Augustine wrote to counteract that measure.
He wrote using the Creed as his model and early church tradition as his foundation when he said the Holy Spirit is of both the Father and the Son.[29] He further wrote that it is how we know we are born of God because the Holy Spirit dwells within us.[30] It is the Holy Spirit who allows us to love God by giving us the very ability to love God by showing us He first loved us.[31] A common technique used in apologetics today is to simply cite Scripture where it notes the Holy Spirit either having emotions like a person would, showing His personhood, or to see how it functions in the same roles as the Father and the Son, showing His divinity. For Augustine the challenge lay deeper. He argued that the Holy Spirit must be the Creator equal to the Father and Son or else the Apostle Paul is telling his readers that he is an idolater in worshipping a creation rather than the Creator. In Phil. 3:3, the Greek word for “serve” is the same as “worship”, and it is talking about the Holy Spirit![32]
Not only this, but Augustine notes that Paul uses imagery of believers’ bodies being temples indwelt with the Holy Spirit in other parts of Scripture (1 Cor. 6:19). Paul uses an image most, if not all citizens of the Greco-Roman world would have been familiar with, and they knew the implications; a temple was the place that a god was believed to dwell. So if Paul says to believers that they are temples of the Holy Spirit, then it meant that none other than God Himself who dwells there and nothing less.[33] Earlier in 1 Cor. 6, Paul says that believers’ bodies are members of Christ (v. 15). When one puts the pieces together, Augustine is showing what Paul is saying here and that is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God![34] Augustine also notes that Jesus Himself testifies to the Holy Spirit’s divinity when He says that any who blaspheme against the Son of Man will be forgiven but the blaspheme against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Jesus’ audience knew what He was claiming because blaspheme against God was a crime unforgivable to the Jewish people. Jesus is saying the Holy Spirit is God.
In regard to more modern approaches to addressing the Holy Spirit, it has only been in recent times, argues Gerald Bay, that the personhood of the Holy Spirit has been brought back to the forefront with the passing of modernity and the tendency to logically reduce everything down to a singularity. With interfaith dialogue that tries to cut every concept down to a simple category, Christians seem to compromise the Trinity (especially the Holy Spirit) in order to appeal more to other faiths like Unitarians, Jews, Muslims, and other monotheistic faiths.[35] Due to the underdevelopment of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Western theology, scholars and Christians have had to resurrect the writings of the early church, including Augustine and the Cappadocians.[36] Plus, the Western church is starting to examine the more mystical writings of Eastern Orthodoxy in order to explain the Trinity.[37] Furthermore, a criticism of recent theology is that the entire Trinity has been reduced down to its functions rather than the Persons (i.e. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer), but now more mystical questions have been put on the table such as if/how did the Father and the Holy Spirit participate in the suffering of the Son on the cross?[38] These and other questions are beginning to finally be asked of the Western church in order to lead to a better understanding of the Holy Spirit in particular and the Trinity in general.
However, all hope is not lost as this author found some scholars ready to address the Holy Spirit. Robert Letham notes that the Holy Spirit was at work in the redemption of man at every stage from the conception to the ascension of Christ.[39] It is the Holy Spirit through whom the Word of God breaks into history.[40] Looking at Scripture, one need only read Luke’s gospel to see that the Holy Spirit is everywhere present in Christ’s ministry. Letham goes further on to argue that it was mainly through Christian experience that believers could see the divine status of the Holy Spirit in the happening of miracles, the grace needed to withstand the daily troubles, the growth of the church, and most powerfully of all, the comfort that the martyrs had when facing their deaths.[41] There is so much more that could be said from Letham and several others but space here is limited.
The aspects of the Trinity have been somewhat difficult for anyone to fathom, and it is only through the revelation of God that anyone can grasp it. Using Scripture as a guide, believers can pinpoint how the nature of the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit work throughout the history of God’s people. Most importantly, defending the Trinity is much more than a lofty theological battle of wits. For those mentioned above, it meant life or death to the early believers. If Christ was anything less than completely God and completely man, then his death on the cross accomplishes nothing for the salvation of humanity. Many believers think the personhood of the Holy Spirit may not be as crucial, but as the early church fathers exemplified, to deny the Holy Spirit is to deny Christ and the Father for it is an all-encompassing whole. The church today, while making progress, is still somewhat lacking in the zeal to defend the Trinity at all costs.
[1] Roberts, Alexander and James Donaldson, eds. The Ante-Nicene fathers: Translations of the writings of the fathers down to A.D. 325, Vol. 3. Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1979, Chapter VII pg. 527-529
[2] Ibid., pg 526-527.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., pg. 529
[6] Ibid., pg. 534-535, pg. 540
[7] Ibid., pg. 541
[8] Ibid., pg. 533-34
[9] Ibid.,
[10] Ibid., pg. 536-37, 535
[11] Ibid., pg. 535-36
[12] Litfin, Brian M., Getting to Know the Church Fathers, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2007. pg. 181
[13] Noll, Mark A., Turning points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, c2000. pg. 53
[14] Bettenson, Harry S. Ed. & Trans. The Early Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of theFfathers from St. Clement of Rome to St. Athanasius, London: Oxford University Press, 1956. pg. 382
[15] Ibid, pg. 380
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid, pg, 383
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid. pg. 386
[22] Thomas F. Torrence, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons, Great Britain: T & T Clark Ltd. 1996 pg. 142.
[23] Ibid. pg. 143-44
[24] White, James R. The Forgotten Trinity, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, c1998 pg. 66
[25] Ibid. pg. 51
[26] Ibid, pg. 54
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid, pg. 15
[29] Wiles, Maurice & Mark Santer, eds. Documents in Early Christian Thought, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975 pg. 90
[30] Ibid. pg. 93
[31] Ibid.
[32] Schaff, Philip, ed. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 3. Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1956, Book I, Chapter 6 pg. 21
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] McGowna, ATB ed. Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology, Downers Grove: IVP Academic. 2006 pg. 24
[36] Ibid, pg. 24, 22
[37] Ibid, pg. 22
[38] Ibid, pg. 25
[39] Letham, Robert, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship, Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2004. pg. 56.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Ibid., pg. 62