The doctrine of the Trinity demonstrates respect for the Bible, rather than trying to make God simple and understandable.
“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple is he has no facts to bother about.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 145. (MacMillan Publishing Company, Inc. New York, 1943, 1945, 1952. (Originally in Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God, 1944, p. 19)
“The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated by followers of Jesus Christ to safeguard the good news that in Jesus Christ we encounter God face to face. It was not devised to make God less understandable, or to make God so mysterious that the common people have to depend on clergy and theologians to understand it for them, as the JWs [Jehovah’s Witnesses] charge. Instead, the doctrine of the Trinity was developed out of respect for God’s revelation of Himself. [the Scriptures, OT and NT] The Witnesses’ doctrines about God, Christ, and “holy spirit”, on the other hand, were developed not in order to represent the bible’s teaching more faithfully, but to make God understandable and comprehensible. “
“The choice is therefore between believing in the true God as he has revealed himself, mystery and all, or believing in a God that is relatively simple to understand but bears little resemblance to the true God. Trinitarians are willing to live with a God they cannot fully comprehend. As C. S. Lewis put it:
“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple is he has no facts to bother about.”
Robert M. Bowman, Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Baker Books, 1989, p. 138-139. [My explanatory comments in brackets.]
Jehovah’s Witnesses (Arianism) and Islam are similar in that they reject the doctrine of the Trinity; which demonstrate that they are man made religions, among other problems of many false doctrines.
Posts
16 comments:
I think an illustration of the principle you are discussing in this article can be found on the "stand to reason" blog. It's an article by Amy Hall called "how will those saved by god's grace view hell."
Good biblical theology, imo, with no attempt to make God more understandable with man-made religion.
Luther would say the same things about Calvin regarding the sacraments and the personal union in Christ.
Wow; Brigitte!
Not holding back any longer, huh?
Why would you want to bring in the subjects of the sacraments (baptism and the Lord's Supper) into a blog article about the Trinity and denial of the Trinity by Jehovah's Witnesses and Islam?
The same principle applies. Our reason can grasp neither the trinity nor the real presence, nor the personal union. I am just working through Becker's "Foolishness of God", as you might have seen or not.
Hi Brigitte,
You wrote:
>>The same principle applies. Our reason can grasp neither the trinity nor the real presence, nor the personal union.>>
Me: Indeed—you have brought to light a clear 'double-standard'—on the one hand, Prots who embrace the magisterial Reformers teachings on the doctrine of God and Christology appeal to 'mystery', complexity, development, and the use on non-Biblical terms; yet when soteriology is dealt with, 'mystery', complexity, development, etc. takes a 'back-seat' to the 'simplicity' of 'the true gospel'.
Grace and peace,
David
Brigitte,
Roman Catholics would love to see Protestants fight over the issues around the Lord's Supper and Baptism.
They love to point that out that Luther and Calvin and Zwingli disagreed over the Lord's Supper.
As a Baptist, I cannot see elevating those 2 issues to the "same principle" as the Trinity - believers baptism and the memorial view of the Lord's Supper (Zwinglian) - but I can see Calvin's view of the Supper - a spiritual real presence for believer's only in communion with the Lord after self-examination and confession of sins. For an unbeliever to partake of the supper is not a blessing, but a curse.
I guess, that is one area I never understood why the early Reformers were so strong on elevating those issues to the level that you seem to do here - to the level of the Trinity.
Denial of the Doctrine of the Trinity puts one outside of Christianity ( Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, other cults); but disagreement over the Supper and Baptism are in house debates among Protestants.
I am glad for the Baptist movement that retained sound theology (Reformed) but stood for separation of church and state and for the Christians to stop killing each other. That was a bad testimony, IMO.
Luther was great and right on justification by faith alone and the Bondage of the Will (but it seems later Lutherans rejected his "Bondage of the Will" book and Predestination, and softened it) and his stand against Rome and papalism and transubstantiation, but he was too harsh, it seems to me, on the Lord's Supper and Baptism issues.
No man is perfect and no man is infallible, except the God-man - Jesus Christ.
David Waltz wrote:
Me: Indeed—you have brought to light a clear 'double-standard'—on the one hand, Prots who embrace the magisterial Reformers teachings on the doctrine of God and Christology appeal to 'mystery', complexity, development, and the use on non-Biblical terms;
Yet both C. S. Lewis (By his statement that "we are dealing in Fact" - he meant "Truth") and Robert Bowman show that is was the commitment to all of Scripture (Sola Scriptura) that defined the doctrine of the Trinity. They show that the Trinity is Biblical first of all, not like the Arians and Jehovah's Witnesses, who you seem to still have some kind of affinity or sympathy towards, who tried to make God more understandable.
yet when soteriology is dealt with, 'mystery', complexity, development, etc. takes a 'back-seat' to the 'simplicity' of 'the true gospel'.
soteriology and "the simplicity of the true gospel" are not issues directly related to the Lord's Supper or Baptism. The ordinances are pictures and symbols of internal realities, but they are not means or channels by which one enters into salvation or justification.
Brigitte mentions the sacraments and "personal union", not justification by faith alone or salvation by grace alone. She may have a different twist on them as more directly related to salvation and justification, but it seems clear that they are not means of justification, but pictures / symbols of internal realities.
I think it is clear that baptism is supposed to be a result of the gospel proclamation for those who repent and believe, an act of obedience by someone who already is justified - Paul seems to indicate that in I Corinthians 1:17.
To me, it is too obvious that when Jesus is standing or reclining at the Last Supper, and says, "this is My body", He means "this bread represents My body" - The early church went off on that issue and then for centuries it was developed into something else.
It is like "I am the door" and "I am the true vine", etc.
Sorry, you don't make sense on this issue.
David's comment seems to have appeared later; after my earlier response to Brigitte. (August 29, 1:54pm)
1. This appeal to "protestant" unity does not solve anything, however, dear it is to you, Ken, and I see your peaceful nature. And I never, ever call myself a "protestant."
2. Ken says: "they are not means or channels by which one enters into salvation or justification."
They are exactly said to be that. Faith is not as simple as it sounds. The Lord entered his creation and united himself to it, in the ways he chose: baby, cross, water, bread, wine. Where he is and his name, THERE is life and salvation. There we have not tried to swing ourselves up to some spiritual experience or step by step holiness of our own. There we look to him and him alone, because this is where his gifts are found and given.
Thanks be to God!
And I never, ever call myself a "protestant."
I thought you were Lutheran. - no?
In Germany we called ourselves "evangelisch" or "evangelisch lutherisch", here we call ourselves Lutheran because "evangelical" means something else already. Of course, nobody wants to call themselves after a man, and really we'd like to call ourselves evangelical, orthodox, catholic. But they are all taken.
I have a friend, a Lutheran convert, she calls herself an "ex-protestant".
And I find that many RC label all right across the board as "protestant" making no distinctions between our confessions. We Lutherans have differences with Calvinists and we think they are significant.
I honestly think that instead of fighting, RC and Calvinist should come together over the Lutheran (evangelical, orthodox, catholic) confession.
Yes, "Evangelical" is how the original Reformation movement saw themselves; although,
wouldn't you agree that Luther's
1. 95 theses against penance and indulgences
2. burning Pope Leo X's bull
3. "I will not recant" speech at the end of the Diet of Worms
were all "protests" against the Roman Catholic Church?
And we are unified with his actions and other Lutherans in believing that what he did was right and Biblical, that justification by faith alone and Sola Scriptura are right and Biblical and truth.
We should also be unified on Luther's theology in "The Bondage of the Will"
It seems to me that it is the modern Lutherans who believe the Bible that should return to Luther's original theology; and RCs should return to the Bible itself in many areas, this included.
In Luther’s closing remarks to Erasmus in his monumental work, The Bondage of the Will, Luther states:
“I praise and commend you highly for this also, that unlike all the rest you alone have attacked the real issue, the essence of the matter in dispute, and have not wearied me with irrelevancies about the papacy, purgatory, indulgences, and such like trifles (for trifles they are rather than basic issues), with which almost everyone hitherto has gone hunting for me without success. You and you alone have seen the question on which everything hinges, and have aimed at the vital spot; for which I sincerely thank you, since I am only too glad to give as much attention to this subject as time and leisure permit.”
Source: LW 33:294.
Luther was very insightful. He wrote that the issue of the bondage of the will in sin, man's inability to choose good over evil, without the grace of God, was the main root issue of the Reformation and he thanked Erasmus for focusing in on that.
Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, he who commits sin is the slave of sin." John 8:34
Romans 6:22 - "but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God . . . "
We do not have free will ability to choose or do good without the grace of God. We do have natural human freedom of choice in that we are free to choose as we want to choose; but the question that gets to the root of that issue even deeper is "what does man naturally want, without the grace of God in regeneration (being born-again - John 3:1-8; Titus 3:3-5; Ezekiel 36:26-27; Acts 16:14; John 6:44; 6:65) ?
That is the great need for all Evangelicals to agree on.
The issue and the center is always the cross.
What happened at the cross? Was Christ given there for you? For all your sins? Can you trust in that? Did his blood flow for you?
Was it God who died at the cross? Can you receive him in the bread and the wine, over and over again to sustain your faith?
Yes, and yes and yes and yes and yes.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God the Son, died on the cross, but His Divine Nature did not "die" or was not destroyed or did not cease to exist, since it is impossible by nature for God to die; but His human nature and body, etc. really died. Death is a human thing, a separation of the soul from the body and the ceasing of bodily life and functions.
To say the bare words, "God died" without qualification would make that a problem and communicate something inaccurate in the least, and something heretical at most, it seems to me.
the bread and the wine are symbols of His body and blood, His once for all death on the cross, His atonement, His propitiation.
True believers experience a deeper communion and fellowship with the Lord, who is in heaven; experiencing His real spiritual presence by remembering His atonement, and by examination and confession of sins and restoration of relationships in the body.
Our confessions and Luther's teaching, do not line up with this at all, and hence you see the difficulty, Ken.
And we submit that our teaching is scriptural and yours is not. The formula of Concord goes through all this in decent detail, if you would like to read it. I have subscribed to it and I believe it to be correct teaching.
Post a Comment