Framing God

The new suggestions are pretty bad, but they have the redeeming feature of describing three related things. The Holy Ghost in the Trinity is such a bizarre and pointless add-on.

Damn. Alejandro beat me to it.

Also, if they’re worried about the patriarchal connotations of the conventional Trinity, it might be a better idea for them to find a non-patriarchal religion. Symptoms, cause, yadda yadda.

Of course, the easy way of making it non-partriarchal would be to change to “Mother, Father, and Child”
(and you can swap out ‘Father’ for ‘Other Mother’, and vice versa, to taste)

(1) Invade their countries,
(2) kill their leaders
and (3) convert them to Christianity

The Holy Ghost has a specific symbolic function: the Trinity is in essence Mind, Body and Spirit. Pretty straightforward. I suppose you could have Wine, Women and Song.

I am an atheist.

stostosto: “The Economist, when reporting on religion in America compared with Europe, emphasises its vibrant, innovative quality which it ascribes to the pluralism of churches competing in the religious marketplace. This could be seen as an example of that. I mean which of the stale state-supported and/or hierarchically burdened European churches would think of encouraging a contest on renaming the Trinity?

Personally I find it infinitely bizarre, but that doesn’t in and of itself distinguish it from so many other market place phenomena.

I think it’s an intriguing theory that Europe’s secularism is caused by the national churches having a de facto, state supported monopoly on organised religion.

What does that say for the issue of separating church and state?”

IIRC, there’s higher religious attendance/belief in S. Europe than in N. Europe, but lower religfious diversity. I’ve never seen advocates of the ‘marketplace of religions’ theory looking at intra-Europe comparisons, just Europe vs. USA. I wonder why? I imagine that a USA/Mexico comparison would show the same thing, that religious diversity was negatively correlated with religious beliefs and attendance.

We really do need more atheists.

There aren’t that many of the many, many things wrong with the organized churches that one can blame Jesus for, but the Big J called God “Father.”

In ‘Mind, Body, and Spirit’, what is the difference between ‘Mind’ and ‘Spirit’?
How about Fire, Ice, and Lukewarm Water?

Fish. Barrel. Ready, aim, fire!

Christian is as the Council of Nicaea does. If you can’t accept it, fine. I don’t. You can embrace atheism, or new age paganism, or Universalist Unitarianism or Giveallyourmoneytochrisism. But playing word games with the tenets of a well understood religion to suit your tastes when you can no longer subscribe to them just makes you look like a blithering idiot. And not even a Christian one.

Hell, Hull and Halifax

Actually, I’ve always found the concept of “Holy Spirit” quite confusing, and several of these have helped clarify it in my mind. Certainly, most of the “suggestions” made in the comments here don’t bear the structural relations to one another as most of the ones mentioned above do. “Mother, Father, and Child” is the only one of these that looks like a serious suggestion, but it just doesn’t work.

As I (an atheist) understand the Trinity, the first person is the creator, the second is the word made flesh in order that we may be saved, and the third is something like the vehicle by which the divine enters into us?

Admittedly, I don’t quite see how “rock, cornerstone, and temple”, or “fire…, sword…, and storm…” fit this pattern either, but most of the others work quite nicely, and seem to make God much more divine than “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” does.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

As I (an atheist) understand the Trinity, the first person is the creator, the second is the word made flesh in order that we may be saved, and the third is something like the vehicle by which the divine enters into us?

Mmmm…something like that, yeah. I think.

I’m a product of 12 years of Catholic education and I never quite got it either.

This is a reaction to the supposedly “patriarchal” nature of the usual way to express the Trinity. I say, why not?

Why not indeed? I agree that the proposed alternatives are a bit–well, silly–but I can’t help but applaud the effort.

Ted, Dougal & Jack.

Actually, as a Presbyterian myself [Do any of the people commenting on this know anything about Presbyterianism?] I find this ruckus really silly. The General Assembly said nothing that individual congregations haven’t been doing for years, and with reasonable theological warrant [Do you really think Christinity stands or falls on whether the First Person of the Trinity is male? My, how atheists and fundamentalists make common cause]. Yes, to an outsider it looks ridiculous; but to this outsider to CT *you* look ridiculous.

So how do these work?

Compassionate Mother envelops Life-giving Womb, Beloved Child kicks Compassionate Mother, and Life-giving Womb expels Beloved Child.

Living Water infuses Overflowing Font, Overflowing Font floods Flowing River, and Flowing River whisks away Living Water.

Storm That Melts Mountains puts out Fire That Consumes, Fire That Consumes consumes Sword That Divides, and Sword That Divides breaks up Storm That Melts Mountains.

(with a tip of the cap, of course, to Alejandro)

thesis, antithesis, synthesis

You would have to define ‘sacred’.

Abb1,

How about this. If a person has a concept or definiton of “sacred” and if that person believes something exists to which the term applies, then that person would not be in the category.

If pushed for a specific definition

“worthy of veneration or respect” will suffice.

32 – why do you think the bit people are finding amusing is the suggestion that God isn’t male?

35 – can you unpack ‘God as imminent in actuality’ a little, because to me it sounds like ‘God as present in the universe’ which in turn sounds like the Son’s role. As I said, God the Father that creates the universe and God the Son who was embodied in human form seem to have the main bits sewn up, leaving God the Holy Spirit with the scraps. Any religious historians going to explain why a trinity? Was there a sale on triune natures that month?

39 – I don’t think there are many people who believe nothing or nobody is worthy of respect – at the same time, I’d understand ‘sacred’ to mean something a little stronger.

Sociological context “coming right up”:http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.261 (erm, if you have access to the Annual Reviews website). Bottom line:

bq. We have done two things in this essay. First, we have weighed the evidence on religious pluralism contained in the relevant large-N studies. Second, we have used comparative and historical evidence drawn mainly from Western Europe and North America to assess the empirical and conceptual scope of the claim that religious diversity increases religious pluralism via market competition. Our conclusion is simple. The claim that religious pluralism and religious participation are generally and positively associated with one another—the core empirical hypothesis of the market approach to the study of religion—is not supported, and attempts to discredit countervailing evidence on methodological grounds must be rejected. A positive relationship between religious pluralism and religious participation can be found only in a limited number of contexts, while the concepts themselves translate poorly to nonmodern settings.

Kang de Veroveraar (13 above): Just as it is Yurp, it’s merka!

Ray (41): I recall Edmund Wilson somewhere asserting that trinities were fairly common in ancient religions, derived from triangles and ultimately from phalluses. I read this in or before college, at which point it struck me as a peculiar line of reasoning. Having run into many more bizarre lines of reasoning since then, it still strikes me as peculiar. But you can take it for what (you think) it’s worth.

Ray, The baptismal formula is probably the main thing. When the Arians started saying that the Son was less than the Father, the proto-orthodox countered by saying that there are no degrees of “godness” — you’re either God or creation, no in between. With that binary in mind, they argued that since baptism saves, and only God can save, then therefore the Son must be God — the Holy Spirit kind of got taken along for the ride (at least from the perspective of where the controversy actually focussed).

Most theologians would actually say that the Holy Spirit is more intimately involved with creation than the Son — the Son became incarnate in a discrete event, but the Spirit is continually with the church, or is what makes the church the church.

Far be it from me to enter into a dispute over the House Rules of someone else’s house, but wasn’t the second person of the Trinity, one Yeshua Ben-Yusuf of Galilee, an actual male — that is, assuming he had a physical body at all, though if he didn’t, he certainly created the impression of being a male, or — but that way lies madness, or heresy, or bloodshed.

Suppose we define ‘sacred’ as ‘taboo’ (as popularized by Freud). Then I suspect that atheists are affected pretty much to the same extent as the theists.

Re: daniel nexon
“Aspects of this argument go back at least as far as Tocqueville, but the Economist is clearly channelling the rational-choice/marketplace of religion arguments most closely associated with Rodney Stark. Maybe the sociologists here can put this debate in better context, but the major issue with the argument is that it assumes a constant demand for religion and that, in consequence, the most relevant variable for religiosity/secularism is the structure of the “market.” Compare with, for example, Cassanova, who argues that Europe looks more secular because people have come to believe that being modern requires being secular (i.e., secularization theory has become a self-fulfilling prophecy).”

That’s really interesting. I wouldn’t outright dismiss the relevance of “marketplace of religion” theories*, but that’s not the point. What I’m taking issue with is the notion that the state plays a fundamental role in the determination of the “structure” of said religious marketplace. It’d say that the prevailing outlook on religious matters in any given society (and particularly in modern, democratic ones) tends to be the result of complex historical developments that stretch over centuries and are for the most part utterly beyond the control of contemporary authorities. That’s hardly rocket science.

What the Economist is clearly channelling in my opinion is this: America=market, good; Europe=mucho estado, bad; target audience=buy, yes?.

Reader=patronized, I say.

*:I wouldn’t deny that there is some amount of “intrinsic” interest in religion/spirituality that manifests itself to a lesser or greater degree throughout the history of mankind. OTOH, assuming “a constant demand for religion” smacks too much of a hopeless chase after the most elusive of questing beasts in the history of social sciences, i.e. “human nature”.

Also: Sex, Drugs & Rock’n’Roll

Oh, and upon closer consideration:

#44 sounds convincing, and

“religious pluralism and religious participation… the concepts themselves translate poorly to nonmodern settings”

is definitely on the money.

I guess I’ll add my two cents, since I may be the only Presbyterian minister who reads this thing…

In the Presbyterian tradition, there have long been debates as to what extent names for God are analogical. It has been consensus that all names for God (and God’s trinitarian persons) can never be more than analogues that point to an unspeakable reality. In other words, “Father” no more describes God fully than “Holy Womb.” However, names found in the biblical text have been privileged as more authoritative than other names. The silly part of the new document is that it suggests so many names for the Trinitarian elements that are extrabiblical, when in fact, there are wealth of non-gendered names for God in the Bible itself.

As for all of you commentators who came up with cutesy little triads, good for you.

What the Economist is clearly channelling in my opinion is this: America=market, good; Europe=mucho estado, bad; target audience=buy, yes?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen it summed up quite so pithily. Nicely done.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Ray, The Holy Spirit got taken along because it’s included in the baptismal formula — it must be divine, too, because it’s impossible that we would be saved in the name of something non-divine. (A small heresy developed that said that Father and Son were equally divine, but the Spirit was lower — Athanasius viciously attacked it.)

At least, that’s how the actual arguments played out.

Martin, Yup, still an ass.

Adam, does this Spirit has anything to do with the one hovering over the water in Genesis?

Wow! A whole room full of folks voicing the unpardonable sin!
As Jesus said, “And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Perhaps my poem will still these troubled waters.

Holy Spirit

spirit, wind, breath
and sketchy vagueness
rushing to creation
spoken into existence
breath of life
filling me — ah ha! awakens what will be
for all, dreams and visions, set loose, can you see?
listen up! I tell the truth
in conscience, little voices silenced
making room, for it to be

Abb1, The Church Fathers sure seemed to think so.

That’s one of the most surprising thing about going through and reading the texts from when these controversies were raging — a really significant chunk (sometimes even the majority) of the argument is focused on Old Testament texts. Biblical scholars today would of course never allow such anachronistic nonsense.

One particular bone of contention was Proverbs 8:22 — I know this reference off the top of my head because it came up so much. The figure of Wisdom (which was, notably, a feminine figure) was taken to be referring to the Son (or second person of the Trinity), and that verse implied that Wisdom was created, apparently lending support to the Arians. Make what you will of the various methods that the orthodox side used to explain it away — it shows that various names for the persons of the Trinity and non-male imagery were used from a very early date.

Molloy, Malone meurt, L’innomable?

Medeski, Martin, and Wood.

Though I rather like “Daddy, Junior, and Spook”

David,

I am (like you) presbyterian, but (unlike you) find this all so much arrant nonsense, quite worth poking fun at.

Mind you, I concede there’s a good case to be made that the original formulation is also silly. But I think it was not silly through over-straining, as these latter-day things are. (And might not have been silly at all, if ancient Hebrew and Aramaic did not have, as I understand Hungarian does not, linguistic gender).

BTW, I know that one can find this sort of thing in presbyterian congregations, but I have never run across it myself, even in the narrower category of PC(USA) congregations.

Steve Labonne at 70:

I’m sorry, but on that question the answer must be a monotheism that would satisfy the strictest rabbi or imam; no room for shittuf. You redeem yourself, though, at 71.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

You gotta eat, you gotta breathe, you gotta move.

Okay, that’s an obscure one.

C. S. Peirce: Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

I’m sorry to hear you have so much to repent, Brother. Good luck!

Do a little dance, make a little love, something else I can’t remember.

Kirk, Spock, & McCoy (somebody had to)

The Professor, Giligan, & The Skipper

Crooked timber
burns in the desert night
outside — cicada

Walcott, Weeks, Worrell

Of course, if we’re sticking with Chinese martial-arts move names, there’s always “Monkey Snatches the Peaches,” which is the poetic term for punching your opponent in the nuts.

ah, wiki to the rescue.

Top of the wiki page:

…see Trinity (disambiguation).

BRILLIANT.

Kenny (#24) wrote:

As I (an atheist) understand the Trinity, the first person is the creator, the second is the word made flesh in order that we may be saved, and the third is something like the vehicle by which the divine enters into us?

Pretty much. “Creator, Redeemer and Spirit of Grace” is a standard formulation. So it is the Father who creates us, the Son who saves or changes us and the Spirit who maintains us in our state of grace. Sadly, ‘maintainer’ is not a particularly sexy or prominent role, as Vishnu of the Hindu trinity could also remind us.

Brett (#58) writes:

It has been consensus that all names for God (and God’s trinitarian persons) can never be more than analogues that point to an unspeakable reality.

Abso-bloody-lutely

However, names found in the biblical text have been privileged as more authoritative than other names.

True. F’rex in Matt 23:37 and Luke 13:34 Jesus compares himself as a mother hen. So while we are free to use feminine terms for members of the Holy Trinity such as “Life Giving Womb” or “God the Mother Hen” it will be the latter that is more authorative.

Snap, Crackle, and Pop.

A full tank of gas
Half a pack of cigarettes
Sunglasses.

Either ‘Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew’ or else ‘Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb.’ Or any combination thereof.

The Economist (which everyone seems to adore) also had an article mentioning that the UN is trying to decrease the use of exonyms. (Bear with me, it relates, I promise!)

Though insofar as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one object (which is tempting to claim – they’re said to be one God, after all!)we’re already violating the UN’s basic principles . . .

Winken, Blinken, und Nod.

Shake, rattle and roll

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister?

Big Daddy, JC and the Spook

Milligan, Sellars and Seacombe

The Executive, the Legislative and The Judicial

Army, Navy and Air Force

Obe for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and go cat go.

Oh dear me – ‘Father, Son & Holy Ghost’ is a convenient fiction, which half of Christianity no longer finds convenient & the other half does not regard as fiction.
‘Dove of Peace’ is a bit species-ist isn’t it?

Peter, Raymond and Egon.
(the Ghostbusters)

Coffee, tea, milk.

As an orthodoxish Anglican:

Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggarath.

…

What?

Mind you, I’m also fond of the Athanasian Creed (in the old version of the Book of Common Prayer), which attatches the word ‘incomprehensible’ to each of the traditional personages. I think there may have been some linguistic drift since that translation, but I’m less than certain of that…