Still on this Trinity Question, modelling of Church, and dreaming of perfection... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Friday, June 29, 2012, 03:12 (329 days ago)

Dear all,

I've been working on the layout for the second part of Tony Lowes' Critique of the Church in the light of the concepts of Trinity and "the Realm" or "Kingdom". I've also re-read Tony's first commentary [LINK] in the light of Brian Pitt's response [LINK]. I think Brian was being a bit harsh on Tony but, boy, am I glad he wrote what he did. I am finding both commentaries enormously thought-provoking. There are so many strings or aspects of the discussion that are worth pursuing. At one level I suspect that Brian and Tony are, in fact, not that far apart in their thinking on the Trinity question and, in particular, the nature of the Third Person or Entity of this "Trinitarian God". If I may be so bold as to summarize the pair of them:

Brian is essentially arguing that we have been hoodwinked into thinking of the Spirit as "a person". He argues that Sacred Scripture suggests the Spirit is not a "person" but a power or a force. Now, if you go back to Tony's first commentary you will in fact find a line in it arguing virtually the same thing. To wit: "Tellingly, the name chosen by Greek theologians for the Three in God was not persons, but a word which meant rather, three distinct and indissoluble realities." Now admittedly that sentence was in parenthesis and explanatory of the surrounding sentences and not Tony's main argument or focus. I suggest it might point to Tony and Brian actually not being that far apart in their thinking on the nature of the Spirit. A "power", a "force", and "wind, ruah or breath" can be a "reality". I think we have to remember with all of these terms though they are metaphors ultimately trying to describe something that is "indescribable" and "Mystery". We can never "nail it down" in some definition like the Law of Gravity, or the description of some atom on the Periodic Table, or any of Euclid's Theorems in Geometry.

My sense, even excitement, is that Brian's research is important because it is probably high time we advanced past some medieval or earlier theologies of Trinity which have, more than probably, become very divisive in society and, for many, simply "unbelievable" rather than "Holy Mystery".

Does Brian Pitts' arguments negate the whole concept of a Trinitarian God? I'm far from convinced they do. I think they might better give us an understanding of the third entity, or "power", in this triumvurate concept but what he writes does not necessarily lead to some rejection of the entire concept of Trinity. It may well lead us to radically change the "picture we have in our head" when someone mentions the words "Holy Spirit" or "Third Person of the Trinity".

While I can well understand the eyes and minds of a lot of people might glaze over as Brian himself suggested in his opening remarks about Tony's first essay, I suggest this question is ultimately important to everyone. If I can use another analogy: most of our eyes might "glaze over" if in this place we all let Roy have his full head and start waxing lyrical over the structure of some carburettor or other part of any engine or pump he might be working on. None of us really need to understand the fine details of carburettors, or water pumps, to actually use the things in our lives — or for our lives to become pretty dysfunctional if they didn't exist, or if there wasn't someone in the world to have little orgasms getting excited about the carburettors or pumps that "power" our motor cars, dish washers or refrigerators.

I think it is effectively the same when it comes to a concept like "God". I'd argue we all — including the friggin' atheists — have some concept in their head of the Perfection we all aspire to — or at least the Perfection (of society) that we'd like our world to aspire to be. We might differ in the pictures we have in our heads of what that "Perfection" might look like, and even the name we attribute to describe it. What I am suggesting is common to all of us is at least the concept of some "end Perfection" even if none of us can agree on what to label it or how to describe it. Wouldn't it though help, even just a little bit, if we can slightly better nuance what we mean when we say "God", "Perfection" or a word like "Trinity". I suggest that what Brian Pitts has been doing in his research project does help all of us get a better "fix" on what we're trying to describe when the we use a term like "Holy Spirit" albeit that many would liken that sort of research to an occupation like "train-spotting" ... trying to "spot" the description of the Holy Spirit in Sacred literature. Many would think you've got rocks in your head to undertake such an endeavour, Brian.

Now coming back to Tony Lowes "train spotting" endeavours trying to get a better "fix" on our understanding of what a church, or community, is supposed to be...

I love these two sentences which are drawn from the first paragraph of his essay coming up later today: "As a pilgrim people, the church is true only to the degree of its growth towards truth." and "The church will only be absolutely true in the end-time when it is translated into the Realm*."

*What Jesus called "the Kingdom".

Aren't those sentences similar to what I was writing above? We all have some kind of hunger in us for "Perfection" — we have some picture or concept in our heads and emotions of what would make us "most happy" as individuals, or "most fulfilled" or what would be "the ideal life" or "the ideal me". Do we not all hope for that? Do we not dream it? Do we not buy Lotto tickets to try and bring it about? Or do we not slave away at our jobs, or invest all our money in superannuation schemes and in buying life insurance, to try and achieve our dream of "perfection"? Do we not also have dreams of the ideal family we'd like to create; and the ideal world or society we'd like to live in — one that is free of war, hatred, envy, backbiting, people climbing all over one another to advance their stature, power, or wealth in the world, or in the eyes of someone else, or even just their own egos? Given that all of us spend so much time dreaming of what we'd like our world to look like, or fighting one another to achieve it, don't you think it might be a slightly sensible idea to invest a little bit of time trying to picture what that "Perfection" or "Ideal" might look like?

That, I suggest, is what Tony Lowes is endeavouring to do in this series of essays he's put a lot of thought into preparing and I, for one, am as grateful to him for that expenditure as I am to Brian Pitts for the massive expenditure of energy I know he's put into researching the question that has been "bugging" him.

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]