_6_The Trinity and Human Reason

On the one hand, we dare not differentiate between a divine Person and the Divine Being, because the Scriptures ascribe the entire Godhead not only to the Father, but also to the Son (Col. 2:9) and to the Holy Ghost (Acts 5:4). Luther (St. L. X:178): “It is not the function of reason to inquire in what manner the Person differs from the Deity itself; not even the angels understand this mystery. In fact, to assume some kind of distinction is a dangerous procedure and must be avoided because each Person is the entire and the very God.” 29 The proposition advocated by Scholastics, e. g., Scotus, which would establish a so-called formal distinction is, as Luther says, vain and fatuous. “No matter how subtle this distinction of Doctor Subtilis appears to be, reason does not see how a formal distinction differs from a material or a real distinction.” (Loc. cit.)

On the other hand, we must not make a notional, but a real distinction between the Persons, because the Holy Scriptures speak of three Persons as and because only the Son — not the Father nor the Holy Ghost — was incarnate. We are confronted by the fact which Luther describes in the following words: “Reason cannot comprehend that one thing contains no distinctions and at the same time is three distinct things.” This mystery compels us to admit with Luther: “Metaphysics and every speculation on the part of a creature must be excluded in the doctrine of God.” The warning against making the doctrine of the Trinity plausible to reason cannot be made too emphatic. There are two attempts to explain the mystery of the Trinity.

1. It is not wrong when the Christian finds in certain phenomena of nature a reminder of the fact that there are three Persons in one divine essence, but the Christian dare not use such analogies as proof for the Trinity, yes, not even as a confirmation of this mystery.30 Man cannot perceive, still less prove, the doctrine of the Trinity from the divine works in the realm of nature (opera ad extra), because these works are common to all three Persons. Every blade of grass bears the inscription “God has made me” so plainly that every rational being can see and understand it. But no creature in the entire realm of nature bears this inscription: “The three Persons of the Godhead have made me.” In fact, it cannot bear such an inscription, because there is only one divine omnipotence, one divine operation. Only in His Word does God tell us that the one divine Creator and Preserver of the universe is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Only in His Word, not in the realm of nature, does God reveal to us the nature of His internal essence. Therefore we are to seek no proofs for the Trinity in the realm of nature.

2. Nor is it possible by a process of rationalization to derive the doctrine of the Trinity from the divine essence itself (e. g., the divine intellect or the will) or the divine attributes (e. g., love).31 Even the later Melanchthon erred on this point when he taught in the Corpus Misnicum: The Son of God is born of the Father by reflection, or cogitation, because, when the Father studies and considers His own being, He brings forth an image which has real and permanent existence, just as our mind produces an image of God, which, however, is only accidental and ephemeral. The Reformed philologist and theologian Barthol. Keckermann (d. 1609) says: “We shall make clear to the anti-Trinitarian that a Trinity of Persons logically follows from the very essence of God and that God could not be God unless He had three modes of existence or three distinct powers. After we have proved this, we shall also bring testimony from the Scriptures.” 32 In their line of argumentation Melanchthon and Keckermann could, of course, appeal in part, or in whole, to a long list of predecessors.33 But the Lutheran dogmaticians remind us very emphatically that the doctrine of the Trinity can be understood and proved only from the Word of God.

Quenstedt says that the proposition: “The generation of the Son of God is a result of the Father’s reflection and the procession of the Holy Spirit a result of His will,” has no support in Scripture, destituitur autoritate Sacrae Scripturae (op. cit., p. 559). Against Keckermann, Quenstedt states: “He will never successfully maintain that the divine intellect reflecting upon itself brings forth from this reflection an image separate and distinct from the reflecting subject and that the divine will, reflecting, produces out of this self-contemplation, love as distinct from the will.” Keckermann bases the mystery of the Trinity on the slippery foundation of reason and thereby accomplishes no more than that he exposes this mystery to the cavil of the opponents.34 Whoever presumes to entertain his own man-made ideas in the doctrine of the Trinity actually assumes the right to play the role of the Holy Spirit. For only the Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10). It is, therefore, the height of megalomania when finite and shortsighted man, who does not even understand the nature of his fellow men (1 Cor. 2:11), becomes so opinionated that he assumes to understand the majestic God, who dwells in a “light which no man can approach unto” (1 Tim. 6:16; John 1:18).

Modern theology, which in its rejection of Scripture has shifted from Scripture to the theological opinions of the individual, can present only human speculations concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. Naturally, there are as many theories and personal opinions as there are individual speculative theologians. Nevertheless, the many shades of theological opinion fall into two general categories:

1. The first class consists of those from whose theological “I” crass Unitarianism emanates like a miasma. They openly deny the deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. While they employ the terms Father, Son, Holy Ghost, they explain these terms as three divine powers, wills, operations, of one divine Person. We have here a revival of the errors — frequently even of the terminology — of ancient modal and dynamic Monarchianism and later Socinianism. These modern Monarchians contend that the orthodox doctrine of three distinct Persons must inevitably lead to tritheism. The eternal essential Trinity (ontological Trinity) is changed into a historical trinity, a trinity of divine economy. This is the position of modern Liberalism.

2. A second class comprises all those who are known as “conservative” modern theologians. These men, like the liberal theologians, have shifted from the Word of God to their own subjective theology and therefore attempt to fix the doctrine of the Trinity from their own religious experience. But from this subjective starting point, which is at best a trinity of the threefold divine economy, they expect to arrive at the Church’s doctrinal position of an essential Trinity. In other words: they teach that the threefold divine operation which the Christian experiences corresponds to the antemundane metaphysical Trinitarian relation in God. In the feud between the radical and conservative Modernists the latter can easily charge the radicals with Unitarianism. But the radicals can also successfully charge that the conservatives in their line of argumentation and in their conclusions are at variance with the dogmaticians of the 16th and 17th centuries. In particular, the radicals are right when they say that the conservative party in Modernism endeavors to make the mystery of the Trinity plausible to human reason by developing the doctrine from the concept of love; that they teach a subordination of the Persons; and that they define the term “Person” not as an individual personality, but attempt to give a new meaning to this concept. This, say the radicals, is foreign to the theology of the Reformation and old genuine Protestantism.35 This is correct. The conservative wing of modern theology will not teach the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity until it again believes with the Christian Church that Holy Scripture is God’s infallible Word and renounces the theological Ego as the source of doctrine. Only then will it believe and teach concerning the Trinity what God Himself has revealed in His Word.36

Is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity contrary to reason? Karl Hase’s answer is very much to the point: “It is not the business of the Church to defend its doctrines with rational arguments. To do so would be a concession to the claim of reason that the doctrine of the Trinity is not only above reason, but also contrary to reason when reason is made the judge.”37 Hase should have added that when reason attempts to judge and to assail the doctrine of the Trinity, it ceases to be reason and actually becomes the climax of unreason. In presenting the doctrine of the Trinity, Luther again and again points out what folly it is for us poor mortals, who do not even understand the essence of our own nature, to presume to sit in judgment on God’s being and even go so far as to deny the Trinity. He says, e. g.: “If it were proper to employ our human reason in this matter, I venture to say I would be able to speculate and rationalize with more skill than the Jews or the Turks. But I thank my God that He gave me grace to have no desire to dispute concerning this article, whether it be true or consistent; but because I find it well grounded and taught in the Scriptures, I believe God more than my own reason and thoughts, and care nothing for the objection that it is unreasonable to teach the existence of but one essence in which there are three distinct Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The question here is not whether this doctrine is true, but whether it is found in the Word of God. If it is found there, then be assured that it is true, for God’s Word is truth. Since the Holy Scriptures have this article of faith, as we have just now seen, and since our fathers so earnestly contended for its preservation and have handed it down to us in its purity, we should not attempt to investigate with our reason how Father, Son, and Holy Ghost can be one God. We poor human beings cannot even comprehend, though we have the help of ever so many wise men of this world, how it happens that we laugh, or can see a high hill many miles away, or how sleep overpowers us so that the body seems dead and is yet alive. If we are thus unable to understand matters pertaining to our own life and daily experiences, why, then, prompted by the devil, should we venture with our own reason to comprehend God in His majesty and divine essence! If we must speculate, let us begin with our own selves and find out what becomes of our eyes, ears, and other senses when we sleep. Speculation in this direction might at least be indulged in without harm.” (St. L. XIII:664 ff.) Furthermore: “No, God be praised, we [Christians] clearly perceive such doctrine to be beyond the reason of man. No acute Jewish intellects are needed to demonstrate that to us; with full knowledge we consent to such assertion. Upon the strength of our own experience we confess that wherever the light of reason is not supplemented by that of the Holy Spirit, it will be impossible to apprehend, believe, and maintain this article of faith. What a proud, conceited, Jewish thing is reason that it dares to sit in judgment concerning the Deity, though it has never beheld the Divine Being; yes, is unable to behold Him. Reason does not know what it is talking about, for ‘God dwells in an unapproachable light’ (1 Tim. 6:16) and must come to us, though as light concealed in a lantern; and again, ‘no man hath seen God at any time, the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him’ (John 1:18); and long ago Moses said: ‘There shall no man see Me and live’ (Ex. 33:20)… . What uncouth louts are we to prize our poor, blind reason more highly than the testimony of Scripture! The Scriptures are God’s testimony concerning Himself; reason can know nothing of Deity itself, and yet it ventures to judge what is beyond its ken. That, surely, means to make a blind man the judge of color.” (St. L. X:1007, 1018.)

In this connection we must refer to several unwarranted charges and aspersions whereby Unitarians endeavor to discredit the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

1. The first charge is that the traditional Trinitarian doctrine is an “artificial theory,” a “philosophical speculation developed by the ancient Church Fathers.” Thus Horst-Stephan.38 Ritschl even went so far as to claim that Luther and his adherents retained the doctrine of Christ’s person and of the Holy Trinity in the interest of church politics.39 Such wild talk, which virtually turns historical facts topsy-turvy, finds a ready ear just because it is so daring. The historical facts, however, are that the old dogmaticians were opposed to every philosophical construction, such as the somnium Philippi (see above), not only in theory, but in fact as well. Whatever they taught concerning the inner-Trinitarian revelation, they had received from God’s self-revelation in Scripture. Lutheran dogmaticians, therefore, agree with Luther: “In order to become better grounded in knowledge and faith as regards the Trinity of Persons in the unity of the Godhead, we ourselves and they ought to unite in the study of the Scriptures. We have not invented this doctrine, nor could we have done so.” (St. L. X: 1017.) After bringing the Scripture proof for the deity of Christ and the Trinity from the Old and the New Testament, Luther adds: “Let him who can, puncture this proof; I can’t” (St. L. X:669).

2. A second contention of Unitarianism is that the orthodox doctrine encumbers the mind with dead formulas and actually proves to be a detriment to true piety; it is sufficient if men accept Christ as the great Revealer of God’s love. The fact is that the Unitarian teaching concerning Christ as the “Revealer of God’s love” remains a “dead formula” and has absolutely no dogmatic or religious value. The Son of God is indeed “the Revealer of God’s love” toward sinful mankind. But He is the Revealer only by His vicarious atonement; only as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world; only as the Son of God who in the fullness of the time became man and in the stead of man assumed the obligations and punishment of the divine Law (John 1:29; Gal. 4:4-5; 3:13). And the Holy Spirit will glorify the Son of God in the hearts of men by creating faith in Him as such a Revealer of God’s love, John 16:14. The Unitarian talk of a “God of love” without Christ’s vicarious satisfaction is a lie, and the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth will never glorify and confirm lies. Because Unitarianism denies the deity of Christ and His vicarious atonement, their pious-sounding phrase of the fatherhood of God is nothing but human speculation and self-delusion. And sooner or later the Unitarians experience that their favorite formula is without spirit and without life, for in spiritual anguish or in the hour of death the voice of conscience, which had been violently suppressed, will no longer be silenced, as the cases of Horace Bushnell, A. Ritschl, W. R. Harper, and others prove.40

Even the “aesthetic” rationalist Karl Hase, who did not accept the essential deity of Christ and the essential Trinity, has no sympathy for the shallowness displayed by the vulgar rationalists and the modern theologians in their criticism of the orthodox doctrine of the Church. In his Hutterus Redivivus he takes Hutter’s position (though not always quite successfully) and from this standpoint attacks rationalism. He disposed of the glib remarks of the rationalist Klein in a most telling way. Klein had stated that the orthodox formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is “empty words,” only negations, containing nothing definite, and that it is impossible to understand what good effect faith in the mystery of the Trinity could possibly have for our bliss and our morality. Hase answers (op. cit., p. 181): “It is true, indeed, that the dogma [of the Trinity] has no significance for a this-worldly bliss and for a virtue which in Kantian fashion requires only such a God as will reward man’s beggarly works. But more is necessary to attain a bliss which consists solely in peace with God and to acquire a virtue which in spite of its noblest works considers itself so impoverished that it can be satisfied only by faith in justification and sanctification. For such a bliss and such a virtue, faith in a redeeming and sanctifying God takes on so great a significance that without it true bliss and genuine virtue are impossible.”

3. Finally, the opponents of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity claim that this doctrine must inevitably lead to tritheism. They say that if three persons were postulated in the one God, then we must also divide our worship among Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and thus deny the unity of the divine worship. We answer, in the first place, that Scripture teaches, and therefore demands, that we worship the one God in three Persons. The Christian Baptism must be performed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Scripture, furthermore, demands that all men must honor the Son even as they honor the Father, and adds that he that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father (John 5:23). The aphorism of the ancient Church is correct: Trium personarum est unus cultus divinus. In the second place, there can be no division of the divine worship, because each Person is the entire God and not one third of God. The entire majesty is in the Father (by virtue of His eternal fatherhood — agennesia), in the Son (by His eternal generation) and in the Holy Spirit (by His eternal procession from the Father and the Son). Luther: “Each Person is the entire and the very God” (St. L. X:178). “The fullness of the Godhead” dwells in the Son (Col. 2:9), and the Holy Spirit is (Acts 5:4). Even Hase admits that “all the trickery of liberal exegetes is incapable of expunging from the New Testament the evidence for Christ’s deity. While it may be possible to explain away this doctrine when isolated passages are viewed separately, the deity of Christ is ineradicable when the New Testament passages are studied collectively.” (Op. cit., p. 181.) Finally, whoever worships God as the Father worships also the Son and the Holy Ghost. God is our Father only for the sake of Christ’s vicarious atonement and the Holy Spirit’s revelation. Whoever honors the Son honors also the Father, which hath sent Him (John 5:23), and the Holy Ghost, who glorifies the Son in the hearts of men (John 16:14). Whoever prays to the Holy Spirit thereby prays to the Father and the Son, for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of both the Father (Matt. 10:20) and the Son (Gal. 4:6).