Logopneumatika: Polemics & Patristics (Part 2)

We have seen thus far that the early church was riddled with heresies. This does not mean that the early church was corrupted or defeated (a view espoused by Calvary Chapel founder Chuck Smith and one that I critique here), but that she struggled to codify the apostolic message amidst ardent and outspoken opposition. Certain formulae were introduced to aid this codification such as the Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds with their christological and trinitarian declarations. Irenaeus of Lyon was a defender (some would say definer) of orthodoxy against the gnostics would posited an anti-biblical theology, anthropology, cosmology, and teleology. That is to say their view of God, humanity, the world, and its end/goal differed from that which was handed down from the apostles and later canonized in the New Testament. Irenaeus used the concept of Word & Spirit to describe the work of the God of the Bible in creation and providence over against the gnostic view of a two-fold pantheon of creator god and supreme god. Irenaeus upheld the unity of the Godhead and the diversity of the Godhead's work without erring in either respect. His corpus of writings, of which little exists in its original language, helped the early church navigate the tempestuous waters of ancient gnostic thought.

Another champion of orthodoxy was Tertullian, the great early 3rd century Carthaginian apologist whose polemical works against Marcion, Praxeas, and the Modalists positively formed the doctrine of the Trinity, a term coined by the man himself. He, like Irenaeus, employed a logopneumatic device, but in a different context and to a different end.

In his remaining works, Tertullian wanders into the world of logopneumatika on at least five occasions and in two separate works (Against Marcion books 18 & 33 and Against Praxeas book 14 (twice) & 30). For our present purposes, one citation will suffice. First, Tertullian speaks of the Son as being a separate and distinct person from the Father (as he is contending with Praxeas and the Modalists), even though they share certain characteristics (as they share the same divine essence). He states quite emphatically:

"Therefore the Visible and the Invisible are one and the same; and both being thus the same, it follows that He is invisible as the Father, and visible as the Son. As if the Scripture, according to our exposition of it, were inapplicable to the Son, when the Father is set aside in His own invisibility. We declare, however, that the Son also, considered in Himself (as the Son), is invisible, in that He is God, and the Word and Spirit of God" (Against Praxeas, 14).

In every one of these five citations given (seen especially in the one above), Tertullian uses the logopneumatic principle to refer to the divine Christ himself. Jesus Christ is the Word and the Spirit. He is called "the Word" because that is what he was from the beginning, but he is also called "the Spirit" because the Spirit rested upon him at his baptism. Against Marcion, Tertullian could maintain that Jesus was the promised fulfillment of Old Testament, in complete continuity with its messianic expectations. Against Praxeas, Tertullian could show how the unity of the Godhead is not jeopardized by a diversity in its work. Jesus could hang on the cross without the Father actually being crucified.

Jesus Christ is the hinge of the economy of salvation and the entire doctrine of the Trinity, as the Church has constructed it. Without him, there is no coalescence of Word and Spirit. There is no mediation. The Spirit who indwells the Church was delivered by the incarnate Word of God who tabernacled among us. Without this one, the Father is not known. So without Christ, we have no Word, we have no Spirit, and we have no connection to the Father.

It seems that these early thinkers maintained a proper balance. They did not succumb to Modalism in saying that the one God manifests himself in three "modes of being." Neither did they over indulge in the Barthian heresy of christomonism, as if there were no Father or Spirit in the economy of redemption. They saw Christ as being the spatio-temporal hinge for all that went before (creation & fall), was going on in their midst (redemption), and would come to fruition in the future (consummation), a work that was and is thoroughly trinitarian in nature.