tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42403424440688723912024-02-20T13:46:10.799+00:00Luther's Marbles"To try to deny the Trinity is to endanger your salvation. To try to comprehend the Trinity is to endanger your sanity." Martin LutherAndrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-34073399675597422932019-10-12T17:28:00.002+01:002019-10-19T16:56:49.803+01:00My email to Dr Beau Branson<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
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Dr Beau Branson, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Brescia University in the USA. A presentation by him on his 'Monarchical' version of Trinitarianism can be found <a href="https://www.beaubranson.com/monarchyofthefather/">here</a>.</div>
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Dear Dr Branson,</div>
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I long ago ceased to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, chiefly because of what I consider to be its logical incoherence. However, I also believe that the one version of Trinitarianism which seems closest to being susceptible of a rational interpretation is that espoused by Fathers John Behr and Thomas Hopko and, as far as I can tell, by yourself (all adherents of the Orthodox branch of the Christian faith) which holds that while the one God is most definitely the Father, yet the Son and the Spirit are each also God in some secondary or derived sense. </div>
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My problem with this understanding of the Trinity, however, is that it seems to me to equivocate as to the sense in which we may refer to the Son and the Spirit as God. Clearly when we call the Son God we cannot mean that he is the same God as the Father, otherwise he would simply BE the Father. But if by calling him God we mean that he is a different God to the Father then surely we are guilty of tritheism. I would be most grateful if you could clarify your position and clear up this conundrum for me. Thanks in advance for your help.</div>
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Kind regards,</div>
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Andrew<br />
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See Dr Branson's <a href="https://luthersmarbles.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-very-detailed-and-thoughtful-response.html">response</a> to my email.</div>
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-26336822855939562872019-05-05T18:18:00.002+01:002019-05-05T18:28:00.792+01:00Reflection on the previous postIt seems to me, on reflection, that the Eastern Orthodox formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity as explicated by Fr John Behr, Fr Thomas Hopko, Dr Beau Branson and others, which I described in the <a href="https://luthersmarbles.blogspot.com/2019/05/there-is-logically-coherent-version-of.html">previous post</a>, while it doesn't suffer from the logical problems that other versions of the DOT do, still suffers from the semantic problem that the term "is God" is used in a way that makes no sense in modern English (I alluded to this in the previous post itself). We do not use the term God as an adjective but only as a noun (or a proper noun). Thus, for the Orthodox at any rate, the trinity doctrine would be more correctly formulated in English as follows:<br />
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The Father is divine<br />
The Son is divine<br />
The Sprit is divine<br />
There is only one God (namely, the Father)<br />
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Also, the part of the Nicene creed describing the relation of the Son to the Father would be more correctly translated by the admittedly cumbersome phrase "divine Person of God, light of light, true divine Person of true God".<br />
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While a semantic problem is not as serious as a logical one, I am also not convinced that the above formulations represent what the average Orthodox Christian actually believes. If asked "is Christ actually God, or merely a divine Person", I can't help thinking that most Orthodox believers would affirm Christ's deity rather than just His divinity.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-53104359351035821972019-05-05T12:03:00.001+01:002019-05-05T18:22:48.035+01:00An Orthodox solution to the logical problem of the doctrine of the trinity?<br />
I have mentioned <u><span style="color: #000120;"><a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.com/2016/01/my-conversation-with-dale-tuggy.html">before</a></span></u> in this blog about how some Orthodox theologians seem to believe that the one true God is simply the Father. In that regard I referenced Fr John Behr, but I have read a <a href="https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_holy_trinity">similar view</a> from Fr Thomas Hopko. Both of them, however, maintain that <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">the Son and Spirit may also be referred to as God - a point that I did not feel that either of them particularly clarified the reasons for. </span>I have also discussed in a <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-biblical-doctrine-of-trinity.html">previous post</a> the significance of the definite article and lack thereof (theos vs ho theos) in the wording of 1st John Chapter 1 vs 1. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NngSnzn-PI&t=937s">this</a> lecture which I came across this morning, by another Orthodox theologian (Dr Beau Branson) both of these points are brought together, and the position elucidated by Behr and Hopko (both of whom are mentioned in the lecture) is made even more explicit: The one true God is NOT the Trinity but simply the Father. There are three divine Persons - Father, Son and Spirit - with the latter two deriving their divinity from the former (something else I have discussed <a href="https://luthersmarbles.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-own-take-on-trinity.html">previously</a> on this blog). The Son and Spirit are called God but (according to Branson) not in the same sense (the 'definite article' sense) as the Father is. In other words, neither the Son or the Spirit is "the One God". That title is reserved strictly for the Father. (This distinction between the ways in which the term 'God' is used to reference the Father and the way it can be used to denote the other two Persons is, admittedly, still rather unclear to me. It seems to me that it would be better, in modern English, to simply use the adjective 'divine' to describe the Son and the Spirit while reserving the title of 'God' for the Father alone).<br />
The view of the doctrine of the trinity described in this post is, apparently, considered orthodox (both with and without a capital 'O') in the Eastern Church and is, according to Branson, the view of all the Church fathers prior to Augustine.<br />
If this is correct (and I believe it is) then the problem of the coherence (or perceived lack of it) of the doctrine of the trinity is resolved. In its Orthodox formulation, as outlined by the likes of Behr, Hopko and now Branson (amongst others who Branson refers to in the lecture I have linked to), it seems the doctrine is not incoherent at all and may be believed in without compromising ones intellectual integrity.<br />
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Update: See my <a href="https://luthersmarbles.blogspot.com/2019/05/reflection-on-previous-post.html">next post</a>, which is a reflection on this one.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-64826713406710290582018-07-09T10:32:00.003+01:002018-07-09T10:34:50.731+01:00My current view on the Doctrine of the TrinityI still don't believe that the doctrine of the Trinity is <i>literally</i> true, but I am comfortable with that, just as I am comfortable believing that the Bible is not all to be understood literally.<br/>Here's how I understand the DOT now, and it's essentially no different to the view that I had when I started this blog:<br/><br/>
When we say 'the Father is God', we mean that completely literally. The Father is God in an absolute and unqualified sense.<br/><br/>When we say 'the Son is God', we mean that God (ie. the Father) is fully present in the Son. We may treat the Son as if He were God, since everything He says and does is what the Father is saying and doing through Him, and every attribute He possesses is derived from the Father.<br/><br/>When we say 'the Son is not the Father', we mean that the Father's presence in the Son in no way diminishes the Son's individuality or personality.<br/><br/>When we say 'the Spirit is God', we mean that God is fully present <i>by</i> His Spirit.<br/><br/>When we say 'the Spirit is not the Father or the Son', we mean that it is not just the Father, or just the Son, who is present by the Spirit, but both the Father and the Son, and also that the presence of the Spirit in the life of one whom He indwells, in no way diminishes the individuality or personality of the latter.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-39552413361468354602017-05-13T21:21:00.001+01:002017-05-13T21:51:49.877+01:00The Nicene Creed vs. the Doctrine of the TrinityKermit Zarley left the following comment on my <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/a-trinity-analogy-that-really-works.html#comments">'Minecraft model of the Trinity’</a> post: <br /><i>Instead of trying to understand the doctrine of the Trinity, how about trying to understand the Bible. In this post, you don't mention a single text in it.</i> <br />That’s good advice, and I know what he means, and I have tried to adhere to that principle in the past (see <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/the-biblical-doctrine-of-trinity.html">this post</a>, for example). The trouble is, one thing that seems to be a fundamental principle uniting all Christians around the world – and it’s been this way for over 1500 years – is adherence to the Nicene (really the Niceno-Constantinopolitan) creed. True, there are groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Christadelphians who reject the Nicene creed – and the doctrine of the Trinity altogether – but, although they would call themselves Christian, they are (rightly or wrongly) not generally considered to be true Christians by the rest of the Church. In many churches, the Nicene creed is recited weekly as a way for the congregation members to re-affirm their faith and to express their unity with other Christians around the world. I find it very hard to be part of a faith, one of the fundamental tenets of which I am unable to give my assent to. My refusal to give up once and for all on the doctrine of the Trinity has largely been motivated by this unwillingness to accept that the faith in which I first encountered God, and through which I have met many people – including family members - who have demonstrated and modeled the reality of God to me in the way they live their lives, could be so wrong in one of its most foundational beliefs.<br />
But my problem with the doctrine of the Trinity is largely constituted by the fact that its premises are inherently self-contradictory and illogical. This means that much of the mental gymnastics involved in my many attempts to render it coherent and therefore believable tend to involve philosophical speculation as opposed to biblical exegesis.<br />
One thing I’ve realised recently, though, is that while I do not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity in the sense of three, consubstantial divine Persons, each of whom is the one God – a doctrine which (as far as I can tell) not taught in the bible in any clear sense and which I doubt was believed by those who became Christians in the days of the first Apostles – that does not necessarily mean that I cannot assent to the Nicene creed.<br />
The part of the Nicene creed that I have generally had a problem with is the bit that says of Jesus that He is, “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.” However, I am not certain that this <i>has</i> to be understood in an orthodox trinitarian way. I certainly believe that, in one sense, Jesus is what God is. I explained in a <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/the-biblical-doctrine-of-trinity.html">previous post</a> that this is how I understand the sense of the opening sentence of the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and <i>what God was, the Word was</i>. What I understand by this is that God always works through His Son, so that Jesus is imbued <i>by</i> God with all of God’s qualities (for the sake of the argument I’m not going to get into the notion of divine simplicity and its implications for the possibility of God having multiple qualities!) as well possessing the authority to act in God’s name. One way of describing this situation would be to say that Jesus is <i>what</i> God is, but not <i>who</i> God is. This is not to be confused with the very common argument put forward by trinitarians that God is ‘three Whos and one What’. As I have explained in previous posts, that argument is, in my opinion, pure sophistry, and in no way resolves the contradictory nature of the doctrine of the Trinity. Put simply, if each of the three ‘Whos’ is identical to the one ‘What’, then there can be no distinction between those three ‘Whos’. And if the three ‘Whos’ are thought of as being, in some sense, three distinct minds or consciousnesses, floating around inside the one ‘What’ like ghosts in the divine machine, then the Persons are not identical with the ‘What’ (which is, after all, the one God) but rather are inhabitants or, at best, parts or aspects <i>of</i> God.<br />
But what I am arguing is that while Jesus is not <i>who</i> God is – only the Father is God, and Jesus is not the Father – Jesus <i>is</i> what God is in the sense that he is identical to God in every way except for the fact that He (the Son, ie. Jesus) is not the ultimate <i>source</i> of the divine power, authority, knowledge, wisdom, love etc. that he possesses (and surely many trinitarian Christians would agree with that last point, since many of them believe that the Son is eternally generated by the Father).<br />
So if the phrase “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father” can be understood as referring to the fact that Jesus is what God is (without it having to mean that Jesus is <i>who</i> God is), then I have no problem in reciting the Nicene creed.<br />
As for the part of the creed which refers to the Holy Spirit, it does not call the Spirit God but describes the Spirit as “the Lord, the giver of life” who is to be “worshiped and glorified”. I have never had a problem with this part of the creed. God’s Spirit is, by definition, divine (and therefore worthy of worship), just as the human spirit is human, and it is by His Spirit that God imparts life.<br />
I have mentioned the Eastern Orthodox priest Father John Behr in a <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/my-conversation-with-dale-tuggy.html">previous post</a>, as someone whose ideas about the Trinity seem to me to make more sense that those of most (small ‘o’) orthodox Christians. The other day I came across <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn3BbltGGNw">this talk</a> by Father John, and to my surprise he seems to be describing the Trinity in a way that is – possibly – compatible with the understanding of the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that I have argued for in this post (although I don’t fully agree with stuff he's previously written on the Trinity, such as <a href="https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/john-behr-on-the-trinity/">this post</a>, so it's possible I am misunderstanding him). If it is the case that my views on the nature of God would be considered acceptable by such a prominent Orthodox priest and theologian then I have no further need to worry about whether or not those views are compatible with those of the wider Church. I consider the Orthodox Church to be a good guide to the theological views of the Church of the early centuries of Christianity, since (as far as I understand) it ceased to hold any councils after the split with Rome in 1054, whereas the Church in the West continued – and still does continue in both its catholic and protestant forms - to develop its doctrines and teachings. I have mentioned in a previous <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/clarification-of-yesterdays-post.html?showComment=1490799935835#c7550137782012254737">comment</a> that the Orthodox understanding of the atonement – which is centred around the idea of Jesus triumphing over death on our behalf – makes much more sense to me than the western idea that God needs to punish someone – even someone completely innocent - before he is able to forgive.
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-43246633742764813492017-03-28T10:58:00.000+01:002017-03-28T11:02:59.137+01:00Clarification of yesterday's postThe more I consider what I wrote in yesterday’s post, the more I realise that it is all about idioms or manners of speaking, rather than about questions of truth or falsehood. In a strictly literal sense, the Father is the “only true God” (John 17:3), while the Son and Spirit are <i>of</i> God (ie. the Son of God and the Spirit of God) rather than strictly identical with Him. But to describe the Son as God is not a falsehood any more than, in the scenario described in the previous post, to refer to my Minecraft avatar, or to the ‘me’ character in my fictional story, as ‘me’ would be false. Those things aren’t <i>literally</i> me, but by referring to them as ‘me’, I am acknowledging that they <i>represent</i> me and function <i>as</i> me to all intents and purposes. To call them ‘me’ is not to say something which is untrue, it is merely to use an accepted idiom or manner of speech. Similarly, when we refer to the second and third Persons of the Trinity as God we are speaking not literally but idiomatically, in order to highlight the fact that the Son is the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) and that the Spirit is the Spirit of God (and of Christ). So yes, the Father is God and <i>in another sense</i> the Son is God and the Spirit is God. And there is only one God!Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-25854037157751980812017-03-27T14:31:00.001+01:002017-03-28T10:55:57.509+01:00The Minecraft model of the TrinityAs a person, I can take more than one form! I have my normal bodily form – that is, I am made of flesh and blood, just like all humans are. But when I play Minecraft (a computer game involving a simulated world) with my son, I am represented by an avatar (a computerised image of a person, that I control) by means of which I can walk around, build houses etc, in the virtual environment. In the Minecraft world, that avatar is, in a sense at least, me. My son will say things like, “you can come and visit me in my house”, and when he says “you” he is not referring to the flesh and blood me, but to my avatar. Likewise, if I decide to write a story and portray myself as one of the characters in the story, that character – even though he may get up to things that I’ve never actually done in real life – is also, in a sense, me. It's not merely that he is <i>based</i> on me; within the world depicted in my story, that character <i>is</i> me. The other characters in the story will refer to him, quite rightly, as Andrew (my name). So, in this sense, it is possible for me to exist as one person in at least three distinct forms.<br />
Now, I realise that the doctrine of the Trinity is very different to this. God is not one person with three distinct forms. He is beyond mere personhood. So, whereas I can be one person in three distinct forms, God can be one Being in three distinct Persons. And whereas, in my case, each of the three 'objects' (flesh and blood, Minecraft avatar, story character) has the same one 'subject' (me), in the case of God, each of the three subjects (Father, Son and Spirit) has the same one <i>superpersonal,</I>divine Nature (God). But the two concepts (that of one person in three forms and that of one Being in three Persons) can be regarded as analogous. And this analogy can, it seems to me, clear up many of the apparent logical inconsistencies that have previously plagued my many attempts to understand the doctrine of the Trinity.<br />
For example, in the above scenarios I described myself as one person in three forms. The flesh and blood me, is (obviously) me – in fact you could probably call it the only <i>true</i> me (and Jesus, in John 17:3, calls the Father "the only true God"); the Minecraft avatar is me; and the story character is me. Yet, even though I exist in three forms, not one of those forms of me has three forms itself. The flesh and blood me isn’t a Minecraft avatar or a story character, the Minecraft avatar isn’t flesh and blood or a character in a story, and the character in the story isn’t flesh and blood or a Minecraft avatar. Yet still, in some sense, each of them is me. You could say that while the Minecraft avatar (for example) is me, there is more to me than a Minecraft avatar.<br />
If the ‘me’ character in the story that I’ve written gets bitten by a dog in that story, then it would be true to say that I have been bitten by a dog (in the story) while at the same time it would also be true to say that I have never been bitten by a dog (in real life). So, because of the existence of different forms of me (the flesh and blood, the Minecraft avatar and the story character) inhabiting different levels of reality (the real world, the Minecraft world and the story world) it becomes possible to say that I have been both bitten by a dog and never bitten by a dog, which sounds like a logical contradiction and yet is true because - even though there is only one me - that ‘me’ exists in three different forms.<br />
Bearing all of the above in mind it becomes possible, by analogy, to say things like the following:<br /><br />The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God; the Father is not the Son or Spirit, the Son is not the Father or Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father or Son – and yet there is only one God.<br /><br /><i>or,</i><br /><br />
God became a man and was crucified. The Father is God. The Father did not become a man or get crucified. There is only one God.<br /><br />
In the past I have considered these types of statements as being self-contradictory and therefore illogical and incoherent, but – if one remembers my description of one human being (me) in three forms, and the paradoxical-yet-true statements that can result from that concept – then it is possible, by analogy, to hold each part of the above statements as simultaneously true and not indicative of any contradiction.<br />
In other words, if you accept that it is possible for a human person to exist – in some sense – in three forms, then you must also accept that it is possible for a Divine Being to exist – at least in some sense – in three Persons.
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-14153028729914167942017-03-23T13:44:00.003+00:002017-03-27T16:20:09.829+01:00Forget the clonesI've already spotted the flaw in the 'three clones' analogy from my <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/and-finally-only-way-to-make-sense-of.html">post</a> earlier today.<br />
Imagine one of the clones (Dick, say) is bitten by a dog. Now, since Dick was bitten and neither Tom nor Harry were, and since each of the clones is the same one man, then we would have to say that the same one man was both bitten by a dog and not bitten by a dog. This is clearly impossible, since a thing can't be both 'x' and 'not x' simultaneously. Therefore, as with my many previous attempts, my latest analogy of the Trinity, when subjected to a detailed analysis, has proven itself to be logically incoherent.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-54795202055582188862017-03-23T12:25:00.000+00:002017-03-23T13:33:52.145+00:00The only way to make sense of the doctrine of the Trinity?I regularly come across articles and posts on the internet which claim to offer coherent explanations of the doctrine of the Trinity yet, however promising they may seem at first glance, on close examination they almost always prove to have one or more fatal flaws. The majority of attempted explanations of the doctrine of the Trinity fall down in one of three ways. They either end up with no real distinction between the persons (the husband / brother / son analogy), or with distinctions that cannot exist simultaneously (eg. water / ice / steam) or – most commonly of all – with the Persons of the Trinity as <i>parts</i> of God rather than each of them actually <i>being</I> God as the doctrine requires. Many allegedly coherent explanations of the Trinity involve the idea of God as one entity with three ‘minds’ or ‘centres of consiousness’. The trouble with such models is that the only elements in them of which there are three instances (and therefore the only elements which are capable of representing the Persons) are the ‘minds’ themselves, so that on close analysis it becomes plain that the Persons are not actually depicted as <i>God</i> but simply as minds or centres of consciousness <i>of</i> God. And if each of the Persons is <i>not</i> merely a mind of God, but is the actual Being of God Himself, then, since there is only one Being of God, it follows that each of them is the exact same thing - in which case we end up with no distinction between the Persons.<br />
Another of the most common ways in which the coherence of the doctrine of the Trinity is supposedly defended is to say that there is no contradiction between God’s oneness and His threeness, since the oneness applies to <i>what</i> God is and the threeness to <i>who</i> He is. God is, in other words, ‘three whos and one what’. But the trouble is, if each of the ‘whos’ <i>is</i> the ‘what’ (because each of the Persons <i>is</i> God) and there is only <i>one</i> ‘what’ then, once again, each of the ‘whos’ must be the exact same thing, of which there is only one. So, again, we end up with no distinction between the Persons.<br />
I believe that grammar is the <i>logical</i> component of language – a universal element of all human languages, because logic itself is universal truth in the same way that mathematics is. The doctrine of the Trinity – at least in its traditional, orthodox form - is, it would seem, almost impossible to explain coherently in a way that does not defy the limits of grammar - and therefore the very bounds of logic and rational coherence.<br />
There are, however, two ways in which I have found that it is possible to describe the Trinity without abandoning the normal rules of grammar. One is to view the word God as referring to a ‘mass noun’ rather than (or as well as) a ‘count noun’. Then we could say that while the Father is a Being called God, the Son and the Spirit are each God in the sense that they consist of a substance called ‘God’, even though neither of them is <i>a</i> God or <i>the</i> God (similarly to how a piece of an apple is still called 'apple' but not <I>an</i> apple or <I>the</i> apple - or how a piece of cake is called 'cake' but not <i>a</i> cake or <i>the</i> cake). However, I <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/my-own-failed-version-of-material.html">rejected</a> this approach for the simple reason that this is not the way in which the vast majority of Christians (or others in the Abrahamic tradition) understand the meaning of the word ‘God’. He is not a substance in the material sense, or even analogous to a material substance.<br />
The second way in which it is possible to make grammatical sense of the doctrine of the Trinity is by viewing the Persons in the same way we might view clones. For example, if a man called Tom made two clones of himself, called Dick and Harry, we could perhaps say that Tom, Dick and Harry, while being three distinct <i>persons</i> (because they are three distinct subjects (in the sense that only Tom can [truthfully] say “I am Tom”, only Dick can say “I am Dick” and only Harry can say “I am Harry”) are all actually the same man (three different <i>versions</i> of that one man, if you like). In the past, I have rejected this idea because, while it is possible to say that Tom, Dick and Harry are all the same man, it also seems perfectly reasonable to describe them as three identical <i>men</i>. Nevertheless, more than perhaps any other type of Trinitarian model or attempted explanation, this 'clone' analogy does, I think, provide a way to speak of God in trinitarian terms while not departing from grammatical (or logical) coherence. The Father is the one true God, and the Son and the Spirit are two other <i>versions</i> of that same God. One version of God became a man, the other two versions did not – God was crucified in one of His versions, but not in the other two, etc. Of course, the Son and the Spirit are not <i>literally</i> clones of the Father in the genetic sense - this is only an analogy, after all - and, unlike Dick and Harry, they had no beginning in time.<br />
In my first <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/my-own-take-on-trinity.html">post</a> on this blog I quoted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." I have no intention of leaving the Christian faith (as the disciples said to Jesus in John 6:68 when he asked if they were going to leave him: “"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”) and, whether I like it or not, the Trinity is one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity – about as near to a non-negotiable as it’s possible to get. So it’s important to me to have a way of understanding the doctrine that makes sense to me. This analogy of the clones, then, being the only way I can make sense of the teachings espoused in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, is the model that I choose to adopt as my own understanding of the true meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity and as the closest we can come, in my opinion, to a true appreciation of the trinitarian nature of the Godhead.
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-41272911333077297942017-01-11T16:32:00.001+00:002017-05-13T17:16:17.936+01:00One Person in three guisesI have mentioned in a previous <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/not-guilty-of-modalism-possibly.html">post</a> that the Latin word 'persona' (from which we derive the English word 'person') is itself derived from a Greek word which originally meant 'mask' (as in the mask worn by an actor on the stage. In this post, I propose the word 'guise' (not to be confused with <i>dis</i>guise) as an appropriate substitute for the word that is usually rendered 'Person' when referring to the trinitarian nature of God. The traditional formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity involves the concept of God as three Persons in one Being. I am suggesting, instead, the idea of God as one Person (in the modern sense of the word, ie. an individual conscious entity, a <i>self</i>) in three guises.<br />
The "only true God" (John 17:3) is the Father, but we encounter him in two other guises: firstly, He is fully present in the life and teachings of Jesus and, secondly, He is fully present in the form of (or, rather, by means of) His Spirit (the same Spirit which was, and is, present in Jesus). When we encounter God in the life and teachings of Jesus, rather than call Him the Father, we refer to Him as the Word (see John 1) or, since Jesus' relationship with God was so utterly intimate that He was able to say "I and the Father are One", and Jesus is, in a unique way, God's Son, we can also refer to God in this guise as the Son - but that is not to imply that Jesus the <i>man</i> is actually God himself, or that Jesus and the Father are the same Person, only that God is fully present in Jesus and in his life and ministry (see 2 Corinthians 5:19).<br />
When we encounter God in the guise of the Spirit then we refer to Him as such, ie. as the Spirit, rather than as the Father.<br />
I think this understanding of God can be distinguished from modalism/sabellianism, because in the modalist idea of God, the Father and the Son (Jesus) are considered to be the same Person and this, perhaps, is the reason for modalism being declared a heresy, since it would mean that when Jesus prays to the Father it is actually God praying to Himself. The model that I am proposing does not, however, suffer from this problem.<br /><br />Actually, all of this is really just another way of stating the position I set out with my very first post on this blog, the idea of one God in three presences.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-1616934966988392402016-09-10T10:07:00.004+01:002016-09-17T16:56:37.529+01:00More 'Symbolic Trinitarianism'Imagine that, in a General Election, each of the three main UK parties gets exactly one third of the vote. As a result it is agreed that the three party leaders (Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron) will share the role of Prime Minister. Not only that, but, by some miracle, it turns out that all three of them agree 100% on every single issue imaginable so that every action or decision of one of the three is fully concurred with by the other two. Furthermore, due to the wonders of modern technology they are constantly linked to each other by an online connection which means that any conversation one of them takes part in is instantaneously seen and heard - and, naturally, concurred with - by the other two.<br />In the situation described above, would it be legitimate to say that although each of the three party leaders is Prime Minister, there is actually only one Prime Minister because each of the three share exactly the same power and knowledge and - because of their absolute agreement on all possible issues - there is no possibility of conflict, rivalry or disagreement between them?<br />I think that this type of model is one way to make some kind of sense out of the doctrine of the Trinity. Each of the Divine Persons shares the one office of God (ie. the office of supreme ruler of the universe). Since each of the Persons fully possesses all the divine powers and attributes (ie. each is fully omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent etc.) and since, because of the infinite nature of the divine attributes, each <I>individual</I> Person has these attributes to the exact same degree as do the three of them combined, and since there is no possibility of disagreement or rivalry between them, perhaps it is legitimate to symbolise this situation by referring to each of the Persons as God while simultaneously asserting that there is only one God.<br />A similar model is to think of God as a Composite Being comprised of three inseparable Divine Persons and to assert that each of the Persons is <I>fully</I> God even though none of them is <i>all</i> of God. Again, this is to symbolise the fact that each each of the Persons fully possesses all the divine powers and attributes (ie. each is fully omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent etc.) and that, because of the infinite nature of the divine attributes, each <I>individual</I> Person has these attributes to the exact same degree as do the three of them combined, and also that there is no possibility of disagreement or rivalry between the Persons.<br />Personally, I incline more towards the first of these models because of my (biblically based) belief that the Father is "the only true God" while the Son and Spirit share fully in His divine power and attributes.<br />Of course, neither of these models can explain how God could <i>literally</i> be both one Being and three Persons simultaneously. For example, using the first model, imagine one of the Prime Ministerial Persons has an egg thown at him/her. In that case, it would be possible to say that the Prime Minister both <i>did</i> and <i>did not</i> get splatted with egg yolk (depending on which of the Persons one is considering). Yet it is logically impossible for the same thing to be both 'X' and 'not X' simultaneously.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-53405740812131849962016-09-09T18:27:00.003+01:002016-09-10T09:26:15.811+01:00Group names and collective entitiesMost of the top premier league football clubs have massive squads of players as well as many non-playing staff. But when 11 members of, say, Manchester United, travel to another team's ground for an away match, we say that Manchester United (not 'some of Manchester United' or 'part of Manchester United') have come to play.<br />Similarly, imagine a pop group (let's invent one - we'll call them 'The Bloggers') has five members. If one of the members gets sick and the remaining four do a gig, we still say that the Bloggers (not some of the Bloggers or part of the Bloggers) are performing.<br />If Mr and Mrs Smith and two of their four children turn up at my house I will probably inform my wife that "the Smith family have arrived", rather than denoting them as 'some of the Smith family' or 'part of the Smith family'.<br />In these cases, a part of the collective entity (team/group/family)possesses all the essence of the whole and (in the case of the football team or pop group) is authorised by the whole to use the official name of the whole.<br />How far these examples are useful to understanding the Doctrine of the Trinity (by demonstrating that a part of an entity can be legitimately designated by the same term used to denote the entity in its entirety) is debatable, however. I'm not sure we would ever call one footballer by the name of his team or one pop group member by the name of the group. And if Mr Smith popped over for lunch I wouldn't describe my guest as 'the Smith family'. It seems that what these examples consist of is group names, and that such names can be equally applied to the whole of the group or to a part of the group but never to a 'non-group', ie. they cannot be applied to an individual (such as a Person).Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-6563426951079789742016-08-24T16:05:00.002+01:002016-08-24T16:07:44.900+01:00Is God a set of attributes?If we were to conveive of the word 'God' as referring to a set of conditions, qualities or attributes, there would cease to be a problem with understanding the doctrine of the trinity. I have thought of several analogies that could work on this basis. For example, there can be many instances of the English alphabet (in a school textbook, a poster on a classroom wall, a children's song etc). Each of them is a true instance of the English alphabet yet there is only one English alphabet.<br />There could be several versions of the National Anthem, yet there would still be only one National Anthem.<br />The play I am watching at the theatre in London is 'Hamlet'. The play you are watching in New York is also 'Hamlet'. Yet there is only one play called 'Hamlet'.<br />What these things have in common is that they are sets of symbols, sounds or words that can be arranged or reproduced in various ways so that each arrangement is a distinct version of the one set.<br />On this basis, one could resolve the problem of the apparent incoherence of the doctrine of the Trinity by conceiving of God as a set of divine qualities (say, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and omnibenevolence) and then positing each of the three Persons as a distinct, personalised instance (or personification) of that set of qualities, each one comprising a different 'arrangement' of the entire set.<br />I do not believe, however, that this would be a viable approach, since Christians have always conveived of the one God as a concrete Being, not an abstract set of qualities or attributes. A set of qualities cannot be personal (or 'superpersonal') even if 'personality' or 'personalness' is one of the qualities in the set. I know of no instance in the English language where a set of qualities or attributes could be described as 'him' or 'her', no matter how many people it is personified by.
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-57448546813329209872016-08-23T14:25:00.003+01:002016-08-23T14:32:25.797+01:00Embracing paradoxRecently, I was reading about the existentialist philospher Kierkegaard's view that ultimate truth is impossible for human beings to grasp because we do not have the necessary conceptual framework. This is not the same as when people say that 'God is beyond logic'. Rather, it is to say that the truth about God is perfectly logical within the context of the infinite and eternal realm that God inhabits but that, being finite creatures bound by space and time, what we are able to grasp of the truth about God <i>appears to us</i> to be paradoxical.<br />
Imagine living in a two dimensional world like that described by C.S. Lewis in the passage from <i>Mere Christianity</i> that I quoted in my second post on this blog. Now imagine looking at two squares, the first measuring 2" x 2", the second measuring 6" x 6". The idea that the first of these shapes could be larger than the second would seem totally illogical and against all the rules of mathematics. This is because, as someone only capable of thinking in two dimensions, I am aware of the size in terms of <i>area</i>, but not in terms of <i>volume</i>, which would be totally beyond my experience or even ability to conceptualise. In actual fact it is perfectly possible for the first shape to be larger than the second if, for example, as well as its length and width of 2" x 2", it had a <i>height</i> of, say, 10" while the second shape had a height of only 1". In that case, the volume of the first shape (which is in actuality a cube rather than a square) would be 40" (2" x 2" x 10") while that of the second shape would be only 36" (6" x 6" x 1").<br />
Ultimately, however, I do not think Kierkegaard's idea that eternal truth appears to finite minds as paradox can be used as a way of justifying belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. It doesn't make any difference how much we fail to understand about the nature of the Father or of the Son (or simply of the Being called God) or how impossible it is to grasp who or what they are <i>in themselves</i> as opposed to how they appear to our limited finite minds. The relevant issue is the idea that neither the Father nor the Son <i>is</i> the other, yet each of them <i>is</i> the same Being, namely God. The assertion that a=/=b yet a=x and b=x is just as illogical, no matter what a,b and x represent. Of course, if the word 'is' had some special meaning in the infinite or eternal dimension which was incapable of being grasped by our finite minds then it would be possible to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is true in some sense that it is beyond our capacity as finite beings to grasp. But the word 'is' was invented by us finite, time/space-bound creatures to serve a particular linguistic role, to convey the idea of identity as understood by us finite, time/space-bound creatures. It's meaning is defined by us and us alone. Defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity cannot, therefore, appeal to the infinite, eternal realm as an escape route from the incoherence and internally contradictory nature of that doctrine.
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-88818812684240458802016-05-04T14:29:00.001+01:002016-06-02T13:30:29.982+01:00As you were... again!My idea of describing the persons of the Trinity as God-Persons doesn't really resolve the problem of the Trinity at all. Maybe it sidesteps the difficulties involved but it certainly doesn't make it possible for me to call myself an orthodox Trinitarian. The reason is that a God-Person is not God. A God-Person is not something that there is only one of, because clearly there are three God-Persons. Therefore, as there is only one God, a God-Person cannot be God (or rather, not all three of them can). So what is a God-Person, if not God? There are two possibilities; a God-Person is either <i>a</i> god (one of two or perhaps three) or someone who, while not actually being God, is divine. Neither of these possibilities would be acceptable to an orthodox Trinitarian as they believe that the Son and the Spirit are not merely divine and that neither are they a plurality of gods, but that each of them, along with the Father, is the one true God.<br />So, it seems there is really no change in my position at all. I'm still someone who believes that the one God is the Father and that the doctrine of the Trinity is not literally true. My view of the DOT is still a 'liberal' one (or, as I sometimes prefer to say, a radical Protestant one) and I'm okay with that!Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-34971535265599024742016-04-28T09:56:00.002+01:002016-04-28T09:59:22.822+01:00One God-Being, three God-Persons (part 2)In my <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/one-god-being-three-god-persons.html?m=1">previous post</a>, I suggested that "the God-Person known as the Father sometimes speaks on behalf of, and represents, the group (or family) known as the God-Being." However, on reflection I think this is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, it means that each of the God-Persons constitutes only one third of the God-Being which raises the question of whether or not any of them possesses the fullness of the divine nature. Secondly, The import of biblical passages which reference the Father as the one, or the only, true God seems weakened by the notion that they really mean that He merely <i> represents</i> the one true God.<br />Since I believe (and stated in my previous post) that the Father is the source of the divine nature of the Son and Holy Spirit, it seems appropriate to say that the Father Himself <i>is</i> the God-Being (as well as being one of the God-Persons) while the other two God-Persons, since they derive their divine nature from the Father, can be said to <i>participate</i> in His Being.<br /> To use a rather outlandish example, imagine that the entire human race has been wiped out in some freak nuclear accident apart from one survivor - a genius scientist named Tom. Tom has two best friends called Dick and Harry and although he couldn't completely save them, being a scientific genius he did manage to preserve each of their brains which he now keeps in two jars of formaldehyde. Again, being a scientific genius, Tom has managed to wire each of his two friends' brains up to his own body so that each of them is now able to see through Tom's eyes, to speak through his mouth and even to walk around, pick things up etc, using Tom's feet, hands and limbs. Fortunately, Tom Dick and Harry have similar tastes in terms of where they want to go and what they want to do, so there are no conflicts over how to make use of Tom's body. In this bizarre scenario, I think it would be appropriate to say that there are three human persons - Tom, Dick and Harry - but only one human being, namely Tom, although the other two persons participate in Tom's being through having access to his human physical attributes. In other words they derive the non-personal aspects of their human nature from Tom. Likewise, in the case of the Holy Trinity we can say that there are three God-Persons and one God-Being, the Father, from whom the other two God-Persons derive their divine nature and attributes.<br />The scripture passages which speak of the Father as the one true God do so because he is the only true God-Being. However, all three God-Persons, in equal measure, possess and partake of the nature and attributes of that Being just as, in my analogy, the three human persons, Tom, Dick and Harry, share in the one human nature which is derived from the one surviving human being, Tom.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-13654749478189986422016-04-27T12:39:00.000+01:002016-04-28T09:53:36.851+01:00One God-Being, three God-Persons (part 1)I have decided that in order to get around the problem of the Trinity, I am no longer going to speak of God in an unqualified way. From now on I will refer either to the one 'God-Being' or to the three 'God-Persons'. The one God-Being is a group, or family, consisting of the three God-Persons.<br /> Surely, nobody could object to my decision to use this terminology, for all Christians, at least those with an orthodox view of the Trinity, believe that there is only one Being called God and that there are three Persons called God.<br />
I also posit that the God-Person known as the Father sometimes speaks on behalf of, and represents, the group (or family) known as the God-Being. This is because the other two God-Persons derive their divine nature (their infinite power and knowledge and other divine attributes) from the Father. This accounts for passages in the Bible such as Isaiah 45:5 ("I am the LORD and there is no other; apart from me there is no God") or John 17:3 where Jesus says to the Father that eternal life is to "know you, the only true God..." In the former statement, I believe, the Father is acting as a Spokesperson, or mouthpiece, for the God-Being as a whole while in the latter, Jesus is addressing the Father in his capacity as representative of the whole God-Being. A similar situation obtains with regard to 1 Corinthians 8:6, where Paul writes that "for us there is but one God, the Father".
<br />By adopting this terminology of one God-Being and three God-Persons, I believe I will be able to be true to the spirit of the Trinitarian concept of God while using language that does not degenerate into incoherence.<br /><br />(Bible quotes from the New International Version.)Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-34669409864850958132016-03-30T18:14:00.000+01:002016-04-02T23:33:35.769+01:00The BIBLICAL doctrine of the Trinity......as opposed to the traditional one which, I believe, involves extra-biblical concepts which render it incoherent:<br /><br />The Father is the only true God (John 17:3); the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (John 14:11); the Son and the Father are one (John 10:30); whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father (John 14:9); the Son is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15); the Son is the exact representation of God's being (Hebrews 1:3); the fullness of Deity dwells bodily in the Son (Colossians 2:9); if you lie to the Holy Spirit you are lying to God (Acts 5:4); the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9).<br /><br />Anything beyond these simple yet profound biblical statements about the unity of God and Christ in the Spirit (eg. notions of three distinct Persons each of whom constitutes the same one Being) is, in my opinion, pure speculation and should not be made into a requirement of orthodoxy.<br />No doubt many people would point to John 1:1 as an essential addition to the above list, which it most certainly is. I omitted it simply because of the ambiguity over how it should be translated. My preferred translation is 'what God was, the Word was' (New English Bible), as it takes into account the lack of a definite article (ho) before the word for God (theos) when applied to the Word (logos) - although I can't claim to have any real knowledge of Greek, biblical or otherwise.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-88547728416297782072016-03-24T09:47:00.002+00:002016-03-24T09:47:25.753+00:00As you were...Every now and then I get carried away with the desire not to be a heretic and I fall into the trap of coming up with a new configuration of some version of the doctrine of the Trinity (DOT) that I've already 'debunked' in the past, and allowing myself to be taken in by it for a little while, fooling myself that I have subjected the theory to proper analysis when in fact such is the psychological pleasure of feeling myself to be within the fold of Christian orthodoxy that I have, unconsciously, held myself back from employing the appropriate level of critical rigour.<br/>Such was the case with my recent 'grammar of infinity' model of the Trinity (see previous post) which, once put through its analytical paces, revealed itself as a failure for all the usual reasons.<br />Basically, if there is something that there is only one of (God) then the Persons either <i>are</i> that thing that there is only one of - in which case there must be only one Person - or the Persons are not the thing that there is only one of - in which case they are not God. You just can't have it both ways!<br />In my GOI model, the thing that there was only one of was the <i>extent</i> of the divine attributes and, while all the Persons may share that same (infinite) extent to their attributes, none of them is identical to the extent of their attributes. It's the usual problem of the fact that while each of the Persons may share the one divine nature, it cannot be the case that each of them <i>is</i> the divine nature - so if the divine nature is God then the Persons are not God and if the divine nature is not God then the fact that there is only one of it does not help resolve the problem of the DOT.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-33233045365546376432016-03-19T09:39:00.001+00:002016-03-23T23:15:23.300+00:00Doctrine of the Trinity - the grammar of infinityThroughout this blog I have shown how, up until now, I have found it impossible to come to an understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity (DOT) which is both logically coherent and (small 'o') orthodox.<br />Now, however, I seem to have arrived at a conception of the DOT which, while it admittedly involves some unusual use of grammar, does seem - to me at any rate - to actually make sense and not involve any heretical conclusions.<br />
The model of the Trinity that I now espouse works like this:<br />
Imagine three people - let's call them Tom, Dick and Harriet. Considered together they make up a group of three human beings. As a group they have roughly three times the strength that each of them has as an individual; for example, if Tom's car were to have a flat battery and need a push start, Tom might not be able, on his own, to push the car very far - but with the help of his friends, Dick and Harriet, he will do a much better job.<br />
A similar situation obtains with regard to knowledge. True, there will be some overlap in terms of what each of them knows, but certainly each of them will know plenty of stuff that the other two don't, so their combined knowledge is much greater than that which each of them possesses as an individual.<br />
Tom, Dick and Harriet probably aren't exactly the same size as each other but, roughly speaking, as a group they will occupy three times the space that each of them occupies as an individual.<br />
A similar ratio of three to one will apply to all other areas of these three people's existence as a group.<br />
The situation with regard to the divine Persons is, however, very different: each of them is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent - therefore the power held by each of the individual Persons is no less than that held by the group as a whole; each Person has no less knowledge than the group and, since they are present everywhere, each Person occupies no less space than the three of them do together. The same situation obtains with regard to all the divine attributes. It is this phenomenon - the fact that each individual divine Person has exactly the same amount of power and knowledge, and occupies exactly the same amount of space etc, as the three divine Persons combined - that, I now believe, the DOT points to and signifies. Although the group (the Trinity) contains three Persons (because there are three subjects or 'I's) it contains only one set of infinite divine attributes held equally by all three Persons. Each of the Persons is God, yet because of the fact that each is equal to the three together, they do not amount to a plurality of 'Gods'.<br />
In the past I have used a kind of 'interrogation' method to establish whether or not a purported explanation of the DOT is actually coherent. I would ask a set of questions such as the following:<br /><br />
Did God become incarnate as a human being? (to which the answer should be 'yes')<br />
How many Gods are there? (the answer should, of course, be 'one')<br />
So the one God became incarnate as a human being ('yes')<br />
Is the Father the one God? ('yes')<br />
So the Father is the one God who became incarnate as a human being? ('er... well, yes')<br />
Did the Father become incarnate as a human being? ('no!')<br />
So the one God who became incarnate as a human being did not become incarnate as a human being??<br /><br />
At this point I would consider the Trinity theory in question to be proven illogical and incoherent and therefore clearly not a true reflection of the nature of God. Up until now, no Trinity theory has passed my rigorous interrogation test!<br />
However, I now think that, because it refers to a situation unlike any that is experienced in the finite sphere (in other words, because it is dealing with infinite qualities and quantities) the grammar employed in discussing the DOT should be of a special variety unlike that used in other situations; so the answers to the above questions should actually take something like the following form:<br /><br />
Did God become incarnate as a human being? ('well, one of Him did')<br />
How many Gods are there? ('one, of course!')<br />
So the one God became incarnate as a human being ('like I said, one of Him did')
Is the Father the one God? (yes!)
So the Father is the one God who became incarnate as a human being? ('He is one of the one God, one of whom became incarnate as a human being')
Did the Father become incarnate as a human being? ('no')<br /><br />
The DOT teaches that there are three Persons of the one God, so an expression like 'one of the one God' simply means 'one Person of the one God'. It might seem that we should refer to God (being a combination of three Persons) as an 'it' rather than a 'He', but to me that seems to diminish God by implying that God is a <i>thing</i> whereas a being consisting of three Persons, far from being less than a person is, in fact, 'superpersonal'. I suppose we could use the pronoun 'them', but if the whole purpose of the DOT is to point to the fact that the three Persons, each of whom is God, do not - because of their infinite nature - amount to a plurality of 'Gods', then to refer to God as 'them' would seem to defeat this object. Hence, 'Him' seems the most appropriate pronoun to use. (Of course, I do not see God as male in the human sense, but both Father and Son are male terms and the Son has become incarnate as a human male. I do, however, think there may be a case for referring to the Holy Spirit as 'Her' - not because I think the Spirit is female in the human sense but simply to introduce at least an element of gender balance into our conception of the Godhead).
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-22903909030859691342016-03-06T14:30:00.000+00:002016-05-08T17:02:36.434+01:00Just in case you are interested......here are the links for my other blogs:<br /><br />
<a href="http://thoughtsonwhatsafoot.blogspot.co.uk/">"Thoughts on What's Afoot"</a> (latitudinous lucubrations and other stray cerebrations).<br /><br />
<a href="http://learnarmenian.blogspot.co.uk/">"Free Armenian Lessons"</a> (short lessons in both Eastern and Western Armenian).<br /><br />
<a href="http://andrewspaintings.blogspot.co.uk/">"Andrew's Art"</a> (drawings and paintings including a few home-made greeting cards).<br /><br />Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-13322343201928792772016-02-13T11:03:00.002+00:002016-02-29T07:56:17.828+00:00The two hands of GodThe Church Father Irenaeus described the Son and Holy Spirit as the two 'hands' of God. That thought is certainly compatible with my own understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.<br />When my hand is holding something, or pointing at something, it is actually <i>me</i> that is doing the holding or pointing, even though my hand is not identical to me. Similarly, when the Son or Spirit are acting or speaking it is actually God who, through them, is acting or speaking. It is in this sense, I believe, that we can speak of the Son and the Spirit as God - not in the strict sense of being <i>identical</i> to God, which is, in my opinion, applicable only to the Father.<br />As I've stated previously, while not being strictly identical to God, the Son and Spirit are certainly <i>divine</i>, by virtue of the fact that they are 'parts' or aspects of the one true God (the Father) - namely His Word and His Spirit.
Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-16168698273314747022016-01-19T09:27:00.001+00:002016-02-20T15:20:18.667+00:00A simple statement of my symbolic understanding of the Trinity<a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/my-own-take-on-trinity.html">My understanding</a> of the nature of the relationship between the Father, Son and Spirit and of the nature of the Godhead can be summarised as follows:<br /><br />
1) The Father <i>is</i> God<br />
2) The Son <i>reveals</i> God<br />
3) The Spirit <i>conveys</i> (or <i>communicates</i>) God<br />
4) There is only one GodAndrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-28775823944094659542016-01-13T22:37:00.001+00:002016-01-14T10:37:52.678+00:00My conversation with Dale TuggyA few days ago I tweeted a link to my <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/my-own-take-on-trinity.html">previous post</a> and copied in Dale Tuggy, a philosopher specialising in Analytic Theology, Philosophical Theology, Philosophy of Religion and Early Modern Philosophy, who has taught in the Department of Philosophy at The State University of New York at Fredonia since 2000 and who runs the popular <a href="http://trinities.org/blog/">Trinities</a> blog and podcast series, some of the episodes of which I have been listening to lately.<br />Mr Tuggy was good enough to respond to my tweet, and over the next couple of days I had a short conversation with him, via twitter, about the views I had expressed in my post.<br />The twitter conversation (complete with abbreviations!) is reproduced below. Dale Tuggy's words are in bold.<br /><br />
Me:<br />
A coherent explanation of the Doctrine of #TheTrinity: http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/my-own-take-on-trinity.html?m=1 … #Christianity #Christian #theology #philosophy @DaleTuggy<br /><br />
Dale Tuggy:<br />
<b>There are many arguably coherent ways to parse the language, but most are mutually exclusive. Real problem is fit with the Bible.</b><br /><br />
Dale Tuggy (again):<br />
<b>Not coherent. Trin sposed to be monoth, but you say 3 Gods. Which in ur view is the one God - the Trinity or the Father?</b><br /><br />
Me:<br />
Def Father, as per Jesus' words ('Only true God'). Son and Spirit are 'God of (or from) God' as per creed. 3 Gods but 1 div nat.<br /><br />
Dale Tuggy:<br />
<b>Not sure if you mean three Gods or three "God"s. Do you see the difference?</b><br /><br />
Me:<br />
1 uncaused God (the Father), 2 'Gods' in a secondary sense, deriving their divinity from the Father. Do you think it's heretical?<br /><br />
Dale Tuggy:<br />
<b>No, I think that's subordinationist unitarianism, like that of Clarke, Novatian, or Origen. Not trin because one God not = Trinity</b><br /><br />
Me:<br />
I just recapped on Clarke and I agree with his views, but they are actually not that different to some East Orth eg. Fr John Behr<br /><br />
Dale Tuggy:<br />
<b>I need to read more East. Orth. sources on the Trinity. I suspect they are ambivalent about whether God = Trinity vs. God = Father</b><br /><br />
Me:<br />
I think they def more favourable to God=Father than Western trad is. Thanks for comments. Congrats on excellent blog and podcasts<br /><br />(End of conversation)<br /><br />
Of course Dale Tuggy is right, the formula I came up with in my most recent post was never really going to pass muster as orthodox - at the end of the day it would mean that Christians are worshiping three Gods, even if all three do share the same divine nature. But I've never set any store by the argument that because there is only one divine nature then the three persons who share that nature must all be the same God. If possession of the divine nature makes a Person God, then if three Persons possess that nature there must be three Gods. So this idea about one Supreme God and two secondary Gods deriving their divinity from Him was the closest I could come to what I felt the Trinitarian language was trying to get at. And I'm glad Mr Tuggy mentioned Samuel Clarke because it made me check back on his views (I have come across them once before) and I realise that he too felt that this type of idea was the closest one could come to Trinitarianism while remaining coherent. Dale Tuggy calls this view Subordinationist Unitarianism, which I think is a better label than Tritheism, considering that I am not talking about three 'independent' or <i>separate</i> (as opposed to 'distinct') Gods.<br />Incidentally, I think that Father John Behr's (the Orthodox Priest who I mentioned in my penultimate tweet) <a href="https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/john-behr-on-the-trinity/">attempt</a> to explain the doctrine of the Trinity can only be rendered coherent if the Son/Word and Spirit are viewed as, in some sense, secondary deities deriving their divinity from the Father.<br />Every now and then I try to bring my view of the Trinity more into line with traditional orthodoxy - after all, who actually <i>wants</i> to be a heretic? (I prefer the word 'liberal' or even 'radical protestant'). None of these attempts have ever survived any serious scrutiny, though, and this latest one is no different. I do think, however, that the idea of one uncaused, true God, who is in turn the cause of the divinity of his Son and Spirit, is a better approximation to the way the New Testament writers and the earliest Christians appear to have understood the nature of the Godhead than the later Trinitarian theories of Athanasius which, it seems to me, are impossible to conceive of in any coherent or logically plausible way.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4240342444068872391.post-4737244648861523492016-01-10T16:25:00.000+00:002016-02-07T19:07:03.737+00:00Clarification of my view on the TrinityI stated in my <a href="http://luthersmarbles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/my-own-take-on-trinity.html?m=1">initial post</a> on this blog that I see the Trinity as more a case of one God in three 'presences' than three Persons: the 'only true God' (the Father, as described by Jesus) is present in the Son, by the Spirit.<br />The fact that both the Son and the Spirit share all the divine attributes of the Father (omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, infinite love or omnibenevolence etc.), however, means that it is not inappropriate to refer to them also by the title 'God'. I think the reason that the doctrine of the Trinity requires us to say that although all three Persons are God, yet there is only one God, is that if we were to say that there were three gods, that would imply that there were three 'independent' sources of supreme power, three seperate sets of divine attributes, etc.<br />By saying that although there are three who are God, there is only one God, we are constantly reminded that there is only one supreme 'power source', only one source of infinite love and knowledge etc. - that of the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, as the Nicene Creed puts it. The Son, rather than being God in an unqualified sense like the Father, is 'true God <i>from</i> true God', to borrow another phrase from the creed (italics mine). Likewise with the Spirit. While the Father is uncaused, the Son (God's 'Word' or Wisdom, which became incarnate as Jesus Christ) is eternally generated and the Spirit eternally 'spirated' by the Father. As such, the Father is eternally the source of the divinity of the Son and the Spirit.<br />When we try to view the doctrine of the Trinity as a logical or mathematical idea it inevitably leads to incoherence if not outright cognitive dissonance. It is, rather, a religious concept expressed in symbolic language. Translated into straightforward, 'face value' terminology, I believe that what it is trying to express is the idea that while there is one supreme God, there are two other Gods who share all of the divine attributes of the supreme God because they derive them from Him.Andrew Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09526696604524560447noreply@blogger.com0