Words and expressions matter, especially when one is seeking to name, to adore, to address and to describe the One true and living God, who, for the orthodox Christian, is a Trinity of Persons in Unity.
One difference between modern western liturgy (and hymn writing) and traditional liturgy of East of West is that the former usually lacks the precision of the latter in terms of expressions naming and addressing the Holy Trinity. This can be demonstrated by the careful examination of the Acclamations, Blessings, Collects & Prefaces in such prayer books as the 1979 ECUSA and the 2000 C of E, against the background of the way the same material is handled in the traditional Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican liturgies.
Now it is true that the Being of the One God is a Mystery which we can never plumb. However, because of the Revelation recorded in Scripture and the penetrating devotion and studies of the Fathers in the early centuries of the Church, at least it is possible to state that this or that way of stating this holy matter is to be preferred to another way -- if for no other reason that the one way is less open to misunderstanding than is the other.
To illustrate. In the Orthodox Liturgy we hear: “Blessed be the kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit now and always even unto ages of ages.” Here there is one and only one kingdom or kingly reign which is equally and wholly the kingdom of three Persons, each of whom is related to it entirely and possesses it wholly.
Simplified by the ECUSA liturgists in their 1979 Book this becomes: “Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And blessed be his kingdom now and for ever.” Here simplification has opened up various possibilities of error. One would be to think that God is One Person with Three Names or Three Modes of Being, and that this One Person has an everlasting kingdom. The force of the colon is to suggest that God has three identities or names or modes of operation.
However, Jesus himself said: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations….and baptize them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit….” Here there is One Name (YHWH) and three Persons, each one declared so by the use of the article, “the”.
Turning to the English liturgists we may look at their Collect and Post-communion prayer for Trinity Sunday in Common Worship (2000):
“Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity: keep us steadfast in this faith, that we may evermore be defended from all adversities; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reins with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.”
“Almighty and eternal God, you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and live and reign in the perfect unity of love: hold us firm in this faith, that we may know you in all your ways and evermore rejoice in your eternal glory, who are three Persons yet one God, now and for ever.”
Here we have the amazing audacity in both prayers of mere creatures daring to telling the ineffable God of glory what he has revealed and given to us and how he lives and reigns! He knows infinitely more than we can ever know of these matters and needs not our information!
But leaving this on one side, the scriptural record is that the Father sends the Son who becomes incarnate, and the incarnate Son [the Lord Jesus] reveals the Father and the Holy Spirit; then, after the exaltation of the incarnate Son, the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to the Church so that the Spirit can lead the apostles and disciples into the truth of the Gospel, including the truth of God the Holy Trinity.
Looking at the two prayers --- the first is obviously addressed to the First Person, the Father, in the Name of the Son and it celebrates the revelation of God as Holy Trinity, praying that we shall remain steadfast in this knowledge and faith. Apart from the way it addresses the Almighty Father (!!!) it is orthodox in intention.
The second of the prayers is addressed like the first to “Almighty God” except that here the adjective “eternal” is preferred to the “everlasting” of the first. But then this “God”, whom we expect to be “the Father” because of the first collect and because of the Eucharistic Prayer addressed to the Father, is then said to “have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Does this mean that there is One Person, the Father, who appears in three different modes with three different means?
Or is this second Prayer addressed to “God” meaning something Other than “the Father”, that is “the one Godhead/Divinity/Deity”? But this can hardly be so for the revelation of the Triune Nature of God came – as we have noted -- through the total revelation and redemption given by and provided in Jesus Christ, Incarnate Son. It did not come through the One Godhead making known that He is present wholly in Three Persons fully and simultaneously.
Liturgically and doctrinally speaking, the strange thing is that we have these two prayers (from two different committees) alongside each other for the one day; and they seem not to have been carefully scrutinized to see whether they fit together and contain the one and the same doctrine. The first one can be read as orthodox in the western way of stating the doctrine of the Trinity (for it is essentially a rewriting of the classic Western collect) but the second is odd, to put it kindly, and probably proceeds from writers who know little of the Bible or of Patristic doctrine.
There are many more examples in modern liturgy of this kind of thing – but so few people seem to care for precision in the naming and adoring of the infinite, eternal, blessed, holy and undivided Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
(See further my Common Worship Considered [Edgeways Books, UK, 2003 -- www.edgewaysbooks.com )
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
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