Monday, September 19, 2022

key excerpts from Chesterton's chapter on Paradoxes and Christianity in "Orthodoxy"

Here's the link I'm using for an electronic copy to make the comments below...

P #3 on pg. 1 is the chapter's thesis.

Pg. 3-4 describes the various and often contradictory attacks on C-- and how by reading skeptics, he was driven to embrace C as a far-better logical alternative
End of pg. 5 into pg. 6 describes attacks on C which seem to have other agendas
2nd P on p. 6 is the irony that C is either correct or terribly wrong-- from Heaven or Hell, if you will. This is similar to Lewis' on Christ's claims to deity-- as either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic.
And then with the last P on p. 8, he works through a bunch of examples.

Sunday, September 18, 2022

my response to a question about the Trinitarian nature of the Christian God

 Good AM...I love you and hope you are doing well!

All of those are intuitively appealing and have support from the Scriptures. But there are many verses which go further-- indicating something more than simple monotheism (e.g., the plural of Gen 1's "let us man in our image") and claiming that Jesus and Holy Spirit are deity (most notably, Jesus Himself claims deity, leading to the famous Lord/Liar/Lunatic/Legend dilemma).

More broadly-- and this doesn't prove anything, but is still important to consider-- there is always a tendency to deal with our inability to understand an infinite God, by reducing Him in some way to something simpler that we can fully understand. Unfortunately, when we simplify too much, in error, the result is not simple, but simplistic (and heretical). It doesn't have to be the case on this doctrine-- although I'm hard-pressed to imagine a better example (perhaps free will / predestination?)-- but in what areas is one's theology unable to fully comprehend an infinite God? If the answer is none or rarely so, then the odds increase that one has drifted into heresy.

One more thought-- on the practical implications of the Trinity as doctrine. If God is Himself "in community", it underlines the importance of community for our well-being. Again, this is not a proof, but the doctrine lines up with the emphasis on community throughout the Scriptures-- and encourages us to embrace the sort of community which is pressed as crucial throughout the NT.

Finally, have you read Chesterton's paragraph on the paradoxes of the faith?