"Trinity must qualify simplicity, not simplicity Trinity. God, let Us say, is actus purus. But then we ask, How is he so? What act is the actus purus by which God is God? When discussing the Trinity, Thomas acknowledges that the act by which God is God is the triune act of begetting and being-begotten, of breathing and being-breathed. But he does not see it through. Robert Jenson is more rigorous when he argues the identity of essence and existence is reversible. If God's essence is to be, so his esse is what stands where essence would be—if he had essence. And that esse is the eternal vibrant life and love of 'Elohim and his Word and his Spirit; the communion in love of Father, Son, and Spirit; the eternal chorus of the triune persons. Such is the essence of God. To say "God" or "deity" or "divine nature" is simply to say "Father, Son, and Spirit" in other terms. The life of God is God, and that life is the life of three persons, a life of generation and procession, a life of eternal communion. That life is justice, holiness, wisdom, power, goodness, and truth, all actualized in the infinitely mobile, infinitely lively, inexhaustibly energetic life of triune love, all actualized in relation to a contingent creation."
To say YHWH is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exo 3:15) is to foreshadow the incarnation, the only possible, indeed inevitable, fulfillment of this associative title. Unless God takes flesh, He cannot be the covenant God He has proclaimed Himself to be. Thus Yahweh, though hinting at an essential existence, ties it's proper understanding directly to historical faithfulness to His promises. We understand God not by contemplating "Being" in itself, but through the redemptive historical narrative (His works in history).
"The Pentateuchal habits of naming point in the same direction, YHWH is one of fifty-two wordplay names in the Pentateuch. These wordplays typically do not reveal some hidden "essence" of the person but memorialize his or her birth, anticipate a future achievement, or often both. Noah is named noach because his father Lamech hopes he will bring rest (nacham) from labor on the cursed ground (Gen 5:29), and he does. Perez is so named because he breaches a breach (parats perets), breaking through to beat his twin brother Zerah in their race down Tamar's birth canal (Gen 38:28-29). Moses' name points back to his origin from the waters and forward to his future as one who draws others from the water (Ex 2:10). We might say these names have ontological weight in defining the "essence" of the person named, so long as we recognize "essence" is not a stable substrate underlying the person's life story but the realization of a character unveiled over the course of the person's history. In the context of the Pentateuch, we do not expect the name YHWH to provide a definition of "divine nature" that underlies God's words and actions. Rather, we expect the name to summarize a history. YHWH, we expect, indicates something about where he came from and anticipates what he will do. Exodus 3 does no more than begin the revelation of YHWH."
YHWH is a covenant-historical name. God, as Lord of creation, has freely, but irrevocably, tied Himself as God of Abraham to carrying through His redemptive promises. He is not a God "above the fray" but One in it and orchestrating it. This is why the fuller explication found in Exo 34:6-7 is vital to understanding chapter 3.
"Beyond exegesis, there are theological reasons why we cannot rightly say, "God is Being," without immediately adding, "God is Trinity" or "Being is triune." If God equals Being, "not-being" has no place in our speech about or concepts of God. If God equals Being, we must say "is" and only "is"—God is his attributes, God is his essence, God is, God is, God is. All that is in God is God—so the axiom. Trinitarian theology, by contrast, necessarily says "not" in order to make distinctions among the persons and their relations. Relations are referred to another, and so relations entail negation. The Father is God, yet the Father is not the Son; the Son is God, yet the Son is not the Father; the Spirit is God, yet the Spirit is not the Son or the Father. Which is to say: Fatherhood is "in God," yet God is not purely and exclusively Fatherhood, since he is also Son and Spirit. Sonship is "in God," yet God is not purely and exclusively sonship. Unless we say "not," we cannot name the triune God. To affirm the Trinity, we must affirm the reality of "nonbeing" in God."
"Nonbeing is not of itself the alternative and external dimension of being, but the very motor of its internal movement."
To say YHWH is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exo 3:15) is to foreshadow the incarnation, the only possible, indeed inevitable, fulfillment of this associative title. Unless God takes flesh, He cannot be the covenant God He has proclaimed Himself to be. Thus Yahweh, though hinting at an essential existence, ties it's proper understanding directly to historical faithfulness to His promises. We understand God not by contemplating "Being" in itself, but through the redemptive historical narrative (His works in history).
"The Pentateuchal habits of naming point in the same direction, YHWH is one of fifty-two wordplay names in the Pentateuch. These wordplays typically do not reveal some hidden "essence" of the person but memorialize his or her birth, anticipate a future achievement, or often both. Noah is named noach because his father Lamech hopes he will bring rest (nacham) from labor on the cursed ground (Gen 5:29), and he does. Perez is so named because he breaches a breach (parats perets), breaking through to beat his twin brother Zerah in their race down Tamar's birth canal (Gen 38:28-29). Moses' name points back to his origin from the waters and forward to his future as one who draws others from the water (Ex 2:10). We might say these names have ontological weight in defining the "essence" of the person named, so long as we recognize "essence" is not a stable substrate underlying the person's life story but the realization of a character unveiled over the course of the person's history. In the context of the Pentateuch, we do not expect the name YHWH to provide a definition of "divine nature" that underlies God's words and actions. Rather, we expect the name to summarize a history. YHWH, we expect, indicates something about where he came from and anticipates what he will do. Exodus 3 does no more than begin the revelation of YHWH."
YHWH is a covenant-historical name. God, as Lord of creation, has freely, but irrevocably, tied Himself as God of Abraham to carrying through His redemptive promises. He is not a God "above the fray" but One in it and orchestrating it. This is why the fuller explication found in Exo 34:6-7 is vital to understanding chapter 3.
"Beyond exegesis, there are theological reasons why we cannot rightly say, "God is Being," without immediately adding, "God is Trinity" or "Being is triune." If God equals Being, "not-being" has no place in our speech about or concepts of God. If God equals Being, we must say "is" and only "is"—God is his attributes, God is his essence, God is, God is, God is. All that is in God is God—so the axiom. Trinitarian theology, by contrast, necessarily says "not" in order to make distinctions among the persons and their relations. Relations are referred to another, and so relations entail negation. The Father is God, yet the Father is not the Son; the Son is God, yet the Son is not the Father; the Spirit is God, yet the Spirit is not the Son or the Father. Which is to say: Fatherhood is "in God," yet God is not purely and exclusively Fatherhood, since he is also Son and Spirit. Sonship is "in God," yet God is not purely and exclusively sonship. Unless we say "not," we cannot name the triune God. To affirm the Trinity, we must affirm the reality of "nonbeing" in God."
"Nonbeing is not of itself the alternative and external dimension of being, but the very motor of its internal movement."