I am familar with the whole Father/Son/Holy Ghost analogy to Body/Soul/Spirit. My problem with teachings like that (among many others I received, but that’s another story) is that while it’s a nice teaching aid, it’s hardly biblical. But that’s neither here nor there…
Let’s talk about the citation in Matthew 28:19 that barker brought up. This is the “Great Commission” passage, where Jesus appears to the disciples being being taken up into heaven. Now, other than the fact that the disciples may have been in a dumbfounded state, they should have should have gone “huh? What do you mean? OK, we wrapped our minds around you calling yourself the Son of God, but what is this Holy Spirit stuff?” But of course, that’s not how the account goes.
There are a couple of possible explanations for this. One is that when Matthew was written, the whole trinity concept had been accepted by the Christian sect (of Judaism, at least then), and the account was embellished to reflect that orthodoxy. The other is that there was something in their brand of Judaism that made them not object to it on the spot. A third is that we just don’t get what Jesus was saying.
I’m a little confused by Chronos’s teacher’s comment. OK, I’ll go along with the mis-translation idea, but where was the mis-translation of the word prosopon? As far as I know, there is no passage in any scripture that says anything explicit like “three persons one God”. So I’m not sure I buy the concept that a triune God is necessary for Christianity to work, perhaps it’s our understanding of the scriptures themselves that are at fault. After all, if it was a key concept, I think Paul would have gone to work on it in a letter to somebody or other. But no, all we have is a passing “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”, without further elaboration.
On your first point I agree. From writings of early church leaders (both Roman and Greek) the concept of the trinty was established fairly quickly. If embellishment was the goal, I would think that there would be additional references in the other gospels. The foundation was already laid out in the *Didache *.
The early apologetics for this dogma seem to arise from pagan or other gentile practices/beliefs. I can’t think of any brand of Judaism that would not bring an initial skepticism with the three Gods in one concept.
On your third possible explanation, I think you will find plenty of SD posters who know exactly what Jesus was saying. It just that they can’t come to any agreement on it.
barker, what do you make of the fact that Paul didn’t expound word one about the trinity concept? He gets into technical arguments (especially in Romans), you would think he could spare a line or two about how the whole trinity concept worked. But noooo… (much to the chagrin of Christian theology students everywhere).
If we keep this going it may turn into a Great Debate. MHJ2 has Paul originating the Trinity concept and Jolt has Paul not addressing the subject.
I’ll preface this by stating that I am in no way a bible scholar. My positions may lean toward RCC doctrine. I will be quoting from biblical passages more than I would generally prefer to do. This is necessary since the current issue deals with the teachings of Paul. All passages are from the Revised Standard edition.
This benediction indicates that whether he espoused the Trinity doctrine or not, he certainly believed in it. It would have been difficult to give this blessing if he did not see Father, Son and Holy Spirit equal within the Godhead.
A few other areas where Paul equated the divinity of God with Christ:
Paul believed that his mission was set apart by command of the Holy Ghost. Though he never stated that the return of Christ was around the corner, a number of his writings him wishing for it. Could it be that he was so concerned with spreading the word of Jesus that he did not see this as an important topic to stress during his time?
I think that Paul believed that it was not within our grasp (or his) to understand the concept; Philippians, chapter 2 ** 5: Have this mind among ourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6: who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,**
This is consistent with 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, where Paul states that there were things told in his visions and revelations that man could not utter. Could the divine mystery of the Trinity been revealed to Paul? Could he not utter them because man could not understand them? Can man understand the true nature of God? Did Paul not espouse the doctrine because he knew that no man could understand?
These are certainly questions I don’t have the answers to.
ugh! Because it’s not addressed anywhere, we’re left with saying things like “it’s a mystery”, and “maybe Paul had it explained to him in a dream”. All of a sudden, Jews (Matthew and Paul) who uttered the phrase “Hear oh Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One” in prayer all their lives, are talking about Father, Son and Holy Ghost like there’s no difficulty with the concept, with nary a word of explanation.
Oh well. I guess it’s one of those things that will not yield an answer to any amount of study. I was hoping for some clue in the contemporary Judaism.
Yes, that’s the difficulty in having only texts (or other “hard”) sources of information for historical studies: we can’t know what was discussed but not written down. Or what was written down somewhere and then lost.
Just to clarify: I didn’t mean that I actually thought the idea of the Trinity originated with Paul and could find corroboration of this. Rather, in re-reading my earlier post, I think I mistook what was said in the post before mine, which addressed Paul’s contribution to the concept of Christ’s divinity, not the Trinity specifically.
I guess it all comes down to the question, which is more mysterious: the Trinity itself, or where the idea came from?