More quotes...

3/15/2008

The Trinity is not a 'thing' or a 'concretized' Idea or even a 'Being' and this is where we run into problems. As soon as we try and pin it down it eludes us.

It's kind of a Catch-22. If we deny the Trinity and allow the residue of all the other explanations to run their course it doesn't take long to discover that the end of each digression takes us into all of the various "heresies" available (and the list is looooooooooooooooong...).

This is why I always say the Trinity is a hedge, a boundary, a limit. It is something we come to but it is not the starting place and it certainly isn't the essence of the Christian faith (though on it the Church stands or falls).

Yet as soon as we limit it, seeking to pin it down or explain it we run into the difficulties like those I noted above. There are responses to each challenge but they ultimately end up sounding like sophistry. The more we try and explain it away the more we begin to sound either like a 'heretic' or a 'gnostic' or just plain evasive.

Because of this answers frequently end in 'it's a mystery.' By 'mystery' is not meant illogical or that there is no answer but that the Christian simply doesn't have the answer or lacks the language to go deeper. At some point, 'mystery' really means soemthing akin to experience.

'Experientially' there is an internal logic to it. It just doesn't seem logical.

3/11/2008

I mean it more in the sense of how we perceive or experience what is relayed in the NT documents. Sometimes we experience ‘God’ as Father, sometimes as Son and sometimes as Spirit. Father/Son/Spirit are not ‘things.’ They are Real but not material.

The “Son” can also be understood as Word, Wisdom, Lord, King and all the other names given. The ‘Son’ was manifest/incarnate as Jesus in time. The ‘Son’ points us to the Father; the ‘Spirit’ helps us to yield to the ‘Son.’

But the ‘Son’ is more than just Jesus although Jesus is the name which provides us with an immediate frame of reference (though it often keeps us bound to the earthbound figure).

Part of the problem is keeping in mind references to “Jesus” pre and post resurrection. We sometimes lump it all together. Paul is writing post-resurrection and thus some of the apparent discrepancies. The Gospels by and large provide stories of Jesus pre-resurrection.

And dammit if this all doesn’t start to sound like gobbledygook. If I keep going I’ll get all Gnostic on you.

The more we start trying to break it down the more we begin to see all of the other theologies - Arianism, Modalism, Patripassianism - pop their heads out. Sometimes we figure out what the Trinity is by what it is not.

3/10/2008

Perhaps a better (if there is such a thing) term to use is "Trinitarian economy." It is not a Trinity as in a static being, a thing, but is a Trinity in terms of relationship.

The trouble most people have with the Trinity begins when it is viewed as a thing, as a static entity. "Trinity" is not a name; it is not a being; it is not a 'thing' at all.

It is not spelled out explicitly in Scripture but the functioning (i.e. the 'economy') is there and it is thus conceivable how it is derived from Scripture.

3/8/2008

No, not two beings. If you start thinking "beings" you are thinking polytheism.

"Persons" in the Greek is something akin to the masks that actors would wear in Greek theater. Of course the term "persons" is and has been argued over from the beginning and perhaps Xristo can better supply some detail.

The simple analogy is the sun. Are the rays of the sun something other than the sun? The rays "emanate" from the sun, something akin to the Word/Son emanating from the Father.

Neoplatonism has to do with Being/Becoming or Idea/Form. The Fathers who ultimately developed the Trinity were steeped in the Neoplatonic tradition and its residue is found in the development of the Trinity.

Sometimes when you are contemplating or "feeling" (for lack of a better word) or otherwise in the thralls of that which we label "God" you can only understand or comprehend or register that which you are experiencing as the framework provided by the idea of "Father". Sometimes it resonates as "the Son" and sometimes "the Spirit" is the way in which it resonates.

God is not a name for the being but is a generic address for the divine. So we have three frameworks (provided by the New Testament) through which to comprehend "God".

The only way you know you have been with God is when you are not with Him.

This one, I think, most succinctly expresses my views of the Trinity and the various reasons why Christians accept it:

3/5/2008

It's something of a mental framework through which to filter what we find in the Bible. It’s a hedge, something you come to not something you begin with. Ultimately, however, it is more experiential than anything else.

Perhaps they've never thought much about it. Perhaps it has been hammered into them from childhood and they’ve accepted it without questions.

Perhaps it is the most sensible explanation for the Biblical text.

Perhaps the Church Fathers who struggled for about 300 years or more to put into language what is deeper than words came up with the best explanation of a framework in which to provide a structure that would enable a Church to survive for 2,000 years.

So there you have it. Of course I think that my views are clear because I understand the framework through which I am writing. But, of course, when others read what I write there are bound to be differences, or indifferences. But, no matter what we may do, think or say in regards to this doctrine:

3/15/2008

Whatever you want to believe about Christianity there already exists (or existed) a denomination/sect that teaches it.

Monotheist = Ebionites (or, arguably, Oneness Pentecostals, Modalists or Arians among others).

Every little nuance, angle, divergency and variant within Christianity has been covered and labeled. Almost all modern 'heresies' have a parallel in Christian history.

Think I'm kidding?

http://www.religion-cults.com/heresies/