A long series of reflexions, arguments, controversies, schisms, heresies, and persecutions resulted in some measure of agreement, eventually over most of the Christian world, on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The doctrine claims that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three persons (hupostasis), not three Gods, but one substance (ousia). As the so-called Athanasian Creed (late fifth century?) puts it: 'And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal; as also there are not three uncreateds, nor three infinites, but one uncreated and one infinite.' The Catholic position rejects two accounts of the persons and the substance:

1. If we regard hupostasis as Aristotle's first substance and ousia as second substance, we might think the persons are related as different individual human beings are related to other members of the human species. This view 'divides the substance', since the three persons must have more than the specific unity of members of a species; and so it falls into the heresy of Tritheism.

2. If we regard ousia as first substance, we might suppose that the three persons are simply different aspects of the same individual, as the Prime Minister and the First Lord of the Treasury are the same person performing different roles. Such a view cannot account for the real differences between the persons; it was not God the Father who was crucified. This view 'confounds the persons', and so falls into the Sabellian heresy.

Some of the Greek Fathers try to reach a more satisfactory position by modifying the first view. The mere membership of a species implies no particular degree of unity of thought or will or action among its members; but different human beings related by mutual love and knowledge may acquire something closer to the unity of thought and will that is characteristic of one person. The persons of the Trinity have something like this sort of unity to an unimaginably greater degree, so that Augustine can compare them to the different faculties of an individual person. Two perfect mathematicians co-operating on the derivation of the same theorem might contribute individually to a single series of inferences, and for this purpose function as though they were a single system; they count as two minds because these periods of co-operation are episodic and intermittent. In the persons of the Trinity they are permanent and uninterrupted; and to this extent it is more reasonable to think of the distinct persons as constituting a single mind and will.

The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325; but it did not settle all the disputes. Only the Council of Chalcedon (451) formulated a view of the relation between the divine and the human nature of Christ. Against the view that he had a purely divine nature, or a purely human nature, or that he had two natures juxtaposed, or a single divine-and-human nature, the Council determined that Christ was 'one and the same Christ . . . acknowledged as of two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably'.

We might suppose that a human soul cannot be a component of a single person whose other component is a divine soul, because the human outlook will be so different from the divine that the two souls will constitute two different people, not a single person. The doctrine of Christ's double nature must assume that this natural supposition rests on a false generalization from the human souls that set their wills against the divine will. The perfect human will of Christ, however, harmonizes so closely with the divine will that nothing prevents them from being parts or aspects of a single person. The human soul feels the pleasures, pains, and emotions that the divine soul cannot feel, and lacks the knowledge that the divine soul cannot lack; but these differences do not cause discord between the two souls. Though the human soul of Christ suffered and the divine soul did not, that is not sufficient reason for refusing to believe that they could constitute a single person.

It would be rather an understatement to say that the Nicene and Chalcedonian formulas have remained obscure; indeed, doctrines like these have provoked strong reactions, and given Christian theology a bad name among believers and unbelievers alike. To see that such reactions are unjustified, it is not necessary to prejudge questions about the truth or coherence of these Christian doctrines; it is enough if we see that they confront questions that ought to be confronted, and that the answers they suggest are not plainly incoherent. Those who take the religious or the ethical aspects of the New Testament seriously cannot reasonably avoid the attempt to see if they add up to a consistent or intelligible view of God. . .

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