Path: igor.rutgers.edu!farside.rutgers.edu!christian From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: the Trinity Message-ID: Date: 11 Apr 94 04:13:49 GMT Sender: hedrick@farside.rutgers.edu Lines: 232 Approved: christian@geneva.rutgers.edu There have been several requests to explain the Trinity. I think the requests were reasonable, and I haven't yet seen an answer that I think is likely to satisfy them. So I'm going to try. However I'd like to warn you that I'm not going to try to explain exactly what substance, essense, person, etc., mean. That's because I think this is the wrong thing to emphasize when discussing the Trinity. If you're not interested in the details of the doctrine, but simply whether it makes sense to talk of the same entity being one and three, you might want to skip to the last 1/3 or so of this document. Historically the doctrine of the Trinity is based on the idea that Jesus shows us what God is really like. However this has to be balanced with the fact that Jesus distinguishes himself from the Father, and that he's clearly a human being with the limitations that are implied by that. To avoid making this a huge posting, I'm not going to list all the possible Biblical evidence, but let me summarize the kind of things that you'll find: - when you see Jesus you see the Father: John 14:9 - Jesus' acts are God's: 2 Cor 5:19, Mark 2:7 - Christ is the visible image of God: Col 1:15ff, Heb 1:3ff, John 1:1ff - creation was done through Christ: Col 1:16ff, Heb 1:2ff, John 1:3 Note that this is an odd combination of identification with God and distinction from him. Christ is the image or stamp of God. Jesus did things that only God could do, and God acted through him. But typically you do not find a simple equation, i.e. Jesus is God, and in fact Jesus spoke of his Father in a manner that suggests a separate person. This combination of identification and distinction is reflected by a combination of two relationships, which I typically think of as "horizontal" and "vertical": Father ----- Logos ----- Holy Spirit | | Jesus The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together constitute God. (I'm using "Logos" instead of "Son" to make it clear that I'm referring to the second person of the Trinity. The word "Son" is used in several different ways in theology. "Logos" avoids this ambiguity.) Christ is a union of divine and human, which on the diagram I show as the vertical line. Although it developed later, I really think the "vertical" aspect -- technically called the Incarnation -- is the most basic. The Incarnation reflects the fact that in the Bible Jesus is not simply a prophet. In each of the major NT traditions a somewhat different model is used, but for them all, Jesus is somehow identified with God more closely than would normally be appropriate for a human being. In Mark he does things that only God is permitted to do. In John he says he is one with God, and the prolog calls him the Logos made flesh. For Paul, Christ's actions were God's actions reconciling himself to humanity. In Hebrews, the image is of the impression of a seal in wax. However there is also a distinction. Otherwise it would make no sense that Jesus prays to God and refers to his Father as a separate person (e.g. John 5:19). The standard doctrine is the formula of Chalcedon. It calls Christ a single person with two natures, human and divine. This is an attempt to do justice to both the identification of Jesus with God and the distinction between them. Incredible amounts of ink have gone into defining exactly what is meant by person and nature in this doctrine. I think for our purposes it would be a mistake to get into that sort of thing. Nobody claims that we completely understand God. The Incarnation and Trinity have always been referred to as "mysteries". Two natures united in one person is simply a way of summarizing what we see about Jesus in Scripture: that Jesus acts for God in such a direct way that his actions are God's, and that when we see Jesus we see God, but that this identification between Jesus and God does not wipe out the distinction between human and God. Jesus is spoken of as the human form of God: the Word made flesh, the image or stamp of God. Let's look carefully at the image in Hebrews: the language suggests the imprint of a seal in wax. The result of this is that we have the same pattern in two forms: the original ceramic or metal seal, and the same thing impressed on wax. The wax impression is both the same and different from the original: it's a different material. The difference between metal and wax is not wiped out. Yet they're the same seal, because somehow there's a pattern that's recognizably the same even across the difference in materials. (One of the most important implications of Christian theology is that there's enough compatibility between God and humanity that it's possible to have a human form of God. Many religions see God and humanity as so different that this would not be possible.) I'm going to come back to the Incarnation later. But for the moment let's move to the Trinity. At first it appears to be possible to deal with the relationship between Jesus and God purely through the Incarnation, without involving the Trinity. Suppose we simply say that Jesus is the Incarnation of God -- that he is the human form of God -- but try to avoid any distinction within God. What would be the problem? It turns out that we'd have trouble with several Biblical passages -- basically those that talk about the preexistence of the Son: Col 1:15ff, Heb 1:2ff, John 1:1ff. These passages talk about Son as existing before the world. They don't say that the Father became flesh, but that the preexistent Son became flesh. This commits us to the horizontal as well as vertical aspect of my diagram, because it gives us three different entities: the Father, the preexistent Son, and the human form of the Son. So now we've got another problem: what is the relationship between the preexistent Son or Logos, and the Father? Again, we've got both identity and distinction. All of these passages clearly make a distinction between the Father and the preexistent Son or Logos. But John tells us that the Word was with God and the word was the same as God. This suggests that there is also some kind of identify between the Father and Son. And the whole logic of the Incarnation implies such an identify. After all, Jesus is the incarnation of God, not of some separate preexistent entity. When you see Jesus you see the Father, not just a demigod. Jesus' acts are God's. Christ is the visible image of God, not something else. The Incarnation suggests some sort of distinction in role within God in another way. If we take seriously the idea of Jesus shows us what God is like, this leads us to some unexpected conclusions about God. Jesus is obedient to the Father. He prays to the Father, defers to the Father, and accepts the Father's will. If Jesus shows us God, then this says that God is obedient to God. This implies that there's enough distinction within God that he can experience both "sides" of the relationship of love: Father and Son. A loving God causes no metaphysical problems if he only loves beings he created. But this would mean that God couldn't love until he had created the universe. It would mean that love isn't intrinsic to God. It would also imply that God experience only one "side" of love -- the love of the Father. But if Jesus shows us God as he really is, then love is intrinsic to God, and God experiences the obedient love of the Son as well as the love of a Father. Thus there's got to be enough of a distinction within God to allow the relationship of love to exist within him. This sounds rather abstruse, but in fact it has very direct consequences for the Christian life. Christians believe in grace. When God calls for us to obey him, he also gives us the ability to obey. In some ideas of God, God is an omnipotent being completely separated from humanity. For Christians, God has experienced the kind of love he wants from us, and is inviting us to join him. [For those who think I've just shown a binity rather than a Trinity, note that the Holy Spirit can be seen as a function of the relationship between Father and Son -- it is the presence of the Father with the Son. As God is radically personal, his presence is not an abstract force, but a person. Thus we end up with the Holy Spirit as the third member of the Trinity.] Now, let's get back to doctrines as usually formulated. First, let me summarize my conclusions so far: - in the Incarnation, we see that Jesus is both identified with God and distinct from him. - in the Trinity, we see that the nature of God's love (as shown by Jesus) requires God to have enough of a distinction that he can experience two different roles: Father and Son. Of course there's still just one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct, but they are a single God. One can say these things without using terms like nature, person, substance, etc. These terms come from the philosophy that was commonly used when these issues were first seriously discussed. It's natural that Nicea and Chalcedon used the terms that were current at the time. But I think it's a mistake to get too tied up in them. People at the time realized that they didn't completely understand God. He was different from anything on earth, so our language couldn't be expected to describe him perfectly. In fact, the standard doctrines use the philosophical terms in different ways than they are used elsewhere. In all other cases, a given thing has exactly one hypostatis and one nature or substance. To describe what is going on with God, they were driven to speak of one hypostatis with two natures (the Incarnation) and three hypostases with one substance (the Trinity). I'm fairly sure that if you asked them, they would agree that this was to a large extent a confession that human language simply couldn't describe God completely. That's why the Incarnation and Trinity are referred to as mysteries. Nevertheless, they felt that their language captured something important. The most common accusations against these doctrines are that they don't make sense, and that they are not based on the Bible. I believe both of these are false. I've tried to show the connection with the Bible as I went along. On whether they make sense, it depends upon what you mean by making sense. In some ways, it's true that the Trinity doesn't make sense. No one can explain precisely what it makes to have three hypostases with one substance. But that's no surprise. If we could, we'd know exactly what God is, and no religion claims to completely understand God. However I think the terms make as much sense as we can hope for when dealing with God. While we don't understand God completely, we do know some things about him. And I believe two of the things we know are that there's only one God, but that there's enough of a distinction within him to allow for the relationship between Father and Son to exist. It seems to me that referring to this as three persons with one substance is about as close as you can come using the philosophical terms available in the 4th and 5th Cent. I'd like to suggest that for people who have experience with computers, this sort of thing should actually be easier to believe than for people in the 4th and 5th Cent. We've experienced systems where a single physical processor supports multiple virtual systems, and where multiple physical processors are combined into a single virtual system. When reading science fiction, most of us have no trouble dealing with the idea of colonial intelligences, where multiple bodies are part of a single entity. All of these are examples of things that are in some ways like a single entity and in other ways like multiple entities. I don't believe any of these examples is exactly like God. But that's not the point. I'm not currently trying to formulate a computer-based theology. Rather, I'm saying that we've seen enough examples to believe that there are ways to exist other than the human one. I think they make it plausible that there could be an entity that is in some ways like one person and in other ways like several separate people. I think that's all the Trinity really says. It says that in some ways God is best thought of as one entity, and in other ways he best thought of as three entities. There is also some understanding of in what areas it's most accurate to think of him as one and what areas it's most accurate to think of him as three. I think there's some parallel between the Trinity and physics before quantum mechanics. In the early 20th Cent., there were two major models for how sub-atomic entities behave: like waves and like particles. Nobody understood how the same thing could be both a wave and a particle. However they did have a reasonable set of rules listing the situations where one could describe things using the wave model the and situations where one could describe things using the particle model. I think that's the situation we're in with both the Trinity and the Incarnation. We don't have a complete model of God. But we know that there are some ways in which it's best to think of him as one and other ways in which it's best to think of him as three. ------ Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: Hedgehog Subject: Re: Oh no... another Trinity thread! Organization: I do not speak for "my" organization References: <3pudmb$df0@farside.rutgers.edu> Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article <3pudmb$df0@farside.rutgers.edu> David Wallis, wallis@surfplaza.com writes: > No, I would not be willing to say that the Trinity is some sort of > legal fiction. The Trinity is three persons of one divine substance > or nature. Unlike a "legal fiction" which is created on a piece of > paper, the Three share a commonality which extends to their very > core. I cannot say they had a common beginning or origin, since they > eternally existed, so the most expressive thing I can say is that they > share a common substance or nature, the nature of the divine, the > nature of Godhood. So let's just get everything straight here. This concept of "nature" seems kind of vague. Traditionally, God is said to be infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Can we say all these things of Jesus as well? (And mean them literally, of course.) Conversely, Jesus ate, drank, spit, wore garments, wept, slept, suffered pain, and experienced death. Can all these predicates also be affirmed of God in a strictly literal sense? It seems to me that traditional Trinitarians are reluctant to make these attributions, so in order to salvage consistency with Biblical text, they claim that Jesus had two natures: human and divine. There has been a lot of arguing in this thread that Jesus and the Father are one based on Biblical evidence. So is there any place in the Bible where Jesus specifically says "I have two natures: human and divine" It seems to me that the best the Athanasian can do is to say here are some verses that _seem_ to say Jesus is divine and here are some that _seem_ to make him human. In no place does the Bible say that Jesus has two natures. The whole Trinitarian enterprise seems to depend so much on picking a verse here and a verse there out of their contexts and then trying to link them. Isn't it easier to see the relationship of Father and Son as one of obedience rather than some mumbo-jumbo about "natures" and "essences"? It is not as if the Trinitarian dismisses the fact that Jesus was obedient to the Father. So the Athanasian Trinitarian does not have to accept any new doctrine. All he has to do is to stop being so pre-occupied with all these metaphysical categories of "person" and "nature". Didn't Jesus say that we had to worship God in "spirit and in truth"? Why this need to try to physicalize God? Peace, Hedgehog ---- [I don't like proof-texts, as I think the Trinity is an abstract way of summarizing the overall evidence. However Col 1:19 and Col 2:9 seem to say that Christ has a divine nature. I wouldn't think I'd need a specific citation for his human nature, but if I do, try 1 John 4:2. John, Col, and Heb all seem to say that in Christ somehow we have both the presence of God and a human being. And they seem to go rather further than just saying that he was inspired. They all seem clearly to imply a unique kind of presence. It's true that in John 14-16 Jesus says that we are expected to have the same kind of unity with God that he does. However if Paul has interpreted Jesus correctly, this unity is not indepedent of Christ -- we are united with God as he is, but we're united because we are "in Christ", i.e. our union goes through him. The Bible certainly didn't talk about hypostases and the like. But I don't see that that is the issue. The question -- at least for me -- isn't whether we have to use neo-Platonic philosophical terms. I'm perfectly willing for people to use other language, including language that's closer to the NT. But the question is whether the basic thing that they were getting at is right: that in Christ we see both a human being and the presence of God himself. I agree that it's problematical to talk about God present in a human being. As you say, God is considered to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and a human being is not. But those of us who are feel tied to the Bible are stuck with Colossians 2:9 For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily This suggests that maybe our idea of what it means to be God needs to be broadened. Maybe deity can really be present in its fullness in a human being. It is from thoughts like this that we get the Trinity. Maybe being God isn't all about being omnipotent, etc. Maybe there's also a way of being God that is consistent with being an obedient servant. I would suggest that you consider the possibility that you're the one that is hung up with philosophical speculations. The God of the philosophers is omni-*. The Christian God isn't quite so abstract. --clh]