Status Updates From 40 Questions About the Trinity

In his [Aquinas's] scholastic treatment of the doctrine, there is one essence (the shared divine nature), two processions (eternal generation and eternal spiration), three persons (Father, Son, and Spirit), four relations (paternity, filiation, joint spiriation, and procession), and five notions (innascibility, paternity, filiation, joint spiriation, and procession).

[According to Aquinas, there are] five notions: innascibility and paternity (by which we know the Father), filiation (by which we know the Son), spiration (by which we know the Father and Son jointly), and procession (by which we know the Holy Spirit).

At the risk of being cheeky, we can summarize Thomas's Trinitarian contribution by counting to five: one essence, two processions, three persons, four relations, five notions.

The scriptural names for the persons faithfully communicate who they are. The Son is from the Father. The Spirit comes forth from the Father. These relations of origin secure at once the substantial equality and the personal distinctions of the three persons.

The three [persons] are distinguished not by substance, by will, or by role. They are distinguished only by relation. The Son is begotten from and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the unbegotten Father.

There is only one action in creation, redemption, or any other divine operation, but each divine person participates in that indivisible action according to his personal mode of subsistence [thus the doctrine of inseparable operations]. God's actions proceed from the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.

Since God is one, God acts as one. The doctrine of inseparable operations—that all of God's external actions are carried out indivisibly by all three divine persons—is often associated with Augustine, who gives it its classic formulation.

As the Son is eternally *begotten* from the Father, so also the Spirit eternally *proceeds* from the Father ... The Comforter is sent from the Father because he eternally proceeds from the Father, that is, he eternally *comes forth* from the Father. This relation of origin is distinguished from the eternal begetting of the Son, but it likewise marks out both sameness of essence and distinction of relation.

The personal names for the divine persons given in the biblical revelation, Father and Son, mark out their eternal relations of origin. The Father is unbegotten, and the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. . . . This relation marks out both sameness of essence (because the one begotten is of the same nature as the begetter), and the distinction (the Son eternally has this selfsame essence *from* the Father).

In sum, 'heresy' is not a term to be thrown around lightly. It does not apply to tertiary or even secondary matters of biblical interpretation. Instead, it connotes a willing departure from the clear teaching of the Bible on a matter of first importance.

[H]eresy is demarcated by its departure from Scripture on a primary doctrine. . . . Primary doctrines are those that, if they were denied, would change the very essence of the Christian faith. Therefore, denying the Trinity or the deity and humanity of Christ would be considered heresy.

Heresy ... requires some definition. Heresy is not just any disagreement among Christians regarding biblical interpretation. Heresy is sometimes too flippantly or hastily thrown out in theological debate. As we are using it here, *heresy is a willful departure from the clear teaching of Scripture, as it has been interpreted by a consensus of the church throughout space and time, on a matter of primary importance*.

Thus Hebrews 1:11-12, in applying Psalm 102:25-27 to the Son, attributes to the Son divine actions (creation), divine attributes (eternality), and divine appellations ('Lord').

We should also note that, in this text [Heb 1:8-12], the writer [of Hebrews] names the Son 'Lord' (*kyrios*), and in the OT text the term 'Lord' (*kyrios*) is clearly a reference to YHWH, God himself. This gives further credence to the idea that when we see 'Lord' used as a name for Jesus in the NT, it is no mere honorific—it is an indication of his shared divinity with the Father and the Spirit.

Paul also attributes the names of 'God' and 'YHWH' to Jesus in Romans 9:5 and Philippians 2:9-11, respectively. . . . Additionally, we could point to the fact that Paul's nearly constant use of *kyrios* ('Lord') as a title for Jesus appears to be a deliberate ascription of the Tetragrammaton ('YHWH') to Jesus.

In order to identify whether or not Jesus or the Holy Spirit stood on the divine or creaturely side of the equation, the early church commonly referred to four markers: appellations, attributes, actions, and adoration.

One helpful way of thinking through these questions is the so-called Wesleyan quadrilateral, which is associated with the founder of Methodism, John Wesley: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Although Wesley himself never framed his thinking in this way exactly, it still summarizes a useful method that Protestant theology should aim for.

Everything God does outside himself he does indivisibly as Father, Son, and Spirit. But within this action, each of the divine persons acts in a manner fitting to his personal identity; the one act of God proceeds from the Father, through the Son, by or in the Holy Spirit.

In God's external activity, the persons are distinguished from one another not by distinct roles and functions but by distinct modes of actions in the one inseparable action of God.

These eternal processions ('goings forth') are unique from creaturely processions (like a parent who has a child) in two important ways: (1) they are *eternal*, having no beginning or ending in time, and (2) they are *internal*, so to speak, in the life of God. They do not produce a second and a third God but take place within the one divine essence or nature.

In God's inner life, the three persons are distinguished only by their . . . *eternal relations of origin*. The Father is from no one; he is unbegotten. The Son is eternally begotten from the Father; and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from (or is 'spirated,' breathed out by) the Father and the Son.

[T]he Trinity indicates that there are processions (Latin, *processiones*, 'goings forth' so to speak) and personal relations (*relationes*) in God. . . . God's being eternally goes forth from the Father to the Son and from the Father and Son to the Spirit. . . . Each of the three persons is identical with the divine essence, and they are only distinguished from one another by these eternal personal relations.

God is not composed of parts; no one created him or put him together. But at the same time, mysteriously, this one true God exists from all eternity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three are *persons*, not *parts*, of God.

Doctrine is important because God is important, and no doctrine is more important than the doctrine of God himself.