St. John of Damascus vs. Polytheists
St. John of Damascus, in An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, writes, “Now if we say that there are many gods, it would be necessary for us to hold that there are differences among many. For if there were not a single difference among them, they would rather be one and not many.”
Why would God be one and not many? Many would presume that this question is primarily aimed at Eastern polytheists, but in modern context, it has much to do with the West as it has to do with the East. After all, the modern West has quite explicitly expelled Christianity, and all things therein, in favor of theories, ideas, and whatnot. In the absence of God, these secular substitutes have become gods themselves.
Regardless of what state mankind finds itself in, there must be a standard of measurement, and this standard, whether it is a person or an abstraction, must be perfect. St. John writes, “If there were a difference among them, where would perfection be?” Why couldn’t there be perfection in multiplicity? one might ask. Though not in favor of polytheism, a case is certainly made for “three perfect hypostases,” if one were to follow St. John’s explanation of the Trinity–the Triune God–who is “believed in and adored in a single act of worship by the whole of rational creation and that are united without confusion and divided without separation, which is also a paradox.”
With regard to multiplicity in a non-Trinitarian paradigm, St. John writes, “For if there were any lack of perfection either with regard to goodness, or with regard to power, or with regard to wisdom, or with regard to time, or with regard to place, it would not be god.” The Damascene says this with good reason, as difference in fallen creation entails division and conflict. Indeed, the very mythologies are rife with conflict amongst the gods, and this sense of violent perpetuity is carried over into modern ideologies, which are often revolutionary in nature.
“And how can the cosmos be governed by many and not fall apart and decay when conflict is discerned among those who govern?” St. John asks. The problem of the one and the many is common to both Western and Eastern thought. There is, however, no conflict In the Godhead of Christianity, which is a stark contrast to the deviations undertaken by most Western churches. The Father does not exist in dialectical opposition to the Son or the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is not a Hegelian dialectic and, therefore, no conflict is found in God.
On the unity of the three hypostases, John writes:
For just as fire and the light that comes from it are simultaneous, and it is not a case of first the fire and then subsequently the light but both simultaneously, and just as light is always generated by the fire, is always in it, and is in no way separated from it, so too the Son is begotten of the Father without in any way being separated from Him but existing eternally in Him. Only whereas the light that is generated inseparably from the fire and always remains in it does not have its own hypostasis apart from the fire, for it is a natural quality of the fire, the only-begotten Son of God who is begotten of the Father inseparably and without interval, and ever remains in Him, has His own hypostasis apart from that of the Father.
Just as the Son and the Father have Their own hypostases in the Trinity, so too does the Holy Spirit. Through this understanding, we can see that the problem of one and the many is non-existent in the Trinity. The significance of this fact is enormous as it gives a clear purpose for humanity made in God’s image, both individually and socially.
Because there is no conflict in the Triune God, there should not be any in God’s unique creation of the human being. Because perfection exists only in the Trinity, mankind should not strive after that which is imperfect and instead strive towards that which is not only perfect but also mutually glorifying, loving, and sanctifying (John 17, John 5:20, John 15:26, 2 Thessalonians 2:13).