Louis Berkhof
History of Christian Doctrines

The Doctrine of the Trinity

I. The Trinitarian Controversy

1. The Background

The trinitarian controversy, which came to a head in the struggle between Arius and Athanasius, had its roots in the past. The early Church Fathers, as we have seen, had no clear conception of the Trinity. Some of them conceived of the Logos as impersonal reason, become personal at the time of creation, while others regarded Him as personal and co-eternal with the Father, sharing the divine essence, and yet ascribed to Him a certain subordination to the Father. The Holy Spirit occupied no important place in their discussions at all. They spoke of Him primarily in connection with the work of redemption as applied to the hearts and lives of believers. Some considered Him to be subordinate, not only to the Father, but also to the Son. Tertullian was the first to assert clearly the tri-personality of God, and to maintain the substantial unity of the three Persons. But even he did not reach a clear statement of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Meanwhile Monarchianism came along with its emphasis on the unity of God and on the true deity of Christ, involving a denial of the Trinity in the proper sense of the word. Tertullian and Hippolytus combatted their views in the West, while Origen struck them a decisive blow in the East. They defended the trinitarian position as it is expressed in the Apostles' Creed. But even Origen's construction of the doctrine of the Trinity was not altogether satisfactory. He firmly held the view that both the Father and the Son are divine hypostases or personal subsistences, but did not entirely succeed in giving a scriptural representation of the relation of the three Persons to the one essence in the Godhead. While he was the first to explain the relation of the Father to the Son by employing the idea of eternal generation the defined this so as to involve the subordination of the Second Person to the First in respect to essence. The Father communicated to the Son only a secondary species of divinity, which may be called Theos, but not Ho Theos. He sometimes even speaks of the Son as Theos Deuteros. This was the most radical defect in Origen's doctrine of the Trinity and afforded a steppingstone for Arius. Another, less fatal, defect is found in his contention that the generation of the Son is not a necessary act of the Father, but proceeds from His sovereign will. He was careful, however, not to bring in the idea of temporal succession. In his doctrine of the Holy Spirit he departed still farther from the representation of Scripture. He not only made the Holy Spirit subordinate even to the Son, but also numbered Him among the things created by the Son. One of his statements even seems to imply that He was a mere creature.

2. The Nature of the Controversy

a. Arius and Arianism.
The great trinitarian strife is usually called the Arian controversy, because it was occasioned by the anti-trinitarian views of Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, a rather skilful disputant, though not a profound spirit. His dominant idea was the monotheistic principle of the Monarchians, that there is only one unbegotten God, one unoriginated Being, without any beginning of existence. He distinguished between the Logos that is immanent in God, which is simply a divine energy, and the Son or Logos that finally became incarnate. The latter had a beginning: He was generated by the Father, which in the parlance of Arius was simply equivalent to saying that He was created. He was created out of nothing before the world was called into being, and for that very reason was not eternal nor of the divine essence. The greatest and first of all created beings, He was brought into being that through Him the world might be created. He is therefore also mutable, but is chosen of God on account of his foreseen merits, and is called the Son of God in view of His future glory. And in virtue of His adoption as Son He is entitled to the veneration of men. Arius sought Scripture support for his view in those passages which seem to represent the Son as inferior to the Father, such as, Prov. 8:22 (Sept.), Matt. 28:18; Mark 13:32; Luke 18:19; John 5:19; 14:28; 1 Cor. 15:28.

b. The Opposition to Arianism.
Arius was opposed first of all by his own bishop, Alexander, who contended for the true and proper deity of the Son, and at the same time maintained the doctrine of an eternal sonship by generation. In course of time, however, his real opponent proved to be the arch-deacon of Alexandria, the great Athanasius, who stands out on the pages of history as a strong, inflexible, and unwavering champion of the truth. Seeberg ascribes his great strength to three things, namely, (1) the great stability and genuineness of his character; (2) the sure foundation on which he stood in his firm grasp on the conception of the unity of God, which preserved him from the subordinationism that was so common in his day; and (3) the unerring tact with which he taught men to recognize the nature and significance of the Person of Christ. He felt that to regard Christ as a creature was to deny that faith in Him brings man into saving union with God.

He strongly emphasized the unity of God, and insisted on a construction of the doctrine of the Trinity that would not endanger this unity. While the Father and the Son are of the same divine essence, there is no division or separation in the essential Being of God, and it is wrong to speak of a Theos Deuteros, But while stressing the unity of God, he also recognized three distinct hypostases in God. He refused to believe in the pretemporally created Son of the Arians, and maintained the independent and eternally personal existence of the Son. At the same time he bore in mind that the three hypostases in God were not to be regarded as separated in any way, since this would lead to polytheism. According to him the unity of God as well as the distinctions in His Being are best expressed in the term "oneness of essence." This clearly and unequivocally expresses the idea that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, but also implies that the two may differ in other respects, as, for instance, in personal subsistence. Like Origen he taught that the Son is begotten by generation, but in distinction from the former he described this generation as an internal and therefore necessary and eternal act of God, and not as an act that was simply dependent on His sovereign will.

It was not merely the demand of logical consistency that inspired Athanasius and determined his theological views. The controlling factor in his construction of the truth was of a religious nature. His soteriological convictions naturally gave birth to his theological tenets. His fundamental position was that union with God is necessary unto salvation, and that no creature but only one who is Himself God can unite us with God. Hence, as Seeberg says, "Only if Christ is God, in the full sense of the word and without qualification, has God entered humanity, and only then have fellowship with God, the forgiveness of sins, the truth of God, and immortality been certainly brought to man." Hist. of Doct. I, p. 211.

3. The Council of Nicea

The Council of Nicea convened in 325 A. D. to settle the dispute. The issue was clear-cut, as a brief statement will show. The Arians rejected the idea of a timeless or eternal generation, while Athanasius reasserted this. The Arians said that the Son was created from the non-existent, while Athanasius maintained that He was generated from the essence of the Father. The Arians held that the Son was not of the same substance as the Father, while Athansius affirmed that he was homoousios with the Father.

Besides the contending parties there was a great middle party, which really constituted the majority, under the leadership of the Church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, and which is also known as the Originistic party, since it found its impetus in the principles of Origen. This party had Arian leanings and was opposed to the doctrine that the Son is of the same substance with the Father (homoousios). It proposed a statement, previously drawn up by Eusebius, which conceded everything to the party of Alexander and Athanasius, with the single exception of the above named doctrine; and suggested that the word homoiousios be substituted for homoousios, so as to teach that the Son is of similar substance with the Father. After considerable debate the emperor finally threw the weight of his authority into the balance and thus secured the victory for the party of Athanasius. The Council adopted the following statement on the point in question: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, begotten not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father", et cetera. This was an unequivocal statement. The term homoousios could not be twisted to mean anything else than that the essence of the Son is identical with that of the Father. It placed Him on a level with the Father as an uncreated Being and recognized Him as autotheos.

4. The Aftermath

a. Unsatisfactory Nature of the Decision.
The decision of the Council did not terminate the controversy, but was rather only the beginning of it. A settlement forced upon the Church by the strong hand of the emperor could not satisfy and was also of uncertain duration. It made the determination of the Christian faith dependent on imperial caprice and even on court intrigues. Athanasius himself, though victorious, was dissatisfied with such a method of settling ecclesiastical disputes. He would rather have convinced the opposing party by the strength of his arguments. The sequel clearly proved that, as it was, a change in emperor, an altered mood, or even a bribe, might alter the whole aspect of the controversy. The party in the ascendancy might all at once suffer eclipse. This is exactly what happened repeatedly in subsequent history.

b. Temporary Ascendancy of Semi-Arianism in the Eastern Church.
The great central figure in the Post-Nicene trinitarian controversy was Athanasius. He was by far the greatest man of the age, an acute scholar, a strong character, and a man that had the courage of his convictions and was ready to suffer for the truth. The Church gradually became partly Arian, but predominantly Semi-Arian, and the emperors usually sided with the majority, so that it was said: "Unus Athanasius contra orbem" (one Athanasius against the world). Five times this worthy servant of God was driven into exile and succeeded in office by unworthy sycophants, who were a disgrace to the Church.

The opposition to the Nicene Creed was divided into different parties. Says Cunningham: "The more bold and honest Arians said that the Son was heteroousios, of a different substance from the Father; others said that He was anomoios, unlike the Father; and some, who were usually reckoned Semi-Arians, admitted that He was homoiousios, of like substance with the Father; but they all unanimously refused to admit the Nicene phraseology, because they were opposed to the Nicene doctrine of the true and proper divinity of the Son and saw and felt that the phraseology accurately and unequivocally expressed it, though they sometimes preferred to adduce other objections against the use of it." Historical Theology I, p. 290. Semi-Arianism prevailed in the eastern section of the Church. The West, however, took a different view of the matter, and was loyal to the Council of Nicea. This finds its explanation primarily in the fact that, while the East was dominated by the subordinationism of Origen, the West was largely influenced by Tertullian and developed a type of theology that was more in harmony with the views of Athanasius. In addition to that, however, the rivalry between Rome and Constantinople must also be taken into account. When Athanasius was banished from the East, he was received with open arms in the West; and the Councils of Rome (341) and Sardica (343) unconditionally endorsed his doctrine.

His cause in the West was weakened, however, by the accession of Marcellus of Ancyra to the ranks of the champions of the Nicene theology. He fell back on the old distinction between the eternal and impersonal Logos immanent in God, which revealed itself as divine energy in the work of creation, and the Logos become personal at the incarnation; denied that the term "generation" could be applied to the pre-existent Logos, and therefore restricted the name "Son of God" to the incarnate Logos; and held that, at the end of his incarnate life, the Logos returned to his premundane relation to the Father. His theory apparently justified the Originists or Eusebians in bringing the charge of Sabellianism against their opponents, and was thus instrumental in widening the breach between the East and the West.

Various efforts were made to heal the breach. Councils convened at Antioch which accepted the Nicene definitions, though with two important exceptions. They asserted the homoiousion, and the generation of the Son by an act of the Father's will. This, of course, could not satisfy the West. Other Synods and Councils followed, in which the Eusebians vainly sought a western recognition of the deposition of Athanasius, and drew up other Creeds of a mediating type. But it was all in vain until Constantius became sole emperor, and by cunning management and force succeeded in bringing the western bishops into line with the Eusebians at the Synods of Arles and Milan (355).

c. The Turning of the Tide.
Victory again proved a dangerous thing for a bad cause. It was, in fact, the signal for the disruption of the anti-Nicene party. The heterogeneous elements of which it was composed were united in their opposition to the Nicene party. But as soon as it was relieved of external pressure, its lack of internal unity became ever increasingly evident. The Arians and the Semi-Arians did not agree, and the latter themselves did not form a unity. At the Council of Sirmium (357) an attempt was made to unite all parties by setting aside the use of such terms as ousia, homoousios, and homoiousios, as pertaining to matters far beyond human knowledge. But things had gone too far for any such settlement. The real Arians now showed their true colours, and thus drove the most conservative Semi-Arians into the Nicene camp.

Meanwhile a younger Nicene party arose, composed of men who were disciples of the Originist School, but were indebted to Athanasius and the Nicene Creed for a more perfect interpretation of the truth. Chief among them were the three Cappadocians, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianze. They saw a source of misunderstanding in the use of the term hypostasis as synonymous with both ousia (essence) and prosopon (person), and therefore restricted its use to the designation of the personal subsistence of the Father and the Son. Instead of taking their starting-point in the one divine ousia of God, as Athanasius had done, they took their point of departure in the three hypostases (persons) in the divine Being, and attempted to bring these under the conception of the divine ousia. The Gregories compared the relation of the Persons in the Godhead to the divine Being with the relation of three men to their common humanity. And it was exactly by their emphasis on the three hypostases in the divine Being that they freed the Nicene doctrine from the taints of Sabellianism in the eyes of the Eusebians, and that the personality of the Logos appeared to be sufficiently safeguarded. At the same time they strenuously maintained the unity of the three Persons in he Godhead and illustrated this in various ways.

d. The Dispute about the Holy Spirit.
Up to this time the Holy Spirit had not come in for a great deal of consideration, though discordant opinions had been expressed on the subject. Arius held that the Holy Spirit was the first created being produced by the Son, an opinion very much in harmony with that of Origen. Athanasius asserted that the Holy Spirit was of the same essence with the Father, but the Nicene Creed contains only the indefinite statement, "And (I believe) in the Holy Spirit." The Cappadocians followed in the footsteps of Athanasius and vigorously maintained the homoousis of the Holy Spirit. Hilary of Poitiers in the West held that the Holy Spirit, as searching the deep things of God, could not be foreign to the divine essence. An entirely different opinion was voiced by Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, who declared that the Holy Spirit was a creature subordinate to the Son; but his opinion was generally considered as heretical, and his followers were nicknamed Pneumatomachians (from pneuma, spirit, and machomai, to speak evil against). When in 381 A. D. the general Council of Constantinople met, it declared its approval of the Nicene Creed and under the guidance of Gregory of Nazianza accepted the following formula respecting the Holy Spirit: "And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-giving, who proceeds from the Father, who is to be glorified with the Father and the Son, and who speaks through the prophets."

e. Completion of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
The statement of the Council of Constantinople proved unsatisfactory in two points: (1) the word homoousios was not used, so that the consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Father was not directly asserted; and (2) the relation of the Holy Spirit to the other two Persons was not defined. The statement is made that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, while it is neither denied nor affirmed that He also proceeds from the Son. There was no entire unanimity on this point. To say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only, looked like a denial of the essential oneness of the Son with the Father; and to say that He also proceeds from the Son, seemed to place the Holy Spirit in a more dependent position than the Son and to be an infringement on His deity. Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory of Nyssa, asserted the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, without opposing in any way the doctrine that He also proceeds from the Son. But Epiphanius and Marcellus of Ancyra positively asserted this doctrine.

Western theologians generally held to the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son; and at the Synod of Toledo in 589 A.D. the famous "fileoque" was added to the Constantinopolitan Symbol. In the East the final formulation of the doctrine was given by John of Damascus. According to him there is but one divine essence, but three persons or hypothases. These are to be regarded as realities in the divine Being, but not related to one another as three men are. They are one in every respect, except in their mode of existence. The Father is characterized by "non generation", the Son by "generation", and the Holy Spirit by "procession." The relation of the Persons to one another is described as one of "mutual interpenetration" (circumincession), without commingling. Notwithstanding his absolute rejection of subordinationism, John of Damascus still spoke of the Father as the source of the Godhead, and represents the Spirit as processing from the Father through the Logos. This is still a relic of Greek subordinationism. The East never adopted the "fileoque" of the Synod of Toledo. It was the rock on which the East and the West split.

The western conception of the Trinity reached its final statement in the great work of Augustine, De Trinitate. He too stresses the unity of essence and the Trinity of Persons. Each one of the three Persons possesses the entire essence, and is in so far identical with the essence and with each one of the other Persons. They are not like three human persons, each one of which possesses only a part of generic human nature. Moreover, the one is never and can never be without the other; the relation of dependence between them is a mutual one. The divine essence belongs to each of them under a different point of view, as generating, generated, or existing through inspiration. Between the three hypostases there is a relation of mutual interpenetration and interdwelling. The word "person" does not satisfy Augustine as a designation of the relationship in which the three stand to one another; still he continues to use it, as he says, "not in order to express it (the relationship), but in order not to be silent." With this conception of the Trinity the Holy Spirit is naturally regarded as proceeding, not only from the Father, but also from the Son.

Questions for Further Study: What different views of the Logos and of His relation to the Father were prevalent before the Council of Nicea? How did Origen's doctrine of the Trinity compare with that of Tertullian? In what points was his doctrine defective? What conception did Arius have of God? How did his view of Christ follow from this? To what passages of Scripture did he appeal? What was the real point at issue at the Council of Nicea? What was Athansius' real interest in the matter? How did he conceive of man's redemption? Why was it essential that the term homoousion rather than homoiousion should be used? Why were the Semi-Arians so opposed to its use? How could they detect Saballianism in it? What valuable contribution did the Cappadocians make to the discussion? How must we judge of the anathema at the end of the Nicene Creed? How was the question of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the other Persons settled in the West and how in the East? Why was the East unalterably opposed to the famous "fileoque"? Does the final statement of the doctrine of the Trinity by John of Damascus differ much from that by Augustine?

II. The Doctrine of the Trinity in Later Theology

1. The Doctrine of the Trinity in Latin Theology

Later theology did not add materially to the doctrine of the Trinity. There were deviations from, and consequent restatements of the truth. Roscelinus applied the Nominalist theory that universals are merely subjective conceptions to the Trinity, and thus sought to avoid the difficulty of combining the numerical unity with the distinction of persons in God. He regarded the three Persons in the Godhead as three essentially different individuals, which could be said to be one generically and in name only. Their unity is merely a unity of will and power. Anselm correctly pointed out that this position logically leads to Tritheism, and stressed the fact that universal conceptions present truth and reality.

If Roscelinus gave a Nominalistic interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gilbert of Poitiers interpreted it from the point of view of a moderate Realism of the Aristotelian type, which holds that the universals have their existence in the particulars. He distinguished between the divine essence and God and compared their relation to that between humanity and concrete men. The divine essence is not God, but the form of God, or that which makes Him to be God. This essence or form (latin forma, i. e. that which makes a thing what it is) is common to the three Persons and in that respect they are one. As a result of this distinction he was charged with teaching Tetratheism.

Abelard spoke of the doctrine of the Trinity in a way that caused him to be charged with Sabellianism. He seemingly identifies the three Persons in the divine Being with the attributes of power, wisdom, and goodness. The name of Father stands for power, that of Son for wisdom, and that of Holy Spirit for goodness. While he also uses expressions which seem to imply that he distinctions in the Godhead are real personal distinctions, he employs illustrations that clearly point in the direction of Modalism.

In Thomas Aquinas we find the usual representation, of the doctrine of the Trinity, and this was the prevailing view of the Church at the time.

2. The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Period of the Reformation

Calvin discusses the doctrine of the Trinity at length in his Institutes I. 13, and defends the doctrine as formulated by the early Church. On the whole he preferred not to go beyond the simple statements of Scripture on the matter, and therefore during his first stay at Geneva even avoided the use of the terms "person" and "trinity". In his Institutes, however, he defends the use of these terms and criticizes those who are averse to them. Caroli brought a charge of Arianism against him, which proved to be utterly baseless. Calvin held to the absolute equality of the Persons in the Godhead, and even maintained the self-existence of the Son, thereby implying that it is not the essence of the Son, but His personal subsistence that is generated. He says "that the essence of both the Son and the Spirit is un-begotten", and "that the Son, as God, independently of the consideration of person, is self-existent; but as the Son, we say, that He is of the Father. Thus His essence is unoriginated; but the origin of His person is God Himself."Institutes I. 13, 25. It is sometimes said that Calvin denied the eternal generation of the Son. This assertion is based on the following passage: "For what is the profit of disputing whether the Father always generates, seeing that it is foolish to imagine a continuous act of generating when it is evident that three persons have subsisted in God from eternity." Institutes XIII. 29. But this statement can hardly be intended as a denial of the eternal generation of the Son, since he teaches this explicitly in other passages. It is more likely that it is simply an expression of disagreement with the Nicene speculation about eternal generation as a perpetual movement, always complete, and yet never completed. Says Warfield, "Calvin seems to have found this conception difficult, if not meaningless." Calvin and Calvinism, p. 247 f. The doctrine of the Trinity, as formulated by the Church, finds expression in all Reformed Confessions, most completely and with the greatest precision in chapter III of the Second Helvetic Confession.

In the sixteenth century the Socinians declared the doctrine of three Persons possessing a common essence, to be contrary to reason, and attempted to refute it on the basis of the passages quoted by the Arians, cf. above p. 89. But they even went beyond the Arians in denying the preexistence of the Son and holding that Christ, as to His essential nature, was simply a man, though He possessed a peculiar fulness of the Spirit, had special knowledge of God, and since His ascension received dominion over all things. They defined the Holy Spirit as "a virtue or energy flowing from God to men." In their conception of God they were the forerunners of the present day Unitarians and Modernists.

In some quarters subordinationism again came to the foreground. Some of the Arminians (Episcopius, Curcellaeus, and Limborch), while believing that all three Persons shared in the divine nature, yet ascribed a certain preeminence to the Father over the other Persons in order, dignity, and power or domination. In their estimation belief in the equality of rank was almost sure to lead to Tritheism.

3. The Doctrine of the Trinity after the Period of the Reformation

In England Samuel Clarke, court preacher to queen Anne, published a work on the Trinity in 1712, in which he approached the Arian view of subordination. He speaks of the Father as the supreme and only God, the sole origin of all being, power, and authority. Alongside of Him there existed from the beginning a second divine Person called the Son, who derives His being and all His attributes from the Father, not by a mere necessity of nature, but by an act of the Father's optional will. He refuses to commit himself on the question, whether the Son was begotten from the essence of the Father, or was made out of nothing; and whether He existed from all eternity or only before all worlds. Alongside of these two there is a third Person, who derives His essence from the Father through the Son. He is subordinate to the Son both by nature and by the will of the Father.

Some of the New England theologians criticized the doctrine of eternal generation. Emmons even called it eternal nonsense, and Moses Stuart declared that the expression was a palpable contradiction of language, and that their most distinguished theologians, for forty years past, had declared against it. He himself disliked it, because he regarded it as contrary to the proper equality of the Father and the Son. The following words seem to express his view: "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are words which designate the distinctions of the Godhead as manifested to us in the economy of redemption, and are not intended to mark the eternal relations of the Godhead as they are in themselves."

Sabellian interpretations of the Trinity are found in Emanuel Swedenborg, who denied the essential Trinity and said that what we call Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is simply a distinction in the eternal Godman, assuming human flesh in the Son, and operating through the Holy Spirit; in Schleiermacher, who says that God in Himself as the unknown unity underlying all things is the Father, God as coming into conscious personality in man, and especially in Jesus Christ, is the Son, and God as the life of the risen Christ in the Church, is the Holy Spirit; and in Hegel, Dorner, and others who adopt a somewhat similar view. In Ritschl and in many Modernists of the present day the view of Paul of Samosata reappears.

Questions for Further Study

In what sense did the Scholastics regard the doctrine of the Trinity as a mystery?

Why did Roscelinus deny the numerical unity of essence in God? How did the Church judge of his teaching?

Why was Gilbert of Poitiers charged with Tetratheism?

What was the nature of Abelard's Sabellianism? What was the attitude of the Church to his teaching?

What was the generally accepted definition of a person in the Trinity, as given by Boethius? What criticisms were leveled against it?

Did the Scholastics regard the divine essence of the Son or his personal subsistence as the object of generation? How did they distinguish between the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit? What relation did they express by the term 'circumincessio'?

How did Calvin define a person in the Trinity? How did he conceive of the generation of the Son?

Where do we find the doctrine of the Trinity developed along Arian lines? Where along Sabellian lines? And where along the line of a purely economical Trinity?

>