St Luke's Church Eccleshill

Not three gods but one (Version 2)

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A song in honour of the writings of St Gregory of Nyssa.

The Father is God (2nd version.)

The Father is God,
The Son is God,
and yet our God is one.
There's no divide:
they're side by side
in all that they have done.

So let us adore the only Creator,
the Father, the Son, the Spirit: greater
than all we can see
in earth, sky or sea.
We worship him alone.

The Father is Cause,
he has no flaws,
he lives eternally.
He caused his Son
for us to come:
the Only Begotten is he.

So let us adore our only Redeemer,
the Father, the Son, the Spirit: dearer
than all we can see
in earth, sky or sea.
We worship him alone.

His Spirit comes near
to those who fear
and love his holy name.
Proceeding from
the Father, Son,
in nature he's the same.

So let us adore our only Inspirer,
the Father, the Son, the Spirit: higher
than all we can see
in earth, sky or sea.
We worship him alone.

POSSIBLE FINAL VERSE (with or without a chorus after it):

In persons three
one God is he
in what he's said and done.
As Moses spoke:
"Hear, God's own folk,
the Lord your God is one."

Story behind the song

Origin. This song came about when at Morning Prayer on St Gregory of Nyssa's day (19th July) I read part of Gregory's writings on the Trinity. As set out in "Creeds, Councils and Controversies" (ed J Bettenson, SPCK), Gregory quotes Deuteronomy 6:4 - Hear O Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is one - and expounds why this means the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, not three Gods. Part of the passage runs like this:

The Father is God, the Son is God, and yet ... no difference of nature or operation is contemplated in the Godhead. ... The divine nature rejects all diversity of essence. ...
One is the Cause, and another is of the Cause; and again in that which is of the Cause we recognise another distinction: one is directly from the first Cause, and another (is) through that which is directly of the first Cause. So the attribute of being "only-begotten" abides without doubt in the Son, and does not call into dispute that the Spirit is from the Father and the interposition of the Son.

This reading generated blank stares from the assembled congregation, and I came home wondering if the truths would be better expressed in song rather than prose. Click here for the first version of the song I wrote in response.

Evolution. I posted the song on the Christian Songwriting Organisation e-mail list and asked for critiques, and a number of very good points were made about it:

It has quite a lot of "Yoda-speak" in it (mixed-up word order so that the rhymes sound forced - "easily-written archaic grammatical structure");
It would be more user-friendly if it was a genuine contemporary hymn-song with a chorus, rather than a five verse traditional hymn structure;
The opening isn't Trinitarian and the Holy Spirit needs to be clearly part of the One a lot earlier. "I'd like to see a solid and distinctive chorus developed from the beginning of the first verse, and clearly including the Holy Spirit in the 'one' ", wrote one member;
The line which refers to "Gregory's song" is a real weakness, necessitating a verbal introduction or footnote - it would be much better to put in a reference to "historic Christianity" or "the bible" or something here, if one wanted to keep such a verse.

The second version tries to address some of these difficulties.

Some of the Yoda-speak problems can be overcome by doing a bit of hard work, and in particular trying to sort out what Gregory did really say and what is padding. But not all of them are gone yet!
Although Gregory is writing a defence of Trinitarian doctrine, the difficulty with putting the Holy Spirit into the song's opening is that Gregory doesn't include the Holy Spirit this early, and it would distort his reasoning if I simply inserted an extra line "The Spirit is God". But the idea of making a chorus of the three is a good way round this problem. Unfortunately Gregory is not writing praise and worship in this particular piece, so the expression that God is greater than all else does not come from his work.
I'm not convinced this is the right chorus for this song, so I've provided two: you can find the alternative here. I'd value your opinion about which of the two is better.
The reference to God's Kingdom coming in the first verse, and the bit about perceiving his love in the third verse, are non-Gregory, so out they go. I would have liked to get the idea that there is no divide "in nature" as well as "in operation" into the first verse, but I still can't see how this can be done. And I'm not that happy with the word "proceeding" in verse 3 - this word was current at the time and Gregory doesn't use it, and it raises arguments about whom the Spirit proceeds from, which Gregory wasn't dealing with.
Clearly the fifth verse of the first draft is a piece of padding, and to a lesser extent the fourth is too. But I'm in two minds about whether the song should still finish with Deut 6:4, so I've provided a possible fourth verse to conclude the song, which might or might not have a chorus after it.

The new version of the song is still dedicated to Suzanne Irvine.

John Hartley