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Christianity Today, May (Web-only), 2008 |

THEOLOGY IN THE NEWS

The Trinity: So What?

The Shack allegorizes a tricky but foundational doctrine.

Collin Hansen | posted 5/30/2008 10:36AM

For book endorsements, you couldn't top what Eugene Peterson said about The Shack by William P. Young. "When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a ...

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Mark	Posted: June 09, 2008 2:57 PM


Great discussion of the Trinity, but it didn't really tell me how "The Shack" dealt with it.

peterson endorsement?

Posted: June 09, 2008 9:30 AM


Another excellent reason NOT to imbibe this poison.

Giggle55

Posted: June 06, 2008 5:18 PM


This is by far the most difficult of all "discussions" to have with a Jehovah Witness. I am in need of more!

Jim	Posted: June 04, 2008 12:58 PM


I was blessed with loving parents and wonderful fellowship of believers. Nonetheless, one's background and experience should never be a reason to "dum God down."

and God is One

Posted: June 03, 2008 6:52 PM

To Lister: I agree we mustn't use "humanist" metaphors but should stick to what God reveals. This is through the Bible and Spirit. Through the Bible we know that there is the Father and there is Jesus who is the Son of God who lives forever - born to be spirit. We also know that Jesus introduced us to the Holy Spirit and tells us to go baptising in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. We also know that:Jesus, 6Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained [Philippians 2 (Ampl Bible)]. We know that Jesus being in the form of God cannot be in conflict with God the father: being fully God, Jesus was also One with the father because God is One. The unity of God is an existential one: It exists! that One person is also three persons because Jesus and the Spirit are God and so is the Father and God is One.

Lister

Posted: June 03, 2008 4:51 PM

To "Our God is One": Your post seems to fit with the questions I asked in my first post. "The Lord is One" is definitely a Biblical idea (see Deuteronomy 6:4), but "one person one essence three persons and all one God" is not an idea found in the Bible, at least not described in those terms. Yet we as Christians recourse to these terms so often to describe God. Why not use Biblical language? If a doctrine cannot be fully described using Biblical language, might there be something wrong with our understanding of that doctrine? These questions are directed at anyone reading these posts, and not just to "Our God is One". Thanks.

Our God is One

Posted: June 03, 2008 4:43 PM

it is true too that God the Trinity is also one Person as well as Father, Son and Spirit. Unless the Spirit embodies them all, but that cannot be because the Spirit searches the mind of the Father. But we must remember that when we meet the father we meet Jesus too and when we meet Jesus we meet the father. When you see Jesus you see the Spirit too. The Father says when you ask him "are you the father" that he is; when you ask him if he is Jesus he says yess and if you ask him if he is the spirit he says yes too. One person one essence three persons and all one God. Since when is the one God not a person also? The only solution to your confusion is to get to know God and you will soon see that our God is One.

Lister

Posted: June 03, 2008 11:12 AM


I know this article may be a little outdated by now (I no longer see it on the "cover page" for Christianitytoday.com), but I'm still curious to know what the readers' thoughts are on the query in my earlier comment. Thanks!

Mervin

Posted: June 03, 2008 7:34 AM


It is a mistaken notion that water cannot exist in all three phases at the same time. That condition is called the triple point, and it occurs at 0.01 deg Celsius and 0.0060373057 atm.

Mark	Posted: June 02, 2008 7:15 PM

This was an excellent little article on the trinity and why it is important to every Christian and that it is not a 'so what?' doctrine. It seems even today's Christian leaders have little understanding of doctrines that were once considered foundational. There is also a great line in the article about how many Christians only care about doctrines that are simple and easy to apply, what I like to call 'bumper sticker' theology. Kudos to Christianity Today for posting this article in defense of the Trinity.

Kamal

Posted: June 02, 2008 11:21 AM

With some slightly more advanced physics and chemistry, the three phases of water analogy is actually Trinitarian. It's a little known fact (among non-experts in the relevant fields) that the three main phases of water -- ice, liquid water and water vapour -- *CAN* simultaneously exist in the same place. The triple point of a substance (it applies to stuff other than water as well) is that temperature and pressure at which its solid, liquid and gaseous phases may all co-exist in thermodynamic equilibrium. Like all other analogies, it breaks down at a point, but I think it's rather amazing and very useful. You should check it out. Googling "triple point trinity" actually turns up some useful results, the first of which is a comment on this same article saying the same thing that I am. Maybe Christianity Today can run an article so that more people can know about it.

Lister

Posted: June 02, 2008 7:11 AM

Is it possible that this article inadvertently highlights a weakness of the doctrine of the Trinity as taught by today's churches? If we are Bible students, I believe that learning that "the Bible does not provide a finished formulation of the doctrine" should raise warning bells in our minds - if the Bible cannot be said to fully articulate a doctrine, why would man's efforts be any better? Should it cause us to re-examine the doctrine with a greater focus on Biblical truth, rather than a grasping after allegory? Does it seem wrong to anyone that the Trinity is one of the single most allegorized doctrines of our faith? What about describing God and Jesus using more Biblical ideas - as "very God from very God", "of the same essence", "God the son", and "Trinity" are not actually Biblical terms?

Tahir

Posted: June 01, 2008 9:24 AM


I think the only reason that Trinity is very confusing is that you can't find the word "Trinity" anywhere in the bible (old and new testaments), which means any anology will fail to explain Trinity. I would like to invite you all to watch this video: http://www.turntoislam.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52

An Anxious Anglican

Posted: May 31, 2008 9:35 AM


I enjoyed the author's brief treatment of the Trinity, and was intrigued by his introduction of the book, but I think the article could have benefited from a brief return to "The Shack" to assess how the author did in his allegorical effort in light of the doctrine discussed.

steven

Posted: May 31, 2008 6:19 AM

i think any attempts to allegorize the trinity are really doomed to failure. It is like trying to adequately describe the nature of the infinite. the only thing that has really helped me to really get a grip on this 'teaching' is research into the memra/metatron idea from Judaism - which also helped me get a grip on the beginning of John's gospel and his hebraic concept of the 'word' (rather than the common platonic explanation).

Ephrem Hagos

Posted: May 30, 2008 11:14 PM


Did God forget to inspire a finished formulation of the doctrine of trinity? ??????????????????

Dave	Posted: May 30, 2008 6:40 PM

I think the Shack is a wonderful allegory, like Pilgrims Progress meets Bruce Almighty! God the Father (AKA Papa) first appears as a black woman in the chapter called "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner". However, Papa later appears as a man with white hair in a ponytail in the chapter called "A Mourning Of Sorrows". That should dispell the notion that Papa God is constrained by the limits of our human understanding of gender or race.

Regifter

Posted: May 30, 2008 5:35 PM

Yes, unfortunately I don't come away with any real sense of the book either. And the lead-in is a turn off: God the father is depicted by a woman named Papa? Two of the three persons of the trinity are represented by women? Seems odd. I mean I know that God is neither male nor female, but he has chosen to reveal himself in His word with masculine terms. The analogy that seems to work on my 5 year-old is that the trinity is like a family. Daddy, Mommy and Child are separate persons who make one family. I also like the one about time that Dale mentioned. I think there are trinities all around us if we stop to recognize them.

Pastor Rodney

Posted: May 30, 2008 4:35 PM

The Shack is probably one of the most important books I have ever read in my life. For "dale" to put this book down after one chapter, probable means he was running from something other than "wading through endless streams of unnecessary words and metaphors". I challenge you to pick it back up and read it for it's content and ENJOY the deep metaphors. Let me finish the thought "whether it [The Shack] accomplished the analogy". YES! In every way imaginable, and in ways we couldn't foretell! I laughed, I cried, I prayed,and my Walk is even deeper--and our Triune God is more powerful, loving, and delighted to invite us into His Fellowship...Wow! Time to let some 'paradigms' go...

dale	Posted: May 30, 2008 4:10 PM

As one said above, water is not a good picture. It's modalism... same water in three forms. God is one God in three forms, he's one essence in three persons. Very different. A better analogy may be Lewis XYZ axis illustration, maybe the time illustration (one time, with three points--past, present, future), or the illustration of the soul (one soul with three capacities)... but every analogy breaks down somewhere. My comment about this article is that I wanted more interaction with the book, The Shack, and whether it accomplished the analogy. Instead the writer of this article merely used The Shack as a springboard into his teaching us Trinitarian doctrine. I don't like that kind of marketing. On The Shack, I read the first chapter, found myself wading through endless streams of unnecessary words and metaphors, and put it down. I was shocked Peterson, such a man of words, endorsed it so much. It must be the content he liked as the writing needed a fearless editing.

Rene	Posted: May 30, 2008 2:05 PM


Great line: "All they got for their efforts was the lousy title of heretic."

David C. Downing

Posted: May 30, 2008 1:22 PM

I think one may look to contemporary physics for another intriguing model of the Trinity. Space and Time feel to us like very different things. We measure one with a ruler, the other with a clock. But Space-Time is actually one thing, the fabric of the physical universe. In the three spatial dimensions, we can move both ways (up-down, left-right, forward-back). In time, we can move only one way, into the future. Yet modern physics has shown that the two are ineluctably interwoven. It takes four coordinates to determine one’s location, three in space, one in time. Space and Time are actually Space-Time, a three-in-one field in which all matter and energy exist. I think it is reassuring for those who wrestle with the metaphysical conundrum of the Trinity to know that physicists grapple with a similar enigma in trying to describe the physical realm.

Brian Tucker

Posted: May 30, 2008 11:21 AM


Actually, water at the "critical point", a precise temperature and pressure combination, exists in all three forms. This makes the water analogy perfect for the Trinity. It's always the same molecular formula.

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