The Trinity - explicit in the Liturgy?

[Mary Ward]

Dear All,
Possibly this thread should be elsewhere, and I ask forgiveness of the moderator for not continuing my search for the proper thread. I'm sure you will place it where it should be. Thank you.

My question is related to a paper I heard presented by Fr. John Behr of St. Vladimir's Seminary at a conference on St. Augustine at Fordham University last month in New York, NY. He made a statement to the effect that the Trinity was not explicitly referred to in the liturgy, therefore, the language of Trinity was an innovation or development in later (post-Nicaean) Patristic literature. I analyzed the St. John Chrystosom liturgy in Greek and found approximately 10 places where Triada was either prayed to or sung to in relationship to the Son and the Holy Spirit and only one place where the Father was emphasized. Behr's overarching point was that the Orthodox pray to the Father first and then to the Son and HS--a monarchy of the Father in a sense as opposed to a western concept of Father and Son in a "filioque" relationship.

Fr. Behr is a brilliant theologian, but I am quite puzzled by this statement. I discussed this with two Greek Orthodox who agreed with Behr, but I was certain that I had heard the Greek word for Trinity a few times in the liturgy. I then did a search for Triada in the liturgy and found it. Is it possible that the OCA liturgy which is Russian based does not have the Trinity referenced?

If anyone else attended the conference, maybe you can correct my recollection.

[Kosta]

Dear Mary,

It doesnt surprise me. A great many 'so-called' Orthodox theologians are liberal and have openly taught heresy. This is one of those occasions. It also doesnt surprise me that it came from a professor of St. Vlad's.

The Triune God in fact can be found "liturgically" even before the existence of the Divine Liturgy.
While there are few mentions of the Trinity in the New Testament or the deity of Christ, when it is mentioned, its in the form of liturgical use.

I believe (if i remember correctly) its in the book "Becoming Orthodox" that says before the Trinity became a dogma it was an experience. Another words the Trinity was experienced by the early christians thru their worship.

The great New Testament biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown points this out in his book "An Introduction to New Testament Christology". And goes into detail about various verses on this subject

For instance in the NT verses which declare Christ as God, usually are in the form of either a first century christian hymn or creed. Paul quotes already existing hymns in his epistles which the christians were familiar with.

These include:

1. The pre-pauline hymn on the pre-existance & incarnation of Christ: Phil 2.6-11

2. Hymn on the relationship between Christ and God: Colossians 1.15-20

3. A Psalm on the divine Christ sung by early christians- Heb 1.8

There are about 8 instances in the NT where Christ is called God, Four of those are doxologies: -Titus 2.13, 1John 5.20, Rom 9.5, 2 Pet 1.1,
There is also recorded in the NT an ancient christian creed affirming the divinity and incarnation- 1Tim 3.16


The Trinitarian formula of 2 Cor 13.14 is a benediction.
There Trinitarian formula of Jude 20-21 is also a benediction.

Theres also the Trnitarian Formula for baptism found in Matt 28.19 and in the didache, what does this theologian make of this?

[Michael Stickles]

Is it possible that the OCA liturgy which is Russian based does not have the Trinity referenced?

My wife and I have two books containing liturgies. The first one is the St. John Chrysostom liturgy (which is actually used at the OCA church where I attend Vespers). You already know about this one, so I'll skip it.

The other is a copy of the Great Vespers Service (compiled by Rev. Igor Soroka) which my wife got from an OCA monastery; this may be a "Russian-based" liturgy, but I'm really not sure. I only scanned the first 20 (of 124) pages, but found the word "Trinity" used twice in prayers, with neither place emphasizing the Father over the Son and the Holy Spirit. Of course, the trinitarian formula ("of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit") appears numerous times.

I can't help beyond that, as I really don't know anything about Fr. John Behr, and the only online source I found who had been at the conference said he missed almost all of that talk.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

Kosta's charges of heresy, made in utter ignorance of the situation and the person involved, notwithstanding, I would urge people to consider a bit more thoughtfully before reacting.

I do not know the specifics of Fr John's remarks at the conference. But knowing his thought to the extent that I do, I imagine his point was not that the Trinity is not mentioned in the Liturgy (because clearly it is, and he knows that as well as anyone else), but that the instances of the term 'Trinity' in the Divine Liturgy do not refer to the Trinity as a uni-substantive 'thing' - i.e. not as a 'Triune God', to use the language of another context. I imagine his point was rather along the lines that Trinity in the Liturgy refers to the intercommunion of Father, Son and Spirit, and not to a manner of oneness-in-threeness substance independent from that community of three personal beings. And such is the case, from the text. Here are the most forward clear references to the Trinity in the Liturgy:
From the opening prayers: "All-holy Trinity, have mercy on us: O Lord, cleanse us from our sins. O Master, pardon our transgressions. O Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities, for thy Name's sake."
At the end of the second antiphon: "Only-begotten Son and Word of God, who, being immortal, didst accept for our salvation to be made flesh from the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, and without change becamest man; and wast crucified, O Christ our God, trampling down death by death; O thou who art one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit: Save us."
At the great entrance, the 'Cherubic Hymn': "We who in a mystery represent the cherubim, and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity, let us now lay aside every care of this life." (This is also said in the prayers of the clergy.)
Before the creed: "Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Trinity, one in essence and undivided."
During the anaphora: "It is meet and right to worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity, one in essence and undivided."
After receiving the holy gifts: "We have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith, worshipping the undivided Trinity; for the Trinity has saved us."The language of the Trinity in the Divine Liturgy is not of a quasi-substantive 'oneness-in-threeness-thing', not a 'Triune God' (which is a later term from another context, and one that interestingly cannot even be said in Greek), but an authentic communion of God the Father with his consubstantial Son and the Holy Spirit. The Liturgy speaks of the Trinity after the same manner as St Andrew of Crete, who wrote, as one of the recurring hymns to the Trinity in his Great Canon:
"Let us glorify the Father, exalt the Son, and faithfully worship the Divine Spirit, inseparable Trinity, Unity in essence, as the Light and Lights, the Life and Lives, giving life and light to the ends of the earth."
This is the kind of point Fr John often makes in his talks and writings: that the kind of perception people often have of what 'Trinity' means is inauthentic to the genuine presentation of God as Trinity in the fathers, as well as in the liturgical texts.

INXC, Matthew

[Kornelius]

Dear All,
Possibly this thread should be elsewhere, and I ask forgiveness of the moderator for not continuing my search for the proper thread. I'm sure you will place it where it should be. Thank you.

My question is related to a paper I heard presented by Fr. John Behr of St. Vladimir's Seminary at a conference on St. Augustine at Fordham University last month in New York, NY. He made a statement to the effect that the Trinity was not explicitly referred to in the liturgy, therefore, the language of Trinity was an innovation or development in later (post-Nicaean) Patristic literature. I analyzed the St. John Chrystosom liturgy in Greek and found approximately 10 places where Triada was either prayed to or sung to in relationship to the Son and the Holy Spirit and only one place where the Father was emphasized. Behr's overarching point was that the Orthodox pray to the Father first and then to the Son and HS--a monarchy of the Father in a sense as opposed to a western concept of Father and Son in a "filioque" relationship.

Fr. Behr is a brilliant theologian, but I am quite puzzled by this statement. I discussed this with two Greek Orthodox who agreed with Behr, but I was certain that I had heard the Greek word for Trinity a few times in the liturgy. I then did a search for Triada in the liturgy and found it. Is it possible that the OCA liturgy which is Russian based does not have the Trinity referenced?

If anyone else attended the conference, maybe you can correct my recollection.


Mary,

Perhaps a few enlightening thoughts from Zizioulas' Being as Communion would help.

Among the Greek Fathers "the unity of God, the One God, and the ontological 'principle' or 'cause' of the being and life of God does not consist in the one substance of God but in the hypostasis, that is, the person of the Father. The one God is not the one substance but the Father, who is the 'cause' both of the generation of the Son and of the procession of the Spirit. The problem of the Filioque is linked directly with this theme. The West, as the study of the Trinitarian theology of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas witnesses, had no difficulty in maintaining the filioque precisely because it identified the being, the ontological principle, of God with His substance rather than with the person of the Father."

In other words, the Greek Fathers different from Augustine and Thomas Aquinas stated that "If God exists, He exists because the Father exists, that is, He who out of love freely begets the Son and brings forth the Spirit. Thus God as person - as the hypostasis of the Father - makes the one divine substance to be that which it is: the one God. This point is absolutely crucial. For it is precisely with this point that the new philosophical position of the Cappadocian Fathers, and of St. Basil in particular, is directly connected. That is to say, the substance never exist in a 'naked' state, that is, without hypostasis, without 'a mode of existence'."

The last statement from St. Basil perhaps would help you understand that the many references to the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity in the Divine Liturgy are indeed simultaneously references to the One Substance, to the One God.

Again, to clarify it even further, "Outside the Trinity there is no God, that is, no divine substance, because the ontological 'principle' of God is the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His substance, makes it hypostases. The being of God is identified with the person. The basic ontological position of the Greek Fathers might be set out briefly as follows. No substance or nature exist without person or hypostasis or mode of existence. No person exists without substance or nature, but the ontological 'principle' or 'cause' of being - i.e., that which makes a thing exist - is not the substance or nature but the person or hypostasis. Therefore being is traced back not to the substance but to the person.

Why is the emphasis on the hypostases of God not some abstract irrelevant oratory but significantly important and relevant to us? Because it the key to soteriology. Christ, the Son of God, one of the hypostases of the Holy Trinity, possesses a hypostatic union of two natures, the divine and the human. "Thanks to Christ man can henceforth himself 'subsist,' can affirm his existence as personal not on the basis of the immutable laws of his nature, but on the basis of a relationship with God which is identified with what Christ in freedom and love possesses as Son of God with the Father. This adoption of man by God, the identification of his hypostasis with the hypostasis of the Son of God, is the essence of baptism."

[Mary Ward]

Dear Matthew,
You have pointed out my misunderstanding. Fr. Behr used the word "Triune God" and not Trinity in relationship to the liturgy. In my mind and also the minds of the two people with whom I discussed this, Trinity and Triune God are one and the same, which confirms Fr. Behr’s point exactly. These kinds of distinctions are not made by many people, as you point out: “that the kind of perception people often have of what 'Trinity' means is inauthentic to the genuine presentation of God as Trinity in the fathers, as well as in the liturgical texts.”

I will be frank and admit that I do not pretend to understand the distinction at this moment. So, out of my ignorance, I will attempt to ask this question: Is the language of “a quasi-substantive 'oneness-in-threeness-thing', which you relate to the term 'Triune God' a degradation of understanding of the Trinity as less than substantive? Or is your language of “oneness-in-threeness-thing” pointing to an imprecision of thought about the Trinity that has evolved? I’m not sure if the ambiguity is in the explanation or in the incorrect thinking of the Trinity to which you are pointing.

Of course, I was not in any way implying that Fr. Behr is heretical; neither do I have the bias that St. Vladimir’s is a tainted or heretical institution, but I am aware of the sentiment "abroad in the land." Fr. Behr was not only not denying the Trinitarian evidence in scripture, etc., but was arguing against the Western “double procession” as it is referred to in Orthodox writing (HS processing from the Father and the Son). He is in the middle of writing an (orthodox) Orthodox intellectual history of patristic thought in several volumes. They are a thick read, to say the least.

[Kornelius]

I will be frank and admit that I do not pretend to understand the distinction at this moment. So, out of my ignorance, I will attempt to ask this question: Is the language of “a quasi-substantive 'oneness-in-threeness-thing', which you relate to the term 'Triune God' a degradation of understanding of the Trinity as less than substantive? Or is your language of “oneness-in-threeness-thing” pointing to an imprecision of thought about the Trinity that has evolved? I’m not sure if the ambiguity is in the explanation or in the incorrect thinking of the Trinity to which you are pointing.

Mary,

You may find the answer to your questions at my previous post#5.

[Mary Ward]

Mary,

You may find the answer to your questions at my previous post#5.
Dear Kornelius,
Yes, I saw your response #5 after I posted my last response. I have printed it out and will give it a close read. Thanks.

Mary

[Andrew]

That is a very good point... so, is the name Trinity more of a description of the communion of the Three Persons? So a more Franco-Latin way of saying it would be, "God is the Trinity, who consists of Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," whereas the Church would say that "God is Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, consubstantial and united as Trinity."

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Andrew, you wrote:


so, is the name Trinity more of a description of the communion of the Three Persons? So a more Franco-Latin way of saying it would be, "God is the Trinity, who consists of Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," whereas the Church would say that "God is Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, consubstantial and united as Trinity."

I think this is certainly on the right track. Speaking of the Trinity as a 'thing' is the intrinsic danger - and a reasonable, comprehensible one, given that we are prone to want always to explain unity as equivalent to monad, which is the classic challenge of trinitarian expression. The Trinity is not a monad, it is a communion of Father, Son and Spirit. So speaking of the Trinity as 'consisting' of anything, is already a move away from this language of Trinity as communion, into the realm of Trinity as entity, of which Father, Son and Spirit are 'parts' or 'members', etc. I imagine the point that Fr John was making is that the fathers of the Church, much less the liturgical texts of the Church, don't speak in this way - and hence neither ought we.

INXC, Matthew

[Andreas Moran]

What, then, do we mean when we pray, 'All-Holy Trinity have mercy upon us'? Are we really asking all three Persons to have mercy upon us, even though the words following are petitions to each Person in turn?
When we pray to 'God', as in 'O God be merciful unto me', are we praying to all Persons of the Trinity?
In the Great Entrance, what is meant by 'May the Lord God remember in his Kingdom . . . '? All three Persons?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Andreas, you wrote:


What, then, do we mean when we pray, 'All-Holy Trinity have mercy upon us'? Are we really asking all three Persons to have mercy upon us, even though the words following are petitions to each Person in turn?

This is an interesting example, really. The prayer from the opening prayers reads:
'All-holy Trinity, have mercy on us: O Lord, cleanse us from our sins. O Master, pardon our transgression. O Holy One, visit and heal our iniquities, for Thy Name's sake.'
The Trinity is precisely this community of three persons, addressed as one God, the communion of the three. The Trinity is not a 'thing' subsistent of its own independent reality (which would disclose it as a fourth hypostasis; or, equally as wrongly, a subsistance of the divine ousia independent from the three persons). It is the ontological reality of 'Lord... Master... and Holy One.'


When we pray to 'God', as in 'O God be merciful unto me', are we praying to all Persons of the Trinity?As St Gregory of Nyssa put it, the name God is the name equally and at one-and-the-same time of all the persons of the Trinity, as it describes the personal actions common to Father, Son and Spirit. When we pray to 'God', we are thus praying to each of the persons uniquely, but also the three in their singular communion as Trinity - consubstantially the one divine nature.


In the Great Entrance, what is meant by 'May the Lord God remember in his Kingdom . . . '? All three Persons?This particular invocation seems to be a clear liturgical reference to the prayer of the good thief on the cross, and as such its reference is first and foremost to Christ, the incarnate and sacrificial Son. But, of course, the Son's Kingdom is that of the Father, brought about through the Spirit; so the prayer for remembrance in this Kingdom is a prayer to the Son as 'one of the Holy Trinity', as the prayer following the second antiphon at the Liturgy puts it.

INXC, Matthew

[Andreas Moran]

Dear Matthew,

Many thanks for that - very helpful.

[Paul Cowan]

The Trinity is precisely this community of three persons, addressed as one God, the communion of the three.

I had an opportunity this past week to talk to a protestant and an LDS Bishop about the Trinity. The protestant just held to the position of 'its a mystery, just accept it.' Explaining the Trinity to the LDS Bishop was more challenging as his faith sees the Trinity as 3 gods.

Same word, different definition. I seemed in the end at a loss as to how to try to explain 3 in 1. 1 God 3 persons. All the same yet each differnet.

Do we have a pat answer to give to this definition?

Paul

[Owen Jones]

This has been the best discussion of the Trinity I have ever seen. Please keep it going!!!!

[Kosta]

I had an opportunity this past week to talk to a protestant and an LDS Bishop about the Trinity. The protestant just held to the position of 'its a mystery, just accept it.' Explaining the Trinity to the LDS Bishop was more challenging as his faith sees the Trinity as 3 gods.

Same word, different definition. I seemed in the end at a loss as to how to try to explain 3 in 1. 1 God 3 persons. All the same yet each differnet.

Do we have a pat answer to give to this definition?

Paul

The 3 in 1 concept while popular, i find theologically faulty. In Orthodoxy, God the Father is the source and origins of both the Son and the Spirit. The Father is "the one" and the other two hypostasis originate in Him. I believe it is in the paschal prayer of the Anastasis read by the JP in the tomb which says (Christ) The originate of the unorginate (the Father).

As the creed reads: We believe in One God the Father the Almighty....
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, LIGHT OF LIGHT...
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of Life, who PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER.


I personally see this revelation of the triune God in many places. Man is made in the image and likeness of God, who is trinity. Mind, Body and Soul. (1 Thess 5.23)

I see the revelation of the triune God in the human family. Where Scripture says "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. The human family consists of a father, mother, and their children.


I see this revelation in science. The tiniest element known as the atom. It consists of protons, neutrons and electrons. Yet these are only of value when undivided, you cant have a half atom of gold, or a "quark" of gold.(cf. romans 1.20)

[Nina]

Paul,

As Kosta says we are created in the image of the Holy Trinity as it is stated in the Bible. Also a beautiful quote that was intended for here, but was posted at another thread first because of its relevance:



May your entire soul cleave with love to the meaning of the prayer, so that your nous, your inner voice, and your will---these three components of your soul---become one, and the one become three; for in this way man, who is an image of the Holy Trinity, comes into contact with and is united to the prototype. As the great worker and teacher of noetic prayer, the divine Gregory Palamas of Thessalonica said, "When the oneness of the nous becomes threefold, yet remains single, then it is united with the divine Triadic Unity, and it closes the door to every form of delusion and is raised above the flesh, the world, and the prince of the world." (The Philokalia, vol.IV, p.343) Elder Ephraim - Counsels from the Holy Mountain.

In addition you may read about the miracle Saint Spyridon performed in the Ecumenical Council - which in my opinion is a great example. Saint Spyridon squeezed a brick and the three different components that were used to prepare it came out - but they were one in the brick.

Also Saint Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity. In humility we have to admit that this is a subject where our logic fails us and for an understanding we need not only God's grace and His gift, but also an opened heart and humble soul. Without those we can not grasp, or comprehend a bit the Infinite, Who IS our God. Also Fathers say that not only now, but also in the next life we will not be able to fully comprehend God because we are His Creation and He Is Uncreated.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Paul, you wrote:
I had an opportunity this past week to talk to a protestant and an LDS Bishop about the Trinity. The protestant just held to the position of 'its a mystery, just accept it.' Explaining the Trinity to the LDS Bishop was more challenging as his faith sees the Trinity as 3 gods.

Same word, different definition. I seemed in the end at a loss as to how to try to explain 3 in 1. 1 God 3 persons. All the same yet each differnet.

Do we have a pat answer to give to this definition?

Part of the response must be to challenge the very way we think about what makes God 'one', given that we know God to be three as Father with his Son and Spirit. The normal tendency, to a preserve a 'monotheism', is to somehow attempt a logical contortionist's act: trying to validate three as monadic, as one. So there are beginner's analogies: St Patrick's three-leaf clover, for example. This gives a basic sentiment, but is only a most basic catechetical 'case study' on challenging three- and one-ness. Clearly it does not work as an authentic analogy for the Trinity.

Simply to say 'it's a mystery', end of story, is hardly Christian. Christ gives revelation of his Father in and through the Spirit. Christian mystery is that which draws creation - including the fullness of intellectual creation - into its depth and reality. Christ calls us and causes us to know the Father, and his relation to the Father, with and by the Spirit he sends. This mystery is one which draws us into understanding precisely in its reality as relation. We come to know the Son in the Spirit, and so discover the Truth of the Father.

The LDS bishop's response is indicative of the attempt to comprehend this without the authenticity of that relational encounter. The Son clearly reveals his relationship to the Father in a manner that cannot be 'tri-theistic', in the way that concept is normally applied. Such is an attempt to work that same contortionist's magic at a logic that makes a triad into a monad, or a monad into a triad. It shall never be.

INXC, Matthew

[Father David Moser]

The LDS bishop's response is indicative of the attempt to comprehend this without the authenticity of that relational encounter. The Son clearly reveals his relationship to the Father in a manner that cannot be 'tri-theistic', in the way that concept is normally applied. Such is an attempt to work that same contortionist's magic at a logic that makes a triad into a monad, or a monad into a triad. It shall never be.

The LDS aren't even remotely Christian in the traditional sense. I have, at present a former LDS member in catechesis (thanks to his Russian bride). For them, there does not seem to be any concept of the uncreated Godhead. The Father, according to what I am told, created the Son - along with his twin brother the devil. (gnosticism, dualism, arianism ...) The Holy Spirit is not a person at all but simply an attribute of God. Now I may be wrong - since I don't really care to be sure he is correct in his LDS teaching, since it is more important that my catechumen is correct in knowing the Orthodox teaching - but still, this is really weird stuff. There is no way a "true believer" LDS could ever fit the Trinity into his belief system. It is better just to tell them to start over rather than trying to retrofit truth into that framework of error.


Fr David Moser

[Nina]

Since we celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ today, there is something relevant to this thread on the topic of the Holy Trinity:

"...on Tabor we have a manifestation and revelation of the Trinitarian God. The life of the Church and the spirit is a partaking of the uncreated grace of God in the human nature of the Word. When we commune of the Sacraments, we commune of the Body and Blood of Christ, and we partake of the energies of the Trinitarian God." p. 161

Since during Metamorphosis of Christ, the Holy Trinity was revealed, let's see further (very concisely) what is told about the people present there (the Prophets and the Apostles).

"...St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite says that on Mt. Tabor at the time of Christ's Transfiguration there was a great and frightful sight. First, because two suns rose, something which creation had never known. ... Secondly, it is a frightful sight because one is the sun known to our senses rising from the heavens and the other is intelligible, rising from the earth. This second sun was incomparably higher than the sensible sun, which rose from the heavens. And just as with the rising of the sensible sun all the stars in the sky disappear, so too the rays of the sensible sun disappeared with the rising of the sun of righteousness.
To be sure, not all men on earth saw the glory of the intelligible sun at that moment, but only the Disciples and the Prophets who appeared. St. Gregory Palamas says that the sensible sun is seen by all who dwell on the earth, apart, of course from anyone who is blind, while the intelligible sun of righteousness is seen by those who are worthy and prepared. And, analyzing this thought of his, he says that since the sensible sun has no soul or reason or will, all men see it, while the noetic sun has not only a nature and a natural brightness and glory, but also a prepared will, and therefore it is manifested to anyone it wishes and as long as it wishes. Therefore the intelligible and uncreated light is seen by all to whom God grants this experience, since God reveals Himself to those He wishes, and this revelation is according to the spiritual condition of the people who are granted it." p.150

And moreover:

"... there was a change, a Transfiguration of Christ, but this became known because there was also a change, a transfiguration of the Disciples.
The transfiguration of the Disciples took place in their whole psychosomatic being. The Disciples did not see the divine light only with their nous, which is the eye of the soul, but also with those boldily senses which had previously been empowered by the uncreated energy of God and transfigured in order to see it. The bodily eyes are blind to God's light, since man's eyes are created and cannot see the uncreated Light. This is why they were changed by God's action and granted to see the glory of God. (St Gregory Palamas)." pp.148-149

* All quotes are from the book "The Feasts of the Lord" by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos.

[Paul Cowan]

I am probably walking a tight line here for talking about other faiths...

Fr. David said


There is no way a "true believer" LDS could ever fit the Trinity into his belief system.

There are many words we use that other faiths use that simply have a different meaning. Trinity being one of them.

He and I also spoke of taking communion. When it came to the elements of communion, I told him I drink the actual blood and eat the actual body of Christ. I think I freaked him out. It seems hard to explain our faith to people who are accustomed to bread, wafers, water or grape juice.

I was sad I did not feel comfortable pursuing our conversation. At some point, Orthodox beliefs sound too incredible to most.

Paul

[Mary Ward]

Mary,

Perhaps a few enlightening thoughts from Zizioulas' Being as Communion would help.

Among the Greek Fathers "the unity of God, the One God, and the ontological 'principle' or 'cause' of the being and life of God does not consist in the one substance of God but in the hypostasis, that is, the person of the Father. The one God is not the one substance but the Father, who is the 'cause' both of the generation of the Son and of the procession of the Spirit. The problem of the Filioque is linked directly with this theme. The West, as the study of the Trinitarian theology of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas witnesses, had no difficulty in maintaining the filioque precisely because it identified the being, the ontological principle, of God with His substance rather than with the person of the Father."

In other words, the Greek Fathers different from Augustine and Thomas Aquinas stated that "If God exists, He exists because the Father exists, that is, He who out of love freely begets the Son and brings forth the Spirit. Thus God as person - as the hypostasis of the Father - makes the one divine substance to be that which it is: the one God. This point is absolutely crucial. For it is precisely with this point that the new philosophical position of the Cappadocian Fathers, and of St. Basil in particular, is directly connected. That is to say, the substance never exist in a 'naked' state, that is, without hypostasis, without 'a mode of existence'."



Dear Kornelius,
I have been away for a few weeks, so this is a late response.
Your brief essay is a good outline on the Trinity, but I still don't see the necessity to emphasize a difference between the terms Trinity and Triune God. Is this some kind of code to differentiate the "West" from the "East"? If one addresses the theology of Augustine/Aquinas, i.e., Roman Catholicism, I am not aware of any theology built around the term triune God. The Catholic liturgy uses the Orthodox formula of Father, Son and Holy Spirit repeatedly, and does not pray to the Triune God as a Monad apart from the three hypostases. The western church of the period accepted the ecumenical councils' creedal statements on the Trinity which were challenged continually by heresies arising in the East, whether it was Arius, the monophysites, monothelitism, Nestorianism, etc. As to Augustine and Aquinas's views on substance and hypostases, I don't know how that relates to the question of triune God versus Trinity. I grew up and was trained in the scholastic period of Catholicism (although I am far from an expert), and there was never an emphasis on the Trinity as monad. I find in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, people tend to pray to one of the three because we as humans need to relate to a "person", not an abstraction, whether it's a monad or a triad. The person in the pew's understanding of the Trinity is mostly limited to the father with the beard and white hair, the son with a beard and dark hair and a bird, and if there is any danger at all, it would be that of an inchoate polytheism rather than a perception of the Trinity as monad. If you speak to them about monads or triads they would become so confused they would probably want to run away screaming. When they pray, they relate to a being in a role that comforts and sustains them, whether it's Father, Son or Holy Spirit. I'm really not sure all this discussion is helpful, although it may be necessary to academics and professional theologians. I have asked a few Orthodox priests since I posted this thread, their reaction was that the distinction between the terms was of little consequence, and pastorally, could be harmful to the faithful by causing confusion.

I apologize for my pragmatism, it most likely arises from a lack of the kind of intelligence to understand the finer mental distinctions of metaphysical thinking. I admire it in others, but don't find it helpful to my spiritual walk with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's my failing, but alas, I see no ability to change in the near future.

[M.C. Steenberg]

I would be nearly prepared - nearly - to say that the phrase 'triune God' is outright flawed theology. And I would certainly be prepared to say it is not patristic theology.

INXC, Matthew

[Kornelius]

Dear Kornelius,
I have been away for a few weeks, so this is a late response.
Your brief essay is a good outline on the Trinity, but I still don't see the necessity to emphasize a difference between the terms Trinity and Triune God.

Dear Mary,

My post is not concerned with the difference between the term Trinity and Triune. If you refer to my post again you will see that I do not even use the term Triune at all.

I am rather interested to share with you and the others what is patristically relevant to the theme of the Holy Trinity, i.e., the Divine Substance, the Three hypostases of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the monarchy of the Father etc.

I recommend you read my post once again and if you have any further questions, read dogmatic writing of Fr. John Romanides who indicates the disastrous implications resulting from a lack of proper understanding of the Holy Trinity. Among such implications is the 'doctrine' of Filioque.