One God in Trinity

Thursday, November 24, In the year of our Lord 2011
My House, Caronport Saskatchewan
Making supper, 6:17 PM
Weather = warm for the beginning of winter

So I have a modular class next week and I'm finishing up the pre-course work fairly well. I need to write a precis on a chapter from one of the textbooks but I'm not happy with what I've written. So I'm writing a basic non-academic precis on my blog to hopefully better form and articulate my ideas. The book is Gerald Bray's The Doctrine of God: Contours of Christian Theology. The Chapter is number three, One God in Trinity. 

The Christian understanding of God is unique and peculiar. Our faith is one of the great Monotheisms alongside Judaism and Islam, but unlike both of these faiths Christianity is not Unitarian. We believe that there is one God, this is monotheism, but we also affirm that this one God exists in three persons. What a strange doctrine. To an outsider, and to many Christians, this concept of the Trinity seems redundant and even contradictory to the oneness of God. Why do we have a doctrine of the Trinity and why have attempts to go back to Unitarianism been unsuccessful and deemed heresy?

The reason for the doctrine of the Trinity is not redundant or political, but was the result of many theologians attempting to understand God in light of the revelation of Jesus and the personal experiences of believers. Originally, since Christianity came out from Judaism, it shared the same Unitarian understanding of God. This understanding was questioned and abandoned because it did not do justice to the person of Jesus who could only have been God but was somehow distinct from God whom he called Father. Jesus performed miracles, spoke with authority about God and The Law, was able to forgive sins, did not refuse the worship of his followers, was raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Jesus did things that only God could do, which meant that at the very least God was working through him, but he also spoke and acted as God himself, forgiving sins, accepting worship as he himself, not as a mediator priest or even a prophet but him himself. The poor disciples, they only figured it all out after the fact, that the man who they had lived with for years and known was actually their God come down to earth in human flesh! He was God and yet distinct from God who he called Father. Well every good Jew knew and still knows that there is only one God, therefore Jesus could not be a second God.

Jesus also spoke of the Holy Spirit who he would send as another helper as he was who would lead his followers into all truth. Another helper, as Christ was, divine, God, yet distinct from The Father and also distinct from Jesus. And it was that in the early Church the Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to do as Jesus had done, perform miracles, raise the dead, speak authoritatively, and understand the mysteries of God.

The logical philosophies of the Greeks was dominant in the world, and when Christianity spread like wildfire across the Roman Empire the philosphers and theologians attempted to make sense of this paradox. There is only one God and Jesus was God and yet disctinct from God who he called Father. Therefore the one God must exist as at least three hypostases (roughly translated as 'persons') but one ousia (essence). This was the only way to do justice to the reality of what had been revealed in Christ and in the experience of the church. The language is very precise, God is ONE essence, and the 'threeness' of God is not parts as if God could be divided, or essences, or faces, or perspectives. The precision of Platonic thought was used to best put into words the fact that there is only one God, but that he exists as three persons who are equally God and yet distinct from one another but still the same being.

This doctrine was not formed frivolously or quickly. It is the result of centuries of theologians wrestling with history, experience, and existing doctrine to best articulate what is true about God. And this is one thing that the other monotheisms do not have, the freedom to wrestle with God in order to understand him. Judaism focuses its attention to The Law and articulates stipulations and contemplates how The Law of God ought to be interpreted in new situations but there is no exploration of God as person. Islam demands adherence to its doctrines through social coercion and regards God as a far off, too holy to touch, entity. Christianity is a new relationship between God and man that has come through the person of Jesus that allows us to relate with God without defiling him while not being obliterated by his holiness. We know God from the inside whereas they know God only from the outside.