4.THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE: THEOLOGICAL EXAMINATION
Let us diverge now from the historical aspects of this discussion and examine some of the
theological aspects. The whole doctrine of Jesus’ divinity has been thoroughly examined
in THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE (Ed. J. Hick, Westminister Press, 1977). This
important books is not readily available now. Therefore, I have quoted extensively from
it.
One look at the list of Christian scholars who contributed to this collection shows that it
is not a radical fringe among today’s theologians who reject this doctrine of incarnation,
rather it is a growing number of careful and highly qualified theologians:
Don Cupitt: University Lecturer in Divinity and Dean of Emmanuel
College, Cambridge (UK)
.Michael Goulder: Staff Tutor in Theology in the Department of
Extramural Studies at Birmingham University.
John Hick: H. G. Wood Professor of Theology at Birmingham
University.
Leslie Houlden: Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon.Dennis.THE TRINITY: FACT OR FICTION?1. A Christian is one that believes things his reason cannot comprehend... 2. He believes three
to be one, and one to be three; a Father not to be elder than his Son; a Sonto be equal with his
Father; and one preceding from both to be equal with both; he believing three persons in one
nature, and two natures in one person. 3. He believes a virgin to be a mother of a son, and that
very son of hers to be her Maker. He believes Him to have been shut up in a narrow room
whom heaven and earth could not contain. He believes Him to have been born in time who
was and is from everlasting. He believes Him to have been a weak child, carried in arms, who
is the Almighty; and Him once to have died who only hath life and immortality in himself.
-Francis Bacon.(WORKS, vol vii, p.410)
Lord Francis Bacon, the seventeenth century philosopher and Chancellor of England who
wrote these words, was obviously a believer in the Trinity. The essay quoted consists of
thirty-four such “Christian Paradoxes” which illustrate his belief that:
“The more absurd and incredible any divine mystery is, the greater honor we do to God
in believing it....” (as quoted by James Yates, A VINDICATION OF UNITARIANISM,
Wells & Lilly, 1816, p. 278).
The Trinity has always been a mystery. In fact, it is usually described as a divine
mystery. When I was young I asked several good Christians to explain the Trinity to me.
I was told that the Trinity must be accepted on faith because we cannot always
understand the ways of God. Such an answer requires the acceptance that blind faith is a
virtue.
The concept of Trinity is that “the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is
God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God” (as stated in one of the critical
statements of the doctrine, the Athanasian Creed). These three are all thought of as
uncreated, eternal and omnipotent.
You can see why a confused student is told to accept on faith alone!All this seems to have been confusing for early Christians too. Before the controversy
over the Trinity came to a head in the Councils of Nicene during the fourth century, there
were many different understandings of the nature of Christ, and an even wider range of
understandings about the Holy Spirit. There were those who believed that Jesus was just
a mortal man who had a very special relationship with God. Then there were those who
agreed with Theodotus of Byzantium that Jesus was born a mere man and attained the
ability to work miracles at the time of his baptism. Some of Theodotus’ students later
believed that Jesus became God after his resurrection. And then there were those known
as Monarchians who believed that God and Jesus were one and the same from the
beginning of time.
Many of those same views are still held today by various groups of Christians.SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE
What do we know about the early belief in the Trinity? Clearly the strong Jewish
tradition among the first Christians slowed the initial development of the doctrine. This is
especially true since Jesus never preached it. The only place in the gospels that even hints
at the doctrine of the Trinity are the last verses of Matthew:
Jesus came forward and addressed them in these words: “Full
authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go,
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in
the name ‘of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’”
[Matthew 28:18-19].God is ‘Almighty.’ God uses this word only as a description of Himself:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to
him and said: “I am God the Almighty....”
[Genesis 17:1]‘Almighty’ means by definition that He has all power. There is nothing and no one else
with any real power. All power stems from God, and it is not shared by anyone.
No one else can ever fit that word! There is only One who is Almighty:
I am God, there is no other; I am God, there is none like me.
[Isaiah 46:9] 4+6+9=19 .HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.The recognition of the Trinity as an innovation started very early in Christian history.
Back in the seventh century, the Eastern theologian John of Damascus, in defending his
icons, stated that icons were as unscriptural as the Trinity: “You will not find in scripture
the Trinity or the homoousion [of the same essence as God] or the two natures of Christ
either.”
Yet, having acknowledged that icons, the Trinity and the incarnation are innovations,
John of Damascus continued to defend them because they were “venerable traditions
delivered to us by the fathers.” (See THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE, p. 133.)The trinitarian doctrine developed gradually over several centuries, through numerous
controversies. There were many influences in its formulation and development: the
Apostles Creed (around A. D. 160), the Arian controversy (about A. D. 318 to 380), the
Nicene Council (A. D. 325), the Council of Constantinople (A. D. 381), the Council of
Chalcedon (A. D. 451), and the Athanasian Creed (about A. D. 460) are the major ones.
The Council of Nicaea in 325 initiated the Trinity formula in its statement that the Son is
“of the same essence [homoousios] as the Father,” even though it said very little about the
Holy Spirit. Over the next half-century, Athanasius defended and refined the Nicene
formula. By the end of the fifth century, the doctrine of the Trinity had taken essentially
the form it has today.
The Nicene Creed was originally written in Greek. Its principal liturgical use is in the
Eucharist in the West and in both Baptism and the Eucharist in the East. The following
text has the additions used only by the Western Church in brackets:
I believe in one God the Father Almighty; maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible
and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the
Father before all worlds [God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not
made, being of one substance [essence] with the Father; by whom all things were made; who,
for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy
Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius
Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, with glory, to judge both
the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.The historical development of the Nicene Creed is more complex than most people
realize. It was long assumed that the creed was initially stated in the council of 325 and
then enlarged in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. Discovery of documents from the
period has changed that assumption. What we now take to be the Nicene Creed may
actually have been based on a pre-existing baptismal creed which was enlarged and first
stated at the Council of Constantinople.We know from the proceedings of the Robber Council that there was more than one
version of the Nicene Creed in existence at the time of its convening in 449. This council
was called to judge the case of the elderly head of a local monastery whose understanding
of the nature of Christ was in question. This monk cited an earlier text of the creed than
was currently in use, causing quite a bit of excitement and debate in the council (see
Robert L. Wilken, THE MYTH OF CHRISTIAN BEGINNINGS, Doubleday & Co., 1971).
Even before the formalization of the Nicene Creed, the persecution of those with
nonÄtrinitarian views began. For example, the bishop of Antioch was condemned in a
synod held there around 270 for his reported belief that Jesus was a human being in
whom the Word of God dwelt, much as a person’s reason dwells in him. This was just the
forerunner of centuries of similar persecution against those who did not conform exactly
to the accepted doctrine of the time.
So far what we have mentioned concerns the controversy surrounding the various
understandings of the nature of Christ. There was an equally vehement dispute around the
Filioque clause which is: “and the Holy Spirit...who proceedeth from the Father and
from the son.” This addition of the son’s participation in the Holy Spirit’s existence was
gradually introduced starting in the 6th century. It is accepted only in the Western
Church. The Eastern Church still rejects it as a theological error. Thus the controversy
continues.THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS.We have touched on the historical aspects of the development of this doctrine, but what
of the psychological and theological aspects? John Hick, H. G. Wood Professor of
Theology at Birmingham University, and editor of THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE,
attributes the development of the Trinity doctrine to a human tendency to exalt the
religion’s founder beyond his true identity. As mentioned in Chapter Two, he finds a
parallel in the Buddhist trinitarian doctrine which was never preached by Buddha. Hick
sums up the doctrine of the Trinity as follows:
Returning, then to the theme of the exaltation of a human being to divine status, the
understanding of Jesus which eventually became orthodox Christian dogma sees him as God
the Son incarnate, the Second Person of the Trinity living a human life. As such he was, in the
words of the ‘Nicene’ creed, ‘the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father before all
ages, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the
Father’. But this is...far from anything that the historical Jesus can reasonably be supposed to
have thought or taught....
The expression “God the Son,” an important component of the Trinity, is never found in
the gospels. John Hick points out that “as Christian theology grew through the centuries it
made the very significant transition from ‘Son of God’ to ‘God the Son,’ the Second
Person of the Trinity” (Ibid., p. 175). The Trinity as an innovation is illustrated well by
Michael Goulder, Staff Tutor in Theology at Birmingham University:...I went to visit a patient in hospital. I had to wait, and was shortly joined by two further
Christian ministers, the one a Congregationalist, the other (in my opinion at the time) of an
even lower breed, completely without the law. There being nothing else to do, we fell
naturally to theological disputation, and in the course of time the sister was somewhat startled
to come in as my Congregationalist friend was saying, ‘Well, one thing is certain; he didn’t
think he was the Second Person of the Trinity’. I found the remark doubly annoying—partly
because I had always supposed that Jesus thought he was the Second Person of the Trinity
(although wisely not mentioning the fact), and now it was said, it somehow had the ring of the
obvious. And partly also I did not relish being enlightened by a minister not of the established
church. (Ibid, p. 48).When we look at the Nicene Creed we easily see the human tendency to exaggerate and
to exalt the founder of a religion beyond his own wishes. Referring to Jesus as “God of
God” and “very God of very God” clearly reveals excessive emotionalism and
exaggeration. One is reminded of the folk wisdom that: “Anything that exceeds the
limits, turns to the opposite.” When love exceeds the limits it becomes unbearable
jealousy and possessiveness; it turns into hate. Obviously, the writers of the Nicene Creed
aimed at endearing and exalting Jesus in the eyes of their followers. Their zealous
attempts led to serious distortions of Jesus’ message-to a point that would be horrifying to
Jesus himself:“None of those who cry out ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom
of God but only the one who does the will of my Father in
heaven. When that day comes, many will plead with me, ‘Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not
exorcised demons by its power? Did we not do many miracles in
your name as well?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I
never knew you. Out of my sight, you evildoers!’ ”We cannot study the subject of the Trinity without looking at the views of other, more
recent scriptures. The Quran, for example, condemns in the strongest possible terms both
the concept of Jesus’ divinity and the Trinity:Unbelievers indeed are those who say that the Messiah, Son of
Mary, is God. The Messiah himself said, “O Children of Israel,
you shall worship only God, my Lord, and your Lord.”
Certainly, anyone who sets up an idol to rank with God, God has
forbidden for him Paradise; his sure destiny is the hellfire. Such
evildoers will have no helpers. Unbelievers indeed are those who
saythat God is one third of a trinity. Absolutely, there is no other
god besides the One God. Unless they abstain from such
utterances such unbelievers will incur painful retribution. Would
they not repent before God and seek His forgiveness? God is
forgiver, merciful. The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than
a messenger like the messengers who preceded him, and his
mother was a saint. Both of them used to eat the food. Note how
we clarify the revelations for them, then note how they still
deviate. Proclaim: “Would you idolize, besides God, those who
possess no power to harm you or benefit you?” God is the only
One who is the hearer, the omniscient.
[Quran 5:72-76]
Let us diverge now from the historical aspects of this discussion and examine some of the
theological aspects. The whole doctrine of Jesus’ divinity has been thoroughly examined
in THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE (Ed. J. Hick, Westminister Press, 1977). This
important books is not readily available now. Therefore, I have quoted extensively from
it.
One look at the list of Christian scholars who contributed to this collection shows that it
is not a radical fringe among today’s theologians who reject this doctrine of incarnation,
rather it is a growing number of careful and highly qualified theologians:
Don Cupitt: University Lecturer in Divinity and Dean of Emmanuel
College, Cambridge (UK)
.Michael Goulder: Staff Tutor in Theology in the Department of
Extramural Studies at Birmingham University.
John Hick: H. G. Wood Professor of Theology at Birmingham
University.
Leslie Houlden: Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon.Dennis.THE TRINITY: FACT OR FICTION?1. A Christian is one that believes things his reason cannot comprehend... 2. He believes three
to be one, and one to be three; a Father not to be elder than his Son; a Sonto be equal with his
Father; and one preceding from both to be equal with both; he believing three persons in one
nature, and two natures in one person. 3. He believes a virgin to be a mother of a son, and that
very son of hers to be her Maker. He believes Him to have been shut up in a narrow room
whom heaven and earth could not contain. He believes Him to have been born in time who
was and is from everlasting. He believes Him to have been a weak child, carried in arms, who
is the Almighty; and Him once to have died who only hath life and immortality in himself.
-Francis Bacon.(WORKS, vol vii, p.410)
Lord Francis Bacon, the seventeenth century philosopher and Chancellor of England who
wrote these words, was obviously a believer in the Trinity. The essay quoted consists of
thirty-four such “Christian Paradoxes” which illustrate his belief that:
“The more absurd and incredible any divine mystery is, the greater honor we do to God
in believing it....” (as quoted by James Yates, A VINDICATION OF UNITARIANISM,
Wells & Lilly, 1816, p. 278).
The Trinity has always been a mystery. In fact, it is usually described as a divine
mystery. When I was young I asked several good Christians to explain the Trinity to me.
I was told that the Trinity must be accepted on faith because we cannot always
understand the ways of God. Such an answer requires the acceptance that blind faith is a
virtue.
The concept of Trinity is that “the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is
God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God” (as stated in one of the critical
statements of the doctrine, the Athanasian Creed). These three are all thought of as
uncreated, eternal and omnipotent.
You can see why a confused student is told to accept on faith alone!All this seems to have been confusing for early Christians too. Before the controversy
over the Trinity came to a head in the Councils of Nicene during the fourth century, there
were many different understandings of the nature of Christ, and an even wider range of
understandings about the Holy Spirit. There were those who believed that Jesus was just
a mortal man who had a very special relationship with God. Then there were those who
agreed with Theodotus of Byzantium that Jesus was born a mere man and attained the
ability to work miracles at the time of his baptism. Some of Theodotus’ students later
believed that Jesus became God after his resurrection. And then there were those known
as Monarchians who believed that God and Jesus were one and the same from the
beginning of time.
Many of those same views are still held today by various groups of Christians.SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE
What do we know about the early belief in the Trinity? Clearly the strong Jewish
tradition among the first Christians slowed the initial development of the doctrine. This is
especially true since Jesus never preached it. The only place in the gospels that even hints
at the doctrine of the Trinity are the last verses of Matthew:
Jesus came forward and addressed them in these words: “Full
authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go,
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in
the name ‘of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’”
[Matthew 28:18-19].God is ‘Almighty.’ God uses this word only as a description of Himself:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to
him and said: “I am God the Almighty....”
[Genesis 17:1]‘Almighty’ means by definition that He has all power. There is nothing and no one else
with any real power. All power stems from God, and it is not shared by anyone.
No one else can ever fit that word! There is only One who is Almighty:
I am God, there is no other; I am God, there is none like me.
[Isaiah 46:9] 4+6+9=19 .HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.The recognition of the Trinity as an innovation started very early in Christian history.
Back in the seventh century, the Eastern theologian John of Damascus, in defending his
icons, stated that icons were as unscriptural as the Trinity: “You will not find in scripture
the Trinity or the homoousion [of the same essence as God] or the two natures of Christ
either.”
Yet, having acknowledged that icons, the Trinity and the incarnation are innovations,
John of Damascus continued to defend them because they were “venerable traditions
delivered to us by the fathers.” (See THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE, p. 133.)The trinitarian doctrine developed gradually over several centuries, through numerous
controversies. There were many influences in its formulation and development: the
Apostles Creed (around A. D. 160), the Arian controversy (about A. D. 318 to 380), the
Nicene Council (A. D. 325), the Council of Constantinople (A. D. 381), the Council of
Chalcedon (A. D. 451), and the Athanasian Creed (about A. D. 460) are the major ones.
The Council of Nicaea in 325 initiated the Trinity formula in its statement that the Son is
“of the same essence [homoousios] as the Father,” even though it said very little about the
Holy Spirit. Over the next half-century, Athanasius defended and refined the Nicene
formula. By the end of the fifth century, the doctrine of the Trinity had taken essentially
the form it has today.
The Nicene Creed was originally written in Greek. Its principal liturgical use is in the
Eucharist in the West and in both Baptism and the Eucharist in the East. The following
text has the additions used only by the Western Church in brackets:
I believe in one God the Father Almighty; maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible
and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the
Father before all worlds [God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not
made, being of one substance [essence] with the Father; by whom all things were made; who,
for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy
Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius
Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, with glory, to judge both
the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.The historical development of the Nicene Creed is more complex than most people
realize. It was long assumed that the creed was initially stated in the council of 325 and
then enlarged in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. Discovery of documents from the
period has changed that assumption. What we now take to be the Nicene Creed may
actually have been based on a pre-existing baptismal creed which was enlarged and first
stated at the Council of Constantinople.We know from the proceedings of the Robber Council that there was more than one
version of the Nicene Creed in existence at the time of its convening in 449. This council
was called to judge the case of the elderly head of a local monastery whose understanding
of the nature of Christ was in question. This monk cited an earlier text of the creed than
was currently in use, causing quite a bit of excitement and debate in the council (see
Robert L. Wilken, THE MYTH OF CHRISTIAN BEGINNINGS, Doubleday & Co., 1971).
Even before the formalization of the Nicene Creed, the persecution of those with
nonÄtrinitarian views began. For example, the bishop of Antioch was condemned in a
synod held there around 270 for his reported belief that Jesus was a human being in
whom the Word of God dwelt, much as a person’s reason dwells in him. This was just the
forerunner of centuries of similar persecution against those who did not conform exactly
to the accepted doctrine of the time.
So far what we have mentioned concerns the controversy surrounding the various
understandings of the nature of Christ. There was an equally vehement dispute around the
Filioque clause which is: “and the Holy Spirit...who proceedeth from the Father and
from the son.” This addition of the son’s participation in the Holy Spirit’s existence was
gradually introduced starting in the 6th century. It is accepted only in the Western
Church. The Eastern Church still rejects it as a theological error. Thus the controversy
continues.THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS.We have touched on the historical aspects of the development of this doctrine, but what
of the psychological and theological aspects? John Hick, H. G. Wood Professor of
Theology at Birmingham University, and editor of THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE,
attributes the development of the Trinity doctrine to a human tendency to exalt the
religion’s founder beyond his true identity. As mentioned in Chapter Two, he finds a
parallel in the Buddhist trinitarian doctrine which was never preached by Buddha. Hick
sums up the doctrine of the Trinity as follows:
Returning, then to the theme of the exaltation of a human being to divine status, the
understanding of Jesus which eventually became orthodox Christian dogma sees him as God
the Son incarnate, the Second Person of the Trinity living a human life. As such he was, in the
words of the ‘Nicene’ creed, ‘the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father before all
ages, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the
Father’. But this is...far from anything that the historical Jesus can reasonably be supposed to
have thought or taught....
The expression “God the Son,” an important component of the Trinity, is never found in
the gospels. John Hick points out that “as Christian theology grew through the centuries it
made the very significant transition from ‘Son of God’ to ‘God the Son,’ the Second
Person of the Trinity” (Ibid., p. 175). The Trinity as an innovation is illustrated well by
Michael Goulder, Staff Tutor in Theology at Birmingham University:...I went to visit a patient in hospital. I had to wait, and was shortly joined by two further
Christian ministers, the one a Congregationalist, the other (in my opinion at the time) of an
even lower breed, completely without the law. There being nothing else to do, we fell
naturally to theological disputation, and in the course of time the sister was somewhat startled
to come in as my Congregationalist friend was saying, ‘Well, one thing is certain; he didn’t
think he was the Second Person of the Trinity’. I found the remark doubly annoying—partly
because I had always supposed that Jesus thought he was the Second Person of the Trinity
(although wisely not mentioning the fact), and now it was said, it somehow had the ring of the
obvious. And partly also I did not relish being enlightened by a minister not of the established
church. (Ibid, p. 48).When we look at the Nicene Creed we easily see the human tendency to exaggerate and
to exalt the founder of a religion beyond his own wishes. Referring to Jesus as “God of
God” and “very God of very God” clearly reveals excessive emotionalism and
exaggeration. One is reminded of the folk wisdom that: “Anything that exceeds the
limits, turns to the opposite.” When love exceeds the limits it becomes unbearable
jealousy and possessiveness; it turns into hate. Obviously, the writers of the Nicene Creed
aimed at endearing and exalting Jesus in the eyes of their followers. Their zealous
attempts led to serious distortions of Jesus’ message-to a point that would be horrifying to
Jesus himself:“None of those who cry out ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom
of God but only the one who does the will of my Father in
heaven. When that day comes, many will plead with me, ‘Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not
exorcised demons by its power? Did we not do many miracles in
your name as well?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I
never knew you. Out of my sight, you evildoers!’ ”We cannot study the subject of the Trinity without looking at the views of other, more
recent scriptures. The Quran, for example, condemns in the strongest possible terms both
the concept of Jesus’ divinity and the Trinity:Unbelievers indeed are those who say that the Messiah, Son of
Mary, is God. The Messiah himself said, “O Children of Israel,
you shall worship only God, my Lord, and your Lord.”
Certainly, anyone who sets up an idol to rank with God, God has
forbidden for him Paradise; his sure destiny is the hellfire. Such
evildoers will have no helpers. Unbelievers indeed are those who
saythat God is one third of a trinity. Absolutely, there is no other
god besides the One God. Unless they abstain from such
utterances such unbelievers will incur painful retribution. Would
they not repent before God and seek His forgiveness? God is
forgiver, merciful. The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than
a messenger like the messengers who preceded him, and his
mother was a saint. Both of them used to eat the food. Note how
we clarify the revelations for them, then note how they still
deviate. Proclaim: “Would you idolize, besides God, those who
possess no power to harm you or benefit you?” God is the only
One who is the hearer, the omniscient.
[Quran 5:72-76]
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