I've always found the Trinity an awkward doctrine. It offends my aesthetics, more than anything else - from a programmer's point of view, I don't like arbitrary numbers, or anything that violates the Zero-One-Infinity Rule. Heck, for a while they didn't know whether or not Sophia was a fourth hypostasis, and if you're going to allow three, why not allow four?
I suspect that many other missionaries have problems with it; I remember a church planting seminar we did at WEC, and the doctrine wasn't even considered as a useful thing to teach. But the idea of the Trinity is not that this is another way to understand God, but that it is His fundamental nature. You'd think that would be worth teaching, in that case. Leslie Newbiggin made an interesting point in The Open Secret:
It has been said that the question of the Trinity is the one theological question that has been really settled. It would, I think, be nearer to the truth to say that the Nicene formula has been so devoutly hallowed that it is effectively put out of circulation... The church continues to repeat the Trinitarian formula but - unless I am greatly mistaken - the ordinary Christian in the Western world who hears or read the word "God" does not immediately think of the Triune Being - Father, Son and Spirit. He thinks of a supreme monad.
The working concept of God for most ordinary Christians is - if one may venture a bold guess - shaped more by the combination of Greek philosophy and Islamic theology that was powerfully injected into the thought of Christendom at the beginning of the High Middle Ages than by the thought of the fathers of the first four centuries.
Part of the reason for this in mission is the desire to work within the frameworks of the local understanding of God - in most cultures, particularly in Africa where most mission work has been done, there is a monadic "High God", which missionaries equate with God the Father and work from there. It makes it easier, I admit. But not in India, where Newbiggin worked, or in Japan, where I will work.
Another reason, I suspect is the desire for simplicity and opacity: pretty much anyone can get the idea of "God", but when you get talking about one God and three persons, people start bugging out at you. No, the ice-water-steam analogy isn't useful. The Trinity is not three distinct "states" that God morphs between.
But there's some good news. Thanks in part to Newbiggin, there has been more of an interest in having the Trinity as a starting point for theology and missiology, rather than as an uncomfortable addition. So in Iguassu we have papers like "Rethinking Trinitarian Missiology". In the Declaration of that conference, it said:
We commit ourselves to a renewed emphasis on God-centered missiology. This invites a new study of the operation of the Trinity in the redemption of the human race and the whole of creation, as well as to understand the particular roles of Father, Son and Spirit in mission to this fallen world.
If a missiologist is someone who reflects critically on missionary activity, I've been acting as a meta-missiologist and reflecting critically on missiologist activity. I've been wondering why this is - why the renewed emphasis? Partly, I suppose as a necessary consequence of an expanded understanding of the missionary task. Where the Gospel is brought to countries outside the European-African worldview of a "High God", the ability to work within that framework is removed and a new mode of operation needs to be found.
But I think another reason is the old claim of the "uniqueness of Christianity". As we encounter and dialogue with people from more and varied religions, we realise that all those times we've said "Christianity is the only religion with property X", we've merely displayed our own ignorance. "Only religion based on self-sacrifice"? Try Mahayana Buddhism. "Only religion based on grace"? Ask a Sikh.
So we look at the Trinity, and fair enough, I expect we can reasonably confidently say that Christianity is the only religion which has one single God with three distinct modes of operation. But I don't think any of the other religions want one.
Full version - 1 Comment