Theoblogy

Wow.  There was a slew of great comments from which to choose this weekend.  The best comment string, methinks, is under The Orthodoxy of Down Syndrome.  But the top comment goes to Steve D., who commented under Is the Trinity Optional?

I certainly HOPE that one doesn’t have to believe Nicaean
Trinitarianism to be considered Christian. Otherwise, NO ONE could be
considered Christian.

The bottom-line is this: people may say they do, but no one actually believes the Trinity as articulated at Nicaea.

To believe something, one must first think it; if something cannot
exist in the mind, it is incapable of being believed. The Nicaean
Trinity is (in a completely non-colloquial way, but still with the
voice of Vizzini from the Princess Bride) “inconceivable.”

Suppose someone asked you to believe that they knew someone that
knew someone that discovered a “four-sided triangle.” Then after they
saw the dumbfounded look on your face, they asked you to just believe
the mystery.

You can’t believe in the existence of a “four-sided triangle,”
because you can’t conceptualize what it would mean for a triangle, any
triangle, to have four sides.

A human being is not capable of conceptualizing one being as three
persons. You can memorize the words, and even confess them every
Sunday, but you can’t believe them, for you can’t even know what they
mean.

I failed to bring my series of posts on the pragmatics of hell to any kind of a decent conclusion.  I was knocked out of commission for a while by a bad case of stomach flu: It was as if I had taken the toxin of The Toxin Puzzle– except that I was sick for more than just one day — and nobody was offering me any million dollars.  I’ll try to wrap things up a bit better here.

The lesson that seems suggested by the original Toxin Puzzle (concerning intentions, follow above link) and the modified Toxin Puzzle (about belief) is that in the case of states like intention and belief, you can’t get yourself into such a state by having a reason (even a very strong reason) to be in the state in question; rather, you have to have a reasons that recommend the objects of these states — the things these states “aim at.”  (Or maybe we should tone down that “can’t,” and say that having only the first kind of reason at least makes it difficult to be in the state in question.  I’ll get to this issue below the fold.)  The intention one wants to have in the original Toxin Puzzle has as its object the action of drinking the toxin, and what makes it difficult to form the intention is that the agent realizes she will have no reason at all to perform that action: When the time comes to drink the toxin, she will either have the money already, or she will have already missed her chance at it.  In either case, actually performing the action of drinking the toxin will accomplish nothing but to make her sick for a day.  In the modified version (about belief), the object of the belief the agent wants to have is the proposition that she didn’t eat anything the day before, and her problem is that, while she has great prudential reasons for being in the state of belief, she has no evidential reason to think that that proposition is actually true — and strong evidence (in the form of memory) that it isn’t true.

The situation of trying to form a belief for such reasons may have reminded some readers of Pascal’s Wager. . .

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Garret asks a good question in regards to Who Decides Orthodoxy?

Tony,

Thanks for asking good questions and getting us to think. I deeply appreciate it.

Maybe another part could be added on to your statement discussion
and consensus on

orthopraxis… and using new media mobilize
communities to common places of action. And this is being spoken on
behalf of my brother with Down’s Syndrome, who has little use for
intellectual debates on the internet, but a deep need for actions that
shape will shape his and his communities theology.

I am not meaning to diminish the importance of the intellectual
discussion of theology but I do want it to become dualistic and thus
neglect my brother. I also realize that this question is being spoken
from a certain theological perspective but one that I think is
important to this discussion as it proceeds.

I am on my way out to go to work but just wanted to add an opinion before I was out.

Thanks Tony. 

Since I’m probably as philosophically as theologically bent, I’ve often struggled with the more conservative conceptions of orthodoxy because they surely tend to overestimate the ability of many human beings to articulate complex theological ideas.  Jesus (“Come, follow me”) and Paul (“if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will be saved”) both had thresholds of belief to which, I assume, most developmentally challenged persons could rise.

To the argument that we can’t “lower the bar” of belief to chose exceptions in humanity who have the misfortune of a chromosomal abnormality or a tragic brain injury, my counter is that we’re all somewhere on the intellectual spectrum. Take, for instance, intelligence quotient.  Some human beings have very high IQs, and some have very low IQS.  But most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

Definitions of orthodoxy, or “Christian belief,” it seems to me, should be attainable by every — or nearly every — human being, not just those of us within the two standard

deviations of the center of the bell curve of intelligence quotient.  In other words, the threshold of belief would not be attainable by someone who is comatose.  But it should be attainable by someone who has some verbal ability — or even some ability to communicate thoughts.

Some might want to draw the line for the requirements of orthodoxy somewhere within the range of more cognitive function, but because I fiercely believe that developmentally challenged persons are fully human, I draw the line at a place where those persons are included.

(Photo of boy from Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License)

Several readers, when considering the Trinity, Mormonism, and orthodoxy, are wondering about the authority of Nicaea.

Master Doyle:

The two arguments I’ve heard most often to explain why Mormons
aren’t Christian are 1) they believe in extra-Biblical scriptures,
namely the Book of Mormon, and 2) they don’t believe in the Nicean
creed. Isn’t this ironic, believers in one extra-Biblical document shun
those who believe in a different extra-Biblical document.

HiveRadical:

I never understood how the Creedal view on the trinity could be
ultimately defended. For example what happened to the homoousian
trinity when, as Christ says (and regardless the fact that he’s
verbatim quoting OT scripture doesn’t mean he means the words any less,
or that the words are not applicable to his condition) “My God My God
why hast thou forsaken me?”

Had the Father forsaken the Son? How can something of the same
substance forsake itself? Why did Christ say “Touch me not, for I have
not ascended to my Father”?

There was a clear and complete separation if we take Christ at his
words. And if we’re not taking him at His words then I think there are
bigger issues than mere ontology that we have to address. If you think
there was some mystery meaning in why Christ said those things then
you’ve got some clever explaining to do.

Anywho. That’s one of the biggest befuddlements I have about trying
to figure out why everyone is ready to trust an extra-biblical council
on the final word on the nature of God when it’s in such stark contrast
to actual events and statements in the Bible given by Christ himself.

Be careful, kids — this is what got me rejected by Wheaton!

Over at Experimental Theology, Richard Beck has responded to Keith DeRose’s post, “Really Believing in Hell.”

Money Quote:

Going back to Keith’s post, my hunch is that hell is most terrifying
for children in the Concrete Operations stage. In this stage children
have the concrete, logical ability to work out the calculus of
salvation and damnation. Abstractions such as grace are beyond them,
cognitively speaking. A concrete punishment/reward calculus better
suits the cognitive stage they are in. And by doing the theological
math unattenuated by abstractions such as grace most Concrete
Operational children conclude they are doomed to hell.

Nota bene to children’s and youth pastors: read the post and read Piaget.

Seth R., a practicing Mormon, weighs in on the Trinity and, in particular, my chosen trinitarian formulation:

Tony, it’s interesting in the same article where you conclude that
Mormons are not Christians, you admit that you yourself are a “Social
Trinitarian” in bent.

You ought to check out Mormon scholars like Blake Ostler and David
Paulsen. Their central argument and thesis is that Mormonism is
actually social trinitarian. They make a pretty compelling case based
on Mormon scripture in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants.
The idea is that there are three distinct individuals who are perfectly
united in love. Perichoresis I believe is the term. A perfect unity of
will and purpose such that each member of the godhead literally
inhabits the mind of the others. To know one is to know the others.

I myself am an active Mormon and consider myself Social Trinitarian.
I find it to be completely compatible with Mormon scripture and the
statements of Joseph Smith and other LDS leaders. Most Mormons would
not know the correct theological term for their beliefs. But I believe
few would find much to criticize in the language of social
trinitarianism. Some Mormons do tend to lean more tri-theist. But then
again, I’ve found modalism to be pretty darn prevalent in Evangelical
and Protestant circles – even the ministers are almost outright
modalists (though they’d never admit it).

Problem is that both modalism and tri-theism are at least logically
coherent statements about God. Classical trinitarianism tries to have
it both ways and ultimately makes sense neither way. It’s an utterly
illogical and incoherent mess. Social Trinitarianism gets around the
problem by making the unity of the three not one of “substance” (a
purely philosophical innovation the theologians at Nicea beggared from
the Neo-Platonists), but rather a profound unity of purpose, will, mind
and love.

This same sort of unity or perichoresis is at the very heart of the
highest aspirations of every Mormon. I ultimately seek the same sort of
perichoresis with my wife. I hope ultimately to experience it with God
as well. “If ye are not one, ye are not mine.”

Anyway, Social Trinitarianism is very much a possibility for any
Mormon, and indeed, I think various passages in the Book of Mormon
about the unity of God all but demand a Social Trinitarian read on
Mormon theology.

Anyway, I just found it rather odd that a professed Social
Trinitarian would have a problem with Mormonism’s views on trinity. We
basically are social trinitarians, even if we don’t know the correct
term for it.