Monotheism and the Mystery of the Triune God

MONOTHEISM AND THE MYSTERY OF THE TRIUNE GOD

This synthesis of faith was not made to accord with human opinions, but rather what was of the greatest importance was gathered from all the Scriptures, to present the one teaching of the faith in its entirety. And just as the mustard seed contains a great number of branches in a tiny grain, so too this summary of faith encompassed in a few words the whole knowledge of the true religion contained in the Old and New Testaments.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem d.386AD

There is one Body, one Spirit, just as one hope is the goal of your calling by God. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, over all, through all and within all.
Ephesians 4:4-6

“We believe in One God” are the first five words of the Nicene-Constantinople Creed.⁽¹⁾ It is the Catholic Church’s profession of faith in the unity of God that is faithfully recited at every Lord’s Day celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist. Throughout the centuries the many peoples and nations and the many cultures and languages that comprise the covenant faithful of the Universal [Catholic] Church has constantly confessed this one faith, which was received from one Lord, transmitted by one Baptism through the one Holy Spirit, and given by the grace of one God. St. Irenaeus (177-202 AD) the bishop of Lyons, France who was in his youth a disciple of St. Polycarp (who was himself a disciple of St. John the Apostle) affirmed the Church’s continuing commitment to one faith professed in one God: Indeed, the Church, though scattered throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, having received the faith from the apostles and their disciples….. guards this preaching and faith with care, as dwelling in but a single house, and similarly believes as if having but one soul and a single heart, and preaches, teaches, and hands on this faith with a unanimous voice, as if possessing only one mouth……For though languages differ throughout the world, the content of the Tradition is one and the same. The Churches established in Germany have no other faith or Tradition, nor do those of the Iberians, nor those of the Celts, nor those of the East, of Egypt, of Libya, nor those established at the center of the world…(the message of the Church) is true and solid, in which one and the same way of salvation appears throughout the whole world.

The profession of belief in one God is the fundamental basis of our Christian faith. We express this belief in the word monotheism, which in Greek means “one” (mono) “god” (theos). It is the belief that there is only one God who is the Creator of the universe and of all life. Not belief in “a” god but in THE GOD. The whole Nicene-Constantinople Creed speaks of God, and when it speaks of creation and man it does so in relation to God. The Nicene-Constantinople Creed clarifies the first statement of faith from the Apostles’ Creed by a confession of God’s oneness, a revelation made known in the sacred writings of the Old Testament. For example:

In Deuteronomy 6:4-5 the oneness of God is expressed with the three times repetition of His covenant name: Hear O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh; and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
And the prophet Isaiah recorded God’s words of assurance of salvation through the supremacy of the One and only God: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other… (Isaiah 45:22).

From the first revelation of God to man, His covenant people have understood that God is unique; there is only One God. Monotheism is as uncompromising in the New Testament as it was in the Old. Jesus repeated the basic Shema of the Old Covenant profession of faith from Deuteronomy 6:4-5b when He affirmed that the Lord our God is the One, only Lord whom we must love. He also affirmed that our love for Him must be uncompromising for we are commanded to love Him with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength—in other words, with our entire, undivided self (Mark 12:29-30; Matthew 22:34 and Luke 10:25-28).

At the same time Jesus gave us to understand that He is Himself “the Lord.” While teaching in the Temple Jesus said: How can the scribes maintain that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, moved by the Holy Spirit, said: ‘The Lord declared to my Lord, take your seat at my right hand till I have made your enemies your footstool.’ David himself calls him Lord, in what way then can he be his son? (Mark 12:35-37 quoting Psalms 110:1). In this statement Jesus was teaching what the heavenly elders revealed to St. John in Revelation 5:5, that Jesus the Messiah is not only a descendant of the great King David, but because He is the “Lord God” He came before David: Look the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed… To confess that Jesus is Lord is distinctively of Christian faith. This is not contrary to the belief in the One God, nor does believing in the Holy Spirit as “Lord and giver of life” introduce any division into the One God. Sacred Scripture supports this teaching from the lips and words of Jesus Himself:

John 10:30: The Father and I are one.
John 8:57-58: The Jews then said, ‘You are not fifty yet, and you have seen Abraham!’ Jesus replied: ‘In all truth I tell you, before Abraham ever was, I AM.’
John 5:16-18: It was because he did things like this on the Sabbath that the Jews began to harass Jesus. His answer to them was, ‘My Father still goes on working, and I am at work, too.’ But that only made the Jews even more intent on killing him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he spoke of God as his own Father and so made himself God’s equal.

St. Paul and other inspired New Testament writers professed the same belief in the Trinity of the Godhead by using a Trinitarian formula in many passages of their letters:

St. Paul professed the Trinity in his closing statement to the Christians of Corinth in 2 Corinthians 13:13: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
St. Paul also used Trinitarian references in Romans 1:3-7; 15:16, 30; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16; 6:11, 14, 15, 19; 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 1:3-14; 2:18, 22; 4:4-6; Philippians 2:1; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 9:14; etc.
The Trinitarian unity of God is also expressed in Acts of Apostles 10:38; 20:28; in the letters of St. Peter in 1 Peter 1:2; 3:18; and St. John in 1 John 4:2; and Revelation 1:4-20; and in the last chapter of the New Testament books in Revelation 22:1: “the river of life” (the Holy Spirit), the throne of God, and the Lamb (Christ).

In defense of the doctrine⁽²⁾ of the Holy Trinity, the Universal Church proclaimed at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215: We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal, infinite, and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty, and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple.

The Triune nature of God is a mystery revealed to the Church through God the Son, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The word “Trinity” is not found in Sacred Scripture, yet the Triune nature of God was hidden in the Holy Spirit inspired writings of the Old Testament⁽³⁾ and revealed to the Apostles by Jesus Christ in the New Testament when, after His Resurrection and before His Ascension, Jesus instructed His disciples the baptize believers using the Trinitarian formula: “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”: Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you (Matthew 28:18-19). Jesus’ statement in this passage refers to the oneness of God as well as the unique relationship of “threeness” that is the Most Holy Trinity. The command is to baptize in “the name,” singular, of the three Persons of the unity that is the Most Holy Trinity. This is the same profession of belief in the Trinity that Christians confess when making the Sign of the Cross and saying: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen!

The dogma (truth) of the Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and the dogma that, above all others, makes the Christian faith unique among world religions (CCC 232, 234, 237, and 261). There are three crucial elements that make up the dogma of the Trinity:

First, God is One substance or being and three Persons (CCC 202, 252-55). There is only One God because there is only one divine substance. The three Persons constitute one God because each is consubstantial with the other two, which means each fully possesses one and the same divine substance.
Second, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct Persons within the godhead (CCC 257-60). Because all three possess the fullness of the divine substance, all three are coequal and coeternal. They are distinct from one another in that each possesses the fullness of divinity in a way different from the other two, but they are inseparable from one another because they share the same divine substance or being (CCC 253).
Third, the word “Person” with regard to the Trinity is a technical term designating three distinct subsistent relations within the Trinity: the paternity (the Father), the filiation (the Son), and the passive spiritation (the Paraclete = the Holy Spirit). These three relations are rooted in two acts or as Church doctrine calls it, “processions,” that make up the inner life of the Trinity. The first act or “procession” is that by which the Father eternally begets the Son. The second act or “procession” is that by which the Holy Spirit is “spirated by” or proceeds from the Father and the Son. The three Persons of the Trinity are therefore differentiated from one another by virtue of the different relations they have to one another (CCC #232-255).

Some Christians tend to ignore the differentiation’s within the godhead, either by treating only the Father or the Father and the Son as God and ignoring the Holy Spirit altogether, or by treating the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as though they were God in identically the same way. How do you respond to the Holy Trinity? What is the relationship between the sacred Persons of the Most Holy Trinity?

The Hierarchy/Patriarchy of the Trinity

When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who issues from the Father, he will be my witness. John 15:26

For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. John 16:7b

When we respond to the three persons of the godhead as though the three persons are God in identically the same way, we are failing to appreciate the hierarchical character of the Trinity. Hierarchy has two meanings. The first comes from two Greek words hieros and archein. Hieros means “sacred” and archein meaning “to rule or order.” The word hierarchy in this sense then means “a sacred rule or order.” The Trinity is a hierarchy or sacred order for three reasons:

Each of the Persons is distinct and different from the other two persons and each Person, in a different way, relates to the other two Persons and to divine substance itself. Each Person is unique and singular. The Father possesses the divine substance in himself, the Son as received from the Father, the Holy Spirit as received from the Father and the Son. Each of the Persons fully possesses the divine substance, but each does so in a different way. Each Person also enjoys a unique relationship with the other two Persons by virtue of the fact that each is defined by his specific relation. The relation of the Father is different from both the relation of the Son and the relation of the Holy Spirit. This means that the three Persons, though inseparable, are not interchangeable or identical. The Father does only those things appropriate to Fatherhood, the Son those things appropriate to Sonship, and the Holy Spirit those things appropriate to spiration. The Father, therefore, does not do anything specifically bound up with Sonship or spiration, the Son does not do anything specifically bound up with Fatherhood or spiration, and the Holy Spirit’s mission is not directed toward anything specifically bound up with Fatherhood or Sonship (CCC 258). For example, the Father always commands, sends, and gives to the Son. The Son always obeys, is sent, and receives from the Father. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son to teach and to guide.
The three Persons of the Trinity are ordered to one another by virtue of their relationship to each other. The Father is the relation of paternity because He is ordered to the Son as Father. The Son is the relation of filiation because he is ordered to the Father as Son. The Holy Spirit is the relation of passive spiration because he is spirated by the Father and the Son and ordered to them accordingly. The three Persons are defined as “Persons” by their relationship to one another, a relationship eternally rooted in the two-fold procession of the Son from the Father and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (CCC 246). They exist not only in distinction from one another but also within one another.
The three Persons of the Trinity are totally dependent on one another. Although each possesses the fullness of the divine substance, each is not and cannot be God except in relationship to the other two. Each is incomplete without the other two. This means that while it is proper to say that the Father, for example is God, it is not proper to say that God is just the Father.

But in another sense the word archein, formed from the root of the Greek word arche, can mean “first,” or “beginning,” or “priority.” Therefore, hierarchy also means “sacred origin.” Because the three Persons of the Trinity are coeternal, we cannot speak of the Trinity as having a temporal beginning. But we can speak of an ontological beginning or source of the Trinity. That source is the Father, who begets the Son and who, together with the Son, spirates the Holy Spirit, but who himself is unbegotten or ingenerate. It is for this reason that we can speak of the Father as the source of everything, including the Trinity itself for He is, as the Church fathers (the successors of the Apostles) pointed out, the “unoriginated origin.” The Father therefore has priority within the Trinity, which is why He is always designated as the FIRST Person of the Trinity and which also enables us to understand why Jesus tells us that “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28)

Summing up we can make seven statements in an attempt to grasp the great mystery that is the dogma (truth) of the Most Holy Trinity with the dogma (truth) of the Oneness of God:

The Trinity is the ultimate reality of the One True God
God is a community of love. The Apostle St. John, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, affirmed that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). God loves us and God is love in Himself. The Father gives all He has to the Son, and the two of them in turn give all They have to the Holy Spirit. Pope John Paul II wrote that God in His deepest mystery is a family because the Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father and the Holy Spirit is the love that binds the mystery of love that is the Trinity.
The Trinity is a revelation that personhood is bound up with relationship. To be a person in the Trinity is to be a relation ordered to another Person or relation. There is no singleness or aloneness; there is no individualism in the Trinity. Not even the Father can be known as a person in his own right, but only in the relation to the Son who makes him known and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The Trinity is a revelation of the meaning and significance of hierarchy. The ultimate reality is a sacred order. However, hierarchy does not mean inequality; the three Persons of the Trinity are both hierarchical and coequal. The opposite of hierarchy is not equality. The opposite of hierarchy is anarchy—the absence of order. The hierarchical character of God is the guarantor of the hierarchical or ordered character of creation.
Although God is eternal and unchanging, He is not static. God’s inner life is comprised of those two processions by which the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit spirated. These processions are eternal and can only be expressed in the present tense because there is no ‘before’ or ‘after’ in God. God is unceasingly and eternally dynamic!
The two processions within the Trinity are the source of the two Trinitarian “missions” made manifest in redemption. First, the Father’s begetting the Son is the source for the Father’s sending of the Son for our salvation. Second, the procession of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son is the source for the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son to the Apostles and to the Church in order that the grace and truth of Christ might be manifest throughout the world. By these two missions God continually renews the whole of creation.
The two missions of the Trinity reveal that we do not simply have one relationship with God; we have a three-fold relationship with Him as St. Paul expressed in Ephesians 1:9-10: He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in Christ, for him to act upon when the times had run their course: that He would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we share in the Sonship of Jesus Christ, and so have become sons and daughters of God the Father, whose plan to bring all things in heaven and on earth into union with himself is revealed and initiated by the Son and brought to completion in the Holy Spirit.

To God be the glory—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Amen!

Endnotes:

1. The original Nicene Creed was composed by the bishops of the universal Church in 325 AD at Nicaea. At the Council of Nicaea the Church fathers confronted Arianism, a heresy that denied the divinity of Jesus Christ and therefore denied belief in the Trinitarian unity of God. At least 220 bishops from across Christendom signed the creed that affirmed the divinity of Christ. The Nicene Creed began with the statement: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; God from God, light from light, true God from true God; begotten, not created, consubstantial [Greek = Homo ousion] with the Father. The first Nicene Creed was relatively short and ended with the phrase and in the Holy Spirit. This creed was amended in 381 AD at the first ecumenical Council of Constantinople, and the result was the creed the Church recites as its profession of faith, the Nicene-Constantinople Creed. The additions to the Nicene Creed helped to clarify the dogma of the Trinity by adding more about the person of Christ, omitting the phrase “from the substance of the Father,” including more about the Holy Spirit, adding the articles on the Church, on baptism, the resurrection, and eternal life. The first creed also included anathemas against Arianism which were dropped in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed.

2. Catholic Dictionary, John A. Hardon, S. J., page 117: Doctrine is any truth taught by the Church as necessary for acceptance by the faithful. The truth may be either formally revealed (as the Real Presence), or a theological conclusion (as the canonization of a saint), or part of the natural law (as the sinfulness of contraception). In any case, what makes it doctrine is that the Church authority teaches that it is to be believed. This teaching may be done either solemnly in ex cathedra pronouncements or ordinarily in the perennial exercise of the Church’s Magisterium or teaching authority. Dogmas are those doctrines which the Church proposes for belief as formally revealed by God. (Etym. Latin: doctrina, teaching).

3. There are several passages in the Old Testament that hint at the Triune nature of God. A few of those passages are listed below:

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is hidden in the first three verses of Genesis: In the beginning, God [God the Father] created heaven and earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep with a divine wind [God the Holy Spirit] sweeping over the waters. God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light [God the Son who is the Word and the Light]. See the Gospel of John 1:1-5: In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came into being, not one thing came into being except through him. What has come into being in him was life, life that was the light of men; and light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it. Also see John 1:9.
The cry of the heavenly creatures that surround God’s throne reveals that God is three-times holy (see Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8).
Also see Genesis 1:26 in which God says: Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves. The verse cannot be referring to God and the angels because no where in Scripture is it stated or even suggested that the heavenly servants of God were partners with God in the Creation event, but St. John in the prologue to his Gospel and St. Paul in Colossians 1:15-18 clearly identify Jesus Christ as the active force of the Creation event: for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth (Colossians 1:16).
The literal translation of the ancient profession of faith of the Old Covenant people of God begins: Hear O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh; and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might, expressing both the oneness and the threeness of God with the three times repetition of His covenant name (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

To God be the glory, forever—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Amen!

Resources:

Catechism of the Catholic Church, citations 232-267; 683-716; 2663-2672
E. Forman, The Triune God: An Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
J. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, chapter 5.
New Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday, 1985.