Summary of Chapter 3: The Revelation of the One God in Israel (from White’s book, The Trinity)

My introduction: In the midst of diverse human religious traditions and cultures that all speak, in various ways, of some God or gods as the answer to our mind’s persistent desire for ultimate truth and our heart’s restless desire for perfect happiness (what Aquinas calls “pre-philosophical dispositions for the mystery of God”), the Old Testament speaks of God revealing Himself uniquely to specific human beings in gradual stages – a divine pedagogy (cf. CCC 53).

The divine names of God in the Old Testament

“The divine names given to God in the Old Testament are diverse not only textually and diachronically, based on a complex history of original narrative settings and eventual editing processes; they are diverse also based on genera or kind, since God is named in various modes in the Old Testament” (54). White recommends that we consider the diverse names to be “heard as a harmony.” To appreciate the polyphony of modes with different movements and tensions, White gives us 3 general types of names given to God in the Old Testament to help us to identify the different notes and discern the unity among them:

1st: poetic metaphors

  1. Warrior (Ex. 15)
  2. Spouse (Hosea 2, Ez. 16)
  3. Bridegroom (Songs)
  4. Father (Isaiah 63)
  5. Quasi-Man (Ex. 24 meal, Ez. 1, Dan 7)

2nd: proper analogies

  1. God is one (Deut. 6:4). Distinct unity in a wholly higher & numinous way.
  2. God is unique in being. He alone gives being to all as Creator & receives being from no one (Ex. 3:14-15; Is. 45:5-13; Ps 102:24-25).
  3. God is omnipresent (Isaiah 66:1-2). Eternally present.
  4. God is omnibenelovent – the source of all goodness, order, wisdom, intelligibility (Gn. 1-2).
  5. God is personal – we are made in his image (Gen. 1:26-28).
  6. God is omnipotent – all powerful.
  7. God is omniscient – transcends all understanding and is incomprehensible, but is himself all-knowing and all-encompassing.
  8. God is holy – veiled to us but also active in saving designs.

3rd: personal names

  1. Elohim: original word means “deities” or “pantheon.” Like “God” for us. To address him or speak of Him.
  2. Adonai “Lord”: relational term – the sovereign Lord to whom we are entirely relative – he governs all.
  3. YHWH: Ex. 3:15 – a name given to Israel alone to utter – personal name of friendship by which Israel – God’s chosen people – can call upon Him. In addition, considering the “incipiently metaphysical cast of this revelation,” God is inviting us, in a way, to a philosophical reflection on His revelation.

Through the diversity of the modes of divine naming mentioned above, rich theological and philosophical reflection and debate on what God is in Himself is not only warranted but intellectually mandated (so that we may know true from false worship).

In addition, we can discern vestigia trinitatis, or traces of the Trinity in the Old Testament. In particular, White notes 3 indications of processions in God in the Old Testament:

  1. Wisdom of God: personified in Proverbs, Sirach, and Wisdom. God create all things in His wisdom.
  2. Word of God: Active in creation and in the communication of prophecy. A principle of God’s action, through which He has created the universe and through which He addresses man in His revelation.
  3. Spirit of the Lord: A principle of divine action. Comes upon the prophets. Inspires people in accord with God’s holiness.
3 important theological possibilities:
  1. The analogies for God’s inner life given by these terms are immaterial in kind: (1) begotten wisdom, (2) word or thought, (3) spirit. These indicate a type of “immaterial procession.”
  2. “God expresses himself economically to Israel in his Word and Spirit. Consequently, we might say, God utters his Word and sends his Spirit. We see here an Old Testament foundation for the New Testament notion of the divine missions: the sending of the Son and the Spirit into the world” (64).
  3. “God has created all things in his Wisdom, so all that is depends upon the Wisdom of God. God gives knowledge of his own inner life through the Spirit of God. Therefore, the Wisdom and the Spirit of God do what only God can do. They are identical with God, in nature” (64).