4. SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY ON THE TRINITY

State of the question. It is better to speak of the testimony of the Scriptures than to say that the existence of the Trinity is proved from the Scriptures, for the Trinity is not proved, nor is it a theological conclusion, but it is believed. To say that it is proved from the Scriptures is to insinuate that faith is the conclusion of this syllogism: Whatever God has revealed is true and is to be believed. But in the Scriptures God had revealed the mystery of the Trinity. Therefore I believe this mystery. The real conclusion of this syllogism, however, is that the Trinity is believable and should be believed. This is a judgment of credibility, but not an act of faith which is simply an essentially supernatural act, above discursive reasoning, and never the result of a syllogism, because it is based immediately on the authority of God the revealer, inasmuch as I believe in God revealing and God revealed by one and the same act.[70]

This statement, that the existence of the Trinity is proved by the Scriptures, can be accepted in the sense that this truth is proved to be of faith by the Scriptures. It was in this sense that many Thomists used the formula.

It is not necessary that every dogma be proved as revealed by the Scriptures, since a dogma may be contained implicitly in the Scriptures and more clearly be found in tradition, which preceded the Scriptures in the preaching of Christ and the early preaching of the apostles, which were not completely recorded in writing.

With regard to the origin of the dogma of the Trinity, the rationalists, the Protestant liberals, and the Modernists say that Christ in no way taught that God was triune, but only that God was the Father of all. They say further that in the beginning the apostles indeed believed in God the Father and in Jesus Christ, the man, the divine legate, and in the spirit, power, and operation of God, but that they did not accept these terms as referring to three distinct persons. About A.D. 80 we find in the Gospel of St. Matthew the formula of baptism, in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are enumerated but not as distinct persons. Shortly thereafter certain Christians, influenced by the philosophy of Philo, concluded that Christ was the Logos, that intermediary being between God and men. Others, because of their addiction to certain Hellenic theories, concluded that Christ was the Son of God in a literal and proper sense, and therefore equal to the Father. After long controversy this theory was defined by the Council of Nicaea. For the rationalists, therefore, the dogma of the Trinity is nothing more than a Judae-Hellenistic theory, slowly elaborated during the first four centuries.

Against this rationalist interpretation, it can be shown from the testimony of the Scriptures that this mystery was adumbrated in the Old Testament and more fully revealed in the New Testament. In a course of dogmatic theology, however, it is better to follow a regressive method by first explaining the texts of the New Testament and then indicating how the mystery was adumbrated in the Old Testament, just as we would regressively follow the course of a stream in order to discover its source. In explaining the doctrine of the New Testament it is more desirable to follow the order in which the revelation was proposed by Christ and the apostles, considering first the texts about the three persons together and then those about each person in particular.[71]