21
`MY LORD AND MY GOD'
CHAPTER 7
The Doctrine of the Trinity, and the use of the word `Person'.
The orthodoxy of Dr. Chalmers is not a matter of dispute, and therefore his statements concerning the doctrine of
the Trinity in his lectures on Divinity may be a helpful introduction to the subject. He declared that it was his
intention to depart from the usual order, that is, that most theological courses `begin at the beginning' and tackle the
most abstruse and difficult of all subjects, the essential nature of God. He drew attention to the two methods
employed in any research, the analytical processes and the synthetic. By the synthetic you begin, as in geometry,
with the elementary principles, and out of these you compound the ultimate doctrines or conclusions. By the
analytic, you begin with the objects or the phenomena which first solicit your regard, and these by comparison and
abstraction you are enabled to resolve into principles. Dr. Chalmers continues:
`This latter mode is surely the fitter for a science beset on either side with mysteries unfathomable ... Now we
cannot but think it a violation of this principle, that so early a place should be given to the doctrine of the Trinity
in the common expositions of theology ... after having by a transcendental flight assumed our station at the top of
the ladder, to move through the series of its descending steps instead of climbing upward from the bottom of it ...
We should feel our way upward ... we greatly fear that a wrong commencement and a wrong direction may have
infected with a certain presumptuous and a priori spirit the whole of our theology'.
`The most zealous Trinitarian affirms of the triune God that He is not the Father, He is the one God, consisting of
Father, Son and Holy Ghost; neither is He the Son, He is the one God, consisting of Father, Son and Holy Ghost;
neither is He the Holy Ghost, He is the one God, consisting of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This is a very
general statement, we allow, nor do we think that Scripture warrants a more special description of the Trinity;
and most surely if the Scriptures do not, reason ought not ... To distinguish, then between what is Scripturally
plain and what is scholastically or scientifically obscure in this question, let it first be considered, that there is
nothing in the individual propositions of the Father being God, of Christ being God, or the Holy Spirit being God
which is not abundantly plain ... viewed as separate propositions, there is nothing incompatible in the sayings of
Scripture'.
`But there is another proposition equally distinct, and in itself intelligible - it is, that God is one. Viewed apart
from all other sayings, there is nought obscure surely in this particular saying ... What, then, is that which is
commonly termed mysterious in the doctrine of the Trinity? The whole mystery is raised by our bringing them
together and attempting their reconciliation. But the Scripture does not itself offer, neither does it ask us to
reconcile them. It delivers certain separate propositions, and thus it leaves them, to each of which, it must be
observed, is in and of itself, perfectly level to our understanding ... We could have tolerated that Socinians and
Arians had quarrelled with the phraseology of Athanasius, had it but thrown them back on the simplicities of the
Scriptures'.
`I should feel inclined to describe (the multiplicity of opinions) by negatives rather than by affirmatives, denying
Sabellianism on the one hand on the Scriptural evidence of the distinction between Father, Son and Holy Ghost;
denying Tritheism on the other, on the Scriptural evidence of there being only one God, professing the utmost
value for the separate propositions, and on their being formed into a compendious proposition, confessing my
utter ignorance of the ligament which binds them together into one consistent and harmonious whole'.
`We can make out no more of the Trinity than the separate and Scriptural propositions will let us' (Dr. Chalmers,
Institutes of Theology)'.
A word of vital importance, but one much misunderstood in relation to the nature of God is the word `Person'. It
will be found that even when the Athanasian Creed is honestly accepted, and the warning most solemnly repeated
that `there are not three Gods: but one God', a great number who subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity,
subconsciously conceive of three separate `Gods' or as the term is they are at heart Tritheists. The XXXIX Articles
of the book of Common Prayer opens thus: