“Nicene Creed.” The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit developed on the basis of
this Nicene theology. Later it was made explicit that the Holy Spirit, too, was
of the same essence as the Father. The Holy Spirit, however, is not begotten
but proceeds from the Father.
Nicene theology had to face
dif¿ cult conceptual questions
about the threeness of the Trinity.
Why not say there are three Gods?
The short answer, of course, is
that Christianity is committed to
Jewish monotheism. It’s not quite
enough to say they share the same
essence and attributes, because
three human beings share the
same (human) essence. Gregory
of Nyssa’s answer is that the
three have one and the same will
and action.
If they are not three Gods, then
they are three what? They are
not three parts of God—the
orthodox doctrine of the Trinity
emphatically denies that God has
parts. The Greek-speaking church
called them three “hypostases,”
which means complete individual beings. The West, that is, the western part
of the Roman Empire, used the Latin concept of three persons. The West
understood “person” to mean complete individual being (that is, hypostasis)
of rational nature. Thus arose the standard conceptual language for the
doctrine of the Trinity: three persons and one essence or, in the Greek, three
hypostases and one ousia.
What makes the three different from one another? The Father begets the Son,
not vice versa. In general, their diverse mode of origination differentiates
This woodcut depicts the Trinity, which is
one of three patristic doctrines.© Photos.com/Thinkstock.