St. Gregory of Nyssa's Solution to the Logical Problem of the Trinity [Part 2]

 

(notes on Dr. Beau Branson's PhD dissertation The Logical Problem of the Trinity)

[2.] Unity of Action Argument (UAA) 

We now come to St. Gregory's main argument in defense of Trinitarian theology. A good summary of this argument would be as found in Lewis Ayres' book on Trinitarianism in church history:

"Natures and their intrinsic powers are known by the operations of those powers, and the divine operation is always observed to be one. Therefore the divine power and nature is indivisibly one." (Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology [Oxford University Press, 2004], pg. 348)

"There is one God because there is only one token power and there is only one token action (energeia) shared among the Triad." (Branson)

We should start, as Dr. Branson does, by noting Gregory's semantics for "is God". He views "God" (theos) as signifying the divine energeia or operation:

"Since, then, as we perceive the varied operations of the power above us, we fashion our appellations from the several operations that are known to us, and as we recognize as one of these that operation of surveying and inspection, or, as one might call it, beholding, whereby He surveys all things and overlooks them all, discerning our thoughts, and even entering by His power of contemplation into those things which are not visible, we suppose that Godhead, or θεότης, is so called from θέα, or beholding, and that He who is our θεατής or beholder, by customary use and by the instruction of the Scriptures, is called θεός, or God" (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2905.htm)

"Thus, on Gregory’s actual view, “God” is not a kind-term like “man” or “horse,” but an agent noun like “philosopher” or “rhetorician.'" (Branson)

Gregory provides an analogy of three rhetoricians ("orators") performing the same action. Yet, we still speak of three "orators" rather than one. So the problem is not yet completely solved. Gregory responds:

"But in the case of the Divine nature we do not similarly learn that the Father does anything by Himself in which the Son does not work conjointly, or again that the Son has any special operation apart from the Holy Spirit; but every operation which extends from God to the Creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit. For this reason the name derived from the operation is not divided with regard to the number of those who fulfil it, because the action of each concerning anything is not separate and peculiar, but whatever comes to pass, in reference either to the acts of His providence for us, or to the government and constitution of the universe, comes to pass by the action of the Three, yet what does come to pass is not three things." (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2905.htm)

"Gregory’s answer is that, unlike the case with men, the energeiai of the Trinity are not divided. This does not mean that, somehow, necessary metaphysical truths simply work differently for the Trinity, so that when we are talking about God we will have a theory of energeiai types (universals) as indivisible monads, but when talking about men we will switch over to a collective theory of energeia types. Nor does it mean that theological language is somehow different, so that when we speak about God our words follow a different set of rules. It is rather that in the case of men there are factors which actually do individuate the token actions, but in the case of the Trinity, while the hypostases are individuated by the idiomata of paternity, filiation and spiration, there simply are no idiomata that could individuate their token energeiai." (Branson)

Gregory provides this example: each of us have been given life by the Triune God, and yet we receive one life, not three distinct lives. He strengthens his theology of what is called synergy (in God), by appealing to a biblical operation: the salvation of man. The Father is called the Savior of all men, and yet that does not mean that the Son is not the Savior (same goes for the Holy Spirit). 

"The assumption that: 'for any hypostases, x and y, if x ≠ y, and if x does token energeia e of type e*, then y does not do e'. would entail that, if the Father saves me, either the Son and the Holy Spirit do not save me at all, or that, if either of them do, then I am being saved multiple times in multiple token acts of salvation – neither of which seems consistent with what the Bible says or how the Bible says it." (Branson)

One might allege that Gregory is employing a special pleading fallacy and does not elsewhere teach the idea that energeia individuate ousiai. However, Michael Rene Barnes in his study on this subject (The Power of God: Dynamis in Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian Theology) has shown otherwise. Here are two examples of Gregory's metaphysics of energeia as seen in Ad Xenodorum and Ad Eustathium:

"For we say that energeia is the natural (φυσικός) power (dynamis) and movement of each ousia without which a nature (φύσις) neither exists nor is known. For intelligence is [the energeia] of intellectual beings, sensation of sensate beings—by which the same lay hold of things outside them and are subject to things outside  them—flight of that which flies, swimming of that which swims, crawling of that which crawls, walking of that which walks, sprouting of that which sprouts. To speak comprehensively, the idioma significant (σημαντικὸν) of  each nature we call its natural energeia; of which only that which does not exist is deprived. For that which participates in a certain ousia will also participate naturally and completely in the  power (dynamis) manifesting it. For .the true Logos presides over the natural limits of ousiai." (Ad Xenodorum, in Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters [trans. Annas Silvas], pgs. 246-247)

"If, on the other hand, we understand that the energeia of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, differing or varying in nothing, the oneness of their nature must needs be inferred from the identity of their energeia." (Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Eustathium)

"when Gregory speak of natures being individuated by energeiai, he means that it is the energeia type, or as he sometimes puts it, the “form” (εἶδος) of energeiai that individuates ousiai" (Branson)