I am indebted to this publication by Adonis Vidu–his project on Inseparable Operations doctrine ignited my interest and supported my research in good timing. Below is an excerpt from chapter three of my dissertation that details significant factors related to Divine Impassibility and the inseparable operation of the Trinity. This early church doctrine holds great application to discipleship, counseling, and recovery ministry. In addition, you can find my review of Dr. Vidu’s book that published in the Midwestern Theological Review page 124 below.
“There are two notable applications the retrieval of inseparable operations doctrine that reinforce impassibility in the personal operation of the Trinity. Building on the premise of distinguishing divine persons by irreducible relations within the divine essence, the human nature of Christ is acquired and actuated by the Son due to his filial mode. The divine action of the Son includes the Father and Spirit, and the human nature acquired by the Son becomes “instrumentalized” by the Trinity. This results in the interpretation of divine activity such as salvation, being performed through Christ in a theandric way.[1] His work is not easily divided by his two natures but performed by his hypostasized person. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is identified by irreducible relation to Father and Son in his mode of spiration, allowing his sending to actualize the indwelt essence of God in creation. The Spirit ushers forward sanctification by imprinting Godly character on the believer’s soul through the notion of exemplary cause.[2] This action is attributed to the Spirit; however, the Spirit is conforming the believer to the image of the Son. As noted by Vidu the divine missions of the persons both make the processions of the persons known and incorporate divine inseparable operations in created reality.[3]
The notion of the Trinity as equal and shared divine essence between Father, Son, and Spirit reaches back to the catholic church fathers of the fourth–century and is supported in the following way. The Biblical Record describes the personal property of the Spirit as spirated or “breathed-out” by God (including Ps. 33:6; John 20:21-22; Acts 1:8). The consensus of a shared essence of the three persons is evinced in the language of the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed (381 CE) and supported further by the addition of homoousion language to the Creed by the Orthodox Fathers[4]. While it was not until the eight century that the consistent recognition of the filioque addition to the Creed became standard, Thomas White records strong evidence for the understanding of the “Father causing the Son and causing the Holy Spirit through the Son” in the Cappadocian Fathers development of a theology of the Holy Spirit.[5]
Two doctrines developed in fourth-century trinitarianism inform the analogy of the Spirit interacting, i.e. “striving” with the world under the principles of inseparable operations.[6] The doctrine of perichoresis outlines the intermingling of the Godhead and eventually leads to the development of the doctrine of Inseparable Operations.[7] Perichoresis—rendered in Latin, circumincessio—is doctrinal terminology used to describe the mutual indwelling and intermingling of Father, Son, and Spirit sharing one co–eternal divine substance.[8] Through the mutual affirmation of this perichoresis by the Biblical record, and the Orthodox and Latin Fathers, the doctrine of Inseparable Operations developed as common ground of agreement. Opera trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa (“the works of the Trinity are united”) affirms the divine missions are an operation of the Trinity as a whole. By the mutual indwelling of the divine substance (perichoresis) and subsequently the presence of all the Godhead in the personal mission(s) of the Son and the Spirit, the interaction of the Holy Spirit with created humanity is informed. Augustine sources the Holy Spirit to the mutual love the Father and the Son have for each other. Thomas Aquinas describes the Holy Spirit as love with the inward character trait of inclinatio and outward character trait of impressio. In all cases the Holy Spirit is first an inner expression of divine love between the Father and Son, which is the resource for the expression of love outside the Godhead in the substantive form of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is a gift to creation and in each of these magisterial traditions the term charity is used to name the Spirit.[9] Most importantly the interaction of the Spirit with humanity is subject to all of God’s presence in the divine mission of the Holy Spirit. When the Biblical record describes the Spirit struggling, striving, and remaining with humanity, all of Father, Son, and Spirit are present in the mission of the purely actualized and impassible Spirit.”
[1] Vidu, TSG, 207.
[2] Vidu, TSG, 297.
[3] Vidu, TSG, 73. In additions see “Divine movement and human energy” in Steven J. Duby, “Inseparable Operations and the Human Operation of Christ,” SJT (2023): 1-11.
[4] The Photian Schism in the age of Charlemagne is record of the East declaring the West heretical for tampering with the Nicene Creed by the addition of the filioque. Previously Gregory of Nazianzus pushed for homoousion language. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 29.16 (NPNF2 7:306).
[5] Thomas White provides concise discussion of the procession of the Spirit from the Father in relation to the Son. White, Trinity, 150-52.
[6] E. H. Bickersteth provides an informative summary of the interaction of the Holy Spirit with creation in his chapter six titled, “The Spirit Striving with the World” in, Edward Henry Bickersteth, The Spirit of Life (London: Religious Tract Society, 1869), 104-19.
[7] The doctrine of perichoresis outlines the intermingling of the Godhead and eventually leads to the development of the doctrine of Inseparable Operations. Lewis Ayres provides the following summary of the classic development of Inseparable Operations doctrine. “We have so far encountered arguments about inseparable operation in Hilary, and arguments which almost state this principle in Basil of Ancyra. Athanasius’ Letters to Serapion may well represent the earliest clear statement of the doctrine applied to all three persons. The combination of a need to shape a polemic in favour of the Spirit as well as the clarity with which the unity of nature could be stated in anti-Heterousian contexts seems to have prompted clearer statement of the principle. We shall meet it extensively in Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine later in the book.” Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, ch. 8, “On the Holy Spirit and Pro-Nicene Pneumentology”
[8] Andrew Louth, St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002), 112-13. Emery, Aquinas, 300. White, Trinity, 505-6.
[9] White, Trinity, 485-8.
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