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God's nature as triune has
become a mere theoretical idea for many-an unnecessary burden
of belief. This may relate to the way the doctrine developed
in the Western Church (as distinct from Orthodox).
We
have been influenced by Augustine rather than by the Cappadocian
Fathers: by unitary and mechanical considerations rather
than by interpersonal ones.
We
have been inclined to see Jesus as an aspect of a unitary
deity (God in a skin), or not God at all, and to have oscillated
between a consciousness of Jesus as an ambiguous 'Lord' or
a Sunday School hero. We have also had a proof-text approach
or overly philosophical approach to 'trinity' making 'it' unconvincing.
(God became a 'problem' to solve rather than the Creator-Redeemer.)
To
let this situation remain is dangerous for faith and worship
and for our proclamation in the world. Either kind of Jesus
and either kind of God will become increasingly irrelevant
and obscure. It may already be true that because God seems
unreal, our attentions have been turned largely to the
study of and the pleasing of ourselves and the working
out of tangible and expedient solutions to problems.
Our
study is also conditioned by the kind of society we have
experienced (including church). The world has experimented
and vacillated between emphasis on the importance of the
one and the many (after Plato). In the West, the emphasis
has been on the many (individuals) rather than on the one
(society). But both systems have been found wanting. The
gospel is the radical orienting of us to God who is one
and 'many' and who alone can provide an understanding of
who we are personally and socially.
We need to affirm that God
cannot be known 'from the outside'. It is by him being God
to us-his continuing to be the context for our living though
we are sinful, and by his taking us to be his people, that
we know the mystery of God.
God being Trinity, relational
in himself, could only truly represent himself to others by
relating to them-causing us to be his people, even though sinners.
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