Key Christian belief: Jesus is God
Q: Does that mean Jesus is the same as God?
A: Yes and no. Jesus is God, but there is more to say about Jesus and God than just that.
1. There's more to say about God: For the Father is God (#1) and the Spirit is God (#3)
2. There's more to say about Jesus: for he is true man as well as true God.
Q: OK, so does that means Jesus is just part of God?
A: No, Jesus is God, not part of God.
For God has no parts.
The doctrine of the Trinity says the Father is God (#1), not part of God,
and the Son is God (#2), not part of God, etc.
That is why analogies for the Trinity like the three parts of an apple are just plain wrong.
The concept of Hypostasis.
To reinforce this point, Trinitarian doctrine needs a term that will indicate that Father, Son and Spirit are each a complete individual being, not a part of anything. That term is hypostasis. It is a very abstract term meaning, "complete individual being (of whatever kind)." E.g., my hand is not a hypostasis, but I am. My dog's ear is not a hypostasis, but my dog is.
Why do we need such an abstract term? Because we cannot use a term for some specific kind of being, such as dog or man or god. For three individuals of the doggy kind are three dogs, three individuals of the human kind are three humans, but the three divine hypostases are not three gods. The peculiar arithmetic of the doctrine of the Trinity, where one and one and one do not add up to three, makes it impossible to use specific kind terms, so we must use the most abstract term possible for "complete individual being (of whatever kind)."
The term Person
"Hypostasis" comes from Greek, "person" from Latin. For persona was the Latin term the Western church used to translate the Eastern church's Greek term, hypostasis. It is important to see that when the term persona was originally used in Christian doctrine, it did not mean "personality." It literally meant mask (from the Latin verb per-sonare, to sound through) but figuratively, it meant roles in a drama. For in ancient dramas, actors on stage wore masks. That's why, to this day, the cast of characters in a playbill is sometimes labeled dramatis personae, literally the masks of the drama.
So the term "person" is a reminder that in the drama of salvation narrated in Scripture, God appears as three different characters, three distinct individual beings: God in heaven, Christ on earth (who is then exalted to God's right hand) and the Holy Spirit given to the church. Each of these characters is a complete individual being who is fully God, not a mere mask or role. (In that sense, the ancient meaning of persona is be a bit misleading: the doctrine of the Trinity can't use any term of human language without bending it a little) . But neither does "person" simply have its modern meaning, as if it meant that God had three "personalities." Three different personalities would be three different Gods.
The concept of person or hypostasis is particularly important because it links the doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation. In the one doctrine, Christ is the second person of the Trinity. In the other, that same person is both God and man. The fact that the same person appears in both doctrines is the crucial link between the two doctrines, and indeed the crucial thing the church has to say about who Christ is: the same one (the same person or individual being) who is the eternal Son of God, begotten from the Father as the second person of the Trinity, is also God incarnate, true God and true man, born of the virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised from the dead on the third day, and ascended in his human flesh to the right hand of God on high.
I'm in the last chapter of "Good News for Anxious Christians." I think this is the most important book I've read for my personal walk with Jesus and possibly the most important for the American church in particular. I'm a graduate of the SBTS in Louisville, KY, and a pastor for 12+ years, but I'm super insecure. This book hits on some major reasons why and I covet your prayers as I attempt to unravel those false reasons that you mention have been taught to me and I've preached to others. I wish we could get a copy in every Christians' hands, but I will do my best to spread the word. I would like to meet you someday. Grace to you, Kevin Dale Boone, Travelers Rest, SC.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear the book has been helpful. Anxious pastors are certainly among the anxious Christians I write for, and I'll be glad to add you to my prayers, Kevin. May the grace of the Spirit be with you and give you joy and confidence in preaching the Gospel of Christ!
ReplyDeleteDo stop by if you're ever in the Philadelphia area. . .
Dr. Cary, I've been studying the word "rhema" and it seems it is always in reference to an external "saying" or "word" of God. One exception might be John the Baptist in the wilderness and Simeon at the temple with Jesus. But both "rhema's" they received led them to Christ or to fulfill their calling. Maybe if there is ever an internal impression of the Spirit it would be validated by such things as those. I know you are busy, but I'm trying to test your book at every angle. I might just be writing one myself.
ReplyDeleteI don't know of a hard-and-fast distinction between rhema and logos in the NT. Both can mean "speech." But nowhere in OT or NT that I know of is there any notion of inner speech, except for the thoughts of our own hearts. We can say something in our hearts, but that's always us saying it.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that "Jesus is God" is somewhat misleading? That is, 'God' functions more like a name whereas 'divine' as a category. Therefore, is it better to say that "Jesus is divine." Maybe I'm splitting hairs but I have been wondering about this for some time.
ReplyDeleteEspecially after the first council of Constantinople in 381, Nicene trinitarianism made a real point of calling Jesus God, in part to exclude tritheism. "Divine", as you mention, is a category - - it turns out, a very popular category among pagans (to theion in Greek). So three items in the category "divine" are three gods. Or, if you think of different kinds or degrees of divinity, you end up seeing Christ as a different kind of divinity (probably a lesser one) than the Father. This is exactly what Nicaea was aiming to exclude. By saying Jesus is God, of the same being (ousia) as the Father, Nicaea teaches that when we talk about him we are talking about exactly the same God as when we talk of the Father.
ReplyDeleteOne result is that the term "God" does not always function strictly as a name in Trinitarian discourse. Sometimes it's more like
an attribute, such as "Truth," "the Good," "Eternal" and "Omnipotent," all of which are one in God (as the so-called Athanasian creed puts it, there are not three Omnipotents, just as there are not three Gods). The terms which always function as names are the proper designations of the three person, "Father," "Holy Spirit" and "Son" (also "Word" and of course, "Jesus").
I should add: when the word "God" (theos) does function as a proper name, it typically refers to the Father. This is a main reason why the NT does not say Jesus is God. When it wants to confess his divinity it says, "Jesus is Lord," giving the name of Israel's God to Jesus.
ReplyDeleteFor as NT references to calling on the name of the Lord make clear (e.g. Rom. 10:13, compare Acts 2:21 and 4:12; and cf. of course Phil. 2:11), when NT preaching calls Jesus Lord (Kyrios), it works just like the word LORD (with 4 capital letters) in most English translations of the OT, which stands in for the Hebrew "Adonai," which is the word pronounced in place of the unutterable sacred Name transliterated YHWH. In other words, "LORD" is not a title but a name. It's who the NT says Jesus is. When you call upon the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, you are calling on Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God.
Dr. Cary, this is very helpful and I appreciate your response. I was able to track down a blog post that first raised the issue for me. It can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://theologyforum.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/calvin-the-divine-essence-and-god-the-father/
Thanks again.
The post you mentioned speaks of Calvin's "failure to distinguish between 'God' as name or category." But I would say this "failure" is a welcome and necessary consequence of Nicene Trinitarianism. After Nicaea, the word "God" starts to behave oddly, unlike the way it is used in any other religion. There is a deep ambiguity between its use as name (when it refers to one of the three persons, usually the Father) and as category (when it refers to the one God or the divine essence). And the ambiguity is compounded by the fact that the divine essence is not a fourth thing that can be named - - it is nothing apart from the three persons.
ReplyDeleteIn sum, the word "God" starts to be emptied of content, being neither true name nor category. So if you really want to know what you're talking about when speaking of the God of Christian faith, you have to rely on words that truly are names, such as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That's actually one of the strengths of the Nicene doctrine: it gets us away from vague talk of "God" (as if we knew what that word meant, because any old theist can use it so easily) and instead pushes us in the direction of knowing the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.
By the same token, it should bother us if Christians make a habit of praying generically to "God" without naming Father, Son or Holy Spirit. That's a sign that people don't know who they're praying to.
Thanks again for your response. Is there a book or articles you would recommend that might address these issues in greater depth?
ReplyDeleteOh, boy. To start with, read the discussion of the 4th-century disputes about the Trinity after the council of Nicaea in one of the excellent histories of Christian doctrine: J.N.D. Kelly's Early Christian Doctrines, Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition, vol. 1, or Justo Gonzalez' history of theology. Then if you really want to understand the various issues under debate in the 4th century, the one go-to book nowadays is Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy.
ReplyDeleteDr. Cary, I've been studying the differences between Christian denominations (calvinists, lutherans, catholics, orthodox, etc) and read your paper about the "theology of conversion" in calvinist and lutheran traditions. I like it very much. It´s very illuminating. What is your denomination? Can you write more about themes that divides christians (like, for example, the issue of invocation of saints)? Sorry about my english, i´m from Brazil. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI am an Anglican, though I think like a Lutheran--as many Anglicans do. I have published a lecture course on the history of Christian theology, in video and audio formats, which discusses the differences between various Christian traditions. It is published as part of the Great Courses series by The Teaching Company, and can be found at their website, www.thegreatcourses.com.
ReplyDeleteI'm also beginning to write a book on the history of Protestant theology which will focus on many of the same topics, but it won't be published for another two years.
Thank you, dr. Cary. But can you write something about these topics? Like, for example, relics or invocation of saints? Topics like these that have so much support in patristic tradition and have been not only rejected at Reformation, but even demonized as idolatry.
ReplyDeleteAnd another question: whats your view of catholics? Are they non-christians? The Roman Church is "apostate" and has "anatematized the Gospel at Trent"?
Oh dear. Where did you get the idea I might be one of those people who think Catholics aren't Christians? Those people live in a different universe than I do.
ReplyDeleteI'm no expert about the theology of saints and relics, though I do take the Protestant view of the matter, which is that neither saints nor relics have salvific power. This stems from the Reformation view of solus Christus - - Christ alone as savior.
It's ultimately a question of mediation--you might say, of how the Mediator is mediated to us. For Scripture teaches that there is only one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). But that one Mediator has to be mediated to us, which is to say, he given to us by some means or medium. All Protestants agree that the means include his word, the Gospel. Lutherans and Anglicans and many Calvinists add: he comes to us through both Word and Sacrament.
And then Catholics add: he comes to us in the saints, in all seven sacraments, in relics, in icons. The place to begin the discussion here, I think, is with icons. If Protestants could come to an understanding with Catholics (and especially with Eastern Orthodox) about whether and how icons mediate grace, then the rest of the issues would be pretty clear. But that will be a long discussion, and will require more people talking about it than just me.
Thanks. Why do you think the discussion must begin with icons? Historically, the icons as means of grace are a late development, while the relics of saints appear in a much earlier age. I imagine that you have read the miracle of healing of a blind man, that Augustine and Ambrose are witness, by means of two bodies of martyrs. It´s in the Confessions and the City of God. I was reading this, and I thought: how could God make miracles through means that are, according to the Reformers, idolatry and blasphemy? How do you deal with these so RADICAL (i think) opposition of the Reformation to things so common in Church history?
ReplyDeleteSorry, it´s me, Ricardo (R. N.). Im posting in my girlfriend´s computer (that is why the name appear Cynthia).
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, I´m not repeating the same question. I´m asking now how can you (as a protestant friend of catholics) deal with the seriouness of the accusations in the protestant confession. For example, if the relics are not means of grace, than Augustine, Ambrose and various Church Fathers are wrong. But if relics are, not only not-means-of-grace, but idolatry and blasphemy, than how could the Fathers be christians? The Christendom were just filled with idolatry, satanism and blasphemy until Reformation? I think that´s is a really big problem for the coherence of Protestantism.
ReplyDeleteThis will take a longer response. Do you mind if I shift this conversation from the comments to the blog itself? What I'd like to do is copy our conversation so far (minus personal remarks) as one blog post, then tackle the issue you've just raised in a further post.
ReplyDeleteOk, thanks.
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ReplyDeleteDr. Cary, I recently listened to your Teaching Company lectures on theology and found them helpful. Your blog post indicates that the persons of the Trinity are not "parts" of God. Historically, what theologians (including heretics), if any, argued that God has parts and what did those theologians identify as parts?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Scott Roberts
I don't know of anyone who identified the three persons of the Trinity as parts of God. The way the doctrine developed, the key heretics were those who thought of Christ as a second, lesser god--i.e., not a part of God but another god. The orthodox response was, in effect: "no, he is equal to the Father," and then they added: "and there's only one God." When you say the same thing about the Spirit, you get the distinctive logic of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
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