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Subsection
God has One Will, Not Three
Doctrine of Appropriations
God’s Works
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Order of Contents
Intro
Essential Works Inside Himself ad intra 5
Works Outside Himself ad extra 13+
. Transient Action
Latin 2
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Intro
As Christian evangelicalism continues to try and reinvent the wheel of theology from a blank slate, profound and fundamental, old, truths are lost sight of and contradicted.
The modern heresy of the Eternal Subordination of the Son presumes, wrongly, that each Person of the Trinity has a distinct will. Rather, according to the orthodox, early Church councils (and reformed orthodoxy), each Person shares the exact same, numeric, divine will. The love of each Person of the Trinity for the others, is a love, not of a separate will, but of existing in each other and in the self-same, pure act of love.
Whenever God acts towards the creation (ad extra) this willing is done by all three Persons through the divine essence and is undivided. Yet that one will terminates in its effects according to the distinct Persons, such that some effects may be ascribed to one Person and not the others.
Learn here more about your inexhaustibly glorious God.
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On God’s Essential, Common, Works Ad Intra, Inside of Himself (as well as Ad Extra)
Order of
Articles 4
Quotes 2
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Articles
1200’s
Aquinas – Summa, pt. 1, Treatise on the Creation, Question 45, ‘The Mode of Emanation of Things from the First Principle’, article 6, ‘Whether to create is proper to any person?’
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1600’s
van Mastricht, Peter – section 7, ‘The distribution of the divine works’ in Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 3, bk. 3, ch. 1, ‘The Actions & Decrees of God’, pp. 5-6
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1900’s
Wolter, Allan B. – Article 2, ‘On the Divine Life of Love’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 3, pp. 100-101 Wolter was a Scotus scholar.
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2000’s
Muller, Richard
5.2, ‘The Father as Origin & Source: ‘Works’ of the Godhead Ad intra & Ad extra‘ ToC in Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: the Rise & Development of Reformed Theology, ca. 1520 – ca. 1725, vol. 4, The Triunity of God 2nd ed. (Baker Books, 2003), pp. 255-75
Muller (b. 1948) has been a professor of reformed, historical theology at Calvin seminary.
‘opera Dei ad intra’ in Dictionary of Latin & Greek Theological Terms 1st ed. (Baker, 1985)
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Quotes
Order of
Baxter
Owen
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1600’s
Richard Baxter
Catholic Theology (London: White, 1675), sect. 3, ‘The several inadequate conceptions which in order make up our knowledge of God’, pp. 4-5
“24. III. And the existence of this divine essence must be known by us in this gradual threefold conception: 1. In virtute (vel potentia) [in virtue or power], 2. In actu immanente [in an immanent act], 3. In actione transeunte [in a transitive action].
Of the first I shall say no more than what is said before. By the second I mean God’s own most perfect essence as active in itself, without extrinsic effect or object. By the third, I mean not the creature, or the divine action ut recipitur in passo [as it is received in the patient], or the effect, but the divine essence itself in the state of agency ad extra [toward what is outside]; which the schools conclude to be eternal, though the effect is but in time. Yet if any will call this a free and not a necessary state of the divine essence, I contend not.
25. IV. The essential immanent acts of God are three: 1. Sibi vivere [to live to Himself], or to be essential active life in Himself; 2. Se intelligere [to understand Himself], to know Himself; 3. Se amare [to love Himself], or to be amor sui [self-love].
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27. I have elsewhere shown that many of them [Schoolmen], and other divines, take the three last-named immanent acts in God to be the same with the three persons or subsistences, even the three divine principles (Potentia-Actus, Intellectus, Voluntas) as in act thus immanently. But of these great mysteries elsewhere. All that I say here is that, seeing the Trinity of divine principles (or formal essentialities) and the threefold-act are so certainly evident to natural reason itself, that no understanding person can deny them, we have no reason to think the Trinity of eternal subsistences incredible, and a thing that the Christian faith is to be suspected for, but the quite contrary, though they are mysteries above our reach (as all of God is, as to a full or formal apprehension).”
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John Owen
An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews… vol. 2 ed. W.H. Goold in Works (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), vol. 19, Preliminary Exercitations, Ex. 28, ‘Federal Transactions Between the Father & the Son’, pp. 87-88
“The will is a natural property, and therefore in the divine essence it is but one. The Father, Son, and Spirit, have not distinct wills. They are one God, and God’s will is one, as being an essential property of his nature; and therefore are there two wills in the one person of Christ, whereas there is but one will in the three persons of the Trinity…
…for such is the distinction of the persons in the unity of the divine essence, as that they act in natural and essential acts reciprocally one towards another—namely, in understanding, love, and the like; they know and mutually love each other. And as they subsist distinctly, so they also act distinctly in those works which are of external operation.
And whereas all these acts and operations, whether reciprocal or external, are either with a will or from a freedom of will and choice, the will of God in each Person, as to the peculiar acts ascribed unto Him, is his will therein peculiarly and eminently, though not exclusively to the other persons, by reason of their mutual in-being.
The will of God as to the peculiar actings of the Father in this matter is the will of the Father, and the will of God with regard unto the peculiar actings of the Son is the will of the Son; not by a distinction of sundry wills, but by the distinct application of the same will unto its distinct acts in the persons of the Father and the Son.”
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On God’s Works Ad Extra, Outside of Himself (Relating to the Creation)
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Order of
Articles 12
Book 1
Quotes 5
Latin 1
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Articles
1200’s
Aquinas – Summa, pt. 1, Treatise on the Creation, Question 45, ‘The Mode of Emanation of Things from the First Principle’, article 6, ‘Whether to create is proper to any person?’
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1500’s
Beza, Theodore – Ch. 2, 4. The Works of the Trinity are Inseparable in A Brief & Pithy Sum of the Christian Faith made in Form of a Confession (London, 1565)
Viret, Pierre – A Christian Instruction… (d. 1571; London: Veale, 1573), A Familiar Exposition of the Principal Points of the Catechism
Of the Union that is between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in their works
Of the Moderation & Measure that ought to be holden in this matter
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1600’s
Cheynell, Francis – pp. 128-32 in ch. 6 in The Divine Trinunity of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit… (London, 1650), pp. 61-180
Cheynell (1608–1665) was an English, presbyterian, Westminster divine.
Owen, John
p. 407 (Secondly) in A Brief Declaration & Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity: as Also of the Person & Satisfaction of Christ… in Works (NY: Robert Carter, 1850), vol. 2
Owen (1616–1683) was an English, congregationalist puritan.
p. 34 (2.) in Exercitation 26 of An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews… vol. 2 ed. W.H. Goold in Works (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), vol. 19, Preliminary Exercitations
van Mastricht, Peter – Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB)
vol. 2, bk. 2
ch. 15, ‘The Will & Affections of God’
section 9, ‘The independence of the divine will. Its four corollaries’, p. 298
ch. 24, ‘The Most Holy Trinity’
section 12, ‘The economic offices of the three persons’, p. 506
section 13, ‘The economic turns in governing for the persons’, pp. 506-7
ch. 25, ‘God the Father’
section 6, ‘His distinction from the rest of the persons’, pp. 529-30
vol. 3, bk. 3
ch. 1, ‘The Actions & Decrees of God’
section 6, ‘The mode of working specific to the divine persons’, pp. 4-5
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1700’s
De Moor, Bernard – Continuous Commentary
ch. 6, section 1, ‘Divine Decrees as Internal Acts ad extra‘
ch. 8, section 1, ‘From the Internal to the External Works of God’
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1900’s
Pohle, Joseph – Ch. II, ‘Oneness of External Operation of the Three Divine Persons’ in The Divine Trinity, a Dogmatic Treatise 2nd ed. trans. Arthur Preuss (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1912), pp. 275-81
Pohle (1852-1922) was a Romanist professor of theology in the Catholic University of America and at the University of Breslau. He also wrote numerous articles for the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913). This work is vol. 2 of his 12 volume Manual Of Dogmatic Theology.
Emery, Gilles – 14. ‘Trinitarian Creation & Action’ in The Trinitarian Theology Of St Thomas Aquinas (Oxford Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 338-60
Emery (b. 1962) has been a Dominican, Romanist professor of theology at the University of Friborg.
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2000’s
Muller, Richard
5.2, ‘The Father as Origin & Source: ‘Works’ of the Godhead Ad intra & Ad extra‘ ToC in Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: the Rise & Development of Reformed Theology, ca. 1520 – ca. 1725, vol. 4, The Triunity of God 2nd ed. (Baker Books, 2003), pp. 255-75
Muller (b. 1948) has been a professor of reformed, historical theology at Calvin seminary.
Dictionary of Latin & Greek Theological Terms 1st ed. (Baker, 1985)
‘opera Dei ad extra’
‘opera Dei essentialia’
‘Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa’
‘operationes Dei externae’
Jones, Mark – ‘Subordination in the Pactum? (& the Irony of ESS)’ at NewCityTimes
Jones has been a presbyterian minister in the PCA.
Sammons, Peter – ‘When Distinction Becomes Separation: The Doctrine of Inseparable Operation in the Contemporary Evangelical Church’ in The Master’s Seminary Journal, vol. 33, no. 1 (Spring, 2022), pp. 75-99
Abstract: “This article seeks to demonstrate that those Bible scholars who refuse to utilize historicaltheological categories and terminology in their exegetical method will be left proliferating inadequate exegetical conclusions at best or damning errors at worst…
…this article aims to prove that the taxonomy of inseparable operations is the necessary ramification of classical theism (in
accordance with the doctrines of pure actuality and divine simplicity in particular). Therefore, classical theism—and the terminology supplied therein—functions as a proper guardrail for explaining divine action in a way that keeps the exegete from the pitfalls of tritheism or social trinitarianism.”
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Book
2000’s
Adonis Vidu – The Same God Who Works All Things: Inseparable
Operations in Trinitarian Theology Ref Buy (Eerdmans, 2021)
“In the first book-length treatment of this doctrine, Adonis Vidu… engaging with recent and historical objections. Taking aim at a common ‘soft’ interpretation of the inseparability rule, according to which the divine persons merely cooperate and work in concert with one another, Vidu argues for the retrieval of ‘hard inseparability,’ which emphasizes the unity of divine action, primarily drawing from the patristic and medieval traditions.
Having probed the biblical foundations of the rule and recounted the story of its emergence in nascent Trinitarianism and its neglect in modern theology, Vidu builds a constructive case for its retrieval. The rule is then tested precisely on the battlegrounds that were thought to have witnessed its defeat: the doctrines of creation, incarnation, atonement, ascension, and the indwelling of the Spirit.”
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Quotes
Order of
Musculus
Gomarus
Alting
Holtzfus
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1500’s
Wolfgang Musculus
Loci Communes Sacrae Theologiae 3rd ed. (Basel: Hervagius, 1564), ‘On Creation’, trans. AI at Confessionally Reformed Theology
“For the works of the sacred Trinity are inseparable. When the Father is said to have created all things, the Word ought not to be excluded, by which, nor the Holy Spirit, with whom all things have been created. When we say that the sun cherishes and illuminates the earth (that I may speak by way of similitude) we exclude neither its heat, nor its splendor, without which it perfects not its work.”
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1600’s
Friedrich Spanheim
‘Disputation on Justification’ in Disputationum Theologicarum Miscellaneorum Pars Prima (Geneva: Chovet, 1652), trans. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology
“VII. The efficient cause of justification is God, considered both οὐσιωδῶς [ousiōdōs, essentially] and ὑπαρκτικῶς [hyparktikōs, subsistentially/personally].
Essentially, with respect to the whole complex — which, as a work ad extra [external work], is common to the three Persons of the Holy Trinity as to the ἀποτέλεσμα [apotelasma, effect] itself, yet remains distinct both in order and in mode of operation.
Subsistentially, with respect to the parts of the complex: and thus to the Father is attributed the διακριτικός [diakritikos, distinguishing/decisive] act of justification, Rom. III.25; VIII.33; to the Son, the merit of justification, Isa. LIII.11; Matt. IX.6; and to the Holy Spirit, its application, 1 Cor. VI.11.”
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Francis Gomarus
Epitome of Theological Common Places (d. 1641; Amsterdam: Jansson, 1653), Locus 6, ‘On the Creation of the World’, trans. AI at Confessionally Reformed Theology
“Which action of God [i.e. Creation], since it is voluntary, Rev. 4:11, is not proper to one person, but common to three, Gen. 1:26; Ps. 33:6; and therefore is attributed to the Father, Acts 4:24, to the Son, Jn. 1:3 & 10, Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2 & 10, and to the Holy Spirit, Job 26:13; Ps. 95:5 with Heb. 3:7 & 9, yet with a preserved order of acting: but more frequently to the Father, by a certain excellence; not indeed of nature or action, but of personal order: because the Father is the first person in order, from whom the other two have the origin of their person from eternity; and therefore creation, and similar divine actions, are usually referred to the Father as to the first person.
Then it is called external, because it indeed originates from God as its principle, but it terminates in the creatures themselves, not in God.”
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Johann H. Alting
The Scriptural Theology of Heidelberg, vol. 1 (d. 1644; Amsterdam: Jansson, 1646), Locus 5, ‘On Creation’, trans. AI at Confessionally Reformed Theology
“Works of Nature they call those which God produces in Nature by a certain common operation. And they are either of Creation, or of Conservation and Governance.
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By this, however, no Persons of the Deity are excluded from creation, but only creatures and fictitious divinities. For the individual Persons are that one, true, living, and everlasting God, and in respect to them this work no less than the other external works is counted indivisible or common. Which the very history of creation openly testifies, when it introduces several Persons consulting and creating, Gen. 1:26. Scripture testifies elsewhere, where concerning the one God the creator it speaks by the name of makers, Isa. 54:5, in the plural number, Job 35:10. Moreover, the work of creation is attributed no less to the Son, John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; and to the Holy Spirit, Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13; 33:4; Ps. 104:30, than the Father claims it διὰ ῥητῶν [dia rhētōn, explicitly].
That the Father is sometimes peculiarly called creator and Lord of heaven and earth, Acts 4:24; Mt. 11:25, is all from the order and mode of operation in creation. For He created not from another but from Himself, inasmuch as He is the fountain of the Deity and of divine operations. The Son, however, and the Holy Spirit created not from themselves but from the Father, and the Father through them, 1 Cor. 8:6; Rom. 11:36.”
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1700’s
Barthold Holtzfus
‘Theological Dissertation on Creation’ (Frankfurt: Steppinus, 1706)
“VI…. Hence, God, the Word and the Spirit are joined by David in Ps. 33:6, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth,” which the rule of the theologians confirms: “The outward works of the Godhead are undivided.”
When, however, in the Scriptures and the Creed, Creation is attributed to the Father, this is done not oppositely, but distinctly. For because the Father is the beginning, fount, and origin of the Godhead, the beginning of things is also appositely attributed to Him.
For the Father created the world from Himself through the Son in the Holy Spirit; the Son from the Father in the Spirit; and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. Which Basil the Great, in his book On the Holy Spirit, ch. 16, expressed thus:
προκαταρκτικὴ αἰτία τῶν γενομένων ὁ πατὴρ, ἡ δημιουργικὴ ὁ υἱὸς, ἡ τελειωτικὴ τὸ πνεῦμα
i.e.: ‘The original cause of things that have come to be is the Father, the fashioning cause is the Son, and the perfecting cause is the Spirit.’
VII. When, however, we teach that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit created, we do not admit three creators of the world or associate causes of creation. For:
1. In associate causes there is a diversity of causality; if this were admitted, diverse causes and diverse beings would be constituted; but the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not create as three diverse principles, but as one principle and one cause.
2. In associate causes there is a partiality and particularity of influx into the effect: whence not only finitude, but also division and diversity of operations appears; whereas on the contrary, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit concur in the work of creation with one and the same power and operation of creating; and so they are not diverse authors or diverse causes, but there is a single author, a single cause, because the operation is undivided.
It is not to be doubted, therefore, that they spoke improperly (ἀκύρως) who called them three authors of creation, as Johannes Crocius testifies in Conversatio Prutenica, pt. 2, ch. 21, pp. 534-35, where he adduces Goclenius, who, although accused here, acknowledges the same.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Forbes, John – Historical & Theological Instructions on Christian Doctrine… (Amsterdam, 1645), bk. 1 This volume was commended by Polyander, Trigland, Spanheim, Voet, Maets, Hoornbeeck, Cloppenburg, Coccejus and Maresius, as well as Gerhard Vossi, an Arminian.
ch. 8, ‘On the Inseparability of the Most Holy Trinity & on the Undivided Operation towards that which is Without’, pp. 20-21
ch. 9, ‘On the Theandric Operations, or on the Powers of God’, p. 21
ch. 10, ‘Inseparability does not obstruct in order, appropriations, nor in the separation of words or symbols’, pp. 21-23
ch. 21, ‘Useful rules unto understanding expressions of God the Trinity. When one is interpreted to work in some way three, the universal operating of the Trinity is understood’, pp. 37-38
Forbes (1593-1648) was one of the Aberdeen doctors. This volume of his gained him the reputation of being one of the greatest theologians of the reformed Church. The covenanters ‘acknowledged his orthodoxy and high Christian character’ (DNB).
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On Divine Transient Actions
Quote
1700’s
Barthold Holtzfus
‘Theological Dissertation on Creation’ (Frankfurt: Steppinus, 1706)
“VIII. Nor is God the univocal cause of the world, but the equivocal; nor necessary and immanent, as Spinoza wishes, Ethics, pt. 1, On God, Proposition 18, p. 19, but free and transient, or better: Creation, taken actively, is not an immanent, but a transient action, by which God produces things diverse from Himself and confers being upon them, the immediate principle of which action is the practical volition of God, his command and mandate.
For an agent is then said to act transiently when it actually flows into an external effect diverse from the agent, which has its place in Creation, where a true and real influx of God into the creature is given, signified by the command of God in:
Gen. 1:3, “Let there be light: and there was light.” v. 6, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters… and it was so.” v. 9, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.” v. 14, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven… and it was so.” v. 20, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.” v. 24, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” v. 26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” and v. 27, “So God created man in his own image,” etc.
From this it appears clearer than daylight that here is given a true and real influx of an efficient cause into the effect, and therefore a true and real transient action. These things being diligently observed, the whole of Spinozism collapses.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Alsted, Henry – ch. 4, ‘Actions of God in General’ in Distinctions through Universal Theology, taken out of the Canon of the Sacred Letters & Classical Theologians (Frankfurt: 1626), pp. 29-32
Voet, Gisbert – V. Of the Decrees or the Immanent Actions of God’ in Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 1, tract 2 Abbr.
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Related Pages
On the Grace of Union & the Logos Assuming Flesh
Of God, the Knowledge of God & of his Attributes