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Originally Posted by bookslover  What makes this thread so fascinating - and so difficult at times - is the fact that we are straining at language in order to discuss the Trinity of Persons, and it's relationship to the essence of deity, clearly. This is why the Trinity is so difficult to talk about - human language is really just not built for discussions of this kind.
For me, the doctrine of the Trinity is one of those triggers that forces us to remember that the Bible is not merely a human book. No mere human being, in cooking up a "bible" all on his own, would ever have come up with this doctrine. It's too esoteric, too difficult for our minds to rap around. We humans like things in neat, tidy packages, but the doctrine of the Trinity will not allow itself to be forced into one of those neat, tidy packages!
Since the Trinity is exclusively a revealed doctrine, that reminds us that the Bible is a revealed book, containing things that we could not have come up with on our own, with our little pea-brains.
That's why I'm grateful to God for revealing as much of Himself as He has. It's a reminder of the Creator/creature distinction - and a reminder that we can't understand everything, because we're not meant to understand everything - not even everything that has been revealed. If we could, faith would not be necessary; yet God has decreed that faith is the key to Christianity. |
This is the kind of stuff that sometimes makes me want to give up. It reminds me of my charismatic days when we downplayed the understanding in order to sound pious and spiritual. When I came to the Reformed church it was partially because I finally had hope that God as well as my own existence were sane. My first reading of Reformed literature showed me the greatness of what can happen when the bible is really treated as a source of truth.
So why should I have to be accused of wanting to put things in nice, tidy packages because I want to know God and understand His revelation? I'm not trying to be rationalistic and erase the creator/creature distinction, but the idea that revelation is supposed to be incomprehensible seems to contradict itself. Without revelation, man is confused and lost in a sea of irrationality. Now we're asserting that the same is true for those who have true epistemological foundations. We can't even really understand who God is. How can I be asked to worship and love something I don't understand, something that, without explanation, seems absurd? Is this really the bible's definition of faith?