But do I believe it?

That's the question isn't it?

I get it. And of all doctrines proclaimed, it is the most cohesive. But I am also not one to just accept something, toss out some proof-texts and be done with it. I want to internalize it. When I speak of it, I want it to come from the depths of my soul, not from the surface of my intellect. I want to live and breathe it not just be able to recite it.

In the end, I realize that there will always be questions. Pick a doctrine from any denomination that differs from traditional Christian doctrine (and even traditionally doctrinal churches show amazing diversity) and take it to its logical end. Any questions that are left usually end up, somewhere down the line, as another denomination, doctrine, cult or heresy. Just look at Christian history.
So I see its function. I've seen the visions and that is enough for me at this point. My focus is Jesus. It is in him that it all rests.

Would I call myself a Trinitarian? Probably not, simply because of what it stirs up. I'd probably try and avoid calling myself anything. I usually answer questions of this nature with more questions. Why? To avoid debate, to avoid a mini-Council, rehashing arguments that are entrenched in history books over thousands of years and billions of words written. One's doctrinal belief does not, in my estimation, prove anything. Paul preached Christ and him crucified. Death, burial, resurrection. The rest are details.

I can go there; I can debate. I can hold my own fairly well with the best of them. At the very least, I know the resources where I can turn for what I do not know. But I also recognize the limits of this approach. After all, mere "facts" can be inconvenient as the same facts can be used in different ways to prove different conclusions. The historical record verifies this. So mere "facts" aren't enough.

It is in the end result that the difference lies. Does it lead to love? Hate? Indifference? The end of result of our knowledge leads us where?

If you wish to see what I believe, look for it in what I do (what I say is also part of what I do...).

Six years ago...

Perhaps quite pertinent here is this journal entry:

11/8/01:

Jesus...(in the place of God Whom we cannot see) [is] being (that is) localized.

Six years I've been wrestling with this. Six years. Though I will say through this the struggle has sharpened my intellect, my focus and my faith walk which, in turn, is changing my heart. My heart has been hidden behind my intellect, my intellect a shield protecting what is really just a child's wounded heart.

It may sound strange but the deeper into the theology I plunge, the less important it becomes and the more I realize that, while it may provide a foundation, it is not the essence. But without the foundation, without that hedge, there is too much room to stray and it is easy to miss the essence.

12/2/01:

I keep having visions of the Throne Room of God...

I 'see' Jesus, taking me gently by the hand, leading me in to the Throne Room, smiling as if to say 'it is ok, this is for you, this is for every man, this is God's desire for all. Stop working so hard, allow the life that is in me to live in you. I've done the work for you, follow me. This is yours to share with me.'

I want to look upon God's glory but am afraid. I am so small, so unclean, so unworthy. My heart desires to see Him, to touch Him, to be with Him. Jesus smiles as if to say, "I know. Walk with me and you will. Come and see..."

And yet I will continue through many phases. Finalizing a degree in comparative religious studies. Islam. Jose Miranda's Marx and the Bible. Daoism. Zen. Islam. More Daoism. Interspersed throughout, of course, is my Christian walk. A Jewishness of Jesus phase, digesting Second Temple literature, immersing myself in the works of Geza Vermes, Shalom Spiegel and other Jewish scholars who provide their perspectives on Jesus.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I can't escape him. I may struggle with the exoteric component of Christianity and the other faiths but always seem to long for the 'esoteric' as used in Henry Corbin's understanding, the inner essence of the 'exoteric' of any religion.

This is not the bogus, Oprahfied dichotomy of 'spiritual' vs. 'religious' as without a religion in which to find spirituality all you are left with is the self. 'Spirituality' of this sort is thus really nothing more than a religion of Me. No transformation there just validation of what is already believed.

So it is that no matter where I go sooner or later I encounter Jesus...laughing, smiling, correcting, always present.

If I didn't know any better, I might think I was mad.

And thus the strengthening of the visions, the concreteness of understanding of the Trinity and, slowly, ever so slowly, the surrender.

Journal entries...post P90X

4/8/07:

Began P90X program. A workout fiend in my mid to late 20s, I hadn't worked out in about seven years. I started a basic program of pull-ups, sit-ups and push-ups about two months prior to my wife getting P90X. I saw that the basics of it were what I had already been doing and decided to give it a whirl. An hour a day, six or seven days a week for 90 days. Bring it...

5/26/07:

Day 3849 of my attempt at the Christian faith. I just stared a woman driver down who had been tailgating me and flipped her the bird. And she returned the gesture. At least I wasn't lukewarm. I've been alive 14,179 days.

5/27/07:

I'm going through another Islam phase...

7/5/07:

Still sinking...

Much silence for a few months. New position at work, big promotion, no longer donating plasma, changes in the household, the holidays...

3/23/08:

Another 'vision'. Still struggling with the Trinity. In worship, my favorite song, How Great Is Our God, is playing (it always brings me to tears of surrender) and I'm focused though not necessarily "on" anything. Suddenly there is penetrating clarity. It is through Jesus we come to "see" God as Trinity. "Jesus" is the image, what we have to focus on. "But we see Jesus..." We can't see God. "But we see Jesus..." It is not "Jesus" that is the part of the Trinity as the name "Jesus" conjures up images but it is by focus on, or through, him that God is revealed to us.

So I "see" the Trinity not as "three" but one in which we understand it through three "ways" all rolled together, distinct yet not, depending on where we are. I "see" Jesus and all the images his names conjures up but sense, feel, know the Godhead that lies through, behind, beyond him.

About the visions...

From my journal:

10/10/06

Perhaps my lowest point yet...Jail time is a frequent topic of conversation [at my job]...Bills in collections, creditors calling, can't pay bills. Donating plasma twice a week for [gas] money. [I am living the life of] the silent majority.

10/18/06

Guess I'm not...humiliated enough. Back at [the plasma donation center along with] 40 people in the lobby waiting...

I am numb...

And then comes the vision:

10/19/06:

Paraphrased from my journal.

I have an image, a vision, of what I know to be a heavenly court. God, i.e. the Father, is on the throne. It's not a physical throne but I know it to be a throne. There is no figure, no being, no image. It is a knowing. And Jesus (i.e. me, us, our representative, true man, original Adam, the express image of God, etc. all these terms flying through my head aware that I am in his presence) is the light of the court. What of the Spirit? I seem to ask. I sense a smile. It is like the binding force of the whole affair, like the love that binds people together. All three are present and, though distinct, they are in fact One, made distinct in my mind.

10/30/06:

New position at work. No longer a press operator, I've been bumped up to inspector. From temp to inspector in about five months. Far out. Still doing the plasma thing...

12/10/06:

My faith is messy...

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/

Visions...

I've had several "visions" all pertaining to the Trinity. This Trinity thing has troubled me for years. It is more annoying than anything. I realize that nothing anyone can ever say or do will change the standing dogma of the traditional Christian church. Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarians, Christadelphians or any other denomination whose standing is basically a reaction against this doctrine will never change a thing. It may provide an alternative but when one's essence is reactive rather than proactive, it is ultimately limited. Overshadowing the whole venture looms the Trinity. Like it or not...

So lately I've really been wresting with it. I've had visions over the past several years, several of which are "Trinitarian" in nature. It is perhaps because so much energy is concentrated into this struggle that such visions are my release. Are they "visions" from God in the Biblical sense? Are they heavenly visions? Divine communication? Psychological or semiconcious in nature? Beats me but they are clear and life altering.

However, I can't say that because of them I am now "Trinitarian" (though I do "get" the Trinity). But, in perspective, I don't deny it either as I appreciate it and understand how it is that it came to be accepted as dogma. Books and volumes of books have covered the subject. I have little to contribute in that regard. However, I have collected some points I have recently brought up on beliefnet, a few of which have received an 'Amen!' from a traditional, conservative, doctrinal Christian which makes me realize that I really do "get" it.

3/18/2008

I fought the Trinity for a long time until it slowly began to dawn on me that what I was arguing against was, by and large, me (funny thing, huh?).

The other thing I learned was that the problem wasn’t necessarily the Trinity itself but the superficial crap I had been reading, studying and being fed. There is such a lightweight, shallow understanding of the Trinity that is passed around these days as truth, as if just because some words are quoted from the Bible and some proof-texts from the Church Fathers or other apologists, that that should be enough to convince someone.

The reality is that one’s life should be a reflection of Christ, not one’s arguments. Don’t get me wrong, debate serves a purpose, but the way in which we debate often says more than the words we use in the debate. This isn’t a judgment but when you meet folks whose lives been changed by meeting the living Christ, by those who have a relationship with him, there is ‘something’ that is unmistakable.

So too often it’s just a bunch of books, articles and individuals running around tossing out proof-texts and spouting off regurgitated knowledge that frequently lacks depth in the person doing the spouting, as if this is the Gospel message.

On an aside, I’d be curious to hear an argument between some of the folks here and some of the earliest Church Fathers rather than arguing against modern day apologists. I can’t tell you how often I realize that we get their words wrong also.

The essence of Corbin's work...

This, to me, is really the essence of his work:

"...when it comes to understanding the humanity (nasut) of the Iman, that is, to translating Imamology into anthropological terms as an event lived by the soul, the data of the problem will not partake of the physiology that imposes itself on sense perception and ordinary consciousness. It is an archetypal Image which will function as an organ of perception, replacing the faculties of sense perception and making perceptible an object...

and yet the humanity of the Imam is not reduced to what our "realist" exigencies would qualify as a "hallucination" and does not fit in with the idea of a hypostatic union.

The problem is, then: how can a humanity which is mazhar of the godhead be constituted, to what order of reality must it belong, that is to say, what transfiguration of it is presupposed in order that the epiphany (zuhur> mizhar) of this epiphanic Figure (mazhar) may be produced not to the eyes of the body but to the soul's "eyes of light"?

pp. 108-109

As it relates to Christianity, in place of Imam think of a Gnostic, Docetic (though Corbin qualifies what this term means) Christ. This is not the Christ of orthodoxy; this is not God incarnate. This is the Christ of those labeled "Gnostics" as found in the Acts of John and other apocryphal gospels.

This is the Christ encountered in Islam. Yet its continued development in Shi'a and Ismaili thought is not causally connected to some renegade sects of Christianity. In other words, these ideas are not borrowed or hijacked as such. As Corbin notes: "This is a problem which in any case cannot be elucidated by the current methods of purely static and analytical exegesis, by a historicism limited to an essentially causal type of explanation which reads causality into things." (p. 31n7)

These ideas are inherent within the human soul, a longing for a connection to the divine, a longing for a mediator, a savior figure, one in whom we can see our image and have reflected back to us the Divine. It is in this sense that what is commonly deemed "borrowing" occurs.

This figure is found in most, if not every, religious tradition. This is why, as Corbin points out, it can be seen as Archetypal. Christian orthodoxy is obviously against this and thus holds Christ up as the one true, real, bodily revelation of God. It is this claim that ultimately separates "orthodoxy" from every other claim about Christ.

From an orthodox point of view it validates the truth of the claim; for those who follow a more "gnostic" tendency this rends Christ from his true place and forever places him, traps him even, in the mess of humanity (which, of course, is basically what orthodoxy claims is the truth of the matter and therefore the reason he can thus save us).

But is this necessarily true?

Gnosticism...

As soon as we start philosophizing about what any religion means we have begun the process of Gnosis. "Gnosis" is the Greek word translated roughly as "knowledge" or "knowing" in various ways in the New Testament. It isn't the opposite of faith, as such, but as soon as we start thinking and questioning, dialoguing and debating, philosophizing and trying to explain, we have are on the way to becoming "Gnostics."

Continuing on about Corbin's book from the last post, I have realized that I have Gnostic tendencies in this regard. I often try and explain and understand what it means, seeking logical explanations and deeper meanings in Scripture and in many ways have ended up at places that I recognize in Corbin's work. His work is strongly "gnostic" and tackles areas that are most definitely unorthodox from both a Christian and Islamic point of view. Yet this is where I find myself.

I am not opposed to orthodoxy in either faith but I have a tendency to walk away from it. Lack of faith? Anti-authoritarian? When everyone knows good as good this is not good?

Perhaps it is the intellectual stimulation, the buzz, the tendency to isolate, to be alone with my thoughts.

I don't know but it's where my journey has been taking me as of late...