mysteries of the divine nature, does yet always desire to be assured that there is nothing contradictory or self-destructive in the articles of faith which we receive. Hence arises the neces sity, in the first place, for historical investigations, in order to answer such questions as these; whether the conceptions of Spirit and of the Logos, which were current in the times of Christ and his apostles, and not invented by them, were received in the way of accommodation, or whether they are essential to the Christian system, and what is their Christian significancy, valid for all times in the second place, for philosophical definitions, in order to determine whether those principles designated as the Logos and the Spirit, which are connected with facts or phenomena of the Christian life, be natural or supernatural, created or divine, personal or impersonal; and what is their relation to one another, to the divine nature, and to their revelation in time? If, now, we are convinced that the three positions from which we started' are actually contained in the Scripture; that is, that no view of the subject is Christian and Scriptural, which, either does not see anything truly divine in Christ or in the Spirit who dwells in believers; or, does not truly distinguish the one from the other, and both from the divinity of the Father; or, which would set aside the unity of the divine nature; and if we find it necessary in expressing all this, to employ conceptions and formulas, by which the errors may be avoided, and the truths maintained; then, we say, that the results of such investigations, though they may be given in a terminology not contained in the Scriptures, cannot be said to be opposed to the doctrine of the Bible. It is the doctrine of the Bible itself, philosophically illustrated and defined; and, though it may be best in popular instruction to abide by the biblical mode of presenting the doctrine, yet the philosophical mode will still be a regulative and corrective for any untenable and erroneous notions, which might be connected with the former. The connection of such investigations, with our religious and Christian experience is indeed more indirect than direct. A false standard is applied, when it is asked how far these conceptions and theorems, these termini and formulas are valuable as an expression of Christian views and feelings. In their indirect relations, as precautions for preserving the purity of Christian experience, and the correctness of its transference into the form of intellectual apprehension, from all disfigurement, error and misunderstanding, they might, nevertheless, be of the greatest impor 1 Bib. Sacra, No. XI. p. 507-8. 1847.] Reasons for a Change from the Biblical Form. 59 tance, and, under some circumstances, indispensable. In itself considered, for example, faith, in order to see in Christ the divine ground of our redemption, would need no other expression than that which the Scriptures give, when they call Christ the Son of God, or the Word manifest in the flesh. If, however, any one should advance the notion that this was to be understood only as the designation of a divinely exalted man, or of a Spirit, elevated indeed above all things, yet created; by the doctrine of the Consubstantiality he would have to be reminded, that even the highest of created beings could not be a partaker of such a union with God as that upon which our redemption rests; but only a being who from all eternity was, not created, but begotten, by the Father (God of God), and who, in the fulness of time, became man. And although the doctrine in this form is not contained in the Scripture, yet it is not foreign to the Scripture, but the doctrine of the Bible philosophically defined; nor can it be regarded as antiquated so long as there is danger of such a misunderstanding. That this is in point of fact the true connection of the doctrine of the Trinity, as held by the church, with the biblical doctrine, may, we believe, be shown, with all the historical and exegetical evidence, which in such a case is possible. This is the position of our older divines, and must, we think, be conceded by all who are agreed with them in principle; that is, who believe firmly in the absolute truth of the Scriptural declarations, and in the necessity and reality of a redemption and atonement, effected and applied only by God. We believe it to be true, that if we follow the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in a historical and genetic manner, that the antagonisms and points of contest, which must come up and be discussed, one after another, could not be These do indeed believe that they can prove the ecclesiastical formulas more directly from the Scriptures, not only of the New, but even of the Old Testament, than we find to be possible. For in the latter, only through the mediation of the N. Testament, can we find the germs; and, even in the N. Testament, it will be hard to find the form of the doctrine of the Trinity as it is received in the church, in any other way than as we interpret it in view of the elements of its historical development, and of the conflicts through which it passed; for even the questions to which we seek an answer in the Scriptures, are, for the most part, given to us only in subsequent history. Yet even our older divines concede that the termini introduced into the church (without which, however, the doctrine itself cannot be maintained), are derived only by inference from the Scripture, in order to set aside erroneous conceptions; and that, outside of the theological sphere, the truth can and should be communicated only in the words of the Bible. Conf. Hollaz de Trin. myster. qu. II. et LVIL otherwise adjusted or decided than they have been, in order to be in accordance with the results of a true interpretation of Scripture, as guided by a vital Christian experience; consequently, that the dogma itself could not take any other form than that it has taken. It will be enough here to call to mind the general outlines of its history. In the primitive church we find a simple and untroubled agreement with what the Scriptures declare respecting the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. And when the reflections of the early Christians were specially directed to the subject, as was the case, partly from inward necessity, and partly for apologetic and polemic reasons, in order to guard against the opinions of the Gnostics and Ebionites, or to remove all suspicion of an approximation to heathen notions; they connect all their speculations with that germ of a Christian philosophy (roots), which is given us in Scripture in the doctrine of the Logos. Since the distinction between the Son and the Father seemed clear, as long as they remained upon biblical grounds, the chief problem with which they were first concerned was to show the unity of the Father and the Son; and this, too, did not seem to be of difficult solution, whether they took their departure from the notion of the close union and agreement, that is, of the equality or, at least, similarity of the Son with the Father, or from the conception of his dependence from him, that is, of his emanation or procession; both of which are contained in the idea of the creative wisdom (cogía), or of the reason (vous), which is the medium of the divine revelation. But, since these two points were not kept distinctly separate, they did not, on the one hand, arrive at the conception of the identity of the nature, while, on the other hand, they were in danger of disregarding the difference of subsistence; hence the fluctuations between Subordinationism and a Unitarian Monarchianism, which were the two co-existent forms, the one the complement of the other, in which this truth found its imperfect expression in the first centuries. It was, however, Monarchianism which was first condemned by the church, since it stood in contradiction with the Holy Scriptures; in the form in which some held it (Theodotus, Artemon, Paul of Samosata), by its approximation to the heresy of the Ebionites, which denies the divine in Christ; in the form in which others held it (Praxeas, Noctus, Sabellius), by the denial of the pre-existence of the Logos, as a truly subsisting περιγραφὴ τῆς θείας ουσίας, even independently of its manifestation in the world. The Subordination 1847.] The Development of the Doctrine. 61 theory, however, was itself necessarily soon condemned, when, after being freed from the restraint which Monarchianism had hitherto exercised, and not merely encouraged, but apparently justified in the most decided opposition to it, it was hurried forward, in the form of Arianism, to an extreme, more at variance than even the other, with the Scriptures, and with Christian experience, by declaring that the Logos is only the first of creatures. Many, (as the Eusebians and other so-called Semi-Arians,) did indeed now at first attempt to hold fast to the more ancient scheme of Subordination; but this was impossible, now that the earlier simple and undoubting faith was lost, and that the opposing views, which were at first limited and restrained by one another, had become freely developed, and were seen in their mutual opposition. The discussions upon this doctrine could be brought to a close, only by seeing and declaring, that both the elements, the equality and the subordination, had equal rights, and were compatible with one another; the former being defined as consisting in the unity of essence, which does not exclude a difference of subsistence; and the latter, in the order of subsistence of the persons, which does not exclude their consubstantiality. This was the result of the conflicts of the fourth century, and it left to the following ages nothing to be done, excepting to give the doctrine that more definite form, in respect to the mode of expressing and establishing it, and of stating the consequences flowing from it, which has passed over into dogmatic systems since the times of John of Damascus. Along with this, however, we do indeed find a constantly increasing divergence (e. g. in the Athanasian creed more than in the Constantinopolitan,) from the biblical doctrine, not merely in the mode of expression, but also in the type; since the Scriptures have an appearance of favoring Subordination, while the doctrine of the church receded from this more and more. Yet this involved no contradiction, but was only a change in the point of view, brought about by the course which constant reflection upon the subject would necessarily take. The Holy Scriptures, when they speak of the Son of God, direct our gaze chiefly to the Incarnate Word, the man Christ Jesus, who is indeed, although, or we may even say, because, the Word was manifest in him, absolutely subordinate and subject to the Father; and, in contrast with this, they bring before our eyes the essence of God, as seen in its majesty and glory in the Father. The doctrine of Baumgarten-Crusius, Dogmengeschichte, S. 1016. § 40. 6 the church must answer the query, what we are to think of the Logos, that was united with Jesus, when viewed by itself and apart from this union; what is its personality in its eternal relation to the Father and to the nature of God? And if this were a question which could not be passed by, neither could those distinctions which are necessary to answering it, e. g. of the Person of the Father from the divine essence; nor those propositions which the nature of the case demands, as that the Son has the same essence with the Father, in spite of the difference in the ordo subsistendi et agendi. But still it must be granted, that the church doctrine, even in what pertains to the mode of presenting it, has attached itself closely to the Scriptural statements; thus, for example, it has not allowed itself to separate the idea of the divine nature from the conception of the first person;1 on the contrary, in the language of the church, as well as of the Scriptures, the name of the Father is usually employed to designate both the nature and the person (οὐσιωδῶς and υποστατικώς). With so much the more assurance, then, may it be maintained, that if it were possible wholly to forget the church doctrine of the Trinity, and to go back to an earlier stage in its development, or even to the simple statements of the Bible; still, when we came to reflect closely upon the doctrine, we should be carried forward by the inward necessity of the case, through essentially the same conflicts, to the same results. This is confirmed by the mode in which the Reformers treated In fact there was a strong temptation to do this in the general tendencies of the church doctrine. That is, the unity may, so to speak, be construed with the threeness in one of two ways; either by finding it in the idea of the one identical essence in the three persons, or by finding it in the Father considered as the principium divinitatis, from whom the Son was begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeded; the second of these modes would be nearest to the Subordi. nation system, which holds that the Father is the one true God who has revealed himself in the Son and the Holy Ghost. Hence, it would have been very nat ural for the orthodox doctrine, after it had freed itself from Subordinationism, to have decidedly attached itself to that other mode of constructing the doctrine, and, consequently, to have subordinated the idea of the Father, as well as of the Son and the Holy Spirit to the idea of the one true God (after the analogy of the relation of specific to generic notions); and thus, at the same time, to have avoided the reproach of being illogical in making the Son and the Holy Spirit both equal with and subordinate to the Father. A certain tendency "to this separation of the Father's name from the Monas," (as Baumgarten-Crusius calls it, Dogmengesch. S. 1028,) is apparent in many representations of the doctrine of the church; but it has never been able to gain exclusive authority, and that because the Scriptures stand in the way. |