The Trinity: Letters to Eric (Part 10)

Dear Eric,
As I reread your last letter, I noticed that there was yet more that you said to be concerned about. So I am writing one more letter in response to it.

In your last comments in that letter, you claim that you're not negating the Trinity, but then you go on in the next sentence to claim that a Modalistic understanding of God is much more "palpable". That is, you claim that the Son and the Spirit are merely "representations" of God, and that such an understanding is easier to see and understand.

I wholeheartedly deny that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are only manifestations of God. Again, that would destroy the possibility for God to be in relationship before He created us--which would necessitate His changing, and thus His not being God. The very fact that we image God by being in relationship--and not simply with God, but with others of our own kind--demonstrates that God, whom we image, is eternally in relationship--with His Own Kind. Now, God is One. There are no other Gods for Him to be in relationship with His own kind, unless God is Trinity--three persons in that One God, who are each in a loving relationship with the others. Only if this is true can God be Love, and be unchanging, and be perfect from all eternity. Only if this is true can we be said to image God by our relationships.

Obviously, only in heaven will we see God as He truly is; but by saying that the Son and the Spirit are only representations of God, you are indeed negating the Trinity. The Trinity is indeed more plainly seen (palpable) when you look at it in its entirety. However, as you point out, we'll never do that until Heaven. In the meantime, though, through the use of right reason, we can see a glimpse of God's triune nature in His revelation to us, and by examining the logical consequences of competing understandings of who God is--which I've tried at length to explain to you. Simply denying the Trinity because it is difficult to understand does not make it more palpable.

You go on to make a comparison of the Trinity's "palpability" as understood in this modalistic sense by claiming that when one understands Sola Scriptura in its entirety, it is much more "palpable" as well.

In reply, I assert that I've seen it in its entirety. I lived and breathed it for twenty-four years, and all it's good for is breeding dissension and division in the Christian Church. Sola Scriptura is the reason why there are more than 20,000 Christian denominations in the world today. That's the palpable reality of Sola Scriptura, when seen in its entirety.

I eagerly await your reply,
God bless
Gregory


(Category: Theology Proper: The Holy Trinity.)