THE TRINITARIAN COMMUNION - Archdiocese of Ernakulam ...

God. Rather, we learn from Matthew 11:27 that Jesus Himself viewed this form of address forGod as the heart of that revelation which had been granted Him by the Father. In this term"Abba" the ultimate mystery of His mission and His authority is expressed. He, to whom theFather had granted full knowledge of God, had the messianic prerogative of addressing himwith the familiar address of a Son. This term "Abba" is a manner of speaking unique to Jesusand contains in a nutshell His message and His claim to have been sent from the Father. Thefinal point, and the most astonishing of all, however, has yet to be mentioned; in the Lord'sPrayer the Lord Jesus authorizes His disciples to repeat the word "Abba" after Him. He givesthem a share in His Sonship and empowers them, as His disciples, to speak with theirheavenly Father in just such a familiar, trusting way as a child would with his father. Yet Hegoes so far as to say that it is this new childlike relationship which first opens the doors toGod's reign: "Truly, I say to you, unless you become like children again, you will not findentrance into the kingdom of God" (Matthew 18:3). Children can say "Abba"! Only he who,through Jesus, lets himself be given the childlike trust which resides in the word "abba" findshis way into the kingdom of God. This the apostle Paul also understood; he says twice thatthere is no surer sign or guarantee of the possession of the Holy Spirit and of the gift ofsonship than this, that a man makes bold to repeat this one word, "Abba, dear Father"(Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). Perhaps at this point we get some inkling why the Lord's Prayerwas not a commonplace in the early church and why it was spoken with such reverence andawe. "Make us worthy, O Lord, that we joyously and without presumption may make bold toinvoke Thee, the heavenly God, as Father, and to say, Our Father."48. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 32-33.49. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 34-35.50. These texts are not directly Trinitarian in themselves but deal with the Trinitarian thought andthey are significant in developing the doctrine of Trinity later by the Fathers of the Church andothers.51. These texts deal slightly with the understanding of God as Trinity. But they are useful to knowfor the development of Trinitarian understanding.52. “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and ofthe Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).53. Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, 245.54. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit bewith you all.” (2 Cor 13:13).55. “But we feel that we must be continually thanking God for you, brothers whom the Lordloves, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctifying Spirit and byfaith in the truth. Through the Good News that we brought he called you to this so that weshould share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thess 2:13-14).56. “There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of services to be done,but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is thesame God who is working in all of them.” (1 Cor 12:4-6).57. “The dogma of the Trinity is an absolute mystery which we do not understand even after it hasbeen revealed.” Raimundo Panikkar, The Trinity and the Religious Experience of Man: Icon-Person-Mystery (New York: Orbis Books, 1973), 50.58. Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, 251.59. “Heresies are doctrines which do not allow faith to find itself in them or devotion to recognizeitself in them, or formulations which contradict the normative data of the scriptures. Theyconstitute a grave danger to faith; nevertheless, they also enable theology to move forward,since their refutation requires careful study and a more precise deepening of faith itself.”Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 46.60. ‘Doctrine’ as a noun means ‘a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church, politicalparty, or other group.’61. From the early times Trinitarian theology developed two different approaches. In the patristictheology of the East the idea prevailed that the one God is God of the Father, and that the Sonand the Spirit share with Him His divine life. This conception had the merit of being based onScripture, but it could lend itself to misinterpretations. It could lead to subordinationist ideaswhich, in fact, did spring up in the east and came to a climax with the heresy of Arius. Theother conception, prominent in the West, conceived God as the one divine substance,comprising of Father, Son and Spirit. In this view, the unity of God and the equality of theFather, Son and Spirit were easily safeguarded; but, the basic truth of the oneness of the divinenature could be misunderstood in such a way as to lead to the denial of the real distinction of