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God. Trinity. Trinitarian axiom
In the works of
Fr. Sergei Bulgakov
Personalism of the doctrine of God
In the Word of God and in the Church tradition, the
personal
nature of the Divine is firmly established.
In the Word of God and in the Church tradition, the
personal
nature of the Divine is firmly established. God the Father speaks of Himself:
I,
God the Son speaks of Himself:
I,
and of the Comforter Spirit:
He.
The whole Holy Trinity in Unity speaks of itself:
I
and
We.
This
personalism
of the revealed doctrine of God, which is pre-emptive of the impersonal conception, is the basis of the patristic teaching on the Holy Trinity, which attempts to express the dogma in the language of religious philosophy, in metaphysical terms, to formulate a logical concept.
Trinitarian axiom
The absolute subject, the conciliar, trinitarian
I,
already has in itself a kind of absolute correlation in the absolute. It cannot but be trinitarian.
One can formulate the trinitarian axiom:
all hypostases
are equally hypostatic and
indifferent
in this
equal hypostaticedness
of their own, and hypostatic attributes in this hypostatic self-determination do not play a decisive role.
The absolute subject, the conciliar, trinitarian
I,
already has in itself a kind of absolute correlation in the absolute. It cannot but be trinitarian, before and apart from all attributes. And it has a certain self-existence, even when abstracted from these attributes (it goes without saying that this abstraction can only be produced in the thought of επινοία). The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in addition to fatherhood, sonship and sanctification, are three completely equivalent and similar
I,
the true hypostatic faces of a single trihypostatic absolute subject, each of which speaks of Itself:
I,
and of the other:
You,
and
We.
And this
I,
as such, does not even depend on the hypostatic
image
of being, the very ὔπαρξις does not depend on τρόpos τῆς ὑπάpξεως, it logically and ontologically (certainly not chronologically)
precedes it. And the attributes themselves do not determine hypostases, but only express their
concrete
relationship in the unity of trihypostatic being. If we take them in pure hypostaticedness, then there will be no hypostatic difference between them, each hypostasis is equivalent in its hypostaticedness, there is
I
for myself,
you
and
he
for other hypostases, and
we
together with them, and through this trinity each hypostasis separately, like the three hypostases in unity, is the hypostatic face of the Absolute Subject. In this sense, it is possible to express the trinitarian axiom:
all hypostases
are equally hypostatic and
indifferent
in this
equal hypostaticedness
of their own, and hypostatic attributes in this hypostatic self-determination do not play a decisive role. Three suns united in one sun: each sun is the same sun as the other, does not exist separately from the others, and yet expresses the trinitarian sun.
Trinitarian axiom:
The Holy Trinity is a divine triunity which is exhaustive and perfect in Its fullness, which is trine and integral in all Its definitions.
… it is necessary to set forth the following trinitarian axiom: The Holy Trinity is a divine triunity which is exhaustive and perfect in Its fullness, a triunity of interrelations which is trine and integral in all Its definitions, without any disjunctive or conjunctive
"and"
connecting the separate hypostases. Every hypostasis in separation, as well as their triunity, must be understood in
trine connection and in trine self-definition,
which form the Whole, the Holy Trinity.
General thesis, which is a kind of axiom concerning the Holy Trinity:
the three hypostases, in their character, are not single and not double, but trine.
… But besides this there is also the triune nature of the consubstantial Trinity, which is substantially identical with the nature of each of the individual hypostases, while differing from this nature modally, as it were, according to the mode of its hypostatic possession. This difference refers, of course, not to its ousian essence but to the mode of its possession by the Holy Trinity in the triunity and by each individual hypostasis.
The Holy Trinity is the
trinitarian
act of the self-definition of the hypostases;
and each of the elements of this trinitarity, despite the aseity and equi-divinity of the three hyposcases, is
correlative
to the other two hypostases and in this sense is conditioned by them. The
fullness
of natural being, as self-revelation, is given only in the trinitarity of the hypostatic self-definitions. Naturally too, the Holy Trinity exists only
trinely,
«consubstantially and indivisibly», which is why each of the individual hypostatic modes of natural being does not simply exist, but coexists in its indivisibility with the others. Therefore, in general, none of the hypostases in its separate personal being can be understood except in trinitarian conjugacy. This leads to a general thesis, which is a kind of axiom concerning the Holy Trinity:
the three hypostases, in their character, are not single and not double, but trine.
They must be understood not on the basis of themselves alone, but on the basis of their trinitarian union;
they are defined and shine noc only wich their own lighc, but also with the light reflected from the other hypostases. It follows that all three hypostases must be understood in a
distinctly personal as well as trinitarian
manner;
and any doctrine that transforms the Holy Trinity into a system of originations and dyads is fundamentally deficient.
See also
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