Calvin's Institutes

Section: 1.13.18-22

18. Difference of Father, Son, and Spirit

I really do not know whether it is expedient to borrow comparisons from human affairs to express the force of this distinction. Men of old were indeed accustomed sometimes to do so, but at the same time they confessed that the analogies they advanced were quite inadequate. Thus it is that I shrink from all rashness here: lest if anything should be inopportunely expressed, it may give occasion either of calumny to the malicious, or of delusion to the ignorant. Nevertheless, it is not fitting to suppress the distinction that we observe to be expressed in Scripture. It is this: to the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity. Indeed, although the eternity of the Father is also the eternity of the Son and the Spirit, since God could never exist apart from his wisdom and power, and we must not seek in eternity a before or an after, nevertheless the observance of an order is not meaningless or superfluous, when the Father is thought of as first, then from him the Son, and finally from both the Spirit. For the mind of each human being is naturally inclined to contemplate God first, then the wisdom coming forth from him, and lastly the power whereby he executes the decrees of his plan. For this reason, the Son is said to come forth from the Father alone; the Spirit, from the Father and the Son at the same time. This appears in many passages, but nowhere more clearly than in chapter 8 of Romans, where the same Spirit is indifferently called sometimes the Spirit of Christ [v. 9], sometimes the Spirit of him “who raised up Christ…from the dead” [v. 11]-and not without justification. For Peter also testifies that it was by the Spirit of Christ that the prophets prophesied [II Peter 1:21; cf. I Peter 1:11], even though Scripture often teaches that it was the Spirit of God the Father.

19. The relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit

Furthermore, this distinction is so far from contravening the utterly simple unity of God as to permit us to prove from it that the Son is one God with the Father because he shares with the Father one and the same Spirit; and that the Spirit is not something other than the Father and different from the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. For in each hypostasis the whole divine nature is understood, with this qualification-that to each belongs his own peculiar quality. The Father is wholly in the Son, the Son wholly in the Father, even as he himself declares: “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” [John 14:10]. And ecclesiastical writers do not concede that the one is separated from the other by any difference of essence. By these appellations which set forth the distinction (says Augustine) is signified their mutual relationships and not the very substance by which they are one. In this sense the opinions of the ancients are to be harmonized, which otherwise would seem somewhat to clash. Sometimes, indeed, they teach that the Father is the beginning of the Son; sometimes they declare that the Son has both divinity and essence from himself, and thus has one beginning with the Father. Augustine well and clearly expresses the cause of this diversity in another place, when he speaks as follows: “Christ with respect to himself is called God; with respect to the Father, Son. Again, the Father with respect to himself is called God; with respect to the Son, Father. In so far as he is called Father with respect to the Son, he is not the Son; in so far as he is called the Son with respect to the Father, he is not the Father; in so far as he is called both Father with respect to himself, and Son with respect to himself, he is the same God.” Therefore, when we speak simply of the Son without regard to the Father, we well and properly declare him to be of himself; and for this reason we call him the sole beginning. But when we mark the relation that he has with the Father, we rightly make the Father the beginning of the Son. The whole fifth book of Augustine On the Trinity is concerned with explaining this matter. Indeed, it is far safer to stop with that relation which Augustine sets forth than by too subtly penetrating into the sublime mystery to wander through many evanescent speculations.

20. The triune God

Therefore, let those who dearly love soberness, and who will be content with the measure of faith, receive in brief form what is useful to know: namely, that, when we profess to believe in one God, under the name of God is understood a single, simple essence, in which we comprehend three persons, or hypostases. Therefore, whenever the name of God is mentioned without particularization, there are designated no less the Son and the Spirit than the Father; but where the Son is joined to the Father, then the relation of the two enters in; and so we distinguish among the persons. But because the peculiar qualities in the persons carry an order within them, e.g., in the Father is the beginning and the source, so often as mention is made of the Father and the Son together, or the Spirit, the name of God is peculiarly applied to the Father. In this way, unity of essence is retained, and a reasoned order is kept, which yet takes nothing away from the deity of the Son and the Spirit. Certainly, since we have already seen that the apostles declared him to be the Son of God whom Moses and the prophets testified to be Jehovah, it is always necessary to come to the unity of essence. Thus we regard it a detestable sacrilege for the Son to be called another God than the Father, for the simple name of God admits no relation, nor can God be said to be this or that with respect to himself.

Now, that the name of Jehovah taken without specification corresponds to Christ is also clear from Paul’s words: “Three times I besought the Lord about this” [II Cor. 12:8]. When he received Christ’s answer, “My grace is sufficient for you,” he added a little later, “That the power of Christ may dwell in me” [II Cor. 12:9]. For it is certain that the name “Lord” was put there in place of “Jehovah,” and thus it would be foolish and childish so to restrict it to the person of the Mediator, seeing that in his prayer he uses an absolute expression which introduces no reference to the relationship of Father and Son. And we know from the common custom of the Greeks that the apostles usually substitute the name ?????? [Lord] for Jehovah. And to take a ready example, Paul prayed to the Lord in no other sense than that in which Peter cites the passage from Joel, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” [Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32]. Where this name is expressly applied to the Son, we shall see in its proper place that the reason is different. For the present, it is enough to grasp that when Paul calls upon God in an absolute sense he immediately adds the name of Christ. Even so, Christ himself calls God in his entirety “Spirit” [John 4:24]. For nothing excludes the view that the whole essence of God is spiritual, in which are comprehended Father, Son, and Spirit. This is made plain from Scripture. For as we there hear God called Spirit, so also do we hear the Holy Spirit, seeing that the Spirit is a hypostasis of the whole essence, spoken of as of God and from God.

21. The ground of all heresy: a warning to all

Moreover, Satan, in order to tear our faith from its very roots, has always been instigating great battles, partly concerning the divine essence of the Son and the Spirit, partly concerning the distinction of the persons. He has during nearly all ages stirred up ungodly spirits to harry orthodox teachers over this matter and today also is trying to kindle a new fire from the old embers. For these reasons, it is important here to resist the perverse ravings of certain persons. Hitherto it has been my particular intention to lead by the hand those who are teachable, but not to strive hand to hand with the inflexible and the contentious. But now the truth which has been peaceably shown must be maintained against all the calumnies of the wicked. And yet I will exert especial effort to the end that they who lend ready and open ears to God’s Word may have a firm standing ground. Here, indeed, if anywhere in the secret mysteries of Scripture, we ought to play the philosopher soberly and with great moderation; let us use great caution that neither our thoughts nor our speech go beyond the limits to which the Word of God itself extends. For how can the human mind measure off the measureless essence of God according to its own little measure, a mind as yet unable to establish for certain the nature of the sun’s body, though men’s eyes daily gaze upon it? Indeed, how can the mind by its own leading come to search out God’s essence when it cannot even get to its own? Let us then willingly leave to God the knowledge of himself. For, as Hilary says, he is the one fit witness to himself, and is not known except through himself. But we shall be “leaving it to him” if we conceive him to be as he reveals himself to us, without inquiring about him elsewhere than from his Word. On this question there are extant five homilies of Chrysostom Against the Anomoeans yet not even these could restrain the presumptuous Sophists from giving their stuttering tongues free rein. For in this matter they have behaved no more modestly than they usually do everywhere. We ought to be warned by the unhappy outcome of this presumption so that we may take care to apply ourselves to this question with teachableness rather than with subtlety. And let us not take it into our heads either to seek out God anywhere else than in his Sacred Word, or to think anything about him that is not prompted by his Word, or to speak anything that is not taken from that Word. But if some distinction does exist in the one divinity of Father, Son, and Spirit-something hard to grasp-and occasions to certain minds more difficulty and trouble than is expedient, let it be remembered that men’s minds, when they indulge their curiosity, enter into a labyrinth. And so let them yield themselves to be ruled by the heavenly oracles, even though they may fail to capture the height of the mystery.

22. Servetus’ contention against the Trinity

To frame a catalogue of the errors with which the sincerity of the faith was once assailed on this head of doctrine would be too long and needlessly irksome. And very many of the heretics with brutish ravings, seeking to overthrow the whole glory of God, have thought it enough to alarm and confuse the uninstructed. Presently, indeed, from a few men there have boiled up several sects, which partly tore asunder God’s essence, partly confused the distinction that exists between the persons. Indeed, if we hold fast to what has been sufficiently shown above from Scripture -that the essence of the one God is simple and undivided, and that it belongs to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; and on the other hand that by a certain characteristic the Father differs from the Son, and the Son from the Spirit-the gate will be closed not only to Arius and Sabellius but to other ancient authors of errors.

But because in our own day there have arisen certain frenzied persons, such as Servetus and his like, who have entangled everything with new deceptions, it is of importance to discuss their fallacies in a few words. For Servetus the name “Trinity” was so utterly hateful and detestable that he commonly labeled all those whom he called Trinitarians as atheists. I pass over the senseless words that he thought up to rail at them. This, indeed, was the sum of his speculations: God is assumed to be tripartite when three persons are said to reside in his essence; this is an imaginary triad, because it clashes with God’s unity. Meanwhile, he would hold the persons to be certain external ideas which do not truly subsist in God’s essence, but represent God to us in one manifestation or another. In the beginning there was no distinction in God, because the Word and the Spirit were formerly one and the same: but when Christ came forth as God from God, the Spirit proceeded from him as another God. But even though he sometimes colors his absurdities with allegories, as when he says that the eternal Word of God was the Spirit of Christ with God and the refulgence of his idea, and that the Spirit was the shadow of deity, yet afterward he annihilates the deity of both, declaring that as God metes out according to his dispensation there is a part of God both in the Son and in the Spirit, just as the same Spirit, being substantially in us and also in wood and stone, is a portion of God. We will see in its proper place what he babbles concerning the person of the Mediator. Indeed, this monstrous fabrication, that “person” is nothing else than a visible manifestation of the glory of God, needs no long refutation. For although John affirms that the Word was God when the universe was as yet not created, he utterly distinguishes Word from idea [John 1:1]. If then, also, that Word who was God from farthest eternity both was with the Father and had his own glory with the Father [John 17:5], surely he could not have been an outward or figurative splendor, but of necessity it follows that he was a hypostasis that resided in God himself.

Moreover, although no mention is made of the Spirit except in the history of the creation of the universe, nevertheless the Spirit is introduced here, not as a shadow, but as the essential power of God, when Moses tells that the as yet formless mass was itself sustained in him [Gen. 1:2]. Therefore it then has become clear that the eternal Spirit had always been in God, while with tender care he supported the confused matter of heaven and earth, until beauty and order were added. Surely there could not yet be a likeness or representation of God, as Servetus dreams. Elsewhere, indeed, he is forced to disclose more openly his impious notion that God, by decreeing through his eternal reason a Son visible to himself, in this way showed himself visibly. For if this be true, no other divinity is left to Christ, except in so far as the Son has been ordained by God’s eternal decree. Besides this, he so transforms those specters which he posits in place of hypostases that he does not hesitate falsely to attach new accidental qualities to God. Indeed, to be execrated far beyond all else is the fact that he indiscriminately mingles both the Son of God and the Spirit with created beings generally. For he publicly declares that in the essence of God there are parts and divisions, each portion of which is God: indeed, he particularly states that the spirits of believers are coeternal and consubstantial with God, although he elsewhere assigns a substantial deity not only to the soul of man but to other created things.