Creator, Sanctifier and Redeemer
May 8, 2008 by Amy
Furthermore, it is a mistake to focus only on the phrase “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” without noting the two words that introduce it in the Great Commission: ” … the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Whenever God reveals his name, he reveals his character. We see in God’s name his communal nature and desire for a personal relationship to his people. “I Am who I Am,” he told Moses. “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob … This is my name forever.”
Almost all the recent alternatives to the Trinitarian formula undercut the personal significance of God’s name by replacing it with words of function. As many have noted, “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” encourages modalism, the heretical teaching that God’s threeness is more about his modes of operation, or our perception of him, rather than something intrinsic to the divine essence. Biblical Christianity teaches that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in creation, redemption, and sanctification. A document “commended for study” by the Presbyterian Church (USA) explicitly rejected a modalist understanding of “Creator, Savior, Sanctifier,” but still encouraged its use, along with “Mother, Child, and Womb,” “Sun, Light, and Burning Ray,” and other troubling triads.
As theologian Robert Jenson has noted, “Such attempts presuppose that we first know about a triune God and then look about for a form of words to address that God, when in fact it is the other way around. … [T]he phrase Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is historically specific and can be what liturgy and devotion—and, at its base, all theology—must have, a proper name of God.”
God is serious about his name—which is why he took the trouble to reveal it to us in Christ. To create an alternative according to our cultural sensibilities is at best parody and at worst idolatry, even if it is constructed from the good metaphors God has given us. Most idols, after all, are created from God’s good gifts.
I think this is a really well done explanation. Thanks, Amy.
I think these alternative formulations proceed from a desire to expand how we think about God (at least in part motivated by a desire to not limit God to a masculine identity). And it is true that there are many ways we can visualize and relate to and think about God. But there is a significance to the Trinitarian formula that risks getting lost.
I think I heard Scott Hahn say just about the same thing in a talk oh, 10 years ago or so. That “Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier” refers to what God does but not who he is, which is what “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” do. The former takes the relationship out of it. Kind of like saying Scott Hahn is a professor, etc., but really, first and foremost, before his career, he is a son, a father, etc.
Of course, Dr. Hahn can explain it all better than I can…
These kind of reminders are helpful! Thanks for the insight and the beautiful writing on a regular basis on this blog! God bless! Padre Steve, SDB
I wonder how this will affect future conversions. Before, we would generally be able to presume in good faith that folks had been baptized with water in the Trinitarian formula, since most churches used the traditional formula, but not now, it seems. Are we going to start to have to conditional baptize almost everyone?
I’ve seen another good criticism of this odd innovation, one that is only implied in this article.
Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier doesn’t only name God by His “functions.” It names Him with functions that are only related to *us*. The inner relations of the Trinity, which are mysterious to begin with, are completely ignored by this faddish rendering.
In their flight from any hint of sexism, the formula’s advocates have only made it man-centered, even ego-centered.
I’m saddened that this is a discussion we even need to have. But kudos to CM for getting it right.
Brilliant insight (re: “the name” ) — the kind you could easily use during casual conversations when things like this come up.
Besides what has been mentioned earlier, it’s important that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost) are names that He Himself has given us, whereas “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” are names (well, attributes, really) we have invented to describe Him. How rude is that — “well, I know you said to call you X but I think I’ll call you ‘Bringer of Y’ instead”.
Theology of the Body tells us that the opposite of love isn’t hate but “use” - as Kevin rightly notes the attributes Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier are adverbial descriptors of utilitarian “use” or “service” rendered to us, like a vending machine or drive-in movie(*).
Love demands one’s memory and identity be invested in a mutual exchange with another. Perhaps the reason the utilitatian formulation is preferred in so many venues is because it conveniently absolves the average Christian from concerning themselves with their responsibility under the “mutuality” aspect of the more rigorous formulation. Absent a self-conscious reflection on memory there will be no conscience in a politics of identity. If we don’t reciprocate God’s love, we “use” Him into for our own selfish ends.
__________
* is this not what a dehellenized sola scriptura or sola fide “He is sufficient” soteriology debases the faith to? A one way street: God pours His grace abundantly, not “into” imperfect vessels who seek him out, but “over” corrupt vessels lacking in dignity, mere “objects” without free will, whom a irrational voluntarist God pre-ordains, the parched earth remainder of humanity meanwhile await perdition.
“I wonder how this will affect future conversions. Before, we would generally be able to presume in good faith that folks had been baptized with water in the Trinitarian formula, since most churches used the traditional formula, but not now, it seems. Are we going to start to have to conditional baptize almost everyone?”
May not be a bad thing; I think (as a disgruntled Protestant evangelical) that Catholics have been too chummy with us, and it’d be good for Catholicism and the world which it seeks to redeem for Catholicism to have a more well-defined identity. Conditional baptisms might be a good idea with a good, if indirect, end.
“How rude is that — “well, I know you said to call you X but I think I’ll call you ‘Bringer of Y’ instead”.”
Yeah, you’re assuming that God actually revealed Godself as such — Father, Son and Spirit. But for a liberal theologian, priest, minister whatever, the traditional Trinitarian formula is fully conditioned by human culture, namely the patriarchal ancient Jewish culture. Since (so it goes) God transcends all culture, the words we use for God are flexible, malleable, replaceable. That’s the real issue: did God in fact reveal these as his Name?
Clare Krishan just put more into three paragraphs than I put into most of my writing all year.
As a matter of faith we believe that God reveals aspects of himself to us. It is necessarily a condescension, because we are not and can never be equipped to understand, to COMprehend God, only APPrehend that God exists (I AM).
It is only through His beneficience that we have access to Him, through our created natures, which are His work.
So if He has chosen to reveal Himself through the relational reality of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, then to reject this self-revelation is to:
(1) reject the belief that God is all-wise (He chose the wrong terms), or
(2) reject the belief that God is all-good and loving (He was in league with the male oppressors al along), or
(3) reject the belief that He is a personal God (He just doesn’t care all that much what we think or know or believe, especially about Him)
(4) reject the belief that He is indivisible (One of them created, One of them Redeemed, One of them sanctifies).
(5) reject the belief that He is infinite and the Great I AM (He has no substance beyond what He does for or in relations to us, He must act to exist.)
(6) reject the belief that the Church that defined and dogmatically propounded these terms and concepts was protected from error and acted with authority (God relates to us only on an individual basis and no human is authorized to mediate God’s power to humanity).
(7) reject the belief that we are created in the Divine image and ourselves come into being as the result of the relationship of persons (we are just a bag of proteins, with a coded genetic program alterable at our will, guided by an electrochemical machine that stores memories and executes comparison functions).
(
etc., etc., etc.
I could go on and on, but the errors are almost infinite, and some may not have even been invented yet.
Belief in the Trinity is foundational to the Christian life. We must get it right or we have built a house on sand.
We don’t HAVE to eat food, we don’t HAVE to breathe. And likewise we don’t HAVE to believe in the Trinity as revealed to us.
This especially hits home when you have family in oneness pentecostal churches. Believe me, it’s not easy. Baptism is in “Jesus name” only. It all depends where you come from, but I never overlook (or let get stale) the importance of the Trinity. So when I see everyday Catholics or protestants trying to substitute titles I really cringe. I’m glad some are still giving the right response to these attempts at “being more relevant.”
“Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier” only make sense if something has been created; if the creation needs to be redeemed; if, redeemed, it still is left to sanctify.
But before all these things, “I AM.” Since He Is for his own sake and not for ours, let’s not call him by names that are in reference to a creation upon which He depends not at all.
Complements should be directed to JPII and his writings as Karol Wojtyla (memory, identity and mutuality are his terms I believe, or at least phenomenologist terms he used), or more correctly the Holy Spirit who inspired him to put pen to paper!
Peace.
Mother, Child, Womb?
I’m glad I got out when I did!!
Not so fast.
While I want to be sure the traditional Trinitarian formula should not be messed with, let’s clarify a few side points.
“Father,” for example, is a functional identifier no less than “Creator.” In fact, both terms are applied liturgically to the first and third persons of the Trinity.
Let’s stand on tradition like we should. But let’s not allow weaker arguments to obscure the best case we can offer.
Todd, I disagree that Father is a “functional identifier no less than creator”. We call people Father all the time. We don’t call people Creator.
Actually, let me go beyond that. To call the title Father a “functional identifier” indicates an defective theology of fatherhood. Think about it, and reconsider.
Thanks for responding, Joe.
“We call people Father all the time. We don’t call people Creator.”
Good point.
We also call people “Father” who function as such in a family setting, a biological setting, and a spiritual setting. We term animals “father” as part of their biological function. We also sing of the Holy Spirit as “father of the poor’ this Sunday.
A name, like the tetragrammaton, would be of a unique usage. We replace that name as a convention of respect.
A personal name also requires context. You and I are both Josephs, but in different ways.
My point is that the tradition argument carries real legs. I have my doubts about the others being as effective. Serious doubts when the h-word is trotted out; that’s more an identifier for “religious stuff I disagree with,” than something usefully ecclesiological.
Actually, Todd, whether or not the tradition argument “has legs” is dependent upon assumptions.
For progressives - as I’m sure you well know, since it’s your crowd - tradition is a human construct, relfective of culturally bound assumptions. It is our right, and perhaps our responsibility to reshape traditions, practices and language in a way that better expresses the realities we believe God calls us to.
So from that perspective, tradition has no legs at all, and baptism is what we make of it.
What arguments in historical Catholic theology and thinking about this supports your view? Can you cite?
Grant, I’m not sure what you’re asking here. You seem to be arguing against the caricature you’re asking me to defend.
Tradition is a human expression of culture, and in the context of liturgy, of ritual and belief. As Catholics, we believe a certain Divine inspiration accompanies tradition: the core of it, not the peripherals. The peripherals can and should change, and what is elemental in and essential for baptism cannot change.
Baptism in the *name* of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is endorsed by both Scripture and the liturgy, and that’s a Tradition Catholics don’t abandon or take lightly, no matter what their ideology. That’s enough of an argument, in my thinking.
As for the piling on, I have less of a modernist view of heresy. When we’re talking grave sin, there has to be some stronger intent than riling the sexist conservatives. CRS is misguided, but the motives are understandable. I think supporters interpret it as a language change. I recognize the potential for theological disaster, but I question whether it’s upon us just yet.
In conclusion, I reject your definition of progressivism, both for myself and “my crowd,” and I would challenge critics of CRS to focus on what they know, not what they assume. It’s a bad idea, but we don’t need other bad ideas to condemn it.
“Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier” — would be acceptable and usable by Hindus within their own understanding of divinity.
I think that is a very good reason for Christians to be extraordinarily cautious (and even rejecting) about playing around with the Biblical Creedal statement “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” as found at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, elswhere in Scripture, in the Fathers, the Councils, and the Tradition of the Church.
There is a syncratism inherent in the ‘creator, redeemer, sanctifier’ formulation which is not present in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the ‘naming’ of the Holy Trinity.
Todd,
“Baptism in the *name* of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is endorsed by both Scripture and the liturgy, and that’s a Tradition Catholics don’t abandon or take lightly, no matter what their ideology. That’s enough of an argument, in my thinking.”
It *is* enough of an argument, but I think the modalism argument is a very valid one as well.
“Father” may be a mere (and incomplete descriptor) but it is not a coverted single-use verb. A father may do many things; a creator creates.
I don’t think there’s anything anywhere in Scripture which is as crystal clear as the Lord’s insistence on his name(s). Understanding the theological dangers, however, helps us to understand (on a limited level) why this might be so.