THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 22
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somewhat similar position is taken by M. Kahler, (q.v.) who, while inferring from the threefold activity of God a corresponding ontological condition of divine being, urges that this be not employed in constructing intra-divine relations. The idea of the immanent Trinity is to serve only to impress the richness, sufficiency, and activity of the divine life. While A. Ritschl (q.v.), though not employing the word Trinity, had designated Christ and the Church as the eternal contents of God’s thought and loving will, H. Schultz (q.v.) saw, further, the eternal indwelling of God in Christ and the Church based upon the eternal unfolding of his being in Word and spirit. Julius Kaftan (q.v.), finally, emphasizes that Trinitarian statements are matters of faith only in so far as they are based on the historic Christ and the historic communication of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the economic and the immanent Trinity differ only in form, but in content they are congruent.
If it is the nature of faith to conceive the mundane in the supermundane, the historical in the eternal, then the religious realization of the history of redemption is only practicable as the eternal
self-revelation and _ self-communica-
6. A Con- tion of God are perceived in the person cluding of the Redeemer and the possession of View. the Holy Spirit by the Church. The same Christ who, as the founder of a
new religious life, belongs to mankind and to history, belongs at the same time to the eternal life of God, of whom he is the full revelation. The Spirit by whom man calls God Father and is transformed into the likeness of Christ, belongs both to the temporal life of the Christian and to the self-manifestation of God, who desires to fill his personal creatures with his presence. If in the historic revelation of salvation the eternal activity of God be recognized, every other self-revelation of God must be connected with the historic Redeemer, and every other self-communication of God with the Holy Spirit. In all the leadings of mankind in preparation for redemption culminating in Christ, as well as in creation, this divine manifestation is patent. The Biblical term for this universality of revelation is Logos, implying not merely an explanation of revelation, but the expression of the immanent divine activity. All religious prophecy is an effect of the same Spirit who in his fulness dwells in the Christian society. Without this self-evidencing of God, no spiritual existence is conceivable to be complete. In this not only is the thought resumed which Origen associated with the idea of the eternal generation of the Son, but the idea of Paul (Col. i. 15 sqq.) is applied anew to the present world-conception. What, however, stands out clearly in a temporal process in the course of which the religious, moral, personal life takes shape, is, when considered as divine act, not a becoming but an eternal presence, the expression of his unchangeable being. In this sense, Son and Spirit are to be assumed as eternally existent in God. This is the final statement possible for thought. But the how of the immanent Trinity is inscrutable for want of categories of temporal thought to conceive the eternal or for want of analogies in human experience.
To speak of three persons in one Godhead is to use an inadequate symbol. The ancient conception of person was elastic enough to admit a recoalescence after the distinction, but the modern idea of personality as a, distinctly self-conscious, self-determining psychical unity would yield only a collective unity as well as extinguish the human self-consciousness of Christ or ascribe to him a double personality. Better is it to speak of three elements, or a threefold eternal determination of the divine being. No theory must impair the personality of the exalted Christ for Christian piety. In him divine grace takes human shape in history, and in unison with the Father he remains the head of the Church. Likewise, God’s holiness, transforming the earthly, obtains its historical form in the community of redemptigny,which. joined in, the Spirit with God through Cha articipates, in. eternal life. To avoid empty*schemata and the barren field of mystical contemplation, in the interest of vital reality, the immanent Trinity must never be isolated from the revealed. The religious value of the doctrine of the Trinity consists alone in expounding the history of revelation as the self-disclosure of the eternal God. The dcztrine is a safeguard against false deistic representations of divine transcendence only when God’s wisdom and love are viewed, not in an inscrutable self-evolution beyond, but as a world-immanent redeeming revelation. Against pantheism the surest weapon is the strictly personal, ethical conception of God’s loving will, of necessity reverting to the historical revelation. Thus the order ever remains from the triad of revelation to unity and not vice versa, and the doctrine of the immanent Trinity can be no more than a limiting concept. (O. Krrnft.) BrpitiocRapHy: The question is treated historically in the works on the history of doctrine and on Biblical theology, and dogmatically in those on systematic theology (see in and under Doema, Doemartics). Consult also the works cited under ARIANISM; CHRISTOLOGY; Gop; Hoty Spirit, etc. The special literature is extensive. On the historical side consult: T. Maurice, Dissertation on the Oriental Trinities, London, 1800; E. Burton, Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, Oxford, 1831; G. S. Faber, The A postolicity of Trinitarianism, 2 vols., London, 1832; F.C. Baur, Die christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 3 parts, Tiibingen, 1841-43; G. A. Meier, Die Lehre von der Trinitit in ihrer historischen Entwicklung, Hamburg, 1844; J. R. Beard, Historical and Artistic Illustrations of the Trinity, London, 1846; C. Morgan, The Trinity of Plato and Philo-Judeus, ib. 1853; C. P. Caspari, Der Glaube an die Trinitét Gottes in der Kirche des fhe christlichen Jahrhunderts, Leipsic, 1894; L. L. Paine, Critical Hist. of the Evolution of Trinitarianism, Boston, 1900; : idem, Ethnic Trinities and their Relation to the Christian Trinity, ib. 1901; A. Beck, Die Trinititslehre des Aewligen Hilarius von Poitiers, Mainz, 1903; A. Dupin, Le Dogme de la Trinité dans les trois premers siécles de lV’ église, Paris, 1907; W. S. Bishop, The Development of Trinitarian Doctrine in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, A Study in Theological Definition, London and New York, 1910; J. Lebreton, Les Origines du dogme de la Trinité, Paris, 1910. For the doctrinal and apologetic side consult: J. Kidd, An Essay on the Doctrine of the Trinity: attempting to prove uw by Reason and Demonstration founded upon Duration and Space, London, 1815; F. Schleiermacher, in his Werke, part I., vol. ii; R. W. Landis, A Plea for the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity, Philadelphia, 1832; J. Zukrigl, Wissenschaftliche Rechtfertigung der christlichen Trinititslehre, Vienna, 1846; J. Wilson, Unitarian Prin-