Confirmation 201 [Wk5]: Why Not Three Gods?

Why Not Three Gods?

Confirmation 201: Session 5

October 9, 2017

Introduction

An orthodox view of the Trinity can help us to see that at the core of all things, the Trinity (creator, relator, mover) is a loving, giving relationship. When we try to treat God as a problem to solved, we do harm to our faith. This is a deep and difficult question that has been discussed by many great theologians of the Church and that caused many of our Church’s heresies. The quest that we are on in this session is to let God be God, allowing ourselves to sit deeply in God’s mystery, while allowing ourselves to ask the deepest questions of the Church in relationship to the very nature of God.

 

Why Not Three Gods?

1. Why is it not three gods? (We’ll get to Gregory of Nyssa)
2. Is there a person of the Trinity to whom you pray more often than others?
   • “Lately I have been saying that my experience of the trinity is that I pray to God, sing to Jesus, and feel the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
3. Liturgical prayers in Church
   • Father/Son/Holy Spirit
   • Communion Liturgy
   • Does this matter to you personally?
4. Do you experience the Holy Spirit in your life in emotional ways?
   • Do you ever think of the Holy Spirit?
5. Why do you think it is important that Jesus, the Son, is God?
6. How do you experience prayer when only one person of the Trinity is prayed to?

 

Trinity in Scripture

1. The word Trinity is not in the Bible, but…
   • Matthew 3:16.
   • Matthew 28:19
   • Acts 2:33
   • Hebrews 9:14
   • 1 Peter 1:2
2. But the Bible does not say that the Holy Spirit is God.
   • John 14:26
   • John 15:26
3. Did the biblical writers have an understanding of the Trinity?
   • Probably not
   • So why do we have one?
     • Discuss the very nature of God revealed

 

Start with the heresies; end with the orthodoxy.

Partialism?

 

• ⅓, ⅓, ⅓:

 

• • Not three gods, but three parts of God, like head, heart, hands of a human.
    • 3 leaf clover
  • Why is this a problem?
    • Makes God understandable.
    • Limits God’s own being
    • Makes it seem like Jesus Christ’s suffering was not shared by the other ‘parts’ of the Trinity. Like they sent him to suffer while they enjoyed the comfort of heaven.

Modalism?

 

• (Sabellianism) Water/Ice/Steam

 

• • That the Trinity is a mirage like how water, ice, and steam are all the same substance, but act in different ways depending on stimuli and the situation.
  • Same woman can be mother, wife, and doctor
    • Why is this a problem?

Tritheism?

• Three gods united by one divine nature (We’ll get to Gregory of Nyssa)
  • Why is this a problem?

Arianism?

• Like the Sun in the sky is a star and emanates light and heat.
  • Why is this a problem?
    • Makes Spirit and Son created by the Father.

Marcionism?

• • Two Gods: one of creation and judgement and one of Mercy
    • Father and God of Christ
    • God of the Old Testament a different god than Jesus’s Father.
  • Why is this a problem?

Trinitarianism?

 

• Gregory of Nyssa

 

• • Fighting two options:
    • Three Gods
    • Son and Holy Spirit not divine
  • Peter, James, and John are three men united by their human nature
  • “How is it that…we say that the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is one, and yet forbid men to say there are three Gods?”
  • “Since… the character of [God] is one,  in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… issuing from the Father as from a spring, brought into operation by the Son, and perfecting its grace by the power of the Spirit….”
    • The character and unity of God cannot be severed like Peter, James and John can.
  • Even “Godhead” should be seen like a verb, an activity of the persons of the Trinity.
  • How does this solve some of the other  problems?
• Meaning of YHWH
  • God is irreconcilable
  • God is not able to be treated as a math equation
  • God does not even have a name
• Perichoresis
  • Around/to make room for
• Circumincession
  • “To go, to step, approach”
• Conceptions of God that are broken by heresies
  • God’s power to redeem us
  • God’s power to heal the world
  • God’s experience of our human suffering
  • God’s unity in ministry to us
  • God’s love as evidence even within God’s own self
  • Others?