FILE: DOG19.WMV Q One more question. If there are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what do we mean that they are the one God? DR. ROLAND ZIEGLER: That's a justified question because we talked so much about Father, Son, spirit, about them being persons and about them being -- doing things, that it seems that they are kind of independent agents. As if we talk about human beings doing different things existing as persons. Now obviously if we think about God in that way, we get into trouble because, as we said before, God is one. When we see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being so independent, then they seem to be three beings that exist by and in themselves and can be separated from each other. That's what traditionally is called then tritheism. If you actually believe that they are three gods. And oftentimes the Christian understanding of God has been misunderstood as tritheism. For example, when you dial up with Judaists, also when you dial up with Islam, they will think, and sometimes say, you Christians do really believe in three gods. What else does it mean when you say that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God? Really, you believe in three gods. You are polytheists. Of course, Christians reject that. We say, no, no, we are not. We do not believe in some smaller pantheon. Remember the Greeks with their big pantheon, Zeus and Hera and Hermes and Poseidon and Athena and all those gods living happily on Mount Olympus? It's not that we believe that they just were the name or the number of the gods, but we're only three gods, no, there is but one God. But how can we talk about this unity, this one God, without falling in the other trap, the trap of modalism that there is one God kind of dressing up as Father, dressing up as Son another time and dressing up as Holy Spirit at again another time. The answer given in the course of theological reflection was that God is one essence. One substance. To translate the Greek word ******* (Hosea). Remember from the Nicene Creed? Christ is of one substance with the Father. That's one of these terms. Essence or substance. Or even ******* (Hosea) which seemed to be quite abstract and quite remote from the Biblical witness. But what do we actually mean? Well, essence. ******* (Hosea). Answers to the question: What is it? So, when we talk about, for example, something, anything, let's talk about 19 man. This is a man. His substance, His essence is being a man. A human being. He is not an animal. He's not a plant. He's a man. So also when we ask what is the Father? What is the Son? What is the Holy Spirit? We say, the Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. So far the analogy goes. Now it starts to break down. That, of course, is one of the problems with the Trinitarian doctrine. Because if we have Joe, Jim, and Tim in front of us and we say, Joe is a man. Jim is a man. And Tim is a man. Then we have one human substance but only an abstraction. Concretely, we have three different human beings existing independently of themselves. Whereas when we look at God, the three persons exist in an eternal relationship to each other. God is always existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The divine essence. The divine substance never exists as divine substance alone or only exists as the Father and the Son and then sometime later may the spirit come, but the divine essence always exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Again, that might seem all quite abstract. We have to remember why we use Trinitarian language. It is to avoid speaking wrongly about God and it is a guidance in praising God rightly. When we confirm, assert, and confess the unity of the substance, we follow the Biblical witness. We praise the one God and we reject any understanding as if there are three gods existing side by side and then if there are three gods, why couldn't there be four or five or six or 200? No. There is only one God. But nevertheless, He exists in one being. That God is of one being. That He is one substance. One essence. It means that each of the persons in the trinity shares this one, this numerically one essence, in the full means. So, the Father is fully God. The Son is fully God. And the Holy Spirit is fully God. But they are not three gods. I know that reminds you now of the Athenasian Creed which you never understood anyway, but that's the language you also have to learn and which actually can guide you. It guides you in conceiving again that when we talk about God, we always have to talk about all three persons. We cannot isolate them. The unity of God shows us we cannot simply concentrate on Jesus or the Father and neglect the other persons. Because whenever we deal with one person, we deal with the other ones, too. This unity of God is a unity in nature. There can be different unities. The Constitution of the United States starts with the remark that in order to form a more perfect union. And unity. You can say there is a unity among the states in the United States. And you even say the United States is. Instead what was grammatically correct is the United States are. That, of course, is not a union like the unity of God. It's a union in purpose, in will, in consent. You have talked about unity among husband and wife. They 20 will be one flesh. But we all know that this union can be dissolved be it by death or by divorce and husband and wife do not lose their existence. They might be scarred, but they still continue to live. There can be a unity of purpose. When a whole group gets together to accomplish one, then their unity is in the goal they set or in their principles they follow. It's a unity of goal and of mind. When we talk about the unity of God, it is more. It is not that the three persons came together in common purpose to accomplish something. But it is that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist only in relation to each other. And mostly that's stated by the fact that they share one and the same nature. That has as its result, of course, that there is a unity of will, a unity of mind, a unity of purpose in God far more deeper and far greater than the unity that ever can be among man. We will be always divided, even if we do not consider sin. The unity of God is the one goal we have to stick to to not fall into tritheism. It affirms that we believe in only one God, that Israel was right. That the revelation of the Old Testament, that God is one, is not superseded. Oftentimes such an understanding of the unity and trinity is seen as some kind of strange and faulty mathematics. How can we one three and three one? Everybody knows when you write on the blackboard 1 equals 3, that's wrong. Well, the fathers who formulated the Trinitarian dogma knew that, too. And that's why they tried to make the point that God in one respect, in His essence, is one. And in another respect, in His existence as persons, He is three. (end of DOG19.WMV.)