February 2006 Herald
“The one eternal, living God is triune: one God in three persons. The God who meets us in the testimony of Israel is the same God who meets us in Jesus Christ, and who indwells creation as the Holy Spirit. God is the Eternal Creator, the source of love, life, and truth. God actively loves and cares for each person. All things that exist owe their being to God who alone is worthy of our worship.”
Just about everybody has something to say about God these days. Google “God” and a list of 170 million Web sites appears. Quantity has its drawbacks, of course, and so that’s probably not the best way to start. A more helpful approach might begin with the Jewish origins of Christianity. Take Job’s friend Zophar, for example:
Do you think you can explain the mystery of God? Do you think you can diagram God almighty? God is far higher than you can imagine, far deeper than you can comprehend. Stretching farther than earth’s horizons, far wider than the endless ocean. —Job 11:7–9 The Message
Zophar’s central concern wasn’t elaborating a doctrine of God, but his point is valid. The mystery that is God begins with the divine name itself. The Hebrew scriptures (our Old Testament) tie God to specific people or places rather than as a metaphysical abstraction. This is the patriarchal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who later on would promise David a royal dynasty, which the Gospel writers in turn connected with Jesus of Nazareth. Moses encountered a Voice (the presence of God) in a burning bush that spoke of a deep, loving relationship:
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.” —Exodus 3:7–8, 10 NRSV
Like his ancestor Jacob, Moses demanded a name—the Israelites would want to know who sent him, after all. Scripture records the name as “I Am Who I Am,” or simply, “I Am.” A more precise translation is “I Cause to Be What Will Be.” This causative form of the Hebrew verb hyh serves as the basis for the name YHWH, or Yahweh. Obviously, a God whose name derives from a verb must be a God of action. Compare that to the ancient Greeks who conceived of “God” in terms of pure thought.
Defining God as an abstract noun makes it tough to get a precise answer because our human vocabulary is limited to finite terms and concepts. It’s quite another matter to connect God to action verbs. God may indeed be “wholly other” and outside human understanding—and therefore always Mystery—yet God chooses to interact with and even to save humanity from its condition.
Joseph Smith Jr. envisioned this in a revelation given in June 1830: “…there is no end to my works, neither to my words; for this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality, and eternal life of man” (Doctrine and Covenants 22:23). Focusing on God’s transcendence (what is beyond the limits of ordinary experience) leads to an emphasis on God’s being. A focus on God’s immanence (what is within the limits of ordinary experience) directs us to God’s activity. Our modern world extols rationality, and therefore we seek first to understand. Only then can we accept or believe. Maybe that’s why so many people have such trouble with the idea of God: we demand full understanding before faith and belief, rather than the other way around.
Christian concepts of God begin with Old Testament ones but are extended and deepened by Jesus Christ. Each Gospel writer brings a unique perspective on the relationship between God “the Father” and Jesus Christ “the Son.” John opens his account in a powerful way, harkening to the opening lines of Genesis:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. —John 1:1–5 NRSV
John’s purpose in writing is to answer why God’s “Only Begotten” came to earth: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16 NRSV). For John, God’s purpose was inherent in the act of creation when the “breath of God” (Spirit) moved.
Theophilus of Antioch, in A.D. 180, was perhaps the first to formally use the term “Trinity of God.” By the next century the term was in general use. Church councils sought to bring consistency and understanding regarding the relationship among Father, Son, and Spirit by developing a doctrine of the Trinity. Much has been written since regarding the Triune God, yet today many Christians are still baffled. How can the One God actually be three, but really only one? Perhaps we need to return to thinking about God first in terms of relationship rather than prematurely speculating about theological principles and developing dogmatic practices.
Consider how various Christians look to the Triune God, each emphasizing one of the three “persons” (a word, by the way, used by ancient Greek actors who put on various masks, or personas). Mainline Protestants tend to address prayers to God the Father (with some substituting Creator, Parent, or even Mother out of sensitivity for male imagery). Evangelical Christians, who tend to emphasize Jesus Christ, begin their prayers “Dear Jesus.” Pentecostals and Charismatics, in turn, focus on the Holy Spirit—praying in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, being baptized in the Spirit. Each group wonders what’s wrong with the others. This shouldn’t be too surprising; the church has always been concerned with orthodoxy (right doctrine) and orthopraxy (right practice).
N. Graham Standish in his book Becoming a Blessed Church: Forming a Church of Purpose, Presence, and Power (Alban Institute, 2005) suggests an alternate way to understand the Trinity. Begin by recognizing that it is a paradox—that belief does not arise from human rules of logic or reason:
We need to be people who are (1) grounded in the purpose that God the Creator created us for; (2) alive to the presence of God in Christ in our midst; and (3) open to the miraculous power of God the Holy Spirit flowing through everything we do. We need to create communities that are grounded in God’s Purpose, alive to Christ’s Presence, and open to God’s Power. To become truly blessed, our churches need to become trinitarian both in faith and practice, not just in doctrine and belief. —page 52
Standish may be on to something here. When God is known in relationship, then God can come alive to us as individuals and communities. There is purpose to life. We are not alone but surrounded by divine presence, and we are not powerless against what the apostle Paul referred to as “principalities and powers.”
God is in charge, and it is by faith that we know we are God’s children. That’s worth clinging to in a world overflowing with war, poverty, disease, corruption, unbelief, and natural disaster. It should be no surprise that the first recorded revelatory message given to the infant Restoration movement, in July 1828, should emphasize that truth:
The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God, cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught, for God doth not walk in crooked paths; neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left; neither doth he vary from that which he hath said; therefore his paths are straight and his course is one eternal round. Remember, remember, that it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of men…. —Doctrine and Covenants 2:1–2a
–Richard A. Brown
Herald Contributing editor
