He begins this work examining the heretics’ (the Arians) “use of syllables” to distort the doctrine of the Trinity. They posit that when Scripture uses prepositional phrases (i.e., syllables) speaking of the activity of God, these phrases create a subordinate ranking, which makes the Son and the Spirit of a different nature from the Father. The heresy is promoted as such: In the words of the apostle: “‘One God and Father of whom are all things, . . . and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things’ (1 Cor 8:6) ‘Whatever, then,’ he goes on, ‘is the relation of these terms to one another, such will be the relation of the natures indicated by them; and as the term ‘of whom’ is unlike the term ‘by whom,’ so is the Father unlike the Son” (Spir. 2.4). And following this manner of thought, the differing prepositions taxonomizes the Father from the Son and the Spirit from the Son and Father. The Son is a subordinate agent or instrument through whom the Father creates, and the Spirit is subordinate to the Son in whom the Father creates, whereby the Spirit “may appear to be adding to existing things nothing more than a contribution derived from place or time” (Spir. 2.4).
Basil pauses briefly to discuss the nature of the “heathen philosophy” that forms the basis of this faulty logic. The heretics have adopted this mode of thinking, attributing certain natures or give certain significations when discussing the nature of causality, i.e., the four causes (Formal, Efficient, Material, and Final). Briefly, Formal is the form or idea according to which a thing is made; Efficient is the agent acting on the thing made; Material is out of which a thing is made; Final is the end to which a thing is made or purposed. Romans 11:36 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 affirm the centrality of the triune God in creation, whereby God is the source (ek), sustainer (dia), and goal (eis) of all things. It seems Paul understood this was common language in Greek stoicism, which Hellenistic Jews adopted and applied to Yahweh. Paul then borrows and applies it to the triune God (spec. Romans 11:36; cf. Moo, Romans, 743).
In his opponents’ adaptation of the four causes, they assert “by whom” is proper to the Father, thus he is the carpenter, “through which” signifies the instrument, thus the Son, and “of which” the material of the thing that is made, and “in which” refers to somewhere in time and space. And it is this last element of causality that they designate to the role of the Spirit. And so, we see that they have made an “unpractical philosophy” and “belittling” doctrine of the Spirit (Spir. 2.3.5). What is the result, Basil asks? “There is one nature of Cause; another of Instrument; another of Place. So, the Son is by nature distinct from the Father, as the tool from the craftsman; and the Spirit is distinct in so far as place or time is distinguished from the nature of tools or from that of them that handle them” (Spir. 4.6).
But Basil does not continue looking for scriptural proofs for his point; rather, he wants to engage in a discussion about “the identity of language.” His adversaries contend that the difference in language indicates a difference in nature. However, Basil is confident that they will “confess with shame that the essence is unchanged” (Spir. 5.11). In the next chapter, Basil outlines his opponents’ heretical notions, as mentioned already, challenging their assertion that the Son is “after the Father.” Their interpretive mistake in delineating an ontology is in using the divine ekonomia, the redemptive revelation of God in time and space, to formulate their doctrine of God. The Arians’ interpretation is defective because they allow an anthropomorphic reading of the text to govern their ontology. In refutation, Basil looks to a plain reading of John 1:1, observing that the two words “beginning” and “was” keep us tethered to the text in that we have nowhere to go conceptually, leaving us with the notion that “it is impossible to get further than the beginning” , . . which teaches us to think that the Son was together with the Father in the beginning (Spir. 6.14).
The controlling skopos of Scripture, a particular summary of Scripture leading us to the principle of the unity of Scripture, teaches that the Bible, as a whole, reveals that Christ is fully human and fully divine. Therefore, this unifying theme makes individual texts of Scripture that appear to be contradictory are actually complementary of one another because Scripture is a product of the One, Divine mind (Carter, Contemplating God, 35). Khaled Anatolios identifies the key aspects of this unifying skopos about Christ—the central figure of Scripture. He notes this unifying principle is based on the names and language in reference to Christ observed in the NT authors, such as Wisdom and Power of God (1 Cor 1:24), the brightness of his glory (Heb 1:3). The related or shared language throughout all of Scripture the biblical writers employed to speak of the divine essence (i.e., The radiance of Light; he is a speaker of a Word; Wisdom and Power) are then lexically extended to include Christ. And this governing principle, “seemingly oversteps the contextual distance between different usages. The principle of the unity of Scripture is assumed to legitimate the meaningfulness of its intertextual relations” (Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 111).
And we see Basil making that connection. He notes his opponents’ mistake in applying corporeal designations to the incorporeal essence, such as interpreting the expressions from Psalm 110:1, “Sit at my right hand,” and Hebrews 1:3, “he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” as God having a physical right hand and also that it indicates a lower rank, but rather “equality of relation.” The Son’s act of standing and sitting is not of inferiority; rather, Basil writes, it is indicative of the “immutability and immobility of the Divine mode of existence” (Spir. 6.15). And then we see the lexical extension, thus Christ’s inclusion in the divine essence, spoken of above. Basil writes, “Scripture puts before us the magnificence of the dignity of the Son by the use of dignified language indicating the seat of honor” (Spir. 6.15). And then he references 1 Corinthians 1:24, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3, and John 6:27 asking his opponents if the language referring to Christ that presume his inherent relation to God signify “inferiority of rank.” If Christ is the Power and Wisdom of God, how could he be anything less than the all-powerful and all-wise God? If Christ is a mere creature, then Paul has committed a heinous act of blasphemy.
Basil demonstrates his opponents’ error in their assumption that the phrase “through Him” makes the Word an instrument of God, thus inferior to God, by the role of the Word in the creative and providential acts, which alone belong to the Creator. Scripture credits the Son, the Word, with having brought forth “all created nature,” the visible and invisible, which cannot be sustained and upheld apart from the “Creator Word, the Only begotten God” (Spir. 8.19). Basil notes, He enlightens those in ignorance (John 1:9); He judges, for the Father has given all judgment to him (John 5:22); He is the Resurrection (John 11:25), raising those who have fallen. And “effectually working by the touch of His power and the will of His goodness He does all things” (Spir. 8.19). And then from the glory, power, and goodness of his touch, in a foray, Basil attributes all the excellencies of the divine essence to Christ:
He shepherds; He enlightens; He nourishes; He heals; He guides; He raises up; He calls into being things that were not; He upholds what has been created. Thus, the good things that come from God reach us “through the Son,” who works in each case with greater speed than speech can utter. For not lightnings, not light’s course in air, is so swift; not eyes’ sharp turn, not the movements of our very thought. Nay, by the divine energy is each one of these in speed further surpassed than is the slowest of all living creatures outdone in motion by birds, or even winds, or the rush of the heavenly bodies; or, not to mention these, by our very thought itself. For what extent of time is needed by Him who “upholds all things by the word of His power,” and works not by bodily agency, nor requires the help of hands to form and fashion, but holds in obedient following and unforced consent the nature of all things that are? (Spir. 8.19).
The work of the Son is to reveal the Father, “guiding us to the knowledge of the Father, and referring our wonder at all that is brought into existence to Him, to the end that ‘through Him’ we may know the Father” (Spir. 8.19). Basil’s cogent and clear elucidation of the Word is the summation of Scripture about Christ. The unifying theme of Scripture is that the triune God has revealed himself in Christ. Therefore, the triune God is neither tethered to time nor confined to any page, book, or testament of Scripture. It is a canonical revelation that should guide our interpretation and formulation of our doctrine of God. The divine activity of God is the divine activity of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. The divine energia, though manifesting the persons of the Trinity in distinct modes and activities—ekonomia, nevertheless must always be understood that there is no variation or separation in the divine essence or in the divine operations. Basil writes, “The Word is full of his Father’s excellencies; He shines forth from the Father and does all things according to the likeness of Him who begat Him.” Therefore, if he is the same in essence, he is the same in power (Spir. 8.19).
The power and operation are always equal because of the One, Divine will. The Son comes to execute the Father’s command, but what we see in the divine economy is not a denigrating of the Son. Basil is very keen to the Arian errors, noting that the interaction revealed between the Father and the Son, does not imply the Son’s ontological subservience to the Father. Rather, Basil emphasizes that we must theologize according to what is befitting of the Godhead—who is Spirit; the Father and the Son “perceive a transmission of will, like a reflection of an object in a mirror, passing without note of time from Father to Son.” Keeping the distinction between ekonomia and theologia, Basil notes when the Son announces that he only speaks what he hears the Father speak, or he only does what the Father commands him to do, the purpose is to “make plain” that the Son has an “indissoluble union with the Father” (Spir. 8.20). So, when Christ tells Philip, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), it is not the express image or the form of God that Philip sees, because “the divine nature does not admit of combination.” Rather, to see the Father in Christ, is to “see the goodness of the will of God, being concurrent with the essence, beheld as like and equal, or rather the same, in the Father as in the Son” (Spir. 8.21).
In conclusion, Basil expresses that the Father’s act of creating through the Son is the “confession of an antecedent Cause and is not adopted in objection to the efficient Cause.” What does that mean? The revelation of God as Creator and Cause in Scripture is the expressive act of the divine essence (theologia), whereby the modes and operations of the triune God are manifested in creation (ekonomia) in order to display the glory of God to creatures. The identity of language shared between the Father and the Son is for the purpose of indicating the one will of God in creation and providence. The prepositional phrases (Basil terms syllables) by, through, and in ascribed to the Persons of the Godhead do not imply taxonomic degradation; rather, it is a formulaic expression of divine accommodation.
~ Romans 11:36
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1. Basil of Caesarea (c. ad 329–379), also called Basil the Great, was the leading figure of the group of three Cappadocian fathers who championed Nicene orthodoxy against the Arians in the later 4th century. Gregory of Nazianzus, the second of the group, formed a close friendship with Basil while they were students in Athens. The third member of the group, Basil’s younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, was educated at home. On returning to Cappadocia, Basil devoted himself to an ascetic and devotional life and became a pioneer of coenobitic monasticism. Basil’s intellectual and administrative gifts led to his election as metropolitan bishop of Caesarea, the Cappadocian capital, in 372. After the death of Athanasius the following year, he was the chief pillar of orthodoxy in the East, defending the deity of the Son and Spirit against Arians and Pneumatomachi. He thus became the chief architect of the Cappadocian doctrine of the Trinity which became definitive for East and West. Basil’s two most important works are Against Eunomius, a reply to extreme Arianism, and On the Holy Spirit. Eunomius argued that since only creatures were begotten, the Son, being begotten, could not be God. Basil denies that ‘unbegottenness’ is an adequate definition of the essence of God, and defends the doctrine (inherited from Origen and Athanasius) of the eternal generation of the Son. The generation of creatures is physical and temporal. The generation of the Son is ineffable and eternal. Here Basil makes his distinctive contribution to Trinitarian doctrine. Athanasius and the older Nicenes had defended the deity of the Son by insisting that he was consubstantial (homoousios) with, of the same essence or substance (ousia) as, the Father. Basil made a distinction between ousia and hypostasis (which, confusingly, may also be literally translated as ‘substance’), hitherto used interchangeably. He spoke of one ousia of God, but three hypostaseis, the hypostasis of the Father, the hypostasis of the Son, and the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. This became the definitive doctrine of the Trinity in the East. Cappadocian doctrine greatly influenced the West through Ambrose, although the West began from the oneness of God and spoke of three ‘persons’.
“Basil of Caesarea,” T. A. Noble, in Ferguson and Packer. New Dictionary of Theology.
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