The final chp of Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe
is an odd one, but all the better for its oddity.
The chp is written by Janet Martin Soskice, a Roman Catholic and Fellow at Jesus College in Cambridge.
She argues that sometimes Trinitarian doctrine and worship are defended on grounds that are of questionable orthodoxy. She goes first to the Johannine Comma, the verse in 1 John 5:7 that says "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." I don't know about you, but I grew up on the King James and that verse was in my Bible. The text didn't appear until the 800s in Latin and until the 1200s in Greek. But good ol' Erasmus somehow produced it for his Greek New Testament and it found its way into the Textus Receptus and therefore into the KJV.
is an odd one, but all the better for its oddity.
The chp is written by Janet Martin Soskice, a Roman Catholic and Fellow at Jesus College in Cambridge.
She argues that sometimes Trinitarian doctrine and worship are defended on grounds that are of questionable orthodoxy. She goes first to the Johannine Comma, the verse in 1 John 5:7 that says "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." I don't know about you, but I grew up on the King James and that verse was in my Bible. The text didn't appear until the 800s in Latin and until the 1200s in Greek. But good ol' Erasmus somehow produced it for his Greek New Testament and it found its way into the Textus Receptus and therefore into the KJV.
Soskice shows that the Trinity and its special words -- persons, hypostases, being -- were Greek and hammered out on the anvil of both New Testament and debate. She quotes Calvin saying he wishes he could toss those words except that they are so valuable for ferreting out heretics.
But that Johannine Comma died a slow death, and somehow even managed to convince some that the KJV itself proved that the Comma was original.
She argues that Trinity is eminently practical and it took shape in response to street-level Christian issues. The issue here is whether or not we can make sense of the exalted statements about Christ in the New Testament without the category of Trinity. It is hard to explain John 1:1 or John 1:14 without it.
What has impressed me in my recent studies is how the "gospel" itself grew into the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed: cf. 1 Cor 15:1-8 and then read those creeds. The gospel and creed are connected. To believe in the gospel is let the creed take shape.
But that Johannine Comma died a slow death, and somehow even managed to convince some that the KJV itself proved that the Comma was original.
She argues that Trinity is eminently practical and it took shape in response to street-level Christian issues. The issue here is whether or not we can make sense of the exalted statements about Christ in the New Testament without the category of Trinity. It is hard to explain John 1:1 or John 1:14 without it.
What has impressed me in my recent studies is how the "gospel" itself grew into the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed: cf. 1 Cor 15:1-8 and then read those creeds. The gospel and creed are connected. To believe in the gospel is let the creed take shape.
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I have always thought that however complicated the language, these words answer questions which the NT itself raises about the deity of Christ and his relationship to the Father and thus also the Holy Spirit but doesn't answer itself. They therefore guard the NT's teaching and also seek to answer the implications of what it teaching about the nature of God.
They are not part of revealed truth so theoretically if we found another way of achieving the same end they could be jettisoned but after 1500 years of the church using these concepts and their continuing use that should tell us something about their resilience and the difficulty in finding replacements
They are not part of revealed truth so theoretically if we found another way of achieving the same end they could be jettisoned but after 1500 years of the church using these concepts and their continuing use that should tell us something about their resilience and the difficulty in finding replacements
I would only question whether, in fact, their "resilience" has more to do with answering important Biblical questions, as you suggest, or whether perhaps it's got more to do with the resilience of the church magisterial structure and its need to preserve boundaries that define the scope of its authority. What, after all, does the perception of the trinity accomplish in the way of discipleship behavior? To what extent are the propositions embodied in Trinitarianism, necessary components to faithful walk and/or witness? Other than how we beat up on each other, what effect has the refinement of this dogma had on the faith?
I am not saying it must be dismissed wholesale (though I think some careful re-examination) is in order. But I see implicit in both Scot's summary and James' response, an acknowledgment that at least some portion of Trinitarianism--at least the refined, precise terminology of it, is extra- or post-biblical. To the extent this is true, I remain troubled by the church's dogmatic insistence on ascribing to the proposition.
Perhaps if we were to be a little more open in examining a biblical christology and pneumatology without superimposing the Trinitarian language upon it, we might discover depth and nuance that have been lost in the rigidity of that framework. . .without abandoning the claims Jesus himself made.
To be fair, Erasmus didn't want to include the Johanine Comma in his Greek New Testament, but he had made a rash agreement to include it if a Greek manuscript including it could be found, one such was "produced" some time later (in remarkably good condition), and being a man of his word he included the passage in his text.
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