arndt@lymph.DEC (05/18/85)
---------:
Thanks for your interesting mail. You are responding to what I consider
to be one of the KEY points that Christainity has to make. See my quote of
myself below. I believe the whole concept of the Trinity gives a logical
starting point to the task of thinking about the meaning of life. Note
carefully that I say it is a 'hypothesis'. I believe that there is no
absolute place from which to start thinking, given our finiteness. By the
way, where do YOU start your thinking?
I would ask you just where you get your ideas about Christainity? And the
history of the development of Christian theology? I believe that you
misrepresent both the doctrine of the Trinity as implied in the old and
the new testament and the process by which it has come to be expressed in
the Christian world. See below. Now by 'misrepresent' I don't mean to
imply any meanness or stupidity on your part. I mean that I disagree
with your position which I allow you honestly hold. I add that last
because I have been known to flame and I am not flaming at you.
[I said]
>The Trinity is a HYPOTHESIS used as a starting point!!!!
>
>A second HYPOTHESIS is that this triune God has revealed himself in the
>bible.
>
[you replied]
Funny that if this "triune" God revealed (him?)self so clearly in the
** why the "him?" surely you're not going to raise that old
'sexist' chestnut. Or is it that you have a problem accepting that God,
whatever 'he' really is, reveals himself to us in terms we understand.
As Calvin says, 'God lisps' to speak to us. It seems entirely reasonable
that a 'God' (remember the Christian definition of 'God') should, using
our thought forms reveal himself to us. The claim of such language only
being man anthropomorphizing God does not speak to the necessity that such
a 'God' would HAVE to use language we understand. Not because he is limited
but precisely because WE are. God 'acts', 'feels', 'regrets', etc. How
else to express it? It is a major point of Christian theology that these
are mere conventions, forms, that fail to completely express what is really
being talked about. I could give any number of Paul's statements and others
here, 'we see through a glass darkly', etc. By the way, I would have no
trouble if 'he' revealed 'himself' as 'she'!! My only objection to the
attempt of radical femminists to retranslate these words is one of custom
and the form by which God HAS revealed himself. Nothing theological changes
by changing a pronoun. If the 'sons of light' and the Jews after them had
developed a matriarchical rather than a patriarchial society perhaps this
would have been the case. Of course one has to deal with the idea that
God created Man first, etc. whatever that may mean. Of a certainty is
the point the New Testament makes about the equality of all mankind before
God whatever the form their culture and custom take. I personally believe
that many Christian women are mistaken when they look to their male partners
to take the lead in their relationship as Christians before God. But we're
getting into another subject aren't we.
[you continue]
Bible it took three centuries of theologic and philosophic wrangling
mixed in with a liberal dose of Hellenistic philosophy to hammer
out the exact formulation (the Trinity). Why couldn't the old boy
just have spelled it out nice and clear for all the folks? I mean,
wasn't one of him here in person?
** Let me reply to this by quoting from the article 'Christianity'
by John Hick (a well known English theologian) in the Ency of Phil. Vol.2,
Paul Edwards, ed.,p.105ff. Please note that I quote Hick not because I
think you will be impressed but because he so nearly expresses my opinion
on the topic and to show that my opinion is not a unique one on the topic.
The article lists other references that speak of the same and other viewpoints.
But on to Hick:
"The relationship between experience (the record, the Bible) and discursive
Christianity (theology) can be brought out by distinguishing two orders of
Christian belief. There is a primary level, consisting of direct reports of
experience, secular and religious, and a secondary level, consisting of
theological theories constructed on the basis of these reports."
[I'm speaking] I disagree with the idea that later theological theories
were or can be rightfully made up from other elements than the 'primary'
level' Hicks lays out above. I agree that's not EXACTLY what you said.
But you seem to imply it. "Three centuries of theologic and philosophic
wrangling" Let me quote Hicks further in an attempt to make my meaning
clear.
Speaking about the great early Christological debates (Docetism of some
of the Gnostics in the 1st and 2nd C. and Arianism in the 4th) he says:
"In the Gospels these two beliefs, identifying Jesus both as a son of man
and as the son of God, occur together without any attempt to theorize about
the relationship between them. Thus, this primary stratum of Christian
literature contains, as data for theological reflection, reports of (a) the
publically observable fact that Jesus was a man, and (b) the fact of faith
that he was divine, in that "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to
dwell" (Col. 1:19)"
[A note: I would argue that the 'fact of faith' is really
no different from the 'fact of evidence observed in the so-called material
world', since we are not able to take an unbiased, neutral viewpoint on
EITHER but must form hypotheses from which to reason, testing them as we
go. No knowledge is 'hard', it seems, in the 19th C usage of the term as
applied to scientific knowledge.]
"During its first four centuries of life these data provided the church with
its chief intellectual task. The eventual outcome of the Christological
debates (and the Trinitarian discussions which accompanied them), formalized
by the Council of Chalcedon (451), was not to propound any definitive theory
concerning the relationship between Jesus' humanity and his divinity but
simply to REAFFIRM, IN THE THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE OF THAT DAY, THE ORIGINAL
FACTS OF FAITH." (italics mine, p106.)
[me again]
I offer what Hicks says above in contrast to your statement that it took
"three or four centuries of theologic and philosophic wrangling along with
a liberal dose of Hellenistic philosophy to hammer out the exact formulation
of the trinity." I reject any notion of 'making it up as we go along' but
rather a careful drawing out of the implications of the given data. Can you
see the distinction, an important one I think? If we make it up as we go
along then we are not really dealing with something stable but merely with
'custom' like litergy is. If there IS content, statements that are true
in the scripture then they can't be changed by custom or decree. Only
'explained in the language of the (later) time'.
As for, "Why didn't the old boy make it plain, etc.",
it seems to me that what you are really asking here is why didn't God, in
the 1st C, speak in 20th C language for you! One might just as well ask why
the Council in 451 didn't do the same. And 200 years from now those who
find what we are now writing perhaps should ask why we didn't express our
thoughts in their forms. Remember, the "formulation" of the doctrine of the
trinity arose out of a need to respond to heresy about God which changed
the record of the 1st C to mean something other than that Jesus was God but
not 'totally' God. God the 'Father' and God the 'Son'. What does Father/Son
mean? I place them in the same catagory as 'he/she'. Handles for speaking
about God! The Holy Spirit is also spoken of in terms of being God, so up
jumped the trinity!
[you continue]
Instead all we find is a few
cryptic references to "The Father & I are one" mixed in with such
as "Father make them (the disciples) one, even as we are" (how bizarre!).
The Trinity looks to me like a valiant attempt to save Platonic
absolutism for scholastics who converted to Christianity and couldn't
give up their old beliefs, sleight of hand to say the least! But
obviously a lot of people must find it appealing, even if I find
it somewhat appalling (sorry about that!).
** I would disagree with you that there are a 'few cryptic references'
tempered by the points I made above about Hick's distinction between the
two levels of Christian thought. Space precludes my listing them - this is
long enough already. Look it up in any number of references books.
Your comment "How bizarre!" regarding the quote you give of Christ's
prayer to the father to make the disciples one as he and God the Father are
one is very funny. I'm not sure that you realize it. Your comment seems to
draw a picture, at least in my mind, of all the disciples becoming one person
(body). Rather than 'bizarre' I would agree with the idea that we don't and
can't understand all that that statement implies. But leaving aside the
truely bizarre notion that they become literally 'one' I think given the
context of the whole teaching of scripture it is plain that what is meant
is that they have the 'Spirit' of God in them and so a 'oneness' in outlook,
life and action. There is also the point to be made that the Christian belief
is that once 'born again' one has the life of God, the Holy Spirit living
'inside' of one as part of the 'new creation' the words 'born again' mean.
See John chapter three.
By the way, your mention of the 'scholastics' misses the
formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity by quite a few centuries.
That is to say, the doctrine of the trinity was well formulated and
understood way before the scholastics appeared on the scene.
"a valient attempt . . . by scholastics who converted to Christianity" is a
gaffle. Perhaps another posting will allow us to deal with the differences
between 'Platonic absolutism' and the Christian view - but again this is
getting too long.
THE BOTTEM LINE: I think you find the doctrine of the Trinity
'appalling' because you haven't properly grasped it or the process by
which it came to be formulated.
I hope you find my ideas interesting. I certainly enjoyed your
comments and attempting to reply to them. I will answer the second half
of your posting in another mailing.
Best regards,
Ken Arndt