FILE: DOG21.WMV Q The Athenasian Creed and the things you've been saying seem so abstract. This is the kind of thing I had in mind when I asked earlier about theology being theoretical. Can you tell me how to talk in concrete ways about the Trinity? Or is our doctrine for something else? DR. ROLAND ZIEGLER: Well, there is no way around talking abstract at some point of time. As I said before, the language of the Trinitarian dogma is a reflection of the church on the witness of scripture. That means it is an effort to synthesize the witness of structure and to develop, as far as it is possible, a coherent concept of God. And as usual, when you go beyond immediate data, when you go kind of on a metalevel, it gets more abstract also in theology. So you can't avoid that. Of course there is the danger that you get into some kind of empty speculation that goes beyond scripture. That you just operate with terms that seem to have no content or be so far removed from scripture that you say, really, what's the use? On the other hand, there is also the danger that you say, oh, this is too abstract for me. I don't care. That you capitulate 24 before the task of actually synthesizing what scripture says into a coherent concept and say, oh, God is a mystery, and let's leave it at that. So, theology challenges us to think. He doesn't say that in the end you have all the solutions, all the answers to all the questions, you have no intellectual problems left. That's not the promise we have. But we do theology in order to understand scripture better and in order to talk about God better. So God is a mystery that is an answer that is at the beginning of doing theology and at the end. But in between, actually something happens. You see, the Greek philosopher Socrates said, I know that I do not know anything. He said, but when he was an old man and when he had spent a long time thinking about what can you know? What does it mean to know? It's different when he says that I know that I do not know anything than when a high school student with a grade point average of .25 says that, well, I don't know that I don't know anything. There is a difference between him saying that and Socrates saying that, even though the words might seem to be the same. So let's not go the short way and avoid the intellectual effort and also the effort that lies in thinking abstractly. When we actually delve into Trinitarian language and into Trinitarian thought, there is a reward. The reward will be a better, a deeper understanding, and not the least of it when our awe is deep end when we look at the mystery of God. Plus the reward will be also that we avoid the pitfalls of the wrong understanding of God that have troubled the church in the past. Picking up on that, one way to look at the Trinitarian God ma is to see as a regulation how to speak correctly about God. It leads us into the right talk about God and ultimately into the right praise of God. You see, the Trinitarian thought was not only developed by trying to get a concept of God, a concept of God, but it was also developed out of the questions of worship. Can we pray to Jesus? Well, if he's a creature, we shouldn't. Can we worship Jesus? Can we adore Him? Is that right? If he's a creature, that would be idolatry. So you have to reflect on Jesus' status. The same thing with the Holy Spirit. What do we mean when we say, glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Is it one God? Are we adoring three gods? Or whatever. So there is a connection between the life of the church, the worship life of the church, and theological reflection. Trinitarian thought is, therefore, serving the church. And to remember that is important because, again, otherwise we think, oh, this is just abstract thought. Some kind of philosophy, and I don't like philosophy. I don't really care. Let's forget about it or learn it for the test and then forget about it. No. Trinitarian language, the Trinitarian 25 dogma, leads us to talk rightly about God, leads us to worship Him properly. You see that, for example, also when you compare it, again when you discuss, let's say, with Jehovah's witnesses. They do not pray to Jesus. They do not adore Him. Now, even a member of a congregation that is not really interested in Trinitarian thought probably will be troubled when he encounters a Jehovah's Witness telling him that he shouldn't pray to Jesus because that contradicts his piety. And his member will be pushed into Trinitarian thought, into Trinitarian reflection. Now, how can I justify that I pray to Jesus, that I call Jesus my Lord and my God. So Trinitarian regulates the church's prayer life and it regulates also the church's talk about God. Going back again also to the question, how can we completely talk about the Trinity? Well, first and foremost, the best way to talk about the Trinity, if you want to talk completely, is to simply recount the deeds of God. That is, you do not talk about the Trinity. You don't talk about the essence of God. You don't use that terminology. But you simply tell what God has done. You simply talk about what the Father has done, what the Son has done, and what the Holy Spirit has done. That's, of course, the most complete way how to talk about the Trinity. And that's the normal way how scripture talks about the Trinity. You might say, well, that doesn't really answer my question because if that's the complete way, why again have this metalevel. Why have this level of reflection? Therefore, let's talk why should you care about the Trinitarian dogma? Besides, by the way, the fact that it is simply true, and that's a good reason to care. You should care because it is the truth. But I understand that you ask, well, besides being true, since there are a lot of things that are true, but I really don't hear about them or they don't really touch me, in what way can you show me what is the existential import of the dogma of the trinity? Well, one way to explain the existential import of the Trinitarian dogma is that we see when we look at God that He is, in Himself, community. God is not a self-contained ******* (monnit). A one entity. But He is eternally in relation. He is eternally community in love. From the fact that God is love, some Trinitarians think or thought that it was most appropriate or actually God must be Trinitarian. Love is a relational term. So if God is an eternity of love, He must relate in some way to somebody. You remember that Sigmund from Augustin, that in love you have the lover, the beloved, and the love that unites them. If God is a ******* (monnit), then from eternity He is without relation really. For you have to say that from eternity He relates to the world and thereby you would say that the world is eternal and not created. So when we look at the trinity, we see that God is from 26 eternity relational. That He, from eternity, engages in a loving relationship. First in a Trinitarian and then, of course, later on also He engages in a different but similar relationship, true creation. Especially creation, of course, to mankind. So God is from eternity self-giving love. The Father begets the Son in love and both spirate or breathe the Holy Spirit. God is, therefore, the foundation of all community. And by God being Trinitarian, from eternity relational, He shows that to truly exist means to be in relation and that the true and original authentic, whatever you want to call it, relationship is love. I think that's one important way how -- what the Trinity actually teaches us. That means also that we, as persons created in the image of God, are truly persons when we relate in love. There's a strong tendency in Western thought to start with an isolated individual. That's not the Biblical way to talk about man. When we take our clues from Biblical witness, we have to start with the fact that as persons, we exist in relations. We come into being through relations, we exist in relations, and that it is distractive for mankind to exist without relations. Death is utter relationlessness. Excuse me. Strange word. It is the lack of relations. Sin is the lack of relation. It ends in eternal isolation. So from the Trinitarian God we see that relation and, again, relation in love, is what we are created through and that we could say that even the Trinitarian God is the archetype of all relationships, of all communities here on earth. What's the existential import of the deity of Christ? Why is that important? Why should we care? Well, that the Son of God became man so that Christ is true God means that our redemption was accomplished by God Himself. That is important because if you have any view of Christ being less than divine, Christ will inevitably become some kind of an example or a teacher. That's then His importance. You look at Christ and say, oh, yes, He is the exemplary man. If we all would be like Him, the world would be a better place. Or you see Him as the great moral teacher. He gave us all those great instructions. And now it's our task to follow Him and to obey these instructions. You see Him as a teacher, as a prophet, and that's it. And that, of course, has its consequences for salvation. What is salvation then? Salvation is then to obey Jesus' commands. To follow His examples. It means salvation is, essentially, what we do. How does God save us? He gives us the truth in example, and now it's up to you. When we see that Christ had to be true God to redeem us, then it was not enough to simply tell us what we should do but that God Himself at first, to redeem us from our sin and guilt, and 27 from the consequences from death, that God Himself had to atone for our sins and that God Himself had to conquer death to free us from death. Then we see that salvation was accomplished by God and not by us. So the doctrine of the deity of Christ is not, again, an abstract doctrine but it has immense consequences for the way we view salvation. It is essentially related to the doctrine of justification. It's not metaphysical speculation. If God is -- if God, in Christ, did not redeem us, then we have to do it in some way. Why is it important to talk about the deity of the spirit? Again, we can see from that also that such a concept has immediate consequences for our view of salvation. We said that in Christ, God accomplished the salvation of the world. In Christ, God was in Christ and reconciled the world to Himself. So objectively, salvation is accomplished. Mankind is reconciled, is to God justified. God has done everything that is necessary to save us. When we talk about the Holy Spirit then, we talk about how this salvation comes to us. And when we say that nobody can believe in Christ without the Holy Spirit, that Christ has sent His spirit so that we can call upon God, we are saying that not only God had to accomplish salvation all on His own because man was unable to do that, but also that the appropriation of salvation of the individual has to be done, has to be caused, has to be accomplished by God Himself. We can't even on our own grasp salvation. That what Christ has accomplished. God Himself has to create in us faith. God Himself has to come to us so that we might believe, sofa we can believe. So God Himself works faith. The faith by which we appropriate salvation. Paul says at one place, "Nobody can call Jesus Lord except in the Holy Spirit." Let me call on Christ as our Lord and our God must be also accomplished by God Himself. So when we look at the Trinitarian dogma, we see that it teaches us that our entire salvation not only depends on God but is accomplished by God. And that's a pretty existential import of the Trinitarian dogma. We could say it also differently. There is a movement from the holy trinity to us and back. What do I mean by that? The Father sends the Son into the world to reconcile the world to Himself. To redeem us. Then the spirit is sent by the Father and the Son so that the fruits of Christ's work are appropriated, are handed out to men. So we have a movement from God the Father to God the Son to God the Holy Spirit. So man is now included in that movement from God the Father to the Son through the Holy Spirit. And the aim is then to bring man to the Father. So, again, Father, Son, Holy Spirit to man and now man is brought, in the Holy Spirit, through the Son to the Father. 28 There is that movement we have in the history of salvation. God comes out, goes out to man to bring man, who was lost, who went astray, back to Him so that He, again, calls upon Him as Father. And that is only possible when He calls upon Him as Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. So our whole Christian existence is really Trinitarian. And if we look at our being Christians in that way, we realize, yeah, there's a lot of abstract terminology and a lot of terms that seem to be rather hard to understand, but the reality of the trinity really is fundamental for our life as Christians. It's not just some kind of superstructure with which we can do away. Really Christian really means to be reconciled to the Father through the Son and to believe in the Holy Spirit. Being Christian really means to call upon the Father because the Son has allowed and given us to call Him as Father and we can do that in the Holy Spirit. So the Trinitarian dogma actually tells us what the Christian life is like. (End of DOG21.WMV.)