Of the theologians of the seventeenth century belonging to the Reformed Church, Keckermann was the most disposed to present the doctrines of the Bible in a philosophical form. We find, therefore, with him a similar attempt to make the mystery of the Trinity intelligible. He regards the existence of God as consisting in self-conscious thought. As thought is eternal, it must have an eternal, absolute, and perfect object. That object must, therefore, itself be God. The unity of the divine essence demands that this object should be in God himself, and therefore, it eternally returns to Him.⁷

The modern theologians of Germany, who profess allegiance to the Scriptures, have, in many cases, taken the ground that absolute unity in the divine essence would be inconsistent with self-consciousness. We become self-conscious by distinguishing ourselves from what is not ourselves, and especially from other persons of like nature with ourselves. If, therefore, there were no person objective to God, to whom He could say Thou, He could not say I. Thus Martensen⁸ says: Although the creature can have no adequate comprehension of the divine nature, we have a semblance of the Trinity in ourselves; as we are formed in the image of God, we have the right to conceive of God according to the analogy of our own nature. As distinction of persons is necessary to self-consciousness in us, so also in God. Therefore, if God be not a Trinity, He cannot be a person. How, he asks, can God from eternity be conscious of Himself as Father, without distinguishing Himself from Himself as Son? In other words, how can God be eternally self-conscious, without being eternally objective to Himself? That with us the objective Ego is merely ideal and not a different person from the subjective Ego, arises from our nature as creatures. With God, thinking and being are the same. In thinking Himself his thought of Himself is Himself in a distinct hypostasis. Dr. Shedd⁹ has given a similar exposition, “in proof that the necessary conditions of self-consciousness in the finite spirit, furnish an analogue to the doctrine of the Trinity, and go to prove that trinity in unity is necessary to self-consciousness in the Godhead.”

Pantheistic Trinitarianism.

In all that precedes, reference has been made to those who have had for their object to vindicate the doctrine of the Trinity, by showing that it is not out of analogy with other objects of human thought. There are, however, many modern systems which profess to be Trinitarian, which are in fact mere substitutions of the formulas of speculation for the doctrine of the Bible. Men speak of the Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Spirit, when they mean by those terms something which has not the least analogy with the doctrine of the Christian Church. Many by the Trinity do not mean a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, but either three radical forces, as it were, in the divine nature, which manifest themselves in different ways; or three different relations of the same subject; or three different states or stages of existence. Thus with some, the absolute power or efficiency of the Supreme Being considered as creating, upholding, and governing the world, is the Father; as illuminating rational creatures, is the Son; and, as morally educating them, is the Spirit. According to Kant, God as creator is the Father; as the preserver and governor of men, He is the Son; and as the administrator of law, as judge and rewarder, He is the Spirit. With DeWette, God in Himself is the Father; as manifested in the world, the Son; and as operating in nature, the Spirit. Schleiermacher says, God in Himself is the Father; God in Christ is the Son; God in the Church, is the Holy Spirit. The avowed Pantheists also use the language of Trinitarianism. God as the infinite and absolute Being is the Father; as coming to consciousness and existence in the world, He is the Son; as returning to Himself, the Spirit. Weisse attempts to unite Theism and Pantheism. He pronounces the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity the highest form of philosophical thought. He professes to adopt that doctrine ex animo in its commonly admitted sense. There is a threefold personality (Ichheit) in God necessary to the constitution of his nature. When the world was created the second of these persons became its life, merging his personality in the world and became impersonal, in order to raise the world into union and identity with God. When the curriculum of the world is accomplished, the Son resumes his personality.¹⁰

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← Chapter 6. The Trinity, § 6. Examination of the Nicene Doctrine · Contents · Chapter 7. The Divinity of Christ, § 1. Testimony of the Old Testament →

Footnotes

1. De Trinitate, IX. xii. 18, edit. Benedictines, Paris, 1837, vol. viii. p. 1352, b. ↩

2. Ibid. X. xi. 18, p. 1366, a. ↩

3. Ibid. XIV. vi. 8, pp. 1443. d. 1444, a. ↩

4. Monologium, xxxiii., edit. Migne, p. 188, b. See also Thomas Aquinas, I. xxvii. 3, edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 56. ↩

5. Loci Communes, De Filio, edit. Erlangen, 1828, vol. i, pp.19, 21. ↩

6. Remarque sur le Livre d’un Antitrinitaire Anglois, edit. Geneva, 1768, vol. i. p. 27. ↩

7. Opera, edit. Cologne, 1614, vol. ii. Systema Theologiæ (tract at end of vol.), p. 72, the last of three pages marked 72. ↩

8. Dogmatik, pp. 129, 130. ↩

9. History of Christian Doctrine, vol. i. p. 366. ↩

10. C. H. Weisse, *Idee der Gottheit;*Dresden, 1833, pp. 257 ff., 273. The Literature of the doctrine of the Trinity would fill a volume. Bull’s *Defence of the Nicene Creed,*Pearson *On the Creed,*Waterland On the Trinity, Meier’s *Geschichte der Lehre von der Trinität,*Baur’s *Geschichte der Lehre Von der Trinität,*Dorner’s *History of the Person of Christ,*in five volumes, one of the series of Clark’s *Foreign Theological Library,*a very valuable collection of important modern works, Shedd’s *History of Christian Doctrine,*and the other historical works on the doctrines of the Church, open the whole field to the theological student. ↩