nature mean? What are the shared and individual properties of the Holy Trinity? #

Before delving into the mystery of the Holy Trinity, it is important to understand that God reveals Himself to humanity to the extent that each person is capable of receiving Him. There is cataphatic theology, which speaks of what God is, and apophatic theology, which speaks of God in negative terms—what God is not. It is often easier for humans to articulate what God is not than to fully comprehend the incomprehensible.

This inability to grasp God fully was illustrated to Blessed Augustine when he was walking along the seashore, contemplating the mystery of the Trinity. An angel appeared to him in the form of a child, attempting to pour the entire sea into a small hole in the sand. When Augustine remarked that this was impossible, the angel replied, “Then how can you, with your limited human mind, attempt to comprehend the mysteries of God?”

Nonetheless, using the reason given by God and divine revelations about Himself, the Holy Fathers formulated the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The “great Cappadocians”—Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa—were particularly instrumental in this effort. During the 4th century, amidst the Arian controversy that engulfed the Church, they effectively developed the Trinitarian terminology we use to this day.

God is simple in His nature because all complexity tends toward dissolution, and God is eternal. God is one in essence, meaning He possesses a single divine nature, but He is triune in persons. The one divine nature is shared among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However, there is no essence (nature) without hypostasis (person). For example, there is no abstract “human nature” apart from its concrete existence in individuals like Ivan, Peter, Nicholas, or Olga, etc. Similarly, the divine nature does not exist in isolation. This singular divine nature is expressed in three persons (hypostases): the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

A hypostasis is the personal manifestation of a nature, the mode of existence of that nature. Each person of the Trinity possesses the shared attribute of divinity, along with unique personal properties. There is one nature but three hypostases—distinctive characteristics of the three persons within the unified divine nature. Personal properties do not overlap; they are unique to each person.

The personal property of the Father is to beget the Son and to cause the procession of the Holy Spirit.
The personal property of the Son is to be eternally begotten of the Father.
The personal property of the Holy Spirit is to proceed eternally from the Father.

Saint John of Damascus writes:

“Although we are taught that there is a distinction between begetting and procession, we do not know what the distinction consists of, nor what the begetting of the Son or the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father is.”

These are eternal, timeless relationships within God Himself. They must not be confused with God’s manifestations in time.

— Priest Evgeny Gureev