Thoughts on the Trinity -- For Trinity Sunday

Disciples (my denomination) have not been, as a movement, overly Trinitarian. Barton Stone, one of our founders, can be described as an Arian. Alexander Campbell was Trinitarian in his understandings, but not his vocabulary. Campbell struggled with the vocabulary and much of the metaphysical discussion about the Trinity -- much of which is dependent on Platonic understandings. But, ultimately he had a Trinitarian viewpoint:

Paul and Peter indeed speak of the divine nature in the abstract, or of the divinity or godhead. These are the most abstract terms found in the Bible. Eternity and divinity are, however, equally abstract and almost equally rare in Holy Writ. Still they are necessarily found in the divine volume; because we must abstract nature from person before we can understand the remedial system. For the divine nature may be communicated or imparted in some sense; and, indeed, while it is essentially and necessarily singular, it is certainly plural in its personal manifestations. Hence we have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit equally divine, though personally distinct from each other. We have in fact, but one God, on Lord, one Holy Spirit; yet these are equally possessed of one and the same divine nature. (Alexander Campbell, The Christian System, Cincinnati: H.S. Bosworth, 1866; reprint, Salem, NH: Ayer Company, 1988, 20).

As for me, I am by confession Trinitarian. I can affirm the Apostles Creed, even if at points I might seek to nuance things. My reasons for affirming this confession are many. I was brought up Trinitarian (Episcopal Church). I see the witness Trinity in the New Testament, even if the word is not there explicitly. That is, I believe that the Trinity is a theological construct that makes sense of the biblical witness to the nature of God. Indeed, it's as Ted Peters suggests, a theological construction that begins on a secondary level of interpretation. The doctrine emerges from our reflection on the biblical texts, especially those texts that affirm the primary relationship between Father and Son. Peters notes how this focus on the relationship between Father and Son supports a Trinitarian understanding of God.

In Christian theology, God is symbolized as a divine Father primarily because Christ is symbolized as the divine Son. Not the other way around. Prior to the New Testament there had been no serious Hebrew investment in the Father symbol for God. (Ted Peters, God: The World's Future, Fortress Press, 1992, p. 95).

The only Hebrew understandings of a parental relationship between God and anyone else was by way of adoption. As a result, the Old Testament provides fourteen references to God as Father, while the New Testament has 170 references.

As a Disciple pastor I recognize that it is not our way to require a Trinitarian perspective. In fact, I have non-Trinitarians in my congregation. But in my confession and in prayers, I affirm the Trinitarian nature of God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Later on I will blog the next chapter of Philip Clayton's Adventures in the Spirit, in which he outlines why a Trinitarian theology makes the most sense of panentheism. While Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not a necessary construct, panentheism makes the most sense when God is understood in Trinitarian terms. He writes:

The panentheistic structure is inherently trinitarian. . . . To think about the presence of God theologically means to think of God in God's identification with the world, and this identification we might call the second person of the Trinity. Yet if God were totally absorbed in the world, God would lose all separation from the world. In becoming purely immanent, God would become finite. (Clayton, Adventures in the Spirit, Fortress, 2008, p. 171).

Of course there is more to this doctrine that what I've laid out here, but whether from a New Testament perspective or even a philosophical one, the Trinity does make sense of a fuller understanding of God. Yes, there is a simplicity to a strict monotheism, but do we get the full picture of God's essence. Often strict monotheism leaves us with a God incapable of engaging the world; the Trinity offers us a path to understanding that relationship while protecting God's divine nature.

As always, I invite your thoughts on this most complex but important doctrinal confession.