Sunday, January 9, 2022

Matthew Barrett on the Importance of (Absolute Divine) Simplicity to Latin/Creedal Models of the Trinity

  

Tritheism. Simplicity also has a way of avoiding tritheism. As both Aquinas and Anselm explain, just because “there are three having divinity” does not mean there are “three Gods” (Aquinas, Summa 1a.39.3). The one divine essence is not multiplied three times: that is triplicity (Aquinas, Summa 1q.31.1; Turretin, Institutes, 255). Triplicity leads to tritheism, because “If God is composed of three things, either there is no simple substance, or there is another substance that surpasses the substance of God in something” (Anselm, On the Incarnation of the Word 4). Three things, three parts, would compromise the one, simple essence of God (Gill, Body of Divinity, 128).

 

However, triplicity is not the same thing as Trinity. Triplicity divides the essence of God by making each person an individual agent. But the Great Tradition avoids this pitfall by stressing that the one, simple essence has three modes of subsistence. Rather than merely saying God is three persons, we can be more specific: the one, undivided essence wholly subsists in three persons, each person a subsistence of the same, simple essence. Listen to what John Gill says: “There is but oe divine essence, undivided, and common to Father, Son, and Spirit, and in this sense but one God; since there is but one essence, though there are different modes of subsisting in it which are called persons; and these possess the whole essence undivided” (Gill, Body of Divinity, 128). While simplicity precludes parts, it does not preclude eternal relations or personal properties. For these relations do not undermine the oneness of God, but undergird such unity.

 

How so?

 

The eternal relations of origin—the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Spirit spirited—not only distinguish the persons, but these relations also guarantee the persons are subsistences of the same divine essence. The divine essence is communicated from the Father to the Son and from the Father and the Son to the Spirit. For example, consider eternal generation. The Son is begotten from the Father’s essence, or as the church fathers so often said, from the Father’s ousia. Later theologians picked up on this point too. Francis Turretin wrote, “By generation the divine essence is communicated to the begotten, not that it may exist, but subsist” (Turretin, Institutes, 301). So, whenever we stress the relations to that which alone is distinguish the persons, we must not forget these same relations preserve the simplicity of the essence. (Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2021], 146, 148, italics in original)

 

Social trinitarianism. If simplicity guards against tritheism, then so too does it protect us from social trinitarianism. If God is one in essence, then he is without a doubt in will. “The Father, Son, and Spirit,” says John Owen, “have not distinct wills. They are one God, and God’s will is one, as being an essential property of his nature” (Owen, Works 19:87 [cf. 9:87-88; 12:497]). This is essential to orthodox trinitarianism, a key pillar that protects the Trinity from heresy as well as Trinity drift.

 

However, many forms of social trinitarianism reject this belief and instead teach that there are three centers of consciousness and therefore three wills in the Godhead. Social trinitarianism places emphasis on the persons as a community, as a society, each person having his own will that is not only distinct but different from the wills of the other persons . . . This is a mistake of colossal proportions. Despite protests to the contrary, social trinitarianism has all the ingredients of tritheism. For where there are three wills there are three separate centers of consciousness, and where there are three separate centers of consciousness there are three separate gods. In this view, God no longer acts as one because he is one (inseparable operations), but he acts as one because the three wills of the three persons merely cooperate with one another. . . . only one will can explain how the external works of our triune God remains indivisible. . . .  “God is one, therefore the power and operation of all the Persons are one and undivided; and each Person is the immediate and perfect cause of the whole work” (Witsius, Exercitationes, 6.2, quoted in Muller, PRRD, 4:258).

 

To conclude, true unity is not a mere unity of will(s) (this is what the Arians argued), but there must be a unity in being (the Great Tradition) (E.g., Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.14). The persons act as one because they are one—one in essence and therefore one in will. “for there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one authority, one and the same. I repeat, not three resembling each other,” says John of Damascus. “But the three subsistences have one and the same movement. For each one of them is related closely to the other as to itself: that is to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects, save those of not being begotten, of birth and of procession” (John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 8 [NPNF2 9:10]).

 

What, then, distinguishes the persons if not different wills? . . . the persons are identical in all things except their eternal relations of origin (personal properties): paternity, filiation, spiration. These and these alone distinguish the persons. Anything more, anything ese, and the unity of our triuine God is divided; divine simplicity is compromised. God is no longer simply Trinity. (Ibid., 149-50, emphasis in italics in original, emphasis in bold added)