Glorified Carpenter

2006-10-06T06:58:00.000Z

A refutation of Graham’s response to my article on the Trinity.

I have received many favorable comments about my article on the Trinity. There were three dissenting (Christian) voices including Graham. With one exception no other Christian friend has given me their views but perhaps they are just not talking to me.

I am sorry this refutation is so long but I thought that Graham’s response deserved the attention. It is fairly forthright but I hope no-one is offended by it. For clarity I have included most of Graham’s text in italics.

1. It was unfortunate that this article was included in the magazine, as this is a Church Magazine that offers space for community organizations and events. It would not be clear to a new reader whether the author was a church member, or church official, or whether his views were endorsed or supported by the local church ministers. There is not space in a magazine of this type for detailed debate/discussion of theological issues. However, it is always good to know that people (at least one!) are thinking about serious issues, and willing to investigate them.

1. To some extent I understand Graham’s view that such an article appeared out of place in a church publication; it was, after all, heretical. On the other hand it seems odd that the one thing that is (now) excluded from the Church magazine is theology, or at least any theology other than the obligatory light variety that Graham writes so well each month. The appalling piece penned by Lesley Eve promising eternal torment for those who don’t happen to agree with her is evidently acceptable. I would think that an opposing view or simply a view from a different angle would, perhaps, stimulate people into looking at the all important theory that must underlie their faith. Maybe a health warning could be given explaining that these views are not necessarily those of the church. Several people have expressed their disappointment at the “This topic is now closed” notice after Lesley Eve’s response to my piece. Surely there must be room for an occasional excursion into darker, deeper waters. One more thing I cannot agree with – that it is a serious issue. It is interesting but not really of any importance at all.

2. There are several points that can he made in response to the various statements in the article, many of which are made as statements of fact, of which rnany are questionable.

3. In general, as the writer recognizes, the Trinity is the basis and the underlying feature of all main Christian denominations, many of whom would take little notice of 4th Century Ecclesiastical Court findings, but draw their conclusions solely from a careful reading of the New Testament. Thus this could not he said to he “one of those doctrines” (if there are any!) “with poor scriptural support’.

3. I won’t trouble you with the inglorious details of the Council of Nicaea and how a consensus regarding Jesus’ status came, after a century of bitter argument, to be reached, and instead recommend some private research. One thing that I cannot resist mentioning is that one of the members of the Council of Nicaea was no less a person than Santa Claus.

4. The Trinity is incomprehensible, and that is one of the arguments which one might advance to justify its verity. Why should a church seek to base itself on something so difficult to define unless it believed it wholeheartedly, and could find no other explanation for the scriptural evidence?

4. Graham’s argument that the incomprehensibility of the doctrine of the Trinity is suggestive of its truth - because only an utterly compelling truth having this quality would be accepted - is one of the finest pieces of sophistry I have ever come across. Given wider currency, it could well become a classic. The simplest way to dispose of it is the reductio ad absurdum that there is simply no end to the propositions that such an argument could be used to support. The more incomprehensible a proposition (so the argument goes) the better it fares.

5. The identification of Jesus with Yahweh is by Jesus himself who clearly saw no conflict. It is a false notion to set up the God of the OT as vindictive and the Jesus of the NT as endlessly forgiving. A careful reading of the Old Testament reveals a God who is endlessly patient and loving to his people, and longs for them to reveal his nature to the rest of the world, that they may share his blessings. (The promise to Abraham that his seed will be a blessing to all nations: (Gen 18:17 Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.” It is equally invalid to suggest that Jesus did not warn of coming judgment in the most graphic terms (Matt 23: 13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. “: Luke 21:22 “For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written.” 23 “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will he great distress in the land and wrath against this people “

5. Jesus is certainly portrayed in the NT, and is still understood today, as having great virtue. Love is a constant theme in Jesus’ preaching, love even for ones enemies. Of course he also had, or is described as having, a less than charitable view of those who disagreed with him – hence the “arguably”.

On the other hand Graham’s attempt at painting Yahweh as anything other than a vindictive monster is doomed to failure. Open the Old Testament….well, anywhere, and you will see why. The God in the OT may have been loving and forgiving to “his people” (though an awful lot of “his people” may have taken another view) but to everyone else he was a genocidal maniac of the worst kind. This completely undeniable fact is often unkindly pointed out by people like me but seldom is the extent of Yahweh’s barbarity appreciated. God slaughtering innocents on an industrial scale is, after all, an infrequent topic for sermons these days. Ruth Hermence Green in her “Skeptics Guide to the Bible” has a helpful list of about seventy atrocities committee by, or at the instigation of, God. There is not a lot about loving your enemies there.

6. By whom is it widely accepted that a reading of the Bible would not produce the concept of the Trinity? It is precisely because of the Biblical witness that the concept of the Trinity emerged, as people attempted to understand exactly who Jesus was, and the role of the Holy Spirit. That the Trinity was the only reasonable conclusion is evidenced by the long time and great debate that took place before a settled conclusion to the debate, a conclusion that has held firm for 1700 years, in spite of being incomprehensible, inexplicable, and clearly a bridge too far for some. How easy it would have been to deny it and come to a safer, easier conclusion. But this would not have done justice to the Biblical record.

6. That many authorities consider that the concept of the Trinity would not emerge, unprompted, from a reading of the entire Bible is simply an impression I received from my wide study of the literature. As to who it is that widely accepts this view it is usually the more scholarly commentators, both liberal and some conservative, including Catholic, sources. The encyclopedias which I referred to, including the New Catholic Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, all took this view.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that a concept of the Trinity is hard to glean from the Bible. If it were that obvious it would, perhaps, have taken rather less than four centuries to reach a positive conclusion, (at the Council of Ephesus).

As to why the Trinity has remained largely unchallenged for 1600 years, perhaps it was because only a very few were allowed any access to scripture and people received their entire faith as an inarguable package from mother church. Maybe it had something to do with a cowardly disinclination to get burnt at the stake, who knows?

7. It is reassuring that John Wright recognizes that the NT does teach Jesus as God, though it would he interesting to see the evidence of a gradual ‘one-upmanship’. John begins his Gospel with the clearest statement (of which more anon).

7. I did not admit that the New Testament teaches that Jesus is God. I said that developing views of Jesus could be found in the NT and later writings; it is in these later writings that the idea of the full divinity of Jesus is expressed.

I have always thought that one of the most striking things about the NT is the very different views of Jesus that can be found there. It is this moving target that has encouraged so many books picking up on Jesus the Freedom Fighter, Jesus the Magician, Jesus the Sage, Jesus the Divine, etc.. Generally speaking – and it is very, very complicated – the earlier the writing (or at least the earlier the source that the writer used) the more “primitive” a view of Jesus can be found. So, for example, the early sayings source used by the authors of Matthew and Luke portrays Jesus as a Cynic sage. I doubt if Cynic sage was all there was to Jesus but the references are compelling. Our earliest Christian writer, St Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:28 says “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” No-one thought more highly of Jesus than Paul but he betrays no concept of co-equality or identity with God here. And in Acts 2:22 no less a person than St Peter is reported as referring to Jesus as “…a man approved of God…” No trace at all of divinity here in what must be the most powerful refutation of the Trinity one could hope to find.

The big development comes in the Gospel of St John, the last of the gospels to be written. Here we find a highly developed theology and a very different Jesus from the Jesus in Mark, Matthew and Luke. For example Jesus the Exorcist who makes such a strong showing in the earlier gospels is gone and we have instead Jesus the After Dinner Speaker who goes around making long theological speeches all the time. (I don’t think Jesus really went around making long speeches – it is just the writer of St John’s way of offering us his theology).

8. Where is the evidence that Triune Godheads were the rule? Surely the origin of Christianity in Judaism would make the Trinity unthinkable, unless people were convinced of its truthfulness. The writers of the Gospels, and Paul’s letters, would have striven to debunk such ideas, rather than allow them to flourish. Compare Peter’s response to the worship of Cornelius (Acts 10:26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said. “I am only a man myself’’) and that of Jesus to Thomas (John 20:28 Thomas said to him, “.My Lord and my God!”20 Then Jesus laid him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.“) And to Peter (Matt 14:32 And then they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”)

8. Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva; Osirus-Isis-Horus; Ra, Amon, Ptah; Tinia, Uni, Menerva; Anu, Enlil, Enki; Jupiter, Juno, Minerva. These are all trinities in their own special way but the idea that gods came in bunches was widespread. (It is perhaps illuminating that Jupiter comes from “Jove-pater”, that is, “God the Father”).

Monotheism is such a difficult path to follow. Christianity gave it up centuries ago and it is only Islam and Judaism that have (arguably) made a really good stab at the idea though even then they are technically henotheistic not monotheistic.

The trouble is that Almighty Gods are so very unapproachable and it isn’t long before you feel the need for all sorts of other, friendlier gods to help out. Pretty soon along come the Sons and the Virgins, the Saints and the Apostles all of whom are much easier to talk to.

My whole point was that the Trinity was a late invention and makes no explicit appearance in scripture. It is no surprise that the Apostles do not debunk the idea – no one had thought of it yet.

Christianity may have had its roots in monotheistic Judaism but those roots were dug up by St Paul and eventually burned along with Jerusalem in 70 CE. Christianity as we understand it was replanted in Hellenic soil. It is interesting that Graham admits to the Trinity being unthinkable to the monotheistic Jews. Maybe they were right.

9. John 1 .1 is often quoted on both sides of this argument, and is a key text. However to say that “a God (as New World translation) rather than ‘God’ is a correct translation belies little knowledge of Greek, and a determination to exclude any reference to Jesus as God. If this were an accurate translation. then every time “Theos” without the definite article “Ho’ were used, “a god” should be the translation. We would then read in verse 12, about John the Baptist, “a man, having been sent from a god”, and verse 12. ‘the right to become children of a god. These would he meaningless, especially in a monotheistic religion. Once John has established that his subject matter is “Ho Theos” ( The God), Greek does not require the repeat of the definite article on repetition. To suggest John Wright’s translation would be to describe Jesus in very negative terms, for if not God, but a god, then clearly Jesus is a false god, as there is only one God, and this is not at all the thrust of the passage. Quite the reverse.

9. I thought long and hard before including the difficult John 1:1 in my piece but it is such an important verse for discussion of the Trinity I felt that I had to tackle it if only superficially.

Actually it is not just John Wright who shows little knowledge of Greek, there are a handful of respectable translations that agree with him, usually rendering “a god” as, simply, “divine”.

When it comes to the fine points of Koine Greek we are all in the hands of the experts. My understanding is that the rule of which Graham speaks, is, like the Pirate’s Code, more what you might call a “guideline”. Evidently it is all down to context and the context within John as a whole (so it is argued by apologists) is clearly that Jesus is co-equal with God. I would argue differently because of the referential nature of John 1:1. It is a reference which would have been familiar to his audience (though not to us) – a reference to the Platonic idea (see my original article), incorporated into Jewish “Wisdom” thought at that time by theologian/philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, of the Logos. Logos, Greek for “word” as in John 1:1, was the mediating principle between God and the world and can be understood as God's Word or the Divine Wisdom. To some extent Jewish Wisdom literature began to personalize “Logos” but to suggest that it became identified with God as it is understood in Trinitarian thought could not be the case; they were, after all, Jews. It was down to later, Christian, thinkers to develop, or perhaps subvert would be a better word, the idea expressed in John 1:1.

10. John 20:1 7 does not deny the Trinity (and, according to John Wright’s rule of translation, should he translated “… to a god of mine and a god of yours”). Jesus sees God as Father and encouraged his followers to do the same “Our Father”.

11. John 14:28 “The Father is greater than I am” reflects the fact that Jesus is in human form. By definition, therefore, he is not omnipresent, nor omniscient as a human. A few verses earlier, Jesus claims v.9 “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say “Show us the Father?” v10 “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?”

11. Nestorianism is a 5^th Century heresy asserting that Jesus came in two flavours – a divine version and a humbler, incarnate version. It is rather shocking to see a heresy such as this come from the pen of our very own vicar! United in adversity we shall walk to the bonfire hand in hand.

12. Christians still say, with Deuteronomy “The lord our God is one lord”, but three persons.

13. (Not reproduced)

14. Perhaps if the writer of the article had read just a little more of the Bible, or spoken to a Christian to discover what we believe and why, he would not have made some of the generalisations contained in the article, and come to a more balanced conclusion.

14. I suppose that after my little dig at Christians I had it coming to me but Graham’s dismissive ad hominem argument could convince only people who do not know me. My interest in theology is well known, certainly by Graham, and I am not at all a stranger to the Bible. Also I speak at length with Christians about their faith whenever I can get them to do so, which is, by the way, not all that often. I spent over a year going every Friday evening to an Alpha Course and a study of the Headway series and Graham himself has been kind enough to spare me a considerable amount of his time on an individual basis.

The idea that if only people knew more about Jesus they would be bound to see the truth of the Christian faith is a popular myth amongst evangelicals. I would argue that if only Christians knew a little more about Jesus they would drop the whole thing.

There is no such thing as a balanced conclusion. Conclusions come in two varieties – right ones and wrong ones. Of course you can always say you don’t know but then that isn’t a conclusion at all. I suspect that the sort of conclusion Graham has in mind is simply one that he agrees with.

15 I look forward to the opportunity to chat through some of these issues with anyone prepared to address them with an open mind, and a desire to seek the truth.

15. Me too.

Finally I hope that the Herald will publish the third (a nice number) and last in my little “Doctrines Poorly Supported by Scripture” series. It reveals the terrible mess that is Christian eschatology and is entitled “Above Us Only Sky”.

John Wright

September 2006

2006-10-06T06:25:00.000Z

The following article was published in Maiden Newton Parish Magazine in March 2006.

All for One and One for All

My exchange in the Herald last year with Lesley Eve over the existence or otherwise of Hell has put me in mind of other Christian doctrines and ideas with poor scriptural support. Considering that the Protestant tradition seeks to justify its views from Scripture there are quite a few of them.

The first one that came to mind was the incomprehensible (officially so), and central, “Doctrine of the Trinity”. Nearly all Christian sects are Trinitarian, the main exceptions being the Unitarian Churches and the Jehovah’s Witnesses; the latter being the sole torch bearers for the 4th Century Arian heresy. It must be said that the Trinity is a very difficult doctrine and I have heard even ministers, in trying to explain it, fall into one heresy or another. And certainly the identification of Jesus, who, arguably, personifies the best of human nature with the Old Testament Yahweh who embodies the very worst has always been a difficult trick. But despite all this the Trinity has remained triumphant for nearly seventeen hundred years.

Notoriously the word “Trinity” is absent from the Bible as, indeed, is any exposition of Trinitarian ideas. There is a handful of passages used to support the concept but they do this by implication only and it is widely accepted that anyone ignorant of the doctrine who read the Bible from beginning to end would be very unlikely to come away with any Trinitarian notions at all. The Trinity was not known to the early church and it did not become official doctrine until the “Proto-Trinity” of Father and Son was adopted at the famous Council of Nicaea in 325 with the Holy Spirit added, apparently as an afterthought, at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

So how did this doctrine come about? First, it is easy to trace in the New Testament and later writings a sort of theological one-upmanship with Jesus initially being thought of as a great teacher, then a holy man, then a prophet, then various types of demi-god and finally, God. Secondly some in the Church felt that the blood sacrifice of a human being, even a perfect one and St Paul notwithstanding – see Romans 5:15-19, was not enough, and that only the sacrifice of a God could redeem all creation.

Finally if Christianity had remained as a Judaic sect then the sophisticated polytheism of the Trinity could never have come about. But early in its life the church spread to the Jews and Gentiles of the wider Greco-Roman world and came under the influence of many philosophies and of the many religions that it was destined to supplant. Among the philosophies absorbed by the church were Platonism and Neo-Platonism with their three “hypostases” (don’t ask) and from the pagan religions of the day came a related idea - that of a triune godhead. Triune godheads were the rule rather than the exception in the ancient world and Christianity was soon to have one of its own.

As to the texts used to support the Trinity the most famous is John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” where Word is clearly Jesus. However with the correct rendering of the last phrase being “…the Word was a god” it loses much of its Trinitarian appeal.

There are several other such verses which I do not have space to examine. Suffice it to say that they will have to stand up against the many strongly unitarian passages which oppose Trinitarian interpretations:

John 20:17 “..I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”.

John 14:28 “…the Father is greater than I am”.

Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord”

In the end a Christian must read the Bible and perhaps a little history and make up his or her own mind. I just wonder sometimes how many ever do.

2006-10-05T21:42:00.000Z

The following article was written in response to Lesley Eve's piece on Hell published in the Maiden Newton Parish magazine.

Good News Bad News

I felt that Lesley Eve’s chirpy piece on everlasting torment last month deserved a reply. In fact I have Good News for Lesley and anyone else worried about eternal damnation.

First, for those of you who think of themselves as leading a reasonably blameless life undeserving of eternal punishment, I must point at that in Christian doctrine you are saved from hell only through faith in Jesus Christ any amount of virtue on its own is not enough.

Now if hell exists and there is a fair risk that many people will end up there (“broad is the road”) one might reasonably expect that the Bible would be entirely clear about the matter. But what does the Bible actually say?

The Old Testament, not known for its reticence or squeamishness, does not mention the subject. The Hebrew word unhappily translated as “hell” is “sheol”. Sheol is the common grave of mankind; as the Psalms say "His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish." The much put upon Job actually asked God to send him to sheol for a bit of peace and quiet. Eventually the notion that a part of sheol was reserved for punishment was borrowed from pagan sources and incorporated into some Judaisms, but one must look to works such as the extra-canonical Book of Enoch and the writings of Josephus for an expression of these ideas and not to Holy Scripture.

The New Testament provides a much better prima facie case for hell, chiefly in the first three Gospels. John’s Gospel shows no interest in hell and neither does our earliest Christian writer St Paul who yet again proves more illuminating in his silences than his utterances; his view was “The wages of sin are death”. I will put Revelation to one side (it is the only thing you can do with it).

Two words are rendered “hell” in the NT – “hades”, which means the same as “sheol”, and “Gehenna” which was a smouldering rubbish dump with a chequered history south of Jerusalem. “Gehenna” is used to represent permanent destruction. On no occasion save one do either of these words suggest post mortem suffering. The odd occasion is the story, singly attested in Luke, of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The Rich Man is said to be in torment in Hades. The story is a parable, not reportage and it uses colourful ideas familiar to the listeners, the Pharisees, in order to make a point. In fact it is difficult to see what the rich man’s terrible sin had been and the parable appears to take up the familiar NT theme of the Gentiles displacing the Jews as God’s favourites.

The ever popular “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched…” is a quote from Isaiah which refers to the fates of the dead carcasses of men who had transgressed and there is no reason to believe that the various “weeping and gnashing of teeth” passages refer to anything other than ante mortem suffering.

Not that the NT is lacking in dire warnings but these are dire warnings of annihilation. What is completely absent is any explicit statement as to the existence and nature of hell.

I hope this has gone some way towards quieting the fears of anyone unhappy with this unfortunate doctrine. And to those who display what I consider to be an unhealthy enthusiasm for it I say this – leave received ideas behind and read your Bible with a fresh mind.