Saturday, September 8, 2018

The implicit doctrine



"The Doctrine of the Trinity" is a book defending non-Trinitarian Christianity from a theological and historical viewpoint. The authors, Sir Anthony Buzzard and Charles Hunting, founded a non-Trinitarian denomination in the United States, known as Restoration Fellowship. It's affiliated with the Church of God General Conference.

Buzzard and Hunting deny both the Trinitarian position (Jesus was God the Son incarnate) and the "Arian" position, according to which Jesus while not fully divine was nevertheless a pre-existent heavenly being. Thus, the authors reject the position of the Jehovah's Witnesses, which claim that Jesus was the archangel Michael. Buzzard and Hunting holds that Jesus was not pre-existent in any sense. He was fully a human being, albeit one supernaturally conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of Mary. Jesus was the Messiah in a "Jewish" sense, and therefore not in any sense part of the Godhead.

Many of the author's concrete arguments would be familiar to readers versed in this controversy: "God" or "gods" can mean different things in the Old Testament, "worship" in the New Testament can also mean different things depending on context, Jesus affirmed that God was One, Paul differentiates between God the Father and Jesus Christ, etc. No verse in the Bible explicitly mentions the Trinity or explains what this could possibly mean. Other arguments might be more specific to Buzzard and Hunting, since they reject all pre-existence. Thus, they believe that neither Luke nor Matthew knew anything about Jesus prior to his supernatural conception. Buzzard and Hunting also openly sympathize with two early "heretics", Paul of Samosata and Photinus of Sirmium.

But what about the passages in Paul which seem to imply pre-existence and equality with God? What about the Word in John, and other startling statements in the same gospel? The authors believe that passages seemingly implying pre-existence should be read in a "Jewish" manner. The Jews didn't believe in a pre-existent Messiah, but sometimes figuratively referred to him in such a manner to express God's eternal foreknowledge or plan, in which the Messiah plays the central part. In the same figurative way, Jews said that the Torah was pre-existent. The authors regard Wisdom and other personified divine attributes as impersonal. In the same way, the Word or Logos is an impersonal divine power, not a personal and pre-existent Son. Naturally, they reject the Trinitarian notion that Jesus is talking about pre-existence and divinity when claiming "Before Abraham was, I am". This too is figurative or an expression of rank rather than chronological priority.

The book isn't bad, and the main point of the authors is obviously correct: the Trinity is never explicated in the New Testament, and in its present form hails from the fourth century. However, it could still be argued that the divinity of Jesus is implicit in the NT. There are some other problems with Buzzard's and Hunting's theology, as well. Thus, the authors believe that Jesus could save humanity only if he was fully human, which rules out both divinity and angelic pre-existence. However, the authors affirm the virgin birth. But being supernaturally conceived by God's energy *also* sets Jesus apart from other humans, including his own siblings! The authors point out that neither the detractors of Jesus in Nazareth, nor his own family, knew him as divine. A historical-critical scholar could point out that they didn't seem to know about his virgin birth, either! Buzzard and Hunting feel justified in affirming the virgin birth due to the prophecy of Isaiah, but *no* Jew interpreted the relevant passage as referring to a virgin birth of the Messiah. Yet, the position of the Jews on monotheism or Messiah-ship is important to the authors in all other contexts. Why not here? Indeed, the idea of a virgin birth is alien to Judaism, but very common in paganism where semi-divine heroes often emerge in various supernatural ways. At another point, the authors admit progressive revelation, as obviously they must, but if Paul knew things unknown to the Gospel writers, why can't the Church fathers have known things unknown to Paul?

Buzzard's and Hunting's interpretation of the Word also strikes me as problematic. On the one hand, they seem to suggest that Jesus didn't exist in any sense whatsoever before the supernatural conception in Mary's womb. Here, it sounds as if Jesus was the Word made flesh only in a figurative sense. He was a creation of the Word, which is God's creative energy. In other passages, however, the authors seem to believe that Jesus was the Word made flesh in a more literal sense. The Word really did become Jesus. But the Word, as God's creative activity, is supposed to be fully divine! If so, it's difficult to see the *real* difference between the position of the two authors and the "Arian" position, since in both cases something divine manifests (or incarnates?) as a human. I realize that this might not be what Buzzard and Hunting had in mind, but their position strikes me as contradictory and unclear on this point. An outsider, a Jew or Muslim say, might wonder what the fuzz is really about between Trinitarians, Arians and the Restoration Fellowship!

The above are theological problems, and since I'm not a Christian, I admit I'm playing "the Devil's advocate" here (pun unintended). However, I also have some historical-critical issues with the book. As already mentioned, the Jewish position on monotheism and the Messiah are important reference points for Buzzard and Hunting. Recent scholarly research suggests, however, that Judaism was extremely heterogeneous at the time of Jesus and the apostles. This makes it problematic to argue that Jesus must have been obviously "Jewish" in the Rabbinical sense. The authors have a tendency to project Rabbinical Judaism onto the time of Jesus, but they are forced to admit that Jesus often sounded enigmatic to his fellow Jews, including the Pharisees (the precursors of the Rabbis). This is no doubt true, but suggests that Jesus wasn't as obviously "main-stream Jewish" as the authors wish to believe. Buzzard and Hunting also project the old Judaism of the Torah on the time of Jesus, thereby arriving at a Judaism that denies the immortal soul. But this was *not* the position of the Pharisees or the later Rabbinical Jews, but rather the position of the authors themselves (who believe in soul-sleep á la Adventism).

Many recent studies of first century Judaism suggests that it might not have been monotheist in "our" sense of that term, since belief in and supplication of powerful intermediary figures between God and man were common. These intermediaries included angels and exalted humans like Enoch and Elijah. The line dividing these exalted persons and the personified attributes of God (such as Wisdom) wasn't always clear. The angel Yahoel even wore part of God's holy name! While this isn't the same thing as the Trinity of Athanasius or Augustine, it *is* a more complex conception of God, his powers and his heavenly intermediaries than the super-strict monotheism demanded by Buzzard and Hunting. It's even more close to the "Arian" position they also reject. Indeed, it's not even clear whether traditional Judaism was strictly monotheist in the Rabbinical-Protestant sense of that term.

These themes are explored further in Larry Hurtado's book "How on earth did Jesus become a god" and Margaret Barker's "The Great Angel". Hurtado believes that Jesus received corporate worship from the early Christians of a kind usually reserved to God (Yahweh) even by the most deviant Jewish groups, suggesting that the apostles really had introduced a novel element not to be found anywhere in Judaism. The novelty would be that Jesus was so exalted that he in effect took over some of God's exclusive prerogatives. Of course, Buzzard and Hunting could always claim that this is progressive revelation and that Jesus received these extraordinary honours only after the resurrection and ascension. But even if we grant this, it still means that the roots of Trinitarian (or Arian) thinking go much deeper than Platonizing Church Fathers, scheming bishops or vile Roman emperors...

I nevertheless recommend "The Doctrine of the Trinity" for those who want a competent defence of the non-Trinitarian position. Another important book of a similar kind is "Truth in translation" by Jason David BeDuhn.

No comments:

Post a Comment