Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!emory!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tp0x@spica.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Trinity Message-ID: Date: 30 Oct 90 05:14:46 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 137 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu the Moderator commented >As to the Biblical background for this, it is basically passages such as Col 1:19, which indicate that God was really present in Christ, and that Christ's sacrifice was actually God's action, acting in Christ. The Incarnation is inevitable if you accept both that God was really present in Christ, but that Christ remained human.< I will protest that "Incarnation" is a nebulous term here. It is possible to believe that Christ was Immanuel, God with us, that he declared God to us (John 1:18), and still not to become bogged down in any mysterious confusion about a Triune God. I will draw your attention to the fact that in Exodus Moses receives the law from the LORD, and the LORD there makes statements that only the Almighty could make (for instance, "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me -- Ex 20:1,2), but Stephen in Acts (7:38) claims that Moses received the Law from an angel. Contradiction? Not if we accept the idea that the Almighty is manifested through his servants the angels who act as his perfect mouthpieces and wield his authority. A careful examination of Genesis 18 and 19 would seem to bear this out: e.g. Gen 19:13 ("we will destroy this place") vs. 19:24 ("the LORD rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.") There is no reason to believe that the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and the Almighty God was essentially different as far as "God being in him" is concerned. I assert that Jesus was the Son of God, a sinless man who now sits on the right hand of God and will act as God's viceregent in the coming Kingdom (the seed promised to Abraham who will sit on David's throne, etc.) but there is no reason to believe that Jesus pre-existed as part of a Triune God. Passages such as 1Tim 2:5,6 (for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all...) can be understood at face value. Wherever Jesus is spoken of as God, it can be understood as a result of his office (Immanuel) and the power he wields as a result of it, rather than because of his being part of a Triune God -- just as the angel which delivered the Law to Moses was legitimately described as the LORD. Related question: What does it mean for the Spirit to dwell in us? Proposed answer: check out John 6:63 ; 15:3,4,7 . Our task as disciples is to impress the Godly character onto our own. In this way we fallen creatures attempt to manifest the character of God, just as the perfect creatures the angels do perfectly, and the sinless man Jesus did perfectly as our example. Tom [Hmmm..... Historically the doctrine of the Incarnation followed that of the Trinity, and it's unlikely that it would have taken quite the form it did had not the Trinitarian discussions already taken place. Thus it took for granted the concept of the preexistent Son. As I said in my original comment, this is based on an exegesis of passages like John 1 and Col. 1. One can argue that these passages should be read in the context of 1st Cent. Jewish Logos speculation, and that they are intended metaphorically, but as the Church read them, they implied a preexistent, eternal Son. It is the attempt to combine this concept with a commitment to the humanity of Jesus that results in the Incarnation as we know it. I believe that once one accepts this literal preexistence of Christ, something like the Trinity is inevitable, and given that, it's hard to see much alternative to the Incarnation. I think the most fruitful alternative position, which seems to be what you are getting at, is to start with the assumption that Christ's preexistence is not to be taken quite so literally. One could take John 1 and Col 1 as being meant along the line of 1st Cent. Jewish discussion about the preexistent Torah. This was surely not meant to be taken literally. If you deny the preexistent Son, then you no longer have two Sons, preexistent and human, to worry about, and you can look for a rather different conception of the Incarnation. I agree that in that case it would make sense to start with the concept of God's presence through the prophets. But while you might start there, I don't think you'll want to end there. While you are right that the prophets' actions are in some sense God's, I think the NT implies a somewhat closer identity between Jesus' actions and God's. Among other things, I don't see how the death of a prophet could accomplish what the NT says Jesus' death accomplished. It is seen as God's self-sacrifice. So we need some concept that God is directly present to us in Christ. I don't see any problem with starting with Hebrew concepts of God's presence rather than metaphysical concepts, as long as you end up saying something that does justice to the situation. There were some attempts to develop concepts like this in the early church, particularly Theodore of Mopsuestia. While it is not his primary model, I think Theodore's ideas are closely related to your suggestion that God's presence with Christ is because of Christ's specific office. I think the problem Theodore ran into was that the Greek metaphysics being used by the Church saw only "things" as being first-class metaphysical objects. A functional unity between Christ and God didn't seem to them "real" enough to say what they wanted to say. However even if you undertake a functional exposition of some sort, and try to avoid fancy metaphysics, I think you'll find yourself coming back to ideas that are closely analogous to the traditional ones. First, as to the Incarnation. The basic concept of the Incarnation is that in Christ we have two things: a man, and God. The main points that are made by the doctrine of the Incarnation are (1) that in Christ, God himself is truly present, (2) that as a human being, Christ is normal, without superhuman powers or nonstandard metaphysical properties, (3) that these two aspects of the situation: the presence of God and Christ's humanity, are present in toto, and not via a compromise. I.e. that we don't have an entity halfway between God and man. I think these basic principles are appropriate even if you try to avoid the unusual metaphysics involved in traditional Christian theology. Second, as to the Trinity. Even if you don't like the metaphysical discussions, with their tendency to look like they are saying 3 == 1, I think you're going to want to say some things that are closely related to the Trinity. E.g. if you take seriously the concept that Christ really shows us God's nature -- even if you try to do this with some kind of functional unity -- this has implications on how we see God. We can't see him as a totally transcendent entity about which we know nothing other than the commands that he gives us. Jesus is an obedient servant. If we want to think of him as revealing God, then this implies that somehow God himself is not just the transcendent lawgiver, but the obedient child. And this is basically what the Trinity is saying: God is not just the creator, lawgiver, etc. He is both the lover and the beloved, the creator and the servant. If you read Augustine's exposition of the Trinity, it seems that what he is fishing for -- and he admits that he doesn't have the philosophical language to do the idea justice -- is that the Persons of the Trinity are distinguished only by the relationship between them. If you agree that God has within himself the relationship of love, then the Father and the Son are the two "ends" of that relationship. And the Holy Spirit is what binds it together. You may not like the way these ideas turned out after being expressed in neo-Platonic terms, but I think you will want to preserve them in some way. The one caution I have is that most attempts to avoid the classical orthodox position have ended up creating analogies to the classical heresies. --clh]