A scene from The Canterbury Psalter (12th century)
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One Will in the Trinity (Sketch of an Argument)
One of the stumbling blocks moderns face when they engage with classical trinitarian theology is that the main stream of the tradition resolutely affirms that there is one will in God; that is, one divine will that belongs to the divine nature. It follows from this that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do not have three wills, but one. The reason this is difficult for modern readers is that moderns instinctively associate will with person. If that association (will goes with person) were to be axiomatic, then it would indeed follow that there are three wills in God. Fair enough; at this point we might ask what the grounds are for counting wills with persons, and then of course we’d have to offer at least a rough draft of a definition of will before going any further. Good work worth doing; clarity clarity ah…
Not Just Cooperation: The Action of the Three
When three people work together on a project, each of them does their own part of it. As Gregory of Nyssa describes it, “even if several are engaged in the same form of action, [they] work separately each by himself at the task he has undertaken, having no participation in his individual action with others who are engaged in the same occupation.” There are distances and differences between them: they take turns (distance in time), or work on different parts of the project (distance in space), or come to the project from different angles (again, space). “Each of them is separated from the others within his own environment, according to the special character of his operation.” The reason Nyssa spent time itemizing the nature of cooperation is so he could explain that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit don’t work together in that way:…
“One Fire: Light, Brightness, and Heat” (Bullinger on the Trinity)
Swiss Reformer Henry Bullinger (1504–1575) concludes his sermon “Of the Holy Ghost” (Decades, IV:7) with a wonderfully clear and compelling recapitulation of “Unity in trinity and Trinity in unity” (interestingly capitalized thus in the ET). His opening gambit is a statement of the way Scripture speaks distinctly of the characteristic workings of the Father, Son, and Spirit: “In the scripture, the beginning of doing, and the flowing fountain and well-spring of all things, is attributed to the Father. Wisdom, counsel, and the very dispensation in doing things, is ascribed to the Son. And the force and effectual power of working, is assigned to the Holy Ghost.” (p. 326) Using this imagery and vocabulary, Bullinger conveys sharp, distinct impressions of the three persons in their work. The Father as beginning and well-spring; the Son as wisdom and dispensation (oikonomia/dispensatio; we might say arrangement or pattern);…
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Fred Sanders is a theologian who tried to specialize in the doctrine of the Trinity, but found that everything in Christian life and thought is connected to the triune God.
