Just How Trinitarian Are We?
Last month I was talking with a Divinity student about various theologies of Orthodoxy vs. Catholicism vs. Protestantism. Though these are all big umbrellas with countless divisions within them, I find myself aligned most often with Protestant thinking. He then pointed out what I’ve come over this past month to think of as a grave yet hardly ever thought of oversight in mainline Protestant practice and theology today.
Besides a few smaller sects, hardly any serious Protestant would deny the existence or importance of a trinitarian view of God: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Certainly no Catholic or Orthodox would deny it - one of the main reasons for the Catholic/Orthodox split was in fact a debate over the nature of the Trinity itself: the Filioque clause in the Nicene Creed, saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. It may seem like a minor technicality, but so important was Trinitarian integrity to both sides that they could not make amends.
Yet today, modern Protestant worship services and sermons seem to focus largely on Jesus, to the exclusion of the Father, and especially of the Holy Spirit. Certainly Jesus is central to Christian doctrine, but so too are the Father and the Holy Spirit. One’s glory cannot come at the expense of the others - in fact, being triune, it should be a collective worship and emphasis rather than separating them at all. The Charismatic and Pentecostal movements are almost reverse of this: emphasis is placed to a large degree on the Holy Spirit to the exclusion of Jesus and the Father.
This sort of exclusivist thinking can lead to all sorts of problems with our understanding of the nature of God. Christianity is by no means tritheistic as is a common perception by outsiders, but separating out the trinity in this manner can lead to a subtle shift even in our own minds towards that end. At the same time, however, Jesus as the intercessor between us and the Father, and the Holy Spirit as our paraclete, each person has a distinct role from the other, and attributing the Holy Spirit’s actions to Jesus as modern Protestants are wont to do, by blurring the lines among the persons of the Trinity, does an injustice to the nature of God Himself.
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2 Responses
Mar 20 at 12:33 pm
Of course. Jesus is not God but a part of god serving a particular role. The Father serves the role of the creator but is not god in himself. The Holy spirit serves the role of connecting with hummanity on the undefinable emotional level. Individually they are not god for then that would mean then there are three gods. They are each part of the same god. Each part manifests itself only because of the fusion with the other two parts.
Mar 20 at 12:50 pm
Well said Cameron.