How to determine the truth of the doctrine of the trinity: a reflection on the limits of the metaphysics of reason, and the gift of the praxis of the triune faith- by Robert Moses Dryer
How do we determine the truth of the doctrine of the trinity? Is it by way of praxis or reason? Well, let’s start with the deepest under pinning to our reasoning and see if they help, then we’ll reflect on Christian praxis.
Take properties and propositions as a point of beginning of this reflection, as they seem to be important things to use to determine the truth of the doctrine of the trinity. At least, it would seem to me, upon first glance, that they are essential to pointing to the truth or falsity of something like the doctrine of the trinity. But, it doesn’t take long to question their helpfulness in the unique case of God. Are properties and propositions determinative enough to referee the truth of the doctrine? Hint, they’re not. But let’s see why they are not.
Let’s say properties are themselves contingent entities, which is my intuition, what than is God’s relationship to them? For example, some say God is one, like absolutely numerically one. But how would one determine God is such a set? Well one would have to say properties are NOT contingent entities but necessary so we could point to this set and then draw out a truth inference on such a wild proposition. In other words, God has either the property of being one, rather than a property or set of properties that would signify being more than one. But why would God have such a reducible thing be a part of him? Seems a bit weird. Maybe “property” is the wrong thing to point to here for God’s oneness? Maybe it’s the fact that propositions are necessary entities? And if that’s the case, then maybe the proposition that “God is numerically one,” is real in some sense. But that leads us to ask the question, does that mean it’s true? How would one determine such a statement is true without determining some essential property of God is both real, and necessary for making the proposition true. (Or we’d need some means to tie that essential proposition as not only necessary but somehow tied to the reality of God in some type of symmetrical relationship.) And here in lies the problem with this whole scheme, it’s outlandish! To answer the question this paragraph started with directly, God has no relationship to them other than to determine their being, and allow them a space in our lives to help govern and inspect our thoughts, but they have their limits and appropriation.
God is more basic a reality than properties and propositions, so how could we have either a property to consider or a proposition to determine the statement, “God is numerically one,” that would be sufficient to explain God’s identity as “1?” We can’t because God is a determining God who creates all ex-nihilo. Well, I guess we can if properties are necessary and God has such a property, or if the proposition “God is numerically one,” is necessary, real, and true as a brute fact and aspect of God. But there is no underlying reason that this should be the case other than ones’ intuitional predispositions. And in that case it’s one persons arbitrary determination between another’s. Furthermore, it seems that both entities could and perhaps could probably be contingent on God’s determination of them, beyond the powers of human arbitrary intuitions in such matters. If that is the case (as I’m arguing) one has simply to support some kind of divine conceptualism model or something like that, I think. They may be helpful entities for identifying regular world objects, but they are not sufficient for determining the truth of the statement, “God is numerically 1,” because his determination of their existence would also mean him determining them to be some kind of essential quality of his own, or are in fact what God is made of? That doesn’t make sense? Maybe he’s co-eternal with these entities? That doesn’t make sense either. One should see every logical option is problematic, and giving God the determining power over such entities, and thus making them contingent entities seems a wise reduction so we don’t over conceptualize God with these lesser things; and counting to such a move at least seems more politically correct even if it’s not true. It seems like a wise thing to organize God over all even something as basic as properties and propositions.
But of course it is true: God is over all. As Aquinas, Barth and Przywara show us, God remains transcendent over everything, even the aspects and characteristics that all beings share between themselves. God has no properties in and of himself but by way of analogy through the grace of properties we share with his creation, but we can trust those not to be similarities but are dissimilar to the being of God because he is more basic and transmundane beyond what analogously ties us to his reality.
What these thinkers teach us is that what we find in the actuality of God in our lives is that this analogy of being we share with all beings breaks down because he is determinative of the properties that are his way of life with and for us, he is not reducible to such realities. In Christ, by the Spirit we learn God’s essence is free, and only determined by the brute fact of his freedom to be whom God always is beyond the constraints of time and space. His way of being for us than is not analogous to our being but rather he redeems this discontinuity by assuming it and transforming it into a new creation and revealing the triune act of salvation is consistent with the internal life God is as the only triune one.
Now, in Christ, being is not limited by its properties and proposition and axioms, but is instead given access to transcend what on the plane of creation would be contradictory. Christ walks through walls, appears and disappears, is one with the father, gives his spirit, and is simultaneously the first and the last. It appears the entities we use to delineate identity, which rule our lives, are brought into submission, assumed and transcended by the grace of his freedom to love us with no end. God is love.
The trinity is a doctrine that tries to commit to this hope beyond all hopes. We may analogously share being with all of creation but we long for the day our being is in him and able to participate in a freedom with no bounds except to be determined by his knowledge and grace for us in the radical transformation of Christ’s eternal life.
Why doesn’t the trinity make sense? Because it’s not supposed to. It’s the best way of saying that what we’re trusting in is ultimately beyond common sense, it’s the exception to every rule, because in the grace of the father, by the son, through the spirit the triune God is by brute fact the Lord of every rule, and his rule beyond them is good, just, and eternal (and even triune!).
When we say God is triune we’re trying to say the best way we can, from the grace of revelation, that the way God keeps his oneness together as the ultimate triune transmundane reality is the same way he always was, is, and is to come; and in Christ God has hid us in him in this mystery.
The door to this truth is not through the properties and propositions that govern logic, but through obedience to every praxis of revelation he has given us to live by and in. We are baptized in the triune name, pray in a triune manner, and receive all the sacraments in the same Spirit. Ultimately, the truth of the doctrine is determined by the determination of the Holy Spirit who is the truth.
Now when you read the Bible you’ll see why the doctrine of the trinity is the best hermeneutical tool ever graced the church: because it forces us not to reduce the text to some unrecognizable synthesis, but keeps the tension of this mystery on the plane of our contingency until we are fully on the plane of God’s triunity. Every property and proposition will someday pass away but the triune God is beyond making us ever new. Human being is a divine destiny. And the doctrine of the trinity is the divine blessing committing us to always confess this hope in the name of the Father, by the Son, in the Spirit. Amen.
