The Trinity, Apophaticism, and the Cappadocian Fathers

The relationship between the doctrine of the Trinity and Apophaticism in Cappadocian Theology Michael Cadge Misunderstandings on the doctrine of the Trinity are the root causes of many, and perhaps most, notable heresies. The early church faced various heretical challenges, especially in understanding God revealed as Father, Son and Spirit, and challenges on the understanding of God are what ultimately resulted in the doctrine of the Trinity. For the fourth-century Cappadocian fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa), who were crucial in developing the doctrine of the Trinity, an understanding and presupposition of the incomprehensibility and unknowability of God was vital in understanding the Trinity and in studying theology altogether. And it was chiefly through knowing who God is not – through “apophatic”, or “negative”, theology – that one can truly grow in the pursuit of knowing the inexhaustible divine nature of God (McGinn, 1992:141; 2013;87). The idea of the hiddenness, unknowability, and mystery of God has roots in both the Old and New Testaments (e.g. Isa. 45:15; 1 Tim. 6:16; John 1:18; Rev. 1:8) (McGinn, 2013:87). Long before the Cappadocians, Plato, in Parmenides, speculated on the unknowability and inexpressibility of the First Principle (McGinn, 2013:87-8). Similarly, Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher (c.25BC-50AD), asserted that God cannot be known in his ousia, yet can be knowable in part through his manifestations on earth (Louth, 1981:19-20; cf. Ora. 28.17). It was this via negativa (“negative way”) that went on to be the ‘dominant path in Christian mysticism’ (Cos, 1986:34), with the Cappadocians being perhaps the most notable and influential figures of the tradition. The fundamental problem for the Cappadocians was how to ‘name the invisible, or describe the nonmaterial, or show what could not be seen, or comprehend what had neither size nor quantity’ (Pelikan, 1993:205). Cataphatic (“positive”) theology was used by many to describe God, but the Cappadocians saw it as completely inadequate to describe God’s nature. For Basil, God is ‘inexpressible by human voice’ and ‘incomprehensible to human reason’, so we are therefore ‘powerless to express conceptions formed by the mind’ (Pelikan, 1993:41-2; cf. Ora. 28.6). Likewise, for Gregory of Nyssa, cataphatic statements, such as God is “incorruptible” or “powerful”, are terms which are not fit to express ‘that which that nature is in its essence… [for] when we say that He is incorruptible [for example], we declare what His nature does not suffer, but we do not express what that is which does not suffer corruption’ (Not Three. p.619). Human language in relation to God was simply inadequate, and even God’s revelatory language in Scripture, though ‘indeed explanatory of our conceptions of the Divine Nature… [did] not include the signification of that nature itself.’ (Not Three. p.618). Man’s own faculties in understanding God were likewise insufficient. Man cannot even understand the natural world, Gregory of Nazianzus asserts, so when ‘it comes to discourse about God, the more perfect it would be, the harder it is to get a grip on the subject’ (Ora. 28.21). Cataphatic statements, then, based on God manifesting ‘Himself to us through His divine energies’ (Louth, 1981:85-6), though ‘terms… fit to be understood or asserted of the Divine nature’ (Not Three. 619), had to nevertheless be ‘negated with a corresponding antithesis... [when] applied to the Holy Trinity’ (Milsaps, 2006:88). As Gregory of Nyssa asserts, cataphatic affirmations taught ‘under what conditions [it was permissible to] conceive of God as existing’, but they did not inform men about ‘the being of God essentially.’ (Pelikan, 1993:41). There was thus a need for apophaticism when speaking of the divine, and this is what undergirded Cappadocian theology (Cos, 1986:34). For them, God is so other, and so incomprehensible, that to protect against distortion, ‘whether accidental or deliberate, any “proper conceptions about the divine nature” … needed to begin with the fundamental premise that the divine nature was “unlike anything known”.’ (Pelikan, 1993:45, quoting Gregory of Nyssa). God is simply completely transcendent and ineffable, thus ‘to define God in words is an impossibility’, for it is ‘impossible to express God… [or] to form a clear idea of Him’ (Ora. 28.4). Every conception of God falls short of the reality of his goodness, and submitting to negativity was therefore the only way (Cox, 1986:34), though having ‘no other words to employ,’ as Basil states, ‘we employ what we have’ (Pelikan, 1993:44). Cataphaticsim and apophaticism are therefore not ‘two interchangeable ways of saying the same thing’ (Pelikan, 1993:40), for to describe the essence of God, you do it not ‘by declaring what it is, but by excluding what it is not’ (Ora. 29.11). For example, ‘language states only that God is not begotten; [but] it does not express what is the real nature or condition of that which does not have any generation.’ (Ora. 29.11). For Gregory of Nazianzus, then, a dual language of apophatic and cataphatic theology was necessary to understand and know God, though this was nevertheless insufficient (Milsasps, 2006:92). As Dionysius, a later mystic, believed: cataphatic theology is concerned with God’s movement outwards to the world, and apophatic theology is concerned with the soul’s movement inwards to God. (Louth, 1981:177). Gregory of Nazianzus further explains that because man is unable to know eternal things, he looks for thing of this earth to compare God to. This, however, is a ‘big mistake’ (Ora. 28.13). Nothing, neither a water source or the sun, will do as analogies (Ora. 31.31-32), for ‘it is not possible for any comparison to match exactly the whole truth it its purity’ (Ora. 31.11), and there is nothing on earth ‘with which to compare the divine nature.’ (Ora. 31.31). So, as Gregory of Nazianzus asserts, ‘it seems best… to let the images and shadows go, as being deceitful and falling very far short of the truth, and to attach myself to the more reverent conception, relying on few words’ (Ora. 31.33). When one sees a glimpse of God, then, these are only the “back” of him says Gregory of Nazianzus (Ora. 28.3; cf. Exodus 33:23). So, men can indeed make true cataphatic statements based on God’s manifestations in the earth, but these can never describe his nature or essence (Milsaps, 2006:85). Apophatic statements are therefore necessary, for they are required and are useful in helping men understand God’s essence in a way cataphatic theology cannot, though they still only give knowledge of God in part, for God is ineffable. We, Gregory of Nyssa writes, believing the Divine nature to be unlimited and incomprehensible, conceive no comprehension of it, but declare that the nature is to be conceived in all respects as infinite: and that which is absolutely infinite is not limited in one respect while it is left unlimited in another, but infinity is free from limitation altogether. (Not Three. p.623). Regarding the names of the Trinity, even “Father”, “Son” and “Spirit” were inadequate: ‘The divine nature cannot be expressed by any name… [and even] “God” is a relative, not an absolute name… [for God] is absolute… [and not] bound up with something else.’ (Ora. 30.17-18). This is why God declared himself as YHWH, the one who just is (Ora. 30.17; Exo. 3:13-15), and why, as Gregory of Nyssa states, there was ‘only one name for representing the proper nature [of Christ], the single “name of being above all names” [Phil. 1:6-11].’ (Pelikan, 1993:213-4) The three divine names of God, then, do not designate modes of existence, but they instead denote modes of relation (Ayres, 2004:247). “Father”, for example, ‘is the name of the relation in which the Father stands to the Son and the Son to the Father… [for] they designate an identity of nature between the One who is begotten and the One who begets.’ (Ora. 29.16; cf. 30.20). Therefore, though sharing an ousia, as Coakley asserts in relation to Gregory of Nyssa, a hypostasis is nevertheless a ‘distinct enough entity to bear some “particularizing marks”… [and these are] of differing causal relations within the Godhead.’ (2002:120). Furthermore, as names do not designate essence, there are consequently innumerable names for God, ‘each with some special but apophatic implication.’ (Pelikan, 1993:210). With regards to the relationships between the three persons of the Trinity, which was vital in formulating the doctrine of the Trinity, we find apophatic theology being key for the Cappadocians, for even the relationships could not be grasped by human minds. The ‘begetting of God [the Son] must be honoured by silence’, Gregory of Nazianzus argues, for it is only known truly by God (Ora. 29.8; cf. 29.19). Therefore, though “unbegotten” and “begotten” are different, this does not mean that the Father and the Son are different in nature (Ora. 29.10). Similarly, the Cappadocians, much to the disagreement of some around them, asserted the Spirit’s divinity (Spirit. 9.22; Ora. 31.26-29; Ayres, 2004:249), but asserted that the term “proceeds”, like “unbegotten” or “only-begotten”, is nevertheless unknowable, for, though the Spirit proceeds from God, ‘He is no creature; inasmuch as He is not Begotten, He is not Son; and inasmuch as He is between the Unbegotten and the Begotten, He is God.’ (Ora. 31.8). Further, we cannot, as Gregory of Nazianzus states in reference to the Spirit’s “proceeding”, ‘enter into the depths of God and provide an account of that nature which is so unspeakable and so utterly above our reason.’ (Ora. 31.8). In a mysterious and unknown manner, then, the ‘Trinity fulfils every operation [of God] … not by separate action according to the number of the Persons, but so that there is one motion and disposition of the good will which is communicated from the Father through the Son to the Spirit’ (Not Three. p.621). Differences are of relation, but ‘it is not some deficiency in the Son which prevents His being Father… [for] these terms do not either a deficiency or a subordination with respect to the divine essence… [But the] Three are One with respect to the divinity, and the One is Three with respect to the properties.’ (Ora. 31.9). Impossible for the human mind to comprehend, yet completely true, there is, then, difference and completely unity, and these assertions were paramount in the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. For the Cappadocians, as Colle asserts, [it was] not simply a matter of transcendent (and immutable) mystery versus visible historical revelation. Rather, the trinitarian Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit reveal the loving mystery of the saving God whose transcendence in the mystery is the basis for its communication and invitation to the creature. (1997:130). God is not three gods– Christians are not tritheists, and Greogory of Nyssa wrote in length against this idea. His well-known analogy of the three men united by “manhood” (Not Three. pp.617-8), though considered a Trinitarian analogy by some, was in fact a clear disanalogy, for that ‘which is… not circumscribed is not enumerated, and that which is not enumerated cannot be contemplated in multitude.’ (Not Three. p.623; Coakley, 2002:118). As Gregory of Nazianzus likewise argues: ‘[O]ur common nature has a unity which is conceivable only in thought; and the individuals are very different from one another, for they are divided by time and by the capacity to experience and to act… But each of the Three is as entirely one with Those with whom it is united as it is with itself.’ (Ora. 31.15-16). Gregory of Nyssa summarises: Thus, since on the one hand the idea of cause differentiates the Persons of the Holy Trinity, declaring that one exists without a Cause, and another is of the Cause; and since on the one hand the Divine nature is apprehended by every conception as unchangeable and undivided, for these reasons we properly declare the Godhead to be one, and God to be one, and employ in the singular all other names which express Divine attributes. (Not Three. 625) God, therefore, cannot be numbered or measured, for God is One in unity, essence and power, and cannot become worse or better by any addition (Ora. 31.5; Pelikan, 1993:209). Thus, the ‘hypostaseis have relational “distinguishing marks”, [but] it is only in a Pickwickian sense that they are “three”.’ (Coakley, 2002:120-1). The Cappadocians, then, affirm that God is known in part through experiencing his operations in the world (Milsaps, 2006:85), but no man ‘could boast of having taken in the nature or seen the totality of God’ (Ora. 28.18). There therefore remains a paradox of knowing God, yet not knowing him, and this is in fact an extremely high, and Scriptural, view of God: God is ‘beyond understanding’ (Job 36:26 NIV; ‘we know him not’ ESV); he ‘dwells in unapproachable light’ (1 Tim. 6:16 ESV); and ‘[his] ways are higher than [our] ways’ (Isa. 55:8-9 ESV). It is therefore no surprise that, for Gregory of Nyssa, as Coakley states, ‘the whole life-work of “ascent” … culminates in noetic darkness, as did Moses’ ascent of Mt Sinai’ (2002:122; Exo. 24:18). Knowing God is therefore growing in, worshipping, and being aware of the incomprehensible and unfathomable Trinity, though never reaching full understanding of him (Compenhausen, 1963:121). Men, however, may truly know God’s essence ‘when the impenetrable darkness of this present age [is] taken away’; when God is seen “face to face” (Ora. 29.11; 1 Cor. 13:12). Bibliography Ayres, L., 2004. Nicaea and Its Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Spirit.) – Basil the Great. On the Holy Spirit. Tr. By Jackson, B., in Schaff, P., (ed.) 1894. Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Series II, Vol. 8. London: http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/basil_spiritu.html Coakley, S., 2002. Powers and Submissions. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Compenhausen, H.V., 1963. The Fathers of the Greek Church. London: Adam & Charles Black Colle, R.D., 1997. in Gunton, C.E., 1997. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cox, M., 1986. A Handbook of Christian Mysticism. The Aquarian Press (Ora.) – Gregory of Nazianzus. Five Theological Orations. 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