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Trinity II

Immanent Trinity vs. Economic Trinity

  • Immanent Trinity: the Trinity in itself, 3 persons united in the single divine substance.
  • Economic Trinity: the Trinity as it acts in the economy of salvation, the mission of the Son sent by the Father, the Father making the Son the sender of the Holy Spirit. The Processions in the Immanent Trinity are revealed/consisted in/with the missions in the Economic Trinity. 

CCC 240 Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

  • Matthew 15:13 He answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.
  • John 8:19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

CCC 241 For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature".

CCC 242 Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is "consubstantial" with the Father, that is, one only God with him. The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed "the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father".

  • Uncreated vs. Unbegotten
    • Uncreated is the property of what exists but is not created; what is uncreated is true God. 
    • Unbegotten is the property of one who exists as true God but is from no one (i.e., it is the property of the Father). 
  • Paternity: the relation of the Father to the Son. Understanding God as the Father of the eternal Son. The Father is without origin, he is unbegotten.
  • Filiation: the relation of the Son to the Father, the son of the eternal Father. The Son is distinguished from the Father because he is eternally begotten by him.
    • John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”
  • Spiration (Active/Passive): the relation of the Father and Son to the Spirit, the relation of the Spirit to the Son and Father.
    • CCC 244 The eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is revealed in his mission in time. The Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father. The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus' glorification reveals in its fullness the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
    • CCC 245 The apostolic faith concerning the Spirit was confessed by the second ecumenical council at Constantinople (381): "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father." By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as "the source and origin of the whole divinity". But the eternal origin of the Spirit is not unconnected with the Son's origin: "The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God, one and equal with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the same nature... Yet he is not called the Spirit of the Father alone,... but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son." The Creed of the Church from the Council of Constantinople confesses: "With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified."

Analogies

    • Lover, beloved, love shared
    • Memory (mind), Understanding, Will
    • Flame, Light, Heat
    • Mind, Word, Breath

Heresies to avoid

  • Monarchianism: a heresy that so stresses the unity and simplicity of the divine essence that it denies that the divine essence can be communicated (from one person to another).
  • Tritheism: Heresy that so distinguishes the persons that it holds there to be three separate and equal Gods. Three divine intellects and wills.
  • Modalism: A form of Monarchianism according to which Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are understood to be names indicating different ways in which the single/one God acts in the world.
  • Subordinationism: Heresy according to which the Father alone is True God, and the Son is the first emanation and of a lower essence (than the Father), and the Holy Spirit is the second emanation through the Son and of yet a lower essence (than the Son).

The Trinity Extended to Christian Identity

  • Jesus (The Son) is sent by the Father. Jesus’ mission reflects his eternal procession from the Father.
    • His mission reveals his total unity and oneness with the Father
    • “The Son can do nothing of his own accord”
    • “I and the Father are one”
    • “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me”
    • “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”
  • Jesus sends his disciples
    • Jesus says to his disciples “apart from me you can do nothing”
    • Prays to the Father that “they may be one, even as we are one”
  • The oneness of the Son and the Father reveals Jesus’ being as totally “from” and “toward”
    • There is no part of Jesus that does not belong to the Father and is reserved from the Father.
    • Consider how this contrasts Adam and Eve in the Garden after the fall, and us fallen sinners.
      • Selflessness vs. Selfishness
  • Jesus, in revealing the Trinity, as a communion of love, gives us the model for how we should live → totally “from” God and “for” others.
    • When we love with sacrificial love, we discover who we truly are, as God created us.
      • “Man can only find himself through a sincere gift of self” (Gaudium et Spes)
      • “being only comes to itself by moving away from itself and finding its way back as relatedness to its true primordial state”
        • The deepest meaning of the verb “to be” is “to love”
      • How does this contrast with sin and our attitude when we sin?