How Biblical Is the Doctrine of the Trinity - Essay Example

Doctrine of the Trinity: Is There A Biblical Basis Introduction For most of the past 1800 years Catholic Christians the world over followed with unquestioning faith the doctrine of the Holy Trinity which hinges on the union of three persons in one Godhead - the Father, Son and the Spirit. We begin our Christian life through the baptismal ceremony that invokes the Trinity, exactly the way John the Baptist did with the earliest Christians: "I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The same invocation we use in our everyday prayers, solemnly touching as we make the sign of the cross our forehead in honor of the Father, the breast in adoration of the Son and the shoulders in deference to the Holy Spirit. The advent of the so-called wisdom literature in religion, which sought to explain and rationalize the ways in which we practice our faith, brought on an open season for discussion and criticism of the Trinity doctrine. Through the centuries, even as Christianity flourished, this particular doctrine has been both attacked and defended (Oomen, J. Rev., 2002, pp. 75-82). The debate heightened when theologians came forward to question the "biblicality" of this doctrine and the pagan impression it gives of worshipping three separate gods. One of these theological tracts, God Who Acts as published by George Ernest Wright in 1952, declared that the Hebrew wisdom on theology as reflected in the Trinity doctrine was "deficient." (Coakley, 1993, ch. 3) Maurice Wiles stoked the fire with a series of lectures called God's Action in the World, articles such as Some Reflections on the Origins of the Doctrine of the Trinity and the book The Making of Christian Doctrine published in 1967. In these works, Wiles trained his guns on attempts to defend the doctrine as based on the Christian religious experience. Such justifications, he maintained, are fatally flawed since the nature of this problem is "inherently circular." Miles took issue with the way the doctrine's emphasis swung from the distinctness of Father and Son in the 3rd century to the unity of the two in the 4th century. All these spawned the perception that the Trinity doctrine is an inaccurate and outdated statement of the nature of God because of the changes that have taken place since the dogma was laid down. Such changes involved the word "person," the world's understanding of relationships and the substance of which God is composed. In addition, the theological problems that the doctrine was intended to solve are believed no longer a prime concern (Coakley, 1993, ch. 3) It was suggested that the church hierarchy in those days tried to stifle criticism, an indication that the doctrine stands on shaky ground. Said Wiles: "Once the triadic baptismal formula became fixed quite early in the church's life, it exercised a strongly authoritative - but ultimately arbitrary - clamp on more proper, critical reflection." (Wiles, 1967, ch. 6) For the same reasons, protesting Catholics broke off from the church and set up their own religion based on that action. What is in the Trinity doctrine that the protestants in today's world found so hard to accept as touchstone of their faith The Doctrine Belief in a three-in-one God is as old as Christianity itself. The Trinity appeared as a theological term near the end of the 2nd century, first used as "Trias" by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch in A.D. 180. (Oomen, J., 2002, pp. 75-82) But from the very start, the Trinity doctrine was formulated without benefit of a biblical imprimatur. The three Cappadocian monks admitted as much when they developed the doctrine in 325 A.D. Basil, one of the monks, instead invoked a "secret unscriptural tradition" while the other monk, Gregory, looked for a new scriptural provision that would accommodate the doctrine. (Hanson, R.P.C., 1985, p. 245) The polytheistic character of the doctrine may be traced to the fact that the early Christians, who were once Judaists and therefore monotheists, came under the Roman empire which was known for worshipping many gods. With this influence, the idea of three personae in one God took shape, and sort of validated by John when he baptized the first Christians using the known baptismal formula. Tertullian in 200 A.D. took this to mean as "Trinitas" or three persons in one substance and was adopted by the Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) as the viewpoint of mainstream Christianity. The Cappadocian monks, Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa came into the picture to polish up the doctrine. It was formally proclaimed as the bedrock doctrine of Christianity at the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D. and was later enshrined as such by the Athanasian Creed. (Coakley, S., 1993, ch. 3) The Athanasian Creed, which is neither a creed nor the work of St. Athanasius or any other holy man (Coakley, 1993, ch. 3)), postulates that as Christian truth compels us to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so does the Catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords. "For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another, but the deity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, co-eternal in majesty." Those who run counter to this doctrine and do not guard it whole and inviolable, the Creed warns, will not be saved and will perish eternally. Coakley (1993, ch. 3)) finds the Athanasian Creed's argument about the divine nature of the Trinity doctrine long and obscure, the substance of its warning to non-believers "flimsy." The Bible itself seems to contradict the Athanasian Creed's view that the Father and Son are equal. Thus, the "Father is greater than the Son (John 14-28)" and the "Father is God over the Son (John 20-17)." Also, the "Father knew something that the Son did not yet know, (Matthew 20:20-23)" referring to the Second Coming. Such "distinctness" was further affirmed when Christ died on the cross and cried out: "My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me (Matthew 27:46)" In the New Testament, the Father and the Son are made out as two different persons. John 17: 1-26: "They love one another, speak to each other, and seek to glorify each other." Even the Holy Spirit is revealed by Christ to be a third person, distinct from the Father and distinct from the Son (John 14-16). But this again becomes complicated when the Bible alludes to the oneness of God: "If thou believes that there is one God, thou doest well (James 2:19)." When the risen Christ tested the doubting Thomas, the disciple "answered and said unto Him, my Lord and my God (John 20:28)." Other maverick theologians added to the confusion by positing that Mary is part of the Trinity although she is identified with the Holy Spirit (Benko, S., 1993). This brings us to the equally ticklish issue of the Holy Spirit which, the Athanasian Creed indicated, is "another person" equal to Father and Son. Those who question the doctrine aver that the Holy Spirit could not be a person, otherwise it could have been the father of Jesus, seeing as how on the nativity, "Mary was found with the Child Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18)." There is enough clues in the Scripture to refute the view that the Holy Spirit is a person. Here is one: "For God hath not given us the spirit fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7)" Luke 24:49 (to Jesus): "Stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." These biblical passages indicate that the Holy Spirit is the presence and essence, the mind and power of God. The church maintains that the doctrine of Trinity is firmly grounded in the New Testament. On the Holy Spirit, for example, there are said to be 62 references in the Book of Acts, 18 of which describe Christ as a person. Theological scholars who take the contrary view say the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, not "specifically" in the New Testament. There is only a "foretaste or glimpse" of it in the Old Testament. It is simply "a creation of the 4th century church (Oomen, J. Rev., 2002, pp.75-82)." The church defines the Holy Trinity as the Divine Being, which is one indivisible essence. In this Divine Being, there are three persons or individual subsistences - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The whole undivided essence of God belongs equally to each of the three persons. The subsistence of the three persons in the Divine Being is marked by a certain definite order. There are certain personal attributes by which the three persons are distinguished. (Berkhof, L., 1941, pp.87-89) Conclusion If the Trinity doctrine elicits some confusion, it could only spring from individual differences in interpretation and understanding. All these controversies could have been avoided if the doctrine is taken as an "analogy or model" instead of as a "literal truth." (Miller, R.C., 1992, p. 82) In this theologian's view, "we may say that God as Father is the power and unchanging source of values, the Word and Wisdom through which God is revealed to us in experience. The human personality of Jesus was the point to which the Word and Wisdom became a unique ingredient in the world, such that we can say that Jesus' human aim and God's came freely into union. God as spirit is the in-dwelling of God as consequent in human nature, giving us life and hope." Another theological authority believes it was just the way the biblical authors wanted. "They (biblical authors) were more interested in the activity than the nature of God. Whatever doctrine of the Trinity there is in the Scripture, it is neither complete nor definitive but it is nevertheless present and real." (Wainright, A., 1962, p.53) A similar view holds that the Greeks formulated the doctrine to address the problem of how to bridge the gap between "divine timelessness and human temporalness." (Jenson, R., 1997, p. 103) The doctrine of Nicea, or Trinity. may have been a useful thought-form when it was started, (Graham, J., 1920, p. 64) "but it is not a living part of contemporary thought and I doubt the usefulness of a washed-out or attenuated form of the doctrine in which a triple manifestation of some kind can be noted or discerned in God. It was no part of the thought of Jesus or of Paul." There are those who find the biblical symbol of the kingdom of God as the "thought-form" more preferable than that of the Trinity when seeking to enlist religious fervor in behalf of social justice and equality. (Peters, T., 1993, p. 186). "The Trinity is a second-order symbol constructed for the purpose of clarifying the relation between three more basic symbols for God at work in salvation." Still, the doctrine of the Trinity is presented as the best choice between polytheism and monotheism. "If we worship many gods, we will become more and more selfish. If we worship the Trinitarian God we should be able to grow into a sharing, classless, inspired and empowered community. The Trinity is a mystery as well as a doctrine which is beyond our intuitive recognition and faculty." (Oomen, J. Rev., 2002, 82) Theologians know this but not the broad mass of Christians who feel it is required and could not explain why. The faithful should "look at it as a mystery, a hidden truth. (Coakley, 1993, ch. 3)" Their attitude towards the doctrine is one that looks at it as "the higher mathematics of theology (Pannenburg, W., 2001, 3-7)" Even the church itself accepts the Trinity as "a mystery beyond the comprehension of man (Berkhof, L., 1941, p. 89)" As a final mystery of the New Testament, God appears as a specific person in the Trinity as well as the overall Divine Being. Here we see the final necessity of the doctrine of the Trinity (Jenson, R., 1997, p. 7). Biblography Coakley, Sarah & Pailin, David; The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine; Oxford University, London (1993). Jenson, Robert; Systematic Theology II; OUP (1997). Wiles, Maurice; The Making of Christian Doctrine; Oxford University, London (1967). Wainwright, Arthur W; The Trinity in the New Testament; SPCK, London (1962). Peters, Ted; God as Trinity; Westminster-John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky (1993). Miller, Randolph Crump; Empirical Theology: A Handbook; Birmingham, Alabama: Religious Education Press (1992). Oomen, Joseph, Rev; The Concept of Trinity and Its Implication for Christian Communication in the Indian Context; Bangalore Theological Forum, vol. 34, no. 1 (2002). Hanson, R.P.C; Studies in Antiquity; Edinburgh: T&T Clark (1985). Pannenburg, Wolfhart; The Trinity Doctrine in the Higher Mathematics of Theology; University of Chicago, (2001). Berkhof, Louis; Systematic Theology; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman (1941). Benko, Stephen, The Virgin Goddess; Leiden" E.J. Brill (1993). Graham, John; The Faith of a Quaker; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (192). Read More