Problematic Ways of Explaining the Trinity
As we transition from discussion of each of the three Persons in the one Being of God to the discussion of the entire Trinity, it must be said that we are treading on interesting and holy ground. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is one of the very most pivotal and important beliefs in all of Christian faith. It provided both the content and the form of the classic Christian creeds (like the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed). It appears in nearly every statement of faith of every church and denomination and yet is one of the most neglected doctrines in those same churches and denominations.
Why is this? It might be said that it is because the Trinity is a mystery, something that utterly transcends our limited minds. If it is so far beyond us, it would seem foolish to spend much time on it. However, as mysterious as it is, as much as it dwarfs our attempts to explore it to its depths, it is indeed an indispensable belief of Christian faith and we must explore and understand it as well as we can. It is far more accessible and important to everyday Christian life than many would suspect.
A major reason why many modern Christians do not understand or appreciate the doctrine of the Trinity is because it has been explained in very problematic ways. The first major way the Trinity is explained poorly is when we use bad images to try to communicate it to young people in a children’s sermon or in another similar context. We might say, “God is like water. Water can be a solid (ice) liquid (water) or gas (steam), so it is three in one. It is the same way with God. He can be Father, Son or Holy Spirit.” Another popular explanation is, “God is like an egg. Just as there is only one egg but it has a yolk, a white and a shell, there is only one God but that one God is made up of a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit.”
We hear explanations like that and our response is not to wonder at the majesty and mystery of God, falling to our knees in praise and adoration. Instead, we are more likely to say, “Wow, I know that the Trinity is supposed to be really important, but after hearing that, it doesn’t make any sense to me.” As it turns out, if we actually take those two illustrations seriously, we end up with understandings of God that have been considered heretical since the fourth century; modalism for the former and tritheism for the latter, which will be discussed later.
Another way people have attempted to understand and explain the Trinity is by starting by presupposing the Trinity, then attempting to try to find some way to show how three can be one. This has taken up such images as the Nile, the human mind, history, candles, and many others. These are either more or less (though usually less) effective at communicating an adequate understanding of the Trinity, but regardless of their orthodoxy, they simply do not reflect in any way how the fact that God is Triune should impact our lives and shape who we are. If it does not bring life, then it must not be bringing us in touch with the living God.
Unique Nature of the Christian Doctrine of God
One of the things that should make us realize that the Trinity is far more rich, dynamic and important than the above illustrations can possibly communicate is that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is absolutely unique in the history of religion and philosophy. Not a single other community has developed a doctrine of a Trinity. They may have three main gods, they may have a single god who manifests itself in three ways, but no other group has ever developed a fully nuanced understanding of God being a Trinity in Unity. This is significant because, if there were something intrinsic to human nature that compelled us to formulate a doctrine of the Trinity, we would expect to see it other places. This is simply not the case.
Given the unique nature of the Christian doctrine of God, it would be beneficial to consider some of the ways people have tried to explain the Trinity that have proved to be inadequate. The first way we will consider is that the doctrine of the Trinity does not arise simply by starting with a few basic biblical principles about God and then, using rigid logic, ultimately deduce a Triune God. If we were to take the “oneness” of God that is emphasized so strongly and add to it the reality that there is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit, we would not come up with the classic doctrine of the Trinity, we would instead arrive at a logical contradiction (How can something be three and one at the same time) which actually is the source of all the Trinitarian heresies that we will discuss below.
The belief that God is Triune does not come into view if we work inductively, either, that is taking every single verse that speaks of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, and combining them all together in some kind of creative synthesis. In fact, this way of approaching the Trinity might actually result in some confusion in how to reconcile the fact that the New Testament speaks of each of the three Persons as God and yet, throughout the Bible, it is affirmed that there is only one God. When approaching the Trinity in either of these two ways, it is just as likely that one will begin to have serious doubts about the validity of the Trinity and its Biblical roots than that they will come to conceptual clarity. It is a difficult reality that eludes some of our standard ways of investigation.
In point of fact, the belief that God is a Trinity arose organically and holistically within the worshipping life of the church. The first believers were Jewish men and women who were radically monotheist (one of the most important statements in the Old Testament is the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4; “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is One!). These men and women encountered Jesus, especially when he was resurrected in glory (John 20:28), and even more especially after they received the Spirit on Pentecost (remember what was discussed about the Spirit mediating Christ to us in the last chapter) and realized that, when they came face to face with Christ, they came face to face with the living God. This reality was so potent that they proclaimed that the man Jesus, who was executed on the cross as a criminal, was nothing less than the one true God, who had interacted with Israel, delivered them from Egypt and walked with them for centuries.
As the church lived dynamically, worshipping the Lord, they found themselves bound by the fact that the reality that they confronted in Christ through the Holy Spirit was nothing less than truly divine. Very quickly, the apostles began to greet churches, not just in the name of God their Father, but also in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Not only this, but, in some letters (such as Colossians and Hebrews), when Jesus is mentioned, it is done in such a way to emphasize that creation, one of the key events attributed to God alone in the Jewish tradition, was also attributed to Christ. Christ was the one through whom everything was created (this is also present in the beginning of the Gospel of John). That very same Shema that was so important to stress the unity of God was adapted by Paul (especially in 1 Cor. 8:5-6) to speak of both God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This distinguished between the Father and the Son, but also united them together within the same oneness of God that had been declared since the earliest days of Israel’s religion.
When confronted with both God and the Son of God, who are personally distinct (they refer to one another as “you,” as opposed to “I”), the church eventually had to try to sort out the relation between the Father and the Son, but within the New Testament documents (where neither the term, “Trinity,” nor the classical expression, “One Being, Three Persons,” appears), we see this tension present, though not yet fully developed. There are places where even the most skeptical reader must admit that the New Testament text creates a tension that would be addressed (for right or for wrong) by subsequent theology.
The point that is important to note here is that the Christian doctrine of God, the Trinity in Unity, does not arise simply by taking our normal ways of arriving at conclusions, either deductively or inductively, but does so within the worshiping life of the church in response to the decisive act of God. It is not something that human beings came up with one day and said, “Hey, this sounds neat,” but was something that the church felt they had to say in light of who God has revealed himself to be in Jesus Christ.
It might be said that, next to the Incarnation, the Trinity is the most “realist” doctrine in all of Christian faith. By this, I mean that it is, of all aspects of Christian faith, one of the most dedicated to proclaim what really is as opposed to what seems to be or what we have invented. It is something like making scientific investigation. When a scientist examines something in nature (such as light, motion, gravity, the structure of plants, etc.), they are not satisfied by simply stating what their first impressions are. First impressions are often misleading. Nor are they content to say what this natural reality is “as it seems to them.” This kind of work is not considered to be sufficient for rigorous science. Instead, the scientist probes deeply into their field of inquiry, searching it to its roots as far as they can, testing their presuppositions, allowing them to be challenged by what is found in their investigation, and finally presenting their conclusions, not just of their own personal feelings about the matter, nor simply their first impressions, but what, as far as they can tell, it really is in its own being.
This is what the doctrine of the Trinity is attempting to do. It is not an explanation of who God seems to be simply at first glance. The Bible is full of examples where God utterly surprises humanity, where he challenges those first impressions and reveals himself to be far more rich and dynamic than we ever would have imagined and than we ever would have invented. Further, the doctrine of the Trinity is not simply a reflection by particular Christian thinkers on who God is “to them.” Rather, it is an in depth investigation, carefully studying the Biblical witness, not simply the words on the page, but the realities beyond those words that they point to, and a presentation of who God really is, and not just who he seems to be nor who he is to us.
The Trinity is something that, like the incarnation, bypasses all of our human invention. It is something that stands against our tendency and desire to read our own hopes and dreams into God, but rather presents itself as something that is truly real to which our reflection must be subject. It is not something that is unquestionable, but something that has proved to be tremendously illuminating in understanding the nature of God as revealed in Christ. It is in light of this that we will explore some aspects of the Christian doctrine of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment