Understanding the Hypostatic Characteristics- Trinity

Speaker 1 0:01

So, going back to our text, mutually related persons and the unity of equal essence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is how Saint Augustine is going to describe to us the Trinity, the Trinity. Remember what we said about those things which are held in common by all three members of the Holy Trinity and those things which are imparticipable, which they do not share among themselves? The Cappadocian answer to that question is based on the mode of existence which is unique to each of the three divine hypostases the unbegottenness of the Father, the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit and the procession of the Holy Spirit. These are the hypostatic characteristics of each of the three divine hypostases respectively, and they do not share these. Now St Augustine says let us endeavor, for example, that if we say of the Father what properly does not belong to him, what would properly not belong to him the hypostatic characteristics of the other two hypotheses it may belong to the Son. Okay, so the begottenness would belong to the Son or to the Holy Spirit. So procession would belong to the Holy Spirit or to the whole Trinity or to the whole Trinity. If it doesn't belong to Him, the Father, it may belong to the Son. It may belong to the Son, it may belong to the Holy Spirit, but if it belongs to the whole Trinity, then surely it also belongs to Him. Let's see, or to the whole Trinity, that if we say something of the Son which does not properly apply to the Son, properly means characteristically, it may at least apply to the Father or to the Holy Spirit. What could we say of the Son which does not properly apply to the Son? It may at least apply to the Father, or to the Holy Spirit, or to the whole Trinity, to the whole Trinity. That if we say something of the Holy Spirit indicating a property which is not peculiarly His, then it should not be foreign to the Father or to the Son, or to the one God which is the Trinity itself. Thus, we may desire to see whether the Holy Spirit be properly that most excellent gift of charity. Well, of course, charity or love, according to the Cappadocian understanding, is an energy of God and it belongs properly to that which the three members of the Holy Trinity hold in common. Thus, we may desire to see whether the Holy Spirit be properly that most excellent gift of charity. So he's referring to the Holy Spirit as himself charity, the gift of charity, as we said, between the Father and the Son. If he is not, then either the Father is charity, or the Son, or the whole Trinity, since we may not suppose the certainty of faith and most mighty authority of the Scripture which says God is charity.

Speaker 1 4:19

But we must never let the error of impiety so lead us astray that we ascribe to the Trinity anything that belongs not to the Creator but to the creature or is the result of baseless speculation. What is he saying here? God is charity. He's aware of that. That Scripture says God is love, and yet he's trying to attach charity in a special way to the Holy Spirit. So when we say we must never let the error of impiety so lead us astray, that we ascribe to the Trinity anything that belongs not to the Creator but to the creature or is the result of baseless speculation. So we mustn't think of charity in a created way. That would be baseless speculation. The love of God is on a much higher level.

Speaker 1 5:23

Well, we have to go on to see what this means, I think, because it's very difficult to understand at this point. In view of all this, let us consider those three things to which our inquiry has brought us. We are not yet concerned with things in heaven, nor yet with God, father, son and Holy Spirit, but with this image, inferior but still an image, which is man, so much more familiar and less difficult for the infirmity of our mind to study, of our mind to study. So he is bringing us from the heights of heaven down to the created level and he's saying look, let's look at man, let's make this easier for ourselves, because we don't know yet, we don't have sure knowledge. So let's look at the image of God which is man. And this, of course, is interesting, because what's happening to the created-uncreated distinction? Just keep that thought in your mind as we read on, because in Cappadocian theology there's no similarity between the created and the uncreated. But in order to understand something about the mystery of the Holy Trinity, st Augustine is pointing us towards the created. In this case he's saying let's have a look at man, as man is created in the image of God.

Speaker 1 7:09

I, the inquirer, present in my love for anything three things myself, what I love and love itself. I cannot love love without loving a lover. I cannot love love without loving a lover. I cannot love love without loving a lover. Do we love love. What does that mean? What does he mean? I cannot love love without loving a lover, for there is no love where nothing is loved. So you are the lover, you love something and you love something with the love that comes from you and is given to the beloved, the one you love.

Speaker 1 7:58

Lover, the loved and love. These are three. But suppose my love's object be myself and why is he saying this? Is God loving himself now? But suppose my love's object be myself. Then the three become two the object of love and love, because I'm both subject and object, and love because I'm both subject and object and love. For when the lover loves himself, subject and object are the same. Just as loving and being loved are, in the love of self, the same thing, just as loving and being loved are in the love of self, the same thing. There is no difference between the statements he loves himself and he is loved by himself.

Speaker 1 8:55

Curiously, when you step back from this, you're starting to wonder how appropriate is this subject-object language with regard to God? I mean, are we going to end up with God loving himself? Anyway, in that case, to love and to be loved are not two things, any more than are the lover and the beloved two persons. But still the love and its object remain two. For the subject of self-love can be identical with love only if love itself be the object of love. But to love oneself and to love one's love are not the same thing, since love which is loved must already have its object, else it is no love. Okay, so love has already have its object, else it is no love. Okay, so love has to have an object, philosophically necessity in God, because love signifies a need and a realization of one's natural potential.

Speaker 1 10:11

Something Aristotelian is going on here, but let's leave that to one side for a moment. In self-love, then, there are two things present love and what is loved, the lover and the loved being one, from which it appears that a triad is not necessarily implied in the existence of love. Well then, the plot thickens. Let us abstract from our present consideration all the other elements of which human nature is composed, and, in order to find what we are looking for in as clear a form as the matter permits, let us take the mind in isolation. In the mind's love for itself, two things are displayed mind and love. Two things are displayed mind and love. Self-love is the will to be at one's own disposal for self-enjoyment. So he's introducing will here as well. If the mind wills to be no more and no less than what it is, then will corresponds to mind and love is equal to lover.

Speaker 1 11:40

If love is a really existing thing, it is not body but spirit. There we are truly in the realm of Plato. The same is true of the mind. Yet the mind and its love are not two spirits but one spirit, not two essences but one. In other words, two objects are one lover and love, or, if you prefer to put it so, love and love's object, and these two are mutually related terms, lover being related to love and love to lover, for the lover loves in virtue of a particular love, and love is the activity of a particular lover.

Speaker 1 12:38

Mind and spirit, on the other hand, are not relative terms but denote the essence in itself. It is not the fact that mind and spirit belong to a particular man that constitutes them as mind and spirit. Remove that element, the addition of which constitutes a man, that is the body, and mind and spirit will still remain. So they're capable. Mind and spirit are capable of independent existence Again very platonic and also to be found in Aristotle. But remove the lover and there will be no love. Remove the love and there will be no lover. Thus, as mutually related terms, they are two In themselves. Each is spirit and both together are one spirit.

Speaker 1 13:53

Where, then, is there a trinity? Let us apply all our powers to the question, invoking the everlasting light to illuminate our darkness. That we may see in ourselves as may be permitted to us the image of God. Are you ready for the next part? It's heavy going, isn't it? The mind cannot love itself unless it also knows itself. You can only love that which you know. That is, that it should love what it does not know is impossible.

Unpacking the Triadic Nature

Speaker 1 14:41

It would be folly to allege that the mind forms either a general or a specific concept from its experience of other minds, believes itself to belong to the same class of being and, on that basis, loves itself. How can a mind not knowing itself know any other mind? It cannot be compared with the body's eye, which sees other eyes but not itself. We see bodies with the bodily eyes because the rays which flash from them and touch the thing seen cannot be reflected back upon the eyes unless we are looking at a mirror. This is a very delicate and obscure subject which needs much research before it can be clearly proved to be so or otherwise. But whatever be the truth about our power of vision, the power itself, whether it acts by rays or in some other way, is something that we cannot see with our eyes. We inquire about it with the mind and comprehend it if we can with the mind. We may say, then, that the mind acquires knowledge of corporeal things by the bodily senses and of things incorporeal by itself. Being itself incorporeal, it must know itself by itself. If it does not know itself itself by itself, if it does not know itself, it cannot love itself Again.

Speaker 1 16:20

Coming back to loving that which is known Now, just as we found a duality of mind and its love in the fact of self-love, so there is a duality of mind and its knowledge in the fact of self-knowledge. Accordingly, the mind, its love and its knowledge constitute a triad. These three are one and, if perfect, they are equal. If the mind's love of itself does not reach the measure of its being, if, say, the human mind, which is greater than the body, loves itself only with the love due to the human body, then there is sin. The love is not perfect. Again, if the measure of its self-love exceeds that of its being, if it should love itself with the love due to God, to whom it is incomparably inferior, then also there is a great sin and no perfect self-love. The sin is yet more perverse and iniquitous when the body is loved with love due to God.

Speaker 1 17:38

Similarly, a knowledge which falls short of its object, where full knowledge is possible, is not perfect. A knowledge which is greater than its object implies a superiority in the nature of the knower to that of the known. The knowledge of a body is greater than the body, which is the object of the knowledge, for knowledge is a mode of life in the knowing mind, whereas the body is not life. And any life is greater, not in extent but in power, than any body. But when the mind knows itself, the knowledge does not exceed the self, for the self is both subject and object of the knowledge. If it knows the whole of itself, without any alien importation, the knowing is correspondent to the mind. For it is no less apparent that in this self-knowledge, the knowing is not dependent on any other source. And when this knowledge takes in the whole self and nothing more, it is neither less nor greater than the self. Thus it is true to say that when each member of our triad is present, it follows that all three are equal.

Speaker 1 19:13

So here, after presenting us with a kind of neoplatonic trinity of mind, love and knowledge, and dismissing the body entirely of possessing true life, saint Augustine has achieved a trinity. He's gone from speaking of two faculties within the human person to three, and it is true to say, as he says, that when each member of our triad is perfect, so present, fully, then you have equality, three equal powers or faculties within one human being. At the same time, we find ourselves encouraged to conceive how this triad really exists in the soul, inseparable though distinct to consciousness, as so many substantive or essential realities, not as properties of a subject, like color or shape in a body or any other quality or quantity. So he's saying these are not attributes. These are not attributes of the essence, they are essences. They are three distinct essences which are one essence. This is what he's moving towards. Three let's call them realities, powers, faculties which are one. So they're not attributes we're not talking about.

Speaker 1 20:59

As he says, this triad really exists in the soul, inseparable though distinct to consciousness, as so many substantive or essential realities, not as properties of a subject, like color or shape in a body or any other quality or quantity, for nothing of that kind can pass outside the subject to which it belongs. The color or shape of a particular body cannot belong also to another. But the mind can love not only itself. It can also direct that love to an object outside itself. Similarly, the mind knows not only itself but much else as well. Therefore, love and knowledge do not belong to the mind as attributes to a subject. Their existence is as substantive as that of the mind itself.

Speaker 1 22:05

They can be regarded as mutually related terms, but each exists in a substance of its own. Well, he says it here very clearly Each exists in a substance of its own, not as an attribute but as its own proper substance. As related terms they are not comparable to color and the colored subject, where the color possesses no substance proper to itself. The substance is the colored body, the color is in the substance. The relation is to be rather to that of two friends who are also men, that is, substances. Men is not a relative term. Friend is. Well, I will resist the temptation of going at this point into distinction between substance and attribute. We'll come back to that later. But you see, he's emphasizing the real existence of each of these, saying that, therefore, the question is one of relation how does each one of these substances relate to the other and within what we are looking at, ie the human being, man? So he's looking for a better solution to what at least he is aware of. He's looking for a better solution than we have so far.

Speaker 1 23:56

I think he's heard some things about the Second Ecumenical Council and is not too impressed. Well, he's come out of Platonism to Christianity. Don't forget, it was Platonism that saved him from Manichanism. So he's been on quite a journey and, yes, he's influenced by Neoplatonism, but in Neoplatonism, of course, there's a hierarchy of being which he's aware is not the case when speaking of the Holy Trinity.

Speaker 1 24:32

Again, st Augustine doesn't want to be anything other than a Christian. He wants to be a Christian and present the Orthodox faith. But this is the way that he's doing it, and it's the way that he's doing it that is problematic because, on the one hand, he's a genius. To figure all this stuff out and to say what he's saying has been recognized for centuries as the work of a genius. He's brilliant, but of course it's not enough to be a genius. What is he doing? And why is he doing it? He thinks he's found a better solution, and he's not the only one, is he? Because those who followed after him agreed.

Speaker 1 25:20

We said that, with regard to the development of Christian doctrine development, quote, unquote, it's really the expression, the formulation of Christian doctrine. After St Gregory the theologian dealt with this matter. Nothing has been added, it was the final word and indeed the creed of the Second Ecumenical Council is not to be changed, it's not to be touched, and everyone understood this. But again, here is St Augustine to give him the benefit of the doubt, out there in North Africa trying to work out a better solution to what Father John Romanides used to call a non-existent problem. And then you have a curious sequence of events that follows after the Dark Ages, taking St Augustine as the authority, the final word on the patristic love, because the patristic period comes to an end in the West and it's superseded, in other words, it's improved upon by what comes later. And then that period comes to an end and there's another improvement, and you go on in this history of ideas way, building on what was there previously, building on what was there previously. So St Augustine is the foundation, but improving upon constantly. I confess I'm deliberately torturing you now because I want you to really be immersed in the text so that you see it's not just what he's saying, it's the whole tone, the ethos, the spirit, which comes from a different world. You read the most philosophical of the fathers, so-called, and they don't feel like this. What's going on? And is it any wonder this is before you get to Aquinas and all of those gentlemen? Is it any wonder that in the West you can't be a theologian unless you've had years and years of philosophy?

Speaker 1 27:49

There's a friend of mine, a non-Orthodox, who was very happy. He wrote to me. We met at the monastery of St John the Baptist and he wrote to me once to say he wanted to go to seminary to become a Roman Catholic priest. And he said I found a seminary that offers two semesters of patristics. So I congratulated him and I said would you mind telling me what they consist of? He said well, one semester is St Augustine and the other semester is the Greek fathers.

Speaker 1 28:25

And I couldn't resist not stopping there. So I said to him and how many credits of philosophy are you taking? And he said six semesters. How many credits of philosophy are you taking? And he said six semesters. Well, you see, once you've gone through six semesters of philosophy, even if you have two semesters of patristics, what's that going to do for you? It's a different world. They don't understand that the fathers were not philosophers. The Protestants are not interested in the Fathers because they think they were philosophers. So let's take a break. Please subscribe to our channel and share with your friends. Click on the join button below our video and become a friend or reader of the Mount Tabor Academy. Support our drive to introduce the theology and spiritual life of the Orthodox Church to the wider community.