Page 82 - Bible Writers Theology Original

66 ♦ Bible Writers' Theology Chapter Four
In his work on the trinity, Augustine admitted that he used the word "person" (Persona)tospeakofGod'sthreeness, "not that it might bespoken, but that it might not be left unspoken." There is simply no better term available. The Cappadocians, Aquinas, Calvin, and many others all define the concept of "person" as applied to the trinity as something like "a real subsisting relation." The distinct personalness ofthe three ways God isGod was always maintained, but without the radically indi vidualistic connotations associated with the word "person" today. It isfor this rea son thatI deem it expedient toput the word "person" in quotes, reminding the read er that we are using the word in a unique, non literal sense.
In any case, whether or not the term "person" is retained, Trinitarians have always agreed that the doctrine of "God in three persons" cannot be understood to legitimize (say) picturing God as three literal divine "people" in heaven who are so distinct that they have to (as it were) vote on what activity they might perform, as
though their wills and minds were indeed separable! God is not a committee! Such an understanding of the Trinity is simply a misapplication of the creedal language.
The Trinity, the church has always held, is not inconceivable by analogy (for example, the unity ofGod is like the loving unity ofthree human persons), but it is "unpicturable"inliteralterms. OnlyintheincarnatepersonofChristdoesdeity become in any sense "picturable," for here alone we find the one literal, visible, dwmemanifestation-the one "Word," "Form," "Image," and "Incarnation" ofGod.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom ofthefather, he hath declared him" (John 1:18).
It should therefore be clear that the doctrine of the trinity that oneness Pentecostals (and most other anti-trinitarian groups) are attacking is by and large a literalistic, and hence tritheistic, caricature of what the traditional doctrine really means. As such, their attacks really do not even touch the correct orthodox teach ingoftheChurch" (Boyd,172-174).
But this Trinitarian labyrinth is only one aspect of the spiritual darkness engulfing the philosophical theologies of our days whose attempt to pierce the mystery of Christ would have seemed to the apostle Paul like the Gen tile world giving worship to the "unknown God" (Acts 17:23; Isaiah 43:10; I
John 5:20; John 1:1-4; 12:44;17:3; 1 Corinthians 2:8). Their skepticism is made more and more manifest as we read here the following passage:
"Frorn criticism dominated Gospel studies in this century through the influence ofDibelius and Bultmann, and then reduction criticism arose through the influence ofMarxen, Borrikamm and Conzelmann. Any remaining significant knowledge of the historical Jesus ofthe Gospel records was pushed sofar back into the dark recess- es offirst-century church tradition that today the more skeptical practitioners of these rnethods generally argue that reliable knowledge ofJesus is illusory. And while
there is a noticeable reaction today among the so-called "new questersfor the his torical Jesus" awayfrom the agnostic stance captured in Bultmann's famous judge ment, "I do indeed think that we can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus." Maurice Wiles still felt it appropriate to say in his 1973 Hudson Lectures at Cambridge, "It is essential that the doctrinal theologian recog-