Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 5:12 PM
Masaccio's Trinity (Santa Maria Novella, Florence)
In my tormented relationship with Christianity I have developed a total repulsion for the Doctrine of Trinity, as it is proposed by the Catholic Church and more in general by all the Christian churches, Orthodox, Protestant etc., with the single exception of the Unitarian Church.
For a long time I believed that the motivation of my attitude was due to several facts, amongst which I mention the main ones:
• that the Doctrine of Trinity has no foundation upon the basis of the Old Testament, and not even of the New testament,
• that there is an obvious evolution that has carried from the first formulations, tied to the necessity to distinguish the role and the nature of Jesus Christ with regard to God the Father, to the definitive formulation (three persons, equal, distinguished and co-eternal),
• that there are obvious contributions from stoic philosophy, as well as middle-platonic, neo-platonic in the various Trinitarian formulations,
• that the complete formulation of the dogma (as can be found in the s.c. Athanasian Creed) erects a true verbal "eidolon" to the Trinity.
Without modifying anything of the above exposed convictions, I gradually came to realize that the true problem for me is above all that of Incarnation. It appears difficult to me to accept and to believe that Jesus Christ can be the Incarnation of God (or more exactly, according to the Dogma, of the second person of the Trinity) and that therefore, inasmuch as God, he cannot not enjoy divine attributes, in particular Omnipotence and Omniscience, that we consider necessarily associated to the notion of God.
How can in fact such Man-God actually suffer the limitations imposed by human nature? What kind of redemptive value has for humans the death of Someone who ultimately only has "up to a certain point" shared the human condition? Which is the meaning and the value of the Resurrection of a Man-God who, in inasmuch as God, cannot really suffer death and, inasmuch as man, whose nature is intimately connected to his divine nature, from this same divine nature would have received, so to speak "by dragging", victory over death, making therefore superfluous to think of the intervention of the One God Father, which however is expressed without possible misunderstanding in the NT, and in particular in Peter’s speech in the "Acts of the Apostles"?
Therefore, thinking to overcome my repulsion for the doctrine of Trinity, but in fact (as I came to realize) above all in order to overcome the difficulties with the Doctrine the Incarnation (difficulties that, it is worth noticing, do not depend on the formulation according to the Trinitarian Dogma, but indeed would be aggravated by a “Unitarian" or "Patripassian" formulation of the Incarnation), I have thought to find a satisfactory solution to both problems in the enunciations that follow, which constitute some kind of "personal creed":
• The Christian God is a Personal God (therefore neither a "force" nor a "motor") and strictly One (not less than the God of the Jews and of the Muslims). God is Father inasmuch as He loves His creatures, and in particular human beings.
• Jesus is the Son of God not "ab aeterno" but inasmuch as generated from God by means of the Virgin Mary. In this sense, that is inasmuch as He joins in Himself by generation the divine nature of God Father and the human nature of the Virgin Mary, He is True God and True Man. In Jesus the Divine Wisdom, which had been unfolded in Creation, has found full expression. The Logos, or divine Wisdom, is not therefore a distinct person (neither from God, nor in God), but it is not even a "plan" of the Creation, but rather an eternal attribute of the eternal God.
• Creation is tied to the only God Father and Creator with a twofold bond.
Inasmuch as it obeys the "laws" that God has imposed on it, Creation is Nature, in which the divine Providence expresses itself as Order and Harmony (although Nature includes in itself also breaches of order and catastrophes), but always with reference to the General. God though acts also directly upon His Creation, with acts directed to the Particular. This action and direct presence of God in His Creation is what is normally called Holy Spirit. God manifests Himself by means of His Spirit both as inspiration in the human beings chosen by Him, and as miracle in the extraordinary events of Nature
This "creed", with its heterodoxy, has somehow satisfied the primary requirement to refer to God as a Personal Entity, present in the world created by Him and acting on it with Wisdom and Love.
Besides this requirement, but of no less importance , this "creed" allows me to feel that the call to sharing with Jews and Muslims the same One God of Abraham is neither strained nor fictitious.
But if on one side this creed helps overcome my repulsion for the doctrine of Trinity, and my perplexities regarding the doctrine of Incarnation, I cannot deny that a different problem arises. God, the Father Almighty, who loves His Creation so much as to give it His One-begotten Son, in the end is also the one who sent Him in this world without any warning of danger, who literally gave Him the illusion of the imminent foundation of God’s Kingdom, and of the possibility to establish this Kingdom in a non traumatic way. This can be clearly perceived from the Gospels in the first phase of the mission of Jesus, until the "crisis of Caesarea" and in the tragic character of the rest of the mission of Jesus, until the epilogue on the Cross.
Therefore a choice is inevitable. On one side the doctrine of Trinity and of Incarnation, which attempts the impossible (and for me sacrilegious) combination of the "God" of philosophers with the One and True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and inevitably transforms Incarnation itself in some kind of "sacred representation", of "comedy", "pedagogical action" by God (but which God?) towards Humanity, without any true sharing of "human condition", in spite of every well-meaning apologetic effort. On the other side a creed that apparently introduces the notion of "cruelty" in God the Father, even towards His Beloved Son.
I believe that this apparent "cruelty" is the true key to understanding the Sacrifice of the Cross. We must think of Jesus who, as reads the "Letter to the Hebrews", "learns from His suffering", who at Gethsemane prays that He be spared the bitter cup (but only "if it is still possible"), who reminds Pontius Pilate that a legion of Angels could free Him, if only He should ask His Father. Jesus who in the supreme moment does not resort to His relationship with God the Father in any form other than obedience. Who affirms His Regality only by means of His Word. Who knows well the precariousness and unreliability of every human solidarity, even from one’s most trusted friends. Who finally, so His humanity can manifest itself in the fullness of its limits, is and feels totally abandoned by God the death, and like every human being faces the supreme moment with that fear of the unknown that every human being must experience and that God Father, abandoning Him totally to death, interrupting the intimacy with which He has always supported Him, lets Him taste in all its horror.
This is the Jesus who, "approved by God”, is resurrected by God. He has defied death and He has conquered it not because, inasmuch as Son of God, He could only win, but because, "first of the resurrected" God has put Him as a Guide of Humanity until the final Victory. Jesus has received from God, His Father, a mission to accomplish. He has gradually understood it and freely accepted it, up to the Sacrifice of His Life. We must think that Jesus could have failed, but that he had the Courage to endure to the end, for our Love.
Go to 3. In the Apostles’ Creed there Is All That Is Essential!
Masaccio's Trinity (Santa Maria Novella, Florence)
In my tormented relationship with Christianity I have developed a total repulsion for the Doctrine of Trinity, as it is proposed by the Catholic Church and more in general by all the Christian churches, Orthodox, Protestant etc., with the single exception of the Unitarian Church.
For a long time I believed that the motivation of my attitude was due to several facts, amongst which I mention the main ones:
• that the Doctrine of Trinity has no foundation upon the basis of the Old Testament, and not even of the New testament,
• that there is an obvious evolution that has carried from the first formulations, tied to the necessity to distinguish the role and the nature of Jesus Christ with regard to God the Father, to the definitive formulation (three persons, equal, distinguished and co-eternal),
• that there are obvious contributions from stoic philosophy, as well as middle-platonic, neo-platonic in the various Trinitarian formulations,
• that the complete formulation of the dogma (as can be found in the s.c. Athanasian Creed) erects a true verbal "eidolon" to the Trinity.
Without modifying anything of the above exposed convictions, I gradually came to realize that the true problem for me is above all that of Incarnation. It appears difficult to me to accept and to believe that Jesus Christ can be the Incarnation of God (or more exactly, according to the Dogma, of the second person of the Trinity) and that therefore, inasmuch as God, he cannot not enjoy divine attributes, in particular Omnipotence and Omniscience, that we consider necessarily associated to the notion of God.
How can in fact such Man-God actually suffer the limitations imposed by human nature? What kind of redemptive value has for humans the death of Someone who ultimately only has "up to a certain point" shared the human condition? Which is the meaning and the value of the Resurrection of a Man-God who, in inasmuch as God, cannot really suffer death and, inasmuch as man, whose nature is intimately connected to his divine nature, from this same divine nature would have received, so to speak "by dragging", victory over death, making therefore superfluous to think of the intervention of the One God Father, which however is expressed without possible misunderstanding in the NT, and in particular in Peter’s speech in the "Acts of the Apostles"?
Therefore, thinking to overcome my repulsion for the doctrine of Trinity, but in fact (as I came to realize) above all in order to overcome the difficulties with the Doctrine the Incarnation (difficulties that, it is worth noticing, do not depend on the formulation according to the Trinitarian Dogma, but indeed would be aggravated by a “Unitarian" or "Patripassian" formulation of the Incarnation), I have thought to find a satisfactory solution to both problems in the enunciations that follow, which constitute some kind of "personal creed":
• The Christian God is a Personal God (therefore neither a "force" nor a "motor") and strictly One (not less than the God of the Jews and of the Muslims). God is Father inasmuch as He loves His creatures, and in particular human beings.
• Jesus is the Son of God not "ab aeterno" but inasmuch as generated from God by means of the Virgin Mary. In this sense, that is inasmuch as He joins in Himself by generation the divine nature of God Father and the human nature of the Virgin Mary, He is True God and True Man. In Jesus the Divine Wisdom, which had been unfolded in Creation, has found full expression. The Logos, or divine Wisdom, is not therefore a distinct person (neither from God, nor in God), but it is not even a "plan" of the Creation, but rather an eternal attribute of the eternal God.
• Creation is tied to the only God Father and Creator with a twofold bond.
Inasmuch as it obeys the "laws" that God has imposed on it, Creation is Nature, in which the divine Providence expresses itself as Order and Harmony (although Nature includes in itself also breaches of order and catastrophes), but always with reference to the General. God though acts also directly upon His Creation, with acts directed to the Particular. This action and direct presence of God in His Creation is what is normally called Holy Spirit. God manifests Himself by means of His Spirit both as inspiration in the human beings chosen by Him, and as miracle in the extraordinary events of Nature
This "creed", with its heterodoxy, has somehow satisfied the primary requirement to refer to God as a Personal Entity, present in the world created by Him and acting on it with Wisdom and Love.
Besides this requirement, but of no less importance , this "creed" allows me to feel that the call to sharing with Jews and Muslims the same One God of Abraham is neither strained nor fictitious.
But if on one side this creed helps overcome my repulsion for the doctrine of Trinity, and my perplexities regarding the doctrine of Incarnation, I cannot deny that a different problem arises. God, the Father Almighty, who loves His Creation so much as to give it His One-begotten Son, in the end is also the one who sent Him in this world without any warning of danger, who literally gave Him the illusion of the imminent foundation of God’s Kingdom, and of the possibility to establish this Kingdom in a non traumatic way. This can be clearly perceived from the Gospels in the first phase of the mission of Jesus, until the "crisis of Caesarea" and in the tragic character of the rest of the mission of Jesus, until the epilogue on the Cross.
Therefore a choice is inevitable. On one side the doctrine of Trinity and of Incarnation, which attempts the impossible (and for me sacrilegious) combination of the "God" of philosophers with the One and True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and inevitably transforms Incarnation itself in some kind of "sacred representation", of "comedy", "pedagogical action" by God (but which God?) towards Humanity, without any true sharing of "human condition", in spite of every well-meaning apologetic effort. On the other side a creed that apparently introduces the notion of "cruelty" in God the Father, even towards His Beloved Son.
I believe that this apparent "cruelty" is the true key to understanding the Sacrifice of the Cross. We must think of Jesus who, as reads the "Letter to the Hebrews", "learns from His suffering", who at Gethsemane prays that He be spared the bitter cup (but only "if it is still possible"), who reminds Pontius Pilate that a legion of Angels could free Him, if only He should ask His Father. Jesus who in the supreme moment does not resort to His relationship with God the Father in any form other than obedience. Who affirms His Regality only by means of His Word. Who knows well the precariousness and unreliability of every human solidarity, even from one’s most trusted friends. Who finally, so His humanity can manifest itself in the fullness of its limits, is and feels totally abandoned by God the death, and like every human being faces the supreme moment with that fear of the unknown that every human being must experience and that God Father, abandoning Him totally to death, interrupting the intimacy with which He has always supported Him, lets Him taste in all its horror.
This is the Jesus who, "approved by God”, is resurrected by God. He has defied death and He has conquered it not because, inasmuch as Son of God, He could only win, but because, "first of the resurrected" God has put Him as a Guide of Humanity until the final Victory. Jesus has received from God, His Father, a mission to accomplish. He has gradually understood it and freely accepted it, up to the Sacrifice of His Life. We must think that Jesus could have failed, but that he had the Courage to endure to the end, for our Love.
Go to 3. In the Apostles’ Creed there Is All That Is Essential!
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