Is the Trinity biblical?

Certainly.  

As is Unitarianism, Oneness Pentecostalism and every other denomination under the sun. 

Those who developed the doctrine were highly intelligent (arguably too intelligent perhaps), it was not invented during the Council of Nicaea, it finds it origins in the earliest strata of the Church (though non-Trinitarians claim the same) and it is most certainly rooted in Scripture as the primary source (as any and all who call themselves Christian in some fashion or other claim). 

Are Oneness Pentecostals biblical? Unitarians? Christadelphians? Worldwide Church of God? Jehovah’s Witnesses? 

In other words, whether one agrees with it or not, the Trinity is biblical. 

A better framing of the question might be: in what way does the Trinity doctrine find roots in the Bible?

There is a lot of discussion, online anyhow, about doctrine. Volumes and volumes of books are published on the same subject. I don't know how much this applies in the day to day lives of most who call themselves Christians.

But it dawned on me as I continue my journey into Orthodoxy that I see why people criticize the Orthodox Church (though often lumped in with Catholicism). It is one of the oldest expressions of the faith for certain. Yet in its current form it really dates to the 4th century.

This isn't to deny that it may be traceable back to the Apostles and that the worship the developed in the 4th century reflects truly the earliest church.  But I get it. With the complex doctrines and the formality and 'ritual' that is the church by going Sola Scriptura (understood in a way different than Luther's original intent) the current church only looks for roots in the Bible.

The irony, if I am using that word properly, is a written reflection of the tradition that was passed on and the same church that is criticized is the same church who canonized what we call the New Testament and who also developed doctrine.

Next step, after cutting themselves off from the larger body of the church, is to do some self-reflection and reject the doctrines of the church. This is already happening today. Doctrines are given lip service and half-hearted apologetic but changes are happening on a large scale. 

Oneness Pentecostals, for example, are a growing body of believers who reject the Trinity. There are some who are seeking to do away with the part in the Creed about Jesus going to hell. It's being dismantled, slowly but surely. What will be left? Hard to say.

But all of them go back to the Bible as their source.

So is the Trinity biblical? It most certainly is.

I think what appeals to be about Orthodoxy is twofold:

1) Its embrace of the mystery

This does not mean throw up your hands because it is not understood. It means that doctrine is a hedge, it is a limit. Over hundreds (yes, hundreds, longer than the United States is a country) of years it has been unpacked, all the mental and intellectual limits of how to understand what has been presented in the text we now have we call 'the Bible', and the Trinity is what resulted. However, within (and this is the operative word) those limits is an unfathomable richness. It is this that is mysterious. Doctrine (the Trinity and the God-Man) is both the end and the entry into the divine.

I have found that the end result of all questioning yields to the Trinity.

2) Its doctrinal framework.

It makes sense. It makes sense of the disparate elements between all the books of the New Testament in their presentation of Jesus as well as the Father, Son and Spirit. Certainly there's belief involved. After all, Three-In-One sounds absurd, especially when contrasted with the Judaism out of which it arose.

In the eastern tradition it wasn't until the 7th century that everything was 'settled'. And yet over time there is still more to discover, more nuances, more exploration into what it means. It never really ceased.

And this is where 'new' revelations come in such as Oneness Pentecostals. They say they have it right, that 2,000 years of church history was a power grab. God is speaking afresh and new. Revival! The end times! Jesus is coming soon! It's certainly an interesting time to be alive.

And yet, all are biblical.

My point of all this? Pick one and go with it. Seek to live it, not debate about it.

Oneness Pentecostalism And Experiential Trinitarianism

Pretty heady title. It's the stuff my wife makes fun of me for reading lovingly referred to as 'light reading'. My challenge is always to translate that into the real world. In her words: 'how does that help you love me more?' Fair enough. Having been raised Oneness Pentecostal, it is her frame of reference. I was immersed in it for several years but have since moved on as I found the gymnastics required to make Scripture 'fit' was not much different than the same gymnastics Trinitarians are accused of using.

I have found that experientially that the Trinitarian view makes more 'sense' than does the Oneness view which just seems, ironically perhaps, more heady than the Trinitarian view. As 'simple' as it appears there is something about it that just comes up short. It seems to me that it leaves no room for the 'Person' of Jesus. Without the Personhood of the Godhead what do we have? We have an essence, a deity that remains distant, unknowable.

Perhaps this is why the emphasis on the Spirit as it too remains unknowable yet when we are so moved, or filled, that unknowable essence 'manifests' itself. We are not focusing on reflecting on the character of Christ as a 'Person' His behaviour appears as something 'to do' not something to know which is perhaps why holiness is often so emphasized. I never felt as if I was getting to know 'Jesus' as a 'Person' as the emphasis was on His Godhead often as if the sole purpose of the Church was to debate and convince those without the revelation that this is the Truth. But once in the camp, I struggled to figure out what the purpose was beyond getting filled with the Holy Ghost and debating those on the outside of the camp to get them to come in to get filled. There was something missing.

Again, my experience, not an 'eternal' truth of all believers and all Oneness doctrine.

The cult of the Bishop was another troubling element. Often those in the church were stunted and couldn't make a move without permission or a blessing from the Bishop. When we wanted to get married we couldn't even talk to an elder. We were basically blocked even though we had been there for more than five years.

We walked just before we got married. No animosity just tired of the silly. For as 'free' as the church claimed to be in the Spirit it was just as institutional as any other church made of men with power.

Moved on to a non-denominational church loosely affiliated with Aimee Semple McPherson's denomination (which is another bizzaro tale) where it was basically the opposite. We learned here about freedom and love. When there was a change of leadership it went back into the very same atmosphere that led us to this church in the first place and we were out.

We went several weeks, maybe even months, without a church home. One morning I asked if she wanted to go to a church on the outskirts of town, one I had attended once for a Bible study 20 years prior (with an ex-girlfriend). We went and were home and have been there since.

And yet...

Something is missing. It could be age but the 'worship' flows like a rock concert (or, in my case, a rave) where one's enthusiasm reflects how grateful we are and how much we love God. I have lately started wearing earplugs and generally have to spend time translating the shaky 'theology' of the lyrics through my interpretive filter.

It's a powerhouse of a Church but lately I have begun longing for the deeper things of God. It seems that in place of liturgy there are 'small groups' to go deeper into the church as Sunday mornings are mostly refresher courses with an emphasis on 'saving' those in need. I don't knock this as introducing someone to the love of Christ is a life changer.

However, I have been longing for the deeper things of God. This is not on a strictly intellectual level although the intellect is essential to harnessing the mind in the pursuit. And this is where the readings of the Church Fathers has brought me into the light of the Trinity. It doesn't make 'rational' sense; it takes what we consider to be 'rational' and aligns it, gives it stability and opens it up to something beyond it, something mysterious.

And it is this mystery that has brought me to the doors of Eastern Orthodoxy. From what I read - and it is only reading at this point aside from one visit to a local church 20 years ago and a scene from Baraka - it bathes in this mystery. This is not mystery in the sense of rejecting explanation. It is mystery in the sense of the Dao in that the deeper you go the deeper you go. And the deeper you go the more it makes sense experientially in the light of what Scripture unfolds. It is a framework, a repository, through which the mystery of Scripture enlightens every man that comes into the world.

And here is where I am. It overshadows everything, drawing me in. The writings of the early Fathers is at once liberating and enraging as I wish I would have discovered them years ago as it may have brought me time and saved me from the other divergent paths. But these paths serve a purpose and are reflective of many in the world at large and somewhat parallel as those who bounce from tradition to tradition yet within the Christian faith such as we ourselves have done.

East vs. West (especially the postmodern, neo-Protestant West)

"If one speaks of God it is always, for the Eastern Church, in the concrete...It is always the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost." (Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 64)

Once again, I gravitate back to Lossky's works. In the church I attend I occasionally hear mention of the Trinity but it is almost a generic address. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are mentioned but there is no context. All focus is on Jesus. Father, Son, God, Lord and such terms are thrown into the mix of preaching, singing and praise and there is no clarity as to the significance of the terms. Maybe such a setting isn't really the place for this, I don't know. But it is one thing that has always troubled me and I struggled for years to make sense of it all, to find a way to filter these terms thrown about so loosely into a framework through which I could place my mind at ease and move beyond intellect into true worship.

I have finally been able to do so but in doing so I find myself at odds with the aversion to theology in neo-Protestant churches with theology and discussion on the Trinity primarily proof-texting, as if the Trinity is nothing short of obvious.

So I am re-reading Lossky's work and find some quotes that fit, though I'm not sure he was addressing this specifically.

"Likewise, the idea of beatitude has acquired in the West a silghtly intellectual emphasis, presenting itself in the guise of a vision of the essence of God. The personal relationship of man to the living God is no longer a relationship to the Trinity, but rather has as its object the person of Christ, who reveals to use the divine nature." (p. 64)

Now on the surface this seems like no big deal. In fact, I agree with this view of Christ. It is through him we come to know God but in so doing I have found the God we know is the Trinity. But Lossky brings up a good point and it is apparent in the recent arguments about Christ found throughout not just the church but the culture at large:

"Christian life and thought become christocentric, relying primarily on the humanity of the incarnate Word; one might almost that it is this which becomes their anchor of salvation." (pp. 64-5, bold mine)

This is exactly the state of the church today, especially the "evanglecical" variety (keeping in mind all churches are really evangelical in nature, it's just that "evangelical" has become something of a franchise or trademark). It is all about Jesus, the Trinity being spoken of "as a memory" (quoting Th. de Regnon in the footnote on p. 64).

"Indeed, in the doctrinal conditions peculiar to the West all properly theocentric speculation runs the risk of considering the nature before the persons and becoming a mysticism of 'the divine abyss'...; of becoming an impersonal apophaticism of the divine nothingness prior to the Trinity."

According to Lossky, there is no place in Eastern Orthodoxy for "a theology, much less a mysticism, of the divine essence" (p. 65).

"The goal of Orthodox spirituality [is] a participation in the divine life of the Holy Trinity..., possessing by grace all that the Holy Trinity possesses by nature." (p. 65)

As he says elsewhere, theology is not thinking about the Trinity but thinking in the Trinity.

So I'm torn. I appreciate the christocentric view as through coming to know Jesus more and more I've seen a change in my life, Jesus as example, imitation of Jesus. In this sense it is a personal relationship with Christ.

But I have also come to agree with the Trinitarian viewpoint over and above the other theologies (e.g. the Oneness Pentecostal background through which I spent my early years as a "new" Christian). In studying these other views it becomes much more clear as to how and why the Trinity developed as it did.

But as I repeat frequently, it is a hedge, a boundary, something we come to through experience; it is not where we begin. Where we begin is coming to know the cross of Christ and, more significantly, the risen Christ for without the risen Christ the cross becomes a theology of divine abuse.