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Every man of understanding knows well that God's most holy nature is
infinite, while man's nature is finite. It is, therefore, impossible for our
feeble intellect to attempt to fathom the depth of the divine mysteries. Yet God
would not have revealed Himself to us in three Hypostases, had such knowledge
been unnecessary to us, or had it been presumptuous for us to endeavour to
comprehend the teaching which He has given us on the subject. Yet we must guard
against arrogantly rejecting all we cannot fully understand, and we must also be
careful to accept nothing which God Himself has not taught in the holy
Scriptures. Our Muslim brothers agree with us in acknowledging the existence of
Almighty God, the Causer of causes
(مُسبب
الاسباب), the Infinite, the Transcendent
(مُنزه), the
Eternal
(الازلي
والابدي), yet we are quite unable to imagine to ourselves the final cause, the
end of the chain of causation, or the full meaning of 'eternal and everlasting'.
This does not, however, in any degree prevent us from believing in God with all
our heart. In the same way we Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity,
because it is revealed in the holy Scriptures, for we know that 'every 1
scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching.' The doctrine is
needful in order to enable us to understand the
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DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY |
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way of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, and to comprehend how it is
possible to reconcile what the holy Scriptures teach regarding His divine nature
and that of the Holy Spirit of God with what the same holy Scriptures declare
regarding the unity of the divine nature. If God had not revealed this doctrine,
man would assuredly never have been able to discover it for himself, just as he
would never have learnt to believe in the resurrection of the dead or even in
the life after death. But reason teaches that what God Most High, who is Himself
the Truth
(الحق), has taught must be true; and we now proceed to prove that the
doctrine of the Trinity in Unity is distinctly revealed in the holy Scriptures.
That doctrine may be stated in the following 1 way:—
1. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are One, and only One God.
2. Each of these three Divine Hypostases has a peculiarity incommunicable to
the others.
3. No one of these three divine Hypostases, if He could be entirely parted
from the others, which is impossible, would alone and by Himself be God.
4. Each Divine Hypostasis, being united with the other two in eternal
(ازلي
وابدي) and
inseparable unity, is God.
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