Article I: Of Faith in the Holy Trinity

Frankly, I don't intend to give much context to this discussion. You can find many good discussions of the history of the Articles in a variety of places I imagine. I don't recommend any particular one. One important fact not usually mentioned about the Articles is that they are affirmative disputational objects. To be clear, the premises in the articles arise from the context of the medieval university. Examination for degrees in the Middle Ages required one to assert certain theses concerning the material of the curriculum which one agreed to defend against all contravertors. The Articles of Religion are made up of such theses. The Lutheran confessions arise from a similar disputational culture. Indeed, I would argue that the Reformed confessions do as well. In the case of the Articles of Religion, there is no need for me to appeal to implicit historical arguments based on narrative contextualization. For indeed, I once found theses for the Bachelor of Divinity degree from Cambridge from the late 16th and early 17th centuries in the database, Early English Books Online. I no longer have access to EEBO unfortunately, but I'm pretty sure I found them there. The theses, of course, were in Latin, but they translated to things like, "The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament contain all things necessary to salvation" etc. In other words, the B.D. candidates defended the Articles. And I'm sure the Puritan academics played devil's advocate. Hooker in the Preface to Laws actually challenges the Puritans to disputation and implies that the theology of the Church of England is ever open to disputation in the universities. I am sure he was referring to the very practice I found evidence for in the EEBO source.

The edition of the Articles used is the one in the back of my 1979 BCP.

I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity

There is but one living and true God...

Whoever God is, He is unique. The Israelites came to understand that gods they had worshipped in nature under various incarnations were one and the same. They came to understand a deity whose Name resided in Jerusalem but not Godsself. They came to see the gods of the nations as creatures of God at best or creatures of man at worst. Wood and stone could not hear human supplications. And as Paul and Augustine both imply, whatever truth the pagans came to understand about God through exercise of their reason is true of the God of Israel. The true God is everywhere the same

...without body, parts...

The Bible doesn't quite agree here. There are various indications in the Law of God having a body or parts possibly. But the point of saying God is without body or parts is twofold. First, it allows God to be omnipresent. Second, it elevates God above the level of his visible creation. And, of course, kenosis isn't as daring if God already has a body. But we must be careful to recognize as C.S. Lewis reminds us in Perelandra that we do not worship God because he is a spirit but rather because he is good.

...or passions...

In Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son , a little boy named Alvin Smith challenges a Reformed clergyman by the name of Philadelphia Thrower with the words, "Isn't love a passion?" The incident actually is given some hidden significance because it is connected to some important aspects of Mormon theology which I will not get into here. But the question is a fair one. Looking at the usage of passion in the OED examples, however, I note that passion in the philosophical sense really refers to those excesses of the yearning of the flesh which in moderation are good but in excess lead to vice. To say God is without passions is only to say He is perfectly moderate. His love is not passionate but perfect.

...of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness...

Rather self-explanatory. I often question the assumption of infinite power but usually appeal to "love is patient." Yes, God has infinite power but exercises that power in the same moderation that is inherent in His Nature.

...the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible...

God is primarily unique in being the Creator of everything. The 104th Psalm (among other texts) suggests that God continually keeps creation going, "Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the Earth!" Before there were even Deists, God seem to have revealed something very important. Once the universe started, He couldn't leave. Maybe, this speaks to the nature of time. But I prefer the view of Dionysius Areopagites, who seems to see Creation as God's great love affair. Since He has yearned for Creation, He will not be happy until He has consummated that yearning in the union of Himself and the Church in the midst of a purified Creation.

The Nicene Creed speaks of the created order as both visible and invisible. I usually find it helpful to imagine the universe as a hypostatic union of Platonic and Aristotelian viewpoints. I am aided in this by the Gospel of John which talks of the Word unknown to the world made flesh in Christ Jesus. Christ again is the image of the universe in whose creation He is intimate. The Jews speak of Kaddish as a means whereby this world is united fleetingly with the world to come. And yet by our Memorial of the Commandments of Him who died and lived for us in the Sacraments he ordained, the end of the Kaddish is perfected. The Body of Christ stands perpetually at the interface between the invisible and visible creation of God.

And in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons...

The Trinity is the chief mystery of the Faith. Barely understood by the Apostles, the Fathers were driven by their desire for salvation, the harmony of truth, and the repudiation of falsehood to pose and to adore the God Triune. Their relationality is so deeply intertwined with the nature of being and what was before being that it seems silly to dispute it. One theologian of our church once made a deeply blasphemous comment about the relationality of the Persons which completely missed the point. The relationality of the Persons does not exist because of peculiar affections among the Persons but so that we and all creation might be better loved. God is One because He was so before the beginning. His Unity is eternal as all of his other attributes. But God is Three because a Word was spoken and a Spirit hovered over the face of the Deep. And because that Word came to us and that Spirit is our Advocate and Guide.

...of one substance, power, and eternity...

I've tried to cover substance and power. Eternity is more difficult. The Persons are co-eternal because the activities whereby they have separate Personhoods are logically intimate. Athanasius tried to explain this logical intimacy by talking about the Trinity in highly redundant ways. This is one case where the rhetoric of one of the Fathers participates more substantially in the Truth that the content of what he says. If I were of a more mystical bent I would supplicate God as "The Holy Redundancy That Longs To Call Us Beloved."

...the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

This is the formula of the Great Commission. I know there is controversy about the reliability of that formula, but it is certainly the general consensus of the church catholic as to names. *Christopher of Bending the Rule recently critiqued, "God Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer" based on the fact this formula neglects the relationality of the Persons to a greater extent than the ancient formula. My Plotinian spider sense says "Yearner, Planner, and Actor," but this may be impure fire offered on the altar of gender-neutrality, if you get my drift.

One down, thirty-eight to go.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may requite the affection of that gracious Lover of souls to whom we all ought to give glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unto ages of ages.