Awe and Wonder

This particular mini-editorial occurred last night.  In no way am I suggesting that if you duplicate my situ, you will experience anything similar.  I do not think that is any more possible than for me to say, “Last night when I held my wife’s hand, I felt something indescribable.  Here, you hold her hand too, or your wife’s, so you can feel the same thing.”  That’s absurd. 

The purpose of sharing this experience and my thoughts on it is to underscore that a sense of awe comes unexpectedly, can never be planned, and creates a moment, lasting only a few minutes, to feel as though it overlaps with eternity.  C. S. Lewis spoke of such experiences in Surprised by Joy, this title itself being a quote from the poet, Wordsworth. 

I do not believe such moments are exclusive property of the church, singing to the LORD, or meditating on God’s word.  The LORD’s unveiling an emotional peek into His world is at His whim and discretion, using tools we’d least imagine. 

For those of you interested in the existential catalyst, then here is the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_-DKUimeo.  Again, I want to strongly iterate that you may watch this and think, “You’ve got to be kidding.”  The purpose of this mini-editorial is not to point to or discuss a WHAT, but how the LORD might awaken wonder in us by a thousand different WHATs.  These are highly personal, highly emotionally charged moments that are difficult to share; but, if setting aside all the noise of our culture that distracts us, everyone will agree having experienced such feelings.  I am sharing such a moment, not to incite you to experience one, but to help you remember one that you’ve had yourself.  To think of the time that, like the giant Angel of Revelation with had one foot on the earth and one foot on the sea, you had one foot in Time and one foot in Eternity, albeit, for just a moment.

Why is it that one vista haunts our memories, or one smile from a loved one outranks all the others, or a particular song, a scene in a movie, stanza from a poem, a color of Spring, a hit of the bat, or a crocus breaking the soil seizes us so that we never forget it?  I’m suggesting that is God’s gift to remind us that the things that we see, touch, experience are but snippets of the wonders that await us. 

My journal entry now follows.

9:25 PM

I was entering into the diary when I wrote about Snowy River.  Recalling that it was a poem, I looked it up and downloaded it to the Kindle.  While doing this, I noticed a link to YouTube, guessing this was a professional reader.  More so, the reader was Australian, and clips from the two Snowy River movies were pieced together to illustrate the poem.  In a word, magnificent.  I called MJ over, and, being only eight minutes, watched it together.  The excellent reading, the scenes, the music created a moment together that would be similar to C. S. Lewis’ surprised by joy, those peeks into wonder and awe that screams to the soul, “There is more than this.”  Literally, we experienced the sensation of eternity.  My hand was on hers for most of the presentation.  Couple engaging in sex often talk of the excitement of climaxing together.  This was a mutual spiritual climax, unsought for, unlooked for, unprepared for.  No forethought could have created or paved such expectations.  I wonder if this is what Lucy felt like when she first opened the wardrobe and peered into the winter cold of Narnia for the first time or, perhaps, Paul when he first saw the third heaven. 

As I think on this I fail to sympathize with the efforts of atheists to create awe devoid of the supernatural.  Dawkins’ book, The Unweaving of the Rainbow, is dedicated to the (futile) attempt to create awe without God.  Even in his own book he laments why poets have not seized on the wonders of science to share with others what he feels as he is overwhelmed with the continual insights of science.  What he fails to understand is that poets reach beyond nature, a striving for something, anything that is universal, eternal, meaningful.  Science can never, never accomplish this.  Science is physical to the core.  Poetry, beauty, truth, good, meaning are metaphysical.

Another picture by Hubble, a new discovery of a larger galaxy or a black hole beyond comprehension, pi being calculated to a trillion, trillion places will soon cease to wonder.  All of these are things, things, things.  The first elephant that a child sees may create nightmares.  The hundred one might not even be noticed.  The first dozen pictures of deep space spiraled my mind into awed confusion.  When I see one now, I wonder, “Hmm, have I already seen that one.”  The reactions to things become like those of the viewers of The Truman Show when Truman was freed, “Hey, what’s on another channel?” 

How many fractal images of chaos are needed before you begin to yawn?  (See https://www.google.com/search?q=fractals+images+of+chaos&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=enkxUb2fHMT_ygGNv4HwDA&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1740&bih=865 ).

Edgar Allan Poe wrote it best in his Sonnet to Science.  [The bold is mine.]

  Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

   Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

  Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,

   Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

  How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

   Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

  To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

   Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

  Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,

   And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

  To seek a shelter in some happier star?

   Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

  The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

  The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

 

Awe without the supernatural?  It will be easier to have love without songs, babies without smiles, or Spring without life. 

Are the Gospels Accounts Reliable If Written by Eyewitnesses 60 Years Afterwards?

Quite often in the writings or debates of atheists a particular motif will occur. Using a debate as the illustration, a Christian will have stated that the resurrection of Jesus was viewed by witnesses. The reply commonly returned is, “The gospels were not written by witnesses. The accounts in the gospels were not written until 60 or more years after the events. There is no way they can be used as evidence.”

If a retort is given to the atheist, it is typically one in which textual criticism is used.[i] There are two difficulties with textual criticism: 1) it is not understood by the majority of listeners and 2) it does not prove that the “original text” is true or false, extrapolated from false witnesses, a compilation of history and imagination, etc. The best that textual criticism can do is to substantiate WHAT was written.

Other replies to the atheist are logical ones. 1) If Jesus were still dead, why wasn’t His body produced? That would have silenced all the critics. 2) If the disciples knew Jesus was still dead, why would they willingly spread a lie and then suffer prison and death? Though I am a Christian who believes in the physical resurrection of Jesus, I do not find those two replies to be compelling. The problem with logical rebuttals is that they can be refuted by logical rebuttal.

In regard to the first one of producing the body, why couldn’t the soldiers have been bribed more by the Pharisees, taken the body out of the tomb, and buried it in an unknown location or tossed it in geenna (the Jerusalem trash dump)? The tomb would have been empty and there would have been no way to produce the body.

In regard to the second one of dying for a lie, what if the disciples did not believe it was a lie? Let’s say the guards disposed of the body as in the previous paragraphs. No one knows of this except the guards. They would have believed it and have died for what they believed was the truth.[ii]

Logical arguments have a use in hypotheticals, but it seems to me that these arguments “win” only because the listeners aren’t clever enough to give a counter-argument. The lack of a counter-arguments does not mean that the hypothetical is true. Another approach is needed.

The texts are reliable in the sense that they are genuine per textual criticism. The question now is whether the accounts are true or false or doubtful. What would make them more likely to be true is if they were written by eyewitnesses.

There are two immediate rejections of the report of eyewitnesses by atheists: 1) eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable as court testimony has proven as well as scientific experiments, and 2) even if the gospels were written by eyewitnesses, 60 years had passed; they would not be reliable because of fading memory.

Let’s consider the unreliability of the eyewitnesses. This is probably the strongest objection by the atheists. I would like to submit for consideration that there are two types of eyewitnesses: accidental and deliberate.

An accidental eyewitness is a person who encounters an incident without any forethought, preparation, or emotional involvement. A deliberate eyewitness is a person who encounters an incident with forethought and/or preparation and/or emotional involvement. Let’s consider a legal illustration, then a social one, and then an individual one.

Assume you have been selected for jury duty. The case involves a person who was robbed in an alley, severely beaten, and witnessed by three people at various times during the incident. There is only one deliberate witness, the mugger. He had probably planned on robbing someone in an alley, perhaps the very person he did beat. Most likely he was “pumped up” to do the mugging. If he were put on the witness and stand and did not lie, his account would be precise and exact. In contrast, the accidental witnesses will not be so. There will be some confusion because they were not expecting to experience the mugging or to witness it. They were not mentally prepared for it. If someone were watching from a window above, saw the mugger approach the victim, anticipate what was going to happen, his account would be much different than the others.

Naturally a response might be, “Are you saying that muggers and robbers remember everyone they hurt?” Probably not, but I suspect they remember the first one very well. There is something about a dramatic event occurring the first time. For instance (excuse the touch of vulgarity here), most people can remember their first sexual encounter, even if it were 60 years earlier. Most can remember their first girlfriend or boyfriend. Most can remember their first job. A “rite of passage” or a deliberate, original, emotional event seals and reinforces the memory much more so that an accidental one.

Continuing from the last paragraph, let’s consider a non-criminal event … like a wedding. Who remembers a wedding the best: the official, the wedding party, the guests, or the bride and groom? All of these are witnesses. All of them made plans and deliberate decisions to attend. Assuming this is a first marriage and they have remained married and all the witnesses are still alive, whose account would you be likely to believe if the wedding were recounted by someone fifty years later? Do you automatically say, “You must be kidding! That was 50 years ago, 50 years! Memories fade, eyewitnesses are known for getting facts confused. Whatever is said here is suspect and cannot be counted upon factually whatsoever.” If a reader is struggling over this, then that proves there are absolute skeptics and solipsism does exist; and this paragraph has been for the remainder of 99.99% of humanity.

Consider a personal event, a solitary one. There are many incidents from the past. My memory has never faded or adjusted on any of them. I remember an incident when I was four years old. Not a detail has faded. I was in the car behind the car that hit and killed my brother right in front of our house. I can vividly describe certain details. Why do I remember that one so well, but I fail to remember thousands of others?

I had not planned on seeing this incident. Though I was in the backseat, I was alerted to what was happening by the screams. Evidently my mother and her parents foresaw what was going to happen, for, when I looked the car had just hit him and was going to the berm of the road. There was an emotional atmosphere that reinforced for me what happened. I do not doubt that there would have been minor details that would have differed. The same would have been true of the driver of the other car. I would have missed things, possibly even jumbled them up; yet, those my images have not changed over 60 years. Without question, I witnessed the death of my brother with my family behind the car that hit him. It was not a dream, an illusion, a story told me that I have internalized.

There is one more incident that I wish to pass on. A few years ago while a minister I was sitting in a bench swing in the backyard of an elderly man. He told me a story when he was a young boy, @1930. He had sat in that same back yard and had talked with a veteran of the Civil War, who was 80-90 years old at that time. Though I knew that theoretically it was possible to talk with someone who had talked to someone who had talked to someone and only 30 people would be needed to get to Jesus, this was my first significant experience of such a backward step into history.

Oddly, I don’t even remember the details of what were said to me. I was more overwhelmed with the event. If I had taken notes, I would have an eyewitness report of an eyewitness report. The events repeated by the veteran would have been unquestioned in my mind as authentic. The impression of man I was visiting was indeed a sense of wonder too. He too marveled that he spoke to someone in that great conflict.

I am well aware that critics will still say, “That cannot be relied upon.” But such a criticism is too broad; it includes too much. It simply is not probable when we consider the impact of our memories which are based on deliberate and emotionally meaningful events. If I were to ask one of these older critics, “You don’t remember your first girlfriend, your first kiss, your first act of sex, your first job, your first marriage” and his reply was, “Of course not, and neither does anyone else. If they say they do, they are mistaken,” then I would not believe ANYTHING this critic would say.

To recap: a deliberate witness will remember correctly more details. An accidental witness will confuse details. Depending on the emotional intensity and uniqueness of the incident, details (not all, but significant ones) can be recalled decades after the fact. Let’s take this to the gospel accounts.

What were the disciples witnessing? If they were seeing miracles, these would have faded in memory? Such stupendous, mind-boggling events were confused? Even the critics know they can’t pull that off. So, the gospel writers made it up instead. They weren’t eyewitnesses at all. They were writers who made it all up later.[iii]

Even the skeptics agree that miracles as described were not routine events. They also agree that with the disciples being directly participants (deliberate witnesses), then their memories would be more reliable. To participate in a miracle such as the feeding of the 5000 would not be jumbled or confused in the same way as one who watched a car run a stop sign. The disciples had to get the people to sit in groups of fifty, distribute the baskets of food, and regather them at the end. There were thousands of people, the smell of fish, people calling out, “Over here,” and on and on.

There are events that are so significant that the memory loses them at death and not any time before. Do we believe, when we read the accounts of the gospels, that the three years with Jesus were routine, merely a job adjustment, a mix of new ideas?

What does 60 minutes, 60 days, 60 months, or 60 years have to do with such staggering events in which one participated? Of course no one (except Jesus) would remember EVERYTHING, but they would remember what shook them up emotionally. The gospels writers are not unique here.

Critics have scathed the gospel writers for differing accounts. The best illustration of this are the events following the resurrection. The only way they can be put into any sort of chronological order is by making assumptions. The actual testimony is confusing in places.

Candidly, it is the confusion in non-essential details that lends evidence that these men did write the stories. In a criminal issue, it is important to distinguish and know for a certainty if a man or a woman stabbed another person or if the killer was 5’1” versus 6’1.” But, if 60 years after an event, a person writes there was one angel in the tomb of Jesus and another writes that there were two angels in the tomb, are we truly in some hopeless muddle?[iv] Of course, we aren’t.

In sharp, distinct contrast to this would be the investigation of 12 witnesses, and they agreed in every detail! What is the first suspicion? This is a cover-up, and they have rehearsed their stories to tell the police. The issue isn’t fading memory, for that happens to everyone. The issue isn’t conflicting testimony, for that occurs with everyone. The issue is what was unanimous and how deliberate, significant, and emotionally charged were the events.

What is the conclusion of this essay? What is the “So what?”

The charge that the gospels cannot be used as reliable evidence because they were written 40-60 years after the events described is bogus and exaggerated. Eyewitnesses are extremely reliable if there were deliberate participation, emotional significance, and unanimity with other eyewitnesses of the same event. Anyone of the three factors would be sufficient, and in regard to the miracles and resurrection all three are involved.

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[i] Textual criticism is the science of comparing manuscripts in order to determine what was originally written. Using a simple illustration, consider this metaphor: “He was happier than a hot dog about to dive into a pool of mustard.” I doubt that you’ve seen that phrase before since I made it up. Assume six months from now you read that phrase in a book. The author of that book is not VL Vawter. You will probably assume one of three positions: 1) I originated the phrase, and the author copied from me; 2) the author originated the phrase, and I copied from him; 3) both of us copied from someone else. (Yes, of course, both of us could have been original, but the possibility of that is so remote. Using Occam’s razor, let’s not multiply unnecessary contingencies.) Until the printing press, books were copied by hand. It is very easy to skip lines, copy lines out of order, glance and write an incorrect word, etc. The gospels, when compared, are filled with examples like this. Textual criticism attempts to sort this out and refine the texts to the original text.

[ii] This simply creates new problems. How are all the post-resurrection appearances explained? What about the 500 witnesses that Paul mentions? Then there is that nasty “mass hallucination” of the ascension.

[iii] Whether the gospel writers lied is a different subject that their having unreliable memories. This essay is focused on the memory issue. The issue of lying, non-witnesses being the gospel writers will be discussed in a different essay.

[iv] Could one angel have been there at one time, and two at another? Could one writer have been impressed with the one talking, whereas another writer simply noticed both of them? Reasonable assumptions can be made to explain what happened in reference to the muddle. Furthermore, what if one simply forgot the second angel. He saw it, but 60 years later he couldn’t remember it. Is he to be discounted? Of course not, the body of Jesus (the agreed up detail) was still gone. Agreed upon details in old memory recounts are far more important than non-agreed upon ones. I’ve been to 50th wedding anniversaries before. I always ask the couple about their wedding day. There will be minor disagreements: “We had two witnesses … No, there were three … The cake was two layer … The cake was three layer.” As a listener I cannot be sure which it was. Now, what is agreed upon? They were married!!! What was the most important event of the day: the layers of the cake or the ceremony itself? Even in a criminal case, the investigators are frustrated over conflicting evidence, but they jump for joy over unanimous testimony. Conflicting testimony does not mean a crime has not been committed.

Burn, Baby, Burn

The Christian doctrine of hell has always been difficult to accept. The idea of people burning in a lake of fire forever is beyond understanding, imagination, and … frankly … mercy and love. If God created man, empowered or endued him with all that he has, then why punish him unendingly with torment and anguish for not believing in the gospel?

If justice has any meaning to us at all, then there comes a point where “enough is enough.” Yes, I have heard many times the rejoinder, “But God’s ways are not our ways. We cannot understand His justice.” If it is true we cannot understand His justice, then why do we ever discuss it or pretend to discuss it. Many times I hear (and think myself), “I thank the Lord for His justice.” Well, if I don’t know what that is, that I’m talking nonsense. I might as well say, “I thank the Lord for His quitish … or His tinbough … or His holtzing.” What are those words in italics? I don’t have the slightest idea because I just created them myself.

Certainly we do not understand fully what any attribute of God is, but we have to understand enough to be able to discuss it, respond to it, and praise God for it. When God’s characteristics are read in the Bible, we relate to them to some degree. We have to, or the Bible is meaningless! Our understanding of anything is limited by our background, experiences, presuppositions, etc. When I read of God’s love, of course I may have a different understanding than a child, an unbeliever, a young believer, a more mature believer. But we do not have opposite understandings.

Justice (the legal term) and fairness (the common term) are words that we understand from a very young age. Equity is the underlying property of justice. “Each gets his turn … all treated alike … what is good for the goose is good for the gander.” All of us have heard young children arguing with others, “You cheater … It’s my turn … I shared with you; now you share with me.” If you believe in innate ideas, then you’d say that equity was built into humans.

Most of us do not need to be taught to recoil from the horrors of injustice. A woman is brutally raped, and the thug cuts out her eyes so she can’t identify him. Children are horribly mistreated by cruel parents. Millions of people are purposely starved to death or savagely murdered because they are different. Do we need to be “taught” to recoil in anger or shock? If anything, people need to be taught to be indifferent so they will perpetrate such monstrosity.

I maintain that as the human race we do understand justice precisely because we understand equity. The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is nothing more than an expression of equity. It is true that when we think of a Hitler or a Stalin or a Mao or a Pol Pot we might think hell is where they need to be. But those are the exceptions. The overwhelming majority of those in hell, according to Christian doctrine, will be anyone from the age of accountability (as young as 7-12 years old) and upward who have not believed that Jesus is God’s son and died for their sins. When you go to work the vast majority of those who you see driving on the road, walking on the sidewalks, working and playing in life … most of them will be damned to everlasting punishment. Even if the person has not heard the gospel nor had the opportunity to hear the gospel, then they will be doomed to this endless torment and torture. Think of all the people in your extended family and circle of acquaintance, how many do you believe truly deserve to be tortured forever?

The scenarios can easily be imagined, one after another. A young girl, 12 years old, is killed in a car wreck. (Perhaps she lives in Iraq and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a suicide bomber killed her and dozens of others.) Typically speaking, what’s the worst she could have done? Lie to her parents? Steal some bills from their wallets? Cheat on a test? Make fun of someone? She had been to church but it did not teach the gospel. Well, the just thing to do then is to have her tortured forever, right? Perhaps you say yes to that. If so, the rest of this essay will be of no interest to you. I suspect most readers will be bothered by that. Ok, she can suffer a little until she realizes what she has done. But to suffer forever and forever and forever???

Is the answer to this last scenario no more than, “We do not understand God’s justice”? If there is one thing we do understand about justice is fair punishment for the act. The Bible is filled with commands and illustrations of this. Tedious details are listed in the Old Testament to define equity. Sharia law may allow a person’s hand to be cut off for a minor offence or an adulterous woman to be beheaded at halftime during a soccer game, but we know that is excess. I don’t need a Muslim telling me that the Koran teaches that “We do not understand Allah’s justice.” It is not just, period. In fact, it is monstrous.

If we don’t have some idea of what is just and what is not in God’s eyes, then why let illustrations bother us? What’s it matter? We don’t know what justice is anyway. C’mon on. Though we may not know all, we know enough. And as our understanding grows, our idea of justice does not reverse itself into something that is the opposite of equity.

Assuming what I have written is true, then how do we reconcile our understanding of the Biblical doctrine of hell with the idea of justice and mercy?

The two most common replies are 1) hell does not exist or 2) hell is annihilation (eternal sleep). Though hell is not mentioned that much in Scripture, it is mentioned; and the only proponent of it is Jesus Himself. Due to the teaching of Jesus, it is difficult to believe that the Scriptures do not teach that there is a real place called hell and a conscious experience in a place called hell. When I have read explanations of #1 or #2, it seems the driving force is the repugnance of the idea of hell; the idea of eternal torment and torture are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with a loving God or with the idea of justice, i.e., equity and fair punishment.

The literature and art of the Middle Ages are replete with scenes and images of frightening proportion. Dante’s Inferno has forever colored the images of hell with red and black horror for the Western mind. Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment has also encouraged images of great fear and repulsion. Even those who have never read the poem or seen the painting may have witnessed similar scenes in movies such as What Dreams May Come or Constantine, the last based on the Hellblazer comic book, or others like them. Torture and eternal torment are common motifs.

Years ago I was talking to a fellow worker in the Navy. As I was sharing Christ, he stopped me and said, “Here’s my problem. Let’s pretend someone has really wronged me. So I tie him to a rack and peel off a small piece of skin. Enough to make him scream in terrible pain. The next day I return and peel off just a little more, not much, just a one-inch or two-inch strip. If I do this right, I can keep him in this torture and torment for years. You would think me a monster for doing this; yet, with God, this torture would last forever. And you praise Him for such justice and fairness. I could never believe in such a cruel God.” The only thought that crossed my mind at that time was, “We don’t understand God’s justice,” but I kept it to myself. It didn’t seem the right answer then, and it doesn’t 40 years later.

As I have struggled over this issue, the thought finally came to me, “Perhaps the images are wrong.” When Jesus referred to the word translated “hell,” the Greek term that is used is geenna (γεέννα), he was referring to the trash pile outside of Jerusalem. The punishment was not the trash dump itself, but something like the trash dump.

Analogies can provoke different responses from different people. Also, analogies are not to be understood in every aspect. For instance, if I say, “He’s angry as a bear,” what do you see? Eyes? Teeth? Claws? Or do you simply see a general raging? On the other hand, if I say, “His hair is a mess like an angry bear,” what now? More than likely it will be hair standing on end with anger, but the emphasis is on the hair. When I told my son years ago that he and I would go buy rabbit ears, he giggled for two days. He saw literal fuzzy ears (probably Bugs Bunny’s); I saw only the V-shape.

What about the analogy of geenna? I doubt that the general image of a trash dump or the image of being tossed into a trash dump is much different today than back then. The initial reaction is repulsion, powerful and strong distaste, terrible to all the senses. We recoil at terrible smells and filth. The one image I do not carry over (nor do I believe the general reader does when he thinks of a trash dump) is a large, constant fire. It is true there will be smolderings here and there (spontaneous combustion), but there is no unending conflagration.

However (and this has been overlooked in the geenna metaphor), the creatures that live in the dump do not seem to be repulsed. In contrast, they seem quite at home: maggots, carrion birds, dogs, cats, other wild animals. I have travelled to very poor countries, and there are people who live in dumps. They don’t know any different. I’m repulsed, but they don’t seem to be. If taken out and given a chance to live elsewhere, perhaps they’ll never go back. Yet we are aware of stories of people being taken out of their miserable world, and they return to it. The person living inside the dump may or may not be repulsed; for sure the people on the outside looking in are repulsed. The creatures on the inside looking out may be fine. They may avoid undue displeasure (such as a fire here and there), but they are not repulsed.

Consider now the punishment issue. I’m aware of verses that discuss punishment, but I cannot reconcile those as literal when I consider the death of Jesus on the cross. For years I have been told that Jesus died for my sins and the punishment of my sins. I believe that. It does seem the Bible teaches that. If he died for my sins, then why would I be punished? Punished for what?

Of course I’m familiar with the Reformed doctrine that Jesus only died for the saved. If I believed that doctrine, then the unbeliever would be punished for his sins since they haven’t been paid for. The only problem the Reformed view has is the reconciling hell with justice. Naturally there are the replies of God’s sovereignty, His holiness, and man’s wickedness is unable to obey God’s justice. My difficulty with this is fallen creatures are still in God’s image and are not void of it altogether. There may be things that a fallen creature cannot do or will not do, but that is not the same thing as fallen man recognizing what is right and then choosing not to do it (or being inherently unable to do it). Indeed Romans makes it clear that man is without excuse because he does understand right and wrong.

Since I do not subscribe to the Reformed view of the extent of the death of Jesus, my problem is why are people sent to hell IF the sins have been paid for? Those who hold the non-Reformed view of the extent of Christ’s death typically will still say people will be sent to hell for their sins. That is so puzzling to me and unacceptable because if Jesus indeed died for the sins of the world, then why would any sin be punished by God twice? Double jeopardy is understood as being unjust. The death of Christ is actually double jeopardy on steroids … eternal steroids. Once a person has paid the penalty for his crime, then being sent to prison again for the same crime is unthinkable. Jesus paid the penalty, or, if you please, did the time.

I return to the problem: if Jesus died for sins, for the penalty of sins, then why are unbelievers sent to hell? The problem returns again, not to the reality of hell or a final judgment, but to the imagery of the final judgment and hell.

The only imagery that is being allowed is that of a guilty victim before a judge awaiting punishment, in other words, a courtroom judge; however, there is also the imagery of a judge in a sporting event. A judge (or umpire or referee, but still a “decider”) determines who is allowed to play in an event or who officially wins an event. Such judge imagery exists in Scripture.

Scripture does use racing as an event that is judged. The judges determined who has won the gold, silver, or bronze. The losers are not punished for losing, but ever loser does have a decision after a race. Does he want to continue to race or not?

There is only issue separating people from the Lord; it is not whether they have won prizes in their races. The only obstacle is whether they want to be with the Lord or not. As the Bible says, “It is by grace, not by works.” After death the entrance to heaven is not paved by our racing trophies. The only questions are (using the racing motif), “Will you run for the Lord … Can Jesus be the coach … Will you run just to please Him?”

When those questions are answered, the Lord will decide whether the person means it or not. The earnestness of their voice, the sincerity of the looks … these are meaningless. The purpose and intent of the heart are the key, and the Lord knows precisely what that is. He will know if people are saying what others want to hear, if they are trying to manipulate circumstances, if they will commit themselves.

The choice after life is not “Do you want heaven or hell?” That is nonsense. The choice is, “Do you want the Lord or not?” The ultimate issue of this life as well as the next one is not whether we want nice things, but whether we want the Lord. Every atheist I personal know wants nicer things, but … none wants the Lord. To offer heaven or hell as the ultimate choice is to offer a false choice and will bring confusion. In current conservative Christianity, receiving Christ seems to be little more than a “get-out-of-jail” card or a means of becoming happier.

If people have spent their lives rejecting the Lord as their coach in the race of life, there is no reason to believe they will mysteriously and magically make a 180° turn after they die. Attitudes and committed beliefs are not whimsically or effortlessly overturned. They are sterner stuff than diamonds. Their souls will no more want the Lord after being released from the body than when housed within. Death affects the location of the soul, not the beliefs of the soul.

Their “seeing the Lord as He truly is” is meaningless. They will see the Lord as they think He is, as they believe He is. Unless we believe the Lord alters a soul’s beliefs after death (if so, why not change unbelieving attitudes into believing ones), then an unbeliever cannot see the Lord as He really is. They will interpret it differently: “I’m having hallucinations … I’m dreaming … Someone’s doing something to me.” (If the soul does see God as He is, then why should we assume unbelieving human souls will respond any differently than unbelieving spirits, i.e., fallen angels or demons, “We know who you are; leave us alone!”)

Wait, doesn’t the Bible say “every knee will bow and confess Jesus as Lord”? Yes, those who have resurrected bodies will have knees to bow with. There is no Biblical evidence that unbelievers receive a resurrected body, and that is the only body that can continue to live. All other bodies are destined to die.

If “every knee” is figurative, then it will come down to interpretation again. All of us have heard the phrase, “The boss tried to fire me, but I quit instead.” When those after death do not want to be with the Lord, then the only place He won’t be is … hell. If conversations occur in hell, then one soul might transmit to another, “God says He’s the judge and He sent me here, but I really chose. Who’d want to be with Him and all those goofy believers, with their silly songs, praises, and goody-two-shoes nonsense? I’d rather be in this pit any day.” Those who hate the Lord in this life will hate Him in the next.

Do I believe hell exists? Of course. Do I believe it will be miserable? Of course. Do I believe it is a place of eternal torture and punishment for sin? Absolutely not. Why? I do not believe people are sent there as punishment? No, when they reject the Lord, they have chosen to go there for it is the only place left. In any situation in life, if two choices are offered, then the rejection of one is automatically the acceptance of the other.

Christ died for the sins of the world. They are no longer an issue … for heaven … or for hell.

Making Sense of the Trinity

A common criticism of Christianity is that it is unintelligible, perhaps polytheistic. This charge is due to the doctrine of the Trinity. Jews, Muslims, and skeptics have made this charge for centuries. Hindus, in contrast, seem to side with Christianity by stating that their religion has had a Trinity before the New Testament was even written.[1]

The doctrine of the Trinity as we know it today was a gradual development in the early church. The initial attention by the Church Fathers was on Christ. As the status and nature of Christ was understood and believed to be the same as God the Father, then it was an easy step to include the Holy Spirit. Indeed the Roman Catholic Church has been accused of reckless abandonment by elevating Mary to the level of God and raising the level and importance of saints. Mary and the saints are prayed to. They are honored in such a way that they appear to be worshipped, which is an honor to be given to God only.[2]

The reader may go online and do a search for “Bible passages Trinity,” and he will find the many different passages that are used to support the doctrine that the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all one. There are only two passages which I wish to illustrate from the Gospels.

For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. (John 5:16-18)

“I and My Father are one.” Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?” The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.” (John 10:30-33)

The particular issue in these two passages is the reaction of the Jewish leaders. They understood that the claims being made by Jesus were unique. As the New Testament was written and circulated after the death of Jesus, the readers also considered the claims of the above two passages as well as the others that are in the New Testament. What did Jesus mean when he said that the Father and he were one? What did the Jews mean when they accused Jesus of making himself equal to God? How was He one God? Was it one in purpose? Was it one in function? Was it one in being? Was it some sort of combination of the previous questions?

Somehow the worship that was being directed toward Jesus and the title of Lord that was given to Him had to be reconciled. Throughout the Old Testament the Jews only understood, believed, and practiced that the God who had been revealed to them was the only one to be worshipped. Even the pagan religions only worship gods. When humans sought to be worshipped (such as Caligula), he claimed to be a god. The Roman emperor simply said he was a god, but Jesus made indirect statements that meant he was God. What did Jesus mean?

The Romans believed that only Caesar was Lord, i.e., the final authority, whereas the early Christians believed that only Jesus was Lord. The cost to the Christians was frightful and, eventually, resulted in empire-wide persecution. The early Christian took an uncompromising stand for the Lordship of Jesus and signed their commitment with their property, freedom, and blood.

What did they believe? Though extant writings from 100AD-400AD will gave a wide range of what was believed, the first formal meeting of Christian leaders in Nicaea in 324AD was the first consensus statement regarding the Trinity.

An English, Latin, and Greek translation follows. A portion of each translation will be highlighted, considered to be heart of the doctrine of the Trinity.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father.

God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

Latin:

Et in unum Dóminum Iesum Christum,

Fílium Dei Unigénitum,

Et ex Patre natum ante ómnia sæcula.

Deum de Deo, lumen de lúmine, Deum verum de Deo vero,

Génitum, non factum, consubstantiálem Patri:

Greek:

Καὶ εἰς ἕνα Κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων·

φῶς ἐκ φωτός, Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ, γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα, ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί, δι' οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο.

The creed uses a number of phrases to emphasize that Jesus and the Father have the same properties and are the same nature. The three key words (transliterated) are “very same nature,” “consubstantiation,” and “homoousios.” Unfortunately the terms and concepts being discussed belong in the philosophical discipline of ontology, the study of being.

More than likely few of the readers of this article are familiar with ontology. If you wish, you may do a search for “ontology,” and you will find plenty to read if you with to pursue that. In summary ontology is the study of “what is,” i.e., what is real, what isn’t real, is existence a property, etc. The typical reaction to this sort of talk is, “You must be kidding. What is real is what I can see and touch. What are we going to talk about next, ‘How many angels can stand on the head of pin?’” That is a reaction and not a thoughtful response.

Since I have no interest in swimming against the stream of our current culture’s resistance and dismissal of philosophy, this essay will illustrate the manner in which Jesus is the “very same nature” of God the Father.[3] I will avoid as much as possible lengthy, theoretical paragraphs and focus on an illustration.

The failure of illustrations has been the singular weakness when discussing and defending the Trinity. In order to discuss an idea, it needs to be distinct and clear. A very common reaction from someone who has never heard of the trinity and has had it carefully explained and illustrated for the first time is “Huh?”

Voltaire is credited with having written (http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml8962.htm),

The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it.[4]

Thomas Jefferson is supposed to have written (per Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, also http://www.sullivan-county.com/deism/jeff_letters.htm),

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity.

Explanation after explanation after explanation may be given, but unless a new idea can be illustrated with analogies then very few will understand it.[5] When Einstein first proposed special relativity and later general relativity, the new concepts were understood by very few people, only those with advanced degrees in mathematics and physics. After years of refinement in experiments and teaching the concepts to others, illustrations have been devised that make the concepts understandable.

In the same way that the advanced principles of relativity have to be illustrated so the novice can understand, the same is true of the Trinity. Whereas I am comfortable with the teachings and the theories of philosophy, I must illustrate by analogy the concepts of trinitarian ontology (i.e., illustrate how the Trinity can really exist) so that it is understandable, applicable, and intelligible.

Let’s consider some of the traditional illustrations of the Trinity. Mathematics and geometry are often used.

For instance, 1 x 1 x 1 = 1. The explanation is that three distinct numbers multiplied by themselves equal the same number; hence, the three personalities in the Trinity equal one God. Though this is a popular illustration I have always missed the application. Mathematics is pure applied logic. There is no number “1” anywhere; it is abstract and exists only as an idea in the mind. It is also true in mathematics that 1 + 1 + 1 = 3.[6] Math can equally “illustrate” that three digits in a formula can equal the same digit or a different digit.

Another popular illustration is the triangle. The triangle illustrates the Trinity because the triangle is one unit; however, it is comprised of three angles or three corners. No single corner is the triangle, and, if one corner is removed, there is no longer a triangle. The same problems exists here as in the last math illustration. Again, this is an abstract illustration. Though this illustrates and expands on what a triangle is, how does that relate to a live being? Then again, the idea of a triangle requires three angles (TRI-angle). It is required because it is the definition. What in the idea or definition of God requires more than one personality or entity?

A popular illustration is an egg: an egg is one, but it is comprised of a shell, the white, and the yoke. Once I separate one of those components, the egg no longer exists. I may break an egg, fry it, and put it on bread for an “egg sandwich.” My first usage of egg does not equal my second usage of egg. The first egg had a shell, but the second one does not have any shell. (If there is shell, then I’d pick it out for the second egg should not have a shell.)

All three of the illustrations so far (as well as any others that could be used) are no more that a whole-part description. All the parts together equal the whole. Remove a part, and the whole no longer exists. That isn’t what is being sought to illustrate the Trinity.[7]

The majority reply for years in regard to illustrations for the trinity has been there is no perfect analogy. That is a bit amusing in a way, for there is no perfect analogy for any comparison. After all an analogy is a comparison to something that is similar; so, if an analogy were perfect, it would have to be one thing compared to itself. The real problem with trinitarianism is none of the illustrations remotely portrays how three different and distinct entities can be one and the same nature (one and the same substance).

It is not uncommon for a comment something like the following to be made (found at (http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/08/the-trinity-is-like-3-in-1-shampoo-and-other-stupid-statements/):

One more thing. I often tell my students that if they say, “I get it!” or “Now I understand!” that they are more than likely celebrating the fact that they are a heretic! When you understand the biblical principles and let the tensions remain without rebuttal, then you are orthodox. When you solve the tension, you have most certainly entered into one of the errors that we seek to avoid.

Confused? Good! That is just where you need to be.

The “mystery of God” is often used when we cannot explain something, e.g., “Why do people suffer” or, in the topic of this essay, “How can there be three entities but one God?” The last sentence in the quote above suggests the “mystery of God” motif.[8]

For years I have had the impression that the “mystery of God” meant that the topic could not be understood or should not be understood. Understanding the nature of anything 100% seems to be impossible. Certainly no one knows me as well as I do; yet, even I do not know myself fully. There are questions in philosophy and science that are unanswered at this time and may never be answered. Does that imply that we should stop seeking an answer? Are we satisfied with saying “Nature is a mystery.” Of course it is a mystery, but we should still seek to understand as much as possible.

Deuteronomy 29:29 states that whatever has been revealed by God is to help us to obey. This does not mean we need to have the full grasp of a topic in order to apply that topic to our lives. Most certainly it does mean that as the topic is better understood then there should be some sort of change in behavior or a more in-depth understanding of behavior.

This essay will suggest a new analogy for the Trinity. From reading in the history of church doctrine the impression is gained that nothing more can be or should be said about the Trinity.[9] All that has been said is all that needs to be said. It is a mystery; it cannot be understood; therefore, end of discussion.

I do not agree with this whatsoever and have not for years. The very nature of new knowledge is to create more knowledge. Along with new knowledge comes new analogies. The analogies (illustrations of comparison) mentioned earlier have been around for a long, long time. The analogies for the Trinity have been frozen in time as the definition.

I am offering a new analogy in this essay; I am not aware of having read it elsewhere or being incited by something that I have read. The Trinity has simply been a bafflement to me. I wanted to understand it better, to make it more intelligible to others. Being an analogy it will fall short of making everything clear; however, if the analogy is basically correct, then we should have a better understanding of the Trinity than before and that understanding should be reflected in our behavior.

The question that this essay is concerned with in regard to the Trinity is: what is the “very same nature” that Christ has in relationship to God, to the Father? (For those of you who enjoy theology, then what does “homoousia” mean, or how can it be illustrated?)

Along with the Nicene Creed, I would like to use the Westminster Confession of Faith (http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/westminster_conf_of_faith.html). Chapter II, Article IIIa states:

III. In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

In the above statement the word substance is used once again. What is meant by the phrase, “In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance …?” We must start with what distinguishes substance from Persons. The substance is the WHAT, and the Persons (Father, Son, Spirit) are the WHO. Unless that distinction is recognized, then any intelligibility will be hopeless.

Unfortunately the word God is used in a vocative sense as well as a substantive sense. What do I mean by this? When a person prays, “God, hear my prayer,” he is using God as a vocative. God is the name of the entity he is speaking to. When someone asks, “Hey, Man, what time is it,” Man is an impersonal name. Someone is using the name to get another person’s attention, and, in the same way, God is being used as a name to get God’s attention.

When a person prays, “Our God is a mighty God,” he is not using God as a name, but as an entity, an object, a substance. God is a noun in the sense of a class, not a name.[10] When a person asks, “Does anyone know where that man lives,” the designator “man” is not a name at all; it represents an entity, an object, a substance. Man is a name of a class, not a personal name.

Let me illustrate this way. Perhaps some of us know someone who has given his dog the name, “Dog.” He will actually say, “Here, Dog, here, Dog.” The word Dog is a name that represents a particular object. It could represent a dog. Perhaps in a fit of irony, an owner could have named his cat, “Dog.” I have seen movies in which a person was called “Dog” as a nickname.

We cannot determine from the name “Dog” (the Who) for sure if a biological animal called a dog (the What) is meant. Frankly, it would be difficult to determine from the sounds alone what a speaker might mean. For instance, consider the following sounds: “come” and “here” and “dog.” Say the three words together. There is no way to tell from the sounds whether “Come here, dog” or “Come here, Dog” is the correct meaning. The first sentence is referring to a dog class. It could be a strange dog or a pet. In the second illustration, some object with the name “Dog” is being addressed. Unless we had some other context we would have no idea if a What was being called or a Who was being called.

The point is that a name does not necessarily equate to a particular thing or entity. The word God may mean What, that is, the word that encapsulates the nature of God; or it may mean Who, that is, the name of an object.[11]

From this point I will be careful in distinguishing the difference between the What and the Who. I will use the word God as the class and Father as a member of that class. In Trinitarian language the What is God, and the Who is Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.

Return now to the phrase “the very same nature.” Let’s use an analogy to form the foundation to understand this phrase. Consider the word “human.” I am a human, and you, the reader, are human. We are of the very same nature, but what do we mean by that? How are you and I different from the rest of the animal kingdom or the rest of the biological kingdom?

DNA is what distinguishes humans from animals as well as the rest of the animal kingdom. Even though the DNA may be very, very close (the genotype); the result (the phenotype) maybe so drastically different that no one would have surmised such a close genotype existed. The genotype of chimpanzees and humans differ by less than 2%.[12] Human DNA is different from other biological DNA. The physical distinction of a human is simply in the DNA. DNA is the blueprint of what a human is.

Yet, each individual human DNA is different from other human DNA. This is what accounts for the physical differences between all humans. However, something very, very intriguing occurs when the DNA is nearly identical.

When does nearly identical DNA occur? It occurs with identical twins (three births out of 1000) or identical triplets (one birth out of 1,500,000). After the union of the male sperm and the female egg, a diploid cell is formed. This is called a zygote. After three or four days of cell multiplication, the larger unit is called a blastocyst. At some point while the zygote is multiplying or initially in the early stages of a blastocyst, the unit will divide into two zygotes or two blastocysts. The identical DNA is present in each.

Immediately after the split into two embryos or shortly thereafter, epigenetic modification occurs.[13] After birth epigenetic modification continues because of more environmental factors so that as the twins or triplets age more differences can be detected. The differences may be minute or minor, but they will be there.

What has been discovered through the research of the Minnesota Twins Project (http://mctfr.psych.umn.edu/) is that identical twins separated from birth have the same probability of being similar in personality and interest as those raised together. These findings have given credence to the theory that a major formation of a person’s interests and personality are genetically based vis-à-vis environmental.[14]

The typical average for identical siblings being the same is 80%, whether raised together or separately. Depending on the epigenetic modification, the sameness will be higher or lower than the average.

The discussion of the identical twins was spurred by the phrase, “the very same nature.” Though there may be many features that can be listed that distinguish humans from other biological life, the physical substance that creates this difference is DNA. All humans have the same type and pattern of DNA; however, the specifics of the DNA will vary from human to human. There is a common humanity in the same way that there is a common DNA. There are no two humans with identical DNA, but the DNA of monozyotic twins or triplets are practically the same. If epigenetic modification did not occur, the DNA would be identical.

Though phenotypical[15] differences might exist with identical DNA, what we would observe might be identical personalities, temperaments, and behaviors. Truly, if identical DNA exists, we could say with full understanding that identical triplets have the same nature. Even with the phenotypical differences that occur with current epigenetic modification, we could still say identical triplets have the same nature and be fully understood.

The human triplets would be one, that is, one nature. This one nature would be comprised of three distinct entities.

DNA, obviously, is the code for physical humans. The term “the very same nature” (or the Greek, homoousia) means “whatever God is made up of.” Homoousia is translated as nature, substance … the “stuff” that makes God to be God.[16]

If I may continue the extension of my analogy, homoousia is the expression for the DNA of the spiritual world. And the same way that human triplets are one, so the Divine Triplets are also one. And in the same way that human triplets can do different things (one teaches math; another, English; and another, history), so the Divine Triplets have different functions (one directs and manages; one, constructs the framework; one, enables day-to-day operations).[17]

In both of these sets of triplets, there are three personalities or three entities who are comprised of one nature; the three are truly one. Likewise the one nature is comprised of three distinct and separate personalities or entities.

Let’s assume that human triplets have been born and have been named Mike, Frank, and Roger. I want to illustrate their relationship by adapting a well known Christian diagram to the triplets.

The three members of the triplets are the same nature, the same substance, the same stuff. Assume epigenetic modification had not occurred. Literally, the DNA would be 100% the same.

Let’s replace the terms that are typically associated with this diagram. The Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct and separate personalities or entities. All of them are God. Remember the illustration about calling a dog (a class) by the name Dog (a name)? The term in the middle is NOT a name or a personality; it is the class of being that is called god. Whatever makes god as god, that is what is in the center, the spiritual DNA.

This is an analogy. I do not pretend to know this is what the Trinity actually is when we say “the very same nature,” but the analogy makes sense. The science from which the analogy is derived was only known a few years ago. There was no analogy in previous centuries. Because there were none then it is not necessary there will be none later.

Without doubt there will be disagreement that this is really polytheism or, specifically, tri-theism. There are two comments to that criticism.

The moment three personalities or entities or distinctions are acknowledged, the moment plural pronouns or nouns are used, then we are dealing with something that has a pluralistic nature or property of some sort with it. The distinction on the analogy is that human triplets are truly one and three at the same time. They are one in nature (the what), but they are three in personalities or entities (the who). We understand that; we can grasp it … though there is still a mystery about it and an intrigue that will remain beyond imagination.

To say “the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God, and there is one God but in three personalities” gives the impression that there is one entity that is God. That truly makes no sense. Three entities cannot be distinct and separate and yet be the same entity. In contrast, three entities can be one substance, because a substance is not an entity … but what an entity IS. In the same way that three entities of triplets are one DNA, so there are three entities but one Godhead (or God-stuff, whatever actually comprises the spiritual being called God in contrast to the spiritual beings called angels).

The distinction between this analogy and others that suggest polytheism is that the nature of God is not a being. The nature of God is what makes God what He is. The gods of the Pantheon (assuming they existed) were comprised of some sort of god-stuff; yet, that god-stuff was different per god. Their spiritual genes were clearly different. The spiritual genes of the Father, Son, and Spirit are 100% identical. All three have all the attributes of God, the very same nature. There really is only one God-stuff, but three personalities. If any analogy could be used (similar to footnote 1), the entities of the pantheon are fraternal whereas the entities of the Godhead are identical.

All this explanation has been “theoretical”; none of it can be demonstrated. Everything is by extrapolation and logic from Scripture. So what difference does it make?

1. God understands relationship because it is part of His nature. The word for God in the Old Testament is elohim in the Hebrew, the plural form of el (god). In Genesis when God said, “Let us make man in our image,” either He was talking to Himself using the “royal we,” much like the Queen of England will say, “We thank you for this gift” when a gift has been given to her individually. Perhaps He was talking to the angels. Or, using my analogy, one personality with the very same nature of God was talking to two other personalities with the very same nature of God.

Though there are people who are “loners,” most of us find that odd. Perhaps we are not demanding that we be with a crowd most of the time, but we do need some sort of connection with others. We have a drive to share with others, experience with others, bond with others. Why is that? If Scripture is true and God is how He is described, then this social need that we have is part of His very nature. The nature of God is expressed in three entities. God is a “we.” Being made in the image of God, we will have characteristic that are like His. Though time, events, and circumstances can creep into our lives and magnify our sense of “aloneness,” we still prefer relationships. This desire is a direct reflection of the Trinity.

2. The doctrine of the Trinity elevates the words of Jesus. Since “the very same nature” of God was somehow united with the human body of Jesus, then when He spoke, God was speaking. His insight into God was more than a revelation He had about God, Jesus was expressing God’s thoughts himself.

Consider again the analogy of the identical siblings. Most of us have experienced them in our lives, and many times there is an eeriness how they seem to be reading the other’s mind. When one speaks, the other is speaking. What one is thinking the other is thinking. The analogy breaks down because the DNA is not 100% the same, but assume it were. How uncanny would it be then? Jesus was truly the spokesman for God, not because He knew a lot about God, but because He was God.

3. The doctrine of the Trinity legitimatizes the vicarious death of Jesus on the cross. For centuries the Jews had been taught through the sacrificial system established in Leviticus that “a lamb without blemish” was to be used. Though we esteem other people as nearly perfect, we know that simply is not true. There is always something lacking, always.

How could another human truly be “without blemish” and qualify as the sacrifice for all other sins? Jesus was perfect in the sense that He did not merely try harder and discipline Himself more in order to obey and please God. I do not have “to try” to be human; I AM human. When someone gets aggravated because ants have invaded his picnic … well, that’s what ants do. Jesus was fully human and understood desire, but He was also fully God.[18] Jesus’ being fully human (He had the nature of a human, DNA) and His being fully God (He had the very same nature as God, the “God-stuff”) put Jesus above sinning.[19] His sacrifice on the cross was guaranteed to be efficacious precisely because Jesus had the very same nature as God.

4. The resurrection of Jesus is viewed in a different light because He is God (that is, He has the nature of God). When the body of Jesus died on the cross, there is no meaning to say that God died on the cross. The nature of God CANNOT die. The difference in the spiritual nature of man and the spiritual nature of Jesus is that man’s spiritual nature is an image of God whereas Jesus’ spiritual nature was the very nature of God himself. The body of Jesus could NOT have stayed dead. Even in the Garden Jesus said He had to go through the suffering. He could have prevented it at any time. The death and burial was needed to prove that there was life after death when the resurrection occurred. Swooning and passing out had to be removed. Jesus had to be “buried beyond doubt.”[20] Enough time had to be in the grave to satisfy doubt that He was dead, but not so long to create doubt when He did arise.

Lazarus had been dead four days. His body certainly “stinketh” as we fondly have in the King James Version. The raising of Lazarus was close enough to his death to create a spiritual jolt. If too much time had passed and peace had begun to settle in, his reappearing could have caused as much doubt and confusion as joy. “Wait, you’re dead. You can’t be real.”

This brief excursion into the time that the body was dead was merely to show that the length of time was to maximize the response by those who loved Him. Because Jesus had the very nature of God, He could have arisen AT ANY TIME. The body could not have stayed dead but brought alive whenever Jesus chose.

Jesus promised His resurrection power to all those who receive Him. This is not a promise of a “n’er-do-well.” Since Jesus is God (has the very same nature as God), then the resurrection is sound and real; and the promise to confer it to others is as real as God’s power to create the universe.

The reader may use his/her imagination to see how Jesus having the very same nature of God energizes our relationship with Christ. There is no heresy to fall before Him in worship. There is no heresy to pray to Him. The importance of the nature of God being displayed in Jesus is that He was seen, felt, heard.

There is so little closeness to the God of the Old Testament. His transcendence simply overwhelms us and mystifies us. The nature of God being united to a human body provides a sense of security and acceptance and unity that would be impossible unless Jesus, indeed, had the very same nature of God.

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[1] Brahma, the Ultimate Being, is unknowable. Yet, He has manifested Himself in three forms (personalities): Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva. These three manifestations display different aspects of Brahma, much like three photographs will give you three ideas of what a person looks like. These three manifestations are still beyond human comprehension; so, these manifestations will create their own manifestations, avatars, such as Krishna. Lord Krishna lived on earth, talked and lived with people. That manifestation of a manifestation of the Ultimate Being gives a clue to what Brahma is like. The claim of Hindus that they have a Trinity like Christianity is a completely different use of the word. Hinduism teaches that Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva are different. To compare with my analogy, the Hindu Trinity is like fraternal triplets where the Christian Trinity is like identical triplets.

[2] The official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is that God is “worshiped” whereas Mary and the saints are “venerated” or “honored.” This appears to be a verbal distinction only; however, the Church maintains that there is a substantive difference. The idea is that we will often ask someone to request a favor for us with someone else. We are uneasy about making the request directly. So, in Roman Catholicism, a believer will pray to a Saint (or with a Saint) to request a favor from God. From the conservative Christian Protestant perspective the response is, “Why ask a servant to help you out with the king. We understand your uneasiness, but why not ask the king’s son?”

[3] The creed states that the nature is the same as the Father. In this essay I will use God and the Father interchangeably. I have several paragraphs discussing how we use the word “God” in two different ways. I have done this purposely because that is how the language is used. God is used as a name, God the Father, or as the term to designate a type of being, God gives life. Hence, when Jesus is said to have “the very same nature as the Father,” I will also use the phrase, “the very same nature as God.”

[4] Though I do not have the context of this quote, I have read enough of Voltaire in his other writings to believe that this comment is ridicule. The most forceful objection to the Trinity from skeptics is its unintelligibility.

[5] Imagine the difficulty of explaining snow to a person who has never seen it or heard of it. The person has lived on an island in the South Pacific and has never seen pictures of snow. How would the idea be understood or visualized? Perhaps some of the readers remember the same problem that Anna Leonowens (from The King and I) had with explaining snow to the children of Siam. An abstract idea with no comparable analogy is nearly impossible to understand. A common illustration of this is the pure mathematics of theoretical physics. Only a few trained and gifted individuals can understand this 100% abstract language. The rest of us in the hoi poloi must wait on some clever mathematicians who can explain it to us by using analogies. Even I can illustrate time dilation. (I do not want to give the impression that I actually understand time dilation; I can only illustrate it by using the analogies of others who do understand the principles of time dilation.)

[6] A Jehovah Witness will use this illustration to disprove the Trinity. There is no inherent reason to use multiplication as opposed to addition. The use of which math procedure to use is merely convenience. There is nothing inherent within mathematics that is Trinitarian.

[7] The Trinity states the Father, Son, and Spirit are God. If one of the personalities is removed elsewhere, God has not been diminished. If the shell and albumen and yoke are separated, there is no longer an egg.

[8] In fairness to the author I do not want to imply that he meant a person must be confused because the Trinity is a mystery. He may be saying no more than students usually don’t get it right. Mystery makes more sense if we mean that a certain part does not make sense, as “who-dun-it” in a mystery play. The impression I often receive is that the mystery of God means that we probably don’t understand at all. Quite often when I have discussed the justice of God in a class and compared it with passages in which justice certainly does not seem to be occurring, a common reply is, “God’s justice is a mystery. We cannot understand it.” Frankly, that strikes me as an avoidance. If we have NO idea of what justice is, then God’s justice or any justice would mean no more to me than light would to a Mexican Tetra (a blind cave fish). Because I do not fully understand God, does that mean I do not try to continue to understand Him, to push, to prod, to seek? It is precisely this lack of understanding the Trinity that pushed me to seek an analogy that made sense. The mystery is not removed; it is merely less puzzling.

[9] The seeming insistence that any mystery of God is a closed door simply does not make sense. Though God is infinite which precludes an all-inclusive definition, understanding, comprehension, why should that prevent continual thinking, analysis, or, if you please, new theories? If universe is not infinite, it might as well be treated so. Because the universe is immeasurable by thought or tools, should we stop? It simply makes no sense.

[10] The concept of classes is essential in learning and conversation. A child is told, “See the kitty.” The child might use Kitty as the name for kitty. Soon however the child sees a similar animal to the first kitty and will also call this one kitty. A class is a mental construct that defines and distinguishes objects. A child may initially confuse a doggie with a kitty, but after a few corrections, somehow the child will from that point categorize or classify dogs and doggies correctly as well as cats and kitties. In the usage of God as a name and a class, consider the following. Question: What is god? Answer: God is a powerful Being with the following attributes … God is a class, a category. If we find anything that matches the definition of this class, we will put it into that class. Question: Does the God who created the universe have a name? Answer: In the Old Testament people call him God or LORD [Jehovah or Yaweh]. So God is class with a member that is also called God. For the Greeks god is a class with members: Zeus, Hera, Hermes, etc.

[11] Sometimes a person might say, “He treats me like an object, like a thing. Well, I’m a human, not a thing!” I am not using object in that sense at all. The word “object” is being used in the philosophical sense. An object is anything that is not the subject perceiving it or thinking about it. An object may be a person, place, thing, idea, etc. An object is different and distinct from me, the subject.

[12] The vast differences between humans and chimpanzees, while being so similar in genotypes, are an excellent illustration of the chaos effect. The chaos effect is the principle that a minor change may result in hugely magnified and distinct differences later. “The butterfly effect,” which illustrates this principle, suggests that the wind current caused by a butterfly might eventually be the initial force of a tornado on the other side of the world. The inability of the most advanced computers to forecast the weather is due to the chaos effect.

[13] Epigenetic modification is the effect that forces outside the genes affect upon the genes themselves. The effect that environment brings will cause different genes to be “turned on” or “turned off.”

[14] An internet search on “the Jim twins” will provide intriguing articles on Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, identical twins separated at birth. Brought together by Thomas Bouchard, an early leader in the Minnesota Twins Project, the similarities are staggering. Though the similarities of the Jim twins were considered anomalies compared to other identical twins separated at birth (they were “outliers”); yet, what they had in common seems difficult to attribute to coincidence: both married twice (each wife having the same first name), one son (James Allen and James Alan), drove the same type of car, vacationed in the same town in Florida, smoked the same cigarette brand, drank the same brand of beer, had the same hobby of carpentry, both worked as part time deputies for the sheriff’s department, and more. A different set of separated identical twins (one raised by a Jewish family and the other a member of Hitler’s Youth) had a number of similarities, including the odd habit of flushing the toilet before using it. No one is suggesting there is a gene for flushing a toilet, but there are interests, mannerisms, likes and dislikes that seem to be inborn. If not inborn, then as soon as they are exposed to a particular behavior or object, they immediately emulate it or want it. Though there is no gene that would have predisposed both of the Jim twins to marry a woman by the name Linda and one by the name Betty, this does seem more than randomness. The odds are certainly remote for this; however, it is true that people like or prefer certain sounds. How often have you heard a parent say, “I really like the name [whatever]?” Though a gene may not cause a particular behavior, there seems to be something that influences predispositions or immediate acceptance.

[15] A phenotype is the resultant behavior, appearance, and other physical features of the genes. In the same way that a blueprint is the plan and the physical house is the result, so genes are the blueprint and the particular human is the result, the phenotype.

[16] The word “stuff” engenders all kinds of images and connotations. God and angels are spirit, not matter. God is spirit. Obviously neither I nor anyone else knows what a spirit is comprised of. I think of spirit as non-matter; often we imagine translucent shapes or cloudy forms … physical stuff again. Whatever a spirit is comprised of, God is different from angels. The God-spirit has properties and attributes that the angel-spirits do not have. For convenience sake, what it is that comprises God, I will refer to as God-stuff.

[17] The functions of the Divine Personalities are listed in a paraphrased form. A formal declaration is found in Article IIIb from the earlier quote in the Westminster Confession of Faith: “The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.”

[18] In theology this is referred to as the hypostatic union. This is the union of the nature of God and the nature of man in one. Hypostasis essentially meant real subsistence, not ideal. So, in some way, the nature of God was really unionized with the nature of man.

[19] The doctrine of the Impeccability of Jesus teaches that Jesus could not sin; He was unable to sin. The Peccability of Jesus teaches that Jesus could have sinned, but chose not to. For years I went back and forth between these doctrines, but my reflection on the nature of God the Father and Jesus being the very same has me irrevocably supporting Impeccability. I am not clear to how either doctrine will make a practical difference in behavior; there does appear to be a doubt about our security after death if Peccability is true. After His resurrection it appears that Jesus had the same body that He had before. There is no reason to believe a change had occurred with His spirit; so, His ability to be able to sin would continue after His death. What assurance could a believer have that Jesus would sin later, and the whole cycle of redemption starts all over again? If resurrected believers still have the ability to sin, then there is no security. The question that naturally arises is, “How was Jesus truly tempted as we are but He was unable to sin?” A temptation is a test; negatively it is a test designed to cause a person to fail spiritually. The test is still valid. For instance, assume you attend your child’s first grade class on a Parents Day. A math test is given, and the parents are encouraged to take it. I suspect two emotions would be present. One will be a sense of ease that this test will be a cake walk. “C’mon, add 2 + 2?” Then there would be a second emotion, a negative one. “What if I just overlook something and write a number down wrong? I know the answer, but I just might miswrite it? How embarrassing would it be to miss a question like one of these?” The parent can still feel the anxiety of being in error even though “there is no way he can mess up.” So for Jesus, His spiritual side was sound and would not mess up. His human side could still feel the anxiety, much as it did when He felt hunger, was tired, felt anguish in the Garden, or screamed in pain on the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

[20] This is reminiscent of Dickens’ The Christmas Carol: “Marley was dead … The registry of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner … There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story …” If Jesus had merely swooned or went into some sort of coma and then have revived prior to His burial, then the swoon theory of Jesus on the cross would have leverage; but Jesus was buried. He was executed by professional killers and was buried. The burial enables the wonderful story of the resurrection.