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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]
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