Re: Trinity models (was Re: Physical Resurrection)

On 4/12/06, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
> I noted in my earlier post that all analogies for the Trinity fail at some
> point, so I hesitate to criticize individual suggestions too much. But I
> should point out that some of those proposed here do illustrate the point I
> made about the tendency of models (at least in the western church) to verge
> on modalism. An electron is a wave or a particle, not both at the same
> time. But the Trinity is Father *and* Son *and* Spirit, not Father *or*Son
> *or* Spirit. Similarly for the roles of a person as physicis and tennis
> player and father. The roles aren't as sharply distinguished there but you
> see the problem with that analogy by asking if it makes sense for the father
> to make a request to the physicist, as Jesus prays to his Father.
>

Father making a request to the physicist clearly doesn't make sense, but on
the other hand it's not difficult to reconcile the idea of giving yourself a
good talking to. E.g. I'm not coping and am panicking & might say to
myself "Come on Iain! Pull yourself together". My rational, coping "person"
talking to the emotional, non-coping one. Or, vice versa, I'm angry because
I've messed up or offended someone, and the caring "person" might say "Don't
be so hard on yourself".

I think also one can get hung up on too literal a meaning of "person", when
maybe the best way to understand it is as a metaphor. It is again not
uncommon to say that the man on the tennis court (fiercly competitive,
wanting to beat his opponent) is a quite a different person from the one who
comforts his kids when they've fallen over . A metaphor is simply a
stronger way of doing a simile. In the latter you would say he was _like_ a
different person, and in the former you would say he _was_ a different
person.

Of course, metaphors also fail, as indeed words fail - how can one express
the mystery of the Trinity in mere words anyway? But one can't express it
without words, leaving one, as T.S. Eliot says with "The intolerable wrestle
with words and meanings" (East Coker from Four Quartets).

But what prompted all this was how to explain it to a child. One needs an
easy, though incomplete analogy that helps a bit with the understanding - no
child is going to be satisfied with being told that it's a divine mystery
that can't be expressed with words, or that the illustration of the
physicist/tennis-playing/dad is verging on modality.

The best you can do is to find a simple explanation for a child and say
"it's a bit like this".

Iain

Those whose ideas verge on modalism are in good company. Karl Barth and
> Karl Rahner, two 20th century theologians who are largely responsible for
> the recent revival of interest in trinitarian theology, are both in it. But
> it's still risky & some correctives are needed, even if they veer toward the
> opposite boundary that marks off tritheism.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ <http://web.raex.com/%7Egmurphy/>
>

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After the game, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
- Italian Proverb
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