Note: This post is meant to be read after reading part 1 of this series,
where I lay some groundwork and introduce some important concepts. I
would also advise reading the other preceding parts, but this is not
completely necessary.
The Trinity
As we've been exploring the way the concept of God develops and changes throughout the Biblical texts, I wonder if there have been audience members sitting in their office chairs with sullen looks, wondering when, oh when will I talk about the Trinity?
And I wondered if I even should talk about it. Because I'm no longer convinced that it even appears anywhere in the Bible - at least not in the way tradition insists it does.
This is a subject that the popular Bible scholar Dan McClellan has repeatedly returned to in his videos - such as this one, or this one. In one of my favorite videos of his where he talks about this, he points out that there is a "fundamental incoherence" of the Trinity, and he explains what this incoherence is with the illustration of a math problem. And in this math problem, it is like saying:
a is the Father
b is the Son
c is the Holy Spirit
g is God
a + b + c = g
a = g
b = g
c = g
a ≠ b
b ≠ c
a ≠ c
And this does not make mathematical sense, nor does it make sense in light of the way persons or substance have ever been understood.
And I can recall wrestling with this concept as a child, and questioning elders about it, and these sorts of conversations would always seem to end with something along the lines of "well, this is just one of those mysteries that you have to accept through faith."
Or, hear me out here, what if it's one of those things that authoritarian men came up with after the Bible was written and then enforced when the Church got in bed with empire in the days of Constantine and started using governmental authority to punish heresy?
But some of you will insist: the Trinity is in the Bible. Except many of the "proofs" for this concept are based on fundamental misunderstandings of what the original author was trying to say in the language in which these passages were originally written.
One of the passages people often point to as "proof" of the Trinity is John 1:1-5, which I discussed in part 8 of this series as part of my discussion on "Logos" and the connections to the Jewish literature on Lady Wisdom. And hopefully, through that discussion, some of my readers have already caught on to the fact that modern Christians who are unfamiliar with the connections between this passage and some of the things Philo said about Logos will already be seeing how taking this passage as equating Jesus with God misunderstands the passage. Because for John, Logos is the Wisdom of God, the argument of God, the reason behind the order of the universe, and it was the first creation, which means that equating it with God is a misunderstanding of what John is saying.
But oh, you say, verse 1 of the passage says that "the Logos was with God and the Logos was God." Except that people who make this argument don't understand the original Greek and what is going on here. Because you have to understand that in Greek, there are definite articles but there are not indefinite articles. Meaning: in English, we have definite articles like "the", and we have indefinite articles like "a book" or "a tree". Greek does not have indefinite articles. So when we read John 1 in the original Greek, it says that "the Logos was with the God [ton theon] and the Logos was divine [theos]." Now, note here - theon and theos are the same word, but different cases - theon is the form used when the word is the direct object in a sentence, and theos is the form used when the word is the subject of the sentence. And Bible scholars have noted that when they look at the ways this word is used in this time period by many different authors, it can mean "God" or it can simply mean "divine" - as in, "a god", or someone or something that is godly/god-like. So it is important that in this verse, the author switches from using the definite article ton when referring to God in the first part of the verse, and leaving out the definite article in the second part of the verse.
So then some people will retort: well Jesus definitely claims to be God in John 8:58 when he says "before Abraham was, I am." And here they are interpreting this as Jesus using the divine name that was revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. But there's a big problem with this - when Jesus says "I am" here, it's just a commonly used Greek phrase for saying things like "that's me", or "that was me" - ego eimi. And furthermore, when you examine the first known Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible - the Septuagint - and look at Exodus 3:14, you see God telling Moses that his name is "I am who I am", and the Greek here is ego eimi ho on. And then later in the verse, when God says "tell them I am sent you", the words used here are not ego eimi but are ho on. So here, God seems to be telling Moses that the divine name Moses should use is not ego eimi, but is ho on. And Jesus does not use the words ho on, he just uses a very common Greek phrase that identifies oneself as the one who did a thing or was in a place. And to illustrate how important this is, when Jesus heals a blind man in the next chapter of John, and the people in his town are asking "isn't this that blind man who sits and begs?" The blind man replies in verse 9 "ego eimi", translated as "I am he", and no one ever seems to argue that this means that the blind man is God.
So then, some may come back to John 8:58 and say that because Jesus seems to be claiming eternality or preexistence, it implies he is God. But that is not necessarily the case. Again, returning to part 8 of this series, recall that Philo claims that the High Priest is the preexisting Logos, "by means of whom the universe arrived at creation." And this does not mean that Philo believes every High Priest who has ever lived was a person of the Trinity, with the same being/substance (homoousion) as God. But also, this verse doesn't necessarily imply preexistence, either - because if we go back to the context, we see that in verse 56, Jesus is arguing that the prophecy that the messiah would come from Abraham's line was about him (Jesus) - so this statement may simply be a statement that Jesus as messiah was preordained since the beginning of time, and is not a statement of eternal existence on Jesus' part.
So then some will continue the argument by turning to the story in John 10:22-40, where Jesus says that "the Father and I are one" in verse 30, and then verse 31 it says that the Jews responded by picking up stones to stone him. Surely [they argue] this proves that he was claiming to be God, since the Jews responded this way?
But what about the way Jesus responds to this? Because after the Jews pick up the stones to kill him, and then explain that they feel that Jesus is committing blasphemy and making himself God, it says in verses 34-36:
Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If those to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’—and the scripture cannot be annulled—can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?
Note two things about this response - first, Jesus quotes Psalm 82 here, which we covered as a proof for polytheistic thought within Judaism in part 2 of this series. And secondly, note how Jesus clarifies here that he has never "made himself God" as the Jews are accusing him of in this passage, but rather - Jesus argues - he has only claimed to be God's Son. Note that this demonstrates that for the writer of John, while being "God's Son" implies a special relationship with God that includes "one-ness" with God, it is not the same thing as being equal to God.
Furthermore, if "the Father and I are one" is indeed a claim of being one of the members of the Trinity, then what does it mean when Jesus prays in John 17:21-22 "that they may all be one... [a]s you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us", and then repeats the request that "they may be one, as we are one"? Does this mean that Jesus is praying that the disciples would become members of the Trinity [thus making the Trinity the Quadrinity and then the Quintinity and so on and so forth]?
Or is it possible that the writer of John simply has a different conception of divinity - perhaps one closer to the panentheistic formulation that we discussed in the last section of this series?
Perhaps, when considering formulaic language such as the Trinity, one should hold these words and concepts loosely - recognizing that if one is trying to talk about the infinite, sacred, and holy ground of all Being that has existed before time itself, then one must recognize that all language one uses to attempt to explain such a thing fails? Because if the divine is limitless, then surely any limited language one tries to use will fail to capture such a thing?
I remember years ago, I had a co-worker that I thought I would witness to - I thought I would try to bring him to salvation. This happened just as I was only beginning to ask some questions about my own faith that were starting to reshape it. And I remember that I had a conversation with him about faith, and in response, he lent me a copy of Living Buddha, Living Christ, by the Tibetan monk Thich Nhat Hanh. And there is a chapter in the book where he writes about the Holy Spirit - and this had been a concept I had never really grasped as a child. But for the first time in my life, I felt like I understood the Holy Spirit - all because of a Buddhist monk. And in this chapter of the book, Thich Nhat Hanh talks about breathing exercises and meditative phrases used to help the practitioner develop a sense of living in the present moment, and compassion for others and for all of nature around us. And I think back on the concept we talked about in the last part of this series where I mentioned that the Hebrew word for "spirit" is ruach and the Greek is pneuma (from which we get English words like pneumatic), both words which mean "breath" or "wind".
In this chapter, Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When our
mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. If you
love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is
not true love. When your beloved is suffering, you need to recognize her
suffering, anxiety, and worries, and just by doing that, you already
offer some relief. Mindfulness relieves suffering because it is filled
with understanding and compassion. When you are really there, showing
your loving-kindness and understanding, the energy of the Holy Spirit is
in you.
And later on in the same chapter, he writes:
Discussing God is not the best use of our energy. If we touch the Holy Spirit, we touch God not as a concept but as a living reality.
And then, near the end of the chapter, he writes:
Our true home is in the present moment. The miracle is not to walk on
water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.
Peace is all around us—in the world and in nature—and within us—in our
bodies and our spirits. Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be
healed and transformed. It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of
practice. We need only to bring our body and mind into the present
moment, and we will touch what is refreshing, healing, and wondrous.
What if, instead of turning Trinity into a credal statement that Christians must bow before and recite whether it makes sense to them or not, the real point of it all was for Jesus to show his disciples a Way - the Way of compassion, through which the presence of the Divine becomes a living reality in the present moment?
