I'm learning a few things about the development of Christian doctrine. Now, some might argue that doctrines aren't supposed to undergo development, as any such development would amount to an apostasy from “the faith once and for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
A good case can be made for the legitimacy of doctrinal developments — changes in, or additions to, doctrines brought about by further reflections on basic teachings and the necessity of responding to changing times and circumstances. The history of the Church tells us that there have been many of such developments in doctrine. The Trinity doctrine is one. Obviously a lot of people here—the majority, I think—believe that the Trinity is a negative development that has to be rejected. I can't say I completely disagree with this sentiment.
However, in my experience, both defenders and critics of the doctrine don't pay enough attention to the history of its development. Both the sola scriptura trinitarian and the sola scriptura Unitarian would be mistaken to think that the truth or falsehood of the Trinity doctrine stands or falls with how the doctrine squares with biblical proof texts. In other words, you can neither prove nor disprove the Trinity doctrine with the sola scriptura principle firmly in place; no amount of prooftexting can settle the Trinitarian-Unitarian dispute. Once I realized this, I lost interest in the debate, especially since I no longer believe in the sola scriptura principle.
As long as sola scriptura sets the terms for the debate, the argument becomes (as one can see from the ubiquity of Unitarian vs. Trinitarian debates on YouTube) interminable; the issue is never settled.
It's high time people recognised and took seriously the fact that the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity was birthed in a different time and place, in answer to a different set of questions.
The early Church Fathers appealed to Scripture, for sure. But how they read and interpreted Scripture is different from how the modern Christian reads and interprets the Bible (even "the Bible" as we know it wasn't there for them).
Their worldview too is markedly different from ours. And our worldviews inevitably shape our thoughts, especially our thought about the God-world relation. So those involved in the christological debates, being men (they were almost exclusively male) of their time, had no choice but to frame the discussions in the best way they knew how—using Greek philosophical ideas, in the same way we also think and talk about God and the world using modern categories of thought. There's nothing unchristian in this, as far as I can tell.
What I'm trying to say is that the modern christological debate between Unitarians and Trinitarians—when conducted within a strictly sola scriptura framework of understanding divine revelation—tends to generate much more heat than light. This is the case because the doctrine did not, and for most orthodox theologians even today, does not presuppose that the Bible alone (which, mind you, did not exist as such when the creeds were developing) is the source of Christian doctrine. The Bible is a source, not the source of Christian doctrine—even for staunch advocates of sola scriptura, there are implicit philosophical presuppositions underlying their reading of Scripture. For example, the assumptions that God, being perfect, must have given us a perfect Bible and that an imperfect Bible can't guarantee doctrinal truth are both (extra-biblical) philosophical assumptions subject to debate.
So both sides do well to remember that the Trinity isn't true or false simply because "the Bible says" so. It's probably true or false to the extent that it expresses as fully as possible the truths to which the Church's Scriptures, worship and experience of salvation bear witness, to paraphrase Maurice Wiles, The Making of Christian Doctrine (p. 181).
In case you want to see the source of the reasoning behind this write-up, the above-cited book and A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon are good.
As usual, this is meant to provoke discussion and not to make any dogmatic declarations.
A good case can be made for the legitimacy of doctrinal developments — changes in, or additions to, doctrines brought about by further reflections on basic teachings and the necessity of responding to changing times and circumstances. The history of the Church tells us that there have been many of such developments in doctrine. The Trinity doctrine is one. Obviously a lot of people here—the majority, I think—believe that the Trinity is a negative development that has to be rejected. I can't say I completely disagree with this sentiment.
However, in my experience, both defenders and critics of the doctrine don't pay enough attention to the history of its development. Both the sola scriptura trinitarian and the sola scriptura Unitarian would be mistaken to think that the truth or falsehood of the Trinity doctrine stands or falls with how the doctrine squares with biblical proof texts. In other words, you can neither prove nor disprove the Trinity doctrine with the sola scriptura principle firmly in place; no amount of prooftexting can settle the Trinitarian-Unitarian dispute. Once I realized this, I lost interest in the debate, especially since I no longer believe in the sola scriptura principle.
As long as sola scriptura sets the terms for the debate, the argument becomes (as one can see from the ubiquity of Unitarian vs. Trinitarian debates on YouTube) interminable; the issue is never settled.
It's high time people recognised and took seriously the fact that the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity was birthed in a different time and place, in answer to a different set of questions.
The early Church Fathers appealed to Scripture, for sure. But how they read and interpreted Scripture is different from how the modern Christian reads and interprets the Bible (even "the Bible" as we know it wasn't there for them).
Their worldview too is markedly different from ours. And our worldviews inevitably shape our thoughts, especially our thought about the God-world relation. So those involved in the christological debates, being men (they were almost exclusively male) of their time, had no choice but to frame the discussions in the best way they knew how—using Greek philosophical ideas, in the same way we also think and talk about God and the world using modern categories of thought. There's nothing unchristian in this, as far as I can tell.
What I'm trying to say is that the modern christological debate between Unitarians and Trinitarians—when conducted within a strictly sola scriptura framework of understanding divine revelation—tends to generate much more heat than light. This is the case because the doctrine did not, and for most orthodox theologians even today, does not presuppose that the Bible alone (which, mind you, did not exist as such when the creeds were developing) is the source of Christian doctrine. The Bible is a source, not the source of Christian doctrine—even for staunch advocates of sola scriptura, there are implicit philosophical presuppositions underlying their reading of Scripture. For example, the assumptions that God, being perfect, must have given us a perfect Bible and that an imperfect Bible can't guarantee doctrinal truth are both (extra-biblical) philosophical assumptions subject to debate.
So both sides do well to remember that the Trinity isn't true or false simply because "the Bible says" so. It's probably true or false to the extent that it expresses as fully as possible the truths to which the Church's Scriptures, worship and experience of salvation bear witness, to paraphrase Maurice Wiles, The Making of Christian Doctrine (p. 181).
In case you want to see the source of the reasoning behind this write-up, the above-cited book and A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon are good.
As usual, this is meant to provoke discussion and not to make any dogmatic declarations.
