Economic and Immanent Trinity
God as he works our salvation, and God as he eternally is in himself
This distinction marks two ways of speaking about the Trinity: the economic Trinity is God as he acts in the history of salvation, while the immanent Trinity is God in his eternal inner life. Rooted in early reflection by Tertullian and the Cappadocians, the distinction lets theology honor both how God reveals himself in time and the mystery of his own being, while holding that the God revealed truly is the God who is.
How it traveled
- Against Praxeas.— · c. 220 CEexplains
- On the Holy SpiritMilan · c. 397 CEexplains
- On the Holy TrinityHippo Regius · c. 430 CEexplains
- Treatise on The Most Holy Trinity (QQ[27-43])Paris · c. 1274 CEexplains
Key passages(20)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
Homilies on First Corinthians · John Chrysostom
[3.] “But the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Here the heretics rush upon us with a certain declaration of inferiority, which out of these words they contrive against the
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Against Praxeas. · Anti-marcion
Chapter II.—The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity and Unity, Sometimes Called the Divine Economy, or Dispensation of the Personal Relations of the Godhead. In the course of time, then, the Father fors
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Treatise on The Most Holy Trinity (QQ[27-43]) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 1: The philosophers did not know the mystery of the trinity of the divine persons by its proper attributes, such as paternity, filiation, and procession, according to the Apostle's
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Treatise on The Most Holy Trinity (QQ[27-43]) · Thomas Aquinas
We next consider the mission of the divine persons, concerning which there are eight points of inquiry: (1) Whether it is suitable for a divine person to be sent? (2) Whether mission is eternal, or
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Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John · Augustine of Hippo
Tractate XIX. Chapter V. 19–30 In the former discourse, so far as the subject impressed us, and so far as our poverty of understanding attained to, we have spoken by occasion of the words of the Gos
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
2. This discussion has arisen from that which is written, that “Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Wherefore our discourse is compressed into these narrow limits, while we desire to s
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
Book III. ———————————— The question is discussed with respect to the appearances of God spoken of in the previous book, which were made under bodily forms, whether only a creature was formed, for th
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
7. But being proved wrong so far, men betake themselves to saying, that he who sends is greater than he who is sent: therefore the Father is greater than the Son, because the Son continually speaks of
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
[It is difficult to determine the details of this theophany, beyond all doubt: namely, whether the “Jehovah” who “went his way as soon as he had left communing with Abraham.” (Gen. xviii. 33) joins th
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A Treatise on Faith and the Creed · Augustine of Hippo
Chapter 4.—Of the Son of God as Neither Made by the Father Nor Less Than the Father, and of His Incarnation. 5. Wherefore The Only-Begotten Son of God was neither made by the Father; for, according t
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Against Praxeas. · Anti-marcion
Chapter XIII.—The Force of Sundry Passages of Scripture Illustrated in Relation to the Plurality of Persons and Unity of Substance. There is No Polytheism Here, Since the Unity is Insisted on as a Rem
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Book First. of the Knowledge of God the Creator · John Calvin
27. In the many passages which they collect from Irenæus, in which he maintains that the Father of Christ is the only eternal God of Israel, they betray shameful ignorance, or very great dishonesty. F
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116. The Spirit, also, is indeed said to be sent, but the Seraph to one, the Spirit to all. The Seraph is sent to minister, the Spirit works a mystery. The Seraph performs what is commanded, the Spiri
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
27. But if the Son is said to be sent by the Father on this account, that the one is the Father, and the other the Son, this does not in any manner hinder us from believing the Son to be equal, and co
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
Book VII. ———————————— The question is explained, which had been deferred in the previous book, viz. that God the Father, who begat the Son, His power and wisdom, is not only the Father of power and
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
12. The Holy Spirit, then, is also said to be sent, on account of these corporeal forms which came into existence in time, in order to signify and manifest Him, as He must needs be manifested, to huma
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The Letters · Basil of Caesarea
ὥσπερ ἐκ αἰνίγματι. cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 12. ἐν αἰνίγματι or ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων, as in Æsch., Ag. 1113=by dark hints. The bold oxymoron concluding this sentence is illustrated by Ovid’s “impietate pia” (Met. v
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Treatise on Man (qq[75]-102) · Thomas Aquinas
Therefore we may observe this difference between rational creatures and others, both as to the representation of the likeness of the Divine Nature in creatures, and as to the representation in them of
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Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John · Augustine of Hippo
12. “For,” saith He, “the Father judgeth no man, but all judgment hath He given to the Son.” A little before we were thinking that the Father doeth something which the Son doeth not, when He said, “Th
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On the Holy Trinity · Augustine of Hippo
Luke i. 15, 41–79 Luke ii. 25–38 Ps. xix. 3, 4 30. Therefore man was united, and in some sense commingled, with the Word of God, so as to be One Person, when the fullness of time was come, and the
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