Sesudah masa tahap awal tersebut, kita tidak lagi mendapati perkembangan yang lebih jauh dari doktrin Tritunggal, tetapi hanya berulang-ulang berhadapan dengan kekeliruan-kekeliruan masa-masa sebelumnya. Kaum Arminian, Episkopus, Curcellaeus dan Limborgh memperbaharui doktrin subordinasi kembali, seolah-olah ingin tetap mempertahankan kesatuan Allah. Mereka menganggap Allah Bapa memiliki kekuasaan tertentu atas kedua pribadi lain, dalam tingkatan, kemuliaan dan kuasa.
Satu posisi yang kurang lebih sama dipegang juga oleh Samuel Clarke di Inggris dan oleh para teolog Lutheran, Kahnis. Yang lain lagi mengikuti posisi Sabellius dengan cara mengajarkan satu spesies Modalisme, seperti misalnya, Emanuel Swedenborg, yang berpendapat bahwa Manusia-ilahi yang kekal menjadi daging dalam diri Sang Putra, dan bekerja melalui Roh Kudus; Hegel, yang mengatakan bahwa Allah Bapa sebagai Allah dalam diri-Nya sendiri, bahwa Allah Putra sebagai Allah yang mengobyektifkan diri sendiri dan tentang Roh Kudus sebagai Allah yang kembali kepada diri-Nya sendiri; dan Scheleiermacher yang menganggap ketiga pribadi semata-mata hanyalah tiga aspek dari Allah: Allah Bapa adalah Allah sebagai kesatuan dasar dari segala sesuatu, Allah Putra adalah Allah yang masuk ke dalam kesadaran kepribadian dalam diri manusia, dan Roh Kudus adalah Allah yang hidup dalam gereja.
Kaum Socinian pada jaman itu bergerak disepanjang jalur Arian, tetapi kemudian melangkah melampaui Arius, dengan cara menjadikan Kristus semata-mata sebagai manusia dan Roh Kudus hanyalah satu kekuasaan atau pengaruh. Mereka semua adalah pelopor dari kaum Unitarian dan juga para teolog liberal, yang mengatakan Yesus hanyalah guru ilahi, dan mengidentifikasikan Roh Kudus sebagai Allah yang imanen.
Akhirnya ada juga orang-orang yang oleh karena mereka menganggap pernyataan dari doktrin dari satu Tritunggal ontologis sebagai doktrin yang tidak dapat dipahami dengan mudah, ingin menghentikannya dan merasa puas dengan satu doktrin Tritunggal yang ekonomis, satu Tritunggal sebagaimana yang diungkapkan dalam karya penebusan dan dalam pengalaman manusia sebagaimana dikemukakan oleh Moses Stuart, W.L. Alexander, dan W.A. Brown. Untuk satu masa yang panjang rasa tertarik akan doktrin Tritunggal makin menjadi cerah, dan diskusi-diskusi teologis lebih memusatkan pada kepribadian Allah.
Brunner dan Barth kembali menarik perhatian dalam hal ini. Barth menempatkannya pada posisi terdepan, membicarakannya dalam hubungan dengan doktrin pewahyuan, dan menghabiskan 220 halaman dari buku dogmatikanya untuk membicarakan doktrin ini. Secara material Barth menurunkan doktrin ini dari Alkitab akan tetapi secara formal dan logis ia mendapati bahwa doktrin ini tercakup dalam kalimat sederhana “Allah berkata”.
Ia adalah Yang Menyatakan (Allah Bapa), Wahyu (Allah Putra), dan Apa yang terungkap (Roh Kudus). Allah mewahyukan diri-Nya sendiri, Ia adalah Wahyu dan Ia adalah juga isi dari wahyu itu. Allah dan wahyu-Nya sama persis. Ia tetaplah Allah dalam Wahyu-Nya, bebas dan berdaulat secara mutlak. Pandangan Barth ini bukanlah salah satu jenis dari Sabelianisme, karena Bath menyadari adanya tiga pribadi dalam Allah Tritunggal.
Lebih jauh lagi, Barth sama sekali tidak memperbolehkan adanya posisi tentang subordinasi. Barth berkata:
“Jadi, bagi Allah yang sama, yang dalam kesatuan yang tak terpasangkan adalah Ia yang Mewahyukan, Wahyu dan isi dari wahyu itu, juga tidak mempunyai jenis pasangan dalam diri-Nya dengan tepat tiga cara keberadaan ini.”
Hi there, disini saya kirimkan tulisan saya berkaitan dengan Tritunggal Mahakudus. Tulisan ini lebih focus pada Kristus dan Allah Bapa. Semoga bermanfaat. http://darwinsimanjorang.wordpress.com
Christ is of the same Substance with the Father
Introduction
While I was thinking about this essay, a hypothetical question crossed my mind: What would have happened to the doctrine of Trinity if Arius and the Arians had not gone too far? Of course a hypothetical question could not be answer “correctly” except that the answer is also purely hypothetical. The question came to my mind because the Fathers explained the mystery of Blessed Trinity in order to combat Arianism and others heresies, and after that the mystery is locked. It seems to be the mystery is to be left as pure mystery. It has been a very long time with the mystery of the Trinity being untouched, until some modern theologians, like Rahner, opened the new era of theology on the Trinity.
This essay intends to explain what it means to say that Christ is of the same substance with the Father. This explanation will be based on theological statements of the fathers, combined with some philosophical speculation. So this essay will not be limited to a “familiar and creedal” understanding of the Trinity, especially of the same substance of the Father and the Son.
The essay will be conducted in a dialectic method and intends to describe the meaning of Christ as being of the same substance with the Father in the light of an “apologetic” purpose. The writer will presume that “someone” asked some questions so as to “deny” this central claim of the Christian faith.
The Meaning of Substance
Before answering the question, I would like to attempt to explain what substance really means. When explaining the meaning of substance, many philosophers and theologians understand it as a concrete being. Modern theologians tend to describe substance as an individual being. This essay does not intend to debate definitions of substance. An attempt at an explanation of substance in this essay is also not to agree or disagree with modern definitions of substance, but rather to explain what is “the true” definition of substance according to the writer. Substance is what primarily exists. It is something that is in act and exists on its own. It is the essence which underlies and is capable of having attributes or causing phenomena, but which in spite of changes in outward manifestation remains the same, that which really is or exists. Substance is distinguished from its qualities or attributes or phenomena by which it is perceived. So substance could be understood as a thing that is concrete to a particular being but at the same time others which are of the same genre with it also have or can have this same existence too, for instance a crocodile has ‘crocodilehood’ as its substance but at the same time all crocodiles have ‘crocodilehood’ as their substance also, or a man has manhood as his substance and at the same time all men have the same substance as manhood. The individual substance will be called ‘first substance’ and the general substance of a genre is called ‘second substance.’ From this understanding it becomes clear that substance is different from person.
To understand substance better one also needs an understanding of accident. Accident is something that is not necessary to the existence of something. It could be or could not be, for example, the color of something. Accident is the property of substance and exists in substance, but not on its own. Meanwhile, substance is the necessary thing in order to describe a being is as it is or beings as they are. Substance seems to be the unity of complex properties which are non accidental and belong to a concrete being or a genre of concrete beings. It is not only limited to matter but goes also beyond matter.
The Substance of the Father
After this sort explanation of substance the essay now moves on to explain what the substance of the Father is. The Father is eternal, powerful, immortal, creator, God, etc. The Father is the unmade maker. He makes everything, of all that is seen and unseen, but he himself is without cause. He is the source of all being and himself without origin. He is the summit of the divinity. He is the principle, the starting point of the whole Trinity. To say that he is the principle means that the other beings find their origin in him. He is unbegotten. It means that he is fatherless, he is not being a son to a father, but he is the father to the only son. He has no dependence on anything or anyone at all. He is transcendent.
Christ is of the same Substance with the Father
Being born in a country where Muslims are tremendously dominant, the claims of “falseness” of Christ’s Lordship are very normal to the ears of us Christians. We can hear non Christian people argue about it everywhere, even in their mosques. Well, I am not surprised if they do not understand the doctrine since they come from a different “faith” and also they want to prove that their belief is the truth, even though it is not. As a Catholic I firmly believe that Christ is of the same substance with the Father. It means the Son is not an entity or a being or a god originating from outside God by God’s externally directed choice. The Son is not in any sense a creature. Christ is coeternal, consubstantial with the Father, proceeding not from the will of the Father, but from his substance. Procession in God remains within the agent himself, and is not a procession ad extra from nothing. Procession is not a kind of gradual improvement of the divinity rising from the depths of some mysterious divine unconsciousness. The procession is the eternal production, without any succession, of one divine person from another, in an infinite act of power and of interiority. So the Son is of the same being with the Father. Almost all attributes of the Father can be said of the Son too, except unbegotten and principle. In the language of St. Athanasius, the Son is homoousius with the Father. The term homoousius indicates the real unity as well as the real distinction.
Moreover, the claim that “the Son is created out of nothing” is really unthinkable. The scripture gives testimony that everything was created through Christ. So how could a created being create everything, even itself? Where does he get the power to create himself? The Son creates everything, without any exception, it means that the Son, in himself, has the power to create, and he must be uncreated. He must be eternal and if he is eternal, he must be God, since only God himself is eternal. There is a full unbroken continuation of substance between the Father and the Son. The Son is of and from the Father’s substance. In the language of Council of Toledo, “We confess that the Son was born, but not made, from the substance of the Father, without beginning, before all ages…” Then one might ask question, do the Son and the Father share the divine substance as individuals having the same second substance, or as a substance which has the same first substance? The Fathers of the Church held different views about this. For example, St. Gregory of Nyssa would say that the Father and the Son share the same second substance, meanwhile St. Gregory of Nazienzus, as well as St. Augustine and St. Anselm, would agree that the Father and the Son share the same first substance. In my opinion, the Son and the Father have the same second substance, without being different in the first substance. So the Father and the Son are not two different gods but the truly one God.
Now I want to move to another objection. People said that the Father and the Son are equally divine; there is no doubt about it. But, they said, being equally divine does not necessarily mean they are one God. It could be they are two gods. To this objection I will answer that their way of thinking is illogical. They hold that being of the same second substance that logically there is difference in the individual first substance. This logic is almost completely true if we are talking about created being. For instance, Matthias and Matthew are human beings. They share the same second substance but not the first substance. Individually they are two different human beings, even though they are the same human being. So the application of this syllogism to God is purely analogical. The Father and the Son are of the same divine substance which has the same second substance and at the same time has the same first substance.
Some people also claimed that Jesus was just an agent of the Father in order to create everything. They argued that the Father wanted to create the whole world. In order to do this he first created the son so that trough the son the Father could create everything. What on earth are they talking about? It all sounds very awkward, does it not? Do they think the Father is the impotent God, who needs an agent to be able to create the whole world? Or do they think the Father is a pragmatic God? God as such is not true God. Christ is not an agent. He is the creator. He is one with the Father, from all eternity.
They continued their objection and said, “Well, it is not so difficult to understand the phrase that ‘the Son is of the same substance with the Father’ if the Son never came into the world and took human flesh”. Answering this objection I would like to say that without the Son being sent to the world and taking human flesh, we would never know who God is, since the Son took flesh and stayed with us in order to show us who the Father is, and to bring us back to the Father. Moreover, the mystery of the incarnation did not disturb the unity of the Son with the Father, as the Fathers of Church explained during the Council of Rome when they said that while the Son was incarnate on earth, he still remained in heaven with the Father.
Some New Testament Testimonies of the Oneness of the Substance of the Father and the Son
Some people argue that there is no basic scripture to say that the Son is of the same substance with the Father. They usually ask, “Do you have any scriptural basis to justify the sameness of the Son’s and the Father’s substance?” They even said that the scripture gives testimony that Christ is less than the Father. They quote, for instance, “neither can the Son do anything of himself except what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). This text, they argue, gives testimony that the Son is not equal with the Father. They asked, “How can unequal beings be of the same substance?”
Well, the scripture does give some statements about the Son being of the same substance with the Father. Jesus Christ, according to John’s gospel, said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). In addition, Saint Paul wrote, “since he was in the form of God he thought it no robbery to be equal to God” (Phil 2:6). These texts do certainly give testimony to the Son being of the same substance with the Father. The text “neither can the Son do…” (John 5:19), does not mean that the Son is just copying the Father actions. The evangelist did not want to say that first the Father cured the man born blind and the Son saw it, and then goes and does the same kind of miracle. Nor does he intend to say that the Father had performed some miracles and then the Son follows in the same pattern. The Son does not do other things likewise, like a sculptor copying from another sculpture he or she has seen another do; nor does he do the same thing in subordinate connection to another, like wheels turning to the left or to the right when a driver turns the steering wheel. The evangelist wanted to say that the working of the Father and the Son is equal and indivisible.
Conclusion
Christ is of the same substance with the Father means that Christ, the only Son of God, does not originate from outside of God, or even that he has origin by God’s will, but rather, he is of the same substance of the Father. Hence, the Son is not a created being; he is always with the Father, from all eternity. He proceeds from the Father, meaning that this is an eternal procession in divine being, without any succession.
The substance of the Father and the Son is the same in the second substance but without being different in the first substance. This theological and philosophical argumentation is coherent to the testimony of the Sacred Scripture.
Bibliography
Alexandria, Athanasius. “Four Discourses Against the Arians”. In Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Athanasius, edited by A. Robertson. second series, vol. iv. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.
Neuer, J. and Dupuis, J. eds. The Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church . Sydney: Collins Liturgical Australia, 2001.
Jenson, Robert W. The Triune Identity. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982.
Margerie,Bertrand de. The Christian Trinity in History. Massachusetts: St. Bede’s Publications, 1981.
Alston, William P. “Substance and the Trinity”. In The Trinity, edited by Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, Gerald O’Collins . Oxford: University Press, 1999.
Augustine. The Trinity, trans. by Edmund Hill. Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991.
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Salam kawan-kawan. Ada buku kristologi yang tidak biasa (luarbiasa!) judulnya YESUS BUKAN ALLAH TAPI TUHAN karya Ellen Kristi (Penulisnya seorang Kristen Tauhid). Isinya sangat menarik dan akurat. Yang blom baca buruan baca ya, ada di toko-toko buku (Gramedia, dll.). Banyak pendeta dan pakar Alkitab yang “kaget” atas kemunculan buku tersebut, tapi mereka mengakui kebenaran yang disampaikan dalam buku tsbt. Trinitas juga diungkap kekeliruannya! Bagi yang ngerasa Kristen, wajib baca! Buruan ….
Salam