theological method – Page 5

Christian cosmology 20

GlenNovember 27, 200820 Comments

Still don't have the time to write properly on a Christian approach to cosmology. Never mind I'll jot down some thoughts as they occur.

For now, let me just jot down three thoughts on the multiverse, two quotes from Barth and then a suggestion about how to pursue Christian cosmology.

The multiverse

1) The Bible teaches a division of creation into invisible and visible - the heaven and the earth. This is not the same as the observable universe versus the non-observable multiverse. For the bible the unseen realm is intimately linked to the seen. Heaven is the counterpart to earth in a way analagous to the unseen Father's correspondence to His visible Image, Jesus.

2) The seen and unseen realms are reconciled to one another in the decisive, once-for-all event of the crucifixion. (Col 1:20)

3) There simply is no room in a Christian cosmology for multiple incarnations or multiple atonements. And this is really the downfall of the multiverse - its relation to Christ. Christ does not bridge multiple universes in multiple incarnation, He bridges heaven and earth in His singular incarnation.

Two Barth Quotes from Dogmatics in Outline

“‘Heaven and earth’ describe an arena prepared for a quite definite event, in the centre of which, from our standpoint of course, stands man.” (p60)

“…heaven and earth are related like God and man in the covenant, so that even the existence of creation is a single, mighty signum, a sign of the will of God. The meeting and togetherness of above and below, of the conceivable and the inconceivable, of the infinite and the limited – we are speaking of creation. All that is the world. But since within this world there really exist an above and a below confronting one another, since in every breath we take, in every one of our thoughts, in every great and petty experience of our human lives heaven and earth are side by side, greeting each other, attracting and repelling each other and yet belonging to one another, we are, in our existence, of which God is the Creator, a sign and indication, a promise of what ought to happen in creation and to creation – the meeting, the togetherness, the fellowship and, in Jesus Christ, the oneness of Creator and creature.” (p64)

How to proceed in Christian cosmology

Beginning from 'the Cosmic Fine-Tuner' would be like beginning with heaven alone. Beginning from the standpoint of the anthropic principle would be like beginning with earth alone. The Christian can refuse both option. We begin with the heavens and the earth - the theatre of God's Glory. Of course God's Glory is His Son, dying to save. The cross is the crux of creation (Col 1:20). When we begin with this in mind we are able to relate the unseen and seen coherently.

The Christian knows that not only is there a Word (Logos) to make sense of the world - not only an explanation beyond. That Word became flesh, taking our world to Himself. Therefore the Word from beyond has become a Word in our midst. The Christian can simultaneously be in touch with this world and with its Explanation - they are one in Christ.

While we ought not to approach Christ 'according to the flesh' (2 Cor 5:16), still according to the Spirit there is a way of examining this earthed Logos. Now 'according to the Spirit' means 'according to the Scriptures' and therefore this will be a thoroughly theological enquiry. And yet it will not for that reason be a groundless, ethereal investigation. This world in its this-world-ness has been taken up into the life of God and proven to be, beyond any question, a realm fit for God (Col 2:9).

Now that we have seen the creative Word in the world and now that we have seen Him - the visible Image - reconcile the world to the invisible Father in the creative Spirit, we have seen a triune dynamic that is inherent to all creation. Interpenetration of spirit and flesh, then and now, unseen and seen is at the heart of reality. This will lead us to expect similar perichoretic dynamics in the created order. As we move on from what the bible strictly says about creation, we will wear these bible-glasses to investigate creation. This conceptual framework will help us to understand the inter-related-ness of space and time, of waves and particles etc etc.

I'll have to leave it there.

Night night.

All scientists are believers 19

GlenNovember 18, 200819 Comments

Don't believe me? Check out this article which seeks to explain the fine-tuning of the observable universe. (source: MetaCatholic).

Here's a representative quotation:

Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea. Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; the universe is adapted to us.

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multiverse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.

The idea is controversial. Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable nonreligious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”—the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life...

It boils down to this:

“If there is only one universe,” [Physicist Bernard] Carr says, “you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.”

So, we're told, it's a choice - either we posit some kind of god or we posit an unobserved and unobservable reality, a multiverse.

To be honest I don't think that is the choice. And I don't think the Christian position is to deduce from the data 'some kind of god.' It's not as though we're the brave defenders of 'The Cosmic Finetuner'! More on that in the next post. But first let's have some fun thinking about the multiverse as a faith commitment.

Because above all else, that's what the multiverse is. It is not a conclusion suggested by the data. It is a theory that comes to the rescue of a scientist determined not to accept the alternative. Don't let any naturalistic scientist tell you they deal in the realm of objective fact while the Christian runs off to the realm of 'blind faith.' Not only have scientists not observed direct evidence of the multiverse, there can be no direct observation of alternate universes - they lie beyond the reach of experimental science. There's nothing more 'intellectually honest' about postulating a multiverse as opposed to faith in intelligent design. That's the minimal point I'm making at the moment. I don't actually think the real choice is between fine-tuning and multiple universes (more in the next post) but if the scientific establishment think that those are the options, then both positions should own up to being faith-based.

And that's ok. True enquiry is necessarily faith seeking understanding. This was Anselm's description of theology, but, as these considerations show, it holds also for science. Everyone has beliefs about the nature of reality that shape how they enquire into that reality. On top of this methodological issue, those beliefs further shape how the data is understood. No-one simply deals with 'the facts'. What we believe affects every level of our enquiry. This is not a lamentable state of affairs, it's just the way things are. And it means that all endeavours, science included, are believing endeavours. This is inescapable. (Go here for a post on the Large Hadron Collider as a prime example of faith seeking understanding).

All scientists are believers.

Next post we'll consider this supposed crossroads - either multiverse or Cosmic Fine-tuner. We'll see that in spite of what the scientific community thinks (including the Intelligent Design proponents!) we do not follow their methods, forced to choose between absurdity and deism! We tread a different path.

Jesus at the centre

GlenNovember 7, 2008Leave a comment

Two quotes from the blogosphere this week. One on the Psalter, one on christology. The common link - they both put Jesus at the centre:

From Psalterium

Psalms 1 and 2 were not read as two disparate Torah and royal psalms respectively in the final redaction of the Psalter; rather, both depict the ideal Joshua-like warrior and king who through divinely given authority vanquishes his enemies. From this eschatological perspective the Psalter opens and sets the tone for all subsequent psalms.

Cole, R. (2002) “An Integrated Reading of Psalms 1 and 2”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, pp. 75-88

You can read my sermon on Psalms 1 and 2 here.

From Chris Tilling

'[I]t may well be that most Christians tolerate only as much humanity as they deem consonant with their view of divinity'

(172-3 n.4, from Raymond Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology, 27)

Wouldn't it be radical if we actually allowed Jesus to shape our 'view of divinity'!?.

Faith seeking understanding

GlenSeptember 4, 2008Leave a comment

Are we really post-modern after all? Actually isn't the West incurably modernist? Isn't post-modernism just ultra-modernism anyway? And who gives a flying rip? All these thoughts jostled for prominence as I read the first five pages of the Times this afternoon. I'll let you guess which thought won.

Here's what brought on this A-level philosophizing. On page 2 the Editor comments on the pundit-confounding fall in oil prices. He writes:

Wayward forecasts have been part of the human condition since at least the Oracle at Delphi. People hunger for insight into the future; numerous methods of forecasting, from the statistical to the mystical, aim to satisfy that need. The painful truth is that the only non-trivial predictions that can be made confidently lie in the natural sciences. In human society, there is no equivalent to Newton's laws of motion and gravity.

Now I stopped doing science when my physics teacher said there were exceptions to laws he'd just spent two years beating into us. I was outraged that, having concocted and then memorized my ridiculous mnemonics, they proved to be more like helpful suggestions than laws. So I don't know much - but something in my brain was registering puzzlement as I read this afternoon.

First, are Newton's laws really such a bedrock of absolute certainty? Second, what does it say about a person when they opine 'Life's full of uncertainty, but one thing we know: F=ma'? It certainly is painful but is it really true that 'the only non-trivial predictions that can be made confidently lie in the natural sciences'?? You can see why all those modernism / post-modernism questions were getting raised.

Well two pages after Newton was set forth as the only Rock on whom we can depend, Oxford Physics Professor, Frank Close said this:

At the beginning of the 20th century, science could explain almost all physical phenomena then known. Isaac Newton’s laws of mechanics described the heavens; the Industrial Revolution both inspired and was driven by thermodynamics; and Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetic waves explained light. The atomic nucleus, relativity and quantum mechanics were not yet in the lexicon, but soon would change everything.

As the 21st century begins, a similar story might be told – of far-reaching theories with tantalising implications, and of ambitious experiments with the potential for discoveries beyond our present imaginings.

So apparently everything has changed since Newton. Our Rock has gone. But don't worry, this is a new century and this time we'll definitely get it right. How? Well now we have the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which begins smashing particles next week. Frost's article on the LHC was entitled: Journey back to the beginning of time is nearly complete

The article is full of this strange mixture of confident assertions and admitted bewilderment. See, for instance this:

Why are there three spatial dimensions; could there be more? If dimensions beyond our ken are revealed at the LHC this would be one of the greatest cultural shocks of all. Our theories work if everything is massless and flits around at the speed of light, yet if it were so we could not be here. How did mass emerge; what indeed is it?

We know how the seeds of normal matter emerged in the relatively cool afterglow of creation. However, it appears that “normal” matter is but 1 per cent of the whole; we are but flotsam on a sea of “dark matter”, whose existence has been inferred from theoretical cosmology but remains undetected. What that dark sea consists of, how it was formed, why there is any matter at all rather than a hellish ferment of radiation, are unknown.

Now as I said, I'm no scientist but is science really fit to answer the "why three dimensions?" question? What kind of scientific answer would it be that didn't instantly beg more? In the first paragraph we are told that the scientists' theories 'work' upon assumptions that should have rendered life impossible. In the second paragraph we are told that their theories lead us to posit a hundred times as much matter as scientists actually detect.

Well alright then! Now I can understand why such hype over LHC. This thing had better produce the goods!

I am cheered though by the optimism of those involved. The article finishes on this confident note:

"What actually took place in that long-ago dawn, only nature knows. Soon humans will too."

I mean Close had just told us that finding the origin of the universe (time zero) was like finding 'the end of the rainbow' but still, you've got to admire the passion for scientific endeavour.

The other article on page four was just as confident. It was entitled:

Mysteries of the Universe will be solved, starting next Wednesday

It said things like:

"The mountains of data produced [by LHC] will shed light on some of the toughest questions in physics. The origin of mass, the workings of gravity, the existence of extra dimensions and the nature of the 95 per cent of the Universe that cannot be seen will all be examined. [ed: Apparently the Times Science Editor has closed the dark matter gap by another 4%. Someone should tell the professor!] Perhaps the biggest prize of all is the "God particle" - the Higgs boson. This was first proposed in 1964 by Peter Higgs, of Edinburgh University, as an explanation for why matter has mass, and can thus coalesce to form stars, planets and people. Previous atom-smashers, however, have failed to find it, but because the LHC is so much more powerful, scientists are confident that it will succeed.

I do genuinely love the enthusiasm. What a quest! Here are people convinced that they will find this dark matter (and maybe they will!), convinced they will find the 'God particle' (and maybe they will!). But their investment in the existence of such entities is explicitly that their world-views just don't work without such unproved phenomena! They need these unobserved and often unobservable things to be true or else their theories fall apart.

Don't let anyone tell you that science deals in hard fact while religion deals in blind faith. We are all in the business of 'faith seeking understanding.' This is how Anselm described theology in the 12th century. But I hope we can see it's also how science works. We believe and we move forwards on the basis of those beliefs. We find confirmation as we go. But as we set out we don't have in our grasp that which faith seeks. Instead our intial faith is grounded in the internal cogency of its object. For the scientist this object is the self-authenticating explanatory power and even elegance of the existing theoretical paradigm. For the Christian it is the self-authenticating Word of God.

None of this is to posit some false antithesis between science and religion - the very opposite. The theologian can and should do science and the scientist is already doing a kind of theology (just with a different logos - a different object of faith).

But here's the point - both the scientist and the theologian begin from the foundation of faith. From there the faithful follower explores and articulates that faith and tests it against its object. So it is with theology, so it is with science. The proper method for both is the same.

So much so that as I read the scientific optimism for LHC I couldn't help but think of that biblical verse:

"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1)

What differs is not the method. What differs is the object of faith. To put it all too simplisitically (but I think with some explanatory power!): the majority of the scientific establishment trusts in the logic of humanity. The theologian trusts in the Logos of God.

The truth that is in Jesus 20

GlenSeptember 1, 200820 Comments

Ok, so we've noted the danger of fiting Jesus into a pre-fab system of truth. We don't want to do that. But Missy has asked the $64 000 question. It's basically this: What do we do when speaking to a non-Christian - isn't it desirable at least sometimes to bring Christ to them according to their preferred programme??

I'm not going to be able to answer this very well. But I'm just going to give some thoughts as they occur and then I'd love if others chimed in with how they go about this.

My first thought is this: If we're doing evangelism then we are necessarily relating Christ to non-Christian thought-forms. Even if all we do is read out the sermon on the mount it will be heard from within a pre-existing mindset. What's more it will be heard as remarkably similar, if not completely continuous, with human philosophies. Think about it. We all live in a universe made by, through and for Christ and which proclaims Him in every detail. Everyone is working with the same conceptual raw materials and can do no other than come up with some re-arrangement of Christian truth. When the pure stuff is brought to bear on discussion people will say 'Yeah, yeah. That's just like X.'

But is it? And is it ever true to say to a person 'You know it is just like X. And I'll add Y and Z to your X and we'll build towards saving knowledge of Christ.'

Well let's think about the nature of truth. Paul says we find truth in Christ - hidden in Him in fact (Eph 4:21; Col 2:3). Jesus says He is truth (John 14:6) and even goes so far as to say that God's word (which He also calls 'truth') when not related to Him, leaves people in terrifying ignorance. (John 5:39f; 17:17).

Truth is relative. It stands in strict relation to Christ the Truth (good name for a blog I reckon). His subjectivity is the one objectivity. What is there outside of Him in Whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden? Rearrangements of Christian reality yes - but because of that re-arrangement they are rendered blasphemous falsehoods. The true test of a proposition is not its conformity to an abstract notion of reality or reason or scientific law. The true test is its relatedness to Jesus.

It is simply not the case that discrete parcels of truth lie around the universe largely intact. It is even less true that sinful humanity has some capacity (or inclination!) to assess these propositions, divorced as they are from Christ. It's outright Pelagian heresy to imagine that such 'discrete propositions' and such 'objectively assessed' truth will lead a person to Christ. Christ leads us into the truth. Study of abstract truth does not lead us to Christ.

Now, what about non-Christian philosophies? Can a Christian take a sentence from Homer (either Simpson or the poet!) on their lips and use it to testify to Christ? Of course! But in doing so they have vindicated Christ not Homer. They have not given testimony to the rightness of that proposition in its own context. They have commandeered it and pressed it into Christ's service - the service it should have always rendered. This is precisely the language of 2 Corinthians 10:5 - taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.

In this verse Paul paints the picture of these renegade 'thoughts' that have gone AWOL from Christ. We arrest them and press them back into the Lord's service. But what we don't do is grant these thoughts a civilian existence, as though they'll do the Lord's service no matter what uniform they're wearing. No. Either they're in obedience to Christ (explicitly wearing the uniform) or they're a pretension setting itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Cor 10:5).

Ok, but now we're back to the inescapable problem. Here is a non-Christian with all their presupposed notions of truth that can only lead them to error. Now here comes Christ the Truth. And we've already conceded that the non-Christian cannot but hear Christ according to their presupposed notions. So what do we do?

Well here's one tempting response. Simply oppose everything they say. They buy into post-modernism - we counter with modernism. They're comfortable with irrational claims - we respond with rationalism. They say 'truth is relative' - we insist 'truth is absolute.' They indulge in immorality - we preach morality. Well you may well get a discussion going. But have you brought them to Christ? Or to the 1950s?

Tim Keller ministers among the groovy lefties of Manhattan. What's his approach? Traditional religious values? No, as he likes to say the bible is not left wing or right wing - it's from above. Whatever we say into these debates must make that clear.

Another thought. Jesus did not come onto the world stage addressing 'universal human concerns'. He wasn't born into the Areopagus as the Ultimate Philosopher. He did not open with: 'We all know the truth about relationships, money, power etc. I've come to bring you the ultimate experience of these.' No. He comes specifically and almost exclusively onto the Jewish scene, addressing Jewish hopes and concerns. He comes as Messiah into a very specific, encultered setting which He had been meticulously preparing for Himself for centuries. A people had been formed, a law had been given, a land, kings, prophets, priests, the Scriptures. And the understanding, ideals, hopes and problems of this people are actually quite strange to the natural ear.

They worried about ceremonial cleanness and atoning sacrifice; about land and exile; about Sabbath and the throne of David. They were a particular people with particular patriarchs and a particular God called Yahweh who was (and is), among other things, their tribal deity. They were concerned about His particular promises - His covenant - and their particular fulfilment. The Jesus-shaped hole at the heart of Israel was a very peculiar shape indeed - at least to modern sensibilities. It is, in many ways, very different to what contemporary evangelists consider as the Jesus-shaped hole of today's 'enquirer'.

And so when the LORD incarnate comes as His own Prophet, He does a couple of peculiar things that we modern evangelists don't really do. First He comes in fulfilment of the Scriptures. All the Gospel writers do this but Matthew especially introduces Jesus as the fulfilment of the Old Testament. Here is the One at the centre of this history and this people and these hopes. Do we present Jesus like that?

The other peculiar thing Jesus does is to begin by saying 'Repent and believe the gospel.' That's not His punchline - that's His opener. 'Repent and believe the gospel' He commands. And then He unpacks the life of the kingdom. On those terms He speaks of relationships, money, power etc. First the beatitudes - the gatehouse to the kingdom - then a description of this kingdom life.

What would evangelism look like that followed this pattern? Something like this I think: "You've been speaking to me about love / freedom / fear / power / addiction / sexuality / abortion / capital punishment / healthcare / education / the state / animal rights / whatever. Jesus has a lot to say on those issues but I'm going to have to back up from our discussion and give you a bird's eye view. Let me give you the bible's view on X in three minutes." If your friend isn't willing to do this then they're not willing to have a serious discussion anyway. Present your biblical theology of the issue with Jesus at the centre. Now Jesus is your non-negotiable. He is the vantage point from which you address the subject. He is not in question - everything else is. Even use language like "For the sake of argument, work with me on this. I'm describing Christ's universe - He made all things, He came into the world to reconcile them etc etc... Doesn't that explain perfectly what we find when it comes to X?'

What you don't want to do is say 'X is absolutely true. Now please investigate Jesus and I hope you find that He fits the criteria already established by X.' I find Karl Barth's warning on this particularly salient:

The great danger of apologetics is “the domesticating of revelation… the process of making the Gospel respectable. When the Gospel is offered to man, and he stretches out his hand to receive it and takes it into his hand, an acute danger arises which is greater than the danger that he may not understand it and angrily reject it. The danger is that he may accept it and peacefully and at once make himself its lord and possessor, thus rendering it inoccuous, making that which chooses him something which he himself has chosen, which therefore comes to stand as such alongside all the other things that he can also choose, and therefore control.” (II/1, p141)

More Barth quotes here.

Anyway I've got a few more things to say but I've rambled on too long. Maybe a worked example or two would help. Perhaps that's what I'll blog next.

But I'll leave it there for now. What do you think?

Jesus, not some Christ-principle 15

GlenAugust 28, 200815 Comments

An interviewer once suggested to Barth that he followed a christo-centric principle in his theology. Barth was not impressed. He insisted that he had no interest in a christo-centric principle. He was interested in Christ Himself.

Whether Barth always achieved that is another matter (who does?). But at least he identified the danger with which all theologians (i.e. all Christians) must reckon. Is Jesus Himself our Lord, or have we tamed the Lion of Judah making Him serve our real theological agenda?

Let me play devil's advocate and describe four popular ways you can turn Jesus into a mechanism to serve some abstract theological concern. (Please do add others in the comments).

1) A general ethic of inclusion

2) A general doctrine of universalism

3) A general object of devotion

4) A general concept of grace

1) A general ethic of inclusion

You know the kind of thing - "Jesus identified with the outsider, the persecuted, the marginalised. He opposed the religious and those who would condemn or exclude." Take the aforementioned generality, apply it to your cause celebre and, presto, one all-purpose inclusion ethic. NB: Best not to pry too closely into Jesus' particular ethical pronouncements nor the Scriptures He claimed could not be broken.

2) A general doctrine of universalism

Here, as with the other examples, it is vitally important to think of Jesus in abstraction. Again, do not pry into the actual teaching of Christ, especially His words concerning judgement, but think only of Christ as Cosmic Reconciler. Now that you've turned Him into a principle, theologize away on the inevitability of universal salvation. After all the universal Creator has taken universal flesh and wrought a universal victory. Keep it in universal terms, in the abstract. Don't get too close to the Person of Jesus - it's the principle of reconciliation you want.

3) A general object of devotion

Take a prolix puritan, set them to work on some devotional writing, give them Song of Songs as their text and wait for the treacle to flow. Delight in the mystical union. Let the particularity of the One to Whom we are united be swallowed up in the general enjoyment of that union.

Or take a modern worship leader strumming tenderly, synth strings in the background, congregation swaying. Wait for the effusions of ardour - mountains climbed, oceans swum to be near to... Who? Jesus of Nazareth? Or some ideal Love? Is this praise to Jesus? Or praise to praise? What's missing? Very often the actual Jesus is missing. This is key. Make sure that you abstract Jesus from His words and works. Do not think in concrete terms. In fact it's best not to think. Simply imagine Him as 'The Highest Object of Our Hearts' and just enjoy the gush.

4) A general concept of grace

This one's very seductive, I'm always falling for it so I know whereof I speak. Define yourself as 'a believer in grace'. Define the gospel in terms of this abstract principle - grace. Speak of the love of God. Even speak of the sin of man. But only speak of the Jesus who reconciles the two as a handy instrument - an instrument of Grace. That's the main thing - Jesus fits into this grace paradigm. That's why we love Him.

When anyone asks what Christianity is - tell them: 'It's not works! People think it's works, but it's not!' And when they say 'Ok, alright, calm down. Tell me what it is,' don't tell them it's Jesus. And definitely don't introduce them to the walking, talking actual Jesus. That'll only distract them from your excellent grace-not-works diagrams. Major on the whole grace-not-works principle. And if they ever want to receive this principle into their own lives (after all your diagrams make a lot of sense) tell them to accept 'grace' as a free gift and they're in. They may well struggle to understand what receiving a concept actually looks like or whether they've done it properly (or at all). They may well question whether their intellectual assent to your diagram really has decisive eternal significance. But whatever you do, don't point them to the Person of Jesus. Grace is the thing.

In all of these examples Jesus is called on to serve a pre-existing theological programme. He may be treated with the utmost respect. He may be considered the very chief Witness or the Exemplar par excellence. But He is at your service, not you at His.

Beware fitting Jesus into your pet theological programme. We do it all the time but He resists all efforts to turn Him into a principle. The Truth is a Person and will not be abstracted.

Trinity Re-Post 3

GlenAugust 18, 2008Leave a comment

Off on holiday now for 9 days. Some frivolity is about to be posted automatically by the blog. If you want something more theological to chew on, here's a few older posts on the trinity issues that have been coming up recently.

Avoiding a Fourth

No (good) trinitarian theologian wants to have a fourth thing - a divine substance considered apart from the Three Persons. But it's important to be aware that this error (effectively having a quaternity) has two versions. There is a vulgar quaternity and a more insidious one.

The vulgar one looks like this:

Here is the "shamrock" trinity - three bits growing out of an underlying stuff. In practice this is, roughly, how many unthinkingly view the trinity. Such a vulgar quaternity is rightly rejected by theologians. It can be seen immediately that the 'Godness of God' is considered at a completely different level to the three Persons in their roles and relations. What makes God God is fundamentally impersonal attributes that may be expressed in the Persons but not constituted by their mutual inter-play. So we can safely reject this version of things.

But I find that many theologians, having rejected the vulgar quaternity, congratulate themselves prematurely. There is also the insidious quaternity to be dealt with. There is another way of having a fourth...

Fundamentally this error consists in conceiving of the one God separately to a consideration of the three Persons in communion. Recently I read a theologian say "God is both one and three - both a person and a community." This is an example of the insidious quaternity. One-ness and Three-ness are laid side by side to uphold a belief in the equal ultimacy of one and three. Yet the one-ness of God is conceived of as a uni-personal one-ness - that is, it is separately considered to the multi-personal three-ness. One and Three were not mutually interpreting truths but instead the 'one God' is thought of in non-communal (that is, non trinitarian) terms.

This is the approach taken by by so many doctrine of God text books where De Deo Uno (on the One God) is addressed prior to De Deo Trino (on the Trinity). Yet, unless the two section are integrated at the deepest levels then there is grave danger of a fourth thing - i.e. "God plus Trinity" or "God apart from Trinity."

When this theological method is followed, often (not always but most times) section one unfolds such that the Three Person'd interplay takes no meaningful part in the discussions of the attributes. Yet, typically, these attributes are asserted to be the virtue by which God is God. On this view it is still possible to discuss the 'Godness of God' without reference to the perichoretic life of the Three. Here One-ness and Three-ness are considered to be non-competing perspectives on the same God. This effectively means that it is possible to speak in non-triune terms about the living God. 'God', then, is not the same thing as 'the Three Persons united in love'.

This is also a quaternity. Just a more insidious one.

And the only way I can see to avoid this fourth thing is to side with the Cappodocians: God's being consists without remainder in the Three Person'd perichoresis .

The one-ness of God is not a simple divine essence but the very unity of the Three. The being of God is not an underlying substance (contra the vulgar quaternity). But nor is it a separately conceived essence (contra the insidious quaternity). Rather God's being is the very communion by which the Three are One.

Trinity is not a perspective on the one God. Rather the only God there is is trinity. And the only way to conceive of Him is in triune terms. 'God' is 'Trinity'. Unless this strict identity is maintained a fourth enters in.

Thus we must never conceive of the one God in any other terms than trinitarian ones. (Re-write the text-books!). God's being is in His communion (to use Zizioulas's phrase). His One-ness is in His communion. And (let's not forget) His Three-ness is in His communion - the Three are only who they are in this eternal perichoresis. To put it another way: God is love.

Therefore let's guard against a 'fourth' whenever it threatens. Let's reject the vulgar quaternity, but let's also reject the insidious quaternity. And if people call us 'extreme social trinitarians' or 'tritheists' or whatever, let them. The dangers on the other side are far greater.

Now... Two great questions we asked of this post when it was originally put up.

First, How do we avoid seeing 'love' as a fourth?

My answer:

I guess there's inevitably a third kind of ‘fourth' (if that's not too confusing). But I hope it's a benign fourth. By that I mean, there will always be some virtue by which you conceive of the Three as belonging together. What I'm suggesting is that the one-ness is an already inherent unity *of* the Three rather than a one-ness brought in to unify the Three.

When we study the Persons, this involves us unavoidably in the communion by which the Persons are who they are. (The Son is Son because begotten by the Father etc etc). So on my view, the Three are Three by the exact same virtue that the Three are One - their mutually constituting eternal relations. In this way love is really not outside the Persons any more than the Persons are outside the Persons. They themselves have their ‘hypostasis in ekstasis'. They are who they are in going outside themselves and into the Others. There is not a glue in between the Persons called ‘love' (that would start to look like a fourth) but rather (mysteriously) they are IN one another! And to this mutual indwelling we give the name perichoresis and say that this is the virtue by which they are One. But really we haven't introduced an added element to the Three. This perichoresis is intrinsically part of who the Three are already. One-ness (on this view) is simply a description of how we find the Three (that is, that they are united).

On the other hand, the kind of (cancerous) fourths I'm opposing are ones where the virtue by which the Three are One is gained by looking apart from the Three. On these views it is possible to speak of the One God without speaking of the Persons in their mutual relations. One-ness is not at all the unity of the Three but something else (subsistence in the simple divine essence or whatever). This is most certainly a cancerous fourth.

I guess it boils down to this: I'm proposing a one-ness *of* the Three. I'm opposing a one-ness underneath or apart from the Three. One-ness for me is a description of who the Three are. One-ness for many western trinitarians seeks a unifying concept beyond the Three.

The great virtue of the eastern methodology is that the answers to the three key trinitarian questions are all the same:

By what are the Three divine? The relations in which they stand to one another.
By what are the Three distinct Persons? The relations in which they stand to one another.
By what are the Three One? The relations in which they stand to one another.

The eastern trinitarian never looks away from the Three to discuss either deity, difference or one-ness. All trinitarian theology is then descriptive of how we find these Three in the Gospel. Therefore there is no foreign concept of one-ness to be brought in apart from what we find studying the Three in the Gospel.

Wish I could articulate better "what is this earth thing called love?" (as the Star Trek alien would say), but I think ‘hypostasis in ekstasis' is about as good as it gets in theology! It's not an extra thing added to the being of the Persons but the very essence of their out-going, inter-penetrating, self-emptying existence. And it's this "Person-in-outgoingness" that defines who the Persons are *and* what the Oneness is.

The second question was two-fold. It asked whether we shouldn't just see inseparable operations as that by which the Three are One. It also questioned the eastern emphasis on incomprehensibility.

My answer:

Inseparable operations *is* communion/perichoresis/mutual-relations as seen in God's economic activity (that is His outward works in creation-redemption). You're right to mention ‘asymmetry' in this as the cause of the ‘outflow' of these relations into creation. So the Father always works through the Son and by the Spirit. The initiation is with the Father, the execution is with the Son, the empowering and perfection of it is with the Spirit. Again, everything God does is from the Father, through the Son and by the Spirit. This is the inseparable operation of the trinity and it is simply the outflow of the mutual life of the Persons.

Thus to say ‘inseparable operations' is *not* to say ‘we encounter only a singularity in creation and redemption'. It is, rather, to say ‘we encounter the Three working in perfect unity.' The doctrine of inseparable operations is often cast as "we only see one, but behind that one there are Three." That is the very opposite of the case. A true doctrine of inseparable operations says "we see Three in the economy, but they are utterly united in these acts."

Therefore I'll have to disagree with your statement:

"from the outside we receive grace from the one God, without the trinity being clear until we can actually be drawn into that divine community when Christ came in the flesh"

So I don't think it's a case of ‘from the outside' seeing only One and then getting drawn into Three. Instead on the outside we see Three and then by the ‘two hands of the Father' (Irenaeus' phrase) we get drawn into the triune life (which is a life of one-ness - not singularity but communion).

You have, though, identified my chief beef with the eastern side:

"They seem to especially concerned about the incomprehensible nature of God, which seems to make it quite difficult to talk about trinity in the way you do."

Yes indeed. This is the problem with the east (which I've hinted at elsewhere). They are not really sold on the whole "The economic trinity reveals the immanent trinity" - which, for me, ought to be a basic tenet of revealed theology. For me, and more usually for the west, what you see in God is what you get. If He's revealed as Father sending Son and Father *and* Son sending Spirit, then that's a revelation of the deepest depths of the triune life. For the east, they have the immanent trinity lying mysteriously behind the economic trinity. What you see aint necessarily what you get.

So it's not a case of east = good guys, west = bad guys. It's a case of being mature enough to take the best of both. From east I take the methodology of Three first. From the west I take the maxim "the economic trinity is the immanent trinity."

Trinity Re-Post 2

GlenAugust 18, 2008Leave a comment

Oneness and Threness

I remember a friend asking me what I thought God was doing before the creation of the world. I answered "They were enjoying one another." He looked very quizzical and then said, "....Oh! You mean the Trinity!" I remember thinking "Well yes, what god were you thinking of?"

Yet many will think of God in ways that are divorced from the lively interaction of Father, Son and Spirit. What about you? How do you think of God's pre-creation life? His OT activity? His work in providence? His divine attributes? Do you naturally and enthusiastically conceive of these as the out-flow of the mutual relations of Persons? Is your account of these shaped by triniarian inter-play? Or do you try to conceive of these as, to all intents and purposes, unitarian activities to which we add trinitarian nuances (when we discuss salvation).

Another way of asking this is - how do you think about the relation of Oneness and Threeness in God.

Is it like this? (Forgive the very amateur graphics/formatting)

Here, Oneness is defined as the substrata - the substance of God underlying the Persons. The fundamental truths about God are cast in unitarian terms. To this is added multi-Personal considerations. Is this how you consider the interplay of Oneness and Threeness?

Or what about this view:

Here Oneness and Threeness are laid side by side. We consider 'De Deo Uno' and De Deo Trino' but separately. We can even subscribe to phrases like "the equal ultimacy of the One and the Three." Yet what we mean by this is a commitment to hold two fundamentally incommensurate doctrines of God together. It can even foster a refusal to let the Threeness of God define the Oneness. Here the One God is not constituted by the relations of the Three - Oneness is something else (divine simplicity, aseity etc etc). And the Three do not find their particular identities in the Oneness communion. No. Instead Oneness and Threeness remain unco-ordinated. It's a tri-unity by forcing One and Three together not because the 'tri' and the 'unity' mutually inform one another.

But what about if we saw things like this...

Here the Oneness is precisely the mutual relations of the particular Persons. And these particular Persons find their identity in the communion that is God's Oneness. "God's being is in His communion" (John Zizioulas). The Three are three in their Oneness (not considered apart from it). The One is one in the Threeness (not considered apart from it).

This is truly a trinity. Here the 'tri' and the 'unity' are maintained from precisely the same perspective. Here is a real 'equal ultimacy of the One and the Three.'

The benefits of such a perspective? Many - I hope to blog on many more in the fulness of time. But for now (since we're in the middle of a series on mission) - we see that our doctrine of God, whether considering 'De Deo Uno' or 'De Deo Trino' is always a doctrine of the interplay of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is always an investigation of the economy of salvation in which the Three are disclosed. It is always 'Gospel' theology. The God of missions is a Gospel-alone God who is served in the world by a Gospel-alone mission.

Trinity Re-Post 1

GlenAugust 18, 2008Leave a comment

God is not revealed in His Twin

This should be very obvious, but we easily forget it. Even in the verses that most directly uphold the full and complete revelation of the Father in the Son, the differentiation of Father and Son are also prominently in view:

"Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9)

"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven." (Heb 1:3)

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." (Col 1:15)

"...see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God... For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." (2 Cor 4:4-6)

The Father is perfectly revealed, not by His Twin, not by a Clone, but by Someone who is His Complement. The Father is revealed in His Son, the Firstborn, His Image, His right-hand Man-Priest. Self-differentiation is at the heart of God's revelation. Jesus is not the same as His Father and yet fully reveals Him. More than this - this difference is of the essence of the divine self-disclosure. Self-differentiation in communion is the being of God - all of this is perfectly revealed in, by and through Jesus of Nazareth.

Now to say that Jesus is other to His Father is not an Arian position. On the contrary this is a determination to see Jesus' revelation as a full disclosure of the life of God. It was Arius who would leave us short of full revelation in Jesus. Here we are embracing the otherness of Father and Son as the very deepest revelation of the divine nature. It is because of His equality with the Father that Christ's otherness must be taken as part and parcel of the divine revelation. Because Jesus fully reveals the divine life by speaking of Another, thus He is not obstructing our view of this Other. Rather the interplay of He and the Other are constitutive of the divine life which He reveals. Arius is refuted at the deepest level, and all by heeding this simple truth: God is not revealed in His Twin but in His Son.

This should be so obvious and plain and yet so many take their opposition of Arius in precisely the opposite direction. Their first and fatal move is to maintain that homo-ousios commits us to three-fold repetition. They assume Father and Son are identical from the outset - all in the name of Nicene orthodoxy (of course ignoring 'God from God...'). Now when they approach the eating, sleeping, dying, rising Jesus they must account for these differences while upholding that the Father and Son possess identical CVs. What to do with the discrepancies? Simple. Ignore the fact that Nicea pronounced the homo-ousios on Jesus of Nazareth and instead attribute all discrepancies to a human nature that is distinct from His divine nature. The cost of such a move? Immediately, the otherness of Jesus is not revelatory of the divine nature, in fact it impedes our view of God. To see Jesus is suddenly not to see divine life, but merely human. We have in fact lost the one Image, Word, Representative and Mediator of God. Jesus of Nazareth has become, to all intents and purposes, homoi-ousios with the Father. Question marks hover over everything we see in Jesus as to whether or not we should attribute this to the divine life. We have returned to Arius's problem via another route - we are left short of full revelation in Jesus.

Now if we took seriously the fact that God is not revealed in His Twin but in His Son we would be saved from all of this. Christ's humanity neither commits us to an eating, sleeping, dying, rising Father, but nor does it distance us from a true revelation of God. Instead Christ's eating reveals a Father who provides in our frailties, His sleeping reveals a Father who protects in our weakness, His death reveals a living, judging Father, His resurrection reveals a justifying, reconciling Father. We see into the very heart-beat of the eternal trinity when we see Jesus of Nazareth in all His glorious humanity.

And all because we have remembered the simple adage: God is not revealed in His Twin, but in His Son!

Jesus is LORD – not Son of LORD

GlenAugust 1, 2008Leave a comment

Just a brief point about my recent posts on the tribal deity of Israel (here, here and here).

In those posts I assumed that the LORD of the burning bush was the very One who became incarnate of the virgin Mary. Just to say, that wasn't sloppy grammar or fuzzy thinking (I don't think!). To many of you the point is obvious but I've read enough biblical theology around the place to know that other views abound. So often you hear things like: "Jesus is the Son of the one the OT calls Yahweh." Now in one sense that is true. In the OT, the Father often goes by the name of Yahweh, just as in the NT He often goes by the name Lord. But most often 'Lord' refers to the Son - this is true in both testaments.

Jesus' claim, and the claim of the NT, is that He is Yahweh (in Greek 'kurios'), the God of Abraham, the God of the burning bush (e.g. John 8:56-58). Now the God of the burning bush is the Sent One from Yahweh ('The Angel of the LORD' Ex 3:2) and so clearly there is more than one Person called LORD. But Jesus, the Sent One of the Father, claims to be the One who calls Himself I AM.

Nowhere is Jesus ever called the Son of the Lord. Everywhere Jesus is called the Lord.

I just mention this because it seems to me that many, wittingly or unwittingly, dilute the claims of Jesus in the Gospels. But we must be aware of how radical Jesus' claims are - He's not simply saying 'I am the Son of the God of the Old Testament.' He's saying 'I am the God of the Old Testament.' The implications are many but I said I'd be brief, so there you are.

For more see Christ in OT.