In the classical Latin Trinitarian doctrine, “Father, Son and Spirit are only ‘relatively’ distinct.” Whatever the interpretation given to the idea of “relation” implies in this statement, it is clear that Western thought recognized the ontological primacy of essential unity over personal diversity inn God; that is, that God is essentially one, except in the divine Persons, who are defined in terms of relations. In Byzantine thought, however—to use an expression from Maximus the Confessor—“God is identically monad and triad,” and there is probably a tendency in both worship and philosophical formulations (as distinct from doctrinal statements) to give a certain pre-eminence to the personal diversity over essential unity. A reference to the Nicaean “consubstantial” was the Byzantine response to the accusation of “tritheism.” (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 184)
In light of the 2016 controversy over the Trinity, and the subsequent rise of Neo-Thomism in conservative Evangelicalism, does any of these look familiar?
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