An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent

by John Henry Newman

To show this in fact, I will enumerate the separate propositions of which the dogma consists. They are nine, and stand as follows:—

1. There are Three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit. 2. From the Father is, and ever has been, the Son. 3. From the Father and Son is, and ever has been, the Spirit.

4. The Father is the One Eternal Personal God. 5. The Son is the One Eternal Personal God. 6. The Spirit is the One Eternal Personal God.

7. The Father is not the Son. 8. The Son is not the Holy Ghost. 9. The Holy Ghost is not the Father.

Now I think it is a fact, that, whereas these nine propositions contain the Mystery, yet, taken, not as a whole, but separately, each by itself, they are not only apprehensible, but admit of a real apprehension.

Thus, for instance, if the proposition “There is One who bears witness of Himself,” or “reveals Himself,” would admit of a real assent, why does not also the proposition “There are Three who bear witness”?

Again, if the word “God” may create an image in our minds, why may not the proposition “The Father is God”? or again, “The Son,” or “The Holy Ghost is God”?

Again, to say that “the Son is other than the Holy Ghost,” or “neither Son nor Holy Ghost is the Father,” is not a simple negative, but also a declaration that Each of the Divine Three by Himself is complete in Himself, and simply and absolutely God as though the Other Two were not revealed to us.

Again, from our experience of the works of man, we [pg 136] accept with a real apprehension the proposition “The Angels are made by God,” correcting the word “made,” as is required in the case of a creating Power, and a spiritual work:—why may we not in like matter refine and elevate the human analogy, yet keep the image, when a Divine Birth is set before us in terms which properly belong to what is human and earthly? If our experience enables us to apprehend the essential fact of sonship, as being a communication of being and of nature from one to another, why should we not thereby in a certain measure realize the proposition “The Word is the Son of God”?

Again, we have abundant instances in nature of the general law of one thing coming from another or from others:—as the child issues in the man as his successor, and the child and the man issue in the old man, like them both, but not the same, so different as almost to have a fresh personality distinct from each, so we may form some image, however vague, of the procession of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son. This is what I should say of the propositions which I have numbered two and three, which are the least susceptible of a real assent out of the nine.