Being trinitarian: the shape of saving faith - Cover Story

Christian Century, Nov 8, 1995 by Douglas F. Ottati

GLORY BE to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit." Such trinitarian language has never been free of controversy. For many jews and Muslims, the Trinity smacks of tritheism. Among Christians unitarian movements have frequently arisen. There are nontrinitarian denominations in America today, and probably more nontrinitarians in the pews of officially trinitarian churches than we often realize. Moreover, from early centuries of the church to the present, theologians who affirm the Trinity have often disagreed about basic terms and concepts. Small wonder that more than a few people regard trinitarian doctrine as the quintessential statement of Christian nonsense: 1+1+1 = 1.

Does the Trinity make any sense? Yes, but not as a kind of celestial mathematics. Trinitarian theology makes sense as a continuation of a biblically initiated exploration into experiences of redemption and into an apprehension of God that is part of saving faith. It describes the Christian community's distinct experience of faithfulness and new life, and it points to the God who is beyond our comprehension.

THE TRINITY was given classical expression in the Apostles' and Nicene creeds, but the creeds did not invent trinitarian reflection. Responding to important challenges in the Greco-Roman world they continued an exploration that began with biblical communities.

Early Christians faced a fundamental theological problem. From judaism they accepted the conviction that Go is the one creator, governor and deliverer who alone is worthy of worship and praise. Jesus himself points to "our Father in heaven" whose name is to be hallowed, who feeds birds and clothes lilies, who creates all things an also faithfully sustains them, and whose historic reign culminates in the coming kingdom. Yet early Christians also believed that "in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new" Cor. 5:17). How were they to make sense of this decisive experience of redemption in the context of their monotheistic conviction?

Out of their meditation on this question, Christians came to understand Jesus of Nazareth to be central and decisive for experiences of God, grace and redemption. Jesus is the Messiah or the Christ, the one who proclaims the advent of God's kingdom and the one in whom that saving reality is made manifest. He is the exalted Son of Man who Y1/211 return with the clouds of heaven (Mark 26:64); the second Adam who succeeds where the first failed (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:45); the teacher who delivers perfect wisdom; the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. His cross is the power of God. Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.

Images multiply: In Colossians, the "Lord Jesus Christ" is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" in whom all things hold together (1:3, 15-17). In Revelation, he is the slain Lamb who is both Alpha and Omega (22:13). Romans begins by speaking of "the gospel concerning [God's] Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead."In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the "only" begotton son. He is the Logos the Word of God who was in the beginning made. He God and through whom all things were made. He is the Word incarnate, the true life that was the light of all people, the light that shines in the darkness and has not been overcome.

In the light of the cross and resurrection, early Christians understood their experiences of redemption to have another dimension as well: they believed that the Christian movement was gathered and energized by the Spirit (Acts 2:1-21). Believers were baptized into the body of Christ and born into God's kingdom by the power of the Spirit (I Cor. 12:13; john 3:1-5). By the Spirit they received gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, prophecy, discernment, tongues and the interpretation of tongues (I Cor. 12:4-1 1). In the Spirit they were sanctified and justified (I Cor. 6: 1 1); they experienced a new life of love, joy and peace (Gal. 4:6, 5:22).

The early exploration into experiences of redemption and renewal points toward a threefold pattern, economy or dynamic that is the impetus for trinitarian thinking, as well as the touchstone to which the best trinitarian theology always returns, It is also the basis for the missionary statement at the close of Matthew's Gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

AS THE Christian movement spread around the Mediterranean basin, it encountered sharply dualistic beliefs. These were chiefly concerned with the cosmic redemption of the spirit. They portrayed humans as immaterial souls bound to physical bodies which mired them in a world of change and suffering. Salvation meant release from both the physical body and the material world.

During the second century, Marcion of Pontus joined ideas such as these to Christian traditions. Marcion taught that the world was made of "beggarly elements." He was repulsed by sex and childbirth. He accepted the redeemer God that he discerned in New Testament writings, but rejected the Old Testament law and the creator God of judaism. He claimed that the redeemer was unknown until Jesus Christ. He removed all acknowledgment of Old Testament authority from Paul, s letters, as well as any identification he creator as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. He offered an expurgate Gospel of Luke as the only authentic Gospel.