Introduction
To infinity and… Aseity. Beyond the veil of human imagination or comprehension lives a self-existent God who is from all eternity, past, present, and future. God has no beginning nor end. He is the uncreated One. And from Him, all things are thus created. Furthermore, God is Triune-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-three distinguished persons participating in one divine nature or essence. The three-in-One is the cause of all things and is therefore uncaused by anyone or anything. Everything God needs is in the Godhead. God never changes and is complete in and of Himself. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is spirated from the Father and the Son. Each distinct person is unique and yet each distinct person is one by participation and self-existence in the nature of the One God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal in divine glory, and co-eternal in existence. The self-existing nature of God is comprised of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There has never been a time when Father, Son, and Holy Spirit did not exist. This is the mystery of God’s aseity and infinity. Namely, far above human comprehension of time, beginning and end, our triune God has always been. The purpose of this paper is to pontificate the mystery of the Trinity’s aseity and infinity. To do so, we will start by defining aseity and infinity; then lay a foundation for orthodox Trinitarianism; concluding with a brief word to establish the wonder of God as fuel for worship.
Definition and Cursory Thoughts on Aseity and Infinity
It is a lofty idea to attend to God’s self-existent nature and its infinitude. The fact that God has no beginning and no end is enough to make the mind numb when attempting to understand it. When I was twelve years old my grandmother gifted me with a children’s Bible. I remember being excited. With no guidance I opened the book of Genesis and got to it. However, my young, darkened mind was put off by the doctrine of aseity. How could God have no beginning? And who was His Creator? This was a tool of carnal flesh used to dissuade me from believing in the existence of God. I spent my teenage years as a self-proclaimed atheist. Years later, having tasted of the goodness of God, by the Spirit and through His Word, God’s aseity now strikes my heart with wonder. Loftiness and incomprehensibility no longer disturb, rather, the mysteries of God now serve as a plumbline for worship.
Aseity, as defined by Pocket Dictionary: Theological Terms, is “A term derived from the Latin a se, “from oneself.” Aseity, as a divine attribute, refers to God’s self-existence. In other words, God is not dependent upon anything else for existence but has eternally existed without any external or prior cause.”[1] Mind-boggling. To conceive of anything or anyone existing in and of itself without cause or beginning is too foreign to the human experience to fathom with mere intellect. John Webster adds, writing, “He alone has of himself all that he has, while other things have nothing of themselves. And other things, having nothing of themselves, have their only reality from him.”[2] As mind-numbing as all this seems, God, self-existent, without cause or need of anything external from Himself, is not only unfathomably complete within Himself. All things in the created universe came into existence through His eternal self-existence. Revelation 1:8, to put it in human terms, conveys of God, “’I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’”[3] There is nothing before Him, and there is nothing after Him.
The infinity of God, as explained by Matthew Barrett, indicates, “An infinite being is, by definition, unlimited. To be infinite is to be unbounded, unlimited, and unrestricted. Put positively, to be infinite means God is his attributes in an absolute sense, since he is the fullness of being.”[4] There is truly none like God or greater than God. Barrett continues, writing, “As the uncreated Creator, he is the only one who is infinite, unlimited, and immeasurable… Yet infinitude does not merely mean rejecting any quality that would limit God; it also means that God is his perfections in infinite measure.”[5] To be without measure is altogether a mystery to the human condition. As humans, we are hopelessly limited and finite. Even when humans ignore or reject God, they are no more capable of a limitless reality without measure. Humans are precisely opposite in every way; bound, limited, with measure. With Barrett, we get a glimpse of the self-existent God whose attributes are without measure, of which is not bound by anything external. This means His love, in its perfection, is without limitation. His justice is not bound, it knows no bounds. Human love and justice are bound and limited within the constraints of politics and varying perspectives and bias judgments; yet nothing external adds or takes away from God’s infinite wisdom and judgements. They are all good because they are all the fullness of God who is without measure and exists only in and of himself.
The human condition is riddled with an access of external pressures which govern and even manipulate human perceptibility toward right judgement. Of course, this is part of sin nature inherited by Adam, which is upon the whole human race. However, God is not plagued by sin and death. He is altogether transcendent, wholly other than. God’s aseity and infinitude secure Him as the source of fullness. Herman Bavinck expounds, writing, “If God is to be truly God, he must be sufficient unto himself. He is dependent on nothing; rather, all that exists depends on him. He is the only source of all existence and life, of all light and love, the overflowing fountain of all good… God is independent in everything: in his existence, in his perfections, in his decrees, and in his works.”[6] Which is why humans may rightly trust and delight in the fullness of God-His transcendent nature, which encompasses the fullness of all His attributes are altogether perfect. Bavinck argues for God’s infinity as “synonymous with perfection,” writing, “God is infinite in his characteristic essence, absolutely perfect, infinite in an intensive, qualitative, and positive sense. Understood in this way, God’s infinity is synonymous with perfection and does not have to be treated as a distinct attribute.”[7] This is why Jeremiah can utter astoundingly, “There is none like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is great in might.”[8] Yet, historical contention emerges around God’s aseity and infinity when attempting to navigate the mystery of the Trinity. Yet, as will be argued, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all participate equally in essence, and all participate in God’s aseity and infinity.
Aseity, Infinity and Trinitarianism
Christians are not so trite against the mystery of God’s aseity and infinity, however, once discussion turns to grapple with the unique personalities within the Trinity, controversy abounds. How can God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in their respective personalities, all hold claims to a self-existing infinitude? In this section we will observe Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in their unique persons regarding their consubstantial equality, simplicity, generation and spiration. Then summarize how their co-equality surpasses the false doctrines of Sabellianism, tritheism, eternal subordination, and social trinitarianism.
The Father
When discussing the doctrines of God, a certain humility is required because of human incomprehensibility. Gregory of Nazianzus explains, writing, “to tell of God is not possible, so my argument runs, but to know him is even less possible.”[9] On the human mind, only that which has been revealed by God or clearly seen within the human context is knowable. God thus relates to humanity with a comprehension humanity may understand. Humans such as Isaiah, Ezekiel, or the apostle John are difficult to read sometimes because they are attempting to explain unexplainable visions they have received. Imagine poor Daniel trying to communicate what he saw. When he strains to describe the speed of travel becoming quicker, what did he see? He fails to put into comprehensible words what he is seeing. This is the overarching humility of the theologian attempting to communicate incomprehensible attributes, such as the aseity and infinity of God. What may be known of God is communicated in two ways: (1) His character and attributes, and (2) Who He is in relationship to the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The foremost humility for the theologian who seeks to explain God is divine simplicity. Matthew Barrett explains it this way, “God is not made up of parts; he is not composite or a compounded being. He is his attributes. His essence is his attributes and his attributes his essence; all that is in God simply is God…”[10] The implication found is that the One God is one.[11] The self-existing infinite God “is one by nature, he is one in nature.”[12] This matters, as Barrett communicates, because if God were not one, He would be divided into parts.[13] Furthermore, Barrett explains that humans are mutable, temporal, and dependent, and “These attributes may define finite creatures, but they cannot characterize the immutable (unchanging), eternal (timeless), and self-sufficient God (aseity), who is without bodily form (incorporeal).”[14] All things in the created order, under God, are but “shadowy reflections of the sun in water,”[15]however, this is not so with God. In the essence of God “there is no variation or shadow due to change.”[16] Thereby, God is love, God is holy; He is no mere possessor of His divine attributes-He is His divine attributes because His attributes are His essence.[17] Because His essence is His own self-existence, there is no division in God. God is the source of all power; He cannot be moved by anything external; He is from all eternity; unoriginated; the first cause; all knowing; everywhere all at once-He is perfect and He never changes. Therefore, with humility, God has communicated to humanity by His character and attributes what He is like. Yet, the Father also communicatees who He is in relationship to the Son and the Spirit.
In discussing the divine person or subsistence of God the Father, therefore, we are not breaking the Godhead into a part. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit participate equally in divine simplicity. Barrett, quoting Thomas Aquinas, reminds us, “the whole fullness of divine nature is present in each of the persons.”[18] It is not as though each person in the Trinity were separate from one another, as if they had their own consciousness, rather, what distinguishes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is their eternal relations of origin.[19] The Father is unbegotten, the Son, begotten, and the Spirit spirated. And this is what makes the Father, Father; “he is the Son’s eternal origin, the source from whom the Son is begotten.”[20] But the Father is not Father as though He created the Son, rather, there has never been a time when the Father was without the Son, or the Spirit. Meaning, by the one shared essence of God, before the foundations of the world, Father, Son, and Spirit existed, together.[21] This is where aseity and infinity are key. In the self-existent infinitude of God, God has always been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will talk more about the Son’s generation and the Spirit’s spiration ahead. Humanity is constructed by time and limitation, however, “For the infinite, timelessly eternal deity, the confines of our finitude do not apply.”[22] Therefore, the Father is Father because the Son proceeds from the Father. And as the Father he is the one whom the Son originates from, and He is the one who sends the Son (and the Spirit) incarnationally into the world to redeem humanity from sin.
The Son
The Son is Son because he proceeds or originates from the Father. The Son’s eternal relation of origin proceeds from the Father. As the only qualitative difference between the Father and the Son is their eternal relation of origin, so with the Son. As with the Father, what is comprehensibly observed and communicated of the Son flows through the Son’s participation in the one, aseity, infinite, essence of God. Three important considerations are at hand: (1) Eternal generation of the son; (2) the Son’s co-divinity with the Father; and (3) The Son is from the beginning.
First, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. Simply put, “From all eternity, the Father communicates the one, simple, undivided divine essence to the Son.” Again, the Son’s filiation, His being begotten, is not an act of the Father created the Son. Rather, the Son proceeds from the Father by the mystery of the one shared essence or nature of God.
Second, by the one shared essence, the Son is co-equal with the Father in divinity. Remembering, generation alone is what distinguishes Son from Father. The early church fathers called this consubstantial. Barrett elaborates, writing, “Consubstantial means the Son is equal to the Father in every way, from the same essence or substance as the Father, no less divine than the Father. But we can only affirm such coequality if the Son is begotten from the Father’s essence.”[23]The Son’s coequality with the Father through the shared essence of God is communicated profoundly in Hebrews 1:2-3, which reads, “…he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through him also created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”[24] Barrett summarizes, writing, “The Father is not the Son’s Creator, but he is the Son’s Father. He did not create his Son but generated him from him from all eternity…Hebrews 1:3 suggests that the Father should be understood as the natural principle of the Son-as light naturally radiates its brightness, so too God naturally radiates his Son.”[25] By the mystery of the self-existing and infinite God, the Son shares in the glory of God as the radiance of His express image. The Son is coequal with the Father, He participates in God’s self-existence and infinite eternal nature.
Third, the Son is from all eternity, and there has never been a time when the Son did not exists. Consider John 1:1-4, 14, which reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”[26] John 1 not only affirms the Son’s eternal preexistence with the Father, it stretches further to indicate the Son’s participation in the creation of the world. This means that the Son’s proceeding from the Father is coequal in shared essence. The Son’s filiation does not disqualify Him from the self-existent and infinite nature of God. Barrett concludes rightly, writing, “The reason John can say the Word was sent by the Father to become flesh and dwell among us is because the Word is none other than the Son, whose origin is from the Father. Begotten by the Father in eternity, the Son can be sent by the Father to become incarnate in history.”[27] Simply put, the Son can become incarnate in human history, as the savior of the world, is because He is eternally begotten from the beginning. The Son shares in God’s aseity and infinity.
The Spirit
Joel R. Beeke, in Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, writes, “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share one “name” or one glorious nature (Matt. 28:19). They have one omnipresence (Ps. 139:7; Matt. 28:20) and one eternity (Gen. 1:2; John 8:58). Consequently, the attributes “are all equal to all the Persons, and alike affirmed of them all”, as Edward Leigh (1602-1671 said.”[28] And this is true of the Holy Spirit, as with the Father and the Son. The unique personhood of the Holy Spirit, similar with the Son, he proceeds from the Father. John 15:26 reads, “But when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”[29] Furthermore, John 14:26 reads, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”[30] And John 16:7 goes as far as to say it is to our “advantage”[31] that the Spirit comes in the Son’s absence. This is only possible if the Spirit is from the Father by participating in the divine essence.
As Barrett has indicated, “The Spirit is just as much the Spirit of the Son as he is the Spirit of the Father; together the three of them hold the one divine essence in common, each a subsistence of the same divine nature.”[32] And, “That means the Spirit proceeds not only from the Father in eternity but from the Son as well…. Yet he does not do it separately but from both as from one source. From all eternity, the Father and the Son communicate the one, simple, undivided divine essence to the Spirit.”[33] This means that the Holy Spirit shares in the same nature or essence. He is from the Father and the Son, yet he participates in the same divine glory aseity and infinity.
But this does not mean that the Spirit is generated by the Father in the same way that the Son is generated. The Holy Spirit’s unique personhood is not to be conflated, as though He were another Son.[34] The Son and the Spirit are not eternal brothers. Barrett asserts, “The Son is generated from the Father, which is why he is called Son, but the Spirit is not called Son, because he is not generated but spirated, proceeding from the Father and the Son as Spirit.”[35] Another way of talking about the Spirit’s spiration is “breathed out.”[36] Herman Bavinck explains, writing, “Because Scripture calls the Holy Spirit (wind, Spirit)… and repeatedly associates the Spirit with breath and wind… the preferred term became ‘spiration’ …[and] Especially Thomas and his followers, finally, describe the difference between generation and spiration by saying that generation occurred “in the manner of the intellect,” while spiration took place ‘in the manner of the will.’”[37] Furthermore, “The Father is the fountain and origin of the Godhead and reveals himself in both: the Son imparts the knowledge of God, the Spirit the enjoyment of God.”[38] Therefore, the Spirit is breathed out by the will of the Father and the Son. And finally, only because the Spirit is breathed out by the Father and the Son can the Spirit be given to us without measure (John 3:34). Barrett expounds, conveying, “The Father breathes out his Spirit through his Son. As a result, the Spirit gives us new hearts to hear and embrace the gospel of God’s only begotten Son so that we are adopted as sons by the Father into the family of God.”[39] And to be sure, “It is because the Spirit is given in eternity-spirated by the Father and the Son-that he can be given to us in redemptive history.”[40]
Aseity, Infinity and False Trinitarian Concepts
Historically, Trinitarianism has been a contentious Scriptural subject. In short, not everyone holds what we have tried to explain as orthodox. Here we will briefly observe Sabellianism, tritheism, social trinitarianism, and eternal subordination. Then, give a brief remark concerning their scriptural errors, which are directly related to God’s one glorious self-existing infinitude.
Sabellianism is “A heresy that denies there is more than one person in the Godhead.”[41] In other words, “God is not three persons but one person who merely changes into three different forms.”[42] The essential error here is a denial of the Son’s coequality with the divinity of God.[43] And if the Son, nevertheless, the Holy Spirit, do not participate in the glorious essence of God, then the Son cannot participate in God’s aseity and infinitude.
Tritheism attempts to avoid the Son and the Spirit’s participation in the one, undivided essence, by insisting “Triplicity divides the essence of God by making each person an individual agent.”[44] Tritheism rejects the simplicity of God’s one substance. Complicating the persons of the Trinity by eliminating the very nature which makes them one.
Social Trinitarianism, though nuanced, like tritheism, gives the persons of the Trinity three distinct “centers of consciousness.”[45] Then, it grants the three “centers of consciousness” communal roles in society.[46] Furthermore, rather than acknowledge God’s shared aseity and infinitude, “each person having his own will that is not only distinct but different from the wills of the other persons.”[47]
Subordination has its roots in Arianism and indicates “the Son is “the first power after the Father” …occupies “second place” …and is ‘subordinate to the Father and Lord.’”[48] Subordination in Trinitarianism assumes a hierarchy. The Son is not coequal with the Father in divinity, and therefore, as the Father is the fountain head of the Godhead, the Son is subordinate to the Father. Again, this divides the persons of the Trinity into parts, rather than affirm them as wholly God; one in essence, three in subsistence.
Each of these errors are realigned to Scripture by rightly placing God’s simplicity and inseparable operations in place. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are inseparable by their participation in the divine essence. As Barrett conveys, “’For there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one authority, one and the same, I repeat, not three resembling each other.’”[49] And with Beeke, quoting John Calvin, who said, “’Nothing is more characteristic of God than eternity and self-existence-that is, existence of himself.’ The triune God does not derive any of his life from an outside source, but rather is the source of all being and all life outside of himself (John 1:3).”[50] God’s aseity and infinity are integral here. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not divided into parts. They share equally in the divine essence. Therefore, language like generation and spiration are not disqualifications for oneness in the Trinity. Concluding, “Instead, he is one, his essence being without composition. Indivisible, his one essence cannot be divided up among three persons nor can it be dismantled into three separate agents of divinity. Rather, the one, indivisible essence wholly subsists in three persons, so that each person is a subsistence of the one, undivided essence.”[51] Sabellianism, tritheism, social trinitarianism, and subordinationism all seek to complicate the simplicity of God. But the Lord is one, and even in the light the incomprehensible nature of God, they fall short in explaining the unity of God, who is communicated as one God, in three persons.
Conclusion
In summary, God’s aseity means that God is not dependent upon anything outside of Himself for existence; God is self-existent. And within His Aseity lies infinitude. Just as God is not dependent on anything outside of Himself in his self-existence, God is not limited by the human construct of time or space. God truly is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. God is also one in three subsistent persons. Each person of the Trinity is unique only be their eternal origin of relations. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is spirated from the Father and the Son-all of which is from all eternity. Each share in the divine essence of God-making them one, undivided, inseparable, and simple in essence. The Father is wholly God; the Son is wholly God; the Spirit is wholly God. Generation and spiration do not mean created, as though the Father created the son and the Spirit, making them lessor than Him, i.e., creatures. There has never been a time when the Father was without the Son, nor has there ever been a time when the Father and the Son were without the Spirit. The Son’s generation from the Father makes Him a Son; the Spirit’s spiration does not make Him a Son to a Father, or a brother to the Son. All members, because of their participation in the one unified essence, are all coequally God. Each are worthy of worship, not as separate gods or divided consciences, but as the one God in three subsistence’s who share in the divine glory together. If none of this makes sense, other than the writing itself, much needed patience and humility is required because God is altogether incomprehensible to the human mind. Though we have glimpses and shadows of the greatness of God, we do not yet fully know Him as He is. Nevertheless, it is within the incomprehensible, faith depending, doctrine of God’s aseity and infinitude that we may trust in the Lord our God.
Here one finds good news! Because the members of the Trinity are of one undivided nature, God does not change. Whereas the existence and attributes of humanity are progressive, malleable and are subject to change, for better or worse, the existence and attributes of God are whole and complete-as mentioned above-this is because God is His attributes. The attributes are not merely an observation of who God is gradually becoming, rather, they are complete to the uttermost. As Barrett conveys, “there is no potency in God, meaning God has no unactualized potential he must reach, as if he is not true God until he reaches his full potential.”[52] God the Father is perfect from all eternity; God the Son is perfect from all eternity; God the Spirit is perfect from all eternity; the divine essence is perfect from all eternity.[53] God is perfect, and this is good news.
Beeke asserts, writing, “the doctrine of God’s eternity belongs to the proclamation of the gospel.”[54] This is so because for sinful human beings to be purchased as heirs with Christ in His eternality, the Christ requires coequality with the Father in their shared essence. Jesus Christ is only earthly good because He participates eternally with the Father as the same self-existent and infinitude. Jesus is God by participating in the one essence of God. This means, those who are in Christ are now sustained in the eternal reward through the omnipotent power of the divine essence. Barrett is right to point us to Galatians 4:3-6! In it encompasses the Trinity. Paul writes:
“In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’”[55]
This is possible because of the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. The immanent Trinity is “The Trinity in and of itself, apart from creation and salvation.”[56] As has been forementioned, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are from eternal preexistence. Nothing outside of themselves is required for their existence. They are complete within themselves through the one shared essence of God. The economic Trinity is “God’s operations toward the created order… God reveals his triune identity by means of the economy, but is not constituted by the economy.”[57] Meaning, whatever God does or communicates by His Word through His Spirit to the created order is nothing less than what is already true of God’s immanence. Father, Son, and Spirit are immanently unified, and therefore, their economic communication toward creation is perfectly unified.
In concluding this paper let us turn to Thomas Aquinas. By interacting with Aquinas one will see that because God is perfect in His nature or essence, humanity may trust Him for eternality. That all His promises are true. In Summa Theologiae Aquinas grapples with whether an attribute like goodness can be synonymous with being. The basic assumption is that goodness and being cannot be united as such.[58] Aquinas, with some assistance from Augustine, argues that “goodness and being are really the same,”[59] because “The goodness of something consists in its being desirable… But desirability evidently follows upon perfection, for things always desire their perfection. And the perfection of a thing depends on the extent to which it has achieved actuality.”[60] Furthermore, “We should especially associate goodness with God… Clearly then, since God is the first efficient cause of everything, goodness and desirability belong to him… So, since God is good as the first source of everything, he must be good in the most perfect manner possible; and we call him supremely good for this reason.”[61] Therefore, if God is perfect in aseity and infinitude, it further stretches us to see that His self-existent infinitude is powerful enough to produce His goodness within fallen human beings for eternal life. Because God is good, God is limitless in His ability to call sinners into participating in His eternal goodness. This is not to say that the blood of Christ in purchasing us is not central, it is to say that all the promises of God are true and eternally secure. Because the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit coequally share in the same essence of God, they can work together in unity to fulfill their one, undivided, will. And this is worthy of worship!
[1]Stanley J. Grenz. David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling. Pocket Dictionary: Theological Terms. Downers Grove, ILL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. P. 16. Print.
[2]John Webster. God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology: Volume I: God and the Works of God. New York, NY: T&T CLARK & Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. P. 15. Print.
[3]ESV. English Standard Version. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2001. Revelation 1:8. Print.
[4]Matthew Barrett. None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2019. P. 46. Print.
[5]Ibid., Barrett. P. 45, 47.
[6]Herman Bavinck. John Bolt, Editor. Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2011. P. 186. Print.
[7]Ibid., Bavinck. P. 189. “Properly understood, however, God’s infinity is not a philosophical notion obtained negatively by abstraction from finite things. God is positively infinite in his characteristic essence, absolutely perfect, infinite in an intensive, qualitative sense” (Ibid., Bavinck. P. 189).
[8]ESV. English Standard Version. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2001. Jeremiah 10:6. Print.
[9]Gregory of Nazianzus. On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002. P. 39. Print.
[10]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 324. Print.
[11]Ibid., Barrett. P. 137.
[12]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 137. Print.
[13]Ibid., Barrett. P. 137.
[14]Ibid., Barrett. P. 137.
[15]Gregory of Nazianzus. On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002. P. 39. Print.
[16]ESV. English Standard Version. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2001. James 1:17. Print.
[17]Ibid., Barrett. P. 137.
[18]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 143. Print.
[19]Ibid., Barrett. P. 150.
[20]Ibid., Barrett. P. 160.
[21]Ibid., Barrett. P. 161.
[22]Ibid., Barrett. P. 164.
[23]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 162. Print.
[24]ESV. English Standard Version. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2001. Hebrews 1:2-3. Print
[25]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 192. Print.
[26]ESV. English Standard Version. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2001. John 1:1-4, 14. Print.
[27]Ibid., Barrett. P. 189.
[28]Joel R. Beeke & Paul M. Smalley. Reformed Systematic Theology: Volume I: Revelation and God. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2019. P. 528. Print.
[29]ESV. English Standard Version. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2001. John 15:26. Print.
[30]Ibid., ESV. John 14:26.
[31]Ibid., ESV. John 16:7.
[32]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 269. Print.
[33]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 269, 270. Print.
[34]Ibid., Barrett. P. 271.
[35]Ibid., Barrett. P. 271.
[36]“The Spirit is spirated, eternally breathed out by the Father and Son. Since the Spirit is not another Son, he is not begotten but spirated” (Ibid., Barrett. P. 325).
[37]Herman Bavinck. John Bolt, Editor. Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2011. P. 238. Print.
[38]Ibid., Bavinck. P. 239.
[39]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 276. Print.
[40]Ibid., Barrett. P. 278.
[41]Ibid., Barrett. P. 324.
[42]Ibid., Barrett. P. 145.
[43]Herman Bavinck. John Bolt, Editor. Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2011. P. 228. Print.
[44]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 146. Print.
[45]Ibid., Barrett. P. 149.
[46]Ibid., Barrett. P. 149.
[47]Ibid., Barrett. P. 149.
[48]Herman Bavinck. John Bolt, Editor. Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2011. P. 224. Print.
[49]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 149. Print.
[50]Joel R. Beeke & Paul M. Smalley. Reformed Systematic Theology: Volume I: Revelation and God. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2019. P. 645. Print.
[51]Ibid., Barrett. P. 151.
[52]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 174. Print.
[53]“But we can rejoice with Aquinas, who says, ‘The Father’s nature has been complete from all eternity: the action whereby the Father brings forth the Son is not successive, because then the Son of God would have been begotten in stages and his begetting would have been material and involved movement. All impossible consequences. What remains, then, is that whenever the Father was, the Son also was and so is co-eternal with the Father, as also is the Holy Spirit with them both” (Ibid., Barrett. P. 174, 175).
[54]Joel R. Beeke & Paul M. Smalley. Reformed Systematic Theology: Volume I: Revelation and God. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2019. P. 665. Print.
[55]ESV. English Standard Version. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2001. Galatians 4:3-6. Print.
[56]Ibid., Barrett. P. 321.
[57]Matthew Barrett. Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. P. 320. Print.
[58]Aquinas. Edited by Brian Davies and Brian Leftow. Summa Theologiae, Questions on God. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. P. 51. Print.
[59]Ibid., Aquinas. P. 52.
[60]Ibid. Aquinas. P. 52.
[61]Aquinas. Edited by Brian Davies and Brian Leftow. Summa Theologiae, Questions on God. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. P. 63, 64, 65. Print.