Hi Azure —
The doctrine of the trinity is so absolutely fundamental to the followers of Christendom that it is just taken for granted.
A serious investigation of how and why it became 'so absolutely fundamental' in the first place would be useful. As it is, Christian metaphysics and theology was largely dumped by the Reformers, who put nothing in its place but 'sola scriptura' which basically meant, 'don't you think about it, we'll tell you what it means'.
A sure sign of the shortcomings on contemporary Christianity is, with no philosophical nor metaphysical understanding of the Son, people are at an even greater loss to understand the Holy Spirit ... in fact a vague and somewhat sentimental 'personalist spirituality' has filled the void of ignorance left by the Reformers.
They do not even deem it necessary to explain it, prove it, or in any way substantiate whether or not such a thing actually exists or is even so much as mentioned in the entirety of the Holy Scriptures!
Who is 'they'? There is a huge body of work investigating the Holy Trinity. Of course, the best material is scholarly, so unpopular, and difficult to read. On my shelf "The Trinity in Aquinas" is a philosophical and theological investigation. "The Christian Trinity in History" by Bertrand De Margerie is a benchmark study (although currently out of print) tracing the history of the doctrine, then there's "I Believe in the Holy Spirit" by Yves Congar ...
Of course, the Orthodox Patriarchates (Greek, Russian, Oriental, etc.) reckon the Latin Church too Christocentric and do not pay enough attention to the Holy Spirit! I think they have a point, and part of my small effort as a Latin is to contribute to Western Pneumatology from the wellsprings of Eastern wisdom.
Although lacking any Scriptural proof to validate such a theory...
Nonsense ... the whole doctrine is drawn from Scripture. How, for example, does one read John 14:16:
"And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete... "
Here the three are implicit, the Father, the Son, and another Paraclete (the Son being the other), the Holy Spirit.
denying the trinity is nonetheless considered heresy of the highest magnitude.
Well, Jesus Himself seemed to think so, so that's where we get it from:
"Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come."
Matthew 12:31-32
... we already have several unscriptural problems!
The primary one seems to be an uncertain and rather presumptive grasp of Scripture: "And his disciples came and said to him: Why speakest thou to them in parables? Who answered and said to them: Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: but to them it is not given" (Matthew 13:10-11). So not all the answers are found in Scripture, but by oral transmission, passed on in the Tradition — which, of course, was something else the Reformers threw away.
Remember that Scripture was written for those who were already Christian. They already knew about Baptism, the Eucharist, the Liturgy, the Trinity, Our Lord's divinity, His nativity, from the oral teaching they received as catechumens ...
The Greek word 'parable', for example, is a translation of the Hebrew
masal (Aramaic
matla), but that term has far greater depth of meaning than the Greek suggests, 'to go beyond (the ordinary)' for one ("
The Book of Proverbs", by R.N. Whybray).
First of all, nowhere in the Scriptures is God referred to or called a "trinity."
But the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all spoken of as themselves and as distinct. Furthermore the Pauline Greek, for example, in in the most personal terms, which unless you read Greek, or had someone explain it, you'd never pick up ...
Trinity is the term that Tertullian came up with to describe what was being discussed.
Second, the word "three" is never used in reference to Who or What God is.
Are you sure?
We have the Son who, if you listen to what He was saying with the ears of His audience, is making no bones about claiming His own divinity. Then He refers to the Holy Spirit as equal to Himself ... so three ...
The fact that we read Scripture with a post-Modern mentality, ignoring the fact that Christ spoke as He did with his audience in mind, means we miss most of the implication of what He was saying, and are left with the meagre, minimum, literal word...
Then again, three angels appear in Scripture as representatives of God, and are addressed as "Lord" by Abraham himself, so that's even better.
Third, God is never called or referred to as "a person."
You mean God has no name by which He's known? Or that Jesus never told His followers to refer to God as
Abba, 'Father'? — 'Abba' not only implies a person explicitly, it also infers a most intimate relationship.
Four, the holy spirit is never called "God."
Are we reading the same Book? Annunciation and Our Lord's paternity aside ... how about Matthew 28:19 "baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" — that places the Son and the Father as equivalent to God. See also Mark 13:11, Luke 2:25-6, 3:22, 4:1, 10:21, 12:12, John 3:5, 14:26, 20:22, then of course there is Acts, which is known as "The Gospel of the Holy Spirit" ... and so on ...
NOTE: Only God can forgive sin, and only God can promise eternal life ... so if Jesus is not God, He is blaspheming when He forgives sin
in His own name, and He is blaspheming when He performs miracles
in His own name ... and no-one has the right to re-write the Ten Commandments, but Jesus does ...
in His own name.
Five, since Christ is the Son, He cannot also be the Father or be coequal with His Father. Christ plainly said: "My Father is GREATER than I"[/B] (John 14:28).
Oh, the old one's are the good ones! I wonder do you think that in 2,000 years of traditional Christian theology, no-one ever noticed that?
He also said:
"All things are delivered to me by my Father" Matthew 11:27, Luke 10:22
"For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels" 16:27
"I and the Father are one" John 10:30 ... the Prologue of John, of course ...
"The Father loveth the Son: and he hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life" John 3:35-36.
John 4 — The Woman at the Well,
"But Jesus answered them: My Father worketh until now; and I work." John 5:17 And
"Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the sabbath, but also said God was his Father,
making himself equal to God" 5:18 (In fact, the remainder of John 5 is Jesus' statement of His equality with the Father.)
"No man cometh to the Father, but by me." John 14:6 and "he that seeth me seeth the Father also" 14:9.
Not forgetting the Bread of Life Discourse, and the Discourse at the Last Supper.
And don't start me on the Pauline Corpus — The Hymn of Colossians is sufficient of itself.
Oh, and the father and son thing? Don't fall into the trap of assuming its like a physical, biological relationship, it's more than that. For God, 'nothing is impossible' and the Only-Begotten can be all that the Father is, so that the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and both in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit in both of them.
Thomas
