St. Ignatius Loyola (1495-1556) founded the Jesuit order and authored a famous book of Spiritual Exercises. There, in a list of rules for correct belief, we have this: Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the… Read More »Loyola: tradition trumps sense perception
What I call positive mysterianism about the Trinity is the view that the doctrine, as best we can formulate it, is apparently contradictory. Now many Christian philosophers resort to this in the end, but only after one or more elaborate attempts to spell the doctrine out in a coherent way. On the other hand, some jump more quickly for the claim, not really expanding on or interpreting the standard creedal formulas much at all. These are primarily who I have in mind when I use the label “positive mysterian”.
I ran across a striking version of this recently, in a blog post by theologian C. Michael Patton, who blogs at Parchment and Pen: a theology blog. In his interesting post, he says that all the typical analogies for the Trinity (shamrock, egg, water-ice-vapor, etc.) are useful only for showing what the Trinity doctrine is not.
This contrasts interestingly with what I call negative mysterians. Typically, and this holds for many of the Fathers, as well as for people like Brower and Rea nowadays, they hold that all these analogies are useful, at least when you pile together enough of them, for showing what the doctrine is. Individually, they are highly misleading, and only barely appropriate, but they seem to think that multiplying analogies like these results in our achieving a minimal grasp of what is being claimed. Maybe they think the seeming inconsistency of the analogies sort of cancels out the misleading implications of each one considered alone.
In any case, in Patten’s view, the best you can do is to Read More »Mysterians at work in Dallas
STAGE 2. In this stage, Richard tries to show that perfect charity must be directed at another person. Here’s the quotation:
‘no one is properly said to have charity on the basis of his own private love of himself. And so it is necessary for love to be directed toward another for it to be charity’.
Read More »Richard of St. Victor 3 – Perfect charity must be directed at another person (JT)
Barak Hussein Obama, as I write this, enjoys untold legions of fans. Some of them identify him with Jesus, or with Abe Lincoln, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or Moses. What I just said is true. But what it mean? It sure does not mean that a lot of people think B.H.O. is one and the same being as (i.e. is numerically identical to) Abe (etc.).… Read More »Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 5 – identity blabber
A prominent Christian scholar is criticizing some of his peers for their discussions of Jesus-era Jewish monotheism: [these blokes work] with only two possibilities: monotheism could either have remained intact or been broken. Commendably, [one of the blokes] pictures developments stretching or even distending Jewish monotheism, but he too seems not to consider the possibility of significant reformulations and new adaptations of a religious commitment… Read More »Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 4 – rubber doctrines
I have tendencies. Put me near a Subway restaurant, where I can smell the fresh bread, and I’ll get hungry, my mouth watering. Force me to watch reality TV shows, and I’ll become fatally bored. I have a tendency to smile in the presence of cute little kids. Doctrines do not have tendencies. They don’t do anything. They have meanings, and they stand in logical… Read More »Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 3 – tendencies
Wheeeeee! Everything is “Trinitarian” now.
This is the start of a series where I give some unsolicited advice based on things that make me want to throw the book across the room when I’m reading recent theologians. I’ll avoid naming names, but will sometimes use actual quotes. I offer it in love, though I admit I’m pretty cranky about it all. If you’re a philosopher or theologian, these are a series of “don’ts” – things to avoid. If you are a reader of theology or philosophical theology, these are some things to watch out for. If you detect a high density of them in what you’re reading, you may well be wasting your time in that book.Memo my theologian friends: please, stop saying “grounded”.
Examples:
Why? Because you are faking it when you say things like thisRead More »Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 1 – “grounded” blabber
Respected Catholic philosopher Alfred J. Freddoso corrects some pervasive baloney about persons which theologians are still repeating, these 22 years later! The asterisk marks his footnote – this whole passage is an aside in a very rich paper of his. Out of politeness, I omit the author of the wrongheaded passage, and I’ve added some bold highlighting to the whole thing. We’ve been over some… Read More »a quote every theology student working on the Trinity or Incarnation should memorize
As reported in Christianity Today, and in other places, the Catholic hierarchy is forbidding the liturgical use of “Yahweh” (YHWH, Yahveh, Jehovah). Why? Because Jews consider it improper, and we ought not offend needlessly. On the face of it, this is an oddly politically correct move. Yes, Jews believe the word “Yahweh” is too holy to pronounce or write, but should we agree? Must we… Read More »2 Holy 2 Say?
I’ve been reading Gregory of Nazianzus lately, his famous Theological Orations (c. 380 CE), wherein he expounds and defends what scholars call the pro-Nicene consensus about the Trinity – a viewpoint which developed in the latter half of the 4th c. by bishops rallying around the new homoousios term.
In the second oration, he hits this theme hard: God’s essence (the divine nature, the Godhead/deity) is unknowable. What does he mean by this? Only that it isn’t completely knowable (by us, in this life)? He does think that, but he’s saying more than that.Read More »Question about Gregory of Nazianzus on Divinity, the Son and the Spirit
Following up on the previous post – the word “trinitarian” may be an adjective or a noun. The Oxford English Dictionary lists four adjective meanings: (here’s my editing of relevant parts of their entry, emphasis added) 2. Theol. Relating to the Trinity; holding the doctrine of the Trinity (opp. to Unitarian). In early use, Trinitarian heretic, one holding heretical views as to the Trinity: 1656… Read More »Heretical “trinitarians” – evolution of a word
Thanks to reader Mike K. for this hilarious link. They beat me to the punch – I’ve been sitting on a post for some time on this exact theme. (Stay tuned.) I posted a comment asking about this bit: It’s interesting to note that the English term “Trinitarian” was first used, in the 16th and 17th centuries, as a pejorative description of anti-trinitarians; the heretics… Read More »banning the word “trinitarian”
Most theologians, even ones who focus on the Trinity, seem completely uninformed about important work in philosophical theology.
Many recent Christian philosophers have offered what I call Rational Reconstructions of apparently contradictory doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Though I’m presently exploring criticisms of such views, let me emphasize that I don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing, and I think that people with philosophical skills who are Christians ought to use them in any way which is helpful to the Christian community. At bare minimum, these folks are exploring possible views, possible ways to understand the Trinity (etc.). Getting clear about what the options are, and the costs and benefits of each, is an important kind of theoretical progress. Moreover, it shows intellectual integrity and courage, and concern for the truth.
At the end of my last post in the series, I noted that Rational Reconstructors often don’t believe their new version of the Doctrine. In any case, I’ve never seen one that insists that their version is the one which all Christians ought to believe. This latter isn’t surprising – we professors simply don’t have any authority to lay down a theory as required by any Christian community. But it is surprising that these folks are exercising some immense intellectual energy, and writing very involved and difficult pieces expounding views to which they do not commit? What is going on?
Short answer: apologetics. They’re deflecting bullets, as it were, with the theoretical equivalent of Wonder Woman’s super-duper bracelets.Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 10 – Why Care About Rational Reinterpretation?
We’re exploring the response of Restraint – when confronted with an apparently contradictory doctrine, might it not be a good idea for the believer to simply admit that she doesn’t know what it means? Last time we looked at the idea of “implicit faith”. What, if anything, is wrong with this? Consider this exchange: Doubter: Do you believe X? Believer: Heck yeah. Doubter: Doesn’t X… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 5 – Aquinas on Implicit Faith (Dale)
One way to deal with an apparently contradictory doctrine in your religion is the response of Restraint. There’s a connection here, with the medieval Catholic doctrine of “implicit faith”, so I thought I’d explore it a little, and in my next post, I’ll apply this to the issue of Restraint in the face of an apparent contradiction. I welcome any Catholic friends out there to… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 4 – Restraint and Implicit Faith
“Father, Son, Holy Spirit”? Or “Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier”? The editors of the flagship magazine of American evangelicalism weigh in here: Blessed Be the Name of the Lord | Christianity Today While I share the editors’ irritation with politically correct revision of liturgical and theological language, I think their reasoning in this opinion piece is poor. (Read their editorial, then see if you agree.) For one… Read More »Baptism in the NAME
I’ve always been interested in not only what intellectuals think about the Trinity, but also about what ordinary Christians think. Thus, this is an interesting find – five helpful wikites step in to wiki-answer the following important questions:
WikiAnswers – What is the trinity and could you be a Christian and not believe in the trinity
I’ll save you some trouble, distilling the answers down into 80-proof folk-wisdom, taking the second question first. Read More »your most important Trinity questions wikified
