What is the ontological Trinity?
The phrase "ontological Trinity" points to God as He is in His own being — Father, Son and Spirit in eternal relation — as distinct from what God does in creation and redemption. The question it raises is how much of that inner life we can actually know, and how much stands for ever beyond us.
The Distinction Behind the Term
Writers who use this language set the "ontologic" alongside its partner term, and treat confusion between the two as the root of serious error.
James McBroomThe first and main point to observe is the failure of the writer to distinguish between the ontologic and the economic, or, in other words, his constant confusing essential unrevealed Deity with the revelation of God in tri-unity as Father, Son and Spirit.
One in Being, Three in Person
The basic grammar of the doctrine is a single essence held by three Persons. One writer works it out by contrasting the Old Testament's target with the New Testament's.
James McBroomIn the New Testament we have the revelation of God — Father, Son and Spirit — in the Son. It is there we learn that God is ONE (1 Timothy 2:5) yet THREE (Matthew 28:18-19). One in Essence or Essential Being; Three in Person. In the Old Testament The Lord our God is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) in contrast with Polytheism. In the New Testament HE is One in contrast with Tritheism. Revelation may far outstretch our creature thought, but never goes against, or clashes with it. We may apprehend but never comprehend.
What Stays Beyond Us
There is a limit built into the subject. God in His own being is not a topic the mind can walk into.
James McBroomThese great features of Essential Godhead stand, as it were, on the outskirts of revelation and are beyond us for ever. If that were all we had, it would make us shrivel up into our own nothingness, as creatures of a day: Deity in its essential fullness and greatness could but keep us at a distance. There is that which stands for ever beyond revelation, a shoreless and fathomless ocean of Godhead. Here we come up against a wall, which says, this far you shall come, and no further.
That wall is not the end of the matter, because God has chosen to step out from behind it.
E. C. HadleyIn His essential being He is inscrutable and invisible to the creature, "dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see" (1 Tim. 6:16). Yet it has pleased the Triune God to give us a revelation concerning Himself.
Inside the Essence: Three in Relation
Move from the outskirts toward the centre, and what is disclosed is not bare oneness but three living in love — and that inner life explains why there is a creation at all.
James McBroomWithin that eternal Essence, or Substance, there are three Subsistences — Father, Son and Spirit — governed in nature by holy love. By this revelation we learn that the requirement of the Being of God is, that He will live in the hearts of countless hosts of intelligent beings, and be the Object of their delight and praise, for evermore.
Take the relationship away and the arithmetic collapses.
E. C. HadleyThis truth of the eternal relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is vital. To have three beings coequal in deity without relationship would be three Gods, not one Triune God.
Distinct, Yet Never Divided
The Persons can be told apart in what they will and do, and that is exactly why the word "persons" gets used — but they never act on separate agendas.
J. N. DarbyThe full revelation of the one God is only this — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This, this only, is what the one God is, one identity of will and being, so that they are essentially one and one only, yet distinct in willing and acting (and we can distinguish them in willing and acting: hence we commonly speak of persons), yet never willing or acting but in the common will and unity of nature.
Held by Faith, Not Solved by Reason
The result is a truth confessed rather than explained.
A J PollockChristians believe, as taught in the Scriptures, not in a trinity of Gods, but in the triune God—One in Three and Three in One, a mystery beyond the creature's comprehension, but not beyond the grasp of faith.
Summary
- Distinguish. Keep the ontological (God in His own essential, unrevealed Being) apart from the economic (God made known as Father, Son and Spirit); confusing the two is where error starts.
- Essence. God is one in Essence and three in Person — one against polytheism, one against tritheism.
- Limit. Essential Godhead stands on the outskirts of revelation, a wall past which the creature cannot go.
- Relation. Within that one Essence are three Subsistences governed by holy love; without eternal relationship you would have three Gods, not one.
- Faith. Distinct in willing and acting, never divided in will or nature — a mystery beyond comprehension, but not beyond the grasp of faith.