About the Holy Trinity (on the John V, 26)

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Glory be to Jesus Christ!
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About the Holy Trinity

As an answer to the question about the Trinity, which is considered in the https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/ of Yuri Milyavski in the group Open Orthodoxy Network.

Beginning. About the doxology.

A well-posed question, although there is one complication. I'll start with a related issue. When we praise one of the Hypostases, we remember the other two. Moreover, the Father is never the Last on the list. For example, Glory be to Thee, Christ of God, together with the Father and the Spirit!.. or and we glorify You [the Spirit] with the Father and the Son!.., etc. That is, the order of our glorification seeks to begin either with the Father as the First and the Causing or with the Other Hypostasis mentioned earlier, but then the Father between the Other Hypostasis and the Third One is like a liaison. That is, we can confidently say that our glory, praise, honor, worship, etc. do not rise by moving and passing through caused by the Hypostasis, They do not hold in themselves our glory, but They seem to be transparent to it. Our glory is definitely addressed to the Recipient, Who does not appropriate it only to Himself, but shares it with other Hypostases. In this, too, the love of God is manifested, and the Monarchy. We can also say that our glory peculiarly repeats the movement of God's revelation to us: from the Father, through the Son and the Spirit, trying to cooperate with God as much as possible. But it must be said that our glorification is our action. At the same time, it is due to the previous action of God in us, so you can say that it is returning back what was received. God, appearing to men, glorifies them, as Christ Himself says, If scripture calls the sons of God those to whom the Word of God has been addressed, then…

It is impossible to avoid discussing Filioque. Therefore, I will say this. When Christ says, I will send you the Holy Spirit from the Father, I will send does not refer to an essential origin, and from refers specifically to it. In a parallel place, which says that the Father sent the Son {gave the Son to execute the Judgement} is not about the essential connection between the Father and the Son, but about Their Decision, about actions regarding creation. Therefore, when Christ says I will send, it is also about iconomy, not the Deity and the Source in the Godhead. Therefore, Filioque does not have any biblical basis. Here the introduction of the idea of sowing or Filioque implies the presence of features in the Two Hypostases, which the Third does not have, which according to Kurayev, introduces individuality into the Trinity and detracts from the Spirit. The idea is that Hypostases have everything in common except hypostatic properties. And the idea of Filioque assumes that the Father and the Son have a common property for the Two, which the Third One does not have – the Spirit – to cause the being of the Other Hypostasis.

I would like to add that this is not exactly a convincing argument. We can say, looking at how to count: because if instead of being the Cause, being born of the Father and coming from the Father take, for example, to be the Cause (Root), to be Caused, then there are two Hypostases that have the last property, and One which has only the first. If we go further, arguing that instead of generalizing the cause, we have more precise properties, then here the Son and the Spirit will be united as opposed to the Father by the fact that They have one property, and the Father has two to give 'birth' to the Son and 'coming from' to the Spirit. If we take as hypostatic properties to be causeless, to be born of the Father and to come from the Father, then although they are all one by one, but heterogeneous – the first indicates causeless, and the other two – to-have-Father-as-a-Cause. And it seems, no matter how to distribute hypostatic properties between Hypostases, logical clarity in the fact that each Hypostasis has one hypostatic property cannot be achieved.

And if the numbers are not the same, then the question of individuality is raised from the other side. In other words, with a certain view, it is not possible to achieve logical clarity in this argument.

The words of Athanasius and Cyril can be attempted to be understood similarly to St. Gregory Palamas's interpretation of the partakers of God's nature as grace, not essence.

Explanation of the term Self-Causing

That day was the Day of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neokesarius, who had ordained and led to the ordination of my Heavenly Deputy, priest Alexander of Comana, to the bishop of the city of Comana, therefore a memorable day, as well as the birthday of Father Alexander Trofymliuk, rector of the Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy and Seminary. A good day for theology.

More about causality.

1. This does not mean that there are certain moments of eternity in which the existence of the Father gives a impetus, a basis for His own existence and beyond, that is, it does not mean that we have a certain iterative process – no, let it not be!
2. As to this, it must be said that the Father has no other reason for His existence, so we can say He is Unsourced, Uncaused.
3. The apostle Paul says that from the Father all fatherhood comes, whether in heaven or on earth, in this sense comes all causality, ability to give, activity, at the same time the Father is superior to any causality as its Source, so in this sense it is possible to say He is above any causality.
4. The Church theology says that the Father is a Causeless Cause. And indeed, the Father is Causeless and He is also the Cause. (Paragraph added on 2 July 2023, edited on 10 July 2023)
5. Self-existent means Who has being, life in Himself, but does not introduce any iterations. In the words of the Gospel of John, Just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave the Son to have life in Himself (John V, 26) states that the Godhead, God's essence, presents itself in this context as life, being superior to life. Likewise, the Hypostasis of the Father presents Himself as a Cause, which is the Source of all causality, but is logically (unspeakably, apophatically) superior to causality. And nothing in creation is substantially like God, but everything testifies of Him, and the causality and primacy that we know from creation testify of God but are not like God's.

When we talk about the Son and the Spirit, 'having-the-Father-as-a-Cause' means that for Them the logical Cause is the Father, but also introduces no complexity into God's Arche, into God's essence, but indicates reception from the Father according to the words of the Gospel.

On the antinomianism of theological thought

It is worth commenting on the words of St. Simeon the New Theologian (cited by Taras Tymo), his Theological Word, 1, to see the differences.

1. indeed, the sequence is not temporal, but logical;
2. there was such a direction of pre-Nicene theological thought – subordinationism, from which theology departed, becoming more precisely formulated in the Nicene period. Primacy is not temporary, but logical.

and therefore also bigger than… – this is not exactly what we are talking about, logical primacy does not mean a majority. The Son is self-existent, that is, He exists not through the will of the Father, but by Himself, but from the Father and not contrary to Him, but naturally, essentially to Them. Similarly is the Holy Spirit. Primacy is not temporal or significant, but logical.

The Son is self-existent, but not causeless, for He has the Father as Cause. Just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave the Son to have life in Himself, the gospel says (John V, 26). The One Who gave is called Reason. Similarly is for the Holy Spirit. About non-personal personality is an apophatic in the style of Dionysius the Areopagite, but even the word Trinity speaks of the applicability of numbers to God's being (limited applicability). And St. Simeon will not deny that the Hypostases in the Trinity are 3, not 4 or 2. Further, the argument about nature and numbers is not logical, because nature is one, there are three Persons, and it is not about nature, but about the Hypostasis. The fact that the Spirit can be put before the Father and the Son is evidenced by at least the glorification I mentioned. The appeal to nature at the end is illogical, because again it is not about it, but about the Hypostases. After all, St. Simeon does not write these words to us and does not reflect on our question, so my words about does not speak are not actually about Simeon's words, but about the possibility of their application to the topic. An example of what context means. We express opinions in completely different contexts, so it looks like we are criticizing each other, although this is not the case.

This is the actual opinion of St. Simeon. As stated in the reference sent to Taras Tymo, Simeon departs from the traditional model here. See also my comment above. We can mention the antinomianism of theological thought, the apophatic and cataphatic theology, and reason what Simeon says in an apophatic way, which does not deny the cataphatic application of all that has been said.

Glory be to You, our God, glory be to You!

Source of the Ukrainian original work: Про Пресвяту Трійцю.