I have been trying to draw some connection between Clifton's Trintitarian musings and the broader topic of this debate, which is the supposed heretical nature of monergism and its relation to the will. Despite an introduction that continues to discount strict logical constistency when engaged in "God talk", this post does provide a bit more substance on which to base a response. Even so, I can't guarantee that I'm going to make the connection that Clifton was intending. Consequently, the first part of this post may miss the point. If so, I beg the reader's indulgence and, perhaps, Clifton will clarify things for another attempt. In the first part, I will try to restate what Clifton is saying in the context of the broader discussion. In the second, I'd like to consider his Trinitarian views in themselves and answer some of the objections he has to mine.
It is Clifton's thesis that monergism is heresy. He focuses on total depravity, which is that aspect of man's fallen nature denying to him any ability to cooperate in his own salvation. On the premise that Christ's human nature must be the same as that which man now has (otherwise he could not heal what man now has), Clifton argues that Christ's human will must have been surpressed in order for Christ, as a human, never to have acted in opposition to the divine will. This is because, by nature, Christ's human will should have been prone to the same lack of cooperation as anyone else's will. The effect of this, as Clifton sees it, is practical monothelitism. I won't repeat the responses to this particular point, other than to say that there is reason to disagree. If monergism requires such a view of the will, and if this view leads to monothelitism, then the logical course would seem to point toward another view of the will in order to avoid heresy. Now, the question isn't merely what it takes for synergism to be true, but what it is for a person to have any meaningful exercise of the will.
As far as I can tell , both Clifton and I are in agreement that what is true of one person in this regard, must be true of all persons- human, angelic, and divine. Therefore, if I say that we will according to our natures, then I must also grant that this is the case with the persons in the Trinity. On the other hand, if Clifton can show that, for at least one person of the Trinity, it is the case that the person exceeds its nature such that his will is not according to that nature, then the same possibility must be admitted of all persons. The force of the compatibilist argument is lost since it maintains the impossibility of exercising the will in any other way than according to one's nature. To this end, Clifton posits a model for divine unity that is based, not on the God's nature or the divine essence, but upon, what he has termed, "the monarche of the Father."
The unity of the Trinity is understood, not as a matter of essence, but as a matter of source. That source is a person; namely, the Father. The Father begets the Son and sends forth the Spirit. But then, those who understand the divine unity as a matter of God's nature agree that the Father does this, so there must be more to it. Clifton writes:
But, as St. Gregory [of Nazianzus] has shown, there is no need to preserve God's unity in terms of his essence. The unity of God is preserved in the monarche of the Father. His eternal act of begetting and sending forth is a sacrificial act of love which communicates his divinity, but which because it is a Personal act, is not merely the bequeathing of a nature, but a generation and procession of respective Persons. That is to say, the Son is not a Person in the sense that he receives the Father's personal nature, but because the act of God in begetting is an act of his Person, him who is begotten is a Person, but a Person who has fully the nature of the one begetting him. So, too, for the Spirit, in terms of the act of procession.
Note that begetting and sending forth are considered as an act of sacrificial love. Each is "an act of his Person," and it is on this basis that the one begotten or sent forth is also a person. Earlier, Clifton had said of my own view that it "radically abridges God's freedom. For if it is God's nature to enhypostatize that nature, he cannot but do so, else he is not true to his nature, and thus not God." It seems clear then that, for Clifton, begetting and sending forth can be attributed to the Father's personal will and are not to be considered as results of his nature. Now, how does this relate to the larger point?
Recall that Clifton's claim is that person exceeds nature. This must be in such a way that the actions of a person are in no way bound by his nature; otherwise, this particular claim of monergism is not invalidated. But is it the case that the monarche of the Father, as Clifton as described it, is an example of person exceeding nature in this way? I don't see how. Considering only the person of the Father and his will to cause the other two persons of the Trinity, there is no proof in this model that he has acted in a libertarian sense. Compatibilists can still claim that this is a case of a person acting according to his nature. Be sure not to confuse the Father's begetting according to his nature with the Father's willing to beget according to his nature. They are not identical. It is possible to accept Clifton's account of God's unity flowing from the monarche of the Father as a result of his will and still maintain that willing, for any person, must be according to nature. We can take the minimal view of this: there was nothing within the nature of the Father to prevent him from willing to beget. We wouldn't have to say that the Father's nature compelled him to will begetting. If begetting is, indeed, "a sacrificial act of love," then it would not be against the Father's nature to exhibit such sacrificial love. To say that a person acts according to his nature does not render any one choice inevitable, it only renders some choices impossible. The totally depraved cannot choose to cooperate with the will of God; God cannot choose to lie-nor would he want to.
So far, I take Clifton's point in talking about the monarche of the Father to be a model of libertarian free-will. If so, the monarche has not proven an adequate argument against persons acting according to nature. But then Clifton throws in something that makes things a little less clear. I had been reading his argument about the monarche of the Father in conjunction with the claim that persons exceed their natures like this: The divine nature is triune; however, because the ultimate source of the Godhead is found in the personal will of the Father, then the Father's will must take a logical priority to that nature. The only way that I am able to see this happening is if the person of the Father is abstracted from the divine essence- a thing that cannot be done. Clifton responded:
I said nothing about "abstracting" the Person of the Father from the divine essence. Nor is such abstraction the foundation of my claim that Trinitarian Personhood exceeds divine essence. Rather, my claim is based on the theological fact that God the Father begets the Son and sends forth the Holy Spirit. In terms of real, not merely abstract, cause the one Person of the Father is "exceeded" by the Three Persons of the Trinity, the unity of the Godhead is "exceeded" by the tri-unity of the Trinity. That is to say, the Persons of the Trinity are not merely the same stuff as the Father. They are real, unique and different Persons. Similarly, the tri-unity of the Persons is not merely the same unity of God's nature.
What Clifton describes here is true to his premise of the monarche of the Father. Three persons exceed one person; tri-unity exceeds unity. But this has nothing to do with the proposition that, for any given individual, person exceeds nature in such a way that the will is not determined by the nature. So I'm left wondering what the connection is.
Now I'd like to move on to a consideration of Clifton's view in itself and to a response to his criticism of my views. I will begin with the latter. On my idea of the relationship between person and nature, Clifton writes, "He is claiming, and has claimed consistently, that persons are their natures." As it relates to the Trinity, this brings me dangerously close to modalism (although he allows that I haven't actually crossed the line), because of my "identification of the Persons of the Trinity with the nature of the Godhead." I suppose that modalism would, indeed, follow from such claims and indentifications. Let me, then, try to be as unequivocal as possible: Persons are not their natures. The persons of the Trinity are not the same as the nature of the Godhead. I grant that I may have said something that would seem to imply otherwise, and I may continue to use such formulations. Attribute this to a peculiar inability to articulate clearly a particular concept, but, please, do not continue to draw the implications. Interpret whichever of my statements may seem to make such an identification in light of this statement to the contrary: Persons are not their natures.
Clifton writes that I "even went so far as to agree with [his] assertion that Personhood exceeds essence, but then apparently contradicted [myself] in saying that it was in the nature of the Trinitarian Persons to do so. So it is not clear to [Clifton] which it is: Do the Persons exceed their essence; or are they subsumed within it since that is what their nature is, to exceed their nature?" First, the only way that I can agree that person exceeds essence is if this is the only way to get across the idea that person and nature are not the same thing. This would be an assertion of metaphysics, not an admission that persons need not act according to their natures. Second, I did not actually make the claim that it was in the nature of persons to exceed their natures. This was a rephrasing of Clifton's claim that persons necessarily exceed their natures. I make the equation on the basis of the following premise: For any action that can be predicated of a person, a corresponding property can be predicated of his nature. Thus, I am currently eating a bowl of beans and rice. It is, therefore, in my nature to eat beans and rice. This does not mean that such cuisine is inevitable, only that I am able to eat it. If it were not in my nature, I would have to eat something else. If we're talking metaphysical states, then person exceeds nature insofar as they are not the same thing (for that matter, I suppose we could also say that nature exceeds person). But if the point is necessary actions of the will, then the action predicated of a person corresponds to a property predicated of his nature. Such a case, however, involves a contradiction. The property of exceeding nature cannot reside within the nature itself. And if we allow that properties corresponding to personal action can reside in the person, then this begs the question of why we would need to posit a nature at all. Just say that a person is such and such a way and be done with the whole nature bit. Of course, then there woud be no nature to exceed, returning us to the original problem- do people will in a libertarian fashion or according to the various properties within their person?
I had written, "It is the nature of the Persons of the Trinity to be one God in which the relationships between the persons are expressed in terms of begetting and procession." To which Clifton responded, "If what Kevin says, here, is true, we have an enhypostatizaton of the divine nature, but apparently because it is the nature of God's essence to enhypostize himself in a Trinity of Persons." I'm not exactly sure of his point here. Does "enhypostatization" refer to the forming of persons? In this case, should I assume that Clifton considers such enhypostatization okay, as long as the Father freely wills it in begetting and sending forth, but objects to my claim that such enhypostatization is a result of God's nature? Or should I take the terms to mean "giving permanent substance to attributes." I gather that he objects to this, but it may be because he doesn't view this as merely making an attribute permanent, but of thinking of it as a person. Later on, he wrote, "If we predicate God's unity on his nature, or his essence, we tend toward modalistic conceptions of the Persons (i. e., we enhypostatize attributes, such as 'Love,' which enhypostatization logically fails to give rise to a third Person)..." I'm going to take Clifton's objection to be against placing the cause of the Son and Spirit in the nature of the Father as opposed to the will of the Father, since he goes on to say:
The question, however, logically arises: Must God so enhypostatize his nature? On Kevin's terms, he must do so. But this radically abridges God's freedom. For if it is God's nature to enhypostatize that nature, he cannot but do so, else he is not true to his nature, and thus not God. Nor is it clear why it is that the enhypostatization of God is accomplished by himself in a Trinity of Persons. He might just as well have done so in a Bi-unity of Persons.
To answer the first question- yes, he must. I'll develop the thought further when I respond to Clifton's views on the monarche of the Father. For now, this is not an abridgement of God's freedom since it has nothing to do with his freedom. Begetting and spiration are not acts of the will but are natural effects of what the Father is (and, because I am affiliated with the West, what the Father and the Son are in the case of spiration). Along the same lines, Clifton had continued the previous quote about predicating God's unity on his nature with this:
...or, we tend toward logically ascribing to God the absence of Personal freedom (i. e., all that God does is determined by his nature and thus necessary for him to do lest he cease being God, for example that God must create the world for it is his nature to do so).
This does not follow. Begetting and spiration are not personal actions and are not effected by the exercise of the will. Consequently, they contribute nothing to the question of libertarianism or compatibilism. As to the example "that God must create the world for it is his nature to do so," this is not the same thing. The ontology of persons within the Trinity is inevitable: this is just what God is. The Father had no more more choice in the matter of begetting the Son than he did in his own existence. Willing to create, even though according to his nature, is not the same thing, precisely because it is a matter of the will. To will in accordance with one's nature does not render a particular outcome inevitable. It only means that it was within the range of possibilities. Not everything is. God could not will to create a greater God than himself, nor could he will into existence that infamous rock that he can't move. To think that he can betrays a misunderstanding of ominpotence. These are against his natural ability. In opposition to his moral ability, he could not create an inferior creature (as all creatures must be) with the intent of worshipping it. It is not in his nature to create any of this. However, it is in his nature to create what he did create and would have been in his nature even if he had opted not to do so. To Clifton's observation that it is not "clear why it is that the enhypostatization of God is accomplished by himself in a Trinity of Persons," I can only answer with a question- Does it have to be? It happened.
Anyone who read the Oration that Clifton linked from Gregory of Nazianzus will know the primary objection to my claim that begetting and spiration are not acts of the Father's will. Gregory states in section II, "Let us not ever look on this Generation as involuntary, like some natural overflow, hard to be retained, and by no means befitting our conception of Deity." But my rejection of Clifton's monrache model is not based upon an arbitrary dismissal of Gregory, but on a reading of Athanasius (Discourse III Against the Arians- the link, which is to chapter 30, contains all of the following quotes therefrom), who is explicit in his rejection of the notion that the Son was begotten accrording to the Father's will. Gregory might be mistaken on the matter, but I think it more likely that he and Athanasius are actually in harmony.
It all goes back to Arius and Arianism. Arius believed that the Son was not actually God but only of a similar substance. He was not eternal with the Father but was, rather, begotten in time. A favorite Arian expression concerning the Son was, "There was a time when he was not." Consistent with their beliefs, the Son was begotten according to the will of the Father. Actually, it was the more the other way around and this is how Athanasius took it. The belief that the Father willed to beget the Son led to the conclusion that the Son had not always existed. Athanasius does allow, "Now if any orthodox believer were to say this in simplicity, there would be no cause to be suspicious of the expression, the orthodox intention prevailing over that somewhat simple use of words." We need now to distinguish between what the Arians mean in saying that the Father wills to beget the Son and what the simple orthodox would mean. The meaning of the statement as a premise will be different. Athanasius does not fault the Arians for an invalid conclusion. In fact, he draws the same one. If the the Son is begotten because the Father willed it to be, that is, if the begetting of the Son is according to the Father's free choice, then it cannot be eternal. There must have been a time when the Son was not. Athanasius also argues according to the Son's identity as the Word of God, saying:
For if He too came to be, as you maintain, by will, it follows that the will concerning Him consists in some other Word, through whom He in turn comes to be; for it has been shewn that God's will is not in the things which He brings into being, but in Him through whom and in whom all things made are brought to be...But if the Word is the Framer of the creatures, and He co-exists with the Father, how can to counsel precede the Everlasting as if He were not? for if counsel precedes, how through Him are all things? For rather He too, as one among others is by will begotten to be a Son, as we too were made sons by the Word of Truth; and it rests, as was said, to seek another Word, through whom He too was brought to be, and was begotten together with all things, which were according to God's pleasure.
We can begin to see what the orthodox would mean in saying that Christ was begotten according to the Father's will if we consider its opposite as "against the will" instead of "not according to the will." For instance, I cannot will the daily operations of my heart. It does not work according to my will, it just works. On the other hand, it does not work against my will, as would be the case if it stopped. This would be against my will, but my will could do nothing about it. Gregory's statement about the generation not being involuntary hints at this meaning in the phrase, "hard to be retained." The begetting of the Son is not something that God doesn't want and that he is at pains to stop. However, wanting and willing , even though "will" may be used in place of "want," are not synonymous concepts. Because God wants to create, he wills to create. On the other hand, when, as an inevitable result of his nature, he begets the Son, he desire that this happen is a matter of concurring. In much the same way, I want my heart to beat, but, in a strict usage of the term, I cannot will that it do so. Athanasius has some similar thoughts when he distinguishes the will of God from the pleasure of God:
Since then the Son is by nature and not by will, is He without the pleasure of the Father and not with the Father's will? No, verily; but the Son is with the pleasure of the Father, and, as He says Himself, The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things [John iii. 35; v. 20.]. For as not "from will" did He begin to be good, nor yet is good without will and pleasure, (for what He is, that also is His pleasure,) so also that the Son should be, though it came not "from will," yet it is not without His pleasure or against His purpose. For as His own subsistence is by His pleasure, so also the Son, being proper to His Substance, is not without His pleasure.
Going back to Gregory, he answers those who present a false dichotomy in claiming that the Father begets neither voluntarily nor involuntarily. The implication of the claim is that the Son was not begotten at all. Gregory was dealing with hyper-Arianism, which went beyond the claim that the Son was only of like substance to the Father rather than the same substance, to the claim that he was of a different substance altogether. Begetting was no longer under consideration. Thier argument was, "...if it was involuntary He was under the sway of some one, and who exercised this sway? And how is He, over whom it is exercised, God? But if voluntarily, the Son is a Son of Will; how then is He of the Father?" Gregory answers by considering creation:
Did God create all things voluntarily or under compulsion? If under compulsion, here also is the tyranny and one who played tyrant; if voluntarily, the creatures also are deprived of their God, and you before the rest, who invent such arguments and tricks of logic. For a partition is set up between the Creator and the creatures in the shape of Will. And yet I think that the Person who wills is distinct from the Act of willing; He who begets from the Act of begetting; the Speaker from the speech, or else we are all very stupid. On the one side we have the mover, and on the other that which is, so to speak, the motion. Thus the thing willed is not the child of will, for it does not always result therefrom; nor is that which is begotten the child of generation, not that which is heard the child of speech, but of the Person who willed, or begat, or spoke.
At first glance, Gregory's refutation of being a "child of will" may look as though he disagrees with Athanasius' point that, if the Father willed to beget the Word, this will would involve the interposition of another Word. I believe, however, that Athanasius and Gregory are using "will" in two different senses. Athanasius is using the more technical sense of the will as an operation that immediately results in action. Gregory's meaning is more along the lines of want or desire. Note where he says, "Thus the thing willed is not the child of will, for it does not always result therefrom." That is, mere desire does not always produce results. Gregory has refuted his opponents argument by distingishing between the act and the actor. Whatever is willed is not the child of the act of willing, but of the one who performs the act. But this is all assuming that, for God, the will (i.e., desire) to beget the Son is even like a human will, or even his own will in other cases. Continuing the above quote, he writes, "But the things of God are beyond all this, for with Him perhaps the Will to beget is generation, and there is no intermediate action (if we may accept this altogether, and not rather consider generation superior to will)".
First, Gregory considers taking out the intermediate act all together, saying that the Will to beget and generation are, perhaps, the same thing. But it is his second suggestion that leads me to believe that he cannot be talking about will in the sense of exercising a choice to produce a desired result. He wonders whether we may "consider generation superior to will." If this is the case, then generation, that is, the begetting of the Son, logically precedes the Father's desire that he be, or pleasure in the fact that he is, begotten. Furthermore, this logical order being the case, there must be the elimination of any idea that the begetting of the Son is preceded in any fashion by the operation of the Father's will. For will considered as operation must be preceded by will considered as desire. And to those who would deny this tenet of compatibilism even here, I would ask whether they believe that the begetting of the Son was caused by an operation of the Father's will, but that the Father anticipated no pleasure in the result?
Because of the way in which he is using "will," as desire or talking pleasure in what is, rather than bringing something to pass, Gregory's answer to the notion that the Son's generation is involuntary is not as strong as the other; he basically denies that this is the case. On the other hand, Athanasius, who is using will in the sense of operation, does answer the charge that necessity is laid on the Father if he does not beget by his will:
If then there is another Word of God, then be the Son brought into being by a Word; but if there be not, as is the case, but all things by Him were brought to be, which the Father has willed, does not this expose the many-headed craftiness of these men? that feeling shame at saying "work," and "creature," and "God's Word was not before His generation," yet in another way they assert that He is a creature, putting forward "will," and saying, "Unless He has by will come to be, therefore God had a Son by necessity and against His good pleasure." And who is it then who imposes necessity on Him, O men most wicked, who draw every thing to the purpose of your heresy? for what is contrary to will they see; but what is greater and transcends it, has escaped their perception. For as what is beside purpose is contrary to will, so what is according to nature transcends and precedes counseling. A man by counsel builds a house, but by nature he begets a son; and what is in building at will began to come into being, and is external to the maker; but the son is proper offspring of the father's substance, and is not external to him; wherefore neither does he counsel concerning him, lest he appear to counsel about himself. As far then as the Son transcends the creature, by so much does what is by nature transcend the will. They then, on hearing of Him, ought not to measure by will what is by nature; forgetting however that they are hearing about God's Son, they dare to apply human contrarieties in the instance of God, "necessity" and "beside purpose," to be able thereby to deny that there is a true Son of God.For let them tell us themselves,—that God is good and merciful, does this attach to Him by will or not? if by will, we must consider that He began to be good, and that His not being good is possible; for to counsel and choose implies an inclination two ways, and is the property of a rational nature. But if it be too extravagant that He should be called good and merciful upon will, then what they have said themselves must be retorted on them,—"therefore by necessity and not at His pleasure He is good;" and, "who is it which imposes this necessity on Him?" But if it be extravagant to speak of necessity in the case of God, and therefore it is by nature that He is good, much more is He, and more truly, Father of the Son by nature and not by will. Moreover let them answer us this:—(for against their recklessness I wish to urge a further question, bold indeed, but with a religious intent; be propitious, O Lord —the Father Himself, does He exist, first having counselled, then being pleased, or before counselling? For since they are as bold in the instance of the Word, they must receive the like answer, that they may know that this their presumption reaches even to the Father Himself. If then they shall themselves take counsel about will, and say that even He is from will, what then was He before He counselled, or what gained He, as ye consider, after counseling? But if such a question be extravagant and self-destructive, and shocking even to ask, (for it is enough only to hear God's Name for us to know and understand that He is He that Is,) will it not also be against reason to have parallel thoughts concerning the Word of God, and to make pretences of will and pleasure? for it is enough in like manner only to hear the Name of the Word, to know and understand that He who is God not by will, has not by will but by nature His proper Word. And does it not surpass all conceivable madness, to entertain the thought only, that God Himself counsels and considers and chooses and proceeds to have a good pleasure, that He be not without Word and without Wisdom, but have both? for He seems to be considering about Himself, who counsels about what is proper to His Substance.
Although Athanasius denies that the Son was begotten by the Father's will, he does make a distinction that is helpful in the broader discussion of the operation of the will. The Father's begetting of the Son, even though it could not have been otherwise, was not according to necessity, but according to nature (or, if it is by necessity, it is not an objectionable necessity and implies no subordination or loss of freedom). The same distinction can be applied to the normal operation of the will. Being internally determined according to one's own nature is not contrary to operating the will according to one's own pleasure. External determination, when it is against one's nature or better judgment, is. [And no, the operation of God's sovereign will does not necessarily imply such an external determination. In a Reformed understanding of moral free-agency, it is God's prerogative, always according to justice, to change or to leave unchanged our natures. The ability to decide still remains with us as agents, according to our nature and according to our pleasure.]
Basically, I believe that Clifton has misconstrued Gregory's intent. Gregory does speak of the Father begetting the Son and Emitting the Spirit, but no orthodox trinitarian, which, as should be obvious by now, includes those who say that this was according to nature, would deny this. As to the generation of the Son not being involuntary, Gregory's understanding of the will is in the sense of pleasure in what is, and is not in the sense of the effectual personal operation of the faculty of willing. The latter would have to be the case in order for his Oration to support the argument that the Father must beget the Son as a personal act else his freedom is in jeopardy. More important, however, is the way in which Clifton's conception of the monarche of the Father sits with the views of Athanasius, who will not allow that the idea of God willing to beget the Son can be separated from the Arian idea that there was a time when the Son was not.
I have already alluded to this, but there is, finally, that schism inducing word- filioque. The Western church was hasty to add it, as it is certainly no heresy not to agree. Nevertheless, I believe that adherence to the doctrine taught thereby is both correct and is more in line with the Scriptural teaching that the Son is the image of the Father. Those personal attributes defining the relationship between the Father and the Son excepted (begetting and being begotten), if the Son does not possess the personal attribute of spiration along with the Father, then the image is defective. While of considerably less consequence than the Arian implications of his argument, Clifton's attempt to locate the unity of the Godhead within the monarche of the Father is not going to go over very well with a Western audience. It requires a rejection of the filioque; otherwise, the Spirit is explained not according to unity, but according to duality. On the other hand, Clifton is perfectly free to maintain his Eastern perspective of procession while rethinking the monarche.
I have responded here.
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at abril 11, 2005 10:32 PM