On the Trinity, Book 6

Some people think they cannot accept the equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because it is written, “Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God;” on this basis, the three do not seem equal, because the Father is not Himself power and wisdom, but the Father who generates power and wisdom. In fact, people often ask with unusual seriousness how God can be called the Father of power and wisdom. For the apostle says, “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Some on our side have therefore used the following argument against the Arians, at least against the first people who opposed the Catholic faith. Arius himself is reported to have said that if He is a Son, then He was born; if He was born, there was a time when the Son did not exist. He did not understand that, for God, even being born is eternal, so that the Son is co-eternal with the Father, just as the light that a fire produces and spreads exists from the same moment as the fire, and would be co-eternal if the fire were eternal. Some later Arians have therefore abandoned that opinion and acknowledged that the Son of God did not begin to exist in time. Among the arguments that those on our side used against people who said that there was a time when the Son did not exist, some regularly included this reasoning: If the Son of God is the power and wisdom of God, and God was never without power and wisdom, then the Son is co-eternal with God the Father; but the apostle says, “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God;” and it would be senseless to say that God ever lacked power or wisdom; therefore there was never a time when the Son did not exist. This argument forces us to say that God the Father is not wise, except through possessing the wisdom He generated, rather than through being wisdom itself in His own right. If this is so, since the Son Himself is also called God from God and Light from Light, we must consider whether He can be called wisdom from wisdom, if God the Father is not wisdom itself, but only the Father who generates wisdom. If we accept this, why is He not the Father who also generates His own greatness, goodness, eternity, and omnipotence? On this view, He would not Himself be His own greatness, goodness, eternity, and omnipotence. Instead, He would be great through the greatness He generated, good through the goodness, eternal through the eternity, and all-powerful through the omnipotence that was born of Him, just as He Himself is not His own wisdom, but is wise through the wisdom born of Him. We need not fear being forced to say that there are many sons of God, in addition to the created beings adopted as sons, co-eternal with the Father, if He is the Father who generates His own greatness, goodness, eternity, and omnipotence. It is easy to answer this objection: naming many things does not imply that He is the Father of many co-eternal sons, just as it does not follow that He is the Father of two sons, because Christ is said to be the power of God, and the wisdom of God. The power is certainly the same as the wisdom, and the wisdom is the same as the power. The same therefore applies to the rest: greatness is the same as power and as any of the other things already mentioned or still to be mentioned.

Suppose that the Father, considered in Himself, is described only in relation to the Son, that is, as His Father, the one who generates Him, or His origin. Suppose also that someone who generates another from himself is consequently that other’s origin. On this view, everything else said of Him is said of Him together with the Son, or rather in the Son: He is great through the greatness He generated, just through the justice He generated, good through the goodness He generated, powerful through the strength or power He generated, and wise through the wisdom He generated. The Father, however, is not called greatness itself, but the one who generates greatness; the Son, considered in Himself, is called Son in relation to the Father, rather than together with the Father. On the same view, He is great not in Himself but together with the Father, whose greatness He is. He is also called wise together with the Father, whose wisdom He Himself is, just as the Father is called wise together with the Son, because He is wise through the wisdom He generated. Therefore, whenever either is described in Himself, neither is described apart from the other; that is, descriptions of their essential nature apply to both together. If all this is so, the Father is not God without the Son, nor is the Son God without the Father, but both together are God. The statement “In the beginning was the Word” would mean that the Word was in the Father. Or if “In the beginning” is intended to mean “before everything else,” then in the next statement, “And the Word was with God,” the Son alone is understood to be the Word, not the Father and Son together, as if the two were one Word (He is the Word just as He is the Image, and the Father and Son together are not the Image; only the Son is the Father’s Image, just as He alone is also the Father’s Son; the two together are not the Son). As for the additional statement, “And the Word was with God,” there is good reason to understand it this way: “The Word,” which is the Son alone, “was with God,” which is not the Father alone, but God the Father and the Son together. Why would this be surprising, when it can be said even of a pair of things that differ greatly from each other? What things differ more than soul and body? Yet we can say that the soul was with a person, meaning in a person, although the soul is not the body, while a person is soul and body together. The following words in Scripture, “And the Word was God,” could therefore be understood this way: The Word, which is not the Father, was God together with the Father. Should we then say that the Father is the one who generates His own greatness, that is, His own power or wisdom, and that the Son is greatness, and power, and wisdom; while the two together are the great, all-powerful, and wise God? How, then, can we say God from God and Light from Light? The two together are not God from God; only the Son is from God, that is, from the Father. Likewise, the two together are not Light from Light; only the Son is from Light, that is, from the Father. Perhaps these expressions were used to suggest and briefly impress on us that the Son is co-eternal with the Father, through the words God from God and Light from Light, or similar expressions. It would be as if we said: what the Son is not without the Father, from what the Father is not without the Son; that is, this Light, which is not Light without the Father, from that Light, namely, the Father, which is not Light without the Son. Thus, when we speak of God, which the Son is not without the Father, from God, which the Father is not without the Son, we can understand fully that the one who generates did not exist before what He generated. If this is so, the only descriptions that cannot take the form “this from this” are those that do not apply to both together. For example, we cannot say Word from Word, because the two together are not the Word; only the Son is. Nor can we say Image from Image, since the two together are not the Image, or Son from Son, since the two together are not the Son, in keeping with the statement, “I and my Father are one.” “We are one” means that I too am what He is, in essence rather than in relation.

I do not know whether the words, “They are one,” are ever used in Scripture of things with different natures. If several things share the same nature but differ in outlook, they are not one, to the extent that their outlook differs. For if the disciples were already one simply because they were human, He would not say, “That they may be one, as we are one,” when entrusting them to the Father. Paul and Apollos, however, were both human and also agreed in outlook, so “The one who plants,” he says, “and the one who waters are one.” Therefore, when several things are called one without specifying in what respect they are one, this signifies the same essence and nature, without division or disagreement. When the respect in which things are one is specified, however, it can mean that several things form one thing, even though they differ in nature. For example, soul and body are certainly not one; what could be more different? We must add or understand the respect in which they are one: one human being or one living being [person]. That is why the apostle says, “Someone joined to a prostitute is one body;” he does not say “they are one” or “he is one”; but he has added “body,” as if two different bodies, male and female, were joined to form one body. And, “Someone joined to the Lord,” he says, is one spirit: he did not say “someone joined to the Lord is one” or “they are one”; but he added, “spirit.” The human spirit and God’s Spirit have different natures, but their union makes one spirit from two different spirits, so that the Spirit of God is blessed and perfect without the human spirit, whereas the human spirit cannot be blessed without God. I think there is a reason why, when the Lord spoke so much in the Gospel according to John, and so often about unity, whether His own unity with the Father or our unity with one another, He never said that we too are one with Him, but instead, “that they may be one as we too are one.” Therefore the Father and the Son are one, certainly through their unity of substance; and there is one God, one great God, and one wise God, as we have argued. How, then, is the Father greater? If He is greater, He is greater through greatness, but since the Son is His greatness, the Son is certainly not greater than the Father who generated Him, nor is the Father greater than the greatness through which He is great; therefore they are equal. In what could He be equal except in what He is, since for Him existing and being great are not two different things? Or if the Father is greater in eternity, the Son is not equal in any respect. How could He be equal? If you say in greatness, a greatness that is less eternal is not equal; the same applies to everything else. Perhaps He is equal in power but unequal in wisdom? Yet how can a less wise power be equal? Or is He equal in wisdom but unequal in power? How, though, can less powerful wisdom be equal? It follows that if He is unequal in any respect, He is unequal altogether. But Scripture proclaims, that “He did not consider equality with God robbery.” Therefore, anyone opposing the truth who accepts apostolic authority must acknowledge that the Son is equal with God in at least one respect, whatever it may be. Let him choose whichever he wishes; from that choice he will be shown that He is equal in everything said of His substance.

Similarly, the virtues in the human mind, although each has its own distinct meaning, cannot be separated from one another; for example, people who are equal in courage are also equal in prudence, temperance, and justice. For if you say that certain people are equal in courage, but one is more prudent, it follows that the courage of the other is less prudent, so they are not equal in courage either, since the courage of the former is more prudent. You will find the same with the other virtues, if you consider them one by one. The question concerns courage of mind rather than bodily strength. How much more, then, does this apply in that unchangeable and eternal substance, which is incomparably simpler than the human mind? For the human mind, existing is not the same as being courageous, prudent, just, or temperate; for a mind can exist, and yet have none of these virtues. For God, however, existing is the same as being powerful, just, or wise, or anything else said of that simple multiplicity, or multiple simplicity, to describe His substance. One possibility, then, is that we say God from God because the name God belongs to each, although the two together are one God rather than two. They are united in a way that, according to the apostle’s testimony, can occur even between distinct and different substances: the Lord considered alone is Spirit, and a human spirit considered alone is certainly spirit; yet if the human spirit joins itself to the Lord, “it is one spirit:” how much more must this hold where the union is completely inseparable and eternal? This would avoid the apparent absurdity of calling Him the Son of both when He is called the Son of God, if the name God applied only to the two together. Or perhaps everything said of God to describe His substance applies only to the two together, indeed to the whole Trinity? Whichever is true (a question requiring closer investigation), for now it is enough to see from the discussion that the Son cannot be equal with the Father if He is unequal in any description of His substance, as we have already shown. Yet the apostle has said that He is equal. Therefore the Son is equal with the Father in all things, and is of one and the same substance.

The Holy Spirit therefore shares the same unity of substance and the same equality. Whether He is their unity, holiness, or love, or their unity because He is their love, and their love because He is their holiness, it is clear that He who joins the two is not either of them. Through Him, the Son is loved by the Father who generates Him and loves that Father in return; through Him, by their own essence rather than participation, and by their own gift rather than the gift of someone higher, they are “keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace;” we are commanded to imitate this through grace, both toward God and toward one another. “All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Thus the three are one God, the only God, great, wise, holy, and blessed. We, however, are blessed from Him, through Him, and in Him, because His gift makes us one with one another, and one spirit with Him, because our soul holds fast to Him and follows Him. It is good for us to hold fast to God, since He will destroy everyone who turns away from Him. The Holy Spirit is therefore something shared by the Father and Son, whatever that shared reality may be. That fellowship itself shares their substance and eternity; if friendship is a fitting name, we may use it, but love is a better name. And this is also a substance, since God is a substance, and “God is love,” as it is written. Just as He is substance together with the Father and Son, He is also great, good, holy, and everything else said of substance together with them; for God, existing is not different from being great, good, or anything else of this kind, as we have shown above. If love is less great than wisdom in it [i.e. in God], wisdom is loved less than its greatness deserves; love is therefore equal, so that wisdom may be loved as fully as it exists; wisdom, however, is equal with the Father, as we have already proved; the Holy Spirit is therefore equal too; and if equal, He is equal in everything because of that substance’s complete simplicity. Therefore there are no more than three: One who loves Him who is from Himself, One who loves Him from whom He has His being, and Love itself. If this love is nothing, how is “God love”? If it is not substance, how is God substance?

If someone asks how that substance can be both simple and multiple, first consider why a created thing is multiple and never truly simple. To begin with, every body is certainly made of parts; some parts are larger and others smaller, and the whole is larger than any part, however large that part may be. Heaven and earth are parts of the whole physical universe; earth alone and heaven alone are each made of countless parts; one-third of either is smaller than the rest, and half is smaller than the whole; the entire physical universe, usually named after its two parts, heaven and earth, is certainly larger than heaven alone or earth alone. In each individual body, size is one thing, color another, shape another; its color and shape can stay the same while its size decreases; its shape and size can stay the same while its color changes; its shape can change while it keeps the same size and color. Other properties attributed to a body can change all together, or most can change without the rest. This conclusively proves that bodily nature is multiple and not simple at all. A created spirit, such as the soul, is indeed simpler when compared with a body; but considered apart from that comparison, it too is multiple rather than simple. It is simpler than the body because it is not spread as a physical mass through space, but is present as a whole both throughout its body and in every individual part of it; therefore, when anything the soul can feel happens in even the smallest part of the body, the whole soul feels it, even though it does not happen throughout the body, because the whole soul is aware of it. Nevertheless, in the soul too, skill, laziness, intelligence, and a good memory are different things; desire, fear, joy, and sadness are also different; countless things can be found in the soul’s nature in countless ways, some without others, some in greater and others in lesser degree. Clearly its nature is multiple rather than simple. Nothing simple can change, but every created thing can change.

God, however, is truly described in many ways as great, good, wise, blessed, true, and whatever else seems worthy of being said of Him. Yet His greatness is the same as His wisdom. His greatness is in power rather than physical size; and His goodness is the same as His wisdom and greatness, and His truth the same as all those things; in Him, being blessed is not different from being great, wise, true, or good, or simply from being Himself. Being a Trinity does not mean that He is triple (triplex); otherwise the Father alone, or the Son alone, would be less than the Father and Son together. Indeed, it is hard to see how we can speak of either the Father alone or the Son alone, since the Father is always and inseparably with the Son, and the Son with the Father. This does not mean that both are the Father or both are the Son; they are always in one another, so neither is alone. We even call the Trinity itself God alone, although He is always with holy spirits and souls, because He alone is God; those spirits and souls are not also God with Him. In the same way, we call the Father alone Father, not because He is separate from the Son, but because they are not both together the Father.

Since, then, the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone, is as great as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together, He must never be called threefold. Physical bodies increase when they join together. Although someone joined to his wife is one body with her, that body is larger than the husband’s body alone or the wife’s alone. With spiritual things, however, when the lesser joins itself to the greater, as a created being to the Creator, the lesser becomes greater than before; the greater does not. For things whose greatness is not physical size, greater means better. The spirit of a created being becomes better when it holds fast to the Creator than when it does not; it is therefore also greater because it is better. Someone joined to the Lord, then, is one spirit with Him; the Lord does not become greater as a result, although the person joined to Him does. In God Himself, then, when the Son is joined to the Father as His equal, or the Holy Spirit is joined to the Father and Son as their equal, God does not become greater than each individually, because that perfection cannot increase. Whether Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, He is perfect, and God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is perfect. He is therefore a Trinity rather than triple.

Since we have shown how we can speak of the Father alone, because there is no Father in the Godhead except Himself, we must also consider the view that the only true God is not the Father alone, but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. If someone asks whether the Father alone is God, how can we answer that He is not, unless perhaps we say that the Father is indeed God, but is not God alone, whereas the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God alone? What, then, should we do with the Lord’s testimony? He was speaking to the Father, and had addressed Him as Father, when He said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You the one true God.” The Arians usually interpret this as saying that the Son is not true God. Setting them aside, we must consider whether the words addressed to the Father, “That they may know You the one true God,” require us to understand that He intended to indicate that the Father considered alone is true God, so that we do not think that only the three together, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are God. Should we therefore, on the basis of the Lord’s testimony, call the Father the one true God, and the Son the one true God, and the Holy Spirit the one true God, and call the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, that is, the whole Trinity, not three true Gods but one true God? Or, because He added, “And Jesus Christ whom You have sent,” should we understand the words “the one true God;” so that the words are arranged like this: “That they may know You, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent, the one true God?” Why, then, did He leave out the Holy Spirit? Is it because whenever we name One joined to One in such great harmony that the two are one through it, that harmony itself is also understood, even without being mentioned? In another passage the apostle also seems to leave out the Holy Spirit; yet He is understood there too, when the apostle says, “All are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.” And again, “The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.” Yet if only the three together are God, how can God be the head of Christ, that is, the Trinity the head of Christ, when Christ is included in the Trinity for it to be a Trinity? Is what the Father is together with the Son the head of what the Son alone is? The Father together with the Son is God, but the Son alone is Christ, especially since the speaker is the Word already made flesh; in this humbled condition the Father is also greater than He is, as He says, “for my Father is greater than I;” thus His very being as God, which He shares as one with the Father, is the head of the human mediator, who He alone is. If we rightly call the mind the leading part of a human being, as if it were the head of human substance, although a human being includes the mind, how much more fitting is it to call the Word together with the Father, who together are God, the head of Christ, even though Christ as a human being cannot be understood apart from the Word made flesh? As already mentioned, we will consider this more carefully later. For now, we have demonstrated as briefly as possible that the Trinity is equal and shares one and the same substance, so that however the other question is resolved, whose closer discussion we have postponed, nothing prevents us from acknowledging the absolute equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One writer, wishing to indicate briefly the special attributes of each of the persons in the Trinity, tells us that “Eternity is in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift.” Since he had considerable authority in interpreting Scripture and defending the faith (Hilary wrote this in his book On the Trinity, ii.), I have investigated the deeper meaning of these words as far as I can, that is, Father, Image, Gift, eternity, form, and use. I do not think he intended anything more by eternity than that the Father has no father from whom He has His being, whereas the Son has His being from the Father and is co-eternal with Him. If an image perfectly matches what it depicts, the image is equal to its original, rather than the original being made equal to its image. I believe he used form for this Image because of its beauty, in which there is such complete harmony, original equality, and original likeness, without difference, inequality, or unlikeness in any respect, but corresponding exactly to Him whose Image it is. Here is original and supreme life, for which living and existing are not different but the same; here is original and supreme understanding, for which living and understanding are not different, but understanding, living, and existing are all one: like a perfect Word, John 1:1 lacking nothing, and a kind of art belonging to the all-powerful and wise God, filled with all living and unchanging principles, which are all one in it, just as it is one from One with whom it is one. In it God knew everything He made through it; therefore, as periods of time pass and follow one another, nothing passes from or is added to God’s knowledge. God does not know created things because they have been made; rather, even though they change, they have been made because He knows them without changing. That indescribable union of the Father and His Image therefore includes enjoyment, love, and joy. He therefore briefly calls this love, delight, happiness, or blessedness Use, if any human word can express it worthily. This is the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, not generated, but the sweetness of the Father who generates and the Son who is generated, generously and abundantly filling all created things according to their capacity, so that they keep their proper order and rest content in their proper places. Everything made by divine art therefore displays a certain unity, form, and order; each is a single thing, as are the individual natures of bodies and capacities of souls; each has some form, such as the shapes or qualities of bodies, and the learning or skills of souls; and each seeks or maintains some order, such as the weights or arrangements of bodies and the loves or delights of souls. When we consider the Creator through understanding the things He has made, we must therefore understand the Trinity, whose traces appear in creation as is fitting. In that Trinity are the supreme source of everything, the most perfect beauty, and the most blessed delight. These three therefore seem both defined in relation to one another and infinite in themselves. Here among physical things, one thing alone is not as great as three together, and two are something more than one; but in that highest Trinity one is as great as the three together, nor are two anything more than one. They are infinite in themselves. Thus each is in each, all are in each, each is in all, all are in all, and all are one. Anyone who sees this, even partly or “through a mirror and in a riddle,” should rejoice in knowing God; he should honor Him as God and give thanks; anyone who does not see it should try to see through devotion, rather than attack it with blind objections. For God is one, yet is a Trinity. We should not take the words, “of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things,” as applying without distinction [i.e., to denote a unity without distinctions]; nor as referring to many gods, for “to Him, be glory forever and ever. Amen.”