The Angelic Doctor’s Heavenly Doctrine of God

The latest issue of Credo Magazine focuses on Thomas Aquinas. The following is one of the issue’s featured columns by Peter Sammons. Dr. Sammons is director of academic publications at The Master’s Seminary and managing editor of The Master’s Seminary Journal.

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What role should historical theology play in private interpretation of scripture? This issue has been debated since the time of the Reformation. Today, many people confuse the Reformed mantra sola scriptura (scripture is the sole, infallible authority for faith and practice) with solo scriptura (one’s own, independent interpretation of scripture is the sole, infallible authority for faith and practice). In turn, they have reverted to an elevation of private interpretation devoid of the richness of history.

This overemphasis on private interpretation has bred an overconfidence in personal conclusions on many doctrinal matters. As a result, our present age is one in which “contemporary” is the only characteristic that seems to matter. Many pastors and seminarians—and in turn laymen—only read books that have been printed in the last couple decades. They have virtually no place for historical theology in their private interpretation of scripture. The theological well from which they drink is little more than stagnant water from their peers. Consequently, they only read people who agree with their particular epistemological viewpoint on issues, rather than reading broadly and, most importantly, historically. It should greatly concern you if the doctrine of the Trinity you espouse would be unrecognizable, or—even worse—condemned, by a standard of historic orthodoxy. Click To Tweet

For example, it should greatly concern you if the doctrine of the Trinity you espouse would be unrecognizable, or—even worse—condemned, by a standard of historic orthodoxy. Especially in a modern culture of “hot takes,” students should be slower to spout off their opinions until they have read more vastly than their contemporary books. After all, how do you know your interpretation of a text or a doctrine is accurate if you have no historical context? Have you inadvertently become a “mini-pope,” making yourself the arbiter of orthodoxy? In truth, theology should be a process of study, evaluation of presuppositions, reformulation, and clearer articulation, all against the backdrop of doctrinal precedent.

Sadly, what passes for research these days is little more than reading a contemporary author and then hitting CTRL+F on the keyboard in order to find an agreeable point! Such an approach has produced increasingly shallow Christian thinkers. This shallowness then breeds more of the methodology that produced it, forming a vicious circle. The end result? Doctrines like the Trinity, which have been well-defined in history, are victimized by those who want to redefine them according to their own self-styled nuances.

So how should we incorporate historical theology into our private interpretation?

Doctrinal harmony

One way is by recognizing doctrinal harmony, advancement, and agreement in the Church. Here, as an example, I appeal to someone who is often seen as an enemy of Protestantism: Thomas Aquinas. At the outset, let me clarify that this is not an attempt to baptize Thomas, but rather to demonstrate a vital appreciation of the historic doctrine of the Trinity from one whom many Protestants might consider hands off. Far too often students are quick to commit the Genetic Fallacy when they come to Aquinas. They look to the man, or his body of doctrine, or even the Counter-Reformation at Trent (which appealed to Aquinas to build much of their doctrine of sacramentalism), and conclude that any theological claim from him must be bad. Consequently, they never give his doctrine of the Trinity a fair assessment. Another mistake made out of misplaced disapproval (and, quite frankly, chronological snobbery) is to commit the Composition Fallacy: “Well, Thomas got these other things wrong, so everything from him must be wrong.”Out of chronological snobbery we commit the Composition Fallacy: “Thomas got these things wrong, so everything from him must be wrong.” Click To Tweet

Instead, Christians should be noted by their charity, fairness, and objectivity in their assessment of past theologians. We see this modeled well in Herman Bavinck. In Book 2, Aquinas seems to be his dearest friend; he cites him approvingly numerous times. Yet, in Book 3, Aquinas is one of his fiercest foes. Many Protestants have long recognized Aquinas’ accuracy in Theology Proper. Following Bavinck’s lead, we will examine Aquinas’ doctrine of the Trinity showing (1) how it is Nicene orthodoxy, (2) how Protestant Scholastics retrieved not only Nicaea, but appealed to Thomas at points on the Trinity, and (3) why Protestants today can benefit from Aquinas on the Trinity.

Defining the Trinity of Nicaea

In the first few centuries of the Church we see interesting developments in Trinitarian language, even though the official term Trinity isn’t used until Tertullian. What we find, primarily in the apologists, is a focus on unity in the Godhead, and that “persons” were commonly referenced, though not with the specificity that would later be termed relations of origin.[1] In the fourth and fifth centuries, we see an establishment of appropriate terms when discussing God that have shaped theological formulation (grammar) to this day.

It is only appropriate to start with Athanasius since he was the assistant and deacon to Alexander of Alexandria at the First Council of Nicaea.[2] Athanasius eventually succeeded Alexander as Bishop, all the while defending Trinitarianism against the much more popular Arianism, even when it was held by Constantine’s son, Emperor Constantius II. That first council read,

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being.

The key to the debate, stressed by Athanasius, was that Jesus is homoousios (of the same substance) with the Father, in contrast to Arius who wanted to settle for Jesus as homoiousios (of like substance) with the Father. Such an important distinction was made using one letter in a Greek philosophy term, yet the difference was monumental.

While the groundwork was laid by Athanasius in 325 at Nicea, consensus was not reached in his lifetime. In fact, Arianism and its ugly stepchild Semi-Arianism was revived many times by men such as Aëtius and Eunomius after Athanasius and Arius died. It took the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus), with their contributions in the First Council of Constantinople (381), to produce the final version of the Nicene Creed that remains a monument of orthodox Trinitarianism. The creed became known as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The contributions of these men, along with Athanasius beforehand and Augustine afterward, provide a unity for doctrinal definitions regarding the Trinity that remains without a doubt the litmus test for Trinitarian taxonomy by which all measures of controversy have been measured.

Among these contributions was a theological grammar properly conveying Scripture’s teaching regarding the oneness and threeness in God. The harmony demanded by the biblical text drove these Nicene and post-Nicene fathers to develop proper language when discussing the Trinity. The divine unity was best encapsulated by the terms ousia (along with phusis meaning nature) for what is one in God. This was later referred to as God’s substance, essence, nature, or being. In like manner, the threeness of God was distinguished by the term prosopon, which was later referred to as person(s) or subsistence(s).

These two categories of how God is one in a certain respect and three in another respect were necessary for the Church to maintain and articulate the harmony of Scripture (cf. 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 12:4–6; Eph. 4:4–6; 1 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 1:4, 5). Additionally, these terms were developed to keep aberrant views at bay. Therefore, any view that misunderstood the category of essence, or person, or both, was examined and rejected. Naturally, in a text like Matthew 28:19 or Deuteronomy 6:4, you do not see the terms ousia and hypostasis, or even the proper way to define the hypostasis of the Father, Son, and Spirit. So the proper taxonomy to describe the Trinity (essence and persons) is something we have inherited from the Early Church. We are in its debt.

When you harmonize these texts allowing the exegetical data of each to remain, without removing or distorting other texts, you are engaging in what is known as theologia (in contrast to oikonomia). Theologia refers to the mysteries of God’s nature as he is in himself, sometimes called God’s incommunicable attributes or nature—archetypal theology in the Reformed theologian Franciscus Junius. This would be how we define the ousia. On the other hand, oikonomia is referring to the manner of revelation or how God has made Himself known. We have to be careful not to collapse these categories or confuse them. The Cappadocians were wonderful in preserving just that delicate balance and precision.

Basil wrote, “The term ousia is common . . . while hypostasis is contemplated in the special property of Fatherhood, Sonship, or the power to sanctify” (Letter 214.4). Gregory Nazianzus explained, “The Godhead is one in three, and the three are one, in whom the Godhead is, or to speak more accurately, who are the Godhead” (Oration 39.11). Gregory Nyssa similarly reasoned, “Each of the three persons possess unity . . . by reason of the identity of essence and power” (Against Eunomius, 1.36).

What we see here is that essence (ousia) is what is common, while person (hypostasis) is how we specify a relation. Essence is a generic term for deity, whereas hypostasis is a specific characterization used to refer to one of the persons. Basil was very helpful with this. His example would be “man,” which is a generic term for humanity, whereas “Peter” is a specific person.

Read the Full Article Here!

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Endnotes

[1] Sometimes called modes of origin not to be confused with modalism. See: J. Warren Smith “The Trinity in the Fourth-Century Fathers,” eds. Giles Emery and Matthew Levering, The Oxford Handbook of The Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 116.

[2] He served for 45 years and of those 45 years spent 17 years in exile on five different occasions by four emperors for his, at the time, seemingly controversial positions.