Limits of Human Reason
A common problem that people have with both the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Trinitarian Theology), and with the two natures of Christ (Christology) is the very simple idea of maths. Either way, trying to reconcile 1+1+1=1 or 1+1=1 doesn’t work (short of trippy, funky maths which, aside from being beyond my understanding, is really rather beside the point).
But, it’s not supposed to work based on our logic – if God were small enough to fit in our heads, He would not be big enough to worship. We have to be willing to admit that God is bigger than us. In the same way as we can look at the world around us and comprehend it without it comprehending us, God comprehends us without us comprehending Him. In fact, moreso – God created us, so the relationship is not dissimiliar to God knowing us like an engineer knows their building, or a watchmaker knows their watch, or a programmer knows their program.
“certum est, quia impossibile / it is certain–because it is impossible.” – Tertullian, 2nd Century AD
How could humans come up with something like Trinitarian theology? It’s a mess and, on quite a number of levels, almost impossible to defend – it took the Church until the late 300s to have the final church-wide (i.e. second ecumenical) council on Trinitarian theology, and until the late 600s to have the final Church-wide (i.e. sixth ecumenical) council on the subject of Christology.
But, the point is that we didn’t come up with it. If humans had, then humans would feel quite free to change it – and many did try. Rather:
“We cannot change these things, because we did not make them. They came from above.” – Abp Stylianos of Australia, 2002.
Because the Trinity was revealed to us, because the two natures of Christ are so blatantly revealed to us, we do not have the luxury of changing them so that we get better advantage in a debate, nor the luxury of changing to a more defensible position. We must be true to what we have seen and beheld, not to what we can logically defend.
And so, we believe the logically impossible – or rather, we see the limits of human logic and human intelligence. At some point, we must realise that we can’t go further – our brains aren’t big enough, we aren’t ready, we’re not quite ‘solid’ enough…and we must simply bow before the mystery.
I used to think that mind was a component of soul. I now know that it is not. Th soul exists independently, but in the fallen state is indistinguishable from mind.
On the Trinitarian “mess”. We know that to see the Father is to see the Son. In His transfiguration the LORD told Peter, James and John that their Lord was His beloved Son and that they should listen to Him. How could they not? Likewise, how can we not?
The point I am making here is this. That the LORD is Sovereign, a truism that causes many to uhmm and uhrr. The things of God, just don’t fit into nice, neat categories.
A well structured and interesting blog. Well done!