The Trinity, part 1

September 28th, 2006

So, I’ve been thinking a fair bit about the trinity this week. Some of you have no doubt guessed that, since a) I’ve been doing core study on the trinity this week, and b) my elective is on how the doctrine of the trinity should affect our understanding of God’s attributes of character (especially glory-seeking) and is beginning by me looking into the doctrine of trinity in depth. But anyway, I figured it would be good for me to post my thoughts on the trinity at this stage, partly in order to force me to think through what I am saying. I feel it is worth stating at the outset that many of these are my preliminary thoughts may well be altered as I study in more depth.

My first thought is a conviction that has been growing in me but was majorly clarified by King Mike Reeves, namely that the habit of most theologians of writing their theologies of God and his attributes and then mentioning at the end, almost as an aside, ”Oh, yeah, BTW, God is also a trinity”, is pretty stupid. After listening to Mike talk on it and Melinda reiterate his thoughts, nothing made more sense actually - it’s entirely logical that the way God relates to God must be at the core of his being and thus of how we should understand Him, and the Bible certainly seems to support that, too - again and again the Bible talks about the love of the Father and Son for one another, and their relationship. And yet virtually all western people who have any thoughts on God’s attributes (including me - though I hope my elective will help to change that) relegate this to a footnote in their theology, or if not a footnote at least not a key controlling principle in their doctrine of God. Why? I think I agree with Mike here… because of our cultural and philosophical background, we don’t really like the trinity, we basically want a monad, so we minimise the threeness of God and try to pretend that He is just one - while paying lip-service to the three.

More thoughts to follow…