Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange - The Trinity and God the Creator

1. The Importance Of ThisTreatise

If we read the Fathers ofthe Church and the ancient theologians, I we shall see that for them the dogmaof the Trinity, however obscure it may have been for them, was of the greatestimportance. Thus Tertullian[1] asked: "What is the substance of the NewTestament, except that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, believed to bethree, are one God?" The words of St. Hilary[2] on this mystery, expressedin the sign of the cross, with which Christians sign themselves, have beenquoted many times; "This is what the Church understood, what the synagoguedid not believe, what philosophy could not grasp." The dogma of theTrinity, therefore, is that fundamental truth by which believing Christians aredistinguished from the Jews and pagans.

Both the Greek and the LatinFathers wrote long treatises on the Trinity, at first as positive andapologetic theology and later as speculative theology. Among the Greek Fatherswe find St. Athanasius,[3] St. Basil,[4] St. Gregory Nazianzen,[5] St. Gregoryof Nyssa,[6] Didymus,[7] Cyril of Alexandria,[8] St. John Damascene;[9] andamong the Latin Fathers, St. Hilary,[10] St. Ambrose,[11] St. Augustine,[12]St. Fulgentius,[13] and Boetius.[14]

Among the Scholastics, allthe great theologians and their commentators wrote speculative treatises on theTrinity; among modern positive theologians, Petau and Thomassin wrote at lengthon this dogma. Finally, the more recent theologians have accorded this dogmathe same importance, as Franzelin, Scheeben,[15] Kuhn, Billot, Buonpensiere, deRegnon[16] (who wrote four volumes, 1892-98), and J. Lebreton.[17] FatherJugie's recent work is based on the sources of revelation and the teachings ofthe dissident Oriental Churches.[18] A. d'Ales wrote his in 1934; P. Galtier wrote in 1933;L. Choppin, in 1925; F.Cavalerra, in 1925,and M. Schmaus, in1927.[19]

In view of this theologicalactivity it is surprising that toward the end of the last century the questionof the importance of this dogma should have arisen.[20] With regard to thisquestion three positions may be distinguished.

Certain Protestants, holdingthat this mystery is incomprehensible, declared that God revealed it as anenigma to humble human reason, which seeks to measure all things according toits own principles, and not in order to perfect our intellects by sublime andfruitful knowledge.

This position, which is inopposition to the whole tradition of the doctors, exaggerates and distorts atruth. It is indeed true that in the revelation of this mystery God shows usthat His intimate life and His divinity transcend even our highest and mostuniversal analogical concepts, the concepts of being and unity. For the Deityas such, naturally unknowable, is in a sense above the being and unity whichare naturally knowable, as Cajetan said so well.[21] The revelation of themystery of the Trinity shows that the Deity is also above the absolute and therelative for, as we shall see, the Deity as it is in itself is not reallydistinct from the divine relations, from paternity, filiation, and spiration.Thus it is not something merely absolute nor merely relative, but somethingabove these, the supreme enigma. But must we conclude that the manifestation ofthis enigma was intended solely to humble our reason and not also to perfectand illuminate it?

Many other Protestantsduring the nineteenth century, and some Catholics too, like Hirscher, declaredthat this dogma indeed illuminated our minds, but only in an extrinsic manner.They thought that for us the Trinity had no intrinsic importance, but that itserved only to obviate contradictions in the other mysteries of the incarnationof the Son of God and the sending of the Holy Ghost, which in themselves are ofgreat value to us.

The basis of this position,as its authors declared, is that the dogma of the Trinity taken intrinsically,prescinding from the other truths with which it is connected, cannot perfectour inner life, our faith, hope, and charity. They argue as if it mattered notto our interior life whether we believe that there are four divine persons, orthat the divine persons are not really distinct from one another. Since,according to these men, God did not reveal this mystery because of itsintrinsic validity, any theological attempt to penetrate it is futile, andtherefore the treatise on the Trinity is merely an introduction to thetreatises on the redemptive Incarnation and the mission of the Holy Ghost,which perfect our faith, hope, and charity.