Trinity and the Sun Analogy

One of the most popular analogies for the Trinity was the analogy of the sun. St. John of Damascus: “The Father is a sun with the Son as rays and the Holy Ghost as heat.”¹ St. Gregory the Theologian talks about this analogy in an epistemic sense:

All these indications of himself that he has left behind him are God’s “averted figure.” They are, as it were, shadowy reflections of the Sun in water, reflections which display to eyes too weak, because too impotent to gaze at it, the Sun overmastering perception in the purity of its light.²

What he is saying within the context of the oration is the sun is like the divine essence since we cannot directly observe the sun directly with our eyes, so we cannot comprehend nor know the essence, but our knowledge of the sun is from what proceeds from it and its effects, in this case, shadows. Using this he argues that we can still know God via the effects of the sun.

St. Gregory the Theologian in the next oration uses the sun analogy once again, this time to argue that what proceeds from the sun is not a different nature, he is responding to the charge that the Son proceeding from the Father’s essence would necessarily imply that the Father is prior to him. He responds:

Because they are from him, though not after him. “Being unoriginate” necessarily implies “being eternal,” but “being eternal” does not entail “being unoriginate,” so long as the Father is referred to as origin. So because they have a cause they are not unoriginate. But clearly a cause is not necessarily prior to its effects—the Sun is not prior to its light. Because time is not involved, they are to that extent unoriginate —even if you do scare simple souls with the bogey-word; for the sources of time are not subject to time.³

So the sun causes its light, but that doesn’t mean the sun is prior to its own light because the sun by nature exists with its light and rays, if even something temporal like the sun can exist like this, then so can the Father and the Son exist in this manner.

Another way St. John of Damascus understands the sun analogy is the essence energies distinction:

True reason teaches us that the Divinity is simple and has one simple operation (energy) which is good and effects all things and exercise their force in each in accordance with the natural capacity of each, having received such power of operation (energy) of God, who created them⁴

Here we see that just like the Sun’s rays effects each thing that experiences it according to their own capacity, so does God’s energy effect us according to our own capacity. This is very much connected with Orthodoxy’s theology on person, which is hypostasis as mode of existence: Each person experiences the same energy of God in a unique manner. I do want to note that this does not therefore mean that God’s energy is in all senses strictly one, since St. John himself elsewhere says that the energies assumes many forms.⁵

What this short piece aims to do is to establish a basic explanation of Trinitarian theology from the analogy of the sun, since there is a reason why it was used by two of the greatest fathers of the Church.

The Trinity as the Sun

As stated previously by St. John of Damascus, the Father is the sun, the Son is the light and the Holy Spirit is the heat. However it simultaneously also is the energies, this is because each person in their one activity operate the same thing in their own respective modes of existence, all things are done from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.⁶ With the sun, this becomes clear because the sun remains in its place whereas the light travels to us and transfers the heat of the sun to us. If we were to swap the sun with the Trinity, we could then say that the Father sends His Holy Spirit to us through the Son to give us the gifts of His Holy Spirit.⁷ Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit to the apostles is another example of this.⁸

The Sun Refutes the Filioque!?

However I would like to take a bold step further and argue that another reason why the sun analogy is perfect for the Trinity is because of its anti-filioquism. Of course statements such as “the sun refutes the filioque” sounds crazy, but the argument isn’t really that complex. According to the dogmatic pronouncement of the filioque in the Council of Florence, the Son is a cause of the Holy Spirit even in the Greek sense of causation, which directly contradicts St. Maximus the Confessor⁹ and St. Gregory the Theologian.¹⁰ What that would look like for the sun is to argue that the heat of the sun is caused by the light, but that’s not fully true, light certainly can be said to transfer the sun’s heat to us, but the heat of the sun is caused by the sun alone.¹¹ Similarly the Holy Spirit is sent to us from the Father and the Son but that doesn’t mean He is caused by the Father and the Son.

Of course no analogy is fully perfect, and for those who want to understand the Trinity in a deeper sense, there’s many resources one can use. However as a starting point for those who genuinely might not understand the doctrine of the Trinity, this might be helpful in and of itself.

1. St. John of Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge- The Philosophical Chapters, on Heresies, the Orthodox Faith (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 37) p. 162

2. St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 28

3. St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 29

4. St. John of Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge- The Philosophical Chapters, on Heresies, the Orthodox Faith (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 37) p. 191

5. St. John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith, Chapter 14: Further the divine effulgence and energy, being one and simple and indivisible, assuming many varied forms in its goodness among what is divisible and allotting to each the component parts of its own nature, still remains simple and is multiplied without division among the divided, and gathers and converts the divided into its own simplicity. For all things long after it and have their existence in it. It gives also to all things being according to their several natures , and it is itself the being of existing things, the life of living things, the reason of rational beings, the thought of thinking beings. But it is itself above mind and reason and life and essence.

6. St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 31 "We receive the Son’s light from the Father’s light in the light of the Spirit.

7. 1 Corinthians 12:6 "And there are diversities of energies, but it is the same God which energizes all in all."

8. John 20:22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

9. St. Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Marinus: On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit — they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession; but [they use this expression] in order to manifest the Spirit’s coming-forth (προϊέναι) through him and, in this way, to make clear the unity and identity of the essence….

10. St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 34 Everything the Father has belongs to the Son with the exception of causality.

11. I know that there’s going to be a couple of scienceheads that will take the analogy too literally, since light by itself can produce heat when absorbed which means technically, light causes heat, but we are talking about light and heat in reference to the sun, not light and heat in reference to lamps or infrared LEDs. Either case, analogies are useful for their similarities, but we are dealing with comparing something material to something that is fundamentally “other” than matter and creation. The usage of the sun analogy in this manner doesn’t necessarily mean that I am refusing that light can be transformed to heat by its own once its absorbed and other scientific facts, rather it is how people at that time understood the sun.