Concerning the existence of God, many people will grant that there is some higher being who is keeping watch over the affairs of the universe. Of these people, some will grant that this higher being is the God of the Bible. Finally, of those who believe in the God of the Bible, some will grant he necessarily exists and that he is necessarily the type of being that he is.[1] Usually, when philosophers describe the kind of being that God is they are referring to his divine attributes as the greatest possible being. There is, however, a level beyond the classical divine attributes which is the level of who God himself reveals in the Bible as a Triune God.[2] The concern of this paper is not to prove the necessary existence of God in the modal logical sense but to demonstrate that it is necessary for God to exist as a Trinity as a kind of being. This paper will do this, first, by briefly examining Richard Swinburne’s descriptions of necessity and utilizing a form of the social theory of the Trinity to demonstrate the necessity of the Trinity.
Swinburne clearly identifies three types of necessity employed in propositional statements.[3] The first is logical necessity and there are two requirements for something to be considered a logically necessity. The first is that it must be analytical in nature. A proposition is analytical “if and only if it is coherent and its negation is incoherent. [4] For instance, two plus two equals four is necessary because two plus two equals something other than four is not coherent. The second qualification for necessity determines for any point of reference[5] the characteristics purported by the proposition must be proven true.[6]
The second kind of necessity as reported by Swinburne is ontological necessity. Ontological necessity requires that the subject of the proposition not be contingent upon anything.[7] For example, the universe would have to be an ontological necessity for an atheist because the universe is not dependant upon anything else for existence but provides existence for all that it contains.
The third kind of necessity as outlined by Swinburne is physical necessity. In order for something to be physically necessary there must be a “full explanation of what it states to be the case.” For example, the proposition “there is a universe” is physically necessary for the Christian theist because the Bible reveals the full explanation that the universe was created upon the initiative of God.[8]
Given the above descriptions concerning necessity it is easy to see how the theist could claim God is both logically[9] and ontologically necessary. Physical necessity, however, is more difficult to prove because the Bible does not offer a full explanation of God’s existence but assumes it. In one sense, God is contingent only upon one thing: his revelation of himself in the person of Jesus Christ as manifested by the Holy Spirit. For the Christian today this witness is noted in the revealed Word of God. It is true the Bible does not reveal the immanent Trinity but it does, however, reveal the economic Trinity. From this fact, it can be deduced immanency precedes economy and since the economy is revealed in three persons it can be concluded God, in his immanency, exists in three persons and is, therefore, a Trinity.[10]
In order to demonstrate God is the kind of being that he is one must understand God is contingent only upon his own revelation of himself one will discover he reveals himself as the God of love.[11] Divine love in the social theory of the Trinity demonstrates the necessity of God existing as a Trinity. Philosophical theologians purport, “divine love is not only complete, it is eternal and necessary.” From other Scripture passages[12] one understands love is not selfish so God’s love must extend beyond himself. In order for divine love to be complete it must extend toward another. The extension of God’s love, however, does not lead to some sort of a lonely God who needed to create something to fill the void. It must, rather, lead one to the scriptural manifestation that God, in his love, eternally and necessarily begets or generates the Son, who is of the same substance and eternity as the Father, and their love for one another spirates the Holy Spirit, who is of the same substance and eternity as the Father and the Son, eternally and necessarily for divine love to be complete.[13] On this view there are only three persons of the one divinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit and there are not three gods because of the one love that is shared among them.[14] The Trinity ontologically exists within itself and is not contingent upon anything for its existence so when God created he did so out of His own freedom and will.
It has been demonstrated on the basis of God’s revelation of himself as a God of love and through the social theory of the Trinity that God exists necessarily as the kind of being he is. This demonstration was accomplished by briefly examining a renowned philosopher’s description of necessity which revealed the acceptance of God’s logical and ontological necessary existence. Secondly, as one understands the biblical revelation of God in Christ by means of the Holy Spirit one understands God is only contingent upon his own revelation. Since God reveals himself as a God of love, his love is only made complete in the eternal sharing of that love with another, the Son, and their love eternally produces the Holy Spirit which results in the necessary existence of the Trinity.[15]
[1] Richard Swinburne,
The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 253.
[2] The basis of the Trinity for this paper assumes the biblical revelation to be true and authoritative. The biblical writers did not have a formal statement or understanding defining the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact, they had a primitive delineation of the doctrine. In the Old Testament, Trinitarian formulas are absent in its content and focus mainly on the oneness of God. The New Testament writers, by contrast, speak of three persons as being God and serves as the catalyst in the genesis of the doctrine of the Trinity. However, the New Testament’s cursory understanding of the Godhead is not void of Old Testament influence.
The Old Testament influence upon the New Testament’s development of Trinitarian thought is profound because it provides the language, phraseology and appellations already within the Judeo-Christian vernacular. Thus, the Old Testament provides the framework in which the New Testament writers and their readers are able to think about the Trinity.
The New Testament appropriates significant words and phrases (father, son, word, spirit, and messiah) from the Old Testament to communicate their understanding of the Godhead as well as demonstrate the agreement between Old and New Testament. In using these words as a description of God’s activities among three co-equal and co-eternal persons, the New Testament writers provide the basis for the economic Trinity. The idea that God is the creator-father is transposed from the Old Testament to the New Testament. John and Paul, especially, designates Jesus as the Word of God, through whom all things are created who is also seen as the manifestation of God in bodily form who was not created but as one who existed from eternity as “I am.” Finally, the New Testament understanding of the Holy Spirit is no longer purported as a divine impersonal force that came upon people in one instance and left them in another instance but as a personal divine agent who empowers and indwells God’s children (i.e. the church) for special tasks as Jesus Christ wills as discussed in Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity (Wipf and Stock: Eugene, 1999), 3-23.
[3] Swinburne does, in fact, identify other types of necessity than what will be discussed in this paper. This paper is only focusing on the kinds of necessity in which Swinburne is able to clearly delineate the difference.
[4] Ibid., 234.
[5] A point of reference can be a person, place, thing or idea.
[6] Ibid., 236.
[7] Ibid., 251.
[8] Ibid., 252.
[9] Ibid., 240. John Hick, however, purports “x exists” is not logically necessary because x is an abstract concept and the word, “exist” is a concrete attribute of x and, therefore, is illogical as cited in John Hick, “God’s Necessary Existence,” in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, 2nd Ed., ed. Peterson, Michael, et al (New York: Oxford, 2001), 113.
[10] David Coffey, Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of the Triune God (New York: Oxford, 1999), 9-32.
[11] 1 Jn 4.16
[12] 1 Co 13
[13] Thomas V. Morris, Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology (Notre Dame: Notre Dame, 1991), 177-8. For a fuller explanation of the social theories of the Trinity see: David Coffey, Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of the Triune God (New York: Oxford, 1999) and Richard Swinburne, “Could there be More than One God?” Faith and Philosophy 5 (July 1988): 225-41.
[14] An analogy, even though it has its faults, of this idea is seen in the marriage relationship. A man and woman share one love and “the two become one flesh,” their love results in a third person who shares in the mutual love between the husband and wife.
[15] If more time and space were available it would be wise to demonstrate how the three persons of the Trinity exist as one and yet remain as the Greatest Possible Being and how one can avoid an immanent subordinationism and modalism.
