Musings about the Trinity

The Trinity or the Triune God is very difficult to understand. It is not three Gods in one nor is it three separate God. The analogy of water often used to explain it; water can exist in three separate states – liquid, gas and solid (ice) is not an adequate analogy unless water can exist in all three states simultaneously. The analogy then breaks down as the Trinity is three separate Persons (Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit) with one essence in one Godhead.

It is crucial to note that the word “Trinity” never appear in the Bible and that the doctrine of Trinitarianism is derived from a canonical understanding of the Bible. A canonical understanding is an understanding that is derived from the best Scriptural evidence and theological studies. Understanding of the Trinity also needs a historical perspective as it was many years after the early church that the doctrine was formally recognized, notable the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

The essentials of the Trinity

(1) There is only One God. God is One.

(2) Each of the persons within the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is deity.

(3) Each of the persons within the Godhead is of equal status. Jesus Christ the Son is not lower than God the Father.

(4) Each of the three Persons are of the same essence.

(5) The Trinity is eternal

One of the challenges of the Trinity Godhead is that it is a Mystery and we may not be able with our limited human minds to understand fully.

Biblical teaching	Old Testament	New Testament
God is One	Deut. 6:4; 20:2-3; 3:13-15	1 Tim. 1:17; 1 Cor. 8:4-6; 1 Tim. 2:5-6; James 2:19
Three Persons in One Godhead	Father - Ps. 2:7	1 Peter 1:2; John 1:17; 1 Cor. 8:6; Phil. 2:11
	Son – Ps. 2:7; Heb.1:1-13; Ps. 68:18; Isa. 6:1-3; 9:6	Matt. 3:16-17
	Holy Spirit – Gen. 1:1-2; Exod. 31:3; Judg. 15:14; Isa. 11:2	Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 3:17

Persons of the same essence: Attributes applied to each person

(1) Eternality

Ps. 90:2

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

John 1:2

He was with God in the beginning.

Heb 9:14

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

(2) Power

1 Peter 1:5

who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time

2 Cor 12:9

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Rom 15:19

by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.

(3) Omniscience

Jer. 17:10

"I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."

Rev.2:23

I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

1 Cor.2:11

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

(4) Omnipresence

 Jer. 23:24 

Can anyone hide in secret place, so that I cannot see him?" declares the LORD. "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the LORD.

Matt. 18:20

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

Ps. 139:7

                                    Where can I go from your Spirit?

                                    Where can I flee from your presence?

(5) Holiness

Rev. 15:4

Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."

Acts 3:14

You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you

Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

(6) Truth

John 7:28

Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, "Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me."

Rev. 3:7,8

"To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.  I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

1 John 5:6

 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

(7) Benevolence

Rom.2:4

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?

Eph.5:25

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Neh.9:20

You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst.

Equality with different roles: Activities involving three persons

(1) Creation of the world

Psalms 102:25

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

Col. 1:16

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

Gen.1:2

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

(2) Creation of man

Gen. 2:7

the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Col.1:16

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

Job 33:4

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

(3) Baptism of Christ

Matt. 3:17

And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Matt.3:16

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him

(4) Death of Christ

Heb. 9:14

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

Lord of the dance

One way for me to try to understand the Trinity is to think of a dance. No, not the modern dnace but the traditional dance where there are different roles and change of partners. Sometime one leads and sometimes the other. The understanding of the Greek word perichoresis or dance by the Orthodox Church helps me a lot in understanding this. If the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit is in a dance, then there is the dance with three persons. Again not an easy concept to grasp.

Communion in the Trinity and its significance for me

What is of important to me is the relationship between the three Persons in the Godhead. They are so close that they are in one essence or communion. What is significant to me is that as Jesus Christ the Son won freedom for me by his work on the cross and my acceptance of it has placed the Holy Spirit with my spirit. This infusion of the Holy Spirit is an invitation for me to join in communion with the Godhead. It is my invitation to be part of the dance.

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Review of Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart

Blogpastor wrote an excellent review of this book over at his blog. He brought out many points which are my concerns too when I first read this book.

The approach of breaking down all the human elements that need transformation is also a very Western and scientific approach. It helps me to understand each particular part and how it functions together and deepens my understanding, but it also overwhelms the individual with too much applications, and it feels quite cumbersome. It may be better if he had taken a more Asian or holistic and biblical approach and viewed the human being as a whole and demonstrated how Christ’s death and resurrection has provided a basis for the renewal of my whole being and how the church needs to provide a conducive context where all its members can better predispose themselves to the ongoing grace of sanctification.

read more

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Karl Barth, Confucius and Korean Theology

Myers in his blogpost

On Korean theology, and Karl Barth's reception in Korea

in Faith and Theology gave a fascinating perspective of Karl Barth and his influence on Korean theology.

There’s an extremely valuable analysis of all this in the excellent study by Young-Gwan Kim, Karl Barth’s Reception in Korea: Focusing on Ecclesiology in Relation to Korean Christian Thought (Peter Lang 2003). Kim provides a broad account of the institutional and denominational contexts of Barth’s reception in Korea. He argues that the distinctiveness of Korean Barth-reception has much to do with the culture’s deep Confucian heritage, and with the intimate connection between Confucianism and the rise of Christianity in Korea. (It was Confucian scholars who first translated the Bible into Korean: Confucianism is already entwined with the roots of Korean Christianity.) After tracing the broad history of Barth’s reception in Korea, Kim provides an extensive analysis (pp. 225-324) of the work of Sung-Bum Yun. Although he is critical of Yun’s tendency towards philosophical abstraction (it becomes hard to see where the salvation-event fits into his elaborate system of Tao, jen, and filial piety), he concludes: “we cannot deny Yun’s insistence that Korean Christianity is strikingly a Confucian-influenced Christianity and that therefore the indigenization of Karl Barth’s theology within the Korean Confucian context is a viable theological enterprise” (p. 324).

read more here

Barth Nearly Broke My Back

yes, I nearly broke my back carrying this box of Karl Barth's 14 volumes Church Dogmatics from the post office to my car and from my car to my study.

I intend to join Prof Daniel Kirk blog reading club on Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. We aim to finish reading the whole series in about 11 years!

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Tending the Seedbeds of Theological Education in Asia

I am honoured to have contributed a chapter to this volume (2010, Philippines) published by the Asia Theological Association (ATA). I am humbled to be listed as contributors with all the well-known names in Asian theological education.


CONTENTS

1 How Asian is Asian Theological Education?
Larry W. Caldwell

2 ‘New Treasures with the Old’: Addressing Culture
and Gender Imperialism in Higher Level Theological Education
Perry W.H. Shaw

3 The Rise of the Net-Generation: Implications for Educational Renewal in the Seminary Classroom
Calvin Chong

4 De-schooling the Theological Seminary: An Appropriate Paradigm for Effective Pastoral Formation
Allan Harkness

5 Non-formal Faculty Development in Theological Seminaries: An Adult Educational Approach
Arun K. Sarkar

6 Vygotsky Visits Calvary Seminary: Sociocultural Theory in Dialogue with Asian Theological Education
Rosalind Lim-Tan

7 Reproducing Leaders through Mentoring
Ian Payne

8 Christian Leadership Development and the Spiritual Disciplines
Kwai Lin Stephens

9 Social Concern and Theological Education: A Philippines’ Perspective
Lydia Mapile

10 Surfing the Tsunami of Change: Problem-Based Learning in Theological Education in Asia
Alex Tang

11 Time to Leave the Wilderness? The Teaching of Pastoral Theology in South East Asia
David Burke

12 Towards Perspective Transformation: Adopting Jesus’ Use of Questions in the Seminary
Lee Wanak

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Reformed Perspectives Magazine Volume 12, Number 06

Reformed Perspectives Magazine Volume 12, Number 06 (February 7 to February 13 , 2010), is now available. The following articles are featured in this issue:

The Doctrine of the Word of God
Scripture’s Authority, its Content and its Purpose
By: John M. Frame
Webpage PDF Word

Night of the Talking Dead
Apologetics Dialogue
By: Donald Dewitt
Webpage PDF Word

The Pleasure of God in Justifying the Wicked
An Article
By: Matt Perman
Webpage PDF Word

An Earnest Ministry the Need of the Times
An Article
By: John Angell James
Webpage PDF Word

Joy in Heaven Over Repenting Sinners
An Article
By: Edward Payson
Webpage PDF Word

The Necessity of Word & Spirit in Conversion
An Article
By: John Calvin
Webpage PDF Word

The Bondage of the Will
ERASMUS’ SCEPTICISM, Part V
By: Martin Luther
Webpage PDF Word

Church Growth in Latin American -Neo-Pentecostalism

Power Pentecostalisms The 'non-Catholic' Latin American church is going full steam ahead—but are we on the right track? By Milton Acosta

Milton Acosta is professor of Old Testament at Biblical Seminary of Colombia in Medellín, Colombia. In this very interesting article, he comments on the phenomenon church growth in Latin America and what he observes as "Neo-Pentecostalism." This is a must read article.

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Festchrift to Chow Lien Hwa

Johnson Lim (ed) (2008) Take Root Downward, Bear Fruit Upward: A Festschrift Presented to Lien-Hwa Chow on the Occasion of his Eighty Eighth Birthday, Hong Kong: Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary.

Chow Lien Hwa is known as the"Father of Asian Baptists." He is a pastor, scholar, teacher and a mentor to many Baptists around the world. His untiring work of teaching and writing is based on his belief that it takes three generations before contextualisation can fully take place.

This festschrift is a love-gift from Baptist theologians and pastors from around the world but mostly from Asia. It is heartening to read and appreciate the level of scholarship that is developing in Asia. These articles are mainly in the area of hermeneutics though it is heartening to read Dr Sunny Tan's (Dean, Malaysia Baptist Seminary) call for Pastor-Theologians and Dr Johnson Lim's (Research Director, Asian Baptist Graduate Seminary-Singapore) on the original sin.

great reading.

Creating a Perfect World

Frederica Mathewes-Green is an author whose works I follows closely. She introduces me to the Orthodox tradition. I like her because when I order her books from her (sometimes it is better to order books from the authors directly than buy it from the bookstores), she agreed to autograph her books and dedicate it to me by name, ahem.

Let's Create a Perfect World
Posted Tuesday, October 21, 2008
[Beliefnet.com; October 21, 2008]

So you think that the existence of suffering proves that there is no God. But can I ask a question? How would you eliminate suffering? What would a world without suffering look like? You have free rein-make it any way you like.

Why don’t we start with something specific. People often cite the story told by the character Ivan in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: parents punished their little daughter for bedwetting by locking her in a frozen outhouse. Ivan cannot accept a God who would let that happen.
OK, how would you prevent it? Can you imagine a world where there is no child abuse? Not just that one awful case-there’s no point in stopping only one act of abuse. How would you stop child abuse entirely? Would you make it so that an angry parent could not think of any way to hurt a child?
Could a parent imagine striking a child, but be paralyzed and unable to raise an arm?
Could he strike at the child, but the blow would not land?
The blow would land, but the child would not feel it as painful?
Maybe you could make it so that parents could not get angry in the first place-how about that? Would that mean that no one, anywhere, could get angry? Why stop with parents?
(We’ll get to earthquakes and tsunamis later. One thing at a time.)

read more

Restoring the Image of the Trinity

Spiritual Formation as Restoring the Image of the Trinity (imatatio Trinitatis)

The doctrine of the Trinity is that God reveals himself in the Scripture as God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is only one God and in the essence of this one Godhead, there are three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These three persons are neither parts of one another, facets, or modes of existence but are co-equal and co-eternal.[1] According to theologian Stanley Grenz contemporary understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity stems from a consensus among theologians that view “theological language as metaphorical” (2001,7-8). Thus it allows theologians from different traditions to interact on this doctrine since a revival of interest stimulated by Karl Barth in the last century (Olson and Hall 2002, 95).

Malaysian theologian Albert Sundaraj Walters suggests a contextualized model of the Trinity which he named “Trinity from Below.” He constructs this model from interviews with Malaysian Christians and Muslims and then reflected on his findings theologically. Using the banana tree as a symbol of “fullness of life,” he writes, “Thus, this image of the banana tree is closely linked to the Trinity which portrays the essence of Being as a coming-from and a going-to, a giving and receiving” (2002, 276). A Korean theologian in the United States, Jung Young Lee uses the Chinese symbol of Yin-Yang to express his understanding of the Trinity. He starts with Jesus whose dual nature as man and God is reflected in the two portions of the Yin-Yang symbol. The feminine Yin represents the Holy Spirit which is female and Mother. The Yang represent the masculine and hence God the Father. (Lee 1996). These are just two examples of how Asian theologians are engaged in understanding the Trinity.

Catholic theologian Karl Rahner’s describes the Trinity in a short sentence, “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity” (1967, 22). Olson and Hall broke that rather cryptic statement into “immanent Trinity”(beyond the world) and “economic Trinity”(within history). What Rahner is saying is that God created the world and relates to the world, but the world is not part of God. Otherwise, saving the world “becomes God’s self-salvation as well.” (Olson and Hall 2002, 3). Thus God is uniquely one: “The Lord, our God is one Lord” (Deu.6:4) who is the creator that stands outside of his creation.

The three persons of the Trinity relates to one another. The Father sends the Son and yet remains with him (Jn 8:29). The Son represents the Father and obey him willingly (Jn 8:28). Jesus proclaims that he is God (Jn 8:58) and accept faith and worship from his disciples (Matt.16:16, Jn 20:28). The Holy Spirit is part of this relationship (Jn 14-16). The close and intimate relationship and interaction within the Trinity is often referred to as perichoresis, the Greek word for a dance. As in a dance, there is a dynamic energy as each dancer moves in perfect partnership and equality with each other.[2]

Volf in arguing for an anthropological model of “social trinitarianism” emphases that the Trinity is not just understood by God’s self-revelation but also by what was done in salvation history (2006, 5-7). He then elaborates that there is a role for a person with the image of God or of the Trinity (imatatio Trinitatis). According to him,

Because God has made us to reflect God’s own triune being, our human tasks are not first of all to do as God does – and certainly not to make ourselves
as God is – but to let ourselves be indwelled by God and to celebrate and
proclaim what God has done, is doing, and will do (2006, 6-7).

This role of human, created in God’s image and fulfilling the potential of that image by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is similar to our definition of Christian spiritual formation. I will argue that this aspect of the Trinity is the basis for Christian spiritual formation. I will use an anthropological approach which is consistent with my approach in the earlier parts of this section concerning shalom and the image of God.

First, Christian spiritual formation is a process of being in communion with the Trinitarian God. Grenz describes the influence of social personalism[3] as the realisation the self who is not a “what” but a “who.” This “who” emerges out of conversations with other “whos” to become persons-in-communion. However it is when persons-in-communion become part of a conversation with God that the “who” discover discovers its identity as a person-in-relationship (2001, 12-14). It is in community with a Christian faith community that we discover who we are. This is only possible in relationships with others in the community and with God. When God created us, it is to enjoy a relationship with him (Gen.3:8, 9). Our spiritual growth is a process of self discovery in relationship with God and with others. Puritan theologian John Owen in his 1657 book, Communion with the Triune God described in detail the communion possible with the Triune God, and individually with God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Owen 2007). He noted,

Our communion, then with God consists in his communication of himself unto us, with our return unto him of that which he requires and accepts, flowing from
that union which in Jesus Christ we have with him (Owen 2007, 94 edited by Kelly
M.Kapic and Justin Taylor)

The Trinitarian God engages individuals in Christian faith communities in communion. Communion helps us to know God by moving from a cognitive state to an experiential state. This is sometimes called faith[4]. We learn about love too. In order to save us and to reveal himself to us, God became incarnate. Jesus Christ is God incarnate; fully human and fully God (1 Jn. 1:1-3). God the Father shows us love in action as Jesus the Son suffers and dies on the cross. The persons of the Trinity are so close that when Jesus suffers, the Father and the Holy Spirit also experience suffering. Erickson comments, “This says that God is not merely aloft and indifferent to suffering in the world. The second person of the trinity has acted to take some of that evil’s effects on himself ” (2000, 74).

Second, Christian spiritual formation is about a process of building relationships. Theologian Jürgen Moltmann suggests that it is the interpersonal relationship within the Godhead that gives us the model to love our neighbours (1981, 199). Within the Godhead, there is mutual respect, submission, harmony and equality. This should then be the model for us to respect, submit and live with one another in harmony and equality (Erickson 2000, 84-98). Walters suggests that hospitality and friendship are important elements in learning from the interpersonal relationship within the Trinity (2002, 265- 278).

Third, Christian spiritual formation is a process of forming a people for the Trinitarian God (Rom.8:29, 30: 1 Peter 2:9-10). The Biblical record is a meta-narrative of how God is calling a people to himself, those whom he has prepared before creation began. Gabriel Franke illustrates, “In the most elementary of terms, these refrains are the chapter heading of The Christian Story: Creation, Fall, Covenant, Jesus Christ, Church, Salvation, Consummation, with their Prologue and Epilogue, God.” (1996, 5). God, the Father intervenes in history to create this group of people. To prove his commitment, God has sealed this group of people with the Holy Spirit. This special group of people is the ecclesia (the called out ones) or the Church who will praise and worship him for all eternity. In a series of lectures on The Promises & Problems of Evangelical Spirituality given in Regent College, Vancouver, Simon Chan said that the “church is pre-existing. God uses creation as a means to bring the church into existence for communion with him.”[5] Grenz in his examination of the postmodern self, identifies the “ecclesial” self that is formed in the Church in communion and as an image of the relational Trinitarian God (2001, 331-336). Theologian Miroslaf Volf, writing from the perspective of Roman Catholic and Orthodox theologies concludes also that the Church is the image of the Trinity (Volf 1998).

Finally, Christian spiritual formation is a process of being the body of Christ on earth after Jesus has ascended to heaven. This body of Christ or the Church will carry on Jesus’ mission here on earth. To enable them to complete this mammoth task, God the Father sent the Holy Spirit to indwell them and empower and guide them with spiritual gifts and other divine powers. Jesus’ mission is to carry out to completion the Father’s plan of redemption for all fallen men and women, and the fallen creation itself. The idea of mission dei (mission of God) was first mooted following the lead of Karl Barth at the International Missionary Council held in Willingen, Germany (Seamands 2005,160). The one-in-three or plurality of the Trinity also helps to explain the relationship of the Trinity to creation or the natural world. Theologian Colin Gunton, using T.F. Torrance “parallel rationalities” argues that

the plurality in unity of the triune revelation enables us to do justice to the diversity, richness, and openness of the world without denying its unity in
relativistic versions of pluralism. It is that vision that trinitarian theology
has to offer the fragmented modern world (Gunton 1997,103.

Missio dei is the restoration of human beings and nature, through the empowering of the people of God by the Holy Spirit. Canadian theologian Paul Stevens explains, “Mission is God’s own going forth – truly an ekstasis of God. He is Sender, Sent and Sending,” (Stevens 1999, 194).

The challenge is to explain the Trinity to a multicultural pluralistic society like Malaysia. Simon Chan posed some interesting questions

How do we teach the Trinity vis-avis the world religions such as Hinduism,
Buddhism and Islam?…How does the Christian doctrine of the Spirit relate to the
traditional Asian animistic instinct?... What do we make of the hierarchical
structure of the Asian family?...How does Christian prayer differ from the idea
prevailing in popular religions that it is an “exchange” between a person and
the deity? (2006,116-117)

In examining the Trinitarian influence on ministry, theologian Stephen Seamands discovers seven characteristics: (1) relational personhood, (2) joyful intimacy, (3) glad surrender, (4) complex simplicity, (5) gracious self-acceptance, (6) mutual indwelling, and (7) passionate mission (Seamands 2005). These seven characteristics should not only influence ministry but also describe Christian spiritual formation. At least it may offer a common ground to dialogue with other religions and Asian cultures.

Bibliography

Chan, S. (2006). Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshiping Community. Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.
Dykstra, C. (2005). Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices. Louisville, KN, Westminster John Knox Press.
Erickson, M. J. (2000). Making Sense of the Trinity. Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Books.
Fackre, G. (1996). The Christian Story: A Narrative Interpretation of Basic Christian Doctrine. Grand Rapids. MI, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Grenz, S. J. (2001). The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei. Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press.
Grenz, S. J. (2004). Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology. Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press.
Gunton, C. (1997). The Trinity, Natural Theology, and a Theology of Nature. The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age: Theological Essays on Culture and Religion. K. J. Vanhoozer. Grand Rapids, MI, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: 88-103.
Lee, J. Y. (1996). The Trinity in Asian Perspective. Nashville, Abingdon Press.
Moltmann, J. (1981). The Trinity and the Kingdom of God. London, SCM Press.
Olson, R. and C. Hall (2002). The Trinity. Grand Rapids, MI, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Owen, J. (2007). Communion with God. Wheaton, IL, Crossway Books.
Peterson, E. H. (2005). Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology. Grand Rapids, MI., William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Rahner, K. (1967). The Trinity. New York, Crossroad Publishing Company.
Seamands, S. (2005). Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service. Downers Groove, IL, InterVarsity Press.
Stevens, R. P. (1999). The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work and Ministry in Biblical Perspective. Grand Rapids, MI., William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Volf, M. (1998). After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. Grand Rapids, MI, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Volf, M. (2006). Being as God Is. God's Life in Trinity. M. Volf and M. Welker. Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press: 3-12.
Walters, A. S. (2002). We Believe in One God? Reflections on the Trinity in the Malaysian Context. New Delhi, ISPCK.

Endnotes
[1] Following Karl Barth, some of the Protestant theologians like Jürgen Moltman, Wolfhart Pannenberg and Eberhard Jüngel in Germany; T.F. Torrance and Colin Gunton in the United Kingdom; Ted Peters, Miroslav Volf, Elizabeth Johnson, Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich, Robert Jensen and Millard Erickson in the North America; Leonardo Boff, Okechukwu Ogbonnaya and Jung Young Lee in Latin America, Africa and Asia; Roman Catholics theologians like Karl Rahner,and Catherine Mowry LaCunga; Orthodox theologians like Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas, have been influential in developing our theological understanding of the Trinity. Olson and Hall have written a comprehensive historical and theological survey of the doctrine of the Trinity with a very useful bibliography on books published in English on the Trinity . see Olson, R. and C. Hall (2002). The Trinity. Grand Rapids, MI, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. See also Rahner, K. (1967). The Trinity. New York, Crossroad Publishing Company.; Grenz, S. J. (2004). Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology. Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press.
[2] The Greek word perichoresis is not in the Bible. It is a word from classical Greek and was introduced by Greek theologian John Damascene in the eight century. Damascene used it “to highlight the dynamic interpersonal character of the Trinity in contrast to impersonal images and abstraction.” See Peterson, E. H. (2005). Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology. Grand Rapids, MI., William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p.344.
[3] Grenz attributes much of the thinking behind “social personalism” as based on the works of Martin Buber, Michael Polanyi, and John Macmurray. Grenz, S. J. (2001). The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei. Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press. p.10-14.
[4] Dykstra makes this point, “…that faith is still primarily a matter of knowing some thing, however, we have missed what is fundamental about it. For faith is not only knowing the message, it is knowing the Messenger. (italics author’s) Dykstra, C. (2005). Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices. Louisville, KN, Westminster John Knox Press. p.21. Hence faith is not blind.
[5] Notes transcribed while listening to lectures. Spring School, Regent College, Vancouver. 29 May-9 June, 2006

picture credit

Scot McKnight's Hermeneutics Quiz

The Hermeneutics Quiz

Your biblical blind spots and what you tend not to see.

by Scot McKnight

For some reason of late, I have become fascinated with the portions of the Bible we don't tend to read, passages like the story of Jephthah. Or how God was on the verge of killing Moses for not circumcising his son, and his wife stepped in, did what needed to be done, and tossed the foreskin at Moses' feet, and God let him alone.
I'm curious why one of my friends dismisses the Friday-evening-to-Saturday-evening Sabbath observance as "not for us today" but insists that capital punishment can't be dismissed because it's in the Old Testament.

I have become fascinated with what goes on in our heads and our minds and our traditions (and the latter is far more significant than many of us recognize) in making decisions like this.
What decisions? Which passages not to read as normative. The passages we tend not to read at all.

If we're all subject to selective perception, at least to some degree, it's important to recognize what we tend to miss or gloss over, especially if we're church leaders.
This quiz is designed to surface the decisions we make, perhaps without thinking about them, and about how we both read our Bible and don't read our Bible. Some will want to quibble with distinctions or agree with more than one answer. No test like this can reveal all the nuances needed, but broad answers are enough to raise the key issues. On a scale of 1-5, mark the answer that best fits your approach to reading the Bible. (If you fall between response 1 and response 3, give yourself a 2.) Your score will reveal where you land on our hermeneutical scale.

Take the Hermeneutics Quiz

The scores divide you into conservative, moderate, and progressive.

My score is 61 which makes me a moderate. What's yours?

First, the conservative hermeneutic group scores 52 or lower. The strength of this view is its emphasis on the authority, ongoing and normative authority, of all of Scripture. It tends to operate with the line many of us learned in Sunday school: "If the Bible says it, that settles it." Such persons let the Bible challenge them with full force. Literal readings lead to rather literal applications. Most of the time. The problem, of course, is that very few people are completely consistent here. At times one suspects something other than strict interpretation is going on when the conservative is willing to appeal to history to suspend the commandment to observe a Saturday Sabbath, but does not to appeal to history on other issues (e.g., capital punishment or homosexuality).

The moderate hermeneutic might be seen as the voice of reason and open-mindedness. Moderates generally score between 53 to 65. Many are conservative on some issues and progressive on others. It intrigues that conservatives tend to be progressive on the same issues, while progressives tend to be conservative on the same issues. Nonetheless, moderates have a flexible hermeneutic that gives them the freedom to pick and choose on which issues they will be progressive or conservative. For that reason, moderates are more open to the charge of inconsistency. What impresses me most about moderates are the struggles they endure to render judgments on hermeneutical issues.

The progressive is not always progressive. Those who score 66 or more can be seen as leaning toward the progressive side, but the difference between at 66 and 92 is dramatic. Still, the progressive tends to see the Bible as historically shaped and culturally conditioned, and yet most still consider it the Word of God for today. Following a progressive hermeneutic, for the Word to speak in our day, one must interpret what the Bible said in its day and discern its pattern for revelation in order to apply it to our world. The strength, as with the moderate but even more so, is the challenge to examine what the Bible said in its day, and this means the progressives tend to be historians. But the problems for the progressives are predictable: Will the Bible's so-called "plain meaning" be given its due and authoritative force to challenge our world? Or will the Bible be swallowed by a quest to find modern analogies that sometimes minimize what the text clearly says?

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Asian Theology Reloaded

Books & Culture, January/February 2008

Mustard Seed and Leaven
Reflections on Asian theology.
by Nate Jones

A few months ago, I left my home in Wheaton to return to Indonesia, where I was born. Besides a few boxes, my trans-Pacific baggage included a handful of stubborn expectations about the shape and substance of my future work. Above all, I carried with me the conviction that God was calling me to sojourn with him again in a new place.

As the weeks and months passed, Jakarta smeared my Wheaton polish of perceptions, opinions, and convictions. Learning again how to live in my adopted home, I was peculiarly ready to pick up and listen to some of Asian theology's foremost authors. My guides in this new (to me) theological world began their reflections where I was—at the margins of divergent political and cultural worlds. I read how Kosuke Koyama tried to piece together his own fractured past, torn between Japan, America, and Thailand. Peter Phan taught me about theology among the in-between and "in-beyond" lives of Vietnamese Americans. Michael Amaladoss emphasized to me that Jesus himself was marginalized, articulating a Christology in which Jesus is sketched from Asian cultural reference points. Together, all three authors emphasized the marginality of Asia's poor and religious masses, declaring confidently that a theology that does not mean good news for these people is utterly inadequate to the Asian context.

Writing from this conviction, all three authors were inevitably concerned with the dynamics of power. What political and economic centers relegate Asian peoples to the margins? What theological center relegates Asian theology to the edge of acceptability and perhaps orthodoxy? What kind of power characterizes the Kingdom of God, in which the last become first and a homeless, itinerant patriarch becomes the spiritual father of all God's people? What kind of power works triumphantly through the resurrection of the crucified Christ? ...

In their eagerness to reread the gospel in light of Jesus' kingdom teaching, Asian theologians have forgotten that Jesus is also the Lamb of God, and that the God who brings in the kingdom also reserves to himself judgment for the wicked. In fact, Asian theologians have little to say to the survivors of 20th-century genocides, or the victims of the torture and war crimes perpetrated across the globe. By ignoring or denying a soteriology that has historically been strongly associated with Christianity-as-institution, Asian theologians have shut their ears to the cries of the martyrs.

Asian theology needs to reread both the Scriptures and the global context more carefully, listening for the rumble of God's not-so-distant judgment in Jesus' promises of the kingdom and remembering that the Son's incarnation and crucifixion were conditioned entirely upon sin—sin that the entire canon describes consistently in both personal and corporate terms....

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What will Asian Christians say?

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