- TRIUNE GOD - Either one or three gods -
Living in a basically non-Christian milieu is "no joke". You have to persevere in living an exemplary Christian life of faith in Christ, translated into love for one another and transformed into hope for mankind which brings peace and joy. Not only must you live a true Christian life but you must also be able to explain intelligently your way of life to people who think and live quite differently from you. You struggle constantly to live up to your Christian ideals and grapple continuously to express in an intelligible way, that is, your beliefs to others. Even after all that, more often than not you meet with disbelief and misunderstanding. Indeed, a true Christian is not to be envied but to be admired.
One of the major misunderstandings with which we, Christians in Malaysia, have to contend with is the trinity.
"Either you believe in One God or three gods. Logically, you cannot believe in One God and three gods. Even a child can tell you that one is not three." This objection is only too familiar to us. Our usual defence is that we do not believe in three gods but One God in three persons, as we have been taught. The analogies that we dish out are classic: a triangle with three corners (take a corner out and you do not have a triangle); water in three stages (liquid, ice and steam). Do you think this will convince our non-Christian friends or foes? The analogies, they understand. But, they will say that the analogies have nothing to do with three persons in One God. You are a person, he or she is a person, I am a person. How can three of us, persons, be one? At this point most of us get stuck and our last resort is to call upon the mystery of God. The trinity is a mystery. We cannot fully understand God's mystery. The educated will resort, "Sure, this is exactly how primitive people argue when they could not explain emphatically, certain natural phenomena like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, etc. So, they attributed them to mysterious angry spirits. Like them, the way you argue, calling upon God's mystery, is an escape valve - a way out of ignorance."
Let us start with the objection that three cannot be equal to one. This is the logic of arithmetic. Higher mathematics tells us now that it all depends on the premise. If we change the premise that we all accept now, one can equal three. Besides, there are other logics: symbolic logic, linguistic logic, logic of life, etc. We are told that according to clear cut logical thinking, black be white. To say otherwise is a contradiction. Yet, in the logic of life, we know that love and hatred (two opposites like black and white) can exist in a person. A person can hate and love at the same time. Psychology has proven that there are many areas of grey in a human person and in his perception - hence also in his thinking process. Besides, why must we apply the logic of addition to God? Why cannot we use either multiplication or division? For example, one times one times one is one (1 X 1 X 1 X 1 = 1) or One divided by one, divided again by one is still one. How can we limit our understanding of God to a small fraction of human thinking, the logic of addition in arithmetic which is based on an agreed premise for convenience sake? Not only we make God human by this limited logic but we also make more than the logic of arithmetic. He is surely richer than a juggling of numbers. The irony of it all is that the very people who want to defend the infiniteness and transcendency (greatness) of God by such an argument, make God smaller than any existing reality.
Even by using our limited human reasoning, we can come to a logical conclusion that this argument applied to God is false. God is infinite, beyond all. We are finite, extremely limited by time and space. The gap between the Infinite (God) and the finite (human being) is unlimited. There is no boundary in the difference between God and us because the difference is infinite - without boundary. Is it then logical to apply what is so limited as a fraction of Man's reasoning - the logic of addition in arithmetic - to an infinite, without limit? It is folly even to attempt it. Hence, three", the logical arithmetical addition of a certain kind based upon an agreed premise cannot be applied to God. Therefore it is possible to speak of God as One and Three because He is beyond the logic of addition in arithmetic.
We would not have known God as One and Three if it were not revealed to us by Jesus Christ. Jesus in the Gospels claims to be divine He reveals to us God the Father and, with the Father, sends us His Holy Spirit. This is true mystery. It is not a mystery of ignorance. It is a mystery of God's revelation which ultimately our limited human mind cannot fully grasp. Nevertheless, we have to try and understand the mystery of the triune God revealed to us by Christ. It is not in order to understand fully or grasp God. No, rather it is because we are beings with minds that we must try to understand, as far as possible, a truth revealed to us. It is because as human beings we need to articulate our faith-experience. It is because we have to speak intelligibly to others of our faith that we try to approximate the Infinite so that it makes sense to us and to others.
- Three Persons in One God -
It has been drummed into our heads that God is One in three persons. I am sure many of us repeat this formula without really understanding it. I am less sure, however, how many of us fall into "heresy" in trying to understand "three Persons".
The brief history of the dogmatic statement "three Persons, One Nature in God" is rather important if we really want to understand the meaning of our faith in the triune God.
Sacred Scripture speaks of God the Father, Son of God or Word (of God) made flesh who claims divinity, and the Holy Spirit but never uses the terms "Persons" or "Nature". Living and trying to explain their faith, early Christians were forced to resolve certain questions which arose quite naturally. "Is the Son of God, God? Is the Holy Spirit, God? Is Jesus Christ God? Is He man? If the Son and the Spirit are God, then are there three goals? If not, how can one explain meaningfully that One God is three? This is closely linked to another series of questions. If Jesus Christ is God, is he truly Man? If so, how can he be both Man and God?
In trying to clarify these questions posed, the early Christians could only use words that they knew and could only think in a way that they thought [- metaphysical - Some parts of this section is a repetition of certain parts in chapter 1. I have thought it wise to recapitulate it for clarity of argument.] - mode of think in a way that they thought - the metaphysical mode of thinking. Hence they employed Greek words ousia, physis and "persons". There were violent controversies over these issues for a few centuries. [- God did not create and then go off to sleep, so to say. He is in His creation in such a way that its very evolution depends on Him. If He were to withdraw, so to say, His sustaining hand, all would disappear into nothingness. He continues to create.] - In the process of which, a number of heresies were condemned by the Church to defend the revelation of Jesus Christ that God is One in Three.
Heresies condemned: a) Monarchianism - b) Subordinationism - c) Tritheism
a) Monarchianism - In explaining the "One in Three", this theory over-emphasized the Oneness or "unity" (monarchia) of God so that the Son as a distinct "person" from the Father was denied. The Father and the Son are one and the same.
b) Subordinationism - In fighting against monarchianism , the subordinationists, notably Arius, denied that the Son was equal to God the Father. The Word was created freely by the Father; not the Son of God by nature but by adoption; not equal to God but a intermediary being between God and creation.
c) Tritheism - In fighting against monarchianism, the tricheists over-emphasized the three "essence" or "nature" of the three persons leading to almost three gods.
It was in this context of trying to express one's faith in terms that could be understood by the people of that time and place, and in the situation where the Church had to take a stand to defend the revelation of Jesus Christ, that condemnations and dogmatic pronouncements were made. It was only at the Council of Constantinople (381 A. D.) that the trinitarian dogma was finally defined. The Council defended the plurality (three) within the unique, undivided God. The expression of this is that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are "consubstantial", one Godhead, one power, one substance, of equal dignity and majesty; but in three perfect hypostasis or Persons. Because of certain ambiguity in the word, hypostasis which could mean person of nature, the Church finally chose prosopon to mean "person". What was defined as of faith were not the words hypostases, "substantial", "power" etc., but the reality of Three in One of God. But the Church had to use words to express this faith and she used Greek words with special metaphysical connotations. The final "One God in three Persons" formula is simply a restatement in the Greek language and mentality in a condensed, compact and clearer way than the New Testament revelation.
We are not interest here in theological speculations nor academic arguments. Rather, faced with the challenge in Malaysia, we must try to express our faith of the "Three in One" in a way that is meaningful to our living faith and that is intelligible to our non-Christian friends.
The first thing to realize is that our faith is not contained in Greek words or mentality - like "Persons", "consubstantial", "Nature", etc., but in the "Three in One God" of revelation. The relevant questions are: "How are we to live this reality? How are we to express it in a way that can be understood by our non-Christian friends in Malaysia today?"
It is my suggestion that we should abandon the word "Persons" when talking of God for various reasons. (1) The word "Persons" as used by the Council of Constantinople has a highly metaphysical connotation; difficult for us to grasp Prosopon (Person) in Greek was originally used to denote the mask worn by an actor. Then it was applied to the role of the actor and finally to any character portrayed by the mask worn, that is, to an individual. Taken into philosophical-theological thinking, the word Prosopon finally meant "the subsistent, incommunicable subject of an intellectual nature". I wonder how many of us, even with the philosophical backgrounds can understand the meaning of this definition of "person". And it is this metaphysical meaning of the word "person" that one must read into the statement of "One God in three Persons". (2) The evolution of the meaning of some words is a fact. The meaning of the word "person" as used in the Catholic Church has also evolved. Owing to the influence of psychology, when we now use the word "person" it generally carries with it psychology connotations. We speak now of "John" as a person or "Mary" as a person. It is strictly applied to a human being with self-consciousness as being an individual, different from another human being but as being related to the world outside him. We also speak of a human being having three personalities. Because the meaning of the word person has moved from a metaphysical to a psychology frame of thinking, it is very dangerous to use the formula: "Three Persons in One God". If someone thinks of "person" in the psychological sense and applies it to God, then there is a great likelihood of falling into the heresy of three gods (tritheism). Besides, to think of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as I think of "John", "Mary" and "Paul" as persons, would be to make God human (anthropomorphism). If we, who have a certain understanding of the Greek mind and language, find it difficult to speak now of three Persons in God meaningfully and with orthodoxy, how much less will people, who do not have our background, understand what we really want to say without inevitably thanking that we worship three gods. In fact, this is what Muslims think we do because we have failed to communicate the right understanding of the triune God to them. [See and Read Chapter 9]
It is in view of this difficulty that I propose a way of explaining the "Three in One" of God which might be helpful to Christians and to our non-Christian friends. My explanation comes from my own living experience of the triune God in my life. Hence I do not claim that this is the best way nor the only way by which we can explain the triune God. I am not trying either to explain God in Himself. I leave this to theologians like Karl Rahner, B. Lonergan and the rest. Rather, I am proposing to describe how God relates to me in a three fold way (triune) - therefore using experiential rather than abstract metaphysical concepts. - PAGE ONE -
Experience of Triune God - Man as a three dimensional being. - PAGE TWO -
By His Grace Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing - S. J.
Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!
Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 -
If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 -
I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -
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