I read this a long time ago, and always found it helpful (from C.S, Lewis “Trinitarian Help”):
But this is from the Catholic Encyclopedia (on “Divine Providence”):
If “God beholds all things together in one comprehensive act, and by the same act produces, conserves, and concurs in all things,” wouldn’t it be just as true to say that God eternally creates the universe, as it is to say that He eternally begets The Son?
Wouldn’t it be just as true to say that there never was a time when God was without the universe, as it is to say that there never was a time when The Father was without The Son?
Doesn’t Pantheism make more sense than Trinitarianism?
Regardless, it does sound to me as if Lewis’ logic is self-defeating there. My understanding of “begetting” is one of order; One has to be in place first in order to beget another, just as it is used in the biblical geneaologies.
One of the difficulties I have with Trinitarianism is that it often stumbles over itself in the logic used to defend it.
I take it you have a problem with the following logic.
That’s not where my problem is, and that logic seems almost inescapable to me, as a past eternity of linear time creates a lot of unanswerable questions (whether you’re a Theist or an Atheist.)
For example, how could the singularity that led to the big bang have ever reached critical mass, if it was building up to that point for an infinity of time before the explosion?
Similarly, how could God have arrived at the point of deciding to create the universe, if He was thinking about it forever?
And if He wasn’t thinking about it “forever,” what was He “forever” doing before creation?
Because as soon as you say that linear time had no beginning (whether you’re a Theist or an Atheist), you’re saying that time was “forever” flowing from one point to the next before it arrived at whatever beginning you can speak of.
Perhaps that’s why the best minds in Theology and Physics actually agree that linear time had (or has) a beginning (i.e. that there is/was something else, before/above/outside linear time.)
Einstein’s theory of relativity actually supports Augustine, Aquinas, the Scholastics, and Lewis on that point.
What I have trouble with is differentiating between God and His creation (at least in relation to what causes things to happen here in time–please see the topic heading on Divine Providence (Catholic Encyclopedia), where I’d really appreciate some thoughtful comments.)
From God’s perspective, and if we’re only talking about the temporal notion of eternality, yes.
There is still a total ontological distinction between God (in any Person of the Trinity) and not-God creation: the eternal self-generational self-existence of God is categorically different from any created reality, even though if we express Nature’s creation in relation to God by terms of natural time logically we would say God “always creates” Nature.
Sure, once the underlying topical connections are more clearly expressed. But that makes exactly no difference to the question of supernaturalistic theism (trinitarian or otherwise) vs. naturalistic theism (pantheism).
As Mel says, it does mean that panentheism is true: all things are in God. But just because all things are {en} God doesn’t mean that all natural things (or even God Himself in a different but related way) aren’t also ek “from” God. The scriptures claim both things; so do supernaturalistic theists when we remember that the most logical implications of supernaturalism involve God’s immanence as well as transcendence to Nature.
(Some supernaturalistic theists do try to radically minimize, ignore or deny God’s immanence, and only focus on or acknowledge the transcendence. In English those theists came to be known in relatively modern times as “deists”. But they are very strongly distinct, and strongly distinguish themselves, from most Judeo-Christian theists, especially orthodox trinitarian Christian theism.)
When someone claims only panentheism is true, then they’re amounting to pantheism. When someone claims only panektheism is true, then they’re going the route of what has come to be called deism. Each side would try to claim that only one or the other could be true, but most supernaturalistic theists (including ortho-trin Christians, myself included, too ) claim both are true (even if not in exactly that terminology).
Anyway, no, what you’re talking about doesn’t amount to pantheism, even though it would also be true if pantheism was true.
No, my logic problem comes from Lewis’ second paragraph:
“I said a few pages back that God is a Being which contains three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube contains six squares while remaining one body. But as soon as I begin trying to explain how these Persons are connected I have to use words which make it sound as if one of them was there before the others. The First Person is called the Father and the Second the Son. We say that the First begets or produces the second; we call it begetting, not making, because what He produces is of the same kind as Himself. In that way the word Father is the only word to use. But unfortunately it suggests that He is there first-just as a human father exists before his son. But that is not so. There is no before and after about it. And that is why I think it important to make clear how one thing can be the source, or cause, or origin, of another without being there before it. The Son exists because the Father exists: but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son.”
Lewis’ assertion here that the Father begetting the Son misleads us into thinking that the Father was there before the Son actually defies what the word “begotten” means in the biblical text. It still means something different than “created” (begotten implies producing something of the same kind), but that doesn’t preclude an order to it, even within “eternity”. What confuses us is our notion of eternity surrounding this theological quandary. The scriptures however do not speak of eternity, at least not in the way that we understand it (we typically view it as either a succession of time progressing infinitely, or as a static “always now”).
At any rate, Lewis’ logic there is basically question-begging. He claims that one thing can be the source, cause, or origin of another without being there before it; yet this flies in the face of what the word begat/ begotten, etc. means; as well as at least the words “cause” and “origin”, and probably “source” also.
The word begat/begotten doesn’t have to have an intrinsically temporal meaning. Consequently, it only involves temporal sequence (an origin of something from something existing temporally before it) when applied to temporal entities.
I do however agree that Lewis put the matter in a question-begging manner, keeping in mind that this is from Mere Christianity where Lewis is trying to overly simplify things for the widest possible audience. Consequently he doesn’t start by engaging in a wire-thin metaphysical argument and/or tons of exegetical argument to arrive at the trinitarian notion of Christ and then argues that the term “begotten” is usefully accurate an analogical reference to one part of the concept of natural begetting (kind from kind) and not in another part of the concept of natural begetting (temporal sequence of something not existing and then existing).
He’s only trying to synopsize doctrines already developed elsewhere by other people, to try to give non-theologians an idea of what the trinitarian theologians are talking about.
I have just re-read St Gregory of Nazianzen’s Theological Orations and posted my reflections over at the Monachos board. My postings may or may not be of interest to folks here, but I do commend the Orations to those interested in this subject. I also found it helpful to read John Behr’s commentary on the Orations in his two volume The Nicene Faith.
St Gregory might prove helpful here because he virtually rejects all analogies and illustrations as misleading and unhelpful. And I think he’s right. We are, after all, talking about transcendent mystery. Our language necessarily breaks down. This is one thing that Gregory’s opponents (i.e., the Eunomians) apparently did not get. They thought that they could speak about deity in literalistic fashion. Hence they were always posing various puzzles and conundrums, as if they could disprove the Trinitarian faith through their verbal acrobatics. At various points one can almost feel Gregory’s frustration. He’s not interested in playing linguistic games. He only wants to speak faithfully about the ineffable God who is self-revealed in the biblical story.
In some ways, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as opposed to the Holy Trinity itself, is really quite simple. It simply seeks to articulate who and what God must be if the God of Israel has truly raised Jesus from the dead and poured out his Spirit upon the Church.
Thanks for that, akimel.
I must admit that although I have serious logical and scriptural misgivings about trinitarianism (not that there aren’t good logical arguments for it), I definitely fall more on the side of Gregory; of struggling with the attempt to confine the nature of a transcendent God into analogies and illustrations that ultimately confuse the issue rather than help us understand it. But opposite to your closing comment, I actually have more problems with the doctrine than the idea itself.
) claim both are true (even if not in exactly that terminology).