TOWARD A BIBLICAL MODEL OF THE SOCIAL TRINITY: AVOIDING EQUIVOCATION OF NATURE AND ORDER

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Sep 2004 by Horrell, J Scott

c. Each mutually indwells the other. On occasion in John's Gospel, Jesus declares, "the Father is in me, and I in the Father" (John 10:38; cf. 14:20; 17:11, 21-23). A striking passage is John 14:7-12 when Philip asks to see the Father, to which Jesus responds, "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father . . . Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?" So present is the Father in Jesus that, without confusing the persons, Jesus can declare that to see him is to see the Father. Likewise, the Spirit is in Jesus and will later be described as the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Christ. Yet the Son is distinct from the Spirit (4:10-14; 7:37-39; 14:16; 20:22), as the Spirit is from the Father (1 Cor 2:10-13). Although the idea appears in the Cappadocians and Maximus the Confessor, it is John of Damascus who explicitly employs the term perichöresis to describe the coinherence or mutual indwelling of the members of the Trinity-a concept expressed also by the Latin term circumincessio.24 To presuppose that on rational grounds, as some moderns contend, one person cannot inhabit another seems to fall short of the biblical portrayal not only of the Godhead, but also of the indwelling of a human being by either the Holy Spirit or, for that matter, a malignant spirit. It is perichoresis-the personal interpenetration of each member of the Godhead in the other through mutual activity of invitation and indwelling-that most adequately explains how three self-consciences can also be one in consciousness, thought, will, and action. So intrinsic is this perichoretic unity that God acts as the one and the three. While each person ever possesses distinct mental properties and unique relation to the others, the entire Holy Trinity co-exists in corporate, exhaustive harmony.25 Although not resolving the mystery, the doctrine of perichoresis helps explain the unity of the divine mind and will without slipping into either modalism or tritheism, into which it seems other solutions fall.

In summary, as rooted in the NT, a social model of the Trinity is that in which the one divine Being eternally exists as three distinct centers of consciousness, wholly equal in nature, genuinely personal in relationships, and each mutually indwelling the other. Today most biblical and systematic theologians have abandoned phrases such as Earth's three divine "modes of being" or Rahner's "manners of subsistence" because they prove inadequate to describe the complex, vivid relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

If a social theory of the Holy Trinity fits the biblical pattern, as argued above, how are we best to understand the apparently ordered personal relations within the Trinity? Frequently a social model is presumed to include a democratic or egalitarian conception of the immanent Trinity. Indeed, such an assumption is almost endemic in many circles today. But does such a theory find sufficient mooring in Scripture itself?