Perichoresis and Trinitarian Orthodoxy

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Ben Chomp

Puritan Board Freshman
Brothers, please help me with my Trinitarian orthodoxy.

My understanding of perichoresis is that while the persons in the Trinity are distinct, they are inseparable. They each indwell the others. The Son is in the Father, the Father is in the Son, both are in the Spirit, etc. The Son never acts alone, but always does what his Father does. As Athanasius taught, every act of the Son is also an act of the Father.

At the same time we do not say that the Father was incarnate, but only the Son. The Father did not assume a human nature, but the Son did. The Father did not suffer on the cross, but the Son did. The Father was not raised again from the dead, but the Son was.

Yet it is not correct to say that the Son suffered the wrath of the Father only. Stuart Townend's famous song "How Deep The Father's Love For Us" might be a bit misleading in this area when it says: "The Father turned his face away." It is more accurate to say that the Son suffered the wrath of the Triune God on the cross.

It's also not quite right to say that the Father planned salvation and the Son merely carries it out. The decrees of God are not the decrees of the Father only, but the decrees of the Triune God. Salvation was also the plan of the Son.

How can we affirm perichoresis but also say that only the Son became incarnate and only the Son suffered?

Maybe I've made a big mistep in my Trinitarian thinking and I'm looking forward to correction and insight. Thanks!
 
This might not be so satisfying, but this kind of answer has proved to be a solution to various logical (and theological) issues. Define perichoresis such that the interpenetration of each of the Persons--a concept which (sfaik) is basically unique to Christianity and its (also unique) Triune divine conception--exists in such a way that only the Son is Incarnate.

Explaining the Trinity is already a mind-boggling effort. We aim at expressing both a diversity of Persons and unity of essence. Perichoresis conceptually seeks the undivided divine wholeness, while remaining in possession of the distinctiveness of each of the Three Persons. Asking: "how" the Son alone becomes incarnate, since the other Persons share with him one essence--seems to attack one of the terms coined in order to express "How the Trinity?" in spite of our limitations.

"Perichoresis" is "how," and so asking "How perichoresis?" seems to me an excessive request. Perichoresis IS part-and-parcel of the labor by the early church to avoid collapsing the Christian doctrine of God into monarchianism, whether modalist or adoptionist.

[I welcome all corrections and clarifications and improvements to my comments]
 
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