mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (08/18/85)
At the moment, I do not have the time to reply to this long question. As a theologian, I am only an amateur, and this will require serious study on my part. I will, however, attempt a few sentences now. Discussion of a religious idea such as the Trinity leads quite quickly into a dark valley. Allegedly, what we are talking about is an existence which, if it exists, resists direct observation. It is further alleged that the true object is unknowable (i.e., that it is impossible to mentally represent it correctly). Therefore, there is an important sense in which the doctrine is symbolic of existence rather than descriptive. On the other hand, mystics have claimed to have experienced this and similar states of being. I therefore have to wonder whether C. S. Lewis's story of the mystical and erudite limpets does not indeed have a point to make here. Charley Wingate