The Sign of the Cross and the Trinity

A principle that both Catholic and Orthodox Christians appreciate is lex orandi, lex credendi: the law of prayer is the law of faith,

Now notice that we cross ourselves with the Trinity in a specific order: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This is probably the most common Christian prayer in the world. And it has an order: first, the Father is mentioned, then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit. The same order is found in the baptismal formula. While Eastern Christians tend to cross themselves right-to-left and Western Christians left-to-right, the order of the words is maintained (at least in the Churches where Trinitarian words are used: more details here).

It feels badly off to pray “In the name of the Father, and of the Holy Spirit, and of the Son.” Now, we might say that the feeling of its being “off” has a deflationary psychological explanation—we are just used to a specific order. Or, somewhat better, it is off insofar as it disconnects us from the practices of the community. But the universality of the order in the most common Christian prayer together with the theological methodology of lex orandi, lex credendi and the intuition that other orders aren’t as good should impel us to see theological significance in the order.

We might, of course, see a purely missional order here. First the Father is active in the world, then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit is sent. But I think we want more than just such a temporal ordering in our explanation. After all, while the Holy Spirit is especially sent in New Testament times, it seems right to talk of the Spirit’s activity in Old Testament times. And maybe even some of the explicit mentions of Ruakh Elohim, God’s Spirit, including at the beginning of Genesis, is already an indication of the economic involvement of the Spirit. It is at least better if we can ground what feels like an important feature of a central Christian prayer in something eternal.

One solution would be a subordinationist one: the Son is subordinate to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is subordinate to the Son. But that would be a heresy.

I propose that the filioque, whether formulated in terms of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son or from the Father through the Son, gives an elegant eternity-based account of what makes the order in the prayer appropriate. First, the Father, from whom the Son proceeds, and then the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and/through the Son. The order is not that of subordination but of procession.