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| A Knotty Trinitarian Thought Experiment | | Date Created: Dec 14, 2004, 08:30 PM |
Cornelius Van Til identified the Trinity as the answer to the traditional philosophical problem of the one and the many. In God the one and the many are equally ultimate. Neither oneness nor threeness is more important or ultimate in God. So far so good. His work on this is quite helpful. But in explaining this CVT made "a very bold theological move" (as John Frame has put it). In his Introduction to Systematic Theology CVT says that we "assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead is one person" (p. 229).
I think I understand and appreciate what CVT was doing. He was trying to avoid the specter of an impersonal substratum of divinity common to the three Persons of the Trinity. God is thoroughly personal. I agree that there is no impersonal substance in God. The divinity is not some "stuff" or "essence" that holds the Three together. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without remainder. God's is exhaustively personal.
But is it accurate or helpful to speak of God as "one Person"? Or might we use the paradoxical formula "one Person, three Persons" to "identify" the one and many in the Godhead? I want to say that this will not work as a way to talk about God in se or what we call the immanent Trinity. Apart from creation God cannot be encountered as one Person. Follow me and see if this works. Much of my reasoning here depends on my understanding or definition of "person" as one who always already exists in relation to another.
If the personal is always already relational, then there are three divine Persons in the Godhead. Each is constituted as a Person in relation to the other two. God the Father is a Person in relation to the Son and Spirit. The Son is a person in relation to his Father. The same goes for the Spirit. There relations to one another, quite apart from anything outside of the Godhead, mean that there are three Persons in the Godhead.
Now, the question is: how might God be "one Person" quite apart from any relations outside of the Three? Considered apart from creation, I'm not sure how one could say that God is one Person. You see, only one who is reflecting on or relating to God from without (as I am doing now) would ever even ask the question, "Is this being one Person?" Or even, "Does this being relate to me in some sense as one Person?" Do you get my point? No? Well let's see if I can help.
From God's eternal perspective (apart from creation). . . Well, wait a minute. From the Father's eternal perspective there would be two others--the Son and Spirit. He experiences two Persons in relation to himself. He knows himself in his relations with the other two.
From the Son's eternal perspective there would be two others--the Father and Spirit. He experiences two Persons in relation to himself. He knows himself in his relations with the other two.
From the Spirit's eternal perspective there would be two others--Father and Son. He experiences two Persons in relation to himself. He knows himself in his relations with the other two.
Now, could it be that one of these Persons might consider the other two as "one" in mind and will? Possibly. But it would be extremely weird, let's say, for the Son to consider the Father and Spirit together as one Person. Do you agree? And we could surely say that same for the perspective of the Father and Son on the other two. Right? Otherwise we could say that there were 6 persons in the Trinity. If three can be one person, why not two? And if two can be one person, then there are 6 persons in the Godhead.
Now, back to the question at hand. Maybe there's another way. Would the three divine Persons consider themselves as one Person? That seems unlikely. If a person is only a person in relation to another, then where is the "other" that would serve to constitute the "one Person" of God? Nothing exists outside of God. There is no other with whom God can relate as a single Person. What would it mean that God was one Person in eternity? He would need an other to be fully personal. I'm satisfied that this rules out saying that God is one Person and three Persons in eternity (that is, in se, considered apart from creation).
Okay. Now God creates the world and so there is an other to whom he can relate. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to each other as persons, but now they also freely relate to other non-divine beings and so constitute them as Persons. Right? So for so good.
But now that other non-divine persons exist outside of the divine fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there exists the possibility that these other non-divine persons would encounter the Trinity as one. And because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in being, will, purpose, and action, they present a unified face (or personality) to non-divine human persons. This is why we can sometimes just talk about or pray to God in his oneness. We can say that God acts, God loves, God hears our prayers even though we know that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In other words they often act together and therefore as one corporate personality.
(F + S + HS) ----> human persons
When a human person looks to God he often encounters F, S, and HS bracketed, if you will, as one corporate personality.
So I would say (tentatively, very attentively) that the possibility of God being one corporate Person only comes about by virtue of the creation of other non-divine persons. It is our perspective on the triune divine being. We worship, call on, speak to, and think of "God" who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Another angle: Maybe we can say that the Father thinks of himself, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one Person? The Son, too, would consider himself, the Father, and the Holy Spirit as one Person. Not necessarily over against or in relation to one another, but as unified corporate personality. We still have the problem of the definition of personhood. Given that persons are constituted in relation to others I would think that if one of the Persons considered the Three as one Person it would be in relation to the creation. So once again we are back to thinking of the triune God as one Person in relation to an other--creation.
Now it occurs to me that someone may read all this and draw an erroneous conclusion about my doctrine of the Trinity. Of course, I am not suggesting that the three Persons were not one until creation. Of course. Only that there was no way for them to be encountered as one Person until creation. And, too, there was no way the Triune God could have personal relations with an other. There were no others "before" creation. There was no one outside of God that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit might personally relate to as a corporate one. That does NOT mean that God was not one. Only that God did not encounter and was not encountered as one Person until he created man.
Just to be crystal clear: Of course, I would insist that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one being apart from creation. But I would also say that they are one in an infinite number of ways that I can't explain. And I don't think that I should be forced into saying how they are one just to conform to our theological conventions. Are they one in "being"? Yes. Are they one in "essence"? Yes. Are they one in "substance"? Sure, why not? Are they one in relational togetherness? Absolutely. Are they one in many, many other ways that we can't hope to put a label on? You bet. But I don't think they are encountered as one corporate Person until creation. I mean IF we are going to use CVT's formula, then we need to make sure we use it carefully.
So we might use CVT's formula, but the two predicates are not really coordinate: God is three Persons and one Person. To say that God is one Person is not on the same plane as our saying that he is three Persons. The later is eternally true, the former is true only by virtue of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit's unified personal interaction with creation.
But maybe all of that is way to rationalistic. Quite possibly. I know that CVT's intent was to remind us that we don't really know exactly what we are saying when we use the theological shorthand: one being/three persons. "Being" and "Person" are fuzzy terms. And on that score he is correct. We need to be careful to avoid the notion that there is a substratum of "being" that unifies the three Persons. But I would insist that a robust doctrine of perichoresis does the trick. One need not bring in an "impersonal" single subtratum to unite the three. They are united as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit fully because they indwell one another.
So given our understanding of "person" as person-in-relation, I'm not sure I can use CVT's slogan without some important qualifications. If my thought experiment has revealed anything, it is that the traditional summary "one being, three persons" seems to work better than CVT's newer slogan.
But I may be missing something entirely. |
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