Sect. 110The Position and Importance of the Mystery of the Trinity in RevelationThe Position and Importance of the Mystery of the Trinity in Revelation

I. Considered in relation to our natural knowledge of God, the dogma of the Trinity has a certain philosophical importance, inasmuch as it adds clearness and precision to our notions of a living and personal God, perfect and self-sufficient, operating ad extra with supreme freedom, power, and wisdom. The dogma thus prevents pantheistic and superficial deistic theories on God and the world. Still, however useful it may be from this point of view, its revelation cannot be said to be necessary, as such necessity would destroy the transcendental (supernatural) character of the dogma.

II. The revelation of the Trinity has its proper and essential significance in relation to our supernatural knowledge of God (1) as object of beatific fruition, (2) as object of glorification (objectum fruitionis beatificans, objectum glorificationis).

1. The beatitude of intellectual creatures consists in their knowledge of God and in the love of God consequent upon such knowledge. Wherefore, the greater the knowledge the greater the beatitude, and vice versâ. Hence the revelation of the Trinity has, in general, a substantial value inasmuch as it essentially increases our knowledge of God. It has also a special value, because, unlike natural knowledge, it shows God as He is in Himself, and discloses His internal life and activity, thus making the knowledge by Faith an anticipation of and introduction to the immediate vision of the Divine Essence and a pledge of its reality. The revelation of the Trinity further leads us into the knowledge of an internal manifestation of God’s greatness and power, goodness and love, beatitude and glory, which represents God as the highest Good in quite a new light, far above anything that external manifestations could teach us, and therefore producing, even in this life, a love full of delight, unknown to natural man. In the trinitary origins especially, the Divine fecundity and tendency to communication appear as objectively infinite, whereas the unity of the Three Persons reveals the beatitude of God as possessing in a wonderful manner the element which is the flower and condiment even of created happiness—that is, the delight of sharing one’s happiness with others.

2. The knowledge of God, coupled with the admiring love which it begets, constitutes also the external glorification of God by His intellectual creatures; the glorification increases in perfection with the perfection of the knowledge. The influence which the knowledge of the Trinity exercises on the perfection of God’s glorification by creatures affects its very essence. It discloses the internal greatness and glory of God as an object of our admiration and adoration; it proposes for our worship not only the Divinity as a whole, but each of the Holders and Possessors of the Godhead, and so enables us to worship the Divine Persons separately; it reveals in God an infinite, real, self-glorification, the Divine Persons as Principle or Product glorifying each other in the most sublime manner—the Father glorified in the Son as His perfect Word and Image, and Both in the Holy Ghost as the infinite Effusion of their Love—infinitely more than in any external manifestation. The revelation of the internal Divine self-glorification renders it possible to creatures to join in the honours which the Divine Persons receive from each other, and thus to complete their finite worship by referring it to an infinite worship. This is done especially in the formula: “Glory be to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost.”

III. The revelation of the Trinity is of great importance for the right understanding of the supernatural works of God in the world. These works bear such a close and essential relation to the internal productions in God, that their essence, reason, and object can be understood only when they are considered as an external reproduction, and a real revelation ad extra, of the internal productions and relations of God. The supernatural works which here come under consideration are the union of God with His creatures (1) by Grace, (2) by the Incarnation.

1. Grace elevates the creature to be the adoptive son of God. The adopted son, as such, is admitted by grace to a participation in the dignity and glory of the natural Son. As in human relationships we cannot conceive adoptive sonship without referring to natural sonship, so likewise in the supernatural order the adoptive sonship of the children of God cannot be rightly understood without referring to the Sonship of the only-begotten Son of God. Hence the natural Sonship in God is the ideal of all adoptive sonship on the part of God. It is also the foundation of the possibility of adoptive filiation; for only from the fact that in God there exists a substantial communication of His Nature, and not from His creative power, we gather the possibility of a participation in the Divine Nature. The natural filiation in God must likewise be considered as the proper motive and object of the adoptive filiation. It is God’s love of His only-begotten Son, and the delight He finds in His possession, that urge Him to multiply His Son’s image ad extra. Thus He intends to bring into existence His adoptive children in order that they may glorify His paternity and His only-begotten Son. In the adoptive filiation we must consider also the manner in which it is brought about, viz. by gratuitous love. From this point of view, adoptive sonship has its ideal, the ground of its possibility, its motive, and its final object in the procession of the Holy Ghost, as a communication by means of the purest love and liberality. Further, it bears to the Person of the Holy Ghost this essential relation, that the Holy Ghost is the Pledge and Seal of the communion of God with His adoptive sons, just as in God He is the Pledge and Seal of the Love between Father and Son. As the grace of adoptive sonship, considered in its origin, is a reflex of the Trinitarian productions and relations, so it has the effect of introducing the creature into the most intimate communion and fellowship with the Divine Persons: “That our fellowship may be with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

From this it follows that the triune God is the God of the life of grace, and that a full and perfect development of the life of grace is impossible without the knowledge of the Trinity. Hence in the New Testament, where the life of grace first appears in its fulness, the relations of man to God and man’s communication with God are always attributed to one or other of the Divine Persons. For the same reason, the naming of the Three Persons is as essential in the Sacrament of regeneration and adoption as the faith and confession of the Trinity are the normal condition of its reception. Hence also the Fathers pointed out that the faith of Christians in God the Father transcends reason and opens the way to adoptive sonship. Cf. St. Hilary, De Trin., l. i., c. x. sqq.; St. Peter Chrysol., Serm. 68 (in Orat. Dom.): “Behold how soon thy profession of faith has been rewarded: as soon as thou hast confessed God to be the Father of His only Son, thou thyself hast been adopted as a son of God the Father.”

2. Whereas in grace we have first an invitation and then, secondarily, a continuation of the Trinitarian productions and relations, the Incarnation is first of all and in the strictest sense a continuation ad extra of the eternal origin of the Son of God and of His relation to the Father and the Holy Ghost. The Incarnation must not be conceived merely as God or any one of the Divine Persons taking flesh, but as the incorporation of a Person gone forth from God, and precisely of that Person Who, as Word and Image of God, is the living testimony by which He reveals Himself internally and externally; Who, as Son of God, is the born heir of His kingdom; through Whom God reigns over and governs the world; Who, as the First-born of all creatures, is naturally called to be, in His humanity, the head of the whole universe; Who, lastly, through His hypostatic mission ad extra, can bring the Holy Ghost, Who proceeds from Him, in special connection with His mystical body, and thus make the “seal and bond of the Trinity” the seal and bond of transfigured creation.