h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An o'ercast daytime. I slept from roughly six until roughly twoilve, and am feeling slow and gentle. I may have to go to the Bottle Store and get some more Kahlua for my coffee.

Slept for much of the afternoon. Feeling deliciously sleepy and restful. I must try to get to sleep at a sensible time tonight, because I really must try to get to church tomorrow - I think it starts at nine. Ou men boulomai ienai egwge, dei de, ki koh tsivah adonai.

And let us love the Lord! Love for God is a gift that he gives us, along with faith and hope. I do not love him with my own weak little love, but I love him with the love that he gives me; I love the Son with the love with which the Father loves the Son, and I love the Father with the love with which the Son loves the Father. This is a Trinitarian thing, you see. The Holy Spirit takes the Father's love for Jesus and gives it to me, and takes Jesus' love for the Father and gives it to me. So loving God is a participation in the Trinity.

So far from being a dry and dusty doctrine, dodgy and debatable, the reality of the Trinity is absolutely central to my faith. There are different ways, or modalities of participation in the Trinity. I stand before the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit; this is the basic shape of my participation. The Spirit takes what is Jesus's and gives it to me; the Spirit causes the Word to be formed in me, so that I become conformed to the Image of the Word; I become a partaker in the divine nature. Jesus Christ is made to us wisdom and knowledge. This is a peculiar feature which is most characteristic of the Biblical faith; Jesus himself is the content of our salvation. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, he says. He himself is the Life. The Father gives us life, which is to say, he gives us the Son.

Now the Western church (Roman and Protestant) has, according to TF Torrance, suffered from what he called the Latin Heresy, whereby Christ remains up in heaven and hands out salvation as it were like robes that we put on. This is not what the Bible teaches. The teaching of the Bible is that the Father gives us Christ himself as the content of our salvation; Jesus IS our Salvation, himself. He didn't just save me; he IS my salvation.

To understand this, I have found the Trinitarian and Christological teachings of the early Fathers to be helpful, together with theological meditation on the mystery of the Bride and the Bridegroom. (Paul says that earthly marriage is a 'profound mystery' (Eph. 5:32) concerning Christ and the Church.) Perhaps one day the Spirit will give me the power to write up how these things have helped renew me in the spirit of my mind in accordance with the Gospel.

Loving the Lord is the most exquisite pleasure I believe it is possible to enjoy in this life and the next. It is wonderful, because he is wonderful.

Oh, something I've just noticed: a sign of the Trinity in the New Testament: Ephesians 4:4-6

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

So that's:

one Spirit

one Lord

one God and Father

who is

over all

through all

in all.

We have plenty of other evidence for the divinity of the Spirit and the Son; and we notice how Paul, with wonderful inspiration, writes how God is "over all" and "through all" and "in all" - again, the distinctive prepositions that point to the characteristic Trinitarian dynamic to BEING and to our PARTICIPATION in it.

The Trinity co-ordinates all our experience, as we stand in the world amongst creation, as we stand before the Father on the Throne, and as we stand in the fellowship of the church as members of the Body of Christ.

It also co-ordinates what happens when we worship, when we pray, and when we read the Bible. It is a marvellous study in itself, and in its applicability to all our activities in life.

In my experience everything fits together like a jigsaw, as the Spirit causes us to live through the Son unto the Father; the Spirit makes me relate to the Father with the relationship of the Son.

This made possible by the shed blood of Christ, which removed every obstacle that stood in the way between me and God, Father, Son and Spirit.

It is through the Cross, indeed, that I participate in Christ; the Cross is where I meet Christ. So all our being in God and through God and unto God, is co-ordinated by our sharing in the Cross of Jesus. Yet another dimension to the theology of following the Lord, that I discern from the Bible and as I compare its revelation with my experience of belonging to God.

I believe the teaching about the Trinity isn't as Greek and abstract as people are wont to think it is. It is basically about relation and relating. It is about a personal being towards, a personal being in, and a personal being through.

These are basic personal realities that we learn from the experience of having a mother and a father, and siblings and friends. They are basic personal realities that we learn from being in community. They are basic human realities - as God made us in his image, which is a God who exists in relation, Father, Son and Spirit.

So the Trinity isn't abstract, but very concrete, as concrete as the basic human realities of being part of a family and part of a community.

It is as concrete as the love my mother has towards me and as the love shared in the relations between members of a family. These are the basic nuts and bolts of a humanity made in the relational image and likeness of God.

(Of course not all families model God's love adequately. My own doesn't. But I can understand how things should be, even if I didn't experience them myself.)

Yeah. Cool. Not abstract, not dry, but alive, and exciting, and real! All about RELATING. I love it! Not only is it relating, but it is relating in love.

Again, we come to another crux: the nature of agape, God's love, the love with which Jesus loves us. As he commands, Love one another as I have loved you.

How has Jesus loved us? By giving his life for us!

So we come to another feature of the dynamic of the life of our faith: the nature of Biblical love, and how it shapes the way believers relate to each other in love.

The love of Jesus is shown most explicitly by the Cross. So it is to the Icon of the Cross that we look, to get revelation about how we relate to each other, and to God through the Spirit.

I see that it can begin to appear to be terribly complicated, with all the different realities to consider: the Trinity and its prepositions that describe the living dynamic of relationality in God, in which we participate; and the reality of the Cross, where we meet Jesus and enter into the whole Life; and the reality of agape, or Cross-shaped love, in which we live towards God and others. All these things fit together like the pieces of a clock. But they can be taken apart and studied separately, as long as they are all put back together again.

The theology of the faith is like a whole mass of interlocking realities, which all work together in one magnificent Life, the Life of God.

One may say, This is all too complicated. It is better simply to believe "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself".

To which I say, Yes, love is the Reality, and love is about relating; and all of the theology, simply describes the manner in which we relate, in the different dimensions of our being. There is much to it, because there is much to us! We are manifold, so the theology that describes our lives, will be manifold too.

But basically it all boils down to the relationalities of love.

Love itself is just an ecstatic wonder, the most beautiful thing in the world. But we can trace some of its basic dynamics; Paul leads the way, with his "over all" and "through all" and "in all". There are other places in the NT where he uses similar language to point to the realities of God. It isn't just speculation; there is correct theology, and there is incorrect theology.

There was argy bargy over on the BBC board because of my prolixity. What I was trying to do there, was describe the mechanics of our participation in God, and how we relate to God, to our neighbour, and to ourselves: trying to unpack the Greatest Commandment. It wasn't very good. But I was doing my best. It depended on an anthropology which not everyone agrees with. So it is best to stick with theological realities that everybody agrees with (at least, everybody who does theology in this way): The Trinity and Christology as the Fathers defined it, up to and including Chalcedon. (Although not everyone agrees with Chalcedon, or with Nicaea for that matter!)

What excites me tonight is how the study of the Trinity isn't abstraction and dry doctrine, but is description of the most concrete and beautiful human and divine reality, that of relating in love to other persons. Theology is the study of love! It is the study of what it's like to be in love, in that specific love, the threefold Love of God, revealed to us in Christ Jesus, and in the pages of the Holy Scriptures. How wonderful is that! It's certainly how I have experienced the study of theology, at university; as a form of intellectual ecstasy, a mind-mirror of the ecstatic love in my heart that God gives me through the Spirit. What a pleasure!

People derive similar experiences through the study of e.g. mathematics, and physics; I believe it is because maths and physics are descriptions of the world which God, who is love, has created in love, for us, the objects of his love, to enjoy.

I believe the Universe is made out of love, and when you study it, you will scarcely be able to avoid being touched by that love which our God poured into his handiwork when "in the beginning, he created heaven and earth".

Happy in God's love!

<<<>>>

I was delighted to realise this evening that the study of the Trinity is as concrete as the realities of the relationalities of love, as in the love of a mother for her children, the love of a father, the love of a brother and sister. That's all there is to it; that's what Trinitarian theology is about. It isn't abstract at all, but supremely concrete.

Suddenly thirsting for Christian fellowship.

Watching a Christian movie on Revelation. I think we've just seen the ruthless hot shot lawyer receive Christ.

"Christians" or better said, the organised religion calling itself Christianity, has been guilty of the most terrible crimes against the Jews. I am listening to a programme about the 1490s in Spain. 1492 I think he said, they chucked the Jews out of Spain, and the Inquisitors were there. How terrible.

No wonder we've got a bad name amongst the Jews. But the Gospel will reach the Jews and they will love their Messiah one day.

There is so much love around.

I am blessed. Thank you Father for giving me the life you have given me. Thank you that you will cause me to enjoy my life right until the end, when I shall step into Eternity with Jesus, hand in hand with my Lord and Saviour, praising you and glorifying your holy Name. I surely don't deserve the grace you have given me, but I thank you for it. Thanks, Father... I shall be praising you forever and ever. When you asked me what I wanted, I said, I want God.