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Against All Odds

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Against All Odds

Category Archives: Trinity and Pregnancy

Trinity and the Family Analogy

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by Prime Theologian in Adam and Eve, Christ and Culture, Expecting Parents, Gender Issues, Homosexuality, Human Experience and Theology, Pregnancy and Theology, Trinity, Trinity and Pregnancy

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The Trinity is a rational doctrine, which can be understood by selecting facets of one aspect of a creature, another facet from creation, and yet another from somewhere else in this world. Then, the necessary step to make it “rationally conceivable” is joining these disparate features from within creation and seeing them together. I am not advocating that the Trinity can be divested of its mystery, but I am contesting the notion that the doctrine of the Trinity is absurdity or inherently contradictory.

With this said, Genesis 1:27 – 28 and Genesis 2:24 point out that God’s self-chosen analogy for Himself is the human family. We first find that both “male and female” constitute the “Image of God” (Imago Dei). These two, who constitute God’s image, are to “become one flesh,” which is an activity representative of the “Image of God.” Yes, sex is representative of God although sadly bastardized into a solely unclean thing in our culture.

Man and woman produce offspring: this child is the active union of the mother and father. Moreover, children exhibit characteristics of his/her parents whether or not he/she has ever met his/her parents. Nurture is not the source, therefore, of a child’s likeness to his/her parents; nature is. Striking indeed is that a woman and a child share the same space while the woman is pregnant with the child. The father, of course, is manifest in the child as well since his very being (genetics) comprises this child together with the wife. So what do we have? We have one person, the child, who is of the same nature as the parents (genetics/biologically), one person (child) sharing the same space as another person (mother), and, lastly, the mother and child are distinct persons.

Thus, in the very being of the child, the father and mother are present, both biologically and in character traits — although it will take many years to see this clearly. A pregnant woman might be the best analogy for the Trinity, requiring the least amount of adaption.

The Trinity is three distinct Persons who completely share the same “divine space,” and who are one in nature; a pregnant woman represents two distinct persons who share the same space (not completely though), and who are one in nature with even the third person (father) represented.

Conclusion: God self-chosen analogy gives the best representation found in a singular place, and that analogy is male and female involved in the procreational process, i.e., sex.

Dr. Scalise

Interpreting my wife’s pregnancy theologically: part II

15 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Prime Theologian in Genesis, Pregnancy and Theology, Trinity and Pregnancy

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genesis, Pregnancy, Trinity

I wish to return to a bit more down-to-earth reflection on Gloria’s pregnancy next time, but you’ll no doubt forgive me for allowing the theologian in me to think a bit this time. Christians believe that God is the Holy Trinity; we especially have our Greek and Russian Orthodox brothers and sisters to thank for their wonderful tradition of thinking hard on how God is Three in One, with an eye to the Three-ness. What does all this have to do with my daughter who is currently in my wife’s womb, you may wonder? The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that each Person (Father, Son, and Spirit) dwell in One Another perfectly–which is why we Christians can still rationally claim that They are One. Similarly, a baby dwells in her mother, my daughter in Gloria, during pregnancy. Now, we must be careful not to push the comparison too far as though a pregnant woman is a perfect or exact analogy for God the Trinity; she is not. Nevertheless, a pregnant woman, I argue, is perhaps the best analogy in all of creation for God the Trinity. Where else is there a consciousness dwelling within another consciousness? This is what the doctrine of the Trinity commends although never without its own proper mystery. Someone might object: but God the Trinity is three, not two. This is true, but we would be amiss is we didn’t recognize that the child, my daughter, carries me (the father) within her as well. There is no doubt that she does biologically, and given the regular fact that children share their parents personalities, we are not speculating to hold that she likewise carries my personality in her as well. Thus, there are three people represented in my daughter, herself, my wife, and me. I got this thought during my research for my dissertation, and there I discuss it in far greater detail than I want to here. The idea does not owe to me, to be sure, because I looked hard at Gen. 1:26-28 and 2:24. When God says He makes “man” in His image in 1:27, He clearly refers to both man and woman in this image.

It reads, from the English Standard Version: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Thus, it would be better to translate the Hebrew word “adam,” at the beginning of verse 27 as humanity rather than man: “So God created humanity in His own image, in the image of God he created humanity; male and female he created them” (trans. mine from the Hebrew, italics and bold mine). Some might think this is reading into the text, but a common literary feature of Hebrew prose, and especially poetry, is that it uses parallelism, which is why, if you’ve ever read the OT at length, you always get the feeling that the authors are repeating themselves. They are! Thus, the final phrase, “male and female He recreated them,” is a parallel restatement of “in the image of God He created humanity.” This final line gives the most specific and detailed information about what the image of God is. For our word smiths and lovers of definitions, take heart because all Hebrew lexicons (dictionaries) relay that the Hebrew word, adam, has at least three meanings: one refers to the human being named Adam, the second to just man in the typical individual male sense, and finally, the one I am arguing for here, it can refer to all humans generally.

What do we find in Gen. 2:24? Verses 22-23 arguably give us a more specific account of how woman was created, by being taken from the rib of Adam. Then, God says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (ESV). What we find is that God creates woman by taking a part of Adam that dwelt in him (part of him), his rib, and creating woman. Then, God says man and woman are to procreate (sex) by the phrase “shall become one flesh.” God chose humanity, both man and woman, to be His analogy (image; cf. Gen. 1:27). The sexual component to human generation is part and parcel to this image since in 2:24 it is the very first thing we find out about the male and female relationship (they shall become one flesh). It was therefore not happenstance that I saw a image of the Trinity in my wife’s pregnancy; the pointers were already there in the first Book of Scripture.

My wife’s pregnancy is fulfilling the purpose contained in Gen. 2:24, and, through it, modeling, in an imperfect way, God the Trinity. Woman was taken from within man; and a child is comes by man from woman. One person, my daughter, Lydia, dwells within my wife, Gloria, and that one person, Lydia, contains both me and my wife as well as beautiful uniqueness all her own. A child is, in a fascinating sense, three persons in one; God, on the Christian view is three Persons in One, the Holy Trinity.

Dr. Scalise

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