605. Idolatry? Polytheism? Irrational nonsense?

 Please pray for the innocent suffering people of Ukraine, the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, and of Iran and Sudan.

 

Holy Pentecost

The Descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s Apostles

On Penteost, the Holy Spirit came with power, sending the Apostles out to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. This was the final and complete revelation of the Tri-Personal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In fact in some Orthodox traditions this day is also titled The Feast of the Holy Trinity.

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The Holy Trinity

We Christians believe in one God who exists in three co-eternal Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

To the Jews (though they’re usually too kind or afraid to say it) Christians look like idolaters, blasphemers: we confuse this man, Jesus of Nazareth with God. Indeed this was the accusation against Him before He was condemned to death.

To the Muslims, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity looks like polytheism, as if we worship three gods.

To non-believers, the doctrine of the Trinity looks utterly absurd. Probably some bored old theologians invented it one afternoon when they had nothing to do – comparable to “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”.

To Orthodox Christians, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity seems so ordinary that we rattle it off at every Liturgy, scarcely noticing that on the surface, at least, the Creed seems to make no rational sense whatsoever.

Today we’re going to talk about theology. I’ll try to keep it brief.

Rublev wrote this icon of the three angels/men/“the Lord” who visited Abraham and Sarah to represent the Holy Trinity, two Persons of whom cannot be seen or depicted. Both the Son (in the middle) and the Holy Spirit incline to the Father on the left. All three figures are the same age, since all are eternal. 

The Creed

We begin by saying “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible”. That makes sense. One personal rational source of all that exists.

But then we go on to describe another Person Who also is God:  Jesus Christ, “the Only Begotten Son of God… God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not created, of one essence with the Father”. So the one God has two Persons? How does that make sense? Does God have a “split personality”?

And then to make it even more difficult, the Creed describes yet a third Person who is God: “the Holy Spirit” Who is “the Lord, the giver of life, Who proceeds from the  Father *, Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified”.

• Western Christians add “and the Son” (the “Filioque clause) which we Orthodox say confuses things, but let’s not go into that today.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa’s Letter to Abablios

I said we’d keep it short. This letter is fairly long, so I won’t print the text, but it is well worth reading. This is considered the classical Orthodox statement regarding the Holy Trinity and the inter-relationships of the three Persons.

The following, from the Roman Catholic source “New Advent”, is a readable translation. * https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2905.htm

• As with ‘most everywhere these days, you’ll have to wade through some advertisements. I recommend that you not take advantage of their well-intentioned offer of “Thirty Masses said for the Poor Souls in Purgatory”! (I thought that went out with Vatican II. Guess not.)

To try to state it simply, we worship one God in three Persons, all of Whom are equal in “essence” and in eternity, but the Son and Spirit are somehow subservient to the Father. The Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father, but (as Saint Gregory points out) we have no idea what “begotten” and “proceed” mean. Yet all three are one God.

Some advice regarding how to try to explain the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to non-Christians:

Don’t.

Don’t even try. It makes sense only if one already believes in Jesus Christ.

I think there are other ways to approach this but, as I see it *, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is like a scientific deduction by the Fathers, based on the evidence given to us, first, in the natural world, but especially in the Holy Scriptures, most especially in the New Testament, and above all by our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.

• probably because I was trained in the scientific approach

First, the evidence for the existence of God is straightforward in two ways: 1 Taking the scientific approach: The world was created and continues to exist. There must be a Creator and a Sustainer. Despite some apparent disorder deep down within atoms and some definite disorder on the human level (look around, brothers and sisters), the universe is ordered. The Creator must be intelligent and personal. 2 God has acted in history revealing Himself. For example in Old Testament times, by making a Covenant with Abraham (then Abram); and His appearances to Moses in the burning bush and on Mount Sinai; and speaking through the Prophets.

Second, we believe Jesus of Nazareth was and is God Incarnate. 1 Read the Gospel accounts, and the evidence of this is clear. If you’d like to see a simple argument for this, I’ve attached my Post 207: “It All Hangs on One Man” at the bottom of this article. There are more extensive and much better expositions of this elsewhere. 2 There is the witness of the saints, and of far more than a billion Christians who have believed in and worshiped Jesus Christ and have followed Him as a living Lord. There has never been anything else like this in history.

That gives us two Persons of the Holy Trinity.

Regarding the Third Person of God, the Holy Spirit:  In the second verse of Genesis chapter one, we find that “the Spirit of God was moving upon the face of the waters”. The Spirit * is referred to about 100 times in the Old Testament, “blowing” like the wind, accomplishing God’s will.

• רוּחַ (“ruach”) in Hebrew, πνεῦμα (“pnevma”) in Greek, in each language one word meaning “spirit”, “breath”, “wind” – as is true in most languages.

The Old Testament defined God’s Spirit no further, but Jesus Christ did. Through the Gospel of John He refers to the Holy Spirit in personal terms, as “He”.  In John 14:16-17 He promises to send “another Advocate Who will be with you forever.” The Greek word for “another” is “allos” which means “another of the same kind, same nature as I am”.

On Holy Thursday night, notice how repeatedly He uses the masculine pronoun rather than a neuter equivalent: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but will speak whatever He hears.” John 16:13-14

Saint Basil the Great, with his great erudition, provided the classic Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit: In context of the teaching of Jesus, the work of the Spirit throughout the Scriptures must ultimately be attributed to a distinct divine Person. *

• See “The Work of the Holy Spirit” by Saint Basil the Great, part of the “Popular Patristics” series published by Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, available from their bookstore and Amazon and many other places.

So on Holy Thursday night we find Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, speaking of God’s Holy Spirit as another Person, then later praying to His Father as to another Person. And there we have God the Holy Trinity.

Finally, just before His Ascension, Christ gave the Holy Spirit “equal billing”, so to speak: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” Matthew 28:18-19

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The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is neither idolatry nor polytheism nor nonsense. It is the mysterious revelation of God.

This is nothing foreign to us. We are surrounded by mystery in people. We can know what people are like, what is in their minds and souls, only if they choose to reveal themselves to us by word or action. Just so with God Who also is personal. God is the Ultimate Mystery, who has chosen to reveal Himself to us as the Holy Trinity.

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I would like to point out that I kept my promise. This Post is not two thirds the length of a usual Post. I meant it to be shorter, but… I suffer from Bloggers’ Disease. Once we get started it’s hard to get stopped.

Next Week no such promise: Is God really good? In light of the evidence around us, why would we believe this?

The Two Weeks after Next: The repeat of a two-part article from my old series on Other Faiths, considerably updated: Judaism

 

298. It all hangs on One Man: Jesus of Nazareth.