For many nonbelievers and doubters (‘NBDs’), the church’s mulish insistence on the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the major stumbling blocks to faith.*
The orthodox proclaim: If you don’t accept that God is three Persons in One, then you simply cannot be a true Christian. Granted, we can’t point you to any objective reason to believe this, but you still must accept it, purely on our say-so — some of our early founders imagined it to be true, which is good enough for us, and it should be good enough for you.
Many thoughtful NBDs are put off by this approach. They know, from education and experience, that such unsubstantiated appeals to authority are typically bootless.
The orthodox seem not to care. (Nor do they evidence much interest in the most obvious of the questions that can be raised about the Trinity: Why three Persons? Why not two, or four, or four million?)
Instead, they blithely continue doing their evangelism rain dances, oblivious to whether they’re actually making it rain.
(* FOOTNOTE: I use ‘faith’ here in a minimalist sense, namely (i) accepting that a Creator exists and (ii) trusting that, in the end, all will be well. It seems to me that this is precisely the kind of faith that the New Testament shows Jesus as exemplifying and urging others to seek.)
D.C., I can well understand your frustration at the idea of the Trinity. Things would be much simpler without it, as well as less scandalous. However, the issue is “what is true?” not “what is simple.” Similarly, the law would be much more appealing if one left out all the confusing parts.
I do share with you the tiresomeness of just being told that the church fathers believed it, so we should to. I think I hold the fathers in higher esteem than you do, but still, their argument must actually hold water. The church today should be able to give a cogent argument, if we expect to hold these doctrines.
To that end, I wrote my own thoughts on the Trinity a few weeks ago, after a substantial number of encounters with Muslims and others who are uneasy with us Trinitarians. I affirm it as a doctrine that is so central to the nature of deity, that a retreat from it (for the sake of ease) would be to do a cheap salesman’s trick of changing the qualities of the product in order to get the sale.
I doubt that my arguments will overwhelm you, but at least it is something other than an appeal to the ancients.
[Link to Eric's above-referenced posting: http://rericsawyer.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/thoughts-on-the-holy-trinity/]
Posted by: R. Eric Sawyer | June 08, 2009 at 02:57 PM
Eric, your posting to which you link does a fine, clear job of summarizing one of the classic trinitarian arguments. I've edited your comment above to include the HTML link.
I submit, though, that the argument is riven by several significant weaknesses.
Consider the argument's first premise, which you summarize thusly:
At best, this premise, together with the scriptures on which it rests, is conjecture (and at worst, wishful thinking).
We know virtually nothing about the Creator. From the extant evidence, we can infer (cf. Rom. 1.20) not much more than that he/she/it/they (i) must be unimaginably smart, and (ii) seem to have something in mind in what appears to be the continuing, evolutionary creation of the universe. That's not much of a foundation on which to build such an elaborate theological house of cards.
------------------------
You summarize another threat of the argument as follows:
If we assume this paragraph's premise (in bold), its conclusion does make sense. But as you know, I don't regard the premise as having been established; if anything, the followers who actually knew Jesus during his lifetime seem to have regarded him as a human designated by God as king-in-waiting, but certainly not as being God. (See also my earlier post, The Apostles' Teaching Didn't Seem to Include a Divine Jesus.)
------------------------
It seems to me that the only intellectually-honest approach to the nature of God is an unabashed admission of ignorance, made in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin's expectation that, soon enough, each of us may well have the opportunity of knowing the truth of the matter.
Many thanks for the comment.
Posted by: D. C. Toedt | June 08, 2009 at 05:04 PM
I have always felt that the concept of the trinity, like so many other doctrines of the faith, are marvelous attempts to make the "Jesus" experience fit Roman and Greek paganism.
Posted by: Bruno | June 09, 2009 at 08:21 AM
I think you'll find by studying historic evidence that the trinity is a convenient concept created after the crucifixion and may have come naturally to pagan identity as a means of assimilating the Christian religion amongst the diverse citizens of the Roman empire.
Muslims, Unitarians, and the early Unitarian church have a different view of this concept trinity. It wouldn't be unfair, based on a study of the bible to find that the trinity itself is an invention of logic and not explicit teaching of Jesus (AS).
Interesting site.
Posted by: Goolam | June 18, 2009 at 08:39 AM
P.S. There is a man by the name of Yusuf Estes. Try not to dismiss him off hand. He may have some positive things to contribute to your discussion at the very least sharpen your understanding. He's also quite proficient with the bible and can add to your understanding.
Regards,
Goolam
Posted by: Goolam | June 18, 2009 at 08:40 AM
This is now a prievious post thread but I thought I should post here anyway ask a question. This might read more like a confessional (or a bizarre rant) than just a post with a question. I would like to apologize for that in advance.
We Christians of many denominations learn about the trinity - that is all well and good; but I can't really remember what exactly or where the Holy Spirit is or figures into the Father and Son part of, "The Father the Son and the Holy Spirit." What is the deal with this? I went through communion and confirmation and I still can't deeply understand this relationship. I have thought that I am flawed for not inheirently understanding this concept.
Is the trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit actually a group of three separate entities? Troism aside, is the trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit a sort of amalgamation of three aspects of a being: the physical, the non-corporeal soul, and the spiritual entity? This might fit a Platonic schema but at the core it leaves me none the wiser. Is the Holy Spirit the Word? Is it the sort of powerful essence that begets the Father and then the Son?
I feel that I am missing something really obvious and I feel stupid because I think I am missing something important that I am just not seeing. (I'm not exactly text-book stoopid, I hold a technical job, I went to trade school and college, I go to church).
So if someone who believes (or tires to believe) stumbles on this quandry, how would people who don't believe or don't know about Christianity (the NBDs you call them) react?
I'm left agreeing with your lead-in, this is a big hurdle to cross (at least it has been for me).
P.S.: But I also wonder if this is really a major issue? God seems to reach people regardless.
Posted by: Harrison | June 28, 2009 at 01:18 AM
Harrison, it's not you that's stupid, at all.
I long ago quit believing that the doctrine of the Trinity was factually correct. Admitting that to myself took some doing. But it feels much better to get that out in the open. (See also my post of a few years ago, Why I Still Call Myself a Christian, and an Episcopalian.)
In response to the question in your penultimate paragraph: I think a lot NBDs (nonbelievers and doubters), after properly rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, proceed to reject religion altogether. That's unfortunate, because they throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And I agree with your last statement.
I'm going to do a new post with a Trinity joke that occurred to me after reading your comment.
Thanks for stopping by.
Posted by: D. C. Toedt | June 28, 2009 at 07:42 AM