THE UNDIVIDED TRINITY: INSEPARABLE OPERATIONS OF THE TRIUNE GOD IN THE ACT OF CREATION

By: Daniel McMillin

INSEPARABLE OPERATIONS OF THE TRIUNE GOD

THE TRIUNE GOD WORKS AS ONE

Louis Berkhof rightly noted that creation is “an act of the triune God.”[1] In this way, the act of creation is presented in Trinitarian terms: God the Father created all things through the Son by the Holy Spirit. As Horton writes, “The Father who eternally speaks forth his hypostatic Word in the Spirit also spoke the world into existence through the Son and the Spirit.”[2] This language is closely related to the doctrine of “inseparable operations.”

The doctrine of creation has historically affirmed the opera trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa (the “external works of the Trinity are indivisible”). The inseparable operations of the Triune God in creation are vital to understanding the origins of the universe. How does God create the universe? Does creation belong to one person or all persons of the Trinity? Athanasius helpfully stated, “The Father through the Word and in the Spirit creates all things.”[3] This quote illustrates that all of God’s actions are undivided. Matthew Y. Emerson and Brandon D. Smith defined the undivided activity of the Triune God by saying, “The doctrine of inseparable operations teaches that you cannot separate the acts of God between the persons of God. Every act of God is a singular act of Father, Son, and Spirit.”[4]

The inseparable operations of the Triune God apply to all of God’s activity from all points in time, from creation to consummation. In this sense, the act of creation may be attributed to all three persons of the Trinity. As Emerson and Smith argue, “The three persons are all properly called the Creator of all things, each person specifically referenced in relation to creation.”[5] Creation is then to be understood as the product of God’s Triunity, that is, the divine persons work inseparably to make all things. Webster notes that the indivisible operation of creation must maintain three major principles:

1.     That it is absolutely the work of the undivided Godhead.

2.     That each person of the Godhead performs that work in a distinct way, following the manner and order of that person’s hypostatic existence.

3.     That particular works may be assigned eminently to one person, without rescinding absolute attribution to the undivided Trinity and without denying that the other two person also participate in that work in the distinct modes proper to them.[6]

THE UNDIVIDED ACTIVITY OF THE TRIUNE GOD

The Christian confession of the creation necessarily entails that each person of the Trinity is involved in the act of creation. As Aquinas said, “To create belongs to God according to His being, that is, His essence, which is common to the three Persons, but is common to the whole Trinity. Nevertheless the divine Persons, according to the nature of their procession, have a causality respecting the creation of things.”[7] The Father, Son, and Spirit are properly called the “Creator” since each person involved in creation possesses the divine nature. In other words, the Triune God is the Creator. Bavinck went so far as to suggest, “If God were not triune, creation would not be possible.”[8] The Father alone could not be the cause of the universe because He made all things through the Son and Spirit. Likewise, the Son could not create all things without the Father or Spirit. And the Spirit could not work apart from the Father and Son in creation. Thus, all three persons of the Trinity had to work together in the act of creation because they could not act apart from one another. As Berkhof notes:

“The work was not divided among the three persons, but the whole work, though from different aspects, is ascribed to each one of the persons. All things are at once out of the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. In general it may be said that being is out of the Father, thought or the idea out of the Son, and life out of the Holy Spirit. Since the Father takes the initiative in the work of creation, it is often ascribed to Him economically.”[9]

The undivided activity of the Triune God is much more but nothing less than the divine persons working together and not separate from one another. The inseparable operations of God also entail that creation is the product of the Triune persons acting as one. As Vidu says, “the diverse casualties of the persons and the single causality of the Trinity must be through together.”[10] Additionally, Wellum summarizes:

“Creation is the one act of the triune God. This means that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit act inseparably since they subsist in and share the one simple indivisible divine nature. As such, creation is one act of God, not three distinct acts. Thus, creation is not merely the work of the Father (Gen 1:1-31; Isa 40:12; 44:24; 1 Cor 8:6), it is also the work of the Son (John 1:3; 1 Cor 8:6; Col 1:15-17; Heb 1:1-3), and the Spirit (Gen 1:2; Job 33:4; cf. Ps 104:30). Creation is common to the three divine persons.”[11]

THE DISTINCT ROLES OF GOD THE FATHER, SON, AND SPIRIT IN THE ACT OF CREATION

While the Triune God acts inseparably in creation, we may see the distinction in activity among the Father, Son, and Spirit. As Bavinck accurately observes, “Just as God is one in essence and distinct in persons, so also the work of creation is one and undivided, while in its unity it is still rich in diversity. It is one God who creates all things, and for that reason the world is a unity, just as the unity of the world demonstrates the unity of God. But in that one divine being, there are three persons, each of whom performs a task of his own in that one work of creation.”[12] It is often the case that God the Father appropriates the role of the Creator, as Paul does in Ephesians 3:14-15, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”[13] Viewing God the Father as the source of creation is often neglected when the Scriptures assume the divinity of the Father and attribute the act of creation to the first person of the Trinity. As Webster writes, “God the Father is the maker of heaven and earth; to him, the act of creation may be eminently assigned. The Father acts externally by virtue of the common divine essence, shared with Son and Spirit, which is the principle of all external divine action.”[14] 

T.F. Torrance said, “Since the Father is never without the Son and the Spirit, all that the Father does is done in, through, and with the Sona and the Spirit, and all that the Son and Spirit do is coincident with what the Father does. It is, then, of God the Father in this full sense, in his mutually homoousial and completely perichoretic relations with the Son and the Spirit, that we are to think of him as the Sovereign Creator.”[15] Likewise, Emerson and Smith note, “This appropriation of creation to the Father is fitting according to Trinitarian taxis. In God’s own life, he exists as one God in three persons, and the Father is, we could say, the fount of divinity. It is from the Father that the Son is eternally generated, and it is from the Son that the Spirit proceeds. Thus, in the economy of creation and redemption, it is fitting—it fits the Trinity’s existence ad intra—that the first of God’s external acts is appropriated to the Father.”[16] In this way, God the Father has rightly been attributed as the Creator. It is because, as Michael Bird notes, “The Father is the grounds and originating source for all that exists, the direct agent in the creative act, who forms the foundation of all things, and his glory is the ultimate end of all things.”[17] Without the Father, there is no creation because He is the origin of creation.

While God the Father was assumed to be the Creator of the cosmos, the Son and Spirit will require more convincing, thus the need for the New Testament’s emphasis on these matters. God the Son is the agent of creation according to the Scriptures. Genesis reveals that “In the beginning God created” (Gen. 1:1), but in John’s Gospel, he suggests, “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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:1-3). The Word of God is then presented as God because He is the Creator of the universe. As Origin wrote, “The immediate Creator, and, as it were, very maker of the world was the Word, the Son of God; while the Father of the Word, by commanding his own Son—the Word—to create the world, is the primary Creator.”[18] In this way, the Word of God is viewed as “the exemplary and efficient cause of creation.”[19]

In addition, the apostle Paul presents the Son of God as “the firstborn of all creation” who has all power and authority over the universe solely because He is the Creator. As Paul contends, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:15-16). The act of creation is thereby mediated “through” the Son (Rom. 11:36; Heb. 1:2). Since all things are made through the Son, He is, by implication, not a creature.[20] Rather, the Scriptures’ identification of Jesus as the Creator is an affirmation of His divinity. Bird concisely said, “The Son is the principle of creation, the Logos, the Father’s wisdom, the organizing and unifying agent of the created order through whom the Father made the universe.”[21] 

The Spirit is also presented as the Creator of all life and is visually present in Genesis 1:2 “hovering over the waters.” Elihu rightly observed, “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4).[22] It is the Spirit who “gives life” to all (John 6:63). God alone possesses life and that life is breathed out by the Spirit of life (Ps. 36:9).[23] As Bird writes, “The Spirit is the divine power active in creation, its vitality and energy, the divine life and love that connects God to his creation.”[24] Without the Giver of life, there would be no life because God’s Spirit would not be present in creation. The Holy Spirit is crucial to the act of creation because life is required for the created order.

“The Holy Spirit is Lord and giver of life, creation’s perfecting cause. Creation is distinctly assigned to the Spirit in that he is the divine person by whom created things are brought to their proper end. By the Spirit’s motion, creatures fulfill their natures, and their particular mode of being – their esse-ad – reaches its term. Originated by the Father and given form by the Word, created things are stirred by the Spirit and impelled towards their good, namely the life which is theirs in the particular mode of God’s gift. The Spirit is Lord, sharing the common divine essence.”[25]

WORKS CITED

[1] Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 129.

[2] Horton, The Christian Faith, 332.

[3] Athanasius, As. Serap., III, 5. Cited by Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:421.

[4] Matthew Y. Emerson and Brandon D. Smith, Beholding the Triune God: The Inseparable Work of Father, Son, and Spirit (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 6.

[5] Emerson and Smith, Beholding the Triune God, 50.

[6] Webster, God Without Measure, I:95.

[7] Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I:45.6. “God the Father made the creature through His Word, which is His Son; and through His Love, which is the Holy Ghost. And so the processions of the Persons are the type of the productions of creatures inasmuch as they include the essential attributes, knowledge, and will.”

[8] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:420.

[9] Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 120.

[10] Vidu, The Same God Who Works All Things, 147.

[11] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:794-795.“Although creation is the one act of God, it is also triune. As such, the Father, Son, and Spirit act according to their ordered modes of subsistence or their eternal relations of origin: paternity, filiation, and spiration. Thus, the Father acts through the Son and by the Spirit. Likewise, the Son acts from the Father and by the Spirit, and the Spirit from the Father and the Son.” (I:795)

[12] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:406.

[13] Many of the Creeds and Confessions attribute creation to the Father.

[14] Webster, God Without Measure, I:95-96. “The Father acts in accordance with his particular mode of being. And so, as fons deitatis, the one by whom the Son is generated and from whom with the Son, the Spirit proceeds, the Father is also the beginning of the divine works in relation to creatures.” (Webster, God Without Measure, I:95-96) Emerson and Smith similarly suggest that the eternal relations of origin act as the basis for the taxis of creation. “Creation is from the Father through the Son by the Spirit, as are all of God’s acts, but this particular act as the beginning of God’s work is appropriately appropriated to the Father, the one who can also be appropriately referred to as the first person of the Trinity, the one form whom the Son and the Spirit eternally receive the divine essence.” (Beholding the Triune God, 52)

[15] T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 206.

[16] Emerson and Smith, Beholding the Triune God, 51-52.

[17] Bird, Evangelical Theology, 210.

[18] Origen, Against Celsus, 6:60.

[19] Webster, God Without Measure, I:97.

[20] Contra Arians. See Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Arians.

[21] Bird, Evangelical Theology, 210.

[22] Here, I want to preface that I do not believe that Elihu understood his statement to be a Trinitarian affirmation, nor do I desire to cast this statement aside simply because Job’s friends were incorrect on many things they said about Job’s situation. The book of Job, like every canonical text, is inspired by God and must be understood primarily as the product of the Triune God.

[23] Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity, 51.

[24] Bird, Evangelical Theology, 210.

[25] Webster, God Without Measure, I:97.