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Q: The following website (address supplied) confused me about the identity of God, the Trinity in particular. Can you help?
~ Steve
Dear Steve:
In the time available it was only possible to check out briefly the website you mentioned. The section titled 'Who is God?' seems to accept the divinity of Christ, and even the oneness of God, but challenges certain other aspects of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The writer, in fact, resurrects a 3rd century heresy known as 'Modalism', which questioned whether the divine persons are really distinct from one another. Rather than discuss the entire doctrine, we will concentrate on belief in the Trinity as three distinct persons.
The doctrine of the Trinity - that is, the existence of three distinct divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one God - is regarded as a central doctrine of the Catholic faith. Indeed, down through the centuries this doctrine has also been central to most other Christian religions, though in the last century some aspects of the Trinity became questioned and then rejected by certain of our Protestant brothers and sisters, in particular some small anti-Trinitarian Pentecostal groups.
There are many instances in Sacred Scripture which make clear that the members of the Trinity are distinct persons, such as when Jesus speaks to his Father:
"Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your son may glorify you; and, through the power that you have given him, let him give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him. And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth and finished the work that you gave me to do." (John 17:1-4)
That the persons are distinct is made evident again when Jesus, the Son, tells the apostles that he will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to be with them until the end of time:
"I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you." (John 14: 15-17)
Again, in Peter's address to the crowds after Pentecost, there is a clear reference to the Trinity as distinct and separate persons:
"God raised this man Jesus to life, and all of us are witnesses to that. Now raised to the heights by God's right hand, he has received from the Father the Holy Spirit, who was promised, and what you see and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit." (Acts 2: 32-33)
Catholic belief in the Trinity as three distinct persons, however, does not rely on Sacred Scripture alone, but is also based on what Catholics refer to as Sacred Tradition. When, as Catholics, we speak of Sacred Tradition, we mean:
"What was handed on by the apostles...everything which contributes to the holiness of life, and the increase in faith of the people of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is and all that she believes." (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation)
As Catholics, we believe that St. Peter and the apostles, and subsequently all the bishops of our Church, received special teaching authority from Christ himself, which the bishops continue to exercise today under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and in communion with the successor of St. Peter, Pope Benedict XVI. This teaching authority is known as the Magisterium of the Church. Catholics believe that the magisterium is the authentic interpreter, not only of Sacred Scripture, but of Sacred Tradition.
In examining a mystery, then, such as the Blessed Trinity, the Catholic Church, as has been said, does not rely solely on the evidence from Sacred Scripture. Catholics look, in addition, to the Church's constant teaching on the Trinity, as evidenced in the liturgy and the creeds, in the writings of the early Fathers - men of outstanding learning and sanctity such as St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome - and in the decisions of twenty-one Ecumenical Councils over the Church's 2000 year history.
From the earliest times, the Church used the baptismal formula prescribed by Jesus himself, and baptized "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28: 19-20) Over the years, however, a number of heresies arose in regard to the Trinity, some relating to the divinity of Christ (see our website answer to Stephanie's question on Christ's divinity), others to the relationship and equality of the divine persons, and others to the distinct identity of the divine persons. As early as the year 260, for example, Pope St. Dionysius was condemning the Sabellian heresy, a form of Modalism, which argued, in a fashion somewhat similar to that used in your referenced website, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were not distinct persons but simply different modes of being. "For he blasphemes," Dionysius wrote of Sabellius, "in saying that the Son Himself is the Father." Later, in the year 675, the Council of Toledo issued a Confession of Faith which sought to show how the divine persons are distinct from one another:
"For He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son He who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit He who is the Father or the Son, even though the Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, that is one God by nature."
Perhaps the best summary of Church teaching on the matter is provided by St. Augustine:
"All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father hath begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity." ('On The Trinity', 4th century A.D.)
The doctrine of the Trinity is not easy for us to understand, especially on our own, and so it is of great benefit to us that we can draw on the great treasury of the Church's writings and teachings over the centuries. Sometimes churches today appear to be speaking with many different voices on many different subjects, resulting in a lack of direction and some confusion among the faithful. As Catholics, we feel most blessed in these matters to have the guidance of the Church's living magisterium, which has the task of preserving "God's people from deviations and defections and (guaranteeing) them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error." (Catechism: 890)
God bless,
Father Norbert