GREGORY OF NYSSA AND THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY I N 1948 DONALD BAILLIE described the contemporary social analogy of the Trinity as "hltra-Cappadocian," suggesting that such Anglican versions of it as Leonard Hodgson's constitute "one-sided" developments of the Cappadocian three-man analogy. 1 Baillie does acknowledge, of course, that the Cappadocian fathers compared the Trinity to a human trio. He is further aware that twentieth century Anglican trinitarians have often pointed to the Cappadocians, particularly to Gregory of Nyssa, as precedent. But Baillie judges these contemporary theories to err in drawing a central conclusion from such a comparison, namely, that three "persons " in God mean-either for the Cappadocians or for usthree personalities, three centers of consciousness. The Cappadocians themselves, on Baillie's reading, are more circumspect. By their doctrines of intratrinitarian perichoresis (mutual enveloping, or interpenetration) , identity of trinitarian works ad extra, identity of essence, and divine simplicity, God Was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and 1 Donald M. Baillie, Atonement (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948), pp. 137, 140, 144. By "social analogy," or, alternatively, " strong trinitarianism," I mean any theory in which ( 1) Father, Son, and Spirit are conceived as persons in a full sense of "person" i.e., as distinct centen of love, will, knowledge, and purposeful action (all of which require consciousness) and ( 2) who are conceived as related to each other in some central ways analogous to, even if sublimely surpassing, relations among the members of a society of three human persons. Ironically, though his concept of God broadly meets these criteria, Hodgson himself rejected " social analogy" as a description of his own view, preferring an oddly inappropriate analogy of a single person as the organic union of three activities. Leonard Hodgson " The Doctrine of the Trinity," Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 5 (1954): 49-55; The Doctrine of the Trinity, Croall Lectures, 1942-1943 (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1943), pp. 85-87. 325 326 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. they carefully qualify their trinitarian theory and skirt the dangers of tritheism latent in it. Their use of "modes of existence " as one expression for the three in God further shows their caution and balance. They never go so far as to suggest " that the Persons are three distinct personalities in a ' social ' unity of even the highest kind." 2 In weighing contemporary Anglican theories Baillie thus finds them Cappadocian in only a lopsided and imbalanced way. They must in fa.ct be assessed as ultra-Cappa.docian: they fail to qualify the statement that God is three persons with the equally important statement that he is the one modally existing " infinite and universal Person." The result in Baillie's judgment is a distortion, a onesidedness, "an oversimplification of a mystery, or an overrationalization of a paradox." 8 Baillie's question of historical precedent for strong trinitarianism has lately become acute. Recently a number of books and articles have appeared in which the social analogy is stated with the help of concepts and methods from analytic philosophy,4 or from phenomenology and sociology of knowledge,5 or, especially, from socio-political theory. 6 The latter of 2 Baillie, God Was in Christ, pp. 141-42. a Ibid., p. 144. 4 William Hasker," Tri-Unity," Journal of Religion 50 ( 1970): 1-32. 5 Joseph A. Bracken, "The Holy Trinity as a Community of Divine Persons," Heythrop Joumal 15 (1974): 166-82, 257-70; What Are They Baying About the Trinity? (New York: Paulist Press, 1979). 6 Juan Luis Segundo, Our Idea of God, trans. John Drury, A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity, vol. 3 (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1974); Jan M. Lochman, "The Trinity and Human Life," Theology 78 ( 1975) ; 173-83; Geevarghese Mar Osthatios, Theology of a Classless Society (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1980); Jiirgen Moltmann, The Triinity and the Kiingdom: The Doctrine of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1980) . See also Daniel L. Migliore, Called to Freedom: Liberation Theology and the Future of Christian Doc· trine (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980), pp. 72-79; Thomas D. Parker, "The Political Meaning of the Doctrine of the Trinity: Some Theses," The J oumal of Religion 60 ( 1980 ) : 165-84; Kenneth Leech, The Social God (London: Sheldon Press, 1981). THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY these typically combine strong trinitarianism with a dehellenized doctrine of God's pathos, particularly his compassionate or " compathetic " identification with oppressed societies. What one misses, however, in both the older Anglican theories and in the more recent wave of " Trinity and suffering " theologies is a patristic background discussion that is full enough to estimate the degree of continuity between them and the Cappadocian tradition. Early twentieth century social analogies look like trinitarian apologies for the sort of philosophical personalism (Charles Renouvier, Mary Whiton Calkins, Borden Parker Bowne) then in vogue. 7 Their historical investigations, even into Greek theories claimed as precedents, are typically and disappointingly shallow. Some of the more recent work on the social analogy shows a bit more historical interest, but is never focussed particularly on the Cappadocians. 8 Yet the attempt to find a Cappadocian link between, say, the fourth gospel and Hodgson or Moltmann is fruitful along both historical and theological lines of inquiry. Of course one cannot sensibly argue to a systematic theological conclusion from the mere citation of ancient precedent. Supposing that a social theory of the Trinity was indeed embryonically alive in fourth century Asia Minor, it scarcely follows that it is true (or fitting, or valid, or sugges1tive). After raising the inevitable question of the historical Sitz im Leben and how it may qualify an ancient view, the modern trinitarian obviously has other criteria for assessing a trinity statement besides sheerly historical ones. He wants to know, for example, how coherent a theory is, how complete, how theologically, ethically, and devotionally redolent. He wants to know how continuous this Wilfred Richmond, Essay on Personality as a Philo7 See, for instance, sophical Principle (London: Edwin Arnold, 1900); J. R. Illingworth, The Doctrine of the Trinity (London: Macmillan & Co., 1907); Francis J. Hall, The Trinitv (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1910); Clement C. J. Webb, God and Personality (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1918). s For example, Moltmann, Trinity and Kingdom, does a fascinating study of Joachim of Fiore, but only mentions the Cappadocians. 828 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. theory may be with the best developed New Testament witness. All this conceded, it is still edifying to know whether the social analogy is merely an interesting· historical aberration to be associated with such oblique figures as John Philoponus and Joachim of Fiore, or whether, on the other hand, it is respectably, even if distantly, of the house and lineage of Gregory of Nyssa (the fullest and most technical of the Cappadocian trinitarians). Further, it would be helpful to gather and shed on the current discussion what theological light Gregory may have kindled. Accordingly, in what follows I want to state Gregory's theory, offer an interpretation of it that diverges from a standard one (that of Baillie, G. L. Prestige, an.d J. N. D. Kelly), and make a concluding judgment about the measure of continuity between Gregory's trinitarianism and a full, contemporary social analogy. Throughout, discussion will center on Gregory's answer to the big fourth century questions quid tres (three what?) and quis unus (one who?) and especially on his approach to the threeness/oneness coherence problem these questions generate. General Statement of Gregory's Theory It was usual as late as the third quarter of the fourth century for Greek trinitarians to use ousia and hypostasis almost interchangeably for the divine unity, as, for example, in the anathemas of the Nicene Creed and in some works of Athanasius.9 But the Cappadocians fixed ousia as the main oneness term, reserving hypostasis for what Father, Son, and Spirit are individually. Basil (or Gregory of Nyssa) shows this move in the opening of Epistle 38.10 He complains that those who think it "makes o J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1978), pp. 242, 247. 10 Refs. to Eng. text of B3sil will be Saint Basil, Letters ( 1-185), trans. Agnes Clare Way, notes by Roy J. Deferrari, The Fathers of The Church, THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY 329 no difference " whether they use ousia or hypostasis in discussing the Trinity fall into error and confusion. The fact is, he says, that faith teaches " both that which is separated in hypostasis and that which is united in ousia." In the Trinity, therefore, we should say that ousia is the common word for the three (o Tfi<> KoivoTrJro<> ,\oyo<>) but that hypostasis is the sign for the specific characteristic or peculiar quality of each ( 8£ t: I \ tt\ I 1" t I - ' 1!7r0CTTUO'L'> TO lOLa't>OV £KaCTTOV vCTi<> (nature), and fh6TrJ" (Godhead). Threeness terms are v11"0CTraCTi'> or 7rpoCTw11"ov (both usually translated " person ") , though occasionally, for the sake of routing Sabellius, Gregory uses ousia as a threeness term, in the sense of an individua:I 7rpayµ,a or aroµ,ov (thing or particular) .12 Gregory is not afraid of using the anarthrous (1£6, predicably or sortally after the fashion of John I: le. Thus, just as Peter, Paul, and Barnabas vol. 12 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1955). Refs. to Greek text will be to Saint Basile, Lettres, ed. and trans. Yves Courtonne, 3 vols. (Paris: Societe d' Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1957), vol. I. Refs. to Eng. text of Gregory will be to Gregory of Nyssa, Select Writings and Letters, trans. and with an introd. by William Moore and Henry Austin Williams, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954); Eng. refs. to Ad Graecos are to a working trans. by Robert Bernard, Princeton, 1979 (handwritten). Greek refs. to The Great Catechism will be to James Herbert Srawley, ed., The Oatechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa, Cambridge Patristic Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956). Other Greek refs. to Gregory will be to Gregorii Nysseni Opera, ed. Werner Jaeger, Institutum pro Studiis Classicis Harvardianum, 9 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1957-72). Besides section refs., page refs. to Greg. will also be supplied for convenience. 11 Epist. 38.5 ( p. 89). 120. Eun. I. 19 (Jaeg. 1, pp. 92-93). G. Christopher Stead, "Ontology and Terminology in Gregory of Nyssa," in Gregor von Nyssa und die Philosophie: Zweites Internationales Kolloquium uber Gregory von Nyssa, eds. Heinrich Dorrie, Margarete Altenburger, and Uta Schramm (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), pp. 112-13, 117-19, charges Gregory with a vast and confusing usage of key trinitarian terms. But R. Hubner, "Diskussion," p. 120, rightly observes that Stead makes no use in his article of the central trinitarian writings! 330 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. are each man,13 so the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;14 indeed, Gregory sometimes just uses the adjective Bcio> for wha.t a divine person is; viz., divine. 15 But typically he uses " the God " (b 8<6>) or even " the only God " (o µ.6vo> 8<6>) for the Father 16 or for the whole Trinity. 17 It is further characteristic of Gregory to use the expression "the only-begotten God" for the Son (b µ.ovoy 8£6>, from some manuscripts of John 1: 18) in contexts in which he is distinguished from the unbegotten God, the Father. 18 Gregory's theory is formally straightforward. The Father is God (i.e., on the sorta! use, a divine being) , the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three Gods. Rather, God is one. For the three al'e " divided without separation and united without confusion." 19 All three persons are uncreated. But Gregory stresses that the Father is the fount, source, or cause of the deity ( alrla rij<; BdTIJTO>) and hence is " properly God " (Bc6<; Kvplw>) while Son and Spirit a.re " of " or " from " him as his "effects" (alTLara) •20 Thus the Father is "the cause," the Son is " of the cause " (lK roii a.lrwv) , indeed directly so (7rpouexw•) , while the Spirit is " through the one who is directly from the first " (8Ji. roii 7rpornxw> €7r roii 7rpwrov) •21 These causal distinctions 13 "Man" used predicably: l1.v0pw7ros 'Yap rovrwv 0. Eun. 1.19 (Jaeg. 1, p. 93). The same use is found in Basil, Epist. 38. 2 (Court., p. 81). 14Ad Graec. (Jaeg. 3. 1, p. 20). In Tres Dei (Jaeg. 3. 2, p. 25) Gregory uses 0£os both for what each person is and also as a modifier of the Godhead, just as "good," "holy," etc. See also Werner Jaeger, Gregor von Nyssas Lehre vom H eiligen Geist (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966), p. 15. 15 De Spir. Banet. ( J aeg. 3. 1, p. 90). 160. Eun. 2. 5 (Jaeg. 2, 327). 11 Ad Graec. ( Jaeg. 3. 1, p. 25). 18 0. Eun. 5. 4 ( Jaeg. 2, pp. 125, 127). 19Ad Graec. (Jaeg. 3. l, p. 20); Tres Dei (Jaeg. 3. 1, p. 55); Against Eunomius 2. 2 ( p. 102) . 20Ad Graec. (Jaeg. 3. l, p. 25); cf. Tres Dei (Jaeg. 3. l, p. 56), where the distinction is Kara ro af-r) foreign and unfamiliar to each other, and differ . . . also in magnitude and in subordination of their dignities. 30 Though, as always, it is instructive for grasping a historical figure's position to see what he was afraid of, and though Gregory seems solidly in the middle between the conventional trinitarian heresies of his period, the fact is (and this is also instructive), he kept on being attacked, then as now, for believing in three Gods.31 Especially in Tres Dei and Ad Graecos Gregory attempts to refute his critics and simultaneously to offer what he regards as a proper logical solution to one main version of the threeness/oneness problem of trinity doctrine. It will pay us, then, to lay out Gregory's scheme, following the argument in Tres Dei and adding corroborative and explanatory material from several of his other pieces. solve, namely, how a begotten God can nonetheless be God. Gregory's answer is that the unbegotten and begotten God possess exactly the same infinite divine nature. Unbegottenness and begottenness are distinguishing personal idioms, but irrelevant to the sameness of nature of Father and Son just as, in the case of Adam and Abel, they would be irrelevant to the joint possession of an identical human nature. 28 0. Eun. I. 19 ( p. 93). "Primary" here means "individual" or "particular." Gregory has already de-materialized the Aristotelian primary substance (Categories, 5) in a way that was to become standard in trinitarian theology (cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae q. 29, arts. 1, 2). 29 As is rightly noted by Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Ohurch Fathers, vol. 1: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 334. so Against Eunomius 1. 19 ( p. 56) . s1 See, e.g., Bernard M. G. Reardon, "A comment [on 'Two Questions Concerning the Holy Spirit,' by Hubert Cunliffe-Jones]," Theology 75 ( 1972) : 299, on "the great defect of Eastern trinitarianism" in general; viz., its "latent tritheism." Cf. G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1952), p. xi. THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY 333 Gregory on Threeness/Oneness In the opening of Tres Dei Gregory considers a dilemma posed to him by the "noble Ablabius." Either we have to deny the Godhead to Son and Spirit, or else, if we admit it to them, we have to say there are three Gods. The latter is unlawful: Scripture gives us the Deuteronomic Shema as our homologia.32 But the former is " impious and absurd." Ablabius's presentation is straightforward: take the obviously parallel case of Peter, James, and John. These exist "in a common humanity" (lv µ,iij, 5vw; rii av6pW7r6r11rw.), but though thus united according to nature, " there is no absurdity in describing ... [them] by the plural number of the name derived from their nature." In short, we call them" three men." Why then can we not do a similar thing with respect to the dogmatic mystery of the Trinity? There we readily confess three hypostaseis, yet " we are in some sense at variance with our confession " if we say " there a.re three Gods." Gregory courteously admits the difficulty of this " monstrous dilemma," but then proposes a threefold solution that takes up the rest of the tract. The first suggestion is only halfserious: to ".straight-forward" or "guileless" people, he says, we might offer for their edification the observation that though it seems perfectly proper to add up those who display or exhibit one nature, and thus to speak of a number of Gods, in fact our dogmatic rule or definition ("-6yo<>) refuses this option simply "to avoid any resemblance to the polytheism of the heathen," lest it appear that we have with them some " community of doctrine." 33 Gregory admits this answer will not satisfy anyone who is really interested in the alternatives that have been posed: it actually offers no solution to the dilemma at all. Hence Gregory's second main observation follows-an offered solution that is absolutely typical of his thought, repeated 32 Jaeg. 3. I, p. 42. Gods ( p. 331). 33 Three 884 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. in various treatises, and interestingly at variance with that of Augustine, who was confronted with exactly the same dilemma. 34 The solution, says Gregory, is to consider properly the nature of man. The fact is, it is not only dogmatically illegitimate to say "three Gods"; it is also an abuse of language to talk of men in the plural. (You might as well, in that case, talk about "many human natures.") For man is actually not " divided in na:ture." " Man " refers, after all, not to what is individual; proper names do that. It refers rather to what is common. 35 Thus, though we consider individual idioms when referring to, say, Luke or Stephen, m fact their physis is absolutely simple and the same: Their nature is one, at union in itself, and an absolutely indivisible unit, not capable of increase by addition or of diminution by subtraction, but in its ·essence being and continually remaining one, inseparable even though it appear in plurality, continuous, complete, and not divided with the individuals who participate in it. 36 Thus there is actually only one man-no matter how many individual hypostases or exhibitions 37 of it there may be. 34 Gregory, as we shall see, adjusts the oneness term in the human analogue: Peter, James, and John turn out, contrary to appearances, to be (three instances of) "one man." But Augustine's resolution in Books 5 through 7 of De Trin. is simply to deny that (according to simplicity doctrine) there can be more than one instance or example of deitas. The " persons " are only relations of the one divine essence to itself. Accordingly, where Gregory releases tension by saying "(•Ile man" in the human analogue (willing to be implausible on oneness to protect threeness) Augustine does so by only reluctantly granting the threeness term in the divine analogue (willing to be vague on threeness to protect oneness) . In God, says Augustine, there must be " three somethings" or "three persons . . . in order that we may not have to remain wholly silent," or "three substances or persons, if they are to be so called." De Trin. 7, 4. 9; 7. 6. 11. 35 Jaeg. 3. 1, p. 40. See also Basil, Epist. 38. 2: li.vOponros refers to .;, Koince they also exist with him." 40 Yet again, while there is an ever changing number of human hypostases, there are always exactly three of God. These considerations, says Gregory, allow us to keep on with our had habit. But we must always bear in mind that we are really still talking of only one human nature. For literally, according to "manness" or "the man," (Kara r6 av0pw7ro<;), there is only one-no ma:tter what we say. 41 as Ad Graea. ( J aeg. 3. I, pp. 23, 25, 27-28). 39 Ibid. (pp. 24-25 ) . ( p. 25). Cf. Against Eunomius I. 34 and 3. 3 for Gregory's argument that Adam and Abel furnish an excellent example of a whole nature being passed on from an ungenerate one to a generate one. The ungenerate Adam generates "another himself " ( Cf.XXov f.a.vro•). 41 Ad Graea. ( Jaeg. 3. I, pp. 25·26). ro Cf.v0pw7ros is here neuter indeclinable. Gregory's main and much-discussed analogy is therefore literally a three (of one) man analogy, not an analogy of three men. And its force, 40 Ibid. 336 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. Gregory's third main observation has to do not with nature, but with works or "operations" (f.vlpyeia) •42 Most people, he says, think " Godhead " just names the divine nature. But actually that naiture is entirely unspeakable. The best we can do is to say what God is not (not corruptible, etc.), and to explain our conception of the divine nature 43 according to those things found " around " it '"iv fletav f/>vO'LV]44-a conception formed by observing " the varied operation of the power above us." (Gregory means such operations as showing power, discerning the heart, providentially overseeing, giving life, and the like.) And here too we properly speak of only one power and one God. But, he adds, a critic could raise an obvious objection. A critic could observe that we ordinarily speak in the plural of those who are engaged in the same pursuit. Do we not speak of many farmers? Many shoemakers and philosophers? Indeed. But the crucial difference is that in God, as opposed to humanity, there is complete unity of work. Men work separately, sometimes even at cross-purposes. Each has his own concern, his own bailiwick: " Each of them is separated from the others within his own environment, according to the special character of his operation." 45 Not so with God. In a srtvong statement of the opera ad extra indivisa. principle, Gregory simultaneously links divine missions with persons and unifies his Trinity theory: ironically, is to shore up Gregory's right to claim he believes in only one God. 42 Tres Dei (Jaeg. 3. 1, pp. 42-16). 43 One sees here the fascinating coincidence of ancient Neoplatonic and modern Kantian pious agnosticism about the divine nature. See, e.g., Plotinus, Enneads 2. 9. 1; 5. 5. 1, 6; and 6. 8. 11 for the view that we cannot literally apply any predicates to the One at all-not even "is one." For to predicate properties of the One compromises its simplicity. It is just "the indefinable," known in devout vision by its "effects." 44Tres Dei (Jaeg. 3. 1, p. 43). See additional references in 0. Eun. presented and discussed by Basil Krivocheine, "Simplicity of the Divine Nature and Distinctions in God, According to St. Gregory of Nyssa," St. Vladimir's Quarterly 21 (1977): 77-78. 45ThreeGods (p. 334). THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY 887 Every operation which extends from God to the creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit. . . . The action of each concerning anything is not separate and peculiar, but whatever comes to pass ... [does so] by the action of the Three, yet what does come to pass is not three things.46 Thus, though we receive, for instance, both life and power from God, we never receive "lives" or "powers "-i.e., different gifts from each of the three persons. Accordingly, given this joint action we cannot rightly speak of " three Givers of life " or " three Good beings," for " the unity existing in the operation prevents plural enumeration." 47 Hence, once more, there is only one God. And, Gregory adds, if a critic still thinks Godhead refers to nature rather than to operation, recourse may be had once more to the second argument: even with respect to nature we should rather speak of three men/one man than of three who are God/three Gods. 48 The conclusion in any case is clear: 46 Ibid. The quoted passage, distinguishing naturally enough between God iiberhaupt and the works of God, and between each person in God and that person's (shared) work, renders implausible the astonishing thesis of Robert Jenson that for Gregory "God" just names the divine work! Jenson supposes that when Gregory speaks of " the name of the action" not being different for the various actors he means by " action " God. But in the quoted passage Gregory clearly means by " action " such things as giving life. These are Godly acts, but never (till Hegel and Barth, perhaps) God. Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity God: According to the Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 113-114. 47 Ibid. ( p. 335). Here one sees that Donald Baillie is right in supposing that identity of work ad extra is a unifying factor for Gregory's trinitarianism. But as Gregory conceives it, this unity is still a joint or shared unity of three persons-not that of Baillie's one " infinite and universal Person." 48 This time Gregory's example is one gold/several gold this-or-thats, .a unity of substratum. This sort of unity, as Wolfson points out, is listed third in Aristotle's five types of unity in the Metaphysics 5. 6 (accident, collateral, substratum, genus, species). Gregory's gold example fits a typical pattern in the fathers: unity of the divine persons is of two types: substratum, genus, or species, on the one hand, and operation, on the other. Wolfson, Faith, Trinity, pp. 314-49. Gregory typically regards the ousia as the genus and the persons as one-membered species or even as individuals, given his de- 338 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. The Father is God, the Son is God, and yet by the same proclamation God is one, because no differenceeither of nature or of operation is contemplated in the Godhead.49 If one adds Gregory's "inness" or "compenetraition" prinfor Father, Son, and Spirit 50 and his insistciple (lv ence on the " of " or " from " relation (of the Son and Spirit from the Father) , the total picture of trinitarian unity that emerges shows the imprint of John's gospel even after three centuries of trinitarian reflection. There is the same refusal to use "God" in the plural of Father, Son, and Spirit even though the three are all divine and distinct. There is the same accent on unity of will, word, knowledge, love, glory, and especially works or operations. And there is a similar refuge in the primordial, mysterious, and ineffable oneness these express-the reality John marks by the coordinate use of " one " (lv) and "in" (£v), as at 10:30 and 10:38. In these respects, ait least, Gregory's theory looks like a plausible, even if Platonillied, extrapolation from the fourth gospel. Assessment of Gregory's Strong Trinitarianism But if so, why do certain historians of doctrine show uneasiness or apprehensiveness about such Cappadocian thinking, whether in Gregory of Nyssa or in Basil or Gregory of Nazianzus? Prestige complains that Basil's association of the owna with the common and the hypostasis with the particular (Epist. 214) is "not as clear as might be desired: his formal materialization of Aristotalian primary substance. Thus Peter, James, and John as individuals of the common species man compare with Father, Son, and Spirit as sui-specific individuals of the divine generic ousia. 49 Three Gods ( p. 336). Following fourth century custom, Gregory often makes trinitarian points using only the examples of Father and Son. But see his On the Holy Spirit for a similar "nature and operation" argument re the Holy Spirit. As Jaeger notes, Gregors Heilige Geist, p. 15, even the Ad Eustatkium, ostensibly a trinitarian treatise, is really another extended argument for the divinity of the Holy Spirit. 50 0. Eun. I. 39; 2. 2; 10. 4. The term 7rep•xwp711r•s does not appear till Pa.Cyril in the sixth century. Prestige, God, p. 283. THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY 339 definitions are abstract and unsatisfactory." 51 He admits 52 that the Cappadocians and others did use ousia in a generic sense, but adds remarkably that this is no evidence they ever conceived of it thus. 53 They only did this" when pressed" and then only " inadvertently." The fact is, says Prestige, we may be assured that Basil has in mind " an identical single ousi.a, which is concrete," and that the Cappadocians in general mean by ouma "a single identical object." 54 J. N. D. Kelly, who often follows Prestige in these matters, similarly asserts thrut the Cappadocians give the impression, at least linguistically, of tending toward tritheism because of their " unfortunate comparison of the ousi.a of Godhead to a universal manifesting itself in particulars." 55 All unfortunate comparisons aside, however, tritheism was actually " unthinkable " for the Cappadocians because of their doctrine of divine simplicity and their very fundamental conviction that "the ousia of Godhead is not an abstract essence but a concrete reality." 56 These are important considerrutions and lead us now to reflect on some possible complications in the Cappadocian scheme, taking Gregory of Nyssa as representative. Four of 51 Prestige, God, p. 228. Cf. pp. 215-16, 242, 264, 269-77. pp. 264-65. 53 Which leads one to wonder what would count as evidence that they conceived ousia this way-perhaps their denying that they do? See also Claude Welch, In This Name: The Dootrine of the Trinity in Contemporary Theology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952), p. 301, for the bolder claim that the Cappadocians never used ousia in a generic sense. 54 God, pp. 230 (cf. 235), 242. 55 Kelly, Early Dootrines, p. 267. 56 Ibid., pp. 268-69. By "tritheism" Kelly apparently means a doctrine according to which three particular divine subjects each have all the essential divine properties. If so, this definition differs significantly from that used by Gregory of Nyssa. For him, as noted above, the tritheists are AriansEunomius as prime example. In this judgment Gregory lines up with both the homoousion and the anti pluralist verses ( 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.) of the Quiounque. In these latter cases the illegitimate pluralism in view is not belief in two or three divine subjects, but rather in one fully divine subject and one or two quasi-divine ones. 52 Ibid., 340 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. these may be distinguished, including several of Baillie's mentioned at the beginning of this essay. First, though Gregory uses his three-man analogy over and over, he also has at least one important psychological analogy in the opening chapters of The Great Catechism. As we have word and breath, sa.ys Gregory, so God has logos and pneuma. And if that were all Gregory said about the matter, we should have to conclude that (taking this with his three-man analogy) he has a pair of remarkably incompatible illustrations. But he says more: mainly, Gregory takes pains to distinguish our word and spirit from God's. 57 Contrary to the case with us, God's Word is eternal and has life, soul and intellect (T6 110Ep611). Indeed, the suggestion that God's Word is itself anhypostatic is blasphemous. For, warns Gregory, let no one think that God's Word has life from another by participation. The Word is rather "autozoetic "-itself alive. Further, the Word has power of choice (8vvaµ,i" and plan (Gregory uses forms of f3ov)wµ,ai). This Word, then, unlike ours, seems to be a person-a subject with distinct, non-parasitic life; with soul, mind, choosing, and willing. And Gregory conceives of the Spirit similarly. 58 Gregory's psychological analogy appears, then, not to rival but to reinforce his three-man analogy. Second, it is sometimes said that Gregory's or the Cappadocians', use of "modes of being" (Tp67roi for the three prosopa importantly qualifies any pluralism he or they might otherwise fall into. 59 This expression, so it is claimed, shows that Gregory sometimes thought of God more along the line of a single person in various roles than along the line of a comGregory thinks is lost on Jews. The Great GateohiBm 3. Orat. l, 2. Joseph Barbel notes that Gregory also uses 6vv&.µeis for the three, but that this term "in der damaligen Zeit meist personlich aufgeta,Bt wird." Barbel thinks in general Gregory holds to the personality of Son and Spirit in Cat. Orat. 1 and 2 "im volle Sinne." Gregor von Nyssa, Die gro,Be kateohetiBche Rede, trans. with an introd. and commentary by Joseph Barbel (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1971), pp. 99, 101. 59 So Welch, Name, p. 302, n. 21, and Baillie, God Was in GhriBt, p. 142. 57 A distinction 58 Cat. THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY 341 pany of three persons, however tightly unified. Two comments may be made: (I) If what has modes of being is the divine essence or ousia, the expression " modes of being " could be perfectly consistent with three-person pluralism. The one ineffable ousia, on this view, would exist in three modes-paternal, filial, and processional-just as in Gregory's thought, the one human ousia exists simultaneously and indivisibly in (among others) three human modes-Petrine, Jamesian, and Johanuine. But if in the latter case, each mode is clearly what we would call a person; so perhaps in the former. Modal language, even if misleading, needn't conflict conceptually with strong trinitarianism. But (2) though this use of " modes of being" fits well into Gregory's concept of trinity and trihumanity, in fact he does not use the phrase exactly this way. The subject of a rplnro<> is not the divine oitsia or God in general, but rather Father, or Son, or Spirit. It is each of them that Gregory conceives of as an It is along this line that Basil speaks not of God's modes of being, but of the Spirit's mode of being, a spirative generateness. 61 And Gregory, for his part, insists that first we must establish our belief in the Son's and Father's existence; then we can talk a.bout the Son's generateness aml the Father's ingenerateness as their "modes of being" (?rW<> forL or r6 ?Tw<> €lvaL) •62 It is thus not God conceived as a single subject who has modes of being; it is rather each of Father, Son, and Spirit who has one of these modes. Gregory's concept of modes of being is really equivalent to his concept of the distinguishing idioms and thus poses no final problem for the coherence of his theory. Third, classic Latin statements of Trinity doctrines are complicated (some would say muddled) at crucial places by simplicity theory, i.e., by the notion that in God there really are no distinctions at all-not even between the divine relations so Ad Graec. (Jaeg. 3. 1, p. 30). Basil, De Spir. Sanct. 46, cited in Kelly, Early Doctrines, other examples in Prestige, God, pp. 245-48. e2 Tres Dei (Jaeg. 3. 1, p. 56). 61 p. 262. See 342 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. and the divine essence.68 Can a similar idea be shown in Gregory? And, if so, does his simplicity theory work to counteract his pluralism? 64 There can be no doubt that Gregory is committed to the doctrine of the simplicity of the divine being. He mentions it often, and often with warmth. 65 But as Archbishop Basil (Krivocheine) rightly notes in a helpful article on Gregory's simplicity, 66 Gregory rarely, if ever, speaks of God as simple. It is rather the divine essence or natUl'e that is simple and indivisible; i.e., not ;, flEl>r; but r6 OEiov,67 This is the reason, I may add, why the places of firmest insistence on simplicity in Gregory are all anti-Arian places. Simplicity is compromised by those who divide the essence in Arian fashion, who multiply different generic essences in the Trinity, such that the second and third persons do not possess all the same essential divine properties (eternity, for instance) as the first. 68 Gregory's version of simplicity theo!"y is therefore entirely compatible with his own concepts of distinction in God: for example, the distinction between the divine essence and the Trinity of Hypostasei,s, between the divine nature or essence and its ·energies or attributes, between the divine nature and that which is contemplated 'around ' it. 69 For Gregory, then, the simplicity of the divine being is a modest and plausible doctrine according to which that nature 63 See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae q. 28, art. 2, where Thomas states that "relation really existing in God is really the same as his essence, and differs only in its mode of intelligibility." In fact, "everything which is not the divine essence is a creature." 64 As suggested generally for the Cappadocians by Kelly, Early Doctrines, pp. 268-69, and Baillie, God Was In Ohrist, p. 142. 65 E.g., Against Eunomius I. 19, 22, 37; 10. 4; 12. 5; etc. 66 See n. 44 above. 67 Basil Krivocheine, "Simplicity According to Gregory," p. 76. O. Eun. I. 22 is a good place to see Gregory's usage. 68 Against .Eunomius I. 19; cf. 12. 5. 69 Basil Krivocheine, "Simplicity According to Gregory," p. 80. The author means to cite three different distinctions here-not one distinction variously put. THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF 'l'HE TRINITY 343 is whole instead of fragmented (nobody has only part of it), permanent as opposed to transitory, unified against all contraries (as in Arianism), unlimited by space, time, etc., and finally ineffable. What is truly important to note is that though Gregory says the divine nature is simple and undivided, and that each prosopon or hypostasi,s is thus (because each is a particular, an d.Top.ov) 70 he does not say that Father, Son, and Spirit just are the divine essence.71 It should be remembered that in any case Gregory thinks of human nature as simple too-a simplicity Gregory clearly thinks is compatible with multiple exhibitions of it in personal hypostases. Human nature, though simple, can be multiplied. There are numerous cases or instantiations of it. So if Peter, James, and John are" the malll," they are thus only as distinct examples of it. So with Father, Son, and Spirit. Gregory himself could hardly make the comparison more explicit: "there are many hypostaseis of the one man and three hypostaseis of the one God." 72 Hence Archbishop Basil's conclusion seems right: for Gregory, simplicity and unity do not preclude ontological distinctions in the Divine. Simplicity understood as absence of distinction is an idea familiar to medieval Latin scholasticis, but is alien to the thought of Gregory of Nyssa .... For him these distinctions, although perceivable by an intellectual process (l7rlvow.), are not merely subjective, but correspond in fact to a reality in God. 73 10Ad Graecos (Jaeg. 3. I, p. 23); Against Eunomius 10. 4 (pp. 225-27). cannot find a single example of this sort of statement; i.e., that Father, Son, and Spirit are identical with the divine essence either as persons or relations. Cf. just below and Barbel, Die gro{Je Rede, p. 99: "Uber das Verhaltnis der Eigentiimlichkeiten der Hypostasen zu dem Wesen macht er keine Ausagen." In fact, Gregory says pointedly that the intra-trinitarian relations are not identical with the essence. Rather, the Son "shares in" the essence of the Father. Against Eunomius 10. 3 (p. 223), 11. I (p. 230). Contrary, therefore, to Donald Baillie's suggestion at the beginning of this essay, Gregory's simplicity theory is no real qualification of his Cappadocian pluralism. 12 Ad Graec. ( J aeg. 3. 1, p. 29). 78" Simplicity According to Gregory," p. 104. G. Christopher Stead, "Ontology and Terminology," p. 119, remarks that Gregory fails to work out 71 I 844 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. Fourth, Prestige, Kelly, and Welch make much of the claim that o'U8ia, however generic it may sometimes appear, is actually " concrete " for the Cappadocians--Prestige suggesting that the generic use was an oversight on their part, and Welch flatly asserting that the Cappadocians did not use ousia in a generic sense. What can be said to this sort of claim? The relevant data so far as Gregory's theory is concerned are these: (1) Ousia is what Father, Son, and Spirit have in common. (2) Though it is itself an ineffable, unlimited core, what is indicated " around it " by operations are such properties as general infinity, omnipotence, love, life-givingness, etc. These are not the Godhead-though for the purposes of argument, Gregory will not dispute those who think they are. The impression he gives is that he himself imagines the divine ousia as an actually inconceivable spiritual stuff, a substratum. (8) Whatever the ousia is, it is related to Father, Son, and Spirit as "the man" or "manness" is related to Peter, James, and John. Human nature, as well -as divine, is " an absolutely indivisible unit " which retains its unity no matter how many individuals " participate in it." The question before us, then, is this: suppose we say with Prestige that for the Cappadocians " God is a single objective [or concrete] Being in three objects of presentation." 74 What are we saying? We might be saying that the Trinity, the divine society, is one objective being or entity, though comprising three personal obj.ects. There are places where Gregory seems to use b fh:6l1 thus, but few, if any, places where he uses this way. 75 Of!ula is rather a synonym for 8£ori}l1, or for what is beyond it, and refers to the mysterious divine being or essence or substratum. an adequate doctrine of divine simplicity "because his philosophical equipment is not handled with the seriousness which is needed in order to do justice to his theological and Christian intuitions." 74 God, p. 300. 75 Prestige, God, p. 234, confirms that for the Cappadocians "the Trinity was in a real sense a single Object." THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY 345 No doubt Prestige's statement is about this essence or being. But if so, then it is entirely ambiguous. It could be taken as the claim that divine secondary substance (either the divine attributes as .a set of Gregory's ineffable spiritual substratum beyond it), i.e., wha.t more than one particular being have in common, is thrice presented in conscious, loving, active, distinct persons. " Fatherhood," " sonship," and " procession " would then be the differentiating characteristics of these three entities. Obviously, in this case, the three would have precisely the same (not merely a similar) generic essence, since all would have just the same properties of Godliness (or just the same ineffable core) .76 Just as the same "objective being" is presented three times in Peter, James, a.nd John, so in Fa.ther, Son, and Spirit. But Prestige's characteristic assertion could also be taken as the view that one divine person has three modes of presentation. In this case the iiliomata would be those modes: fatherhood, sonship, procession. One divine person--one thinker, lover, actor-is self-related according to his modes. Though one might discreetly refrain from saying it, this person is his own fa.ther, son, and spirit. For there is precisely no one but him, the single divine person, to be in the modal relations. God-as-Father is father to himself-as-Son, etc. Though he would doubtless reject this latter implication of his view, it does seem t.hat Prestige interprets the Cappadocians along this second line. He thinks they believe in only one divine thinker, only one person. For in the passage quoted above, he interprets " single objective being " as " one centre of divine self-consciousness. As seen and thought, [God] is 76 Hence it would make no sense, on this view, to talk of going beyond generic essence to " identity of essence " or " substantial identity" or "numerical identity of substance," as is done by Prestige, God, pp. 213, 217, 218 and Kelly, Early Dootr·ines, p. 234. Those who have the same generic essence have identically the same one (and are hence substantially identical). It is a weakness of Prestige's and Kelly's presentations that they keep opposing " same generic substance " and " identity of substance" as if these had to be alternatives. 346 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. three; as seeing and thinking, He is one." 77 It is the concept of this "single objective Being" or "identical single ousia, which is concrete " that Prestige thinks Athanasius won as a novum out of his Origenist context and offered to the Cappadocians, who obligingly accepted it. 78 One can see why this interpretation of Gregory is tempting. That is because Gregory sees the Father as the arche1 the fount, source, progenitor of Son and Spirit. And what the Father produces is &>.Aov lavr6v, "Another himself." One could thus construe Gregory as claiming that God (a given person) presents himself as Father, and again as Son, and once more as Spirit. However Gregory's typical analogy for this, as noted above, is that of Adam generating "another himself" in Abel. Abel is fully human as his father is. He is also "of" him or "from" him. But he is a distinct person. Thus Prestige's modalisttending ' one centre of divine self-consciousness ' would not seem in the end to be the most plausible interpretation of Gregory's ousia.. Still, there is a subtle issue here. When Prestige has Gregory's God as one seer and thinker though three as seen and thought (cf. Donald Baillie's view at the head of this essay), and when he further insists that Gregory's ousia, despite acknowledged generic uses of it, is concrete and primary rather than abstract and secondary, he is alluding to a genuine paradox at least in Gregory's general intellectual heritage. It hinges on a. central differences between the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato. Gregory was a Platonist, 79 and for God, pp. 300-1. pp. 217, 230, 232, 234-35. 79 As shown by the Tres Dei passage on humanity, quoted above, p. 21, and many other places. J. Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes dans l'antiquiU ohretienne, 8th ed., 3 vols. (Paris: Librairie Victor Lecoffre, 1924), 2: 86, laments Gregory's "platonisme exagere qui semble compromettre d'abord l'orthodoxie de son enseignement." For general studies of Gregory's Platonism and Neoplatonism, see Jean Danielou, Platonisme et tMologie mystique: Essai sur la dootrine spirituelle de saint Gregoire de N ysse (Paris: J. Vrin, 1944) and Harold Fredrick Cherniss, The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa {Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1930). 11 Prestige, 78 Ibid., THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY 347 Plato (to speak anachronistically) Aristotle's "first substance" is secondary and Aristotle's "secondary substance" really primary. Accordingly, when we ask how Gregory viewed the divine ousia, we might suppose that he probably viewed it paradoxically as a " concrete universal " or a " real abstraction "-just as he doubtless saw humanity as far more real and more human than any individual human being. 80 To see the subtle dialectic here between abstract and concrete concepts, we only have to know that Plato often refers to the Forms not only by such abstract nouns as "greatness " (P£yUJo>) "justice" (8iKawcn!V'YJ), but also by the use of a formula that includes an adjective, the neuter definite article, and is used for "the often, avr6.81 So the scheme avr6 r6 ---- thing itself." Thus, in the case of, say, justice, Plato may substitute for 8iKaw