If the purpose of theology is to make us better readers of
Scripture (which I believe), then this is one area where the opposite seems to
be the case. The interface between the Trinity and the Old Testament
wreaks havoc on the intelligibility of both. The doctrine itself is entirely
absent (I'm not one of those who would attempt to "prove" the Trinity
from the OT, let alone the New) and hence an imposition on the text. But the OT
too loses intelligibility, at least if one is trying to read it in Christian
terms (which is not necessarily the only way to read the OT, but must be at
least a way).
The nub of the problem is this question: Is "God" in the OT the
Father or the whole Trinity?
Option #1: God is the Father
The advantage to this formulation is that it quickly
solves the problem by relegating all trinitarian
interpretation to the NT. The God of the OT, the one who brought
Option
#2: God is the Trinity
The advantage to this formulation is that a robust doctrine
of the Trinity is maintained. God in the OT is the eternal triune God acting in
time with his people
Which one is worse?
Is there a way to hold on to both?
Is there a third option?
At 12:21 PM, October 20, 2005, Brian Cooper said...
Hey John! I ran across your blogsite
recently and have enjoyed chewing on the hearty morsels of meat that you've
tossed us. On that note... I enjoyed your article
today. My response would be that it can be both. If we believe that scripture
is a revelation of God interpreted by humans, then we also have to understand
that the revelation was interpreted through the human author's historical
context, culture, and presuppositions of who God was. You can imagine in the
beginning years if God told them that He was the ONLY God and oh wait... He was
actually three persons as well. It's one thing to hear it, and another to
experience it. The disciples in the NT experienced all 3 persons of the triune.
Now, if scripture was a revelation of God "written" by God, then I
think we would have some serious theologicial issues.
So, perhaps this becomes more of an issue of a persons
view of scripture: is it an issue infaliability or innerancy? As someone who believes in the infaliability of scripture, I don't have a problem with the
OT authors having a limited understanding of God and recording their
understanding of who HWHY was. One thing I do hold to is that God is immutable.
Therefore I agree that God didn't suddenly explode into 3 persons at the birth
of Christ.
So, in conclusion I believe that due to the immutability of God, the trinity
has always existed as 3 persons in one and the limited knowledge of the triune
is the cause of a limited understanding of the trinity. How would the knowledge
of the Son and the Spirit benefit them if it was not yet time for them to
manifest? It probably would have confused things all the more. Again, someone
that believes in an inspired and inerrant view of scripture might disagree with
me, but they may have a harder time trying to explain how the trinity is seen
in the OT.
At 5:30 PM, October 20, 2005, Ken Schenck
said...
Would you resist playing the question out through
my categories? Original meaning, God is an "underdeveloped" concept
that is neither the Father nor the Trinity. He is mostly the King of the gods
who apportioned
How would this response violate or not violate the rules of the question?
At 8:49 PM, October 24, 2005, Keith.Drury
said...
You never cease to amaze me by how you ask
pertinent questions from street-level that send one skurring
to theology to answer...
At 1:54 AM, October 25, 2005, glenn said...
Interesting.
At first I would say that the doctrine of the Trinity in the OT is not
necessarily an "imposition" as it is a "deduction" from the
corpus of Scripture.
Of course, to the mind of the typical monotheistic Jew in that time, any notion
of a plurality (whether in being, nature, person, or essence) of God would be
unacceptable.
There is indication, however, that some under OT revelation understood a
greater theology than others: I would have to include the Psalmist (Psalm 110)
and Isaiah in this number.
To them (and others) was a revelation of a being who was co-equal to God. From
the perspective of NT revelation, we can, from their statements, at least see
references to the Trinity in the OT.
I would suggest that God in the OT was the Father. We should generally concede
that Jesus' referral to the God in OT workings and Scripture was to the Father.
This does not go to say that neither the Son nor the Spirit existed in the OT,
but that the primary revelation of God in the OT was as the Father.
As for Ken's comment, I guess I can appreciate his attempt to escape the
proposed dichotomy . . . but theologically I wouldn't even go there.