Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 4:53 PM
God, according to Genesis, made man “in His image and likeness”
Now, if by “man” we do not mean human society, but the real and concrete human being of flesh and blood, the concrete human being that each of us is, then God can only be One Person, and Trinity is nothing but the symbolic expression of the inner Life of this Person, of His Creative Power, His Loving Wisdom and His Vivifying Spirit.
If, on the other hand, we do not mean “man” as concrete human being, but rather as human society, we may likewise argue that God is a Society of Persons, and in this case the dogma of Trinity is not a symbolic expression, but a literal truth.
This latter position, which can be perfectly upheld from a rational point of view, has the main disadvantage that it is not supported anywhere in the Scriptures. Neither in the Old Testament, in which God’s Oneness only is proclaimed, and when God’s Wisdom or Spirit are spoken of, there is no reason to assume that what is referred to is anything other than attributes of the One God and Father. Nor in the New Testament, in which, rather, it is insisted that God is Abba, Father.
Things become even more complicated with the dogma of Incarnation. Assuming, in fact, that in God there subsist a Trinity of Persons, and that in Jesus human nature has been united to the divine nature of the Eternal Son so as to constitute one Person, how is Jesus, resurrected and sitting on the right hand of the Father, posited with respect to this Trinity? Two only are the possibilities: either the divinity of the Son has been changed and somehow “enriched” by the humanity of Jesus, or the humanity of Jesus has been entirely “absorbed” into the divinity of the Son.
In the former case it is God’s immutability which is questioned, in the latter case it is the very reality, value and meaning of Resurrection which dissolve into a haze.
Go to 2. Trinity and Incarnation: a solution
Shield of Trinity
God, according to Genesis, made man “in His image and likeness”
Now, if by “man” we do not mean human society, but the real and concrete human being of flesh and blood, the concrete human being that each of us is, then God can only be One Person, and Trinity is nothing but the symbolic expression of the inner Life of this Person, of His Creative Power, His Loving Wisdom and His Vivifying Spirit.
If, on the other hand, we do not mean “man” as concrete human being, but rather as human society, we may likewise argue that God is a Society of Persons, and in this case the dogma of Trinity is not a symbolic expression, but a literal truth.
This latter position, which can be perfectly upheld from a rational point of view, has the main disadvantage that it is not supported anywhere in the Scriptures. Neither in the Old Testament, in which God’s Oneness only is proclaimed, and when God’s Wisdom or Spirit are spoken of, there is no reason to assume that what is referred to is anything other than attributes of the One God and Father. Nor in the New Testament, in which, rather, it is insisted that God is Abba, Father.
Things become even more complicated with the dogma of Incarnation. Assuming, in fact, that in God there subsist a Trinity of Persons, and that in Jesus human nature has been united to the divine nature of the Eternal Son so as to constitute one Person, how is Jesus, resurrected and sitting on the right hand of the Father, posited with respect to this Trinity? Two only are the possibilities: either the divinity of the Son has been changed and somehow “enriched” by the humanity of Jesus, or the humanity of Jesus has been entirely “absorbed” into the divinity of the Son.
In the former case it is God’s immutability which is questioned, in the latter case it is the very reality, value and meaning of Resurrection which dissolve into a haze.
Go to 2. Trinity and Incarnation: a solution
No comments:
Post a Comment