sonality of the Spirit has its ground in the Father and the Son; for the doctrine of the church is so far from denying this, that it is, on the contrary, wholly based upon it.1

But does it follow from this that the Father alone is absolute, and the other Persons not so? If this be so, then indeed the Father alone is God; for to be absolute, and to be of divine nature, are interchangeable notions. But for this very reason, since it is a definition of the divine nature identical in all three persons, we say that they are all absolute. One thing we should especially guard against, and that is substituting the notion of three divine natures, instead of the true doctrine of the church, of one absolute essence, subsisting in a threefold mode (zоóлos úпúžεws) as begetting, begotten and proceeding; in this case, indeed, only one of them, that which is unbegotten and begets the others, could be considered as absolute. Here, and not in the former view, is Arianism not yet conquered. We may derive an illustration for this from our own personality. I make my own self an object of thought; here is Ias subject and I as object; in the object, now, the I is no less really present than in the subject; and yet this objective I is produced by the subjective; or, here is a personal subject, determining itself to action, to activity in the most general form conceivable; now, in this activity to which this person, this I, determines itself, the person himself, the Iis also present; it is present in the action determined upon, no less really than in the act of determining. Thus we may say, that because all which is the Father's is also the Son's (John 16: 15), because he is the perfect image of his nature (Heb. 1: 3), because he is God of God; so, too, this also is given to the Son by the

1 In the language of the church this is indeed not called inequality, and we may say, justly so; for what is equal in quality, we are not wont, on account of a difference in relations, to call unequal; e. g. two men of like qualities and excellences, we do not call unequal because they may be father and son. But since many persons take offence just here, because they cannot bring into agreement with the assumed equality of the persons their relation as principium and principiatum (as the Scholastics express it); it would perhaps be better, considering that it is not the word but the thing with which we are concerned, in order to set aside this objection, at once to concede a certain inequality, only not of the nature, but in the relation of subsistence. [Conf. Pearson on the Creed, p. 48 seq. Waterland on the Athanasian Creed. Bull. Defens. Fid. Nic. Lect. IV. c. 1. § 1. c. 2. § 1. c. 4. § 1. Also Faber, Apostolicity of Trini. tarianism, Bk. 2. ch. 9.]

2 This is perhaps a better illustration because here the I has in a certain sense an absolute character-an absolute tendency to the absolute, according to Fichte, Sittenlehre, p. 23.

1847.]

Self-existence of the Son.

39

Father, in begetting him, to have life in himself, even as the Father has life in himself (John 5: 26); that is, to him also belongs the absolute and independent existence, which is contained in the very essence of the Godhead. "As the Father," says Anselm,1 "has essence and wisdom and life in himself, exists not by another's, but by his own essence, is wise by his own wisdom, and lives by his own life: so too in begetting the Son, he gives to him to have essence, and wisdom and life in himself, so that not by another's, but by his own essence and wisdom and life, he subsists, is wise and lives; otherwise the Son would not have the same attributes as the Father." Much as Calvin was blamed for calling the Son, considered in his essence, avrovéos, still he was in the right, and moreover is supported in it by Lutheran theologians. In another point of view, that is, considered in his personal subsistence, the Son cannot be called avróεos, but only the Father, since he alone is dyervntos; but the ayevrnoía of the person is not to be confounded with the absoluteness of the essence.3 Or, if one should say that the former is something abso

1 Anselm, monolog. cap. 43.

Calvin, instit. L. I. cp; XIII. § 25: "We say that Deity is absolutely selfexistent; hence we confess that the Son, as far as he is God, independently of the consideration of Person, is self-existent; but so far as he is Son we say that he is of the Father; that his essence is not from any originating principle, but the originating principle of the person is God himself." He brings this out more fully in his polemic upon Valentinus Gentilis. Calvin's view was strongly contested by several Catholic theologians, although Bellarmin blames his expression more than his meaning, (Controvers. de Christo, Lib. II. cp. 19. With all his polemical prejudice and bitterness, Bellarmin is yet so straightforward and upright, that it were much to be wished that the polemics of our days would take him in these respects for a pattern). The Lutheran theologians, too, were not satisfied with Calvin's mode of expression; the Calvinistie formula: Christum esse a se ipso secundum essentiam, a Patre secundum personam, seemed to them to separate essence and person too much, and not to hold sufficiently fast the concrete notion of person as being the essence itself represented under a certain relation; but still they defended the auTODEÓTNS Of Christ against the Catholics as well as other opponents. Conf. Gerhard Loc. de Deo Patre, § 179; Exeges. Loc. IV. de pers. Chr. § 67; Quenstedt de Trin. Lect. II. qu. VII. The latter cites Danhauer's words as almost classical: " "The abrodeórns may be opposed either to dependence or to communication; if to the former, then Christ is abródeos, because he is an entity equally independent with the Father; if to the latter, then he is not avτóvɛos because his es. sence is communicated to him by the Father. The divine essence which is in the Son is from itself (a se), although the Son himself is not from himself, but God from God, light from light."

3 John of Damascus distinguishes in this respect between ἀγένητος and ἀγένToc; using the former word, written with one v, to signify that which is not

lute, and that what is begotten or what proceeds, is, in distinction from this, something relative; yet we are not obliged to give to this terminology any other sense, than we do when we speak of God in his absolute independence, and in his relation to the world, or when we distinguish the absolute and relative attributes of God, by which we do not imply that the latter conflict with the idea that God is an unconditional and infinite being. What Keckermann says! of the notion of the infinite, may be perfectly applied to the notion of the absolute in this connection. He cites the objection: "Person, in God, is either finite or infinite; if finite, then it is not God; if infinite, then there are three infinites, because three persons;" and to this he replies: "Person is to be considered in a twofold way; 1. In respect to the essence, and so it is infinite but is not triple; 2. In respect to the relation, or mode of existence, and so is neither finite nor infinite, because finitude and infinitude are properties of an entity or thing; but a. person, so far as person, that is in respect to the mode of its existence, is not an entity, but the mode of an entity; modes, however, are neither finite nor infinite."

It is also, if not against the letter, yet contrary to the sense of the orthodox doctrine, to exhibit the difference in the relation of the Father and the Son, to the immanent act of generation, or the relation of both these and the Holy Spirit, to the act of procession, as a relation of ability on the one side, and inability on the other, of capacity and incapacity. But when we say that the person, the I, is both the subject and the object of its own thinking and willing, shall we say that this relation implies, that in the one, the I as subject, there is a power, which is wanting in the other, the I as object? Equally unjust would it be, even if we call the relation of the Persons a relation of dependence, (the orthodox doctrine prefers to call it a relation of communication, and it is at any rate wholly different from that relation of dependence in which the world stands to God,) to describe it as a par tial or one-sided relation, in which the Son alone is dependent upon the Father, and to assert that there is no relation of the Father to the Son which can be brought as an equipoise.2 Even according to the letter of the doctrine of the church we should be

created, and the latter, that which is not begotten or produced. The three Persons of the Trinity are ἀγένητοι; the Father only is ἀγέννητος. Vide, his έκδοσις, 1, 9.

1 Syst. theol. L. I. p. 81.

2 Conf. Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre, Th. II. S. 582 of the second edition; 702 of the first.

1847.]

Relations no Proof of Inequality.

41

obliged to say, that just as little as the Son can be conceived of, as Son, without the Father, just so little can the Father be conceived of, as Father, without the Son; the paternity and the sonship, the spiratio activa and the processio presuppose each other.1 If we concede to the speculative view, the value only of a mere illustration, we shall still find it conceivable, that just as we become self-conscious persons only as we view ourselves objectively as well as subjectively (to speak with Leibnitz, as the soul from being merely a passively percipient monad, comes to a clear apprehension); so too in God, the subsistence of the eternal omnipotence, wisdom and love, under the clearly defined relations of generation and procession, is a more perfect view of the Godhead than when we conceive of it as without any such relations, having as its only characteristic that it is unbegotten.2

$7. Character hypostaticus. (2) Notae externae.

Under the external characteristics or notes of the three Persons, we comprise those works, by which they are revealed to the

This is the meaning of Aquinas when he says: Quendam in divinis natu rae ordinem esse, secundum quod ibi quoddam originis principium sit absque prioritate. (P. I. qu. 42. art. 3.) That De Wette unjustly calls this a contradictio in adjecto, is clear from the explanation which Aquinas himself gives of it (in II.): In rebus creatis, etiam cum id, quod est a principio, sit suo principio coaevum secundum durationem, tamen principium est prius secundum naturam et intellectum, si consideretur id quod est principium; sed si considerentur ipsae relationes causae et causati, et principii et principiati, manifestum est quod relativa sunt simul natura et intellectu, in quantum unum est in definitione alterius. Sed in divinis ipsae relationes sunt subsistentes personae in una natura; unde neque ex parte naturae neque ex parte relationum una persona protest esse prior alia, neque etiam secundum naturam et intellectum. The Father, nevertheless, always remains the one, a quo procedit Filius, and the Son the one, qui procedit a Patre: thence is the Father principium originis, although not prius originato or principiato suo.

* Schleiermacher, (Glaubensl. § 171, 5 of the 2d ed.) finds an evidence that this doctrine is treated as though there were an inequality in the three Persons, in the fact, that it is found necessary to prove in so special a manner that the divine attributes and works belong to the Son and the Spirit, while it is taken for granted the Father has all of them. But the aim of these proofs is not to show that the Son and Spirit, considered as the second and third Persons in the Godhead, have these attributes; but to show that he who has redeemed us, and the Spirit who sanctifies us are to be considered not as created but as divine, because divine attributes and works are ascribed to them. And as to the Father himself, such proof lies in all the arguments by which we show that the existence of the world supposes a creator of infinite power, wisdom and love.

world (opera ad extra). The most prominent among them are, the work of creation, which, in accordance with the apostolic creed, together with preservation and providence, is ascribed to the Father; the work of redemption, whose centre is the incarnation, and which is ascribed to the Son; the work of sanctification, which is attributed to the Holy Ghost, and of which we may regard the indwelling of God in believers, that began at the first Christian Pentecost, as the central point. For the religious consciousness, this aspect of the Trinity is the most important; De Wette justly calls it the true basis of the doctrine; yet it is usually kept very much in the back-ground in dogmatical treatises. This disregard of it is to be explained, not only from the position. which is almost universally assigned to our doctrine in systems of theology; but also from certain special difficulties which we encounter in respect to these external notes themselves, when we reflect upon them in connection with other doctrines.

For, the Holy Scriptures do not ascribe creation to the Father only, nor redemption and sanctification to the Son or Spirit alone. It is also said of the Son, that by him all things were created (Col. 1: 16), and that he upholds all things by his powerful word (Heb. 1:3); the name of Saviour (6w7g) by which we are accustomed to reverence Christ, is also given to the Father (1 Tim. 1: 1. 2: 3. 4:10. Tit. 1: 3. 3: 4); the Son himself prays to the Father that he would sanctify his disciples (John 17: 17). In like manner, also, certain individual acts comprised in the total work of redemption and sanctification are ascribed, now to one, and now to another of the divine persons; e. g. it is usually said that the Father raised up Jesus from the dead (Acts 3: 15); but Christ, also, declares that he has power to lay down his life and to take it again (John 10: 18); it is God the Father who judgeth without respect of persons (1 Pet. 1: 17); and yet the judgment is committed to the Son (John 5: 22). When those gifts, offices and powers are spoken of, by which the church is made the temple of the indwelling Spirit (1 Cor. 3: 16); not only is the Holy Spirit named as the author of them, but one Lord and one God are also mentioned, through whom, whatever is demanded for the common good, is imparted to every member (1 Cor. 12: 4-7). In short, there seems to be no divine work from which any one person of the Godhead can be excluded.

And in fact it could not be otherwise if the doctrinal principles, above developed, are correct. For the divine essence, with all the absolute and relative attributes belonging to the idea of it, is not

1 Conf. Bib. Sacra, Aug. 1846, p. 515, note 1.