Refashioning the Trinity

What follows is not really news, but since I only managed to find out about this myself today, I thought I would pass it along, just in case I am not the only one to have missed this. You would think that such a central and fundamentally bedrock doctrine like the Trinity would not be up for debate. Well if that was what you thought, and I certainly did, the Presbyterian Church, USA set out to prove you & I wrong at their last General Assembly back in June of 2006. A paper was presented by The Theological Issues and Institutions Committee of the 217th General Assembly and approved that "affirms Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the church's anchor language for the Trinity, but lifts up other biblical images of the Trinity for study and use in worship."

The Trinity has been a doctrine in solid standing in the church for many centuries. Church fathers defended its inclusion along with other doctrines of the church such as the divinity of Christ arguing that God reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the pages of the Bible. Early heresies such as modalism claimed that God merely appears in three forms but is not indeed three persons in one God. The early church father vigorously defended the Trinity as a doctrine of truth, based exclusively on the identification of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the pages of the Bible.

So, what then are these "biblical images" that the PCUSA saw fit to include in their understanding of the Trinity.

• Mother, Child, and Womb.
• Lover, Beloved, Love
• Creator, Savior, Sanctifier
• Rock, Redeemer, Friend
• King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love

Is your head hurting yet? What are the issues with using these descriptors. Let's take them one at a time.

• Mother - God reveals Himself as Father, not Mother. Seeking to be inclusive should not try to correct God's self identification or expand upon it.
  
• Child - Sure Christ was at one time a child, but He did not remain as such, though for all eternity He remains the Son.
  
• Womb - This is a place and not a person.
  
• Lover - Are we then the Father's lovers? Kind of an incestuous implication.
  
• Beloved - Jesus was the Father's beloved, but my own name means Beloved.
  
• Love - True God is love, but why is the Holy Spirit given this as a name?
  
• Creator - The Apostles' Creed does call the Father "creator of heaven and earth," yet the early church fathers still saw fit to use Father as a name or title and creator as merely a descriptor.
  
• Savior - One ought not deny that Jesus is Savior. I just also believe that one also ought not shy away from using the name Jesus Christ. That is the name that is the stumbling block, not the concept of a savior in general.
  
• Sanctifier - Yes, this is part of what the Holy Spirit does, but again it is limited in its scope in helping one understand the Holy Spirit.
• Rock - With apologies to Dwayne Johnson that is an object not a name.
  
• Redeemer - Again I would not deny that Jesus is our Redeemer, but as with Savior why does this change help?
  
• Friend - Once again why is the Holy Spirit the one singled out at a friend to the exclusion of the others (remember that the core of the Athanasian Creed teaches not only the unity of the Trinity but also the ways in which each member is distinct from the others)
  
• King of Glory - Was the Son not also called King?
  
• Prince of Peace - Same as with Savior and Redeemer, this is a title that is biblical but limited in scope for use in worship as such.
  
• Spirit of Love - I am not sure what to do with this. A bit new-agey to me.
  

As you can see the last version (and the 3rd) of the Trinity that the PCUSA approved for worship is the least troubling, and I would say the most "biblical." Still I cannot find a good reason to make this kind of an inclusion. If as the approved paper they believe that "Our need and desire to worship confront us with the inadequacy of our language for God" then I simply would ask why include less adequate language than the original language that God used and commanded us to baptize in. That of course what a point that came up in discussion with my associate pastor, who talked about the discussions of whether to accept a baptism in the name of the Mother, Child, and Womb as valid in seminary last year. Those had to be fun discussions.