Thomas Aquinas: Talking the Trinity to Death?

I went through a good chunk of the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas the past two weeks.

There are many admirable sections in this pivotal work, such as his discussion of faith and reason. Many topics are treated in a clear and succinct manner, neither ignoring important objectives nor belaboring his points too much.

But when Aquinas starts discussing the Trinity, it’s a different matter. I remember thinking: “OK, now he’s done with the Trinity and he’ll move on to another topic.” But no, he went on. And I felt like that over and over again.

I’m sure Aquinas thought it necessary to address what he considered various misunderstandings and wrong descriptions of the Trinity, but to me it seemed like he was talking the whole concept of the Trinity to death.

Perhaps the Eastern Orthodox Church displayed more wisdom in this regard by stressing that the Trinity is a mystery that’s supposed to move us, not an invitation for endless definitions of how exactly the three Persons of the Trinity relate to each other and what words are appropriate to describe them.

The Separation of Church and State – Explained in 1 Minute

There are two very different kinds of government: civil government and church government. I put together a little video to show the job description for each:

Religious Illiteracy

Matthew 25

OK, maybe this isn’t the funniest cartoon I’ve ever done, but it does illustrate a point: Upon seeing his friend the priest, the unbeliever Hux Lee immediately thinks of God and tries to make fun of him, whereas the priest is mostly concerned for the people in his parish.

Throughout history, many believers have recognized that God is to be met primarily by helping others. It’s the whole Matthew 25 thing – the parable about the sheep and the goats. You might want to read it sometime, if you haven’t already done so.

The Reformation: Blessing or Curse?

Exactly 492 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg – or so Philipp Melanchthon tells us three decades later. This event is commonly seen as the spark that ignited the Reformation.

I’ve often asked myself whether the Reformation was mostly a curse or a blessing. Reformation was necessary at that time, yes, but the way it came about and all the horrors that followed …

I think it’s good to remember all of this and not celebrate Reformation Day as if it had been the only light after centuries of darkness. Such a picture, which is not unheard of in some Protestant circles, is certainly a very sad distortion of the past and does not bode well for the future.

C. S. Lewis: The Sense or Nonsense of the Christian Idea (Part 1)

When it comes to the truth or falsehood of Christianity, there is an important premise to deal with, namely: “Does the story of the death and resurrection of God even make sense? Is it something nonsensical so that, even if it were historical, it would not mean anything? Or is it something we can, on the ground of other evidence, expect to be both true and meaningful?”

A good illustration of this fundamental sense or nonsense of Christianity is a detective story. Everything in a good detective story anticipates the finding of the culprit. If the story is well written, we might not definitely know who the culprit is until we have finished the book. But once we have finished it, we can look back at the story and see that it fits. The author put dozens of signposts in his story, all pointing to the culprit. We had not recognized them as such, but in hindsight we can see them. The culprit fit the story, as people say, like a hand in a glove.

Now the worst kind of detective story is not one in which we can guess the identification of the culprit early on, but which pulls out of the hat a culprit who does not fit the story. We shut the book and exclaim, “Huh? This is the culprit? He was barely introduced in the book. Even in hindsight there are absolutely no signs that point to him. It does not make sense that it should be him.”

Applying the same principle to the resurrection, we should note the following. If God truly became Man, died on a cross in the first century, and rose again from the grave, then the Gospels record the most central event of world history. One would therefore expect it to fit into our history: that it would be like a culprit in a detective story, with dozens of signs in the world pointing to its centrality. But if the whole affair is a big lie, we should expect the culprit not to fit the story. We would say, “God died and rose again? What kind of a strange story is that? And anyway, what does it matter? What does it have to do with me? I cannot make head or tails out of the Christians’ explanation that God’s death should have anything to do with my eternal life.”

Or, using a similar example C. S. Lewis gave: “Supposing you had before you a manuscript of some great work, either a symphony or a novel. There then comes to you a person, saying, ‘Here is a new bit of the manuscript that I found; it is the central passage of that symphony, or the central chapter which is really the centre of the whole work.’ The only thing you could do would be to put this new piece of manuscript in that central position, and then see how it reacted on the whole of the rest of the work.”[1] If the story of God’s death and resurrection is authentic, it should bring out the meaning of the whole rest of human history; if false, it should confuse the rest.

(To be continued.)

Read more about it in The C. S. Lewis Book on the Bible: What the Greatest Christian Writer Thought about the Greatest Book.

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[1] Lewis, “The Grand Miracle.”

Christianity: Why Not Go Down with the Ship?

I just re-read a passage in C. S. Lewis’ novel That Hideous Strength in which the character Mark has a rather different “conversion” experience:

Christianity was a fable. It would be ridiculous to die for a religion one did not believe. This Man [Jesus] himself, on that very cross, had discovered it to be a fable, and had died complaining that the God in which he trusted had forsaken him – had, in fact, found the universe a cheat. But this raised a question that Mark had never thought of before. Was that the moment at which to turn against the Man? If the universe was a cheat, was that a good reason for joining its side? Supposing the Straight was utterly powerless, always and everywhere certain to be mocked, tortured, and finally killed by the Crooked, what then? Why not go down with the ship?

Emergent Church

I’ve started to look a bit more at the Emergent Church at the moment. I mean, I did read one of Rob Bell’s books a while ago and I’m vaguely familiar with Brian McLaren etc., but I’ve never given the movement serious thought, partly because I am more interested in literature, history and philosophy rather than current church movements.

But a friend of mine has recently introduced me to the works of Peter Rollins, who is definitely more philosophical than Rob Bell, and it has caused me to give more thought to it. Am currently mulling it over.

IS EASTER A LIE? Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 8 of 8)

IS EASTER A LIE? Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 7)