PERSON AND SUBSTANCE:

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF DIVINE ONTOLOGY

by John M. Fraiser

 December 2006

The primary challenge in any study of the Trinity is to explicate in what way God is one and three. The amount of ink spilt to explain this rivals that of any other debate in the history of the church. Traditionally, there have been two opposing reactionary views on the logical starting point for contemplating the Trinity. Contemporary theologians generally acknowledge that the Western tradition begins with the unity of the divine essence (ousia) and explains the triune persons as manifestations of the one divine ousia. The Eastern tradition, however, begins with the triune persons and explains the unity of the persons (hypostases) on the basis of communion or relationships shared by the persons. In recent years, the balance of these positions has weighed in favor of the Eastern tradition with most Trinitarian theologians favoring hypostasis as the logical starting point for understanding the Trinity. Additionally, the debate regarding starting points has helped shape the debate regarding the immanent and economic Trinity. In tandem with the move in favor of the divine unity consisting of the relationality between the persons, the distinction between the economic and immanent Trinities has been sharply minimized or, in some cases, erased entirely.

In this paper, I will argue that neither the divine persons (hypostases) nor the divine essence (ousia) is the proper starting point for understanding the Trinity, since both are ontological and relational. Rather, one must begin more broadly than both of these categories. The ontology of the Trinity is the logical starting point for considering the Trinity. Ontology is not to be identified with either the divine essence or with the relationality of the persons. Instead it encompasses both the divine essence and the ontological distinctions of the persons and provides the grounding of relations and economy of the divine persons. Understood in this way, ontology is the totality of the being of God both as one being and three persons, giving reason for all divine action.

Diverse Starting Points in the East and West

St. Augustine’s influence dominates the Western Trinitarian tradition. For Augustine, the starting point for contemplating the Trinity is undoubtedly the divine essence or substantia. It is the substantia, and its Greek equivalent ousia, which explains in what sense God is one. Since each divine person is of the same essence, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all of the same substance.¹ Once he articulates in what sense God is one, Augustine offers his explanation of the distinction of the persons by relations. According to Augustine, “although being Father is different from being Son, there is no difference of substance, because they are not called these things substance-wise but relationship-wise; and yet this relationship is not a modification, because it is not changeable.”² Augustine explains the Trinity, then, beginning with the divine essence and explains the distinction of persons according to the distinct roles that each person has in relation to the other.

Augustine’s explanation of the oneness and threeness of the Trinity dominated the Western tradition through Aquinas to Calvin into the twentieth century. In recent decades, however, a shift has occurred in the Western tradition with the result that many of its theologians have come to reject Augustine’s use of ousia as the starting point and, having looked eastward, now begin with the distinction of the three persons as necessary for explaining the unity of persons.³ Though there are a variety of reasons that contemporary Western theologians have favored the Eastern tradition, the dominant reason seems to be the belief that the Western tradition is unavoidably modalistic.⁴ As Walter Kasper writes, “[N]owadays is not modalism or a weak theism a far greater danger than tritheism which Barth and Rahner conjured up?”⁵ Similarly, Christopher Kiesling states that after twenty-five years in a spiritual advisory role he has not seen any tritheists but has met many confused monotheists.⁶ Many in the East see an incipient modalism at work all the way from Augustine’s psychological analogies of the Trinity to Barth’s hesitation to ascribe personhood to the Three.

Those identified with the Western tradition, however, level the opposite charge against the Eastern tradition believing that it inevitably leads to tritheism or polytheism.⁷ Though the charges of both modalism and tritheism do not usually stick, even with one as seemingly modalistic as Barth, these accusations are useful for revealing just how starkly antithetical are the positions of the East and West. In addition to these two positions, there are some such as T. F. Torrance⁸ and Robert Letham⁹ that have denied the superiority of one starting point over the other in their understanding of the Trinity. Both of them claim to follow Gregory of Nazianzus’ approach:

No sooner do I consider the One than I am enlightened by the radiance of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One. When I bring any One of the Three before my mind I think of him as a Whole, and my vision is filled, and the most of the Whole escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of the One in such a way as to attribute more greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one Torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided Light.¹⁰

Neither Letham nor Torrance, however, advance a method on how to hold both starting points at the same time, and as it stands, Gregory’s statement is not itself a method for Trinitarian formulation. It does not help us chart the waters of whether God is one by divine substance (ousia) or one because the communion of the divine persons (hypostases), or—if God is one in both senses—which one is the grounding of the other. It is, in fact, a statement that surely any trinitarian could embrace—Eastern or Western. The battle for a starting point remains because of the radical difference between the starting point of these two traditions as well the effects which these starting points bring about.

This is not to say that the differences between the East and West have not been exaggerated—they certainly have. A frequent accusation of contemporary Eastern theologians against the West is that it treats the divine essence as distinct from the persons and thus worships a quaternity.¹¹ This accusation is nothing new to the West. It was a common Jewish and Muslim criticism well before Aquinas’ day.¹² However, numerous Western theologians such as Aquinas and Joachim of Fiore have argued clearly that there can be no divine essence apart from the divine persons and that the essence is identical to what is common to the persons.¹³ This response is typical of how the Cappadocians answered this challenge as well. Thus the charge of quaternitarianism sticks no better with the West than it does with East.

Furthermore, Aquinas is criticized for presupposing Aristotelian metaphysics in his understanding of substance (ousia) and person (hypostasis). As accurate as the criticism may be, one can make a strong case that the Cappadocians (Gregory of Nyssa in particular) borrowed heavily from Aristotelian metaphysics in this regard as well.¹⁴ The division between the likes of Western theologians such Augustine and Hilary of Poitiers and Eastern theologians such as Athanasius and the Cappadocians seems far less overt than the division between those contemporary theologians who claim to follow those theologians. Whether or not the conflict over starting points can be traced to the Fathers, the point is nevertheless clear: the consequence of opposing starting points in contemporary Western trinitarianism and Eastern trinitarianism becomes manifest in the different explanations which each side offers of the sense in which God is one and in which God is three.

Diverse Understandings of Unity and Plurality in the Godhead

Western Unity and Plurality in the Godhead

Traditionally, the West has understood the unity of the persons as an ontological unity of essence. Indeed this essence is the totality of the persons’ ontology. There is nothing that can be said about the divine nature that cannot also be said about the being of God. So the three persons are identical with regard to ontology by virtue of the divine essence. All that remains for distinction is relationality. In the Trinitarian relationships we see begetting and begotteness, spiration and procession but since there is no ontological distinction between the persons these distinctions must be accounted for as purely relational or economical. This is evident from Augustine’s discussion of how to reconcile the biblical texts which speak of the Son’s equality with the Father with those which speak of his subordination. Augustine sees a hermeneutical principle at work based on Philippians 2:6: “So the Son of God is God the Father’s equal by nature, by condition [or relation] his inferior. In the form of a servant which he took he is the Father’s inferior; in the form of God in which he existed before he took this other he is the Father’s equal.”¹⁵ But not every passage on the relation between the Father and the Son can be understood by this principle. There are many passages which cannot be interpreted as incarnational subordination, and Augustine is quick to acknowledge this. John 5:19 is the Augustine’s archetype for these kinds of texts: “Neither can the Son do anything of himself except what he sees the Father doing.” To interpret this text and others like it, he employs another rule: these texts do not teach that the Son is less than the Father but only that he is from the Father.¹⁶ That is, John 5:19 teaches that there is an equality and unity of action in the work of the Father and the Son, and yet, the Son’s work comes from the Father because he is from the Father.¹⁷ Here again Augustine distinguishes ontology from relation. The Son is not ontologically less than the Father but in terms of the relation between them his subordination is one of function.

There are many contemporary theologians who identify the unity and plurality in the Godhead in a similar – if not identical – way to Augustine. Christopher Kiesling, for example, states:

[T]he persons of the Trinity are distinguished from one another precisely by their opposition in relationships. The Father is distinct from the Son insofar as the Father begets the Son and the Son is begotten. The Son is distinct from the Father precisely because He is begotten by the begetting Father. The Father and Son are distinct from the Spirit and vice versa because the Father and Son together “spirate” (“breathe forth”) the Spirit and the Spirit is “spirated” by the Father and the Son.¹⁸

The unity is an ontological unity according to the divine essence, while the plurality is a plurality of persons distinguished by their unique relations. In a similar fashion, Bruce Ware states that that Father, Son and Spirit share identically the essential attributes of the divine nature. For this reason, “we cannot look at aspects of the nature of God as that which distinguishes the Father from the Son or Spirit; rather we have to look at the roles and relationships that characterize the Father uniquely in relation to the Son and the Spirit.”¹⁹ Seeing relationships as the distinguishing element in the Trinity is the result of starting with the divine essence as the uniting element. This approach sees the persons as ontologically identical but relationally/functionally distinct.

Eastern Unity and Plurality in the Godhead

As one moves to consider how those identified with the East explain the divine unity and plurality, it becomes clear that their approach is in certain ways opposite that of the West. While the West uses the divine relationships to distinguish the persons, the East uses them to explain the unity of the Godhead. Furthermore, the East distinguishes the persons ontologically according to the personhood of the Father as the fount of deity in contradistinction to the West who unites them ontologically according to the common divine essence (ousia).²⁰

Rather than statements such as “Father” and “Son”, “begetting” and “begotten” simply expressing relations between the persons as in Augustine’s De Trintate,²¹ these terms reveal the ontological origin and source of the Trinity’s existence. Zizioulas insists that Gregory of Nazianzus held that the Father was “the cause or aition of divine existence.” Consequently, the diversity of persons does not find its source in the divine relation, as it does in the West. The diversity of persons comes from the fact that the person of the Father brings about the existence and nature of the other persons by a free act of his will. The result is that, in the East, substance gives way to personhood when it comes to understanding the ontology of the Trinity.²² Of course, one should not conclude that there is no ontological unity as well. As we shall see, the East holds to ontological unity by identifying ontology with relational. In the East, the persons are not only distinguished by personhood, they are united by it as well.

The disagreement with the West here is obvious since the West unites the persons according to the divine essence and distinguishes them relationally. Several statements from those who identify with the East should suffice to demonstrate this. Referring to Cappadocian theology, Robert Jenson states:

The three can in fact be individually identified, by their relations to one another, precisely with respect to their joint possession of one and the same deity. God is the Father as he is the source of the Son’s and the Spirit’s deity; God is the Spirit as he is the spirit of the Son’s reception of deity from the Father. The different relations by which each of the three is the one God for and from the others, are the differences by which they are three. Finally, therefore, there was a way to say what by now all but the stubbornest traditionalists realized needed to be said: “Differentiated though the hypostases are, the entire and undivided godhead is one in each.”²³

According to Jenson, the divine relationships are both the cause of unity and diversity in the Godhead. He further notes that according to Gregory of Nyssa, the term “God”, “refers to the mutual action of the identities’ [persons] divine ‘energies,’ to the perichoretic triune life. And since all divine action is the singular mutual work of Father, Son, and Spirit, there is only one such life and therefore only one subject of the predicate ‘God.’”²⁴ The unity of the Trinity is a unity of action and a unity of life through that action. As they perichoretically commune with one another they are one.

Leonardo Boff concurs with Jenson’s view of divine unity: “[T]he existence of the one God is made up of the most complete communion and the most absolute and eternal participation. The unity of the three persons expresses the infinite dynamism of communion and interpenetration prevailing in the Holy Trinity.”²⁵

Defining Personhood: Relational, Ontological or Both?

Thus far we have seen how the conflicting starting points between the East and West has resulted in conflicting views of understanding the Trinity. The West begins with the divine essence (ousia) and unites the persons according to it, and distinguishes them according to relational roles such as begetting, begotteness and procession. Meanwhile the East unites the persons according to their relation and distinguishes them according to the being of the Father.

There is however a similarity between the East and West: both define personhood relationally. For the West, God’s being is strictly an ontological term and his personhood strictly a relational term, while for the East, both “being” and “person” are relational terms. In the words of Zizioulas, “Being is simultaneously relational and hypostatic.”²⁶

The Problems of Defining Personhood Relationally

There are, however, reasons to disagree with both the East and the West on seeing personhood strictly as relational. Foremost among these reasons is that relationality is not a sufficient means for distinguishing the persons of the Trinity. If the persons differ only with regard to their relations, there is no reason why the person of the Father is the Father and not the Son or why the person of the Spirit is the Spirit and not the Father, and thus, any one of the persons could do the work of the others. Unless there is an ontological backing for personhood, relationality makes for arbitrary distinctions between the persons. Given his view Western view of personhood, it is not surprising to find that Aquinas says that any member of the Trinity could have become incarnate.²⁷ But this is not just a problem for Aquinas and the Western tradition. This problem applies equally for those who identify with the Eastern tradition as well. Gerald O’Collins, for example, writes,

The three divine persons are mutually distinct only in and through their relations of origin. The internal relations between the three persons form their sole distinguishing feature. We can and should, for instance, follow Athanasius in holding that whatever we can say about the Father we can say about the Son except that he is the Father.²⁸

Similarly, William Alston argues that the distinguishing properties between the persons are in fact only relational distinctions such as begetting, generation and procession.²⁹ However, as necessary as relationality is for distinguishing the persons, it is insufficient for this task. If confessing about the Son everything we confess about the Father except that he is the Father only means that they have different roles and relationships, then we have offered no reason for these different relations. Unless there is an ontological backing for personhood, relationality makes for arbitrary distinctions between the persons.

A second problem with seeing personhood as relational is that it divides too sharply the immanent and economical Trinities. The West recognizes relational similarities and relational differences, but does not interpret these to be any indication of ontological similarities or ontological differences. Unless these relational similarities and differences have an ontological grounding, one cannot be sure that the work of God tells us anything about the being of God. A purely relational personhood would not only reveal nothing about the unity of God it would ultimately reveal to us nothing about the persons themselves. If we say that the work of incarnation could be done by any person, then the incarnation reveals nothing distinct about the person who is incarnated. The same goes if procession could be the work of any person. Unless these roles or relations tell us something about both the ontology of the one God and the ontology of the three persons then they do not truly reveal God as he is.³⁰ This criticism primarily implicates the Western view because of its clear divide between God’s ontology and his relation. Since the East does not divide between ontology and relationality they for the most part exempt from this critique.

Perhaps no one has sought to more closely unite the immanent Trinity with the economic than Catherine Mowry LaCugna. She seeks to articulate that any distinction between them is purely epistemological not ontological.³¹ So, ontologically speaking, distinctions in the economy do not originate from distinctions in God. Here, Mowry admittedly criticizes Karl Rahner for seeing a link between God in se as the source of God ad extra. But for Mowry there is no link between the two—not because she views God’s action as separate from God’s being—but because there is neither God in se nor God ad extra, only God given to us. He has no inner being; his being is only a being-toward-us. And thus his relationality does not reveal his ontology, but rather his relationality is his ontology.³²

The problems with this notion are great. If God’s ontology is identical with his relationality, then nothing grounds his action. He becomes identical with his action toward us. Unless there is God in se prior to his action, revelation becomes a necessary attribute of God, and thus, as Karl Barth says, “God’s being is then essentially limited and conditioned as a being revealed, i.e., as a relation of God to man. Man is thought of as indispensable to God.”³³ It is essential then that we distinguish the immanent and economic Trinity, both epistemologically as well as ontologically, and yet at the same time, it is essential that the economic Trinity be a true and accurate revelation of the immanent Trinity. In order for both of these ideas to be true, divine personhood must not be relegated to relationality alone, for otherwise, how God relates to himself and to us would tell us nothing about his being. In this way, the economic Trinity offers us access to the immanent Trinity, so that once we learn something of the economy we learn something of how that which immanent can be the source of divine activity for us. So while our knowledge of the Trinity flows from the economic to the immanent, the action of the Trinity flows from the immanent to the economic as cause and effect. Anything else cannot truly reveal anything about the ontology of God.

I have argued that a proper understanding of personhood recognizes that ontology is the antecedent cause of relation/function. But this assumes that there is some sort of difference between ontology and relation. But why should ontology not be defined according to relationality? Perhaps ontology and relationality are one and the same. According to Zizioulas, God’s relationality is what gives him his personhood to such a degree that his relationality is not the effect of his being but in fact is his being.³⁴ In other words, God gets his ontology from his relationality rather than his relationality from his ontology. This seems to address the concern that a relational God reveal an ontological God. We have already seen a similar argument from LaCugna, where distinctions in God’s relation toward us do not indicate distinctions in God because God-in-action is identical with God-in-himself. That is, relation is not something tacked onto God’s ontology but is identical with his ontology. I answered that threatens God’s freedom by making humanity a necessity for God’s being. Ironically, however, it is the desire to preserve God’s freedom to chose his being that Zizioulas seeks to avoid by beginning with the person of the Father as the fount of being and by defining “ being” as being-in-relation. According to Zizioulas, it was the will of the Father that decides God’s ontology, not the one divine essence. God must be free to choose his own existence, and since the person of the Father is the source of all being, it is a free choice of a person which defines the Triune God’s being, rather than abstraction of common substance.³⁵ By identifying God’s relation with his being, Zizioulas hopes that God’s being is entirely undetermined.

There are, however, several problems that plague Zizioulas’ model. First, if it is the will of the Father that freely chooses to act and so define God’s being, does not the nature of the Father govern his own will? Zizioulas’ model requires the impossible proposition that the Father is pure will. For without a nature that governs his will, the Father’s acts and relation are nothing but capriciousness and whimsy. As an ungoverned will, he would have no enduring character, no enduring attributes and thus no definite being. Defining his being, relationally or otherwise, would be impossible. But if the Father has a nature and from his nature determines his being, then his being cannot be defined only relationally since nature is ontologically antecedent and necessary for that which is relational.

But what of Zizioulas’ initial motivation for his proposal? Does an ontology that governs relation undermine God’s freedom? If God’s nature precedes his will, then is his will not determined, because he has no choice in his ontology? Surely, this is a valid concern. Here, however, we encounter a second problem with his model. At the risk of entering the free will debate too cavalierly, whatever else it might mean to be free, it must at least mean that an ontology that governs relation/action is no threat to it. For if nothing else is a factor in one’s decision other than the being that makes the decision, it is hard to see in what sense it is a compromise of freedom. There is no outside determining factor or limitation on the freedom of God’s action. But Barth’s statement, previously applied to LaCugna, becomes relevant again for Zizioulas’ view of freedom. If being-in-relation is necessary for being, then in an ironic twist of argument, it turns out that a relational ontology threatens the freedom of God since he can only have his being in relation with others. If the Father only has his being in relation with the other persons, in what sense is relation a free choice? Unfortunately, neither LaCugna nor Zizioulas address this question.

There is finally a third problem with Zizioulas’ proposal. Aside from its threat to God’s freedom, it is faced with the dilemma of logical coherence. In tandem with Zizioulas’ concern regarding divine freedom, he is concerned that the Western view is tantamount to an essentialism that elevates the divine substance above the persons.³⁶ In his view, the one God is to be identified with the Father, and while substance is certainly something shared commonly by all three persons, it only began to take ontological precedence under the influence of Augustine.³⁷ Here we get to the heart of two competing metaphysical views of the Trinity. Zizioulas is by no means alone in his concern. In recent decades there has been among scholars a shift away from substance and toward viewing relation, or ability to be in relation, as the defining element of both divine and human personhood. This has come about largely because of the failure to locate any distinctive essence that would permit general application or because of an inability to say anything descriptive about essence. In contemporary trinitarian discussion, the emphasis is on the threeness of persons and the oneness identified by the perichoretic relations between them. This view goes further than mere social trinitarianism such as that of Cornelius Plantinga. Though for Plantinga, the relation between the persons constitutes their oneness, it does not constitute the ontology of the persons. He still holds to both a generic divine essence and a personal essence that comprises personhood.³⁸ According to contemporary Eastern trinitarians though, relationality is so fundamental to who God is that it becomes identical with himself and takes the place previously occupied by substance in trinitarian thought. In the words of Thomas Torrance, “the one Being of God which all three divine persons have in common: ousia is, in fact, identical with the personal Being or intrinsic Communion that the one God is in himself.”³⁹ Thus, the perichoretic relationship is so personal that the three can become identified with one another and in this way Torrance can acknowledge a sense in which it is proper to speak of God as one person.⁴⁰ Robert Jenson likewise says that, in an equivocating sense, the three persons are not just one being but also one person (a designation that Plantinga strongly rejects).⁴¹

Previously I presented an epistemological problem for the Western view (primarily) arguing that its purely relational/functional view of personhood leads to a disconnect between the immanent and economic Trinities. I have also argued that a proper view of ontology understands God’s being as that which governs and grounds all God’s action/relation. However, if a person’s relation is his ontology, then it follows that what is behind all divine relation is only further relation. But one can only wonder how this is possible. What is doing the relating? How can relation be that which is in relation? Unless there is an ontology that is not identical with relation and antecedent to it, then it is hard to see in what sense God can be both three and one when he is only defined relationally. The metaphysical terms of “being (ousia)” and “person (hypostasis)” lose their distinction when they are both defined as relation. Unless the person of the Father has an ontology undefined by his relation then he cannot bring about the existence of the persons of the Son and Spirit.⁴² William J. Hill concurs with this criticism: “If divine persons are subsistent relations grounded in the processions or eternal origins as true conscious actions, who are the subjects of these originative acts called generation and spiration? Obviously, they cannot be persons as formally constituted by relations subsequent to such actions.”⁴³ If person P₁ is in relation to persons P₂ and P₃, on a relational ontology view, we define what it means to be P₁ such that P₁ = (relation with P₂ and P₃). This then yields the following proposition: (relation with P₂ and P₃) is in relation with P₂ and P₃. But if we similarly define the being of P₂ and P₃ as we have defined P₁, then the proposition becomes even more absurd. The final proposition becomes: (relation with P₂ and P₃) is in relation with (relation with P₁ and P₃) and (relation with P₁ and P₂). It becomes obvious then that while we can define what exists between persons relationally we cannot define P₁’s ontology in terms of his relation to P₂ and P₃. It is necessary that there be someone in relation, someone who is antecedent to relation.

Furthermore, as Harriet A. Harris points out, it is vital that there be an enduring self that exists over the course of changes in relationship.⁴⁴ To posit an ontology that is based on relation is to posit an always-changing identity since any relational change is the same as an ontological change. How then can a person remain the same person over time? It may be possible to get around this dilemma by adopting an atemporal view of God and arguing that God’s enduring self comes from the unchanging perichoretic relationality of the divine persons. To do so, however, is to simply exchange one controversy for another. But even if God is atemporal, the relational ontology would face a similar dilemma because it defines who the Father is by identifying who he is not. That is to say the Father is who he is by not being the Son, or the Spirit, or Brian, or Rita, or Larry, etc. But on this definition of personhood, the identity of the Father is always changing because the identity of who he is not is always changing. Thus, there can be no enduring self of the Father (or the Son and Spirit for that matter).⁴⁵

The Ontology of Substance and Person

The problems of defining personhood for both the East and the West are great. As I have argued, these problems can be traced back to the starting points of both groups. The West begins with the divine essence (ousia) as the totality of God’s ontology. By doing so, all that is left is relation, which it associates with the divine persons. The East begins with the person (hypostasis) of the Father as the source of personhood for the Son and Spirit. However, those who identify with the East today, seeking to avoid the error of the West, divorce personhood from a substance metaphysic and thus define all of God’s ontology as identical with his relation. In order to avoid the pitfalls of both the East and the West, it is important to sidestep both starting points in favor of another option. I want to suggest that the better way to begin talk about the Trinity is to begin with ontology more broadly rather than hypostasis or ousia in particular. The error of those contemporary theologians who identify with the East or the West is that they treat hypostasis and ousia as though they are either relational or substantial. But as we have already begun to see, both hypostasis and ousia have an ontological as well relational component. Thus, attempts to begin with hypostasis can no more avoid the ontological pre-commitments involved than can attempts to begin with ousia avoid pre-commitments to a view of relationality. If a proper starting point is to be established, it must be one that is prior to both hypostasis and ousia. The solution then may be to begin more broadly with ontology as the grounding of all action and relation. On a broadly ontological view, hypostasis and ousia are each ontological and relational. That which is ontological in both of them is the ground of that which is relational in both of them. All divine action takes place because of ontological distinctions.

The Ontology of Personhood: Differentiated Personal Ontology

The term “God” cannot be a reference strictly to the divine nature. The one God is not the divine essence. Christian worship does not consist of the worship of essences/substances or of God-ness. Rather, it is the worship of a person. Sometimes the worship of a person is directed to one particular person and sometimes directed to a collective person consisting of three distinct but not separate persons. It is vital then that the divine essence not comprise all of what we mean we speak of one God. There is a rich tradition of speaking of God as one person. Hilary prefers to speak not of the Father as God but God as the Father. In this way then we may speak of the person of God and not just the three persons.⁴⁶ But there is another sense in which three persons are one person. Cornelius Van Til writes,

It is sometimes asserted that we can prove to men that we are not asserting anything that they ought not to consider irrational, inasmuch as we say that God is one in essence and three in person. We therefore claim that we have not asserted unity and trinity of exactly the same thing. Yet this is not the whole truth of the matter. We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person….Even within the ontological Trinity we must maintain that God is numerically one. He is one person. When we say that we believe in a personal God, we do not merely mean that we believe in a God to whom the adjective 'personality' may be attached. God is not an essence that has personality; He is absolute personality.⁴⁷

As controversial as this statement is, Van Til’s concern is that we not make the one God an abstraction of what is common to the three persons. To do so is to end up with a less than personal God. Even assigning personality to divine essence is insufficient to speak of one God. Of course, the possibility of quaternitarianism is a threat to this view. If there are three persons and one person, we no longer have a Trinity but a quaternity. Though Van Til does little to reconcile this dilemma, so long as he does not speak of one person in the same sense in which he speaks of three persons contradiction and quaternitarianism can be avoided. A number of theologians have begun to acknowledge that there is no single, all-encompassing definition of personhood. Rather, there are various ways in which to speak of personhood.⁴⁸ Jaana Hallamaa reminds us that

the term person has been used in numerous ways and for many purposes especially in the various contexts of the history of philosophy. Historically speaking, no single concept of person emerges with clarity. Nor does any consensus prevail on the question concerning how the concept of person correlates with such related entities as minds, souls, selves, individuals, subjects, characters, egos and human beings.⁴⁹

Taking his cue from both Calvin and Jonathan Edwards discussion of each human person’s identity as one person with Adam, Robert Jenson argues that we are right to equivocate on our definition of “person” and speak of God as both three persons and one person.⁵⁰ As we come to accept the fact that there are multiple senses of personhood, we can see that there is only proper that it should be this way. To articulate an exact definition of the personhood of God would require total comprehension of God’s being. But God’s personhood will always remain a mystery for human beings. We must be content then with shades of meaning when speaking of personhood.

But we can only speak of God as one person if we do not relegate all of God’s ontology to the divine essence. Otherwise, God is only a generic divine essence manifested in three relationships. Ontology must be a part of personhood, and as three divine persons, each person must have a distinct ontology not possessed by the others. The terminology I propose for this view, then, is the Distinctive Personal Ontology view, or DPO. One person does not differ from the others only with respect to his roles or relations but also with respect to his ontology as well. Each person differs in ways that cannot be accounted for by mere roles and relations. The Father has a distinctive personality, distinctive abilities and desires from those of the Son and vice versa. It is these abilities and desires that makes him the Father and not the Son. So for example, the Father’s unique abilities are begetting the Son and sending the Son in human likeness, and these are abilities which the Son does not possess. Furthermore, these abilities are consistent with the Father’s unique desires. Not only is he able to do these unique acts, he desires to do them. But none of these abilities and desires belongs to the Son. The Son has his own abilities and desires that neither the Father nor the Spirit possess, but each of which work in concert with those of the others. The Son alone is able to become flesh, to atone for sin and to intercede for the Father’s elect, and his unique desires are fitting for these abilities. The Spirit likewise has his own abilities and desires. Though each person is empowered and motivated by the common purpose and common divine attributes of the Godhead, these abilities and desires are nevertheless unique to them. But abilities and desires cannot be reduced to mere roles or relations. To speak of abilities and desires is to speak in ontological categories, not relational ones. But these abilities and desires are not unrelated to the roles and relationships between the persons. The unique ontology of each person is what defines and governs the divine roles and relationships. It is precisely because each person acts from his ontology that these relations can reveal the persons themselves. Without this understanding of ontology, the economy can never reveal the immanent Trinity.

Potential Challenges to the Distinctive Personal Ontology View

Do Ontological Distinctions Divide the Divine Essence?

There are however several potential challenges for the Distinctive Personal Ontology view that must be overcome if it is to deserve acceptance. The first such challenge comes from Gregory of Nyssa regarding the importance of not attributing essence to the persons. He writes,

They are God because of their Divine Essence, the essence of the Father and the Son. Through the Divine Essence the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. And there is no division of the essence into each of the Persons so that there are three essences for the respective Persons. It is evident that the term “God” is not to be divided, since it signifies the essence; such a division would result in three gods.⁵¹

The effect of this challenge depends on how one interprets the phrase: “there is no division of the essence into each of the Persons so that there are three essences for the respective Persons.” If he means that each person cannot have a distinctive personality unpossessed ontologically by the others, because it would divide the essence of God making him multiple Gods, then clearly this is a challenge to this view. If, however, he means that the common divine essence is in each person equally and not portioned between each one such that it is only the divine essence only exists when we add up the ontology of each person then this is no challenge at all. Given the context and the statement itself, it seems Gregory should be understood along the lines of the latter interpretation. His concern seems to be dividing the essence between the Persons, not finding something ontologically additional to the essence in the Persons. In fact, Gregory comes close to speaking of a distinctive ontology of each person later in his letter when he says that “neighing and laughing are said to be specific properties of natures and indicate those natures of which they are the specific properties.”⁵² That is, actions are indicative of specific properties. Though he does not draw out the implications of his statement, it is consistent with the view that persons possess—in addition to the divine essence—a unique essence that is the source of their unique roles and relations.

Does God Have Multiple Personalities?

Does the first possible interpretation however still stand as a challenge to the differentiated ontology view whether or not it was what Gregory had in mind? The problem posed would be that attributing to each person distinct personalities that are not possessed by the others cannot explain how God is one personal being. If three distinct personalities are one being then this one being has multiple personalities.

Clearly, it to say that God as one being has multiple personalities is problematic. This is not, however, a necessary inference of saying that each person has a distinct ontology. If we were to think of the union of the three divine persons in the same way as three human persons in a union, then attributing multiple personalities to the one being would be the only logical conclusion. But even though the personalities, abilities, and desires are distinct for each divine person, they are not separate. Through perichoretic relationships, one person can see what the others see, know what the other know, can desire what the others desire, and is empowered to fulfill his unique role. Thus as a unity of persons, God is not conflicted or even multiple in his personalities. Each of the three so penetrate the others that acting from one divine being they may be indistinguishable. It is important to acknowledge that what is distinctive in the persons is not the divine essence. That is, the divine essence is not part of the Father in way that it is not part of the Son or Spirit. What is common to the three is identical to the divine essence. What the DPO view argues however is that there are ontological differences beyond what is common to the three, and that these differences cannot be reduced to mere relations or roles.

Is Each Person Omnipotent?

There is a second possible criticism of DPO. This criticism is intended as an argument against Social Trinitarianism but will apply to DPO as well. By saying that each divine person has unique abilities is to say that there are things that the others cannot do. If this is the case, in what sense can any of the three be said to be omnipotent? Brian Leftow states,

Any power and knowledge short of omnipotence and omniscience can be surpassed. Being surpassable in such important respects and being divine do not seem compatible. If the Persons are of large but finite capacity, the Trinity consists of small-g gods; it is a ‘divine society’ like Olympus. Let us therefore say that no version of Trinity monotheism is acceptable unless its Persons are somehow individually omnipotent and omniscient.⁵³

According to Leftow, DPO threatens monotheism because its persons are not individually omnipotent. To answer the previous criticism, I appealed to perichoresis to explain that God does not have multiple personalities because of the distinct personalities of the three. Can perichoresis serve as an answer here as well? If so, each of the persons would be able to do all that the others can do by virtue of being indwelled by the others. The result would be that the Father could become incarnate, the Son could send the Father, the Spirit could generate the Son, etc. Surely this is an unacceptable result. The alternative then requires that one divine person is not able to do to what the other does even by perichoretic empowerment. But this must be acknowledged by any view of the Trinity, and thus while the issue of omnipotence for each person deserves an answer it is not unique a unique problem for DPO. I leave open, then, the question of how one should answer this problem, not because the matter is unimportant or because there is not an answer, but because to do so is unnecessary for a particular defense of DPO. Both the East and West must grapple with the matter of personal omnipotence and omniscience.

Does Functional Subordination Indicate Ontological Subordination?

I have argued that functional distinction in the Godhead is the result of ontological distinction. I have argued this on the grounds that if the economy is to accurately reveal the immanent Trinity, the economic Trinity cannot just indicate relational/functional distinctions. I also argued that without ontological distinctions between the persons one cannot adequately explain why one person could not perform the work of the other person. One of the motivations, however, for distinguishing the persons relationally and not ontologically is that it prevents distinctions such as generation and begotteness from implying inferiority in the Godhead. Where the submission of the Son to Father cannot be accounted for in terms of the incarnation but indicates an eternal order (taxis) within the Godhead, the tendency is to explain that the order is only functional and not ontological.⁵⁴ To speak of an ontological subordination of the Son is surely to tread dangerously along the precipice of Arianism. So if, as DPO maintains, every functional difference between the persons is rooted in an ontological difference, does this not require that the Son is ontologically subordinate and thus less divine than the Father?

The Distinct Personal Ontology view recognizes that the Son is functionally subordinate to the Father, and while this can be accounted for ontologically, it does not require that the ontological distinction itself is an ontological subordination. All distinctions do not have to be graded distinctions. The ontological distinctions in the Godhead can be lateral distinctions that produce graded relational distinctions. So while one may not be able to define precisely what the ontological distinction is that results in the submission of the Son to the Father, one must nevertheless acknowledge that there is such a distinction—without which we are without a reason for why the Father could not submit to the Son.⁵⁵ Our inability to define all ontological distinctions in the Godhead returns us to the point made above that, as creatures, personhood remains a mystery for us. And even this fact serves to remind us of the point that our inability to define the divine personhood is due to the ontological difference between us and God and not just a difference in roles.

Conclusion

I have traced the implications of the starting points of the Eastern and Western traditions and argued that these starting points lead to wrong conclusions about divine ontology. The Western tradition wrongly relegates ontology to the divine essence while contemporary Eastern theologians tend to make ontology and relation identical. I offered evaluation of these views of divine ontology and found that neither view is capable of explaining the roles and relations of the divine persons in adequate ontological terms. To put forth a view of ontology that can account for the relational distinctions in the Godhead, one must begin with a different starting point. I proposed that since ousia and hypostasis are both ontological and relational neither is sufficient grounding for relation. To do so, we need to begin more broadly with divine ontology as a category. Divine ontology is composed of both the divine essence and distinct ontology of persons, and is necessary for explaining the reason the divine persons function as they do. Beginning with ontology, composed of both the divine essence and that which is ontological in the persons, helps us to understand an important sense in which God can be said to be one person (even if we cannot explain the total sense of God’s personhood). I called this view of ontology Distinctive Personal Ontology and used it to articulate what are some of the differences in ontology. I identified three ontological distinctions: personality, ability, and desire. I explored four potential criticisms of DPO and found that three of the criticisms do not defeat DPO and that the other criticism is not unique to DPO and thus must be addressed by all Trinitarian views.

 

 

---