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Hi Fran, I do believe Jesus is God, but not that he is equal to the Father. I believe Jesus is the first perfected son of God. In the same way a son of a father is called by the same surname, Jesus is also called God. He is the only human soul ever to achieve perfection of godhood. He was already God before being born in the flesh, but he is not the same as the Father. God the Father is the Creator of the entire universe. Jesus is the savior of men. That is how I see it. I believe Jesus taught that eventually, all people are to be saved and become the children of God, perfected just like he is already. The Holy Spirit, the third part of the traditional idea of "trinity," is the way that God interacts with the universe through His omnipresence in creation. The Spirit is the creative energy that enables life and what empowers the soul. It is everywhere to some degree. Unitarian Universalists believe Jesus was only a prophet or teacher, not divine. Christian Universalists tend to believe, in some way or another, Jesus is God. I am not a Unitarian, although more traditional Christian Universalists would say that my view is too liberal or "new age." But I think scripture supports my less traditional, more metaphorical understanding of the trinity. Trinity is a concept explaining the way that God works in different things: how He is in Christ, how He is in life and the human soul. But God the Father, the Creator, is one. Christ and the Spirit are manifestations of God in specific forms. That's how I see it. Peace in Christ,
Hi Jonathan, I do not reject the trinity, nor do I reject Christ's divinity. However, as you said, my views on these subjects are somewhat non-traditional. The way I see it is that God manifests Himself in three different forms: as the Father, who created the universe; the Son, who is a human being we call Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit, which is the way God can be present in the world as a spiritual force rather than an individual soul or biological entity such as Jesus. Therefore, I do believe Jesus is divine, but not that he is the same as the Father in all his attributes and powers. The Father does not have the limitations that Jesus has, because the Father is not a human soul, whereas Jesus is. Therefore, I would have to say that God the Father is the aspect or "person" (persona) of God that is more unlimited and infinite, whereas Jesus Christ is a more specific manifestation of the Godhead in this universe. Jesus is co-creator with the Father, as John indicates in his Gospel and you pointed out, but the Father is the original, fully preexistent aspect of the trinity, since the Son proceeds from the Father. That is logical, since the Son is a more specific form of the Divine Being. An analogy I like to use is that if God is water, then God the Father would be water in the liquid form, which can also be changed into either steam or ice and can appear in all three forms simultaneously. The steam represents the Holy Spirit, which is an invisible, ethereal substance capable of being either omnipresent or concentrated, like a gas. The ice represents Jesus Christ, a specific crystallization of God into the form of a human body and soul. In that solid form, God interacts with the world in a specific way, with certain contingencies and limitations. That is why Christians have always believed that Christ is both fully human and fully divine. Those are a few of my thoughts on this challenging and speculative subject. They don't correspond with some of the traditional church doctrines, but I'm definitely not a Unitarian. In response to your question about how common my view of the trinity is among Christian Universalists, I can only say that I don't know. Christian Universalists are just as diverse as any other type of Christian. My view of some theological issues may be more liberal than some, and probably more conservative than others. But to be a Christian Universalist, by definition, means rejecting the Unitarian notion that Jesus Christ is only a human being and not God. What exactly it means to say that Christ is God is unclear and has been debated within Christianity for many centuries. The concept of "trinity" itself was created by church theologians, since the word trinity is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. It is a logical outgrowth of interpreting certain passages of the scriptures, and the exact nature and meaning of it is far from clear, in my view. Peace in Christ,
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Christian Universalist FAQ -- Frequently Asked Questions
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Heavenly Father, please bless this ministry, lead multitudes to this website, and help them see the truth of Your love and forgiveness for all people through the power of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the whole world. Open their eyes to Your true nature, take away their fears, and fill their hearts with the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. |