Chapter 13

So long....

So friggin' L O N G !

In 1553, a Spanish theologian named Miguel Servetus visited the city of Geneva on his way to someplace else. John Calvin heard that his colleague was in town and gave him a warm Geneva welcome. Calvin threw his butt in jail and had him burned at the stake!

What crime had Servetus committed that deserved such a gruesome death? Servetus denied the Trinity. Thus, Servetus had to die a heretic's death.

Luckily, Calvin is dead, too. Because, I am about to risk some heresy.

I'm a Trinitarian. I always have been. I hesitate, however, to refer to it as the central doctrine of the Faith. I cannot the fact that the Trinity is a Biblical doctrine. I cannot deny that the doctrine is existentially central to the modern Church. However, I have trouble believing that it is central to the Biblical narrative. In other words, we love Trinitarian theology today, but I don't see it being all that popular among the Apostolic Church.

I won't put you through ALL of Calvin's arguments. This chapter was crazy long and pretty thick. So, let's just take pot shots at one portion.

In my opinion, the toughest of the Trinity's persons to prove as divine is the Holy Spirit. I'm not saying the Bible does not refer to the Spirit as God; I believe it does. However, you've got to be looking for it to find it. Let's see how Calvin finds it.

Calvin relies heavily on 'interchangeability.' This is a hermeneutical method where you equate two terms because they used as if one could be substituted for the other. So, for example, Calvin writes

" Peter, when he rebuked Ananias for having lied to the Holy Spirit said, that he had not lied unto men, but unto God"

Thus, God = Holy Spirit. Got it? But, is this proof of divinity? If it is, you could start making all kinds of things into God. Angels are sometimes referred to as God (especially OT). And, even Scripture is used interchangeably with God. Notice, for an example, Galatians 3:8:

Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”

Actually, the Torah records God as speaking the Abrahamic Covenant. So, is Scripture God? Are angels God? This Trinity is getting crowded!

Obviously, I do not think that Angels and books are part of the Godhead, they are expressions of the Godhead - communications and representations. But, I hope this shows the weak hermeneutical device that Calvin utilizes. I also hope that I can offer a word of caution about Trinitarianism.

The Trinity is a beautiful, complex, and nuanced doctrine. It was a little too fancy for one Spaniard. When Servetus looked at the Doctrine of the Trinity, he saw very little scripture and a whole lot of Greek philosophy. I can understand how he would observe that. It is a fair critique.

Perhaps when we think and teach about the Trinity, we should focus less on the philosophical nuances derived from hermeneutic implications and more on the explicit statements of Scripture. Remember, Christ and the Father are One and he prayed that we could be one in the same way. Whatever that means, we probably shouldn't be burning eachother at stakes. When we pursue the illusive Trinity of the Godhead, we should also be pursuing the even more illusive Unity of the Church.