The Trinitarian interrogations

How does one recon­cile the “One God” of the Hebrew (Old) Test­a­ment with the “Three Per­sons” of the Chris­ti­an (New) Test­a­ment? The Sh’ma of Deu­ter­o­nomy 6:4–5 is purely mono­the­ist­ic. That is, it clearly emphas­izes the sin­gu­lar­ity of God, which is also recon­firmed in the com­mand­ments (cf. Exod 20:3). This not­with­stand­ing, the Chris­ti­an (New) Test­a­ment clearly pro­claims a three-per­son God­head (cf. Matt 28:19; 2Cor 13:13; John chapters 14–17). How does one deal with the ostens­ible ten­sions between the Hebrew (Old) and Chris­ti­an (New) Test­a­ment rev­el­a­tions of the ulti­mate mys­tery of the God­head? The doc­trine of the trin­ity has been at the heart of much theo­lo­gic­al con­tro­versy. The routine objec­tion is that the doc­trine sac­ri­fices mono­the­ism to tri­the­ism. But this objec­tion thrives on mis­con­cep­tions of divine per­son­al­ity in the image of dis­par­ate, indi­vidu­al, human selves. Ration­al­ist­ic apo­lo­get­ics, pro­mot­ive of trin­it­ari­an­ism on spec­u­lat­ive rather than rev­el­a­tion­al grounds, regret­tably encour­age these mis­un­der­stand­ings. Many also resort to con­veni­ent mod­els to skirt (avoid) these prob­lems, and these, too, mis­lead rather than cla­ri­fy. Such con­veni­ent mod­els include three tones blend­ing into one chord; a single ray of light of three primary col­ours; water in the forms of ice, liquid, or steam. To be noted is that each of these mod­els are clumsy illus­tra­tions, inad­equate to com­mu­nic­ate aspects of an infin­ite God to finite human mind. How should we deal with this chal­len­ging issue? By con­fin­ing ourselves to what God, in his sov­er­eignty, has revealed to us of him­self in his Word. 

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vol. I)!! The reflec­tion for the Most Holy Trin­ity is found on pages 304–318. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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