What's Wrong With This? (Or, Maybe, What's Wrong With Me?)
Well, I was reading something about Rob Bell (a friend of mine was ranting about what a heretic he is so, of course, I had to check him out). Short of buying Velvet Jesus (um...not sure I'm quite ready to do that and never mind Sex God...) I thought I'd do a little online research.
It seems that I probably won't agree with Rob in a number of areas. But I happened on this critique of Bell's theology here where the guy goes off on Bell's interpretation of the Trinity. Here's the quote of Bell on Trinity:
This doctrine is central to historic, orthodox Christian faith. While there is only one God, God is somehow present everywhere. People began to call this presence, this power of God, his 'Spirit'. So there is God, the then there is God's Spirit. And then Jesus comes among us and has this oneness with God that has people saying things like God has visited us in the flesh (John 1:14). So God is one, but God has also revealed himself to us as Spirit and then as Jesus. One and yet three. This three-in-oneness understanding of God emerged in several hundred years after Jesus' resurrection. People began to call this concept the Trinity. The word trinity is not found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus didn't use the word, and the writers of the rest of the Bible didn't use the word.
But over time this belief, this understanding, this doctrine, has become central to how followers of Jesus have understood who God is. It is a spring, and people jumped for thousands of years without it (this fact, of course, doesn't make the doctrine any less true. It's been true all along; people just 'recently' discovered it.) It was added later. We can take it out and examine it. Discuss it, probe it, question it. It flexes, and it stretches. It has brought a littler, deeper, richer understanding to the mysterious being who is God. . . .Our words are not absolutes. Only God is absolute... The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up.
It apparently comes from Velvet Elvis, page 22 & 25. Now, I don't have, like 20 pages of heresy to work me up on this, so maybe I'm missing something. But what's so wrong with this understanding of the Trinity? That God self-reveals in multiple ways and yet is still ONE God...and we (the collective human race "we") discovered that and codified it as a doctrine that "we" call the Trinity. Um...what am I missing?
It seems that I probably won't agree with Rob in a number of areas. But I happened on this critique of Bell's theology here where the guy goes off on Bell's interpretation of the Trinity. Here's the quote of Bell on Trinity:
This doctrine is central to historic, orthodox Christian faith. While there is only one God, God is somehow present everywhere. People began to call this presence, this power of God, his 'Spirit'. So there is God, the then there is God's Spirit. And then Jesus comes among us and has this oneness with God that has people saying things like God has visited us in the flesh (John 1:14). So God is one, but God has also revealed himself to us as Spirit and then as Jesus. One and yet three. This three-in-oneness understanding of God emerged in several hundred years after Jesus' resurrection. People began to call this concept the Trinity. The word trinity is not found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus didn't use the word, and the writers of the rest of the Bible didn't use the word.
But over time this belief, this understanding, this doctrine, has become central to how followers of Jesus have understood who God is. It is a spring, and people jumped for thousands of years without it (this fact, of course, doesn't make the doctrine any less true. It's been true all along; people just 'recently' discovered it.) It was added later. We can take it out and examine it. Discuss it, probe it, question it. It flexes, and it stretches. It has brought a littler, deeper, richer understanding to the mysterious being who is God. . . .Our words are not absolutes. Only God is absolute... The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up.
It apparently comes from Velvet Elvis, page 22 & 25. Now, I don't have, like 20 pages of heresy to work me up on this, so maybe I'm missing something. But what's so wrong with this understanding of the Trinity? That God self-reveals in multiple ways and yet is still ONE God...and we (the collective human race "we") discovered that and codified it as a doctrine that "we" call the Trinity. Um...what am I missing?
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