Mutual Indwelling, Circuminsession [Circumincession] & Perichoresis in THE TRINITY
In the history of the Christian Church, there has been a constant temptation for baptized believers to err in two opposite directions in terms of their understanding of God as The Trinity, who is the LORD, the Father & the Son & the Holy Ghost, three Persons, One Godhead. So it is not surprising that one of the three great Creeds of the Western Church, the Athanasian Creed [= Quicunque Vult] actually proclaims with splendid, humble clarity the orthodox [western] doctrine of The Trinity and also distinguishes it from the errors of two opposite directions.
The errors are (a) Tritheism, where The Trinity is seen as three intimately related “Gods” who work together and who may be equal or not in their divinity; and (b) Modalism, where the Trinity is seen as three expressions or modes of existence of the One God, a form of Unitarianism where God has three Faces and Names.
The amazing truth of The Trinity is that there is one God and one God only, but that this one God is also simultaneously and eternally Three intimately related but yet distinct Persons, so that he is both Three in One and One in Three. Each of the Persons possesses in totality the one and the one only divine nature, but yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Ghost is neither the Son nor the Father. As the Greeks put in – Three Persons and one Godhead (Substance).
Within the One God and Deity, which is The Holy Trinity, the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father (as many texts from John’s Gospel proclaim – see e.g. 10:38 & 17:21) and the Holy Ghost is in the Father and in the Son. That is, there is a mutual indwelling of the Three Persons in each other and this indwelling is one of agape, the divine love.
“Because of the unity of nature, the Father is completely in the Son and completely in the Holy Ghost; the Son completely in the Father, completely in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Ghost completely in the Father, completely in the Son” – the Council of Florence.
The word used by St John of Damascus for this mutual indwelling of each other by the Persons of The Holy Trinity was PERICHORESIS and this was translated by St Bonaventure as CIRCUMINCESSIO but by St Thomas Aquinas and the Council of Florence as CIRCUMINSESSIO. In all these writers the use of these particular words points to what we may call the mystery of divine interpenetration, reciprocal immanence and intra-divine subjectivity within the One God, who is truly and really a Triad.
As human beings we can have some experience of an earthly and created form of mutual indwelling in two ways, and each by grace. (a) That form and depth of fellowship with God wherein he dwells in us and we in him; and (b) that form and depth of fellowship one with another in Jesus Christ through the presence of the Holy Ghost within the Body of Christ, the Household of God, the Church. (The First Epistle of John as well as Romans 8 and John 14-17 point to this indwelling on the human plane.) However, that which belongs to God internally and immanently as The Holy Trinity we can only imagine, worship and adore, even as we have fellowship one with another and with the Father through the Son and with the Holy Ghost.
If we rightly understand the nature of mutual indwelling of persons in koinonia [communion, fellowship] in the Body of Christ on earth in anticipation of the life of the age to come, then we can by divine illumination and help, contemplate the PERICHORESIS AND CIRCUMINSESSIO of the Three Divine Persons who are One God.
And, as we so contemplate and adore, we shall not only “know God” unto salvation, but we shall also by grace be saved from the two great errors in doctrine that persistently arise in the Church of God, tritheism and modalism. [A careful examination of many modern liturgies, hymns, choruses and sermons will reveal, regrettably, that they tend often to drift – because of the ignorance of classic orthodoxy by their composers & editors – into one or other of these two errors.]
Let us all read again with care and devotion The Athanasian Creed (which is found in the BCP 1662 of England and 1962 of Canada; but, regrettably, not in the American BCP 1928. It is however found in very small print in the Appendix of the American ECUSA 1979 Prayer Book.
[Note that the September/October issue 2004 – due September 1st – of The MANDATE has for one its major themes, The Athanasian Creed (Quicunque Vult), which though one of the three Creeds of the Church is also a Christian Psalm to be sung thirteen times a year in the Church of England and at Prime on Sundays in the R C Church. Call 1-800-727-1928 for a copy or read it at the Prayer Book Society website, www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928 ]
Appendix.
1. Our normal existence in this world according to the Bible is that we are mutually indwelt by Satan and the world and it is only by grace that we are saved into the state of fellowship with The Holy Trinity and with one another in the Body of Christ.
2. Various Anglican and Ecumenical Commission have used the theme of Circuminsessio as a kind of model for unity of churches on earth but in doing so they have usually politicized a very profound and holy concept that belongs to the realm of doxology rather than political ecumenism. See further chapter 4 “Koinonia and the Anglican Family” in Peter Toon, Reforming Forwards? The process of reception and the consecration of women as bishops, Latimer Trust, London, ISBN 0 946307 50 4 http://www.latimertrust.org/
The Rev’d Dr Peter Toon August 2004
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