Trinity and Analogies to the Created World.
Gregory avoids trying to explain the mystery of the Trinity by
drawing analogies to the created world. The source of the spring, the spring
itself, and the flow of the spring are not separate in time, and even when these
three properties are distinguished it is clear that they are all a single
phenomenon. However, Gregory writes: "I do not want to propose that the Divinity
is a spring which never ceases (this is in distinction to Plotinus), because
this comparison involves a numerical unity." The distinction among the waters of
a stream exists "only in our way of thinking about it." The sun, its rays, and
its light form a complex whole. There is the sun and there is that which is from
the sun. This analogy, however, can give rise to the idea that the essence
belongs to the Father and the other persons are only the "powers of God," just
as the rays and the light are to the sun. Therefore analogies with creation are
not helpful. They always contain the "idea of motion" or deal with "imperfect
and fluctuating natures," and their unity is really only a becoming and a
changing of form. That which is temporal is not God.
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