Monotheism and a Trinitarian God

I was talking with a Jehovah’s Witness who challenged the idea that Christians can believe in a monotheistic God given that we claim God exists as a Trinity.  Since this is a topic I think every Christian should think through I decided to blog on it in hopes provoking some of you to thought and perhaps making it intelligible to others  So, understandably this JW I encountered could not help but see that there might be a glaring contradiction with our doctrine.  If we believe God is three, then logically we are a polytheistic people, right?  Not so fast.  

First, the Trinity is a doctrine formed about God based on what Scripture points to.  Granted, the model for it has taken some different shapes over the years which suggests that it has been an ongoing work rather than a consistent set of presuppositions.[1]  Nevertheless, the most agreed upon model of our day reads something like God is of one being shared by three co-equal, co-eternal persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

1)      There is one and only one God eternal, inflexibly-holy and all powerful.

2)      There are three eternal persons described in Scripture – The Father, Son and The Holy Spirit.  These persons are never identified with one another – that is, they are carefully differentiated as persons.

3)      The Father, Son and Spirit are identified as being fully Deity---that is to say that the Bible teaches the Deity of Christ and the Deity of Spirit.

Ergo, the question is raised if they are distinct than how can we claim monotheism?  The most crucial aspect to my argument for this is begins with the ancient world’s representations polytheism. 

The vast amounts of texts recovered throughout Egypt and the Mesopotamian world reveal Israel was indeed surrounded by a polytheistic people (Egyptians, Hittites, Sumerians, Akkadians and so forth).  These texts always present similar portraits about their gods (because the ancient world had a congruent worldview) which illustrate a very chaotic power struggle within the heavens, specifically in their creation myths.  These are often epics that include a combative conflict motif between primordial deities which always results in one winning out and usurping cosmological control.  Subsequently, many other deities more or less embraced the hierarchy in the heavens, though there were instances of coups being plotted against the god. Nevertheless, a good portion of the gods were subordinate to the reigning deity even when they did not particularly agree with that god.  Thus, when unity did exist among the god’s cosmological government it was never out of absolute agreement and unity with that deity, but was more often a coerced outward conformity because the reigning god was simply more powerful.   

 

With the Trinity, as we saw, this is not the case and I would propose that monotheism may not be as simple as just the worship or belief of one God (though this was the traditional thought in Second-Temple Judaism’s understanding of the Shema: Deut. 6:4-8) but it could be that monotheism on another level can be found in undividable unity and equality shared between more than one God like in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Perhaps my phraseology makes them sound uncomfortably distinct, but it gets the point across and I do not think it undermines their sacred-shared substance.  Even so, as far as I know this type of harmony and interconnectedness never was said to have occurred between any other deities in those ancient histories and myths.  Yet, the God revealed in Israel’s history and Messiah shows each persons of the Trinity equally participated from the initial act of creation and sustaining of life (Gen. 1:1-2; Jn. 1:1-4) to the outworking of a new creation and new life (2 Cor. 5:17-19) in the face of anti-creational forces (Jn. 10:10-29).      

  

With all this said, I am not going to claim that I have it completely right or figured out and I am okay with that.  Sometimes it is alright to let things about God remain a mystery, though that is a hard thing for the Western mind to do.  No matter how it works out I believe the evidence behind it points to a God that is outside our realm of total comprehension for the time being, but if nothing else offers us a glimpse of his complex vastness and his unique commitment to stay involved in the human story.

[1] Some notable Trinitarian models have been the “psychological model” (I believe this to be erred) which sees three forms of God’s one self-image revealing the heart, mind and will of God in different periods of history.  The model I am a appealing to is what is considered the “social model” which as I illustrate finds unity in the mind, heart and will of three deities/persons.

God is a Misogynist?...

Perhaps it is nothing new to say that the subjugation of women has repeatedly dominated societies. Nor is it new that religious history has often reflected and even perpetuated this. More importantly these assertions, with very few exceptions, would be right.  However, because religious fundamentalists have helped this along, many have attempted to prove through the use of scripture that God somehow favors men over women (though many religions are culpable here I am specifically pointing to Judeo/Christian texts).  I contend, however, that this is not the case simply because it does not reflect the good world God created, but has always remained, Biblically speaking, a symptom of a much deeper problem.

My point begins with God’s divine resolve that man being alone was not a good thing, but decided he needed a helper and in turn made the woman (Gen. 2:18; 22-25).  This idea of a helper is often downgraded and misconstrued as secondary or less important. Yet, the Hebraic phrase used in the Genesis passage translates quite literally into “a helper as in front of him”  which suggests, in ancient Near-Eastern thought, that this corresponding new-creation is not superior to Adam, nor is she an inferior, but stands as his equal.[1]  We run into error when we then read “post human-fall” verses like Genesis 3:16 as God’s new plan for man to rule over woman when in actuality it is the influence of the curse that should not be.  This characteristic of the curse has to do with the good nature of the woman to desire intimacy, but then man wrongly responds in domination.[2]  Thus, the suppression of women in religion and otherwise is completely man-ordained and initiated.  

While there were instances in Hebrew Scripture that point to a reintegration of woman-equality (i.e. Miriam, Deborah, Anna, Esther, all the attention to the plight of widows etc.. Deut. 10:18; Psa. 146:7-9) it is not until Jesus’ life and ministry that God makes new waves to rectify this.  God initiates this change in sending His Messiah into the world by way of virgin conception. This Savior is to break the back of sin and bring redemption to Israel and the world, and yet it begins with a God/woman effort (Matt. 1:18-25).  As side note, Jesus being born of the male gender was representative of humanity as whole and not that of superior gender, but that’s a bunny trail for another time.

Subsequently, this Son of God publicly elevates women and calls attention to her acts of holiness.  In one instance anger arises when a well known “sinful” woman shows great devotion to Jesus through a very symbolic gesture, but Jesus rebukes them saying that not one of them bothered to receive Him as well as she did (Luke 7:36-50).  In another instance Jesus is watching as people give money to a communal offering.  Many rich people were giving large sums of money, but when the poor widow gives her small sum Jesus points out that the rich gave little because it was a little out of their abundance while this woman gave the most because the little she gave cost her all she had (Mark 12:41-44). Most considerably, however, is when Jesus bestows the first glimpse of His resurrected self to the women (instead of His disciples) and entrusts them first with this revelation (Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-9).  It is so significant that it did not benefit the male authors of a hellenized society to add this to their Gospel and yet it is precisely these types of occurrences that continue throughout their accounts.  Nevertheless, we can see that God is not only in the process reinstating woman to her rightful position, but has perhaps all along remained intimately connected and concerned for her all the while sinful cultural-norms worked against her. 

Lastly, it is in light of Jesus that Paul outlines the concept of shared submission within a marital context. This offers a view of man/woman, husband/wife who live out sacrificial and nurturing love as imitators of Christ (Eph. 5:21-33). What Paul points to here is that if the man has a leading role in any of this, it begins with his living a selfless life that makes decisions based out of a real love and concern for the well being of his wife even at the expense of his own.[3]    This is to be the action that reverses the curse of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:16) and thus Jewish and Christian life should have always existed as a counter-cultural affirmation of women.  So, may we become increasingly aware that man, woman, and God were never to be at odds with one another, but have always been purposed for an existence of shared relational wholeness in peace and embrace. 

 [1] Victor P. Hamilton. The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17: NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1990), 175.

[2] Tremper Longman III. How to Read Genesis (Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity Press 2005), 113.

[3] Now I realize that this does not take into account other Pauline scriptures or otherwise that point to various house rules within the church such as women should keep silent (1Cor. 14:34-35) or they should cover their heads (1Cor. 11:2-16)  or even that women should be modest and not braid their hair, or wear gold or silver (Timothy 2:9).   Christians have to become better at distinguishing cultural issues within the first-century church from what actually applies to us today.  Paul was dealing the best he could with the conflicts that arose in the baby churches that existed within ancient social norms and pervading worldviews.