Abstract
It is difficult to reconcile claims about the Father's role as the progenitor of Trinitarian Persons with commitment to the equality of the persons, a problem that is especially acute for Social Trinitarians. I propose a metatheological account of the doctrine of the Trinity that facilitates the reconciliation of these two claims. On the proposed account, ‘Father’ is systematically ambiguous. Within economic contexts, those which characterize God's relation to the world, ‘Father’ refers to the First Person of the Trinity; within theological contexts, which purport to describe intra-Trinitarian relations, it refers to the Trinity in toto-thus in holding that the Son and Holy Spirit proceed from the Father we affirm that the Trinity is the source and unifying principle of Trinitarian Persons. While this account is solves a nagging problem for Social Trinitarians it is theologically minimalist to the extent that it is compatible with both Social Trinitarianism and Latin Trinitarianism, and with heterodox Modalist and Tri-theist doctrines as well. Its only theological cost is incompatibility with the Filioque Clause, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son—and arguably that may be a benefit.
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Notes
Richard Swinburne (1994). The Christian God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 172–73
vide Swinburne, The Christian God, p. 173: ‘If G1, inevitably in virtue of his properties throughout some first (beginningless) period of time actively causes G2 to exist, and thereafter permissively causes (i.e., permits) the continued existence of G2; while G2 is such that G1 only exists at each period of time which has a beginning because G2 permits G1 to exist, then both would be metaphysically necessary…The eternal (active and then permissive) bringing about of G2 by G1 would be an act of essence by G1, just as the (permissive) bringing about of G1 by G2 would be an act of essence by G2; and the former would provide a mechanism by which to ensure that there was no conflict of action between them.’
There is no clear criterion for distinguishing ‘theological’ and ‘economic’ contexts. Moreover there appear to be controversial cases. So, for example, the Son’s being ‘seated at the right hand of the Father’ is prima facie a theological context since it appears to ascribe an intra-Trinitarian relation to Father and Son. Given the analysis to be proposed this would have unpalatable results: we should be committed to holding that the Son is seated at the right hand of the Trinity in toto, which includes the Son, who would be, presumably, seated at the right hand of himself. Without worrying this metaphor however it should be apparent from the context in the Nicene Creed that this doctrine is best understood as an economic context since it occurs within a description of Christ’s saving work in the world: ‘He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried, he ascended into heaven and siteth at the right hand of the Father, and he shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead.’
I am grateful to the referee for this suggestion.
Photios (1983). On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. Astoria,: Studion, p. 85
ibid.
The history of the Filioque clause as medieval political football is remarkable and disheartening. Absent from the earliest versions of the Nicene Creed it first showed up in Visigothic Spain at the Third Council of Toledo in 589. Filioque was very much a Western thing. The barbarians who occupied Northern and Western Europe had been Arians until relatively late and Filioque was regarded as a prophylactic against Arianism. Filioque spread from Spain to France and in the 9th century Charlemagne become its champion. Challenging the Pope and his Roman coterie, who did not then recognize Filioque, he assembled his own council of trained theologians, adopted it, and threw it in the Pope’s face. In 809, at a synod in Aachen, Charlemagne approved the addition of Filioque to the Nicene Creed. Pope Leo III retaliated by having the Nicene Creed sans Filioque inscribed in silver tablets so that the earlier version of the creed would be, as it were, set in stone.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Joseph Colombo, Kevin Timpe and Robert Bolger for comments on this paper, to participants at the session at the Pacific Regional Meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers at which an earlier version of this paper was read, and to anonymous referees of this journal.