I am not entirely sure who invented the idea of the “suppressed binary opposite,” but it is a favorite concept of mine. Essentially, it refers to the thing one is arguing against (binary opposite) without naming that opposing position, hence “suppressed.” One opposite in my mind when it comes to theology is those who think that theology is primarily an intellectual exercise and that theological concepts are conceived in some kind of tower—ivory or otherwise.
When it comes to the Trinity, it is always helpful to recognize that theologians did not decide that the Trinity made sense or that they wanted to give Christians one more belief to check off with a yes. Instead, the doctrine of the Trinity was articulated because of the incarnation. If, in some alternate universe, the Son of God had not taken on flesh in the womb of the virgin Mary, there would be no “problem.”
But the Son really did become incarnate. And the question of the relationship between the Father and the Son was not raised for the first time in the fourth century. The Jewish leaders in John 5 “were seeking all the more to kill Him, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (v. 18). When they ask Jesus to declare plainly and openly whether He is the Christ, He says that He does His works in the name of the Father, and that He and the Father are one (John 10:24–25, 30). Philip asks Jesus to see the Father, and that will be enough. But Jesus answers that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him (John 14:8, 10–11).
By definition, we cannot confess the Father without confessing the Son. Apart from the Son, there cannot be a Father; apart from the Father, there cannot be a Son. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty (pantokratora), who made heaven and earth and all things, both visible and invisible. We attribute creation to the Father, but we do not identify the Father as the sole Creator, apart from the Son and the Spirit. At the same time, the Father is not an unmoved mover or a spiritual, divine principle—so far removed from material creation that He would never dirty His hands with lower, physical stuff (an idea that has neoplatonic and gnostic sources). From that idea, people have speculated that perhaps the Son was a sort of created creator who could act as a barrier between the Father and the creation.
Christians, however, confess that the origin of all things is in the Father’s Word (“Let there be,” Genesis 1), that the Word was “in the beginning … , and the Word was with [or toward] God, and the Word was God,” and that “all things were made through [the Word], and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1, 3). This is the same Word who “became flesh [sarx]” and dwelled among us (John 1:14). Thus, the Father and the Son are both confessed as Creator, fundamentally and essentially on the Creator side of the Creator-creature line. The Spirit, too, is tied to the divine creative work in Genesis 1:2. This unity is further depicted at the Baptism of Jesus by John and in the baptismal name given by Jesus to His apostles in Matthew 28:19.
Though the original Third Article of Nicaea was very short and simply confessed faith in the Holy Spirit, when it came time to confess the Holy Spirit’s full divinity with the Father and the Son, the same strategies were applied and the same answers given: If the same words are used of the Father and the Son, then they must be of the same divine essence. Likewise, if words used of the Father or the Son (or both) are used also of the Spirit, then the Spirit must be of the same divine essence with the Father and the Son. So, the confession of the God of the Scriptures is this: God is not a material essence that is divided into three “parts” but one divine being who is Father-Son-Holy Spirit. Thus, there is only a single name—the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—into which (and whom) we are baptized.
The unity of God is one aspect of the “Tri-Unity,” but what of the Tri-? That is where the attribution in the three articles of the Creed comes in. It follows the distinction between the persons. Here it is especially important to let the biblical narrative run the show, which is what the confessors of the true and Christian faith have always done. To call the Father God and the Son Lord is not only to distinguish the Father from the Son (and certainly not to distinguish the Father as God from the Son as not God) but to follow the New Testament’s language, especially in 1 Corinthians 8:5–6. The section in the Second Article beginning with “and was incarnate” follows the scriptural account of Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion, suffering, burial (implying and including death), resurrection, ascension, reign (in His human body, which can, after the incarnation, no longer be separated from the eternal Son) from the right hand of the Father’s power, and appearance in glory to judge the living and the dead.
Likewise, the Third Article continues that account, as we confess that the Holy Spirit applies to us by faith the effects and benefits of what Jesus did. This same Spirit did not come into existence after Jesus appeared but “spoke … by the prophets” of the One who would appear. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Hebrews 1:1). That is not a different way of speaking compared to how He speaks now, in these last days, by His Son; it is, rather, about the location of God’s speaking: in His incarnate Son, upon whom the Spirit descended and remains. And the church of God is not only Spiritual-prophetic, but Spiritual-apostolic: “I believe in one holy Christian (katholikān) and apostolic Church.” (That’s the same “catholic and apostolic Church” that anathematized Arius in the original Creed of Nicaea!) This story is begun for us with Baptism into this God and completed with the “resurrection of [or, perhaps, “from”? There is no preposition in the original Greek] the dead and the life of the world to come.”
Instead of (to mention another of my suppressed binary opposites) thinking of repetition of the Creed in the sense of memorizing facts for some kind of religious or cosmic test, the corporate and communal repetition of the Creed—which originally began with “we believe”—is much more like the memorization of one’s own life story. We wouldn’t call that “memorization,” would we? We would simply call it “remembering,” the way we tell stories about our lives and families. It is simply what makes us who we are. We rejoice to tell that story over and over because it is nothing less than the living and active reality of God for and with us.
Scripture: ESV®.