Book Report: The Trinity by Gordon H. Clark Gordon Clark s book The Trinity, is a treatment of a very difficult yet critical component of Christianity. Clark begins his book with a chapter on Scripture that sets the foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity. There are Scriptures in the Old Testament which seem to bear witness to the Trinity, which fall into three camps. One is those Scriptures that clearly anticipate the Trinity on which all Christians agree, but that might have puzzled Old Testament Jews. A second group of passages which the Jews would not have expected, but with hindsight Christians now can demonstrate the plausibility of anticipation of the Trinity. A third group are those verses that God probably did not intend to demonstrate the Trinity, but which overzealous Christians read too much into. Clark notes several Old Testament Scriptures in which God is used in the plural, such as in Genesis 20:13 and Genesis 35:7. In several places the pronoun us is used when referring to God, such as in Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 3:22. Several verses such as Job 35:10, Psalm 149:2, and Isaiah 54:5 all have the word Maker or Creator in the plural form when referring to God. Other particular verses speak of the angel of the Lord. Some preliminary thoughts that Clark puts forth are his observation that while many conservative pastors often preach on the deity of Christ, rarely does anyone preach on the interrelationships among the persons of the Trinity. The Father is only God, in that the Father never became incarnate. The Spirit is likewise sent, and the Father is not. These are distinctions that will become important to the discussion as the book progresses along. 1
Clark next includes a chapter on Sabellianism, which states that God is a single person. There is not a second Person called the Son or a third Person called the Spirit. When God was active in creation and the sustainment of the universe, he is the Father. When God is active in redemption, he is called the Son. When God is active in sanctification, he is called the Spirit. The three names signify the three activities of a single Person. Sabellius was condemned as a heretic in A.D. 263. Scripture proves his condemnation as just. The baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 demonstrates that activities such as creation or redemption cannot be fathers and sons. In addition to the baptismal formula is the Apostolic Benediction. Clark also notes that the Son prays to the Father, and this is another indication that these are personal distinctions and not activities. Clark then moves to a discussion of the Deity of Christ. He states that it was this discussion of the Deity of Christ in the second and third centuries that forced the church to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in the early fourth century. Clark notes several Scripture verses that support the deity of Christ, and notes also that many of these verses puts the knowledge that the Father has for the Son on the same level of the knowledge that the Son has of the Father. If the Father s knowledge is complete, divine, and eternal, then so must the Son s be. These verses, and others then, raise some difficult questions in light of other Scriptures. How can there be two or three Gods? What is the relation between them? Isn t it a contradiction to say that God is eternal and also that he became incarnate? 2
One of the key personalities in this whole discussion was Athanasius, the determined fighter for the orthodox position of the deity of Christ. However, Clark notes that the reader should remember that the Arian position was very plausible, especially since the Jews had a hard time recognizing that Jesus was the Old Testament Messiah. The battle for the Trinity began at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. Afterwards, Athanasius life was full of turmoil and strife. The Trinity is a critical doctrine, and Athanasius fought for it with his life. Athanasius notes the Arian position denies that the Son was true God. The Son was an extreme figure of speech, and the controversy revolves around the meaning of the word Son. Athanasius stated that since the Arians believed that the Son was not before he was generated, the Father was not always the Father. If the Son is the wisdom and word of God, then before the Son, the Father must have been at one point wisdomless and wordless. Clark also examines three younger contemporaries of Athanasius that also defended his doctrine against the Arians, Marius Victorinus, Hilary of Poitiers, and Gregory of Nyssa. In varying degrees, these three theologians contributed to the case against Arianism. However, Hilary failed to define his terms sufficiently. Gregory was the most important, and wrote extensively on the Trinity defining his terms with great care. Gregory stressed the identical nature of both earthly fathers and sons and the eternal Father and Son. Clark explains Gregory s assertion that the Father is uncreated and ungenerated; the Son is uncreated but generated; and the Spirit is uncreated, ungenerated, but proceeds from the Father. 3
In his discussion of the influence of Augustine on the subject of the Trinity, Clark attempts to clarify some of the terms. Substance, nature, and persons all have vague meanings and sometimes inhibit the discussion of the Trinity rather than help it. However, Clark explains that if one were to substitute the word definition in the explanation of the Trinity. For instance, the definition of the Triune God is not the definition of the Son. The Son is not eternal because he is the Son, but because he is God. Augustine, following this thought process, made it clear that the Trinity is one in one sense, and three in another sense. Regardless of the terms used, it must be made clear that God is one in one sense and three in another sense. Athanasius and Augustine wrote prolifically on the Trinity, and the next step was the Athanasian Creed composed around A.D. 850. This creed teaches that the Trinity is one God in three Persons. The Persons are not to be confounded nor the Substance divided. Athanasius taught that God was one ousia, meaning being, reality, or definition. In addition, the Creed introduces one of the most complex aspects of the Deity, that of incomprehensibility of God. The original Latin doesn t say incomprehensible but literally unmeasurable. Incomprehensible implies difficult or impossible to understand, and all Christians must logically allow for some knowledge of God, for otherwise the Bible is not divine revelation and the religion would be meaningless. This Creed is still the standard for the definition and explanation of Christian belief about the Trinity. In the next two sections, Clark discusses the contributions of mainly four contemporary theologians: Charles Hodge, Louis Berkhof, Cornelius Van Til, and Herman Bavinck. Clark considers Hodge one of the greatest American theologians, but 4
is critical of some of his views on the Trinity. Comprehension and incomprehensible are somewhat vague terms in which Hodge varies on meaning. Hodge in some situations stresses the sensory perception and we can know things with our senses, and in other situations defines comprehend as complete and exhaustive knowledge of something. Using this definition, nothing is comprehensible! However, Hodge at later times states that man cannot everything God knows, which Clark and most Christians also hold. Berkhof states that we cannot have absolute knowledge of God, but we can have partial knowledge of him. Berkhof continues by agreeing that if we know some of God s attributes, then we know about God Himself, as the attributes are none other than God Himself. The attributes constitute the definition of God. Bavinck is also confusing about what knowledge we can have of God. In one sentence he states that the truth revealed in Scripture passes all human comprehension, then in later paragraphs states that we can know something about God. He also states that knowledge is confirmed by the realm of experience. However, Clark disagrees and argues that all knowledge, including knowledge of God, consists of certain propositional truths. While Bavinck argues that our knowledge of God by means of meditation on God s revelation in nature, Clark argues that man s knowledge of God is partially innate. As with his ideas of knowledge, Bavinck is also confusing regarding the Trinity, denying the full definition of Deity and humanity is applicable to the Son. Again, Van Til is unclear as to his definition of knowledge and comprehensibility as they relate to God. Van Tim holds that there is a qualitative difference in the knowledge God holds and the knowledge man holds. Of course, Clark denies this, and 5
asks, does not the proposition David was King of Israel have the same meaning to both God and man? There is no doubt that God knows more about what this means and the details of David s kingship, but Clark argues that the proposition holds the same meaning with both God and man. Van Til also maintains that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of man do not coincide at any single point. Clark argues that if this is true, then all propositions would have two totally different meanings, one according to God and one according to man. And since God has a monopoly on truth, then man s meaning of any proposition would be meaningless, and man would know nothing at all. Man can know things about God, and that knowledge is true. Clark progresses the discussion of the Trinity with his definition and explanation of a concept called individuation. Christians have held that the Father is not the Son who is not the Holy Spirit; they are all different Persons. He has maintained all along that God is three in one sense and one in another sense, thus eliminating the contradiction of three Gods in one God. How can we differentiate the three Persons? Clark suggests that a man is what he thinks, and no two men are precisely the same combination of thoughts. The same is true of the Trinity. Even though all three Persons is omniscient, one thinks I am the Father, and another thinks I am the Son. This is the qualitative theory of individuation. The three persons of the Trinity are immutable, because their thoughts never change. They have never learned anything, nor have they ever forgotten anything. Their thought is eternal. The Persons do not have precisely the same set of thoughts, so they are not one Person, but three. This discussion is the climax of Clark s treatise on the Trinity. 6
However, Clark clears up some other misconceptions in his discussion of eternal generation. While there are three Persons in the Godhead, one critical question is what is the relationship among these three? The problem and solution occurs in the discussion of eternal generation of the Son and eternal procession of the Spirit. The starting point for Clark is the fact that Scripture distinguishes between the Father and the Son. Why is one called the Father and one called the Son? Since they are both eternal, then their relationship must be eternal, but still as Father and Son. The orthodox doctrine of eternal generation teaches that it is the person of the Son, not the essence, that is generated. Clark states, There is not a second and generated essence, nor is it the essence that does the generating. The generation is a generation of a Person by a Person. This doctrine was worked out to avoid two errors, one taken care of by the word eternal, and one by the word generation. The essence of the Son could be as eternal as the essence of the Father, but the person was not. The relationship is Father to Son, but because the relationship is eternal, there is no time when the Son was not the Son and the Father was not the Father. The Person of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, proceeds from the Father but is not generated by the Father. 7