The Rev. Cliff Kirkpatrick and the Rev. Jack Haberer recently met to discuss “some of the pressing issues” facing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). During their hour-long conversation, Kirkpatrick stated, “Some of the conflict we’ve had — I know it’s not the only issue — things like [concerns about] the Trinity paper are really based on a misunderstanding of what the General Assembly did. So we’re seeking to reach out that way.” (The Presbyterian Outlook issue of 4/9/07. Cf also issues 4/16/07 and 4/30/07).
If these concerns truly are the result of simple misunderstanding, then clarifying the issue should be an effortless task and easily dismissed. However, the 217th General Assembly, while receiving, “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing” without approving it, commended it to the church for study and use in worship. Additionally, the Rev. Charles Wiley of the Office of Theology and Worship has admitted that the triad “Mother, Child, and Womb” fails the paper’s own criteria and is gravely flawed in two respects. (Letters, The Laymen Online 2/14/2007). First, as he explains, it has a weak scriptural foundation. Secondly, mixing the two “personal” images, mother and child, with the “functional” womb is fatal to good Trinitarian theology.
Wiley, the primary writer of the Trinity paper, refused to acknowledge such a defect earlier last spring before the General Assembly. Now he has openly made the candid admission in response to my essay, “Is Human Life Sanctified by the Life-giving Spirit or the Life-giving Womb?” which appeared originally on the Web site of Presbyterian Pro-Life and included on other Web sites. If this is the case, it is relevant to revisit the Trinity paper.
So, what is wrong with the Trinity paper? A number of things. However, the most salient flaw is that the paper does not achieve its stated goal. The paper was not intended to replace the old fashioned language of Father, Son, and Spirit but only to aid in achieving a fuller understanding of the triune God. A vital question must be asked: Are the suggested triads faithfully representing the triune God? The answer is no.
The crux of the problem in the case of the proposed feminine triad is the “womb.” A womb, though undeniably vital to all life on earth and a venerable symbol, is no more comparable to the Father and Son or Mother and Child than a hand or knee. The womb is not homoousios (the same in being) with Mother and Child, to borrow the primary yet dubious word from the Nicene Creed. Thus, it cannot represent the third Person of the Trinity.
If Father, Son, and Spirit are the same in all aspects except in personal distinction of name, three images in a triad must correspond respectively to three Persons of the Trinity, to the contrary of what the Trinity paper seems to be advocating. Otherwise, the triad symbolizes Modalism. Three hypostaseis are God’s ways of being God, not merely ways of God’s being in relation to man and woman. Trinitarian language is not free to venture anything and everything. It has its logic.
In this ill-fated feminine triad, mutuality and equality are among the elements missing; the elements many professional theologians speak of as Trinitarian requisite in the relationship of love. Thus, as the impersonal womb is neither equal to the Mother or Child, the feminine triad is in reality only a duo. If one insists on including the womb in metaphor, he or she is binitarian. This particular binitarism fails to depict the motherly power and work of the Holy Spirit. This does not seem to be the articulated intention of the paper. Otherwise, there is no point in the paper’s expressed concern over the functional Unitarianism.
One does not have to be a trained theologian to figure out that the overflowing love of a mother for her child cannot be placed, even for the sake of symbolism, on equal parity with the love of a womb for its fruit. A mother’s love is something to be cherished and celebrated. In fact, in some cultures the motherly love has almost a divine quality and is praised more highly than the fatherly love. However, a womb, and other organs of the body, cannot express love.
For whatever reason, the authors of the Trinity paper, while working on the paper for several years, failed to notice this fatal flaw in the feminine triad. They submitted the methodologically and theologically flawed paper for the General Assembly to approve. The action of the 217th General Assembly in turn virtually ended the theological process with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. This means, among other things, that the Trinity Working Group has failed to formulate a feminine triad for the Trinity, which was mandated by the 212th General Assembly.
This issue is further complicated in that the prayer offered in the name of “Mother, Child, and womb” during the session of the 217th General Assembly is idolatry, if judged by Nicene faith. The Nicene Creed, which was devised with the motive of avoiding the idolizing of the Son and the Spirit, is the only Confession that is almost universally and ecumenically accepted by Christian communities worldwide. Ironically, one of the rationales for additional Trinitarian triads seems to have been a concern over fostering idolatry. At least the paper was on target with one aspect; failed theological method yields idolatrous theology and behavior.
It was with good intention that the Trinity paper was commissioned. In fact, it was a valiant effort to reclaim the Trinity while attempting to introduce feminine Trinitarian imagery to the church and removing a kind of functional Unitarianism from Presbyterians. The paper includes some valuable Trinitarian understandings and could be improved for the church to adopt. Perhaps academic institutes or an overture may help continue the needed theological process in the Presbyterian spirit of ecclesia reformata semper reformanda [the church reformed, always to be reformed [according to Scripture)], which includes theology.
However, if and when, as instructed by the 217th General Assembly, study and worship materials are produced on the basis of the unapproved Trinity paper and the Trinity paper itself is adulterated with faulty metaphors, then what will become of the Presbyterians who try to know Christ through these materials? No engineer would ever consider using questionable tools. Is constructing our eternal, spiritual lives any less important?
If “the doctrine of the Trinity is a summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (The Trinity, 154) and a triad is a core of the dogma, any triad must reflect the gospel that we hear in the church and have been proclaiming to the world. Which of those proposed triads are encouraging church growth and world evangelization? No wonder the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been declining in these two important areas of the Lord’s command.
I am not sure if one can assert that concerns about the Trinity paper are really based on a misunderstanding. If the debate over ordaining practicing homosexuals and ownership of the church property is about justice (or injustice) in a Christian church, worshiping and praising only the triune God of the Bible is a case for the church to remain Christian.
In conclusion, the Trinity paper is too fatally flawed to serve as a base for study and worship materials for the church to use in the interest of church growth and world evangelization. The Office of Theology and Worship is preparing study and worship materials for publication. All this, in light of poor Trinitarian knowledge among Presbyterians, should constitute the concerns about the Trinity paper as the most pressing issue currently facing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Inkyu Park is pastor of University Church in Akron, Ohio.
