{"id":332,"date":"2020-04-23T16:21:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T21:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=332"},"modified":"2020-04-23T16:21:40","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T21:21:40","slug":"keith-ward-on-laughing-in-church-and-a-comprehensible-incomprehensible-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/keith-ward-on-laughing-in-church-and-a-comprehensible-incomprehensible-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"Keith Ward on laughing in church, and a comprehensible incomprehensible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From prolific philosopher-theologian Keith Ward<\/a>‘s God: A Guide for the Perplexed<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[The so-called Athanasian creed<\/a>] is usually not now said in churches. One reason for this is suggested by my own experience the last, and only, time I tried to get an Anglican congregation to recite it aloud in church. When they got to the phrase, ‘the Father incomprehensible<\/strong>, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible… and yet there are not three incomprehensibles’, they all burst out laughing<\/strong>. The whole thing was just too incomprehensible, and so the Trinity still seems to many people. (p. 234)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I think he means to put an emphasis on “seems,” for in his view, the doctrine is comprehensible enough<\/strong>, for he goes on to explain the doctrine of three persons in one substance as asserting that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…there are three different aspects of the one divine being<\/strong>, that none of them can be collapsed without remainder into the others, and that all of them together are necessary to an adequate idea of God. …[And these are] God as transcendent abyss<\/strong>, God as particular yet unbounded intelligence<\/strong>, and God as the immanent creative energy of being<\/strong>… (235-36)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The three persons identified with three aspects of God – this is a version of what I used to call FSH modalism<\/a><\/strong>. Admittedly, Ward pulls his punch – just before he says this is “One<\/span> way of putting [the doctrine] today…”, but it seems to be his preferred way, as he expounds it and no other in this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bit further on, he makes another interesting comment that ties in with previous discussions<\/a> here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jews and Muslims, and other believers in God who reject the idea of the Trinity, could, in my experience, be quite sympathetic to this interpretation of the Trinity<\/strong>, if the qualifications required by the acceptance of the analogy were kept firmly in mind – though they might still reject the idea that Jesus is the unique personal form of God. (237)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Back to the famous creed – the “Athanasian” creed is often taken, by philosophers and sometimes by theologians, as being THE definitive statement of “the” doctrine of the Trinity<\/strong>, or at least, as the hard core which all future elaborations or developments must include. (I think, by the way, that this is a big mistake<\/a>.) As Ward points out, and as my own experience suggests, this creed plays little role in the life of Christian people, whether in liturgical or devotional contexts. So some questions<\/strong> for our readers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Has any church you’ve been a part of regularly recited or read aloud the “Athanasian” creed?<\/li>
  2. Have you ever heard a sermon or homily on that creed?<\/li>
  3. Do you consider that creed an important spiritual document (as opposed to a theoretical one) – one which is either essential to, or at least importantly aids Christian spiritual development?<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    My own answers: no, no, and no.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Profound or laughable?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,14,5,20,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creeds","category-history","category-modalism","category-mystery","category-theologians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42348,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/42348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}