Not Even Wrong:
Metaphors and the Doctrine of the Trinity
Religion — By Joe Carter on June 23, 2006 at 1:11 am When the famed German physicist Wolfgang Pauli would criticize the theories of his colleagues, he would often declare them to be ganz falsch, utterly false. But on one occasion Pauli was shown the paper of a young physicist and remarked,
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19 Comments
This is exactly why education in the church needs to way beyond just the basic quarterly and encompass the serious doctrines of the church. Ron Brown has done a lot of damage, some of which was preventable.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com
Here is another analogy, and why it isn’t accurate.
John Wesley on the Trinity
Joe,
I take it that the heart of your complaint is this: ‘{T]he metaphor of [Mother/Child/Womb] causes us to draw the analogy
Thanks for this post, Joe. I had the same reaction when I read the news reports, and blogged on it at the time. But like you, after reading the actual report, I realized the panel wasn’t theologically off-base in its understanding of the Trinity, but its use of metaphor (although taken from Scripture) could still be misleading. You explained why such metaphoric language can create confusion much better than I could.
Brett;
Have used the earthworm analogy myself and didn’t realize I was in such good company. I am not aware of any perfect analogies but one thing I like about Wesley’s is that it has a big God. Probably not big enough but at least to big for any box of human construction.
The Trinity is unique, and every human analogy will break down under scrutiny. I think they are still useful, though, because we need some method to at least begin to understand it. Bottom line is that the Trinity is a mystery.
Sadly, this sort of thing happens in the Catholic Church too, although not from the leadership or any official synod or conference or anything. More of a grass-roots subversive effort driven by feminists’ attempts to remove any gender terms from the liturgy.
Scott Hahn, in the intro to the book “Catholic for a Reason” discussed why using “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier” is deficient. For one, God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are who He eternally was, is, and will be. Before He ever created the universe, redeemed us, or sanctified us, He was Father, Son, and H.S.
Secondly, it’s who He is, not what He does. To create, redeem, and sanctify is something you “do”. It would be like coming home from school as a kid and saying “Hi Cook”, instead of “Hi Mom”.
You make a good point about not getting the metaphors reversed. Human fathers are “like” God the Father, not the reverse. God the Father is more than can be defined by the human male gender, but that doesn’t change who He originally revealed Himself to be.
“Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, unto the ages of ages, Amen”
In the Isaiah references (Isa. 49:15 and 46:3) the metaphor is mother=God, child=Israel (or humans or believers). There is no indication that the reference is to a relationship among the Godhead.
The Mat.3:17 reference only indicates a parent/child relationship between God and Jesus. Where is the license to create a metaphor for Holy Spirit=womb?
In the Isaiah references (Isa. 49:15 and 46:3) the metaphor is mother=God, child=Israel (or humans or believers). There is no indication that the reference is to a relationship among the Godhead.
The Mat.3:17 reference only indicates a parent/child relationship between God and Jesus. Where is the license to create a metaphor for Holy Spirit=womb?
Sadly, this sort of thing happens in the Catholic Church too, although not from the leadership or any official synod or conference or anything. More of a grass-roots subversive effort driven by feminists’ attempts to remove any gender terms from the liturgy.
Scott Hahn, in the intro to the book “Catholic for a Reason” discussed why using “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier” is deficient. For one, God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are who He eternally was, is, and will be. Before He ever created the universe, redeemed us, or sanctified us, He was Father, Son, and H.S.
Secondly, it’s who He is, not what He does. To create, redeem, and sanctify is something you “do”. It would be like coming home from school as a kid and saying “Hi Cook”, instead of “Hi Mom”.
You make a good point about not getting the metaphors reversed. Human fathers are “like” God the Father, not the reverse. God the Father is more than can be defined by the human male gender, but that doesn’t change who He originally revealed Himself to be.
“Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, unto the ages of ages, Amen”
Franklin, your argument seems to boil down to “No metaphor is perfect so all are good”. I agree that no metaphor is perfect but they come in a wide range of usefulness. I think Joe has succesfully shown why this is one of the ones that’s not so good.
Isn’t Trinity that hot chick from the Matrix movies?
J.J.,
I never said that all metaphors are good since none are perfect. (I’m certain that much of what I say on these matters is false but I do not often make basic logical errors.) Rather I said that all are imperfect and thus must be interpreted with care. I never said that none are bad. Some surely are. My complaint was that Joe has not shown that the Mother/Child/Womb metaphor is any worse than the Father/Son/Spirit metaphor. (And he agree that the latter is a metaphor and that that it can mislead.)
Franklin
Maybe there is some theological substance to this thing, but it sure seems to me that some of this amounts to reducing the Persons of the Trinity to “ideas” or “concepts”.
It would be prudent to keep in mind that we are talking about the Names of God.
Joe, a minor quibble: it’s not a conceptual metaphor, it’s a metaphor. All metaphors have base (source) and target domains, with the source domain used to say something about the target domain. Conceptual metaphors are a theoretical construct in conceptual metaphor theory, which has been empirically falsified, for all intents and purposes.
If you want to learn more about metaphor, check out structure mapping instead.
Joe, a minor quibble: it’s not a conceptual metaphor, it’s a metaphor. All metaphors have base (source) and target domains, with the source domain used to say something about the target domain. Conceptual metaphors are a theoretical construct in conceptual metaphor theory, which has been empirically falsified, for all intents and purposes.
If you want to learn more about metaphor, check out structure mapping instead.
I guess I don’t understand the need to affirm the Trinity by trying to expand it past the bounds it ought to stay in. There’s something disingenuous about it. Why do we need “fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God?”
If we’re going to use the doctrine of the Trinity as an anchor, the emphasis should be on limit to what the Trinity can be understood as, not on “freedom of movement” within certain arbitrarily-determined or irrelevant bounds. The Trinity is a particular threesome referring to God’s identity; no other threesome can be analogous.
I’ll buy the “beloved Son” part of the mother/child/womb threesome, but to say that God’s love is equivalent in compassion and superior in reliability to that of the mother of a suckling child’s is not to say that His love is a motherly love. And it’s not even close to say that God’s forming Jacob/Israel in the womb and upholding Israel in the womb and beyond is analogous to His being a womb.
Those understandings help us know the love of the Father part of the Trinity, but they don’t do anything for an understanding of the actual Trinity.
Here’s a big red flag from the document:
“…we should not insist on the exclusive use of the traditional trinitarian names, lest we quench the spirit and even foster idolatry. Such a view would insufficiently acknowledge the divine mystery, would neglect the freedom of God’s children to glorify God imaginatively with all our hearts and minds, and would diminish the joy of knowing God ever more fully.”
That sounds like it’s straight from Bishop Spong.
It makes sense that one might use different metaphors to explain or explore ways of looking at the trinity (e.g. Augustine’s lover/beloved/love)–Bible camps often employ the much-loved analogy “the undivided trinity is like an egg.” But there’s an important difference between our asserting that metaphors are useful and our incorporating them into a liturgy. There’s a difference between saying that in our baptism the Holy Spirit, like a womb, grants us life, and actually naming/praising/praying to Him as “Womb” or “divine egg yolk.” (Besides, given that the womb involved was Mary’s, perhaps the Holy Spirit would more aptly be termed “the Impregnator”–which would have sounded rather cool to me as a young-un.)
Great post, Joe. It reminds of Mark Roberts’ post following the recent mixed set of votes in the PC(USA)on the “fidelity and chastity” principle (upholding it overwhelmingly), and the apparent(lack of) obligation on the part of individual congregations to uphold that principle (a more narrow vote).