Religious Reality: A Book for MenRawlinson, A. E. J. (Alfred Edward John)
Religion
Religious Reality: A Book for Men
Rawlinson, A. E. J. (Alfred Edward John)
Theology, Doctrinal -- Popular works
It may be that sometimes we think we would rather be content to say
simply with S. John that "GOD is Love." And that is truly the simplest
of Christian creeds. If we were able fully to understand it, it would
be sufficient. "Holy Trinity, whatever else it may signify, is a mode
of saying 'Holy Love.'" But as a matter of fact it is only through the
revelation of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit that we can ever come to understand the love of GOD.
In the Christian Gospel GOD is revealed first as Father, secondly as
Sufferer, thirdly as the Spirit of eternally victorious Life: and it
takes the whole threefold revelation to express with any fulness the
rich wonder of what is meant by saying that GOD is Love. Our minds
cannot help passing from the contemplation of the threefold character
of GOD'S self-revelation to the thought of a certain threefoldness in
GOD Himself. We have to find room and place for such a thought--the
thought that GOD is _eternally_ Love, that He is _eternally_ Father,
Son, and Spirit--and yet at the same time not depart from the
fundamental Christian conviction that GOD is One.
It is to be feared that many Christian people do sometimes come
dangerously near to believing in three separate Gods, and what we call
Unitarianism is a one-sided protest against such a tendency. GOD is
indeed a unity: and so far Unitarianism is right. But Unitarianism is
less than the full Christian faith in GOD, because it fails to do
justice to the full riches of Christian experience, the many-sided
wonder of GOD revealed in Christ, and made real to us here and now by
the operation of the Spirit in our hearts. We are driven to say that
GOD is not only One, but Three in One.
Nevertheless, if any one finds the _theory_ of the Holy Trinity
difficult let him not be overmuch dismayed. Let him learn to know GOD
as Father and Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour: let him learn to know
the Holy Spirit as an energy of eternal life and inspiration in his
heart. He will then be _in effect_ a Trinitarian believer, even though
the theologians seem to him to talk a language which he does not
understand: even though--to tell the truth--he is not greatly
interested by what they say.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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