The Cappadocian vs. Latin Model of the Trinity (Dr. Joshua Sijuwade)

“God, unbegotten, the Father, and one begotten Lord, his Son, referred to as God when he is mentioned separately, but Lord when he is named in conjunction with the Father, the one term on account of his nature, the other on account of his monarchy; and one Holy Spirit proceeding, or, if you will, going forth from the Father…” (St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration, 25.15).

Dr. Joshua Sijuwade guides us through history, explaining how the Cappadocian model (of St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzen, and St. Gregory of Nyssa) addresses the “Who is God?” or “identification problem” by identifying the “one God” nominally with the person of the Father, and how this view is derived from Scripture and dogma that have been consistently taught and affirmed by the ecumenical councils from the 4th–8th c. He also explains how this model does not succumb to the Logical Problem of the Trinity (LPT).

This contrasts with the later Latin model, first espoused by St. Augustine and accepted by the Eleventh Council of Toledo (675 AD) and subsequently proclaimed as dogma by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215 AD).

In identifying the "one God" as the Trinity, it diverged on the "identification" question that was never in doubt and introduced a host of logical problems that have taken centre stage in contemporary analytical and inter-religious polemical debates.

Dr. Joshua Sijuwade’s “Monarchial TrinitarianismA Metaphysical Proposal”

Dr. Beau Branson’s ''No New Solutions to the Logical Problem of the Trinity''

“I should emphasize that this semantic claim, that ‘is god’ predicates the divine nature, rather than a kind of activity, was, originally, a specificially Arian claim. It was not a part of the mainstream Christian tradition prior to that point, and was forcefully rejected by St. Gregory of Nyssa and others, while those church fathers who did not specifically reject it, at least refrained from affirming it. Only later was Augustine to be the first church father to actually accept this semantic claim that ‘is god’ predicates divinity, rather than an activity, and it is not clear that his attempt to incorporate this originally Arian semantic claim into a Trinitarian theology was completely successful'' (p. 1069).

Dr. Beau Branson’s “One God, the FatherThe Neglected Doctrine of the Monarchy of the Father, and Its Implications for the Analytic Debate about the Trinity”

Fr. John Behr’s “One God Father Almighty”

A recent 2v2 debate between Dr. Joshua Sijuwade and Dr. Beau Branson, and Christian Wagner and Astro on this topic

*Note: 4:50 Not only was this a change in the creed due to the addition of the filioque clause without an ecumenical council, but it was also a Western development that compromised the monarchy of the Father, as upheld in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381 AD).

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