Is The Holy Trinity A Doctrine Of Monotheism (OPEN THREAD UPDATED)

OPEN THREAD GUYS....WEIGH IN....

UPDATE DEC. 3RD: Well when I said that on Tuesday little did I know that we would all be utterly consumed by this for four days now, going into the fifth.

UPDATE DEC 5TH: Make that seven days and going strong!

UPDATE DEC 8TH: Onto the tenth day now...

UPDATE DEC 17TH: Comments are still trickling in.....nineteenth day....

As Kenny Pierce who has been in the very throes of it said: "You could spend a month trying to recruit a panel of people of wildly diverse views, high brainpower, and deep mutual respect and courtesy, and not come close to what you've got in that comments section right now."

Sigmund Carl & Alfred has written already two whole posts inspired by this subject (check the TrackBacks below) having personally participated in the comments section, whilst I have not even managed to get my head out of there the entire time, neglecting my readers terribly.

Media Lies who has been very much involved in the discussion having been the rock of reason throughout said: "Of all the remarkable things that have come from this conversation, the most remarkable of all has been its gentle progress. I've been in many trinitarian discussions over the years, many of them quite contentious, but I've never been in one like this one. I've so thoroughly enjoyed the back and forth, the musings, the many points of view. I applaud Alexandra for having birthed the most unique of things - a civil conversation about a controversial subject.
[...]
Life goes on, as does blogging, but I will never forget this experience. It's been incredible."

The Anchoress who has also weighed in on the rousing debate, calls the comment thread "excellent".

Another reader graciously weighed in via email: "...Like finding a book that you can't wait to take home and read."

And written by my readers, how thrilling.

SO DIG IN.....AND ENJOY.....

Comments

[jess1dering]

Kenny, Let the Spirit be your Guide , dear soul. When a book ends that I really enyoyed , I read it again . This thread is definitely re-readable. Either way, I'm happy. PS great posts by NbyNW and Stefan and Patrick.JD

[Kenny Pierce]

Jess,

I had actually decided not to go any further; it has been such a good thread that I hated to risk spoiling it, and the comment I came up with on the cruelty of God was a long and tough one and I didn't think I had done a good job of making myself clear; so I tossed it and said, "That there's one of the all-time great threads and I'm not gonna mess it up." Now I think I may have to reconsider that, in which case it's YOUR FAULT. ;-)

NxN, Stefan, can't improve on your last comments.

KP

[Patrick O'Hannigan]

Stefan, just above, you make very good points. Were some things about God not mysterious, He'd hardly be "big enough" to be God. You've already supposed (correctly) that I'm in the "three persons in one" rather than "three modes" camp, and among several reasons for that, "modalities" are impersonal where God is not.

[Stefan]

I think that RG’s last posts kind of get to the heart of this thread. The scriptural evidence pertaining to the Divinity of Christ is dead on. There is no debate among Christians (or in any event there shouldn’t be) in regards to the fact that Jesus is God. The debate (and here it should not be a contentious debate but a deeply respectful one) is whether the Trinity is, as RG seems to imply, the three modalities of God’s interaction with humanity or whether the Trinity are three separate persons but yet one God. I think that the fear some Christians have of the three person Trinity is that it would somehow lessen the focus and importance of Jesus in the story of salvation. However, this is not at all the case. The “three yet one” understanding has plenty of scriptural support but I think the interpretation many have of the same passages is the source of the differences. There are other Christians that seem to imply that “true” Christianity was lost or distorted by the institutional church and the Trinity is an example of a fabricated or “egg headed” theological approach to Father, Son, and Spirit. I have some friends that hint that they are rediscovering “authentic” Christian spirituality that was distorted by councils, clerics, and hierarchical structures. They reveal a distrust of the Catholic Church by this but I think they miss the fact that this (the time prior to the reformation) is our shared tradition and shouldn’t be claimed or denigrated by any party. Furthermore, I don’t know if it is the case but I suspect that some Christians are less comfortable with the “Mystery” aspect of the three distinct persons in one God. Mystery to many people implies a way to paper over “gaps” or weakness in theology or understanding. Another problem to us moderns seems to be that a mystery is akin to a problem which must be solved in order for progress to be made. We have a prejudice (or faith) that our intellect and technology will and should solve all problems that come before us. If something cannot be “proven” it is by default false. If something is a mystery then it is simply yet to be tamed and controlled by the human mind. I think that Three Persons, distinct yet One, seems too fantastical to some people and is therefore asking too much of the modern, post-enlightenment mind. I don’t know how many modern Christians feel opposition to the Three in One because they are influenced by this but, it is a possibility. “Mystery” should be properly understood, instead, as another way to describe awe; the awesome “Otherness” and incomprehensibility of God. Could it be that some Christians feel that God speaks to us with perfect clarity and to them this kind of “mystery” should not exist? I am not implying here that they would feel any less awe but perhaps a different kind of awe. They feel awe with a different emphasis or different flavor, so to speak. Still other Christians see the “person vs. modality” discussion as a waste of time and merely a question of semantics but I think it is important for a robust inter-denominational dialogue to take place on such matters. We can only learn and be strengthened in faith from such discussions with each other.

[North by Northwest]

And in the spirit of your gracious words, Jess, I should like to share my personal thoughts following this thread:

Acceptance of the omnipotence of God is surely the foundation to everyone's faith; deriving strength, not doubt, from our inability to know God in a rational and dialectic manner.

Notwithstanding the vital importance of maintaining consistency in relation to any religious Doctrine, it seems to me, that the question as to whether the Trinitarian Doctrine is of divine origin or man-made post Anno Domini, may actually turn out to be of secondary importance. Even if the Trinitarian Doctrine were shown to be irrefuably man-conceived, it ough not to matter, as it may very well represent those men's best effort to describe the unknowable, the mysterious. In aiding Trinitarians on their path to salvation, it serves a divine purpuse of the highest order, thus being of divine status, irrespective of its roots of origin.

[North by Northwest]

Dear Jess - I for one would like to actually thank YOU for putting into words what I feel when reading and re-reading this thread.

If it's not meant for somebody, then they won't comprehend it, right?

RIGHT!!!

[jess1dering]

Dear Kenny and Dear all esteemed contributors to this discussion : I hope that it isn't over. I was so enjoying it. I write specifically to thank you for not holding to that philosophy that believes that superior knowledge is dangerous to inferior minds. That idea seems to be suggested early on in this discussion. I am so glad that you just continued to let your light shine...EACH of you . While I wasn't blessed with a stellar education (G.E.D.) and grew up in an inner-city housing project that was riddled with violence and crime, I CAN read . As far as the "superior information- inferior minds" idea goes, I think that God in His infinite wisdom has taken care of that. If it's not meant for somebody, then they won't comprehend it, right? Anyway, I do thank God that I was afforded the opportunity to journey with you and to enjoy and be enriched by all that you brought to share and so freely offered. I am , of course , not in the same "location" as when the journey first began. In a very real way, I love you for it. So, THANKS ! Hope you're here again.

[Kenny Pierce]

Okay, back from my regular weekend-spent-with-the-kids-rather-than-online (Alexandra knows that I work in one city and live in another and only see my wife and eight children on the weekends; so I pretty much don't spend any weekend time online). I thought I'd draw you guys' attention to Patrick's take, over on his own blog. I thought it was a worthy contribution.

Guest, Antimedia, I've thought a lot about the cruelty of God issue. My work week looks insanely busy, and my two new daughters came to Houston with me this week and will claim my attention in the evenings. But if I can stay awake at night after they go to bed for a couple of hours, I'll try to respond.

[RG]

One addition to my above comment:

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called “the twin,” was not with them when Jesus appeared.

The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said, Except I see in his hands the print of the nails, … and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

And the following Sunday the disciples were within and, this time, Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, stood in the midst and said, Shalom—peace unto you.

Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.

And, now, the climax of the gospel: “And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God”

[RG]

I'm a Trinitarian. I believe in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. But, the only God you'll ever see is the Lord Jesus. And, the only God you'll ever feel is the Lord Jesus. And, the only God there is, is the Lord Jesus.

I am a Trinitarian. But I am not a polytheist. I am a monotheist. I believe in one God. And, He reveals Himself to us as God, our Father, God, our Savior, and God, our Comforter (Holy Spirit).

The deity of the Son of God. The Bible avows it: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory."

Romans 9:5: “Christ is over all. God blessed forever, Amen.”

Titus 2:13, “Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 1:8: “But unto the Son, He saith, Thy throne, O, God, is forever and ever.”

1 John 5:20: “And we know that the Son of God has come and hath given unto us understanding, that we may know him that is true.... This is the true God and eternal life.”

What the Bible avows is plain and emphatic, stated, explicitly, understandably: Jesus is Lord God.

Now, several avowals. Number one: What He said only God could say. On the lips of any other creature, they would be blasphemous.

For example, in the tenth chapter of John, He says, “I and my Father are one.”

John 5:25: “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that hear shall live.”

John 6:47: “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day.”

—Can you imagine anybody else saying that? I don't care who anybody else may be.

John 8:23: “I am not of this world. I am from above.”

John 14:9: “He that seen me hath seen God.”

W.A. Criswell

[Patrick O'Hannigan]

I'm late to this, but it's a great subject. As a Catholic, I'm fascinated by what John Henry Cardinal Newman and others have called the development of doctrine. But I don't think we need to look to polytheism or Platonism in tracing the trinitarian roots. They're scriptural. And yes, *of course* the Holy Trinity is a doctrine of monotheism. We got it from Jesus himself.

[Stefan]

I think there is really something to be said for the “over thinking” of religious questions but I think that God works at many different levels. I’ll try to give an example. Discovering the atomic make-up of water is very important part of understanding the world we live in and can help in all sorts of new and amazing discoveries and scientific advances and applications yet it is unnecessary to enjoy the gentle babbling of a mountain stream, or to feel refreshment in a cool glass on a hot day. Water has always been water and always will be but our understanding of it and its vital place in our universe has changed from years of study and creativity. No matter how much or how little we personally know about it is irrelevant when it comes down to it because we need it to sustain our lives and crops. In the sphere of religion there is the overwhelmingly detailed theology of St Thomas Aquinas and then there is the work of people like Mother Teresa who picked the dying and decrepit people out of the gutters in Calcutta. They are both ways of glorifying the wonders of our God. Some people go out into the world and seeing Christ in every face, other live lives of constant prayer, and still others use the glorious gift of reason (the small drop of reason that we are all given from the ocean of the Lord who is the source of reason) in the never ending endeavor to understand the deeper meanings of God’s work or salvation. Some are not interested in the details of metaphysics preferring a simple and wholesome faith and others are lit afire by the beautiful and fascinating study of the footsteps of the creator and his plans for us. A strong and vibrant faith needs all types of believers and none are more important or valid than the others.

[Phil Bickel]

I'm just a simple bible reading, free thinking, hopelessly Catholic nontheologian on my own personal journey to enlightenment.

On the explanation of the Trinity being monotheistic.

Genisis says that man was made in God's own image.

Our Psyche, or Soul has three distict persons according to accepted Freudian pretext.

The Parent The conscience

The Child The will

The Ego The conscious self

Not all that different, and yet we are one person.

I personally believe our lives, and time in particular is a carefully crafted illusion. The closet we can get to true reality is our dream state, and it makes no sense to us in most cases.

We often create our own heaven and our own hell, but we can not create ourselves!

[Kenny Pierce]

Guest,

Yes, absolutely, I still have Newman's Apologia on my shelf (that one has survived the moves).

[Paul]

Well, like others, I have been fascinated and humbled by this discussion. It is quite fun to read and think about. These questions have vexed me for over 50 years. My problem (or at least one of my problems) is that I find categories of analysis, such as "person," "will," "nature," "substance," to be very nearly devoid of content and not helpful. (Will anyone bring in "accident" and take us off into the heady world of "transubstantiation"?) The terms are, at their very best, clumsy and awkward tools. They are attempts to grasp or approximations of tools to grasp; not graspings in themselves. And these particular charmers seem more at home in the world of metaphysics (or ancient Classical philosophy) than they are in the world of theology or, what's more important, of religious belief. Is it possible that the One who has made all things cannot be caught in such categories? Even nearly? Nor can his Son. Nor can His manifestations of Himself to others in other ways? Or rather isn't it possible that He can be found some extent in all our approximations. And many others, as well. We are simply reality trying to understand reality. Hasn't each of us encountered a truly holy persons of all persuasions? "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." And while these categories may help some of us to know how better to live our lives, isn't is possible they are not helpful to others or even put others off? The bad news for us chatterboxes is that we may be dealing with the truly ineffable and the truly emotional.
And the corollary is that each of us is pretty much stuck with the heart he was born with (and the religion too). But it is not a censorious organ. And if our days have fewer tongues of fire, they also ought to have fewer stonings.

[Stefan]

Ah, but there is still hope Kenny. Many Anglicans are waking from their slumber and pushing back. Many Catholics are also pushing back against the phony “Spirit of Vatican II” Catholics that have attempted to co-opt the council and gut the church in the United States in the last 35 years. Truth can be obscured but never destroyed I guess.

[Kenny Pierce]

Oy, Stefan, dragging in the Anglican crisis on me is hitting below the belt! ;-)

Ken Pierce
St. Luke's on the Lake Episcopal Church
Austin, TX

[Guest]

Dear Kenny,
This one is a not a contribution from me, but from a Christian author of whom I am fond. After reading your last post, I found your creed strikingly similar to that of Cardinal Newman regarding religious belief(Apologia pro Vita Sua, New York, 1946, pp. 132-133):
"I say, that I believed in a God on a ground of probability, that I believed in Christianity on a probability, and that I believed in Catholicism on a probability, and that these three grounds of probability, distinct from each other of course in subject matter, were still all of them one and the same in nature of proof, as being probabilities- probabilities of a special kind, a cumulative, a transcendant probability but still probability; inasmuch as He who made us has so willed, that in mathematics indeed we should arrive at certitude by rigid demonstration, but in religious inquiry we should arrive at certitude by accumulated probabilities;- He has willed, I say, that we should so act, and, as willing it, He co-operates with us in our acting, and thereby enables us to do that which He wills us to do, and carries us on, if our will does but co-operate with His, to a certitude which rises higher than the logicial force of our conclusions."
Magna cum caritate,
Guest

[Stefan]

Thanks Kenny for some very well reasoned thoughts. Found nothing I disagreed with in your comments. I agree completely that much of the "technical" aspects of such subjects can be irrelevant to the lay believer and that their ability to express some of these matters with precision is not that important. When push comes to shove Jess puts it very well. Humble faith is the key at the very root of it all. I do however think it is important because ideas do matter and they can have very real consequences. I think that some liberal protestant denominations are struggling with this now especially the Anglican community. I agree whole heartedly that early Christians didn’t have these things worked out precisely but they believed them in a more practical or instinctive manner and the “doctrine” was worked out later to explain more clearly what is believed often in defense of the faith against the heresies you have listed. I just feel that people can often look down on the use of reason in regards to faith which was one of the great gifts of the great doctors of the Church (the legacy of which belongs to every Christian at this early point) and feel that if something was articulated at a “council” then it is inauthentic Christianity and therefore false or phony. In my life I have heard this often usually from my Protestant friends who get it (I think) from seeing the early church councils in the same slightly suspicious way that they look upon the Catholic Church. This is unfortunate because this early tradition we share in common (and a great deal more of course). The divinity of Christ though is essential and such clap trap like Dan Brown’s Gnostic “DaVinci Code” (and lots of other weirdo medium that can have a real effect on people) can lead good people in some very dangerous directions unless they can articulate what they believe and are armed with enough understanding of their faith to defend themselves against the myriad of Gnostic and New Age configurations of Christianity. So for what it is worth it think that the work of these early fathers of the church in articulating the doctrine of the Trinity were preserving a fundamental aspect of Christianity and not inventing it for their own selfish interests in order to consolidate power or something. I will seek out the book you have recomended. I have read Phillip Jenkins' "Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost its Way" which is very well written and researched and visits many of the heresys you have mentioned.

[Kenny Pierce]

Stefan,

I think you have to remember that the very first apostles were not at all intellectuals. Paul was, of course; but then he had no serious impact on Christology, so far as we can tell, until Barnabas called him into Antioch in the late 40's. So, at the very least, the first generation of Christians got along okay for more than a decade without any precisely formulated Trinitarian doctrine of how the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were related to each other.

What they did have was intense personal experience with the Holy Spirit and (for the first generation in particular) with Jesus. The practical reality was an absolute necessity, and that is and always has been central to Christianity. Jesus has from the Day of Pentecost been Savior, Christ, Lord, and Son of God; and the Spirit has been Holy and living in power among God's people. Furthermore, as soon as we start getting any Christian literature at all, Jesus is getting called God (though Antimedia and I disagree about what that early hymnist meant, exactly). The ability to capture the reality in a fully formed linguistic system and to work out the implications of those raw experiences...well, that took a while.

There are a number of alternative Christologies that were put forward and even flourished as competitors for what would ultimately be formulated in the Creeds as Trinitarian Christology. The most important was Arianism, a semi-Gnostic viewpoint that held that the Father was the one true God and that the Son was the greatest of all created beings -- "divine" in the lesser sense in which pagan gods could be considered divine even though they were non-eternal, not omnipotent, not particularly moral, and clearly part of an independenty existing universe. Large numbers of Europeans were converted to Christianity from paganism as Arians rather than as Trinitarians. (A "Trinitarian," by the way, is not a "Trinity-arian" -- the two words aren't related at all. "Arianism" is so named after Arius, who made the doctrine famous.)

Nestorianism held that two distinct essences, one human and one God, shared Jesus' body, and that only the human part suffered on the cross. Various forms of monophysitism held that Jesus was something other than fully God and fully man, in a number of bizarre (to Catholic minds) variations. Docetism held that Jesus was fully God and only appeared to be human, presumably by a particularly well-executed special effect. Adoptionism held that Jesus started off as an ordinary human being, but then God adopted him. Modalism stated that the different "persons" really are just different ways in which God interacts with people (if a devout layman, even an orthodox one, starts to explain the Trinity, the chances are very good that what he will describe will technically be Modalism).

I can't tell yet whether Antimedia is closer to Arianism, Adoptionism, or Psilanthropism (since he seems to have worked out his own view more or less independently, he is probably not exactly any of them). Antimedia, do you happen to know into which of the classical Christological schools you personally fall?

At any rate, all of these variations were attempts by sincere and intelligent people -- like our Antimedia, in fact -- to wrestle with the fact that Jesus was said to be God, but in the Hebrew sense rather than the pagan sense (the early church was absolutely fanatical about distinguishing between God and idols), and yet clearly he was also a man -- oy, what were we to make of all this? Each of the "heretical" explanations ultimately failed because it was seen as not doing justice to at least one aspect of the truth, which aspect(s) the Church was not willing to sacrifice.

When the Catholic Church claims that the Apostles were Chalcedonian Christians, I don't think she means that Thomas (for example) could have expressed mature Trinitarian doctrine. I think she means that if you had put, for example, Arius and Athanasius into a room with St. Peter, and Arius had said, "This is who Jesus was," St. Peter would have said, "Wait, that's not right," but if Athanasius had set out his creed before St. Pete, the ol' Rock would have said, "Yes, that's a great way to put it. You've got that just right."

But the finer points are mostly for the amusement of theologians. It is telling and ironic, I think, that one of the earliest permanent schisms in the Church occurred when the Oriental Orthodox Churches (e.g., Egypt's Copts) refused to accept the Chalcedonian Creed's formulation of two distinct natures, each fully complete, united in one person of Jesus; instead the Oriental Orthodox argued that Jesus had one nature that was both fully divine and fully human. The Orientals said the Chalcedonians were Nestorians and the Chalcedonians said the Orientals were Monophysites. The two different schools of thought proceeded to have nothing to do with each other for the next 1500 years, and now in the last few decades I think they've finally sort of looked at each other and said, "You know, I think we're really saying the same thing and using different words." [rolling eyes]

What I tell the young people and new Christians of my acquaintance is simply this: let's say you have a question of whether Jesus is two natures united, or one nature that is both divine and human. Will the answer either direction ever change a single thing you do, or will it ever change how you relate to Jesus? Because if not -- just shrug and go on. Will it ever make the slightest difference to you whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or from both the Father and the Son? If not, then don't worry about whether or not you should include the Filioque when you say the Nicene Creed. I think it would be pretty hard to prove that somebody who holds that Jesus had one nature that was both fully divine and fully human, is defying Scripture in so doing. But it's quite easy to point out that Christians who quarrel needlessly over words are disobeying a direct command from St. Paul.

By far -- by FAR -- the best book on the different ways people have tried to explain the nature of Christ, is Harold O. J. Brown's Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present. It's a wonderfully readable book as well as being tremendously informative. If you're at all interested in the subject of how the Church worked its way to the Chalcedonian Creed (in 451), then you absolutely should track down a copy of that book and read it.

[jess1dering]

WOW, what interesting thoughts ! And still, I do not know. I await the gift of supernatural knowing, if Infinite and Loving God sees fit to grant that to me.. Until then, I submit myself wholly to Him, for His pleasure, for His purposes. I pray that He responds to my inability to 'know for sure' with His sweet mercy and that He has compassion on me in my 'littleness'. I believe that He loves us all more than we can imagine.

[Stefan]

There are many things of interest in this thread!! I am mostly interested in this idea that the Trinity is an “afterthought” and not something that was an integral part of Christian belief from the beginning. To my mind this is a rather stunning assertion! Do not Christians profess Jesus to be the Lord rather than a Lord? If we worship Jesus and he is not God is this not idolatry or pantheism? The Incarnation means just that does it not? God is Incarnate? What other option could there be? Was Jesus just a very special man akin perhaps to a Greek hero with mixed parentage? Was he part God and part man? Was he “semi-God”? Or was he truly "the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father"? Do not the “apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature". (CCC)? Can a man albeit a “special” man bring about our salvation? Are we not all washed free of Original sin at baptism and then proceed to sin throughout life? Could this sinless, fully-man version of Jesus continue his life perfectly? Perhaps. It seems that only if God truly were incarnate (being fully man and yet fully God) could salvation be achieved. God so loved us that he subjected himself to what in human, earthly terms would be the most severe humiliation and suffering. The Supreme Power humbling himself to share the blood, bone, sinew, and flesh of mankind, to be born in poverty in a stable, to a people who live under the boot of Roman authority that he could show us how to live perfectly. To submit himself to the temptations and suffering of life in a fallen world and yet show us the perfect example of how to submit ourselves fully and completely to the will of God even unto death. Not just any death but he also carried the burden of all the sins of the world not figuratively but literally. Could not only God could achieve this perfect suffering? He was accused of blasphemy which he would not have been accused of if he merely claimed to be the messiah and not the Son of God.
He declares that He will come to be the judge of all men (Matthew 25.31). In Jewish theology the judgment of the world was a distinctively Divine, and not a Messianic, prerogative. (Catholic Encyclopedia)
If we confess Jesus to be Lord (aka God) then don’t we have at least two Persons in the Godhead at this point? Father and Son? Both God (not gods) yet distinct?
Jesus said he would send:
"another Paraclete" (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously "spoken through the prophets", the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them "into all the truth" (CCC)
The OT speaks often of the Spirit of God and Christ reveals the Holy Spirit fully to us and promises his church that he will never abandon it. The Trinitarian doctrine could not be fully revealed until Christ. Revelation works on a “need to know basis” the details or the “nuts and bolts” of how this all works is just to be accepted, faithfully. To restate some points I posted earlier from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (because I can’t express them any better):
The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the "consubstantial Trinity". The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God." ... "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."

Sorry this got so long (it happens so quickly) and I hope it didn’t come across as heavy handed (it is meant in the most collegial manner), but finally as I understand it the Trinity is absolutely central, essential, and fundamental to Christian faith. It is not Poly-theism. If Jesus is not God then we must question what we profess and Christians. If the Trinity is a heresy then haven’t we been in error (as Christians) for 2000 years and if so must rework everything. Thoughts?

[antimedia]

Of all the remarkable things that have come from this conversation, the most remarkable of all has been its gentle progress. I've been in many trinitarian discussions over the years, many of them quite contentious, but I've never been in one like this one. I've so thoroughly enjoyed the back and forth, the musings, the many points of view. I applaud Alexandra for having birthed the most unique of things - a civil conversation about a controversial subject.

Kenny, it's scary how much alike we are and what similar roads we've traveled. I never would have known had it not been for the unique way that Alexandra brought us together.

Life goes on, as does blogging, but I will never forget this experience. It's been incredible.

[Kenny Pierce]

As much as I’m enjoying this conversation, something important seems to me to be getting somewhat lost in all of this (as I think Peggy was hinting a while back).

If you really get to the heart of Trinitarian belief, I think you’ll find that, when we who are most fully convinced of the truth of the doctrine manage to see most clearly and deeply into our own hearts, we believe it because we have experienced deep intimacy and friendship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in a way that cannot possibly be fully communicated without recourse to Trinitarian terminology. What we have experienced in our dealings with God is not adequately expressed except in speaking of Jesus and the Holy Spirit as persons, as distinct individuals, and as divine. It isn’t really theoretical for us; it’s what we live and breathe.

That doesn’t, of course, mean that we are correct when we try to say that Trinitarian doctrine is objectively true of God; it’s always possible to misinterpret your own experience. (That is, the fact that we feel this way doesn’t necessarily mean that our feelings aren’t based on an illusion.) And those of us who understand the subjective/objective distinction, do our best to restrict ourselves to reasonably objective evidence, when talking to people outside our frame of reference. But the wellspring of our deep conviction is our Christian experience.

In my own case, I came back to Christianity, after an early sojourn into agnosticism, through a highly intellectual approach (which has some advantages but also some severe drawbacks); and originally accepted the Trinity on fundamentally historical grounds. But that was many years ago. I gambled on orthodox Christianity’s truth, because it seemed to me that all of the alternatives to orthodox Christianity were bigger gambles than Christianity was – I had to throw the dice, and I was playing the odds. But I’ve been living with the Trinity (and I mean that literally) for a couple of decades now, and He/They have yet to let me down, and I have discovered riches within the doctrine of which I never dreamed when first I weighed it in the balance and decreed the alternatives wanting. It could of course all be an illusion...but I see solid objective reasons to believe it is not an illusion, and I don’t see any particularly good reasons to think that it is.

Yet as I get older and the years continually deepen the experience, I find it harder and harder to pay attention to the old arguments that set my feet on the road, as they slip further and further into irrelevance. I used to have probably twenty shelf-feet or more of New Testament scholarship (from all sides of the spectrum) and controversial works...and then one day it was time to move again and I looked at all those books and I realized that I couldn’t remember when I had last bothered to read them. So I put them in boxes out in the yard and sold the few that people wanted, and left the rest at Goodwill.

When you’re trying to decide whether to adopt a child (I speak from repeated experience here), you weigh the pros and cons and you examine your finances and you pray and you try to act wisely. But if you do start down that road, there’s a point of emotional no return, where the child has become part of your very heart. And then if somebody asks, “Why are you adopting?” you may very well repeat, more or less by rote and out of sheer habit, the reasons you originally had for deciding to adopt. They are still valid reasons, as far as that goes. It’s just that now, if you were really to look at your heart, you would realize that those are no longer your reasons. The old reasons have faded away, and if you listen to your heart you discover that you are adopting the child now simply because love has taken hold of you and won’t let you go.

I'm convinced, deeply, that Trinitarian doctrine didn’t really develop in order to make evangelization work better, as if it were the product of a marketing focus group. We arrived at Trinitarian doctrine, I firmly believe, simply because none of the alternatives, in the end, seemed adequately to express what we Christians had experienced in lifetimes and generations of living and loving the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Don’t you guys agree – I mean this very gently – that the urge to find a way to express your own experience of God, the hunger of the heart to give voice to its in-love-ness, is deeper and more fundamental than the mere urge to convince other people to agree with you? The doctrine of the Trinity is, at bottom, a doctrine of intimacy, and its deepest roots are in the intimacy two millenia of Christians have testified to experiencing with Jesus and with the Holy Spirit. Of course it is also a doctrine of intimacy in the sense that it says that intimacy, at a level that transcends our imagination, is an essential part of the Ground of all Reality – that intimacy exists beyond all space and time, in the fellowship in which God Himself eternally revels, for while He is One, He has never been Alone. But while that may be logically and philosophically the starting point of the doctrine, experientially and historically the starting point is in the Christian experience of intimacy with the God Who loves us with passion beyond bearing.

I’ve enjoyed this conversation enormously, really I have, and I’m not abandoning it. It’s just...well, I’m realizing with surprise that I have the odd sensation of having returned to C. S. Lewis’s bus stop, from The Great Divorce. There was a time, long ago, when I would have been deeply engaged in this discussion because I would have still have been trying to figure out whether or not I was willing to buy the whole Trinitarian schtick; and then another period shortly thereafter where I would have been just as deeply engaged because I got annoyed whenever I found people who were sufficiently foolish as to fail to pay due deference to the transparent wisdom of my own beliefs. Now I’m pushing forty, and I find that I’m enjoying the conversation as much as ever – but now it’s because of how much I’m learning about several very delightful people; it’s the people I’m enjoying and the people I’m interested in learning about, rather than the subject matter. And one of the people I’m learning about, rather to my surprise, is myself...I hadn’t realized how far into the past my own days of intellectual struggle had receded. Apparently you really do (to switch Lewisian allusions) keep going always “further up and further in.”

Forgive the narcissism. I will now stop talking about myself.

SCA, tentatively agree with the main point of your last post, I think, though (shamelessly to plagiarize Carson’s delightful turn of phrase) I reserve the right to have misunderstood you.

A-m...oy, I hate to respond to our Guest’s musings on the cruelty of God, because while I can intellectually see where he’s coming from, I temperamentally have little natural sympathy with it. I can understand his reaction but it’s not a reaction I myself would ever be likely to experience (simply as a matter of emotional temperament). Now, it’s generally a very bad idea indeed to speak to somebody’s logic before you can empathise with his feelings. So you’ll have to give me some time to get into the right frame of mind, or perhaps more accurately the right frame of heart. (Also, Guest, I’d be a bit uncomfortable in speaking to your point if you’re not going to stick around to explain the ways in which I’ve misunderstood you, which are likely to be legion.)

Will stop talking now entirely and listen for a while.

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

In defining the meaning and nature of Christianity, we have to determine to whom we are defining the faith.

Paul, for the most part, preached to gentiles.

Matthew preached to Jews, almost exclusively, while at the same time, competing with them (hence the more adversarial passages). He makes clear that the Law was not only relevant, but integral to Christianity. Paul was not so encumbered as he preached to non Jews.

To reasonably expect a consistent explanation, description or a universal understanding of Christ is patently absurd. Christianity, was by design, meant to appeal to a wide audience. In other words, God speaks to us in familiar language. What was needed to preach to the Jews was not what was needed to preach to pagans.

To the Jews, the Trinity might be interpreted very differently than it would be to gentiles- that is, not a literal trinity, but rather, one of attributes of an already whole God. For gentiles, the Trinity might be understood as a literal trinity, each component making a whole.

It is when we attempt to fuse those beliefs, that are extraneous to Christ, we find ourselves in trouble.

OK, this should cause enough consternation for now.

[Guest]

Dear All,
Excellent points, SCA; I think Tolkien phrased the "development thesis" best in one of his letters (I believe it was addressed to his son Michael) in which he states that the Church is a living, growing organism, like an oak, and that the Protestant demand to return to the "primitive church" (see also Newman's "Apologia" for that one) is unnatural in the same fashion that longing for the oak to revert to and remain forever at the sapling stage would be.
That point granted, we are talking here not about natural growth and development but about radical breaks: the sudden springing of the Trinitarian Doctrine, as Kenny so rightly pointed out previously, is not a natural outgrowth of any previous philosophy derivable from prior Revelation. Nor is the decision recorded in the Book of Acts to renounce the religious framework in which Jesus himself lived a gradual organic development, but, rather, a sharp break.
I agree with you, by the way, that the Christian Church -and I am referring here to those who can actually still be called faithful to the Christian Church, not to the Unitarians, CINOs, and other groups which place radical politics above fidelity to the Bible and Christian tradition- has grown more spiritually beautiful over the years, more "in imago Dei," and closer to what the adjective "Christian" should ideally describe (Lefebvres notwithstanding!). Yes, JPII has taken a very old element in Christian thought, one which was not terribly emphasized in times past (although John Donne did write a sermon in the early 17th century on this Patristic subject), and given it new life and prominence. This is the line of thinking elucidated and espoused by C.S. Lewis in various places, ranging from "The Last Battle" to "Letters on Malcolm", in which he states something to the effect that "although we know that salvation is only through Christ, who says that his saving Grace is limited only to those who believe in him?" I believe, historically, the favorite metaphors were those of highways and streams of water: God's Grace through the Christian Church was the highway or the main river, but it was always recognized that there were other streams, one just couldn't be certain when or where they'd run dry, or whether a given back road was passable.
Kenny, I found your explication of your attitude toward Christian scripture to be cogent and logically sustainable; thank you for the exposition.
Finally, I'd just like say before ending my contribution to this discussion that I have long felt that C.S. Lewis's beautiful description of the various Christian denominations as countries, where he speaks of the believers at the center of each separate "country" as being closer to one another than the people at the respective peripheries, pretty accurately describes the way I feel about devout Christian believers; I wouldn't have limited my "countries" to Christian denominations only.
Thank you for a most enjoyable exchange, and may God bless you all.
Tua fideliter,
Guest

[The Anchoress]

Carson - "...but just as the burning bush had aspects of bush, so Jesus had aspects of man.."

I like that a lot.

A very impressive comments thread - applause to all, particularly to dear Alexandra, the founderess of the feast - this has been fascinating to watch and read!

[antimedia]

To both Guest and Joseph Marshall, thank you so much for your contributions to this discussion. Without an "outside" view, one often is blinded by their own preconceptions.

Kenny, I hate to say it, but even though my Latin goes back over 40 years, I can still understand the saying on your bumper sticker! (The other, on the t-shirt, is a bit fuzzy though.) I suppose that means I had a good teacher. It certainly explains why I wheedled and cajoled my girls until they both enrolled in Latin classes. They may "hate" me for it now, but they will soon be thanking me for the knowledge they gained.

To show you how old-fashioned I am, I think Latin should be mandatory in junior high school. Perhaps even Greek. :-) Because..well..."Sola bona lingua mortua lingua est."

Guest, I was fascinated by your description of the Jewish understanding of the Messiah as a national savior. That's precisely, as I'm certain you know, how the gospels portray Jesus' disciples as understanding him.

I find myself wishing, at this late stage in my life, that I had the time to sit at the feet of a Rabbi and truly learn the Old Testament and the Jewish understanding of it.

I, of course, find your observation about the cruelty of God's changing the story in midstream compelling. I eagerly await Kenny's (or others') response to that aspect of your observations.

[Kenny Pierce]

Guest,

I'm at work and can't explore the ramifications of your very thoughtful comment as I would like, but I think politeness requires me to at least respond to the direct questions. (That's as good an excuse as I need, at any rate.)

Oh, by the way: on the idea that the Isaiah prophecies refer to the nation of Israel as a whole, do you happen to know what is the earliest reference to such an interpretation? I have a vague impression that that interpretation originated with Maimonides, but I figure you're much better informed on that point than I.

As far as the authority of Scripture -- you have to understand that the fact that later bishops said, "We hereby declare that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the Official Four Gospels," doesn't carry decisive weight with me. I am not Catholic and I do not believe that the Church is infallible. I have a great deal of confidence that the gospels of Luke and John are reliable, and I don't pay the slightest attention to the Gospel of Thomas, but that's not because the bishops told me to do it that way -- it's because the gospels of Luke and John do very well on historical criteria while the Gospel of Thomas is pretty much a complete piece of crap (from the perspective of historical usefulness).

I ceased to be an agnostic when I reached the point of concluding that the picture of Jesus drawn by the four canonical gospels was historically accurate in its fundamentals, that the Acts of the Apostles was a reasonably trustworthy (though of course incomplete) contemporary account of the first three decades of the life of the Church, and that the preponderance of evidence was that Jesus had in fact risen from the dead. Given that set of fundamental conclusions (which, I realize, you would consider far from established), it's practically impossible to avoid the conclusion that Saul's conversion was a result of direct Divine intervention and that Paul was indeed speaking under God's authority. That makes Jesus and the apostles, including Paul, vastly more trustworthy than I would be myself, and gives them a better claim to my trust on questions of God's desires and purposes than can be put forward by any competitors not personally vouched for by Jesus (e.g., Mohammed, Hillel, Hans Kueng...).

In other words, anybody can have an opinion about God, but where there are different and conflicting opinions, you have to follow the person you think is most likely actually to have the real scoop. I'm a Christian because I think Jesus can make a heckuva lot better case for having the real scoop than can anybody else. I trust the Church generally speaking more than I trust myself, because I am no saint and brainpower and education are no substitute for holiness; but the Church can't make nearly as good a claim of trustworthiness and reliability as can Paul and the other apostles. So my confidence is primarily in Jesus, secondarily and by derivation in first-generation, hand-picked successors like James and Paul and John (insofar as their stuff remains extant), thirdly and by further derivation in the Church, and fourthly and by still further derivation in those parts of the canon (e.g., Ephesians) that wouldn't earn my confidence on their own merits but for which the Church vouches. That is to say, I trust Ephesians more than I trust my own intuition or theorizing about God, but I trust it less than I trust Philippians (which, unlike Ephesians, is unquestionably Pauline). In practice I submit to the authority of Ephesians just as much as I do to Philippians; but while my practical submission is the same, my confidence level varies significantly.

I hope that makes sense.

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

Thank you, Guest, for a most erudite interpretation and explanation of your theses.

I would have to agree with you that Christianity today is a far cry from the faith and beliefs of the early Christians. That said, so is the faith of the Jews today a far cry from the faith of the early Jews. Clearly, religion evolves. Whether one decides to put a religious imprimatur on those changes or not, that is the reality.

Without going into the obvious points of cataclysmic change, i.e., the shift from a sacrificial based religious system to a prayer based one, even within Jewish religious thought there have been 180 degree shifts all the time.

The conflicts of ideas between the Autharitarian God versus the Rational God is still being played out. Hasidism has become much a part of the religious Jewish experience, today- yet was founded and by those who were vehemently opposed to it's ideologies- and there was- and remains, much conflict. The post war 'truce' is really just that- a truce.

The Messianist Jews in Brooklyn, NY, are somehow given a pass aby mainstream Judaism, when clearly, their beliefs are antithetical to Jewish Messianic belief.

I could go on, but you get the point. It is not my intent to denigrate any part of the Jewish faith- just the opposite, really. As Toynbee pointed out, the Jews are the only people that have survived antiquity. To paraphrase another author, no one in the world is surprised to hear of Jews in Melbourne, or London or Los Angeles. On the other hand, show me a single Hittite- from a group much larger and powerful than the Jews, with a larger society, etc., etc.

Clearly, Jews have survived because they remained true to their faith and evolved at the same time.

Chriatians can and should be afforded the same priviledge. What may seem contradictory to you may be evolutionary to Christians!

The Christian community has come a long way from 'perfidious Jews' (Lebfevere notwithstanding). The theology of Lutheran Church today resembles Luther like I resemble a peach. It has evolved and morphed into something far more 'In His Image.'

The Catholic Church, that slowest of busses, has turned. JPII has changed the dynamic of the Church, not the least of which is the recognition of the Divine gift of the Jews, as eternal- with or without Christ.

The evangelicals have become ardent Zionists. More than that, there is a more subtle change in that group. It is now, they, and not the left, that are stepping in to answer the humanitarian needs in the poorest of countries (Darfur is a classic example)- conversion not required. Enough said there.

At any rate, work interrupts. As MacArthur said, I shall return.

[Joseph Marshall]

Alexandra actually came over to my comment page to solicit this from me. She apparently wants a Buddhist point of view on the fox she's started the very eager hounds after here.

This got very rapidly out of my depth. I once read a Christian description of the Trinity as a "mystery". It is certainly mysterious to me.

What I think I can say is that Buddhism not only has different religious answers than the three major Monotheisms, it also asks radically different religious questions.

Insofar as this thread is not about political conflict [and what thread isn't about it on a blog of this type?--we always come back to "islamofascism" sooner or later] it is about the "nature" of God.

This is not a religious question that Buddhists are that interested in. The Buddhist starting point is, "What is your own life really like? And what can you do about it?"

A comment page is not the place to lay out all the intervening steps of logic, but the conclusion we Buddhists come to from this is that nothing particularly has a "nature", not even God.

Nature, gender, and number are mere mental fabrications which we human beings impose on the world. And these very mental fabrications are what keep us constantly confused about things. The world (and God) is simply beyond any such description: not Male, not Female, not Neuter, not One, not Three-In-One, not Many, not Nothing, not Everything, not Anything-In-Particular.

When pushed--and with the reservation that nothing absolute, definitive, or substansive can be said about any of the words in quotation marks--my teachers say that the way things really are [the way everything really is] is "empty", "luminous", and "unobstructed".

They also say becoming "enlightened" means simply to wake up from our self-made confusion and directly see the world this way, because it already is this way. You don't have to go somewhere else or become someone else to do it.

But I strongly suspect that these notions are as mysterious to you as the Holy Trinity is to me.

[Guest]

Dear All,
I enjoyed catching up on the comments I missed yesterday, but I see that I have a lot of catching up to do! Please forgive me for harking back to certain points that the discussion has already left behind.
First of all, Alexandra's point about the Christian ideal of "turning the other cheek." There seems to me to be a real question about whether that could possibly have been an absolute directive, meant to be valid in every time, place, and circumstance. For example, while I am sure Christians would all agree that if someone had, say, hit Jesus he would not have offered resistance, do you really believe he would have actually stood by and watched, say, an evil man torture and murder a little defenseless 3-year old child? I think not.
Moreover, let's assume for the moment that all Christians decided to "turn the other cheek" to Islamic imperialism. Eventually, the whole world would indeed come under the rule of Allah- and then even Christianity's message could no longer be spread, on pain of death. So, on the spiritual level, you'd be dooming humanity to perdition. Now, I have discussed this question with two very good friends of mine (Late Antiquity scholars, Kenny, incidentally), one of them a Quaker, the other a member of the Plymouth Brethren, and they both said: "Yes, that is correct; even if the world is given over wholly to the dominion of evil as a result of turning the other cheek, this does not matter because the world itself does not matter." This stance is at least intellectually consistent, but I feel that it is inherently problematic to claim that God's creation, which He pronounced to be good, could have been so thoroughly ruined by Original Sin as to be now worthless. Moreover, surely a Christian must believe that God gives human beings the gift of life for a reason- even if the sole reason be for them to learn Christian truth. Even by my friends' lights, then, it would be a negation of God's purpose to allow evil to triumph- because then no one could go on learning Christian truth anymore. In the end, the logicality of the Pacifist interpretation of the "turning the other cheek" seems inherently unsound.
It seems to me more likely that Jesus's injunction was for people to be forbearing and forgiving in their own personal lives, and did not- could not- involve a complete abdication of the necessity of fighting evil, particularly towards others. You can forgive wrongs done to you, but can any human being really arrogate to yourself the power to forgive wrongs done by someone else to a third power? And what happens then to the obligation laid upon us by God to run a just and godly society? The Hebrew Bible states that if one sees a man trying to murder another, one must hasten to kill the murderer before he can commit the crime. We are no longer even talking about justice, but about the prevention of the triumph of injustice and evil. In short, Alexandra, I concur with your sense that "turning the othyer cheek" couldn't have been meant to apply to a societal context- otherwise murderers, rapists, and evil-doers would roam unhindered terrorizing the land and actually hindering people's salvation and preventing the living of a godly life.
Second point: Anti-media, your 11:08 post raised a very interest point about an aspect of Christian theology that has always troubled me: Would God really have done everything to make a people deeply and completely monotheistic, to the point of emphasizing that he is ONE, and have even enjoined upon them not to believe anybody who tries to change that core message (see Deuteronomy), and then have turned around after a few thousand years and said,"Surprise!" Guess what? There's this certain absolutely key, central aspect about my nature which I've been hiding from you until now; I am not really one, but three-in-one. By His own injunction from Deuteronomy, He would have ensured that this message would be, must be rejected by anyone who wished to remain faithful to him- and that would have been a very cruel trick to have played on people who suffered everything to remain faithful to the mission He had enjoined upon them. I think we can all agree that God does not put stumbling blocks before people- and the very fact that the entire Hebrew bible is so unrelentingly monotheistic, the fact (which you yourself admit) that there isn't a hint of a Trinity anywhere in there, makes it exceedingly unlikely that He suddenly sprung upon Israel, whom He had charged with bringing His name to the world, a little surprise like that, so contrary to everything he had taught them to uphold.
A number of you also mentioned Jesus's saying that he had "come to fulfill the law not to abolish it." yes, let's face it, as Christianity developed it WAS abolished- even the ten commandments! How many Christians follow the injunction: "Thou shalt not light a fire in any of your settlements on the Sabbath day"? I know the standard Christian interpretation: "Jesus himself was and is the Fulfillment." Yet, again, it seems to me that here Christianity is most definitely viewing the Bible and teaching given to Israel, as Antimedia so astutely observed, through Christian eyes, not Jewish one.
The commandments are followed by Jews, not because they think any individual Jew has been promised personal salvation by this, but because they are RIGHT- they are God's expression of a moral law, they are the expression of His will as to how men should lead their lives. I once asked my aforesaid Plymouth Brethren friend, "Ok, let's assume you don't NEED to keep the Sabbath or the laws of kosher eating in order to win salvation; but shouldn't you keep them anyway, since they were God's indication of a desirable way of life- and, moreover, since the ideal of Imitatio Christi would demand such a thing at any rate, since God himself, walking the earth, saw fit to keep them?" That is, if one admits that Jesus was the paradigm of proper living, shouldn't Christians want to copy EVERYTHING he did, particularly things involving religion and God??? To put it bluntly, even- nay, especially- for a Trinitarian, if you think God Himself kept the Jewish Sabbath, why on earth aren't you doing so- not because you have to, but out of love and the desire of imitatio Christi?
SC&A: You state in various places that "The acceptance of a creed aspect is not relevant to Jews." If by that you mean an entire catechism, yes, you are correct. However, there is the statement repeated by every Jew several times a day: "And you shall love your lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Yes, it is more important for someone to live in accordance with God's plan, and there is also the idea which you state that "an act of good, by itself, can induce faith at a later date"- which, by the way, Dostoevsky also wrote somewhere, to the effect that "There is a faith which must first be acted and lived in order to be truly believed." (I think it's from "Crime and Punishment" but don't hold me to it) I remember that it struck me at the time as very Jewish; the mishna, the ancient Jewish commentary, states that "A good deed draws a good deed after it, and a transgression draws a transgression." The idea being that, since people exist and live on both a spiritual and a bodily level, any action one commits on the physical plane inevitably influences one's spiritual state.
Finally, the question (I cannot remember who posed it) about Messianic belief in Judaism. Here we get back to the problem of viewing things through Christian eyes; Judaism is not Christianity without the Jesus! You must remember, first, that the meaning of the word "Messiah" has changed greatly. Christianity does not envision Jesus as the Messiah, it envisions him as the redeemer from sin or as God Himself, sacrificing himself to himself in expiation for mankind.
The original Jewish idea of a messiah was one of a national deliverer; this is a much more limited goal. Many passages which were afterwards understood in a deeply Christological sense (I am thinking primarily of Isaiah's "Suffering Servant" here) did not refer to the Messiah (lit., please note, "the annointed one"- not the "Son of God" or "God Himself") at all, but rather to Israel as a people. And, indeed, if we look at the history of Israel from then until now, who can deny that Isaiah's prophecy has borne out in every last, excruciating detail: "despised and rejected among men, though he was blameless", etc. One can only pray that the conclusion of that prophecy as well shall come to pass, which, if you recall, referred to the suffering servant sitting happily under his fruit trees with his descendants. That is, Israel's "chosenness" means that, in bearing God's name and suffering accordingly for that in the world, Israel itself is in some unfathomable way actually healing mankind. In Jewish theology, Israel itself is, if you will, the suffering one on the cross. I think it was Pope Benedict XVI, and not John Paul II who called Auschwitz "the Golgotha of the Jews", and I thought that this was the most theologically Jewish statement I had ever heard.
Back to the actual Jewish vision of the messiah, however: there is some disagreement about whether the messiah will be a purely political figure who will simply "break the yoke of the nations" upon Israel (the view of the medieval commentator Maimonides) or whether the more eschatological visions of the Prophets- lions lying down with lambs, nations beating their swords into ploughshares- are connected to this figure, which then becomes a more powerful one. I humbly maintain that we haven't a clue, but that God will reveal this, if we are meant to know it, in His own good time.
Note that the function and role of a messiah are not to redeem men from their sins. It is somewhat ironic: Christian controversial literature always speaks of "the jealous God of the Jews" and the "loving God of the Christians"; yet the Jews are the ones who believe that God is loving enough and willing enough to forgive sin merely as an answer to the contrition and prayer of those who ask (look at King David, or Israel during the First Exile, for those of you who want Biblical support that this was efficacious without the need for physical sacrifices). That is, Original Sin does not exist in the Hebrew Bible. God informs us what humanity's punishment was for Adam and Eve's disobedience, and Original Sin isn't on the list of curses there. That is, mankind never had the power to mar God's creation to the extent that Original Sin implies; we are still, fundamentally, on the level that God has made us: between the angels and the animals. There is therefore no logical necessity in Judaism for a Savior: God is our Savior, freely, out of His love, because he understands our nature and our weakness and our efforts. Abraham believed, "and it was accounted to him as righteousness." Out of God's charity, not because Abraham, or any of us, ever actually are. So, in the end, the Christian conception of God (or at least of one third of Him) is far grimmer and starker than anything in Judaism.
Carson: You asked about sects of Judaism which don't accept anything other than the Pentateuch (Torah): those are the Samaritans (Shomronim). In all the world, there are, I believe, something like 500 of them left: one community on Mt. Gerizim near Shechem (today's Nablus), and the other, much smaller, in Holon.
Kenny: you stated somewhere that "I accept the authority of the Church because, and insofar as, the documents vouch for the Church, not the other way around." Yet, as my Catholic friends inform me, it was the authority of the Bishops in Council which canonized the New Testament, not the other way around. It is somewhat paradoxical to say that a canon which derived its authority from that of the Church then holds superior, rather than derivative, authority. Or are you saying that the Bishops were at one point guided by the Holy Spirit but then, at some undefined point, lost that guidance? Where did it go from there, and why did God abandon His Bride, the mystical body of Christ, at that point?
Anyway, I think I had better end here. My apologies for having taken so much space, and also for the unavoidable delay in returning to this most absorbing conversation. My profoundest apologies if I have somehow managed, inadvertently, to offend anyone. I have the profoundest reverence and respect for Christianity; there are many beautiful aspects to its theology, and it brought forth some of the greatest religious productions of mankind. I simply cannot answer Alexandra's original question in the way in which someone who subscribes to the Athanasian Creed would.
Yours most cordially,
The Guest Redivivus

[Kenny Pierce]

A-m,

You can play, too, with J.R.R. Tolkien's idea that myths and instinctive rituals (such as animal sacrifice) are hints of the truth, prefigurations of the Incarnation -- that Jesus is not only the fulfillment of the revelation to the Jews, but the fulfillment of the myth of Osiris as well. In this view paganism was a constant tug-of-war between God's grace drawing the pagan toward the parts of his religion that could end up at the feet of Jesus, and Satan's deception trying to seduce the pagan toward the parts of his religion that could corrupt him past the point of redemption. Not to send us very far down that rabbit trail, but it's an idea you can play with if you want.

By the way, I meant to thank you for the very kind compliment on that blog post. I'm glad you found it useful.

One other note of no consequence to anybody except my own conscience: don't be overly impressed with the Aeneid stuff, because I can't read it anymore and haven't been able to for a decade...I was a classics major twenty years ago, but by the time I realized I was letting my Latin slide, it was already too far gone to rescue; though I can still read my T-shirt that says, "Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes," and my bumper sticker that says, "Sola bona lingua mortua lingua est." There, now I can stop feeling like I've inadvertently exaggerated my cultural chops. I'll sleep better now.

("If you can read this, you're over-educated," and, "The only good language is a dead language.")

[antimedia]

Stefan, I think "marketing tools" would be an anachronistic way of looking at the issue. Imagine you're a Christian in 2nd century Antioch. You're working with a new convert and they mention some festival that was celebrated locally and how much they enjoyed it. Your mind goes to a Christian celebration that is remarkably similar and you mention it to the convert. You both agree to celebrate the convert's new-found faith by incorporating elements of the local festival into an upcoming Christian festival.

Is that "a marketing gimmick"? I suppose a cynical person would say so. But we always have to be careful about imposing our twenty-first century thinking on first and second century minds. (Not that they were any less intelligent than we. They simply didn't think in the same constructs that we do.)

I think there's great merit in your point about "shadows" of truth in other religions. For example, the Babylonian religion had a god, Nimrod, whose wife bore a son who was also a god (if I recall, I think his name was Tammuk), so you had the "shadows" of God the Father, Mary and the Son of God in that religion. As Kenny wrote in his blog article, Satan always weaves elements of truth into his lies, because the closer they are to the truth, the more convincing they become and the more people that are taken in by those lies.

In fact, I think scholars often "get it wrong" completely when they do things like this for example: many ancient cultures have a flood myth. The Christian bible has a flood myth. The Bible was written after these ancient cultures existed, therefore the flood myth in the Bible is simply an echo of these previous myths. It seems they ignore the possibility that all these flood myths can be explained by one simple thing - there actually was a flood, and the memory of that flood was passed down through the generations and cultures. Now that there's actually some geological evidence for that, it seems even more plausible, don't you think? Yet, somehow the truth of the Bible always gets denied and disputed until the evidence for its basic truth becomes too overwhelming to deny. (There are tons of examples of this, such as when David lived, whether or not Jerusalem was actually a "city" at the time, whether or not a tunnel was dug under the city when the Bible says it was, etc., etc., ad infinitum ad nauseum.)

[Stefan]

A-m,
Perhaps. To me the idea that the Trinity was used as a marketing gimick is deeply, deeply cynical (of course, please forgive me if this is not your attitude) and I have heard the argument of the use of pagan customs but it is usually used to...shall we say "unseat" Christian traditions by "proving" that they were phony, stolen, or in some cases not "truly" Christian ie: Jehovah's Witness arguments about holy days (again forgive me if this is not your attitude but I have encountered this alot!) Were dates ajusted by humans to fit thier customs...probably but what does this prove? Not much. If you believe in God's "continued revalation" of himself to man there there may be many glimpses of God in pagan and other pre-Christian and non-Chistian religions. They were and are in error but Truth is Truth. Christians endevoured to find and (in JRR Tolkien's words) "Sanctify" those eternal Truths that other religions and traditions may have just seen or intuited the shadows of. If one believes that God is revealed in his creation then the belief in the "early" gods were just the first stumbling steps that the human race has taken towards Him. We searched for God the best we could. We would have always been in the dark unless God hadn't revealed himself to Israel and transformed the Jews from a one of many nomadic desert tribes into the the chosen people and to them he revealed himself further through his Son, who then extended the promise of redemtion to all mankind. It has been progressive. We have been led in baby steps so to speak!! Perhaps.

[antimedia]

Stefan, you wrote

The idea that the concept of the Trinity was embraced as a conversion tool seems to me counter-intuitive. The idea of a single God is much easier to swallow than the mind boggling idea that God is three distinct people in perfect unity.

In the world of Jesus time, aside from the Jews, every religion was polytheistic in nature. (I say every - I'm not aware of one that was monotheistic, but there may have been one.) Certainly the Greeks and Romans were polytheistic, so the idea of a triune God, while unique, would not have been startling at all to them. In fact, many of the pagan customs of the time were incorporated into the church, in an effort to make the members' "transition" to Christianity less difficult/confusing. Christmas, for example, has its roots in pagan theology and was "co-opted" by the church to celebrate Jesus' birth (which was most likely in September, not December.)

So, while it might seem counterintuitive to us moderns, it would have "fit right in" with the worshippers of Mars, Apollo, Venus, et. al. For them, the idea of "only" one God was a source of great amusement.

[Stefan]

This is all very interesting for me to read. See we have many denominations of Christians speaking here and as a Catholic some of these ways of thinking of the Holy Trinity are interesting. Although some of the differences might appear subtle but they have very profound implications. The idea that the concept of the Trinity was embraced as a conversion tool seems to me counter-intuitive. The idea of a single God is much easier to swallow than the mind boggling idea that God is three distinct people in perfect unity. I think that the Catholic understanding of the Trinity (while probably known by most here might be interesting for others) and could be helpful in some regards to the discussion. Since I can't say it any more clearly than it is laid out in the Catechism I shall take the liberty to quote from it directly.

Christians are baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" Before receiving the sacrament, they respond to a three-part question when asked to confess the Father, the Son and the Spirit: "I do." "The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity."

Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their names,55 for there is only one God, the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: the Most Holy Trinity.

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the "hierarchy of the truths of faith". The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men "and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin".

The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). "Theology" refers to the mystery of God's inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and "economy" to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God's works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions.

The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God". To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature".

Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea that the Son is "consubstantial" with the Father, that is, one only God with him. The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed "the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father"

Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of "another Paraclete" (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously "spoken through the prophets", the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them "into all the truth". The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father.

The eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is revealed in his mission in time. The Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father. The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus' glorification reveals in its fullness the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the "consubstantial Trinity". The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God."

The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary." "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit" are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son." They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds." The divine Unity is Triune.

The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance." Indeed "everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship." "Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son."

This may be nothing new to many of you but I think that it is a very clear and "to the point" understanding of the Catholic tradition of the Trinity and I would be interested in seeing where non Catholics might agree or disagree. Thanks!!

[antimedia]

Kenny, I thought that's what you meant by the terms, but I wanted to make sure, which is why I asked for clarification.

carson, I'm struggling with how to provide further clarity. I'm not sure I understand what you're asking for, but I think this may be it. I do not believe that Jesus Christ existed before the moment of conception in the womb of Mary. But since his father was (literally) God, he was born sinless (without Adam's taint, which is passed down to every one of us.) Once born, he had the same potential as each of us - to commit sin or not - to obey God or not. The "only" difference between him and any other human was his father. (That's an incredible difference, and I don't mean to minimize it in any way.) I believe that Jesus Christ deserves our utmost respect and reverence because he could have refused to obey God and we would be unredeemed, yet he chose, of his own free will, to die so that we might live. For me, that sacrifice is made much more poignant and important because he didn't have to do it.

Does that help?

[carson]

Kenny. Yes. If I understand you (and I reserve the right not to have) I absolutely agree with you.

Thank you all for this very pleasant discussion.

[Kenny Pierce]

A-m,

I didn't see (unless I just missed it) an explanation of the terms univocal and equivocal, which you mentioned early on but seemed to neglect after that.

Yipes! Did I really forget to explain those? I'll have to go do an update.

Okay, this is a logic lesson coming up and I'm sorry about that 'cause I know the eyes glaze over instantly...will make it as short and entertaining as I can manage, and I'll oversimplify a bit by ignoring the fuzziness of the terminology ("fuzziness" here is also a technical logical term but I'm NOT going to explain that one).

There are actually three closely related terms: univocal, equivocal, and analogical.

In univocal speech, every time I use a particular word, I use it exactly the same way. I say, for example, "Every man is mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal." When I say, "Socrates is a man," the word man means the same thing it means when I say, "Every man is mortal." Outside of arguments, I use a word univocally if I use it the same way when talking about different examples: when I say, "Pop is my father," and later I say, "I'm Kegan's father," I am using the word "father" the same way in both cases.

In equivocal speech, I use a single word to mean two different things. "Each peach is a fruit. My mother-in-law is a peach. Therefore my mother-in-law is gay..." And because this is "equivocal" speech, and also obviously complete b.s., such an argument is said to suffer from the "fallacy of equivocation." You heard me use this term already when I argued that what pagans meant by "a god" is something very different from what Jews and Christians meant and mean by "God," and therefore you were using the term "god" equivocally.

The third kind of speech is analogical, and I think I explained that at some length in the original post; so unless you say differently I'll not explain it further here.

The reason the distinction between univocal and analogical speech is important is that syllogistic logic and the Law of Contradiction (to which you implicitly appeal when talking about the difficult of "reconciling the tenets of the Trinity to each other") apply only to univocal speech. Analogic (as opposed to logic) is a much trickier thing: as I said in that post, analogical speech can be false, but distinguishing between true and false analogical speech is much more complex than distinguishing between true and false univocal speech. (If you have already realized that I am using the very words "true" and "false" analogically which I talk of true and false analogical speech, then you have graduated and the lesson is over.) An argument in univocal terminology can be valid or contradictory, but an analogy has the third option of being paradoxical.

To take the nature of light as an example: the word wave was originally coined as a label for waves of water. When we use the word to discuss ocean waves or the wake of a jet-ski, we are using the word univocally. Again, the word particle was originally drawn from the image of a tiny little ball like a grain of sand. When we speak of a particle of dust, we are using the word univocally.

When a scientist talks about an ocean wave, and its magnitude, and its wavelength, he is using all these terms univocally, and an oceanographers can spend a career speaking univocally of waves. Now, there are equations that help you analyze waves and predict their behavior, etc. And a century or so ago, scientists who were studying light realized that those same equations could, in the correct contexts, give you the right answers to important questions about light. So they started talking about light as a "wave" -- in this case, analogically: they meant that light was like a wave in the sense that the same forms of equations could be applied to both, and thinking of light as a wave helped you remember the equations.

But then they realized that in other contexts, light behaved more like a little grain of sand (though one that was literally weightless). So they also started talking about how light "is" a particle -- that is, it's like a little chunk of matter in the sense that the same forms of equations can (in the right contexts) be applied to both, and thinking of light as a little ball helps you remember those equations.

In ordinary life, something can either be a grain of sand, or it can be an ocean wave, but it can't be both at once. So if I say, "This thing is a wave, but it is also a grain of sand," and I mean those terms univocally, I am contradicting myself. But I'm not contradicting myself when I say that light is both a wave and a massless particle, because all I'm really saying is that in certain predictable ways light behaves like a wave, and in other predictable ways light behaves like a really tiny little grain of sand. Light is NOT really (that is, univocally) a wave, nor is it really (that is, univocally) a particle. Light is light. It is its own self, and not anything else, and since (at the quantum level) we never experience it directly, we have no univocal language with which to talk about it. So we use analogies, and we get along fine that way.

Now apply this to theology -- say, the controversy over free will and predestination. Some Christians are passionately convinced that God is sovereign -- in other words, they say that our relationship with God is like the relationship between a feudal subject and an absolute monarch. Others are convinced that human beings have free will -- in other words, they say that our relationship with God is like the relationship between a free American and the President. Now, in ordinary human relationships -- that is, in the context under which the words sovereign and free were originally developed -- I can do what I want whether you like it or not, or you can make me do what you want whether I like it or not, but not both. And therefore silly Christians who do not understand St. Thomas's point, sit around and argue passionately, "But we can't really have free will because God is sovereign and human free will can't be reconciled with Divine sovereignty!" or "But God can't be fully sovereign because humans have free will and human free will can't be reconciled with Divine sovereignty!"

But while our relationship with God is more like a relationship with another human being than it is like anything else, it is still radically different from human relationships. Our relationship with God is our relationship with God. It is its own self, and not anything else, and since (save for the mystics) we don't ordinarily experience it directly, human language hasn't and won't and can't develop univocal terms for it. So the apparent contradiction between Divine sovereignty and human free will is in exactly the same class as the apparent contradiction between saying light is a wave and saying it is a particle. Analogies break when you push them too far, that's all; and part of wisdom is knowing when to apply which analogy. Think about it: when Jesus set out to teach people about the kingdom of heaven, did he sit down and write out a book of systematic theology? No, he just kept saying over and over, "The kingdom of heaven is like this; the kingdom of heaven is like that...like a mustard seed...like a king throwing a party...like a farmer sowing seed...like a bunch of virgins waiting for a bridegroom...like a rich man going on a journey and leaving several different servants in charge of chunks of money...like a poor widow pestering an unjust judge..."

Finally, to bring this back to the subject of this thread, when Trinitarian doctrine says, "God is three Persons in one Deity," it really means two things:

1. It's helpful to think of God rather as if He were a family of three people ("three Persons..."). But it's only helpful so long as you don't make the mistake of thinking this means that those three persons experience the unbridgable mutual isolation, and inevitable conflict of egos, that any three human beings will (in our finiteness and sinfulness) necessarily experience ("...one God"). You could say that the "Persons" (for lack, literally, of a better word) are like people in being aware of their individuality and uniqueness but not like people in experiencing (by nature) separation and conflict. All the advantages of personhood that we experience, They experience in unimaginable richness, but without the disadvantages.

2. Any other attempts to picture God (as a single indivisible person, as a triangle, as a Life Force, as a cube of Personhood compared to our one-dimensional personality, etc.), while useful for particular purposes in limited contexts, represent at the broadest level a move away from the Divine reality rather than toward it. That is, if you have to choose just one single image and make do with that one alone, then, "three persons, one God," is the best you can do. In that sense, Trinitarian doctrine is "the" truth about God.

But it is not the only image that is true (i.e., analogically more helpful than harmful, when used properly). And it is still no more than an image; and only a very silly person indeed would refrain from making appropriate use of all the rich variety of other images that God uses in Scripture to reveal to us Himself. It is only the best single image available, that's all we're saying -- but then, that's saying a lot.

Does that help?

[carson]

a-m, I read one of your last comments with interest: "He [Jesus] was therefore capable of living a sinless life yet fully capable of disobeying God. He chose not to. He also chose to die for us, despite the fact that we didn't deserve it, because God asked him to."

I'm having trouble lining up that post with your earlier "It is not possible for a man to be both man and God at the same time, although this was a common belief of that age."

You can probably see from earlier comments that I'm in the "both" camp. And I completely agree with that first quote.

I'm not arguing with you, just asking for clarification. . .

[antimedia]

Peggy, my apologies for the really bad example. For me personally, I'd done searching for God, and I don't have to struggle to trust in Him. I'm perfectly happy knowing that I'm imperfect and flawed yet He loves me anyway. I'm not by any means saying I've reached "perfection" or "nirvana" or whatever you want to call it, but I've stopped questioning.

That doesn't appear to be the same religion as yours, but there you have it.

[carson]

North by Northwest-- you said
"If only we could persuade Peggy and Carson et al., who believe otherwise [that the NT not only claims to be divinely inspired, but actually is], to understand that in so stating its teachings and wisdom are in no way portrayed to be of diminished importance and/or value."

This seems an odd point to begin persuading someone of something. But wisdom or truth of divine inspiration (to me) is by definition of greater value than what some easily exasperated former tentmaker thinks. I don't think you can prove divine inspiration, outside of watching the hand write on the wall. You can disprove it; the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of the Cross were omitted for some good reasons. But I'm pretty sure that there is as much basis for divine inspiration of I Corinthians as there is of Micah (or any other minor prophet.)

[Kenny Pierce]

SCA,

Kenny, the issue of NT origins is not straighforward.

[laughing merrily] Oy, don't I know it. I don't want to count the hours I spent on the scholarship as a young man.

I'm not terribly interested in what different churches think, though. I accept the authority of the Church because, and insofar as, the documents vouch for the Church, not the other way around. Many Orthodox and Roman Catholics would very probably consider my attitude arrogant, even hubristic; but if I'm going to have to form an opinion about whether Mary and Joseph had normal marital relations after Jesus' birth, I'm not going to ask the Pope, 'cause he doesn't have any better idea than I do -- neither one of us was there, and I can see all the extant primary and secondary evidence just as well as he can, plus unlike the Pope I don't have any particular stake in the answer to that particular question. Again, there are well-established criteria for historical reliability that can be applied both to the Gospel of Luke (which does quite well) and the Gospel of Thomas (on which only a very great fool indeed would bet a Confederate dollar), not one of which criteria is, "The Council of Nicea liked it."

Is there a particular point at which you think I am putting too much reliance on a given view of Christian origins? The dating of the gospels, perhaps? I can assure you that I have never asked the Church to tell me when the Gospels were written; I have a heckuva lot better training in the handling and dating of ancient texts than do most Anglican bishops (for example) and I can do it myself...but maybe that's not what inspired your warning. When you get a chance, shoot some clarification my way.

Hey, on a much more important question: are you feeling better?

[peggy]

Antimedia,

That is a really bad example. I'm sorry to say it. What on earth does your singular experience prove?

It proves that God loved you enough to protect you from your stupidity (I mean that in the gentlest way) and foolish risk taking. Its like a card trick for him to do something like that but he doesnt mind saving us from ourselves even in the small things. He loves us so much that he is willing to bless us with rain or money or some other small blessing or sign whether we are wrong about him or not, whether we accept the truth or not. God hears and most times answers the sincere prayers of all who call in him regardless of their beliefs or religion. It is a sign of his generosity, not a sign of his approval of our various ideas of him.

At best, I would say that you felt a call because God wanted to teach you something by the experience. But I dont think the moral of the story was, "Congratulations! Your trust in me is complete." You are still human and still alive. You are not done with anything yet. When you say that you need more certainty that is a statement of dependence on something other than God.

So you have mastered just one facet of trust in God. You trust in him to provide for you and your family. There is a hell of a lot more to trust than that. It is a lifelong battle to trust on every front imaginable. To think otherwise is to sucuumb to complacency. Complacency is poisonous to faith. It may not necessarily kill it off, but it at the very least damages it. We must always dig deeper and with God's help, defy our deepest and strongest dependencies that cause us to rely on them and cling to them instead of Him.

Reason if it is sound will lead us to leap out on faith away from our deepest and strongest dependencies, away from that solid ground of something or other and to fall more fully into the arms of God. We need to take a step away from the things that we most cling to in order to really see. We need to really see if we hope to in any way fulfill God's intent for us. Trust is a practice and a whole life discipline not an event.

Everything that is not God can tempt us away from God. It can happen even with the Scriptures because of our weakness and fallibility. It can happen with God's laws. If we say that anything is of such value that even God puts it above Himself on a permanent basis without possibility of an exception, then we have elevated that thing above God. We cast about blindly in the world for something more certain than God is to us but the problem is we dont have any standard but our feelings in order to judge what is most valuable. You have, like I did, like alot of people do, decided that Scripture alone is trustworthy. If it aint in the Bible stated in a way that is obvious, then you dont believe it. For other people, the most valuable thing is order or law. They decide that knowing what to do at all times is the most valuable thing and God obediently submits himself to that divine order and never upsets anyone by messing with it. We all know just through common sense that even religious montheists can be idolaters. In fact, we all are most of the time. Religion in general seems designed to cure us of idolatry, but to greater and lesser degrees. The way that is most upsetting to us and our blindly chosen preferences belongs to orthodox Christianity. It flies in the face of everything that gives men a sense of security. In return, step by step, comes a security not based on any of these things which frees man to really obey God's law and to fully enjoy his good creation. In the end we get what we want but we have to give it up first in order for it to be returned to us restored to its original condition and relationship in our lives. The disapproval of men is the best tonic to get us over ourselves. To be called a fool or to have someone say to you that you are crazy or illogical separates you from the lumpen mass of the mob of mankind so that you can return to it a man capable of fully living in community with others, someone independent who choses to live communally rather than someone who goes with the crowd and what it values.

Human beings love our collective version of reason and respectability most of all. We love to be thought intelligent, learned etc. We love to be right and we love it even more to be able to seem to be able to prove to others that we are right. What is not obvious to us is that even our ability to reason needs redeeming. In itself reason is a good thing created by God, but in our fallible hands we mess it up. Giving it up in favor of faith, results in it being returned to us restored t its right balance in our lives where we dont rely on it more than we should but yet still enjoy its blessings. We are also restored by faith so that what comes back to us can not fully return to the old imbalance. The thing we gave up is ours again for good and should thereafter work for our good not our detriment.

Ok, Ive lost the train of my thought now. Its getting late. Its time to quit cause I'm beginning to go in cirles. I hope at least that you get my point in all of this.

[antimedia]

Kenny, I finally had time to read your blog post about the trinity. I think you do as fine a job of attempting to explain it as any I've seen. However, I didn't see (unless I just missed it) an explanation of the terms univocal and equivocal, which you mentioned early on but seemed to neglect after that. (Or was I reading the wrong post?)

I wonder if you could explain those two terms as you understand them?

[Kenny Pierce]

Peggy,

I'm enjoying your posts very much. I'm about to do to you what I periodically do to Alexandra: I'd like to give you an idea and see what you can do if you run with it, because it seems to me that the idea would really resonate with you.

Here's the basic concept: Many moderns naturally think of God's creation as a machine, when part of the implication of the Trinitarian view is that God is more like an Artist than like an Engineer. A computer program is perfectly reliable and does exactly the same thing every time, and a perfectly clean, elegant piece of software is certainly something to be proud of -- but I'd be the first to admit that it can't compete with Julius Caesar or the Divine Comedy or the Aeneid or Anna Karenina or the Ode to Joy.

A great artist works from general laws and forms, but derives some of his greatest effects from the strategic violation of those laws. As a former classics major who can still reel off the opening lines of the Aeneid in his sleep, I've always liked C. S. Lewis's example of the rules for the meter Vergil used, though I don't know how well much it would help other people. (It's a "law" that every line must end with the rhythm "long short-short long long," but on very rare occasions Vergil deliberately ends a line "long long long long." It always generates an overpowering effect, but only because he almost never does it. If he didn't usually follow the rules, then when he broke them nobody would notice and there would be no effect; but if he never broke the rules he'd never get the effect. But this is a bad example for anybody who doesn't read Latin poetry for pleasure, and I bet you can come up with a much better one.) Anyway, creation is more like a novel than it is like a machine, and the laws of nature function in God's transcendent work of art the way the laws of dactylic hexameter work in the Aeneid.

And then you can go one better and add that while God is more of an Artist than He is an Engineer, he is even more of a Lover than He is an Artist...creation isn't just a novel, it's a romance...the laws of Love are as far superior to the laws of Art as are the laws of Art to the laws of physics...anyway, I'd be very interested to see where you could go from that starting point.

If you're interested, I mean.

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

Kenny, the issue of NT origins is not straighforward. Different churches have different beliefs.

See this, for starters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament#Roman_Catholicism_and_Eastern_Orthodoxy

[antimedia]

Peggy, first of all, if I gave you the impression that I was arguing with you, I apologize. I'm only trying to express, however imperfectly, my beliefs.

You wrote

One last problem is this. If Jesus was an man like all men, then he could not have done what he did without God's full participation. The only way to preserve the humanity of Jesus is for him to be united with God in some way. Otherwise you are saying that Jesus was a specially created being specially created for his task somone who is neither God nor like other men. Without God in the equation, the humanity of Jesus is sacrificed not preserved. Man is also erased from the act of salvation. Without God, no man is capable of living the sinless life that Jesus did. Otherwise you must conclude that that Jesus wasnt a man but something more than a man. Only a perfect union of God and man in the way God originally intended for us can result in a sinless man who is truly a man.

Here's what I believe. Mary was Jesus' mother. God was his father. For this to be possible, God would have had to have impregnated an egg inside of Mary through miraculous means. (Shouldn't be a problem for God, right?) Luke uses the word "covered" which normally refers to how animals copulate, but that's because greek doesn't have a word for what God actually did, which was perform a miraculous conception.

Leviticus says that the life of the flesh is in the blood. The blood of the baby comes from the father and never mingles with the mother's blood (unless there's a medical problem.) Therefore, Jesus was a human being, but his blood was perfect and sinless because his Father is perfect and sinless. (You could even call him "divine" in the sense that his father was God, therefore he had the traits of his father [as well as his mother, of course.]) His DNA, if you will, would have been one-half Mary's and one-half "God's" (not that God has DNA.)

He was therefore capable of living a sinless life yet fully capable of disobeying God. He chose not to. He also chose to die for us, despite the fact that we didn't deserve it, because God asked him to. (If it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but thine be done.)

[peggy]

Antimedia,

You said the following about something that I said.

""One thing you wrote, that I would addresss specifically, is this.

"I dont see how it is logical to say that God could not unite with flesh in a way that wouldnt lessen God or overwhelm the flesh. If God is God, he can do anything including everything that we think is impossible. There is nothing he cant do. If God is God, he cannot be lessened in any way by any condition least of all in coming into his own creation to dwell in flesh."

This could be analogized to the silly argument that atheists sometimes present, which is, could God make a rock so big that He can't lift it?

My response to that is always, God's not that stupid.

However, I do believe, and I believe that scripture tells us, that God has deliberately chosen to work within the "laws of nature" (or physics, if you will) that he created. ""

My Answer-- if you think that what I am saying is analogous to the atheist argument, you are very much mistaken.

I am not trying to say that God does not abide by his own rules. I am saying that he chooses to abide by them. He is greater than them. I am not saying that he regularly flouts his own laws as some sort of rule. What I am saying is that he can choose to very wisely and selectively to break them. If he broke his own rules, it would only be for a good reason one seen by his superior and perfect wisdom. It would not be some regular thing for him neither would it be some willy-nilly thing.

God retains the power over his laws. He chooses to abide by them. He did not choose to put himself under their power. He did not choose to never break those laws for any reason. reason. Abiding by his own physical laws is his natural and regular mode of operation just as he chooses to relate to us in a consistently moral way. This is his nature to so abide by these things but he could choose differently. He is the soveriegn of the universe. His laws, his own creations, could never be.

What could ever be a good enough reason to dispense with the separation of spirit and flesh? It would be an act motivated by love and it would be only at the greatest necessity. It is in fact essential to God's sovereignty, compassion, mercy and love that he at some point exercise his power over Creation and break some rule. It is would be a testament to his character if the result of breaking that rule would be for the benefit and the rescue of all mankind.

That wise, loving and just criteria would be satisfied by his breaking through into the flesh in a powerful and awesome act of love, in the ultimate act of love by a creator on a rescue mission to save the whole of creation. That intrusion into the flesh would also be a part of his plan and his laws from the beginning. It would be no exception.

Love is not an exception to God's laws. No act of Love on his part even the mightiest or the most unlikely could possibly be an exception to His laws.

You seem to forget that there is a higher law than the laws that govern the physical realm. More than anything else, God abides by the moral law and by the law of Love. Prudent exceptions to the physical laws motivated by love is no contradiction.

You also wrongly lump spirit into physical law. If you are going to resort to physical law which can be quantified and measured you cant also include in those laws spirit which can't be quantified or measured. Spirit is of a whole other and greater category. If it is greater, then it is not only possible but lawful for it do and be things that mere matter cannot be. If God is Spirit, then he is greater than matter. Matter does not have the liberty to break into the realm of spirit and remain matter. Because God is greater, he does have the liberty to break into the world of matter and to dwell in it without compromising himself. To say otherwise is to say that God has abdicated his sovereignty and liberty and so also his option to act with compassion and love towards us and he has instead chained himself down to become the equal of the physical world as limited by law as it is.

What I am saying is that the rule of Love all wise, all compassionate, all powerful, trumps the divide between matter and spirit. Love is the greater higher law which cannot and in fact should not be limited. God's love cannot go wrong. It can not result in evil. Creation cannot have too much of it. It is the Law from which all other laws come from.

I also think that you take my argument too far in order to discredit it. I am saying no more than that God could not be lessened by any condition. He could not be corrupted by any condition. He could abide with a man in the flesh without overwhelming that man. He could create a human soul meant for that union with him without eradicating the humanity of that man or the eradication of that man's free will. As I said God can be more gentle and mild than we could possibly imagine if he has reason to be. He could unite with a man perfectly and by perfectly I mean so that neither God nor man was compromised in any way. I hope that you realize that orthodox Christianity does not believe that God just made a flesh bowl to inhabit which had no humanity. We believe that Jesus was fully God and fully man. That is what I have been trying to describe when I talk about that perfect union between God and man. That perfect union was and is Jesus.

Christians believe that God made one exception one time for the sake of Love of us so great that it could not bear to leave us in darkness. This love could not rest until every option for reaching us was exhausted. The Incarnation was part of his plan from the beginning of creation and is therefore the lawful act of a loving and compassionate and sovereign God. The Incarnation was that ultimate option. It has been exercised. It was God's greatest miracle of provision, of rescue, of defense, of healing, of enlightenment. All of these things are in perfect keeping with the nature that he reveals in the Old Testament. The Incarnation is the talk of the Old Testament made real to us in the medium that we best understand in the flesh and in history. God used miracles throughout the Old Testament to reach his people, to blow away the darkness, to provide, shelter and heal. All of those miracles, in perfect keeping with God's law of Love for us came to an ultimate head starting with the Incarnation and and ending with the Resurrection. In it we see God acting upon his freedom without denying us ours.

Your picture lacks that balance. God must be as free to make a loving exception as we are free to accept him or reject him. Your take on it distances God from the act of salvation in order to preserve man's role in it and that does not agree with the moral law that God abides by. Orthodox Christianity believes that both God and man in a perfect balance made that sacrifice for us. God was participant as much as man (Jesus) in equal measure. God and man were nailed to the Cross. God and man suffered willingly and freely for us. God was not pulling the strings as an outside observer. That would be wrong for him, the all powerful, to ask his weaker creature to suffer for all mankind or lay responsibility for salvation for all men on any man if God were not also willing to suffer with him in perfect union with him. God is so much more powerful and great than us that his dealings with us must be perfectly moral and it would not be right for the strong and powerful to ask the weak and fallible to alone make a sacrifice which the strong is unwilling or unable to make himself. So God did the right thing in the right way to save us from the hell of our own making as well as the hell of our destiny as unrepentant sinners. He united with man and so that person Christ Jesus fulfilled all the lawful requirements of a perfect and ultimate sacrifice for our salvation, our rescue from the darkness of sin. There is no more powerful act known to mankind than that act of love for turning us back to God. Billions of Christians have seen it, understood it and some of the worst sinners ever have repented of the sins because both God and man participated in that sacrifice. It is the Love Supreme backed with action and made real and unescapable. It is love bridging the distance that we created between us and God. Only God could bridge that distance. We are not strong enough on our own poisoned, weakened and blinded as we are by our sins.

One last problem is this. If Jesus was an man like all men, then he could not have done what he did without God's full participation. The only way to preserve the humanity of Jesus is for him to be united with God in some way. Otherwise you are saying that Jesus was a specially created being specially created for his task somone who is neither God nor like other men. Without God in the equation, the humanity of Jesus is sacrificed not preserved. Man is also erased from the act of salvation. Without God, no man is capable of living the sinless life that Jesus did. Otherwise you must conclude that that Jesus wasnt a man but something more than a man. Only a perfect union of God and man in the way God originally intended for us can result in a sinless man who is truly a man.