It’s funny how the longer I spend in academia / older I get / further experience I have of depression (not sure which is the decisive factor), the more I start to wonder if Christianity is true. Not that I am having serious doubts that anyone should worry about – it’s just that as my “structures of plausibility” change, the more I start to be able to appreciate that Christianity isn’t the only way to see the world.
Still, the idea of the Trinity — and specifically of Father, Son and Holy Spirit loving each other and living in relationship from all eternity — makes total sense to me now, in a way that it didn’t when it was first introduced to me. If God were just the static presence that I used to imagine hovering over the void before he said “let there be light,” I would be bothered by the question, “Why on earth did he feel the need to create man?” I don’t like to imagine God sitting around doing nothing, just enjoying his bad self before he created us. But the thought of three perfect persons having always existed and loved each other, and then at some point creating people as a reflection of that, makes sense to me.
By the way, the poster that I ripped down did come up tonight in house meeting. At the time I sat there silent and cool as a cucumber, certain that no one would ever suspect little old me of the crime. But later on as I came face to face with the owner of the poster (who had asked about it, who I don’t know well but like), I was overcome with remorse and confessed to her what I had done and why. She took it amazingly – she totally seemed to sympathize my reasons and wasn’t mad at all. She didn’t particularly like the poster, she just put it up because she can’t stand how white and impersonal the walls are. I vastly prefer to white and impersonal to infantile crap, but it’s funny how knowing who had put the poster up and why made me resent it a bit less. We totally laughed and bonded over it. I call that dialogue. Or maybe just grace.
June 17, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Nice post – your reading of the Trinity totally resonates w/ me.
Also, a very funny post; I laughed out loud a couple of times:
“…God sitting around doing nothing, just enjoying his bad self before he created us.”
“I sat there silent and cool as a cucumber”
June 18, 2009 at 8:40 am
Wow, thanks. Thanks for reading.
July 13, 2009 at 3:08 pm
It seems to me that the only “plausibility structures” which preclude “a Christian worldview” are those of secular modernity. Outside of those narrow confines, it is remarkable how the Creeds and the Scriptures can be read and understood — or indeed written — in any number of cultural contexts.
July 16, 2009 at 10:06 am
You’re probably right, Matt.
Here’s another thing that’s changed about my plausibility structure: back in seminary in my Modern Age and Gospels classes (where we learned a little bit about the history of historical criticism and “German liberalism”), I couldn’t understand why theological liberals would claim to remain loyal to the creeds and confessions while completely stripping them of meaning (e.g. seeing the resurrection as a metaphor, etc.) I didn’t see what the motivation was. Now that I live in Germany I see this kind of thing all the time. On the one hand, orthodox Xity (as I understand) gets a lot less respect and air time in Germany than in the States, but on the other hand, it truly is woven into the culture in a way that it’s not at home – kind of like dry, dead nettles that still get stuck in a dog’s fur.