Roger E. Olson

Important Modern (English Language) Books about the Trinity

            Here I’m following up on my recent post about the doctrine of the Trinity. I’m often asked to recommend books about Christian doctrinal themes, so here is my list of “favorite books” about the Trinity.  I’m limiting the list to English language (some are translations) and published within the last century. The focus of the list is on even more recent publications. I am dividing the list into two categories: primary works and secondary works. Primary works are ones that focus on the Trinity and secondary works are those that focus on other theologians’ ideas about the Trinity. Feel free to recommend others. (I am consciously excluding from my list works I consider heretical such as Norman Pittenger’s The Divine Triunity—which is based on process thought.) I have put an asterisk beside the one book in each list that I think you should read if you can only read one. (Of course, out of sheer humility I avoided “asterisking” my own!)

Primary:

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/1 and IV/1

Leonardo Boff, The Trinity and Society

David Brown, The Divine Trinity

Stanley J. Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self

Leonard Hodgson, The Doctrine of the Trinity

Robert Jenson, The Triune Identity

Eberhard Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World

*Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ

Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us

Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom

A. Okechukwu Ogbonnaya, On Communitarian Divinity

Karl Rahner, The Trinity

Cyril Richardson, The Doctrine of the Trinity

Claude Welch, In This Name

Secondary:

Chung-Hyun Baik, The Holy Trinity—God for God and God for Us

Bertrand de Margerie, The Christian Trinity in History

Stanley J. Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God

Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology

William J. Hill, The Three-Personed God

Eberhard Jüngel, The Doctrine of the Trinity (God’s Being Is in Becoming)

Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, The Trinity

*Ted Peters, God as Trinity

John Thompson, Modern Trinitarian Perspectives

Peter Toon and James D. Spiceland, One God in Trinity

Watch for my next post…best books about the Trinity.

However, in honor of this majestic holiday, I declare an interlude for remembrance and renewed celebration.

Does anyone else remember “May Day?”

When I was a kid, it was a sort of holiday. Anyway, we observed it at my schools (elementary and junior high) and home.

May 1 was, of course (still is to some neo-pagans), a Spring fertility festival in pre-Christian Europe. In many European towns (especially Germanic) you can still see a “May pole” in the center of the town. Young ladies (mostly) danced around it on May Day (May 1). I don’t know if they do that anymore. It was, of course, originally a phallic symbol, something very few people remember.

When I was a kid, May 1 was “Government Day” at school. We all marched outside (often in the snow because this was in the upper Midwest), sang patriotic songs while the school band played and pledged allegiance to the U.S. flag. Then the curriculum for the day (especially during an “assembly”) was about our American way of life and how much better it is than…especially those in communist countries.

Of course, May 1 was “International Workers Day” and a big holiday in communist countries. So our school celebrations were directly contrary, planned to oppose, that observance of the day. We often heard talks or watched films about how terrible communism is.

At home…my brother and I dreaded, absolutely dreaded (!) May 1. Our stepmother made us help her create “May baskets” (dainty little woven baskets with brightly colored ribbons on them filled with candy and other “goodies”). Then she drove us around the neighborhood to especially elderly people’s homes. She would park a block away from the target house and we were ordered to jump out of the car, creep up to the front porch of the house, ring the doorbell, put down a May basket and yell “May Day!” and run back to the car before being seen.

Really. I kid you not.

Needless to say, we resisted this practice as soon as we were old enough.

I have never heard of anyone else doing this, so I don’t know where my stepmother got the idea. But it seemed that she had done it as a child and was just passing a tradition on to us. She never was very good at discerning things boys would gladly do from things girls might do more gladly.

I find it interesting that today (and now for a very long time) April Fool’s Day (April 1 in the U.S.) is a much better known and “observed” (if that’s even the right word) “special day” than May 1.

But, nevertheless and whatever…Happy May Day to everyone! (But don’t expect a May basket on your doorstep from me!

 

 

How Important Is the Doctrine of the Trinity?

            Here is a quote from Rowan Williams: “Trinitarian theology, in so far as it is concerned with what ‘kind’ of God Christians worship, is far from being a luxury indulged in solely by remote and ineffectual dons; it is of cardinal importance for spirituality and liturgy, for ethics, for the whole of Christian self-understanding.” (Wrestling with Angels: Conversations in Modern Theology, p. 142) This statement appears near the end of a magisterial discussion of Karl Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity that is equally complimentary and critical. But I lift it out here as a stand-alone statement, independent of the context, because it expresses a kind of over-arching evaluation of the doctrine of the Trinity or “trinitarian hermeneutics.” For Williams, as for Barth, as for numerous other Christian theologians past and present, the doctrine of the Trinity is crucial, essential, indispensable to a robust and healthy Christian view of God.

            The problem is, of course, that many, perhaps most, Christians have little or no understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. And they couldn’t care less. I once was a member of a church with the word “Trinity” in its name. During the eight years I attended there faithfully I don’t think I heard a single sermon on the Trinity. And I am almost sure that had I polled the congregation few would have been able to express, let alone explain, the doctrine of the Trinity.

            But I don’t want to be too hard on the perplexed. The doctrine of the Trinity is perplexing. Augustine said that anyone who denies the Trinity loses his salvation but that anyone who tries to understand it loses his mind. And he said that he did not use the word “persons” (of the trinitarian three) because he wanted to but because there is no alternative.

            I have known many devout Christian believers in and followers of Jesus Christ who struggled with the doctrine of the Trinity. I don’t fault them. At least they struggle with it.

            Let me interrupt myself for a moment to say this: believing in the doctrine of the Trinity is not really the point; the point is to worship the triune God. However, the doctrine of the Trinity, while it cannot replace the triune God in our hearts, must have a place in our minds or else we end up in confusion about who God is.

            Not all orthodox Christian theologians have agreed with Williams (and Barth) about the centrality of the doctrine of the Trinity for right understanding of God. Emil Brunner, Barth’s counterpart in Switzerland and the formation of “dialectical theology,” argued that the doctrine of the Trinity is not the gospel and is not something to preach. He rejected the idea that it is a revealed datum or the structure of revelation (a la Barth). For Brunner, the doctrine of the Trinity is a “defensive dogma”—a human creation intended to protect the deity of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit while maintaining their distinctness from the Father. In other words, it’s a secondary language of faith, not primary.

            John Wesley believed strongly in the doctrine of the Trinity, but he did not insist on belief in it for recognizing someone as a Christian. He knew it perplexed many sincere and devout Christians such as John Milton and many other nonconformists (e.g., Isaac Newton!).

            I would not be as generous as Wesley perhaps was with regard to Arians, those who deny the deity of Jesus Christ. My struggle is with modalists (Sabellians) many of who seem genuinely confused about the doctrine of the Trinity. Some of them I know simply cannot seem to grasp how the doctrine of the Trinity is not belief in three gods. I do not have that problem. My problem is with understanding how a one-person God could be eternally love by nature and even how such a “monadic God” would not need a world for self-realization.

            Back to the main point here. What exactly is the status of the doctrine of the Trinity? Is it an essential of Christian faith such that anyone who does not confess it is not a Christian?

            I remember when I first started teaching theology, a student objected that I had not “explained the Trinity.” I tried to explain to him (and have ever since to numerous students) that one cannot “explain the Trinity.” But one can, and should try to understand and explain the doctrine of the Trinity. We must make a clear distinction between trinitarian dogma and the Trinity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Sure, there’s a connection, but it has to be a tenuous one or else we fall into confusing our ideas about God with God himself.

            But how necessary is the doctrine of the Trinity?

            First, what is the doctrine of the Trinity? Without getting into waters too deep, let’s define it ecumenically and very generally. It is that God is one God eternally existing inseparably and equally as three “persons” (hypostases). But we must immediately qualify that by saying that “person” here, in this doctrine, does not mean what “person” means in everyday American English. Our culture is so individualistic that to us “person” almost automatically connotes “separate self as individual center of consciousness and will.” With Dr. Seuss, we believe the job of a “person” is not to “fit in” but to “stand out.” That creates havoc with the doctrine of God! We must explain that when we say three “persons” we do not mean “person” in the common, American cultural, individualistic sense. What we do mean is not clear.

            One way I express the doctrine of the Trinity to beginning theology students is that God is “one what and three whos.” Inadequate—yes. But a place to start. Actually, all expressions of the Trinity are inadequate. At their very best they differ only in degrees of technical precision. Technically, the classical doctrine of the Trinity is that God is “one ousia and three hypostases.” That’s usually translated “one substance and three subsistences” or “one substance and three persons.” (“Subsistence” is perhaps a better translation of “hypostasis” than “person” but the latter, if explained correctly, avoids the idea that the three are only relations or manifestations.”

            Who can blame someone for struggling with this seemingly arid formula applied to God? And yet who can blame the early Christians for inventing it as a rule to rule out false doctrines of God (such as Arianism and modalism)?

            Much to some perhaps more conservative folks’ chagrin, with Wesley I do not insist on affirmation of the doctrine of the Trinity for authentic Christianity.  It is a clumsy doctrine, no matter how it’s expressed. So is the hypostatic union doctrine of the Person of Christ. I see both as necessary for a correct understanding of revelation and am convinced that most, if not all, God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians actually do believe something like them even if in very confused ways. To be very specific, while I consider modalism a heresy, I consider it a minor one and am convinced that the vast majority of Christians who seem to believe it do not really understand its implications or the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. I have this sneaking suspicion that if I could sit down with them for an hour and talk it over I could dissuade them from their modalism and get them to affirm something like the doctrine of the Trinity even if not its formal language.

            Here I’m agreeing with both Barth (and Williams’ quote above) and Brunner. With Brunner I affirm that the doctrine of the Trinity is not “gospel.” Nor is it part of the gospel we preach. It is a human construct and a defensive one. That God is triune, however, is necessarily implied by the gospel we preach. The biblical story necessarily includes the existence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the unity of God as one God. Anyone who denies the doctrine of the Trinity but affirms the gospel has some explaining to do. I personally don’t think they’ll succeed without affirming the doctrine of the Trinity. But not everyone has arrived there yet. If they are truly God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians (i.e., gospel people who view reality through the biblical story and message) and keep on thinking about it long and hard enough, they will.

Postscript:

Some years ago I spoke on this subject to a group of Christian college presidents. Afterwards, one of them (very well-known conservative evangelical) took my president aside and advised him to “investigate” me with a view to possibly firing me–not for denying the Trinity but for arguing that the DOCTRINE of the Trinity is less than essential for being a Christian. Now there’s a good example of what I consider fundamentalism–not only insisting that a person believe correct doctrine but that he exclude others who don’t believe correct doctrine in the same way. Fortunately my president did not agree.

           

           

This is a talk I gave recently to a Christian youth group.

What Is “God’s Will” and How Can One Find It?

Roger E. Olson

            There is probably no more important and confusing issue for Christian young people than “finding God’s will for life.” Many have heard that “God has a wonderful plan for your life” and been urged to seek God for his will. Whether told to or not, many have concluded that they should wait until God revealed his will or pray fervently for a revelation of his will before making any important life decisions. Many become all tied up in knots wondering what God’s will is for their lives and attempting to find it. Some are paralyzed by uncertainty and miss opportunities; others rush into rash decisions because someone prophesied over them or they dropped their Bible open, pointed to a passage at random and interpreted that as God’s will. Others have followed Gideon’s example and put out “fleeces,” tests to determine God’s will. “God, if you want me to marry Becky, make it rain tonight.”

            Every Christian young person knows this dilemma—some better and more painfully than others. It’s an enduring one—every generation seems to struggle with it. Unfortunately, one of its main causes is also enduring; few pastors, youth pastors, youth counselors, Christian college teachers, seem courageous enough to resolve the dilemma. Why? Because the weight of what I call “folk religion” militates against the obvious solution. Throughout America, perhaps the world, especially evangelical Christians believe in what I call the “blueprint model” of God’s will. I’ll come back to that after I explain “folk religion.”

            Folk religion is the popular, unreflective belief system of the masses. It’s like folk medicine—some truth but also much error. And hardly a substitute for scientific medicine. Folk medicine is not based on rigorous research; it’s based on rumors, clichés, anecdotes, desperation. Now don’t get me wrong; science has discovered that some folk medical remedies and treatments help people cope with pain and disease. But rarely does it contain a cure for any serious illness. What’s an example of folk medicine? “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Sure, an apple a day is good for you, but it won’t keep the doctor away or you away from the doctor if you catch an infectious disease or come down with diabetes.

            Folk religion is similar. It’s what is popularly believed by deeply devout people but without support other than stories, clichés, Bible verses taken out of context, unreflective beliefs based on comfort. For example, a common folk religious saying is that “God helps those who help themselves.” It’s nowhere found in Scripture and the weight of Christian tradition goes against it. In fact, it’s a popularization of a heresy called Pelagianism or at least semi-Pelagianism—the belief that a person can exercise a good will toward God without God’s prevenient, assisting grace. Semi-Pelagianism is one of the common beliefs of at least American folk Christianity. Songs like “The Savior is waiting to enter your heart; why don’t you let him come in?” contribute to it.

            Just as doctors struggle with their patients’ reliance on folk medicine, so theologians struggle with Christians’ reliance on folk religion, folk Christianity. Folk religion is unexamined faith, unexamined belief. Plato said that an unexamined life is not worth living, most Christian theologians (probably all) say the unexamined faith is not worth believing—at least for the mature Christian. That’s why Christian colleges and universities have required courses in religion, Bible and theology—to correct students’ folk religion and raise their faith to a higher level of reflection, critical thinking.

            Back to the issue of God’s will for life. Folk religion quotes Jeremiah 29:11 where God says to the remnant of Israel not taken into exile “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Folk religion takes that verse out of context and applies it directly, uncritically, without examination of its true meaning, to every individual Christian’s life—as if it is a promise that if a person remains devout he or she will prosper and never suffer harm. It’s also used to teach that God has a specific will for each individual’s life and enjoying God’s blessing depends on finding that will and following it closely.

            Of course, most of that is not in the text or the context. First, the prophecy is for Israel in that time and place; it can’t be applied directly to every believer everywhere and at all times. On the other hand, surely God has the same general intention toward all his people. But second, the prophecy nowhere says that bad things won’t happen to the people of God or promise that bad things will only happen if they deviate from his blueprint will for their lives. In fact, no place in Scripture indicates that God has an individual blueprint for each believer’s life.

            Time doesn’t allow me to go into more detail exegeting that passage or talking about folk religion and its many ways of mishandling Scripture. Let me just reiterate that nowhere does Scripture teach that God has an individual, inflexible blueprint plan for each individual life.

            So what do I mean by that? What is an “individual, inflexible blueprint” for life? The folk belief I’m urging you to reconsider, if you hold it, is that God has a detailed design for each believer’s life and that it is the duty of each believer to discover it, live according to it, and that doing so brings blessings from God whereas deviating from it brings a life of sorrow if not disaster.

            Let me illustrate. When I was growing up in church, a church that held “testimony time” every Sunday evening (and my dad was the pastor so I had to be there whenever the doors were open for worship, Bible study or prayer meeting!) a sweet little older lady often spoke of how cursed her life had been because she didn’t follow God’s will for her life. That struck terror in my heart. I was taught by my spiritual mentors that that is the result of “missing God’s will.” I formed the impression, as do many young Christians, that God has a blueprint plan for my life and that it’s my job to find out what it is and follow it—to construct my life according to it. Where to go to college was one big issue for me. Whom to marry—another major issue. What profession to pursue. What job to seek and which job offer to take. All these have been major decisions of my life. And let me assure you that God has led me, but not according to an inflexible blueprint such that any deviation from it brought only misery and a cursed life.

            I was fortunate that early in my Christian life someone gave me a book entitled Decision Making and the Will of God by theologian Garry Friesen. I read it and found it totally liberating. But some of my spiritual mentors strongly cautioned me against it because it contradicting popular belief about God’s will, folk religion.

            Friesen (and later Christian writers who popularized his teaching about God’s will) taught that God does not have a detailed, inflexible blueprint “will” for every life.  Rather, God has a general will for every believer’s life and, when God does want a believer to do something, he tells them, they don’t have to struggle to find it out, and even if they disobey God always has a “Plan B.”

            Now I’m going to paraphrase Friesen and add to his my own explanation of “God’s will” for the individual Christian’s life.

            Every believer is urged by Scripture to receive gifts from God. Some of them may be natural talents to be discovered and enhanced with God’s help. Others are supernatural gifting. The New Testament contains at least three lists of them. They can be found in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4. But, of course, Scripture is filled with lists of characteristics of character that God values in us. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Luke contains some. The fruit of the Spirit listed by Paul in Galatians 5 reveals how God wants us to be formed in terms of character.

            Instead of thinking of “God’s will” as a rigid blueprint, I think of God’s will as a set of paints and a canvas. The canvas is my life. The paints are God’s gifting—some natural and some supernatural. For example, I discerned early in my Christian life, with others’ help, that I had a natural gift for critical thinking. I believe as I sought the Lord for my life he elevated that into discernment. I believe I have a supernaturally elevated gift of insight that is both a curse and a blessing. I exercise it, for example, on my blog. For years I taught a course in a Christian college on cults and new religions and helped many even mature Christians “see” what I saw in certain religious and even Christian movements and fads. This gift inclined me naturally to a life of Christian scholarship, theology, and teaching—in churches and in educational institutions. I have also used it in writing and editing. Often well-meaning Christians have come to me and expressed enthusiasm for a new teaching they encountered in a popular book or in a religious magazine or on television. I have often had to say “No, that doesn’t sound right. Beware. Here’s why.” That often displeases them, but I have to use my gift regardless of how it’s received. Of course, I always use it with love and not hate or even harshness. At least I try.

            For most of us, most of the time, “God’s will” is simply to receive his gifts of character and service and use them to paint a beautiful picture on the canvas of life he has granted us. There is no inflexible, rigid, detailed divine blueprint for every aspect of life such that missing one piece of it, whether through ignorance or disobedience, leads to a miserable existence. No doubt there are life decisions that call for careful, thoughtful, prayerful discernment. However, that discernment process does not involve waiting for a lightening-like revelation of God’s will; it normally involves rational, critical thinking and watching for doors to open and close.

            Most of the time, allowing for exceptions, “God’s will” is simply living a vital Christian life, being shaped in the character of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, walking forward trusting God to guide without intensive focus on a mythical blueprint. When there’s an exception and God wants you to do something very specific he will show you clearly without you having to put out fleeces or pray for a special revelation or drop open the Bible and point at random to a verse expected to be God’s clear guidance about that decision.

TV news reporter sticking a microphone into the bloody face of a first responder at a horrible tragedy in which many people died and were severely injured: “Sir! How did you FEEL when you realized you SON might be missing?” Not the exception but the rule.

Much of a 20 minute (after commercials) national network prime time news cast devoted to a study about “How women really feel about themselves”–at a time when North Korea is saber rattling with threats of nuclear war (among other world shaking events). Not the exception but the rule.

Constant changing of talking heads reading “news stories”–most of them looking like they just stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. Not the exception but the rule.

Obsession with “missing people” who always turn out to be affluent, young, good-looking females. (See the current issue of JET magazine’s cover story “Missing & Black:Where Is the Outrage?”) Not the exception but the rule.

Total reliance on government sources for news about American military actions. Little criticism of the military except for sex scandals involving generals. Not the exception but the rule.

Interviewing talking heads insisting on sound bytes instead of profound, relevant (even if concise) commentary by scholars and real experts. Constant interruption of guests.  Always coming back to “How do you FEEL about….?” Not the exception but the rule.

Almost total ignoring of the rest of the world unless something affects Americans. Not the exception but the rule.

Treating criminal suspects as guilty until proven innocent (if even then). Then dropping the exonerated “suspects” rather than apologizing to them for ruining their lives. Not the exception but the rule.

Difficult, tangled, messy issues treated with bare headlines and a few relatively unimportant “facts” with little to no depth. Switching immediately from a really important story with world shaking significance to a “human interest story” clearly designed for viewers who otherwise wouldn’t be watching “the news.” Not the exception but the rule.

I could go on and on. The state of American “news media” is abysmal. And what’s worse, we’ve gotten used to it and don’t speak up about it. But, then, many of us deserve it. It’s apparently what we want–to be spoon fed simplistic headlines with no real explanation or investigation of the facts, to be entertained with human interest stories about cat ladies and men who jump into freezing water for “health,” etc., and shown funny clips from youtube, to be left ignorant about the rest of the world except when there’s “footage” of a disaster in some far off place we never heard of and will quickly forget the name of, etc., etc.

Years ago I watched, among other news outlets, CNN, and felt truly informed about world and national events. Then I moved to Europe for a year. When I returned I noticed a dramatic change in American news broadcasting and the change continued and got, in my opinion, worse. Now, it seems, the “news” air waves are filled with fluff and sometimes nonsense. A lot of it seems to me to be thinly disguised advertising (“A new type of facelift that costs less and hurts less!”) The line between infomercials and some network “news” stories is becoming difficult to discern. What justifies a five-to-ten minute segment on a news channel about a forthcoming movie (about which there is nothing really special)?

What has happened to real investigative reporting? I used to count on several very well known hour long “TV magazines” for that. They did a wonderful job of exposing corrupt politicians and businesses (and military waste). Now, for the most part, they are devoted to sensational stories about murdered women (always white, affluent and good-looking), sports heroes (still heroic or falling from their pedestals), and off-beat artists nobody outside of New York cares about.

Now I find myself turning more and more often (when watching TV for news) to BBCA.

Recently I spoke with an acquaintance who is dean of a large Christian university and pastor of an evangelical mega-church. He told me (and others) that he was recently contacted by a major national news television network and asked to provide a three  minute comment on “gay marriage.” He rightly refused. He explained to the reporter that the subject cannot be discussed with any intelligence in three minutes. Needless to say, they didn’t use him.

I believe television news, and, to a somewhat lesser extent but increasingly print news media, is being controlled by advertisers and ratings. There is almost nowhere to turn to hear or read journalism unbiased by concern for “what our advertisers will think” and “how our ratings will be affected.” Public television used to be the exception, but it is increasingly relying on a form of advertising (names of supporters mentioned often with brief commercials) and being controlled by fear of loss of government and private grants.

Is this just a pet peeve of mine? I don’t think so. It illustrates two larger social problems we face–the pervasive influence of money over everything and growing appetite (among Americans) for entertainment to the exclusion of real information. I have written letters to major national, regional and local news outlets about these matters and been brushed off as a crank. One newspaper editor took my complaint about changes on the first page of the newspaper seriously and admitted to me that they were due to the need to sell newspapers. (The change was to huge pictures of children, flowers and animals and articles about local people doing “interesting” and funny things and relegation of real news to inside the newspaper with shorter and more shallow coverage.)

I think we, as a whole society, are becoming sheep. The dumbing down process is moving toward the vanishing point (of knowledge) quickly. Not long ago I watched an old movie called “Idiocracy.” It’s pretty crass, even silly, but prophetic anyway. Recently I attended a high school graduation. Several hundred “commenced” in robes and received something on the stage much to the wild applause and noisy celebration of family and friends in the audience. The problem is that even the program stated that “some” of those commencing were receiving “certificates of attendance” rather than diplomas. Nobody would tell me how many or exactly why. But clearly, whoever they were, their families and friends congratulated them with loud cheers even though they were only receiving a piece of paper acknowledging they met minimum attendance requirements. They will no doubt go out into the world claiming to have “graduated from high school” when, in fact, they did not. This is becoming common practice.

I recommend you watch the movie I mention above–not for entertainment (it’s not very entertaining in my opinion) but for the portrayal (if extreme and unlikely) of a future dystopia (partially already here now) resulting from a radical dumbing down of society, a celebrating of ignorance (“I want a president I can sit down and have a beer with!”) and a general attitude of anti-intellectualism and preference for entertainment over serious information.