Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors Part 48

Dr. Huntington uses an unnecessary phrase about those who object to mystery. He calls the objection "shallow self-illusion," and proceeds with the usual declaration, that all of life is mysterious. Can he have been a Unitarian preacher for twenty years, and not have known that Unitarians object to mystery only when it is used by Trinitarians as a cover for obscurity and vagueness of statement?

You ask us to believe a precise statement, viz., that "there are three _persons_ in the G.o.dhead." We say, "What do you mean by 'person'?" The Trinitarian answers, "It is a mystery." We say, "We cannot believe it, then." The Trinitarian replies, "Why, all is a mystery. How the gra.s.s grows is a mystery; yet you believe it." "No," we say, "we do not believe it. When the mystery begins, our belief ends; we believe up to that point, and no farther." The statement, "the gra.s.s grows," is _not_ a mystery; the fact, "the gra.s.s grows," is _not_ a mystery. We believe the fact and the statement. The _way_ in which it grows _is_ mysterious; and we do not believe anything about it. "You cannot understand _how_ the gra.s.s grows."

No; and, accordingly, we do not believe anything about _how_ the gra.s.s grows. But the whole purpose of the Trinity is to show _how_ the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist. You are not satisfied that we receive _what_ the Scripture teaches; you try to show us the _how_, and then leave it in obscurity at last.

Nor does Dr. Huntington reply to the Unitarian explanation of the Trinitarian proof-texts. Trinitarians have often quoted the texts-"_I and my Father are one_;" "_He who has seen me has seen the Father_"-in proof of the Deity of Christ. Unitarians have often replied to both of them: to the first pa.s.sage, that since Jesus has also said that his _disciples were to be one with him, as he is one with G.o.d_, it either proves that the disciples are also to be G.o.d, or does _not_ prove that Christ is G.o.d. To the second pa.s.sage, Unitarians have replied by reading the next clause, in which Christ says, "Believest thou not that I am _in_ the Father?" showing how it is that he reveals the Father. He is _in_ the Father, and his disciples are _in_ him. Those who see him, see the Father; those who see his true disciples, see the face and image of Christ. These answers are so obvious, and Dr. Huntington must have heard them so often, that he should, as a controversialist, have taken some notice of them. He has not done so.

He quotes the pa.s.sage from Eph. 1:20, 21, and says, "_Can this be a creature?_" We reply, "Can he be anything _but_ a creature?-he who was _set_ by G.o.d in this place of honor." Does G.o.d set G.o.d, as a reward, above princ.i.p.alities and powers? Does G.o.d make G.o.d "head over all things in the Church"? Again: Dr. Huntington quotes, "that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord;" but he omits the conclusion, "to the glory of G.o.d the Father."

He even quotes the pa.s.sage, "Him _hath G.o.d exalted_ to give repentance and forgiveness of sin."

And he quotes the pa.s.sage, which has staggered the strongest believers in the Trinity, where Paul declares (1 Cor. ch. 15), that, _at the end_, Christ will give up his kingdom to the Father, that "G.o.d may be all in all," and explains it as meaning that "he will resume his place in the coequal Three, the indivisible One." Has he _left_ his place, then? Is that Orthodox? Dr. Huntington evidently thinks so; for he says, "The Son, in his character of Sons.h.i.+p, is retaken, so to speak, into the everlasting undivided One." _So to speak._ We may _speak_ so: "But what do we mean by it?" is the question. Did G.o.d the Son leave his place in the G.o.dhead? Did he become less than G.o.d? Did he become ignorant? Did he suffer and die?

Did he arise, and at last reascend, and take his place, "so to speak," in the G.o.dhead? If this is meant as real statement, what better is it than the Avatars of Vishnu? What sort of Unity is left to us? We have a Trinity of council; but where is the Unity, except of agreement? One divine Being descending, and leaving the other divine Being alone, temporarily, on the throne of the universe, until the divine Being who had descended should reascend to take his seat again "in the coequal Three and indivisible One"!

One Unitarian argument, which appears to us unanswerable, is in the fact, that the very pa.s.sages in which the highest attributes are ascribed to Christ are always those in which his dependence and subordination are most strongly a.s.serted. We could throw aside all the pa.s.sages in which Jesus a.s.serts directly his inferiority,-as, "My Father is greater than I;" "Of mine own self I can do nothing,"-and take the strongest proof-texts of the Trinitarians, and ask for no better proof for the Unitarian doctrine: "All power is given to me in heaven and earth;" "The image of the invisible G.o.d, the first-born of every creature;" "In him dwelt all the fulness of the G.o.dhead bodily." Are these pa.s.sages written of Christ in his divine or human nature? Not his divine nature; for to G.o.d the Son all power cannot be "given." G.o.d the Son cannot be "the image of G.o.d," or the "first-born of every _creature_." The "fulness of the G.o.dhead" cannot dwell in G.o.d the Son. They must, then, be said of him in his human nature; and, if so, they show that the loftiest t.i.tles and attributes do not prove him to be G.o.d.

V. The good ascribed to the doctrine of the Trinity does not belong to it, but to the truths which underlie it.

Dr. Huntington a.s.serts, for example, that "the Triunity of G.o.d appears to be the necessary means of manifesting and supporting in the mind of our race, a faith in the true personality of G.o.d."

If so, it is remarkable that the two forms of religion in which the personality of G.o.d, as absolute will, is most distinctly recognized (i.e., the _Jewish_ religion and the _Mohammedan_ religion), should both be ignorant of the Trinity. It is equally remarkable that the most Pantheistic religion in the world, in which the personality of G.o.d most entirely disappears (i.e., Braminism), should have a Trinity of its own.

It is also remarkable, on this hypothesis, that idolatry in the Christian Church (as wors.h.i.+p of Mary, wors.h.i.+p of saints and relics, &c.) should come up with the Trinity, and flourish simultaneously with it.

No; it is not the Trinity which brings out most distinctly the personality of G.o.d, but the faith in a divine revelation through inspired men. If G.o.d can dwell in the souls of men, teaching and guiding them, he must be a person like the soul with which he communes. Especially does the religious consciousness of Jesus, his simple and child-like communion with the heavenly Father, bring G.o.d near to the soul as a personal being. It is not the Trinity, but the Christian faith which underlies it, which teaches the divine personality.

Nor is it the doctrine of the Trinity which is necessary for a living faith in G.o.d through Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. All that Dr. Huntington says of the evil of sin is well said, but has no bearing on the point before us. According to Dr. Huntington's own witnesses, as we have seen above, the Trinity was unknown in the earlier ages of the Church. Was reconciliation unknown? Was the forgiving love of Christ unknown? If he cannot a.s.sert this, the doctrine of the Trinity is not necessary to a living faith in a reconciling G.o.d.

Dr. Huntington argues, that only the sufferings, and actual sufferings, of G.o.d himself, can touch the sinful heart; and, therefore, the Trinity is true. The conclusion is a long way from the premise, even supposing that to be sound. But as regards the premise, he has read and quoted Mansel.

Has he not verged towards the dogmatism which that writer condemns? Would it not be more modest, and better accord with Christian humility, to be satisfied with believing the scriptural a.s.sertions, that "G.o.d so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son;" that "He who spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all,-shall he not, with him, freely give us all things?" Is not this enough, without an argument to prove that the _only_ way by which man can be saved is the method of a suffering G.o.d?

We will not dwell further on this head, nor examine our friend's argument to show that we cannot consistently, as Unitarians, have any piety. We will try, then, to have it inconsistently.

VI. Great evils to the Church have come from the doctrine of the Trinity.

It has tended to the belief in three G.o.ds. It has tended to a confusion of belief between three G.o.ds of equal power and majesty, united only in counsel; one supreme and two inferior Deities; one Deity with a threefold manner of manifestation; and a vague, undetermined use of words, with no meaning attached to them-unhappy confusion, which none have been more ready to recognize and to point out than Trinitarians themselves.

And what shall we say of the continual struggles, conflicts, and bitter controversies, which this doctrine has caused from the time of its entrance into the Church? What is there more disgraceful in the history of the Church, than the mutual persecutions of Arians and Athanasians, and of all the minor sects and parties, engendered by this disputed doctrine?

This is what Dr. Bushnell says of one of these matters; and his testimony is, perhaps, sufficient on this point,-

"No man can a.s.sert three persons,-meaning three consciousnesses, wills, and understandings,-and still have any intelligent meaning in his mind, when he a.s.serts that they are yet one person; for, as he now uses the term, the very idea of a person is that of an essential, incommunicable monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized by self-active will; which being true, he might as well profess to hold that three units are yet one unit. When he does it, his words will, of necessity, be only subst.i.tutes for sense.

"At the same time, there are too many signs of the mental confusion I speak of not to believe that it exists. Thus, if the cla.s.s I speak of were to hear a discourse insisting on the proper personal Unity of G.o.d, it would awaken suspicion in their minds, while a discourse insisting on the existence of three persons would be only a certain proof of Orthodoxy; showing that they profess three persons, meaning what they profess, and one person, really not meaning it.

"Such is the confusion produced by attempting to a.s.sert a real and metaphysical Trinity of persons in the divine nature. Whether the word is taken at its full import, or diminished away to a mere something called a _distinction_, there is produced only contrariety, confusion, practical negation, not light."

So far Dr. Bushnell. On another point thus testifies Twesten:-

"There are many to whom the biblical and religious basis of the doctrine is exceeding sure and precious, who are dissatisfied with the Church form of the doctrine, and even feel themselves repelled or fettered by it. It is to them more negative than positive, more opposed to errors than giving any insight into truth. It solves no difficulty, it unseals no new revelation."

Twesten goes on to admit that the Trinity has really hemmed in the free movement of the mind, subst.i.tuting a dead uniformity for a manifold and various life; and yet Twesten is a very strong and able Trinitarian.

VII. The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine of philosophy, and not of faith.

As philosophy, it might be ever so true and important; but, when brought forward as religion (as Dr. Huntington has done), it would become at once pernicious. To offer theology for religion, belief for faith, philosophy born of speculative reflection in place of spiritual insight and pious experience, have always been most deleterious both to religion and to philosophy.

The objects of faith are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through Christ we have access to the Father in the Spirit. We see the Father revealed to us in the Son; we feel the power of the Spirit in our hearts.

This is religion; but this has nothing to do with the doctrine of the Trinity.

VIII. We can trace the gradual formation of the doctrine in the Christian Church.

The following facts we suppose to be incontrovertible:-

1. Down to the time of the synod of Nice (A.D. 325), the Son was considered to be subordinate, or inferior to the Father, by the great majority of writers and teachers in the Christian Church, and by the mult.i.tude of believers; and no doctrine of Trinity existed in the Church.

2. The _Nicene symbol_, which declared Christ to be "G.o.d from G.o.d, Light from Light, true G.o.d from true G.o.d, of the same substance with the Father,"(95) was directed against the two Arian positions,-that Christ was created, and that there was a time when he did not exist; but it did not declare his equality with G.o.d the Father, nor teach the personality of the Holy Spirit, nor say anything of the Trinity.

3. The councils vacillated to and fro during three hundred years, gradually tending towards the present Church doctrine of the Trinity; thus,-

1. _Synod of Nice_ (A.D. 325) opposed the Arian doctrine of the creation of Christ out of nothing, and maintained that his substance was derived from that of G.o.d.

2. _Synod of Tyre_ (A.D. 335) favored the Arians, and deposed Athanasius.

3. _Council of Antioch_ (A.D. 343) opposed the views of the Arians, and also the views of their opponents.

4. _Council of Sardica_ (A.D. 344) resulted in a division between the Eastern and Western Churches-the East being semi-Arian, and the West, Athanasian-in their view of the nature of Christ.

5. The Western Church tending to Sabellianism (taught by Marcellus and his pupil Photinus), this view was condemned by two councils in the East and West, viz.:-

Second council of Antioch (A.D. 343).

Council of Milan (A.D. 346).

6. Constantius, an Arian emperor, endeavored to make the Western Churches accept the Arian doctrine, and, at two synods (A.D. 353 and 355, at Arelate and Mediolanum), compelled the bishops to sign the condemnation of Athanasius, deposing those who refused so to do.

7. The Arians, being thus dominant, immediately divided into Arians and Semi-Arians,-the distinction being the famous distinction between _o_ and _oi_. Both parties denied the _h.o.m.oousios_; but the Semi-Arians admitted the _h.o.m.oiousios_.

8. At the synod of Ancyra (A.D. 358), the Semi-Arian doctrine was adopted, and the Arian rejected. The third synod of Sirmium (A.D. 358) did the same thing.

9. Down to this time (A.D. 360), nothing was said about the Holy Spirit in its relation to the Trinity. The Emperor Valens, an Arian, persecuted the Athanasians from A.D. 364 to 378. Then Theodosius, an Athanasian emperor, persecuted the Arians. Semi-Arianism, however, continued Orthodox in the East.

10. The Nestorian controversy broke out A.D. 430. Council of Ephesus (A.D.

431) condemned Nestor. The Nestorians (who were Unitarians) separated entirely from the Church, and became the Church of the Persian empire.

11. The Monophysite controversy broke out. The council of Chalcedon (A.D.

451) decided that there were two natures in Christ; and the Monophysites separated, and formed the Coptic Church. Their formula was, that "G.o.d was crucified in Christ." The Nestorians were too Unitarian, and the Monophysites too Athanasian. The Church decided (against the Nestorians) that Mary was G.o.d's mother, but decided (against the Monophysites) that G.o.d was not crucified.

12. _First Lateran Council_ was called (in A.D. 640) to settle a new point. It having been decided that there were _two_ natures in Christ, it was now thought best by many to yield to the Monophysites-that there was only one will in Christ. Hence the Monotheletic controversy, finally settled at the,-

13. Sixth General Council (A.D. 680), when _two_ wills in Christ were accepted as the doctrine of the Church.