Q & R: The Ethics of the Trinity - Brad Jersak

​ Question:

 

I've been reading your A More Christlike God.  On page 102 you discuss "Trinitarian love". I've always taken the Trinity as a "given," and never really looked into its implications. But as I've read Jason Pratt's Sword to the Heart, I've come to see that the Trinity has significant ethical implications; God Self-Begetting (the Father) and God Self-Begotten (the Son) always treat One another lovingly. If a Person of God were to rebel against another Person of God, all existence would cease. This gets around the "Euthyphro dilemma" in a way that I do not think unitarian faiths can.  What are your thoughts?  

 

Response:

 

You are exactly right. Perhaps more than you even realize.

 

The doctrine of the Trinity explains how God can be One and God can be Love in God's very nature. If not for the Trinitarian relationship of persons within the One God, then God could not be eternal love. God-as-love would only begin with the creation of an object of that love. But a three-personal God means that God is love, even prior to any created object of that love beyond Godself. 

And we must insist that Trinitarian Christianity remains monotheism. We don't worship three Gods. Orthodoxy proclaims the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one in essence and undivided. Note: forever undivided. This is a significant problem for any atonement theory that imagines Father turning from Son. Love ceases? Never. Union of the Godhead is interrupted? Not for a nano-second! 

 

You mention the "Euthyphro dilemma" ... named after Socrates' dialogue with Euthyphro in Plato's work, Euthyphro. I'm glad you caught that. Spot on. In Socrates' words, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” In modern lingo, the essence of the dilemma is "Does God will only to do good because he is the Good? Or is the good called good because God wills it?"

 

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Comments

[Lance]

It is great that these questions come to mind, maintaining monotheism is an important concept to embrace and it brings to thought if a trinity is even necessary,
Just one God is simpler than a confusion of bringing other entities into existence, after all, we are all part of the whole being created in Gods image just as the rest of creation.

[Samuel Kazungu Muramba]

Truly this is a valuable site.