As I started studying I found that the Trinity was often viewed by people as something complex and difficult and that this was often compounded by the 'Holy Ghost' (God in a sheet?) understanding of same. Time went on and I found my self listening to sermons where God was green and had three leave (the Shamrock being the representation of the Trinity). In one place I found that the trinity was like the lady preaching in that she was a daughter, wife and teacher - three different people in the one body! Another place taught me that God was like three people who had decided to always agree and the three of them were so inseparable it was as if they were one (blimey - had they really been ordained for thirty years?). One of the stars of the Trinity parade told the assembled congregation that God was like a person with multiple personalities - each had their own character but resided in the one physical body. Now in my book MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) is a pretty serious and severe condition (and not necessarily schizoid - I remember the lectures well as they pulled down many assumptions) and this sermon resides as one of the many cherries on the trinity Sunday cake.
The Trinity is a simple concept in that God (the Father) is the author of life and of our reconciliation (salvation) to Him. God (the Son) is the means by which that reconciliation with God is effected by the freewill submission to death on the Cross for each of us. God (the Holy Spirit) lives in us and guides us to maintain that relationship and live within the salvation reality that is open to us. Simples isn't is? You don't need to be a Meerkat to understand it!
One of the clever devices that comes from the early church is the little drawing that puts it simply and graphically so we lame brains can grasp it:
Of course we can get more into this and head for Nicea (325AD) and get to grips with the 'substance' (ousia) and we find that God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one ousios (homoousious), not similar (homoiousious), not different (heteroousios). One subtance, three distinct and separate wills - all in accord.
Simples or what?
16 comments:
Definitely "or what"
Nah, is simples - we just makes it difficult by trying to be clever with the logic we employ for something that like the virgin birth is not within our frame of reference.
Prefer this to the monothelites (and the fizzy ones) any day!
Happy Friday
I think the word "mystery" is useful here. With it, your diagram is allowed to say what it says without being dissected and pulled apart by people who want to know how it works. Without it, we are reduced to the kind of unhelpful illustrations like the ones you mentioned.
This post is so good, I have linked to it on my blog. Here's the link, since blogger backlinks don't seem to work: The Trinity
Charlie,
Thanks for comments - I struggle with the way we make some of out thelogy so unattainable and the abuse of the privilege we have on our pulpits.
Thanks,
Vic
As a musician, I really appreciated Jeremy Begbie's analogy of a musical triad - three distinct notes inhabiting the same aural space, yet contributing to the overall effect of the chord. It just makes more sense to me than the more visual images often employed by preachers. One year in my curacy I even had the organist play a three note chord and then change one of the notes to spot the difference.
I also remember Jeremy recounting the story of a former student of his inviting him to preach at their church one Trinity Sunday - to which his response was, "Why? Don't you believe in the Trinity?"
Many of the "standard" preachers' illustrations end up being a form of modalism, which the wife/teacher/mother analogy you cited is, effectively.
One of the hallmarks of a good theologian is the ability to present the difficult things such that they are simple (your word) and attainable.
If you do not mind I will post this in our parish magazine.
RJW
I loved my time with JB, a stunningly good bloke indeed.
Bob,
Thanks for comments - feel free to use whatever you wish.
Has always been my aim to be a theologian who makes the hard stuff simple and the sime everyday. I seek to make stuff accessible and teach some deep stuff whilst doing it, hence the blog style (which is who I am and how and what I think / believe).
Blessings,
V
'sime'???
Should have been 'simple'
Sorry
But the trouble is that your diagram, simple though it is, represents a reductio ad absurdum. And that means either you draw the conclusion or else you say, no logic doesn't apply in cases like this.
Euclid enters, stage left!
Indeed there is a proposition in the diagram but does this carry with it a contradiction that makes the proposition false? I think not and thus I have to disagree that what we have is an example of 'Reductio ad absurdum'. Mind you the question of logic could amend that, but to this I would continue. . .
Were we to attempt to demonstrate the relationship by other means I might agree, but the diagram shows homoousios in that all three are indeed 'God' (and and therefore of the substance 'God') and yet clearly distinguishes between the persons (or natures) of the three subjects too.
The conflict between the trinitarian entity 'God' and our experience is that within the trinitarian setting we have three distinctly different (by who they are not function, for as has been mentioned by others modality is a danger here) person who function as one and are, in substance, one.
The conclusions are those defined biblically (and from relationship and reality) and like the
Virgin birth are 'most illogical' in that what we see defies our physical, human reality but then that's why He's God I guess.
G H Hardy, the reformer of British mathematics (a hero of mine) said of R&A that it was one of the mathematician's finest weapons - chess players offer a piece but by R&A, we offer the game - this is also true of apologists and so I have to say I can see what you are saying and also like the observation - makes it all a little grander.
Thanks for the comments - always good to be made to think and better still to engage, especially when it needs (and shows) some brain.
Pax
The mountain that anyone must climb here is Richard Cartwright's paper here.
I have a Latin version of the Athanasian creed here. St Thomas' discussion is here.
"in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more rewarding" (Augustine)
Edward,
thanks for the quotes - excellent,
V
I just noticed you mentioned Hardy as a hero of yours. Wittgenstein is a sort of hero of mine, and apparently he detested Hardy's work. In his lectures on the philosophy of mathematics he attempted to combat what he regarded as the baleful influence of textbooks like Hardy's Pure Mathematics and use them to illustrate what he regarded as the philosophical fog surrounding pure mathematics.
I'm taking this from Monk's biography of W. I'll see if I can dig something more up.
Pax et bonum.
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