§ 5. Defence of the Trinity, by Frederick D. Huntington, D. D.
The last section of this Appendix shall be devoted to an examination and criticism of Dr. Huntington's sermon, printed some time since, in defence of the Trinity. The course of our argument will be as follows. We shall give the reasons which have induced Unitarians to reject the Church doctrine of the Trinity; also examining Dr. Huntington's positions and arguments in its support.
The principal reasons, then, for rejecting the Church doctrine of the Trinity, as assigned by Unitarians, are these:—
1. That it is nowhere taught in the New Testament.
2. That every statement of the Trinity, which has ever been made, has been either, (1.) Self-contradictory; (2.) Unintelligible; (3.) Tritheistic; or, (4.) Unitarian, in the form of Sabellianism, or of Arianism.
3. That the arguments for it are inadequate.
4. That the arguments against it are overwhelming.
5. That the good ascribed to it does not belong to it, but to the truths which underlie it.
6. That great evils to the Church come from it.
7. That it is a doctrine of philosophy, and not of faith.
8. That we can trace its gradual historic formation in the Christian Church.
9. That it is opposed to a belief in the real divinity of Christ, and to a belief in his real humanity; thus undermining continually the faith of the Church in the divine humanity of Christ Jesus the Lord.
Proceeding, then, to an examination of these reasons, we say,—
I. The Church doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in the New Testament.
To prove this, as it is a negative proposition, would require us to go through the whole New Testament. But we are saved this necessity by the fact that we have a statement on this point from one of Dr. Huntington's own witnesses, and one on whom he [pg 487] mainly relies. He brings forward Neander, the great Church historian, as a believer in the Trinity (p. 361), and again (p. 378), by an error which he has since candidly admitted, quotes him as saying, “It is the fundamental article of the Christian faith,”—which is just what he denies in the following passage. We call Neander to the stand, however, now, to have his unimpeachable testimony as a Trinitarian (and a Trinitarian claimed by Dr. Huntington with pride) to the fact, that the doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in the New Testament. This is what Neander says of the Trinity, in the first volume of his great work on Church History (p. 572, Torrey's translation):—
“We now proceed to the doctrine in which Theism, taken in its connection with the proper and fundamental essence of Christianity, or with the doctrine of redemption, finds its ultimate completion—the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine does not strictly belong to the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, as appears sufficiently evident from the fact, that it is expressly held forth in no one particular passage of the New Testament; for the only one in which it is done, the passage relating to the three that, bear record (1 John 5:7), is undoubtedly spurious, and in its ungenuine shape, testifies to the fact, how foreign such a collocation is from the style of the New Testament Scriptures. We find in the New Testament no other fundamental article than that of which the apostle Paul says, that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid—the annunciation of Jesus as the Messiah.”
With this authority we might be content. But Dr. Huntington differs from Neander in thinking that Jesus has himself stated the doctrine of the Trinity, and stated it clearly and fully, in the baptismal formula. (Matt. 28:19.) He says that this is “a clear and full declaration of the fundamental article of Christian belief.” He says, “Now, if ever, Christ will distinctly proclaim the doctrine of Christendom;” and he then declares that Christ, in this passage, told his Church to baptize “in the Triune name.”[90]
Not in the Triune name, certainly. This is an assumption of our friend. He may think that this is implied; that this is to be inferred; that this is what Christ meant; but certainly it is not what Christ said. Christ gives us here three objects of baptism, no doubt; but he does not say that they are one. How far this baptismal formula is “a clear and full declaration” of the doctrine [pg 488] of the Trinity will appear thus. The doctrine of the Trinity declares,—
1. That the Father is God.
2. That the Son is God.
3. That the Holy Ghost is God.
4. That the Holy Ghost is a person, like the Father and the Son.
5. That these three persons constitute one God.
Of these five propositions, all of which are essential to the doctrine of the Trinity, not one is stated in the baptismal formula. Christ here says nothing about the deity of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost; nothing about the personality of either of them; and nothing about their unity: It is difficult to conceive, therefore, how Dr. Huntington can bring himself to call this a command to baptize in the Triune name.
Dr. Huntington adds, “Our faith is summoned to the three persons, of the one God.” But nothing is said of three persons; nothing is said of their being one God.
He says, “No hint is given that there is any difference of nature, dignity, duration, power, or glory, between them.”
We admit it, but also say, that no hint is given of any equality of nature, dignity, duration, power, or glory, between them. Which way, then, is the argument? Christ does not state, on the one hand, that the three are unequal or different: he does not state, on the other hand, that they are equal and the same. The inference of proof from this fact seems to us to be this: If the apostles, when Christ spoke to them, were already full believers in the church doctrine of the Trinity, the fact that Christ did not deny it would be an argument in its favor; but if the apostles were, at that time, wholly ignorant of the Trinity, then the fact, that he did not assert it distinctly, at least shows that he did not mean to teach it at that time. That inference appears to us a very modest one. But Dr. Huntington will admit that they did not know the doctrine; for he tells us that it was the purpose of Christ to teach it to them at that time. To which we can only reply, If he meant to teach the doctrine, why did he not teach it?
That the word Trinity is not to be found in the New Testament, and that it was invented by Tertullian, is a matter of little consequence; but that the doctrine itself should be nowhere stated in the New Testament we conceive to be a matter of very great consequence. We have seen that Dr. Huntington's attempt to show [pg 489] that it is stated in the baptismal formula is a failure. If not stated there, we presume that he will not maintain that it is stated anywhere. We therefore agree with Neander in saying, that, whether the doctrine be true or not, it is not taught distinctly in the New Testament. If taught at all, it is only taught inferentially; that is, it is a matter of reasoning, not a matter of faith. It is metaphysics: it is not religion.
II. The second reason why Unitarians reject the Church doctrine of the Trinity is this:—
That every statement of the Trinity has proved, on examination, to be either, (1.) A contradiction in terms; or, (2.) Unintelligible; or, (3.) Tritheistic; or, (4.) Unitarianism under a Trinitarian form.
Let us examine this objection. What is the general statement of the Trinity, as made by the Orthodox Church, Catholic and Protestant? Fortunately, this question is easily answered.
Orthodoxy has been consistent since the middle ages in its general statement, however much it may have varied in its explanations of what it meant by that statement.
The doctrine of the Trinity, as it stands in the creeds of the churches, is this:—
There is in the nature of God three persons,—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,—and these three are one being. They are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. Each of these three persons is very God, infinite in all attributes; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.
According to the general doctrine of Orthodoxy, the unity of God is in being, essence, and substance; that is, God is one being, God is one essence, God is one substance. The threefold division stops short of the being of God: it does not penetrate to his essential nature: it does not divide his substance.
What, then, is the Trinity? It is a Trinity of persons.
But what is meant by “person,” as used in this doctrine? According to the common and familiar use of the word at the present time, three persons are three beings. Personality expresses the most individual existence imaginable. If, therefore, the word “person” is to be taken according to the common use of the phrase, the doctrine of the Trinity would be evidently a contradiction in terms. It would be equivalent to saying, God is one being, but God is three beings; which again would be equivalent to saying that one is three.
Now, Trinitarians generally are too acute and clear-sighted to fall into such a palpable contradiction as this. It is a common accusation against them, that they believe one to be three, and three one; but this charge is, in most cases, unjust. This would be only true in case they affirmed that God is three in the same way in which he is one; but they do not usually say this. They declare that he is one being,—not three beings. They declare that the threefold distinction relates to personality, not to being, and that they use the word “person,” not in the common sense, but in a peculiar sense, to express, as well as they can, a distinction, which, from the poverty of language, no word can be found to express exactly. Thus St. Augustine confessed, long ago, “We say that there are three persons, not in order to say anything, but in order not to be wholly silent.” Non ut aliquid diceretur, sed ut ne taceretur. And so Archbishop Whately, in the notes to his Logic, regrets that the word “person” should ever have been used by our divines; and says, “If hypostasis, or any other completely foreign word, had been used instead, no idea at all would have been conveyed, except that of the explanation given; and thus the danger, at least, of being misled by a word, would have been avoided.”
(1.) The Unintelligible Statement.
The Trinitarian thus avoids asking us to believe a contradiction; but, in avoiding this, he runs upon another rock—that, namely, of not asking us to believe anything at all; for if “person” here does not mean what it commonly means, and if it be impossible, from the poverty of language, to define precisely the idea which is intended by it, we are then asked to believe a proposition which Trinitarians themselves are unable to express. But a proposition which is not expressed is no proposition. A proposition, any important term of which is unintelligible, is wholly unintelligible.
To make this matter clear, let us put it into a conversational form. We will suppose that two persons meet together,—one a Unitarian, the other a Trinitarian.
Trinitarian. You do not believe the Trinity? Then you cannot be saved. No one can be saved who denies the Trinity. It is a vital and fundamental doctrine.
Unitarian. Tell me what it is, and I will see if I can believe it. What is the Trinity?
Trin. God exists as one being, but three persons.
Unit. What do you mean by “person”? Do you mean a person like Peter, James, or John?
Trin. No; we use “person” from the poverty of language. We do not mean that.
Unit. What, then, do you mean by it?
Trin. It is a mystery. We cannot understand it precisely.
Unit. I have no objection to the doctrine being mysterious; I believe a great many things which are mysterious; but I don't want the language to be mysterious. You might as well use a Greek, or a Hebrew, or a Chinese word, and ask me to believe that there are three hypostases or three prosopa in Deity, if you do not tell me what you mean by the word “person.”
Trin. It is a great mystery. It is a matter of faith, not of reasoning. You must believe it, and not speculate about it.
Unit. Believe it? Believe what? I am waiting for you to tell me what I am to believe. I am ready to exercise my faith; but you are tasking, not my faith, but my knowledge of language. I suppose that you do not wish me to believe words, but thoughts. I wish to look through the word, and see what thought lies behind it.
Now, it seems to us that this is a very fair demand of the Unitarian. To ask us to believe a proposition, any important term of which is unintelligible, is precisely equivalent to asking us to believe no proposition at all. Let us listen to Paul: “Even things without life, giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For, if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.... For, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian; and he that speaketh, a barbarian unto me.”
It is of no use to talk about mystery in order to excuse ourselves for not using intelligible language. That which is mysterious is one thing; that which is unintelligible is quite another thing. We may understand what a mystery is, though we cannot comprehend how it is; but that which is unintelligible we neither comprehend nor understand at all. We neither know how it is, nor what it is. Thus, for example, the fact of God's foreknowledge and man's freedom is a mystery. I cannot comprehend how God can foreknow what I am to do to-morrow, and yet I be free to do [pg 492] it or not to do it. I cannot comprehend how Jesus should be delivered to death by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, and yet the Jews have been free agents in crucifying him and accountable for it. These things are mysteries; but they are not unintelligible as doctrines. I see what is meant by them. There is no obscurity in the assertion that God foreknows everything, nor in the other assertion that man is a free agent. I can see clearly what is implied in both statements, although my mind cannot grasp both, and bring them together, and show the way in which they may be reconciled. So, too, infinity is a mystery. We cannot comprehend it. Our mind cannot go round it, grasp it, sustain it. Our thought sinks baffled before the attempt to penetrate to the depth of such a wonderful idea. But we understand well enough what is meant by infinity. There is nothing obscure in the statement of the fact, that the universe is unbounded. So the way in which a flower grows from its seed is mysterious. We cannot comprehend how the wonderful principle of life can be wrapped up in those little folds, and how it can cause the root to strike downward, and the airy stalk to spring lightly upward, and the leaves to unfold, and, last of all, the bright, consummate flower to open its many-colored eye. But certainly we can understand very well the statement that a flower grows, though we do not comprehend how it grows.
Do not, then, tell us, when you have announced a doctrine, the language of which is unintelligible, that you have told us a mystery. You have done no such thing. Your proposition is not mysterious: it is unintelligible. It is not a mystery: it is only a mystification.
(2.) The Tritheistic Statement.
Leaving, then, this ground of mystery, and attempting to define move clearly what he means by three persons and one substance, the Trinitarian often sinks the Unity in the Triplicity, and so runs ashore upon Tritheism. This happens when he explains the term “person” as implying independent existence; in which case the Unity is changed into Union. Then we have really three Gods: the Father, who devises the plan of redemption; the Son, who goes forth to execute it; and the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies believers. If there are these three distinct beings, they can be called one God only as they are one in will, in aim, in purpose,—only as they agree perfectly on all points. The Unity of God, then, becomes [pg 493] only a unity of agreement, not a unity of being. This is evidently not the Unity which is taught in the Bible, where Jesus declares that the first of all the commandments is, “Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord.”
Moreover, against such a Trinity as this there are insuperable objections, from grounds of reason as well as of Scripture. For God is the Supreme Being, the Most High; and how can there be three Supreme Beings, three Most High Gods? Again: God is the First Cause; but if the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are each God, and all equal in power and majesty, and have each an independent existence, then there are three first causes; which is evidently impossible. Again: one of the attributes of God is his independent or absolute existence. A being who depends on another cannot be the Supreme God. The Father, Son, and Spirit, therefore, cannot depend on each other; for each, by depending on another, would cease to be the independent God. But, if they do not depend on each other, then each ceases to be God, who is the First Cause; for that being is not the First Cause who has two other beings independent of him. Other arguments of the same kind might be adduced to show that there cannot be three necessary beings. In fact, all the arguments from reason, which go to prove the Unity of God, prove a unity of nature, not of agreement.
“But why argue against Tritheism?” you may say. “Are any Tritheists?” Yes: many Trinitarians are in reality Tritheists, by their own account of themselves. There are many who make the Unity of God a mere unity of agreement, and talk about the society in the Godhead, and the intercourse between the Father, Son, and Spirit.[91]
Opposed to this kind of Trinity is another view, in which the Unity is preserved, but the Trinity lost. According to this view, God is one Being, who reveals himself in three ways,—as Father, as Son, as Spirit,—or sustains three relations, or manifests himself in three modes of operation. The Trinity here becomes a nominal thing, and is, in reality, only Unitarianism with an Orthodox name. This kind of Trinity also is very prevalent, and is the one really maintained by men of high standing in the Orthodox Church, both in Europe and America. According to this view, the word “person” in the doctrine of the Trinity means the same as the corresponding word in Greek and Latin formerly meant; namely, the outward character, not the inward individuality. Thus Cicero says, “I, being one, sustain three persons or characters; my own, that of my client, and that of the judge”—Ego unus, sustineo tres personas.
This view of the Trinity is commonly called Modalism, or Sabellianism, and is also widely held by those who call themselves Trinitarians. It is, in fact, only Unitarianism under a Trinitarian name.[92]
(3.) The Subordination View.
Avoiding these two extremes, and yet wishing to retain a distinct idea of Unity and Tri-personality, the Trinitarian is necessarily driven upon a third view, in which the Father is the only really Supreme and Independent Being, the Son and the Holy Spirit subordinate and dependent.
This view, which is called the subordination scheme, or Arianism, is Unitarianism again in another form; and this view also is entertained by many who still retain the name of “Trinitarians.” According to this view, the Son and the Holy Ghost are really God, but are so by a derived divinity. God the Father communicates [pg 495] his divinity to the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is the view really taken in the Nicene Creed, though adopted in opposition to the Arians, and was the doctrine of the earliest Church Fathers before the Arian controversy began. In the Nicene Creed, we read that the Son is “God of (ἐκ) God, Light of (ἐκ) Light, true God of true God;” the “of” here being the same as “from,” and denoting origin and derivation.
This doctrine seems, in reality, to have less in its favor than either of the others. By calling the Son and Holy Spirit God, it contrives to make three distinct Gods, and so is Tritheism; and yet, by making them dependent on the Father, it becomes Unitarianism again. Thus, singularly enough, this attempt at making a compromise between Unity and Trinity loses both Unity and Trinity; for it makes three Gods, and so loses the Unity; and yet it makes Christ not “God over all,” not the Supreme Being, and so loses the Trinity.
Between these different views, between Tritheism, Sabellianism, and Arianism, the Orthodox Trinity has always swung to and fro,—inclining more to one or to the other according to the state of controversy in any particular age. When the Arian or Tritheistic views were proclaimed and defended, the Orthodoxy of the Church swung over towards Sabellianism, making the Unity strong and solid; and the Trinity became a thin mode or an airy abstraction. When Sabellianism, thus encouraged, came openly forward, and defended its system and won adherents, then Church Orthodoxy would hasten to set up barriers on that side, and would fall back upon Tritheistic ground, making the Threefold Personality a profound and real distinction, penetrating the very nature of Deity, and changing the Unity of Being into a mere Unity of Will or agreement. We will venture to say, that there has never yet been a definition of the Trinity which has not been either Tritheistic or Modalistic; and Church Orthodoxy has always stood either on Tritheistic or on Sabellian ground. In other words, the Orthodox Trinity of any age, when searched to the bottom, has proved to be Unitarianism, after all—Unitarianism in the Tritheistic or in the Sabellian disguise; for the Tritheism of three coequal, independent, and absolute Gods, is too much opposed both to reason and Scripture to be able ever to maintain itself openly as a theology for any length of time.
The analogies which are used to explain the Trinity are all either Sabellian or Tritheistic. Nature has been searched in all ages for [pg 496] these analogies, by which to make the Trinity plain; but none have ever been found which did not make the Trinity either Sabellianism or Tritheism. They are either three parts of the substance, or else three qualities or modes of the substance.
Thus we have instances in which the three are made the three parts of one being, or substance; as in man,—spirit, soul, body; thought, affection, will; head, heart, hand.
One Being with three distinct faculties is Tritheism: one Being acting in three directions is Sabellianism.
Time is past, present, and future. Syllogism has its major, minor, and conclusion. There are other like analogies.
St. Patrick took for his illustration the three leaves of trefoil, or clover. Others have imagined the Trinity like a triangle; or they have referred to the three qualities of space,—height, breadth, width; or of fire,—form, light, and heat; or of a noun, which has its masculine, feminine, and neuter; or of a government, consisting of king, lords, and commons; or of executive, legislative, and judiciary.
This survey of Church Trinity shows that it is either one in which,—
1. The persons are not defined; or an unintelligible Trinity.
2. Or which defines person and Unity in the usual sense; or a contradictory Trinity.
3. Or which defines person as usual, and the Unity as only Union; or Tritheism.
4. Or which defines person as only manifestation; or Sabellianism.
These four are all the views ever hitherto given, and are all untenable. We might stop here, and say that the Trinity is utterly unsupported. There is no need of going to the Scripture to see if it is taught there; for we have, as yet, nothing to look for in Scripture.
The Trinitarian's difficulty appears to be in defining person. But possibly he may say, “I cannot, indeed, give a positive idea of person; but I can give a negative one. I cannot say what it is; but I can say what it is not. It is not a mere mode on the one hand; and not being, on the other. We must neither confound the persons nor divide the substance.”
We will, then, go further, and say, as Trinitarians have never yet defined person, without making it either a mode or a being, so they never can define it otherwise. There is no third between being [pg 497] and mode. They must either confound the persons or divide the substance.
Again: that which differences one person in the Deity from another must be either a perfection or an imperfection. There is nothing between these. But it cannot be an imperfection; for no imperfection exists in God: and it cannot be a perfection; for then the other two persons would want a divine perfection, and would be imperfect.
III. The arguments in support of the Trinity are wholly inadequate. Since, according to Neander, the Trinity is not stated in the New Testament, it follows that it is a doctrine of inference only; that is, a piece of human reasoning. Now, we have, no doubt, a perfect right to infer doctrines from Scripture which are not stated there; but, as Protestants, we have no right to make these inferences fundamental, or essential to the religious life. They may, indeed, be metaphysically essential; that is, essential to a well-arranged system; but they are not morally essential; that is, not essential to the moral and spiritual life of the soul.
But this is just what Dr. Huntington attempts to do. He tries to show that there is a doctrine essential to the life, peace, and progress of man, which the New Testament has omitted to state; which is neither distinctly stated by our Saviour nor by any of his apostles; which has been left to be inferred, and inferred by the mere processes of unaided human reason.
What arguments does he allege for this?
His first and principal argument is the universal belief of the Christian Church in the doctrine of the Trinity.
On this Dr. Huntington lays great stress. He says,—
“Truth is not determined by majorities; and yet it would be contrary to the laws of our constitution not to be affected by a testimony so vast, uniform, and sacred as that which is rendered by the common belief of Christian history and the Christian countries to the truth of the Trinity. There is something extremely painful, not to say irreverent, towards the Providence which has watched and led the true Christian Israel, in presuming that a tenet so emphatically and gladly received in all the ages and regions of Christendom, as almost literally to meet the terms of the test of Vincentius,—believed always, everywhere, and by all,—is unfounded in revelation and truth. Such a conclusion puts an aspect of uncertainty over the mind of the Church, scarcely consistent with any [pg 498] tolerable confidence in that great promise of the Master, that he would be with his own all days.” (p. 359.)
To which we answer,—
(1.) That, according to Dr. Bushnell (Dr. Huntington's own witness), there never has been, nor is now, any such belief in the doctrine of the Trinity as he asserts. The largest part of the Church have always “divided the substance” of the deity, and another large portion have “confounded the persons;” and so the majority of the Church, while holding the word “Trinity,” have never believed in the Triunity at all.
Dr. Huntington summons Dr. Bushnell as a witness to the practical value of the Trinity; and we may suppose something such an examination as this to take place:—
Dr. Huntington. Tell us, Dr. Bushnell, what instances you know of persons who have been converted or deeply blessed by the holy doctrine of the Trinity.
Dr. Bushnell. I have known of “a great cloud of witnesses,” “living myriads,” “who have been raised to a participation of God in the faith of this adorable mystery,” (Huntington, p. 413.)
Dr. H. Mention some of them.
Dr. B. “Francis Junius,” “two centuries and a half ago,”—a professor “at Heidelberg (Leyden?), testified that he was, in fact, converted from atheism by the Christian Trinity;” also “the mild and sober Howe;” “Jeremy Taylor;” also “the Marquis de Rentz;” “Edwards,” and “Lady Maxwell.” (Huntington, p. 414.)
Unitarian. Say, Dr. Bushnell, whether, in your opinion, the majority of Christians really believe in the Church doctrine of the Trinity.
Dr. B. “A very large portion of the Christian teachers, together with the general mass of disciples, undoubtedly hold three living persons in the interior nature of God.” (Bushnell: “God in Christ,” p. 130.)
Unit. Is that scriptural or Orthodox?
Dr. B. No. It is only “a social Unity.” It is “a celestial Tritheocracy.” It “boldly renounces Orthodoxy at the point opposite to Unitarianism.” (Bushnell: “God in Christ,” p. 131.)
Unit. Do I understand you to be now speaking of the properly Orthodox ministers and churches generally?
Dr. B. “Our properly Orthodox teachers and churches, while professing three persons, also retain the verbal profession of one [pg 499] person. They suppose themselves really to hold that God is one person; and yet they most certainly do not: they only confuse their understanding, and call their confusion faith. This I affirm on the ground of sufficient evidence; partly because it cannot be otherwise, and partly because it visibly is not.” (Ibid. p. 131.)
Unit. Do you believe, Dr. Bushnell, that spiritual good can come from such a belief in the Trinity as you describe to be “undoubtedly” that of “the general mass of disciples”?
Dr. B. “Mournful evidence will be found that a confused and painfully bewildered state is often produced by it. They are practically at work in their thoughts to choose between the three, sometimes actually and decidedly preferring one to another; doubting how to adjust their mind in worship; uncertain, after, which of the three to obey; turning away, possibly, from one with a feeling of dread that might well be called aversion; devoting themselves to another, as the Romanist to his patron saint. This, in fact, is Polytheism, and not the clear, simple love of God. There is true love in it, doubtless; but the comfort of love is not here. The mind is involved in a dismal confusion, which we cannot think of without the sincerest pity. No soul can truly rest in God, when God is in two or three, and these in such a sense that a choice between them must be continually suggested.” (Ibid. p. 134.)
Unit. This state of mind is undoubtedly that of the general mass of the disciples?
Dr. B. It is. (Ibid. p. 130.)
Unit. Are there others, calling themselves Trinitarians, who hold essentially the Unitarian doctrine?
Dr. B. Yes. “It is a somewhat curious fact in theology that the class of teachers who protest over the word ‘person,’ declaring that they mean only a threefold distinction, cannot show that there is really a hair's breadth of difference between their doctrine and the doctrine asserted by many of the later Unitarians. They may teach or preach in a very different manner; they probably do: but the theoretic contents of their opinion cannot be distinguished. Thus they say that there is a certain divine person in the man Jesus Christ; but that, when they use the term ‘person,’ they mean, not a person, but a certain indefinite and indefinable distinction. The later Unitarians, meantime, are found asserting that God is present in Christ in a mysterious and peculiar communication of his being; so that he is the living embodiment and express image of God. If, now, the question be raised, ‘Wherein [pg 500] does the indefinable distinction of one differ from the mysterious and peculiar communication of the other?’ or ‘How does it appear that there is any difference?’ there is no living man, I am quite sure, who can invent an answer.” (Ibid. p. 135.)
Unit. Is it not true that both of these views are sometimes held alternately by Trinitarians?
Dr. B. “Probably there is a degree of alternation, or inclining from one side to the other, in this view of Trinity, as the mind struggles, now to embrace one, and now the other, of two incompatible notions. Some persons are more habitually inclined to hold the three; a very much smaller number, to hold the one.” (Ibid. p. 134.)
Unit. But can they not hold the Unity with this Trinity?
Dr. B. “No man can assert three persons, meaning three consciousnesses, wills, and understandings, and still have any intelligent meaning in his mind, when he asserts that they are yet one person. For, as he now uses the term, the very idea of a person is that of an essential, incommunicable monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized by self-active will; which being true, he might as well profess to hold that three units are yet one unit. When he does it, his words will, of necessity, be only substitutes for sense.” (Ibid. p. 131.)
(2.) But suppose that the belief of the Church in the Trinity was as universal as Dr. Huntington asserts and Dr. Bushnell denies, what would be its value? His argument proves too much. If it proves the Trinity to be true, it proves, a fortiori, the Roman Catholic Church to be the true Church, and Protestantism to be an error; for Martin Luther, at one time, was the only Protestant in the world. Suppose that a Roman priest had come to him then. He might have addressed him thus:—
“It is certainly an impressive testimony to the truth of the Church of Rome, that the Christian world have been so generally agreed in it. Truth is not determined by majorities; and yet it would be contrary to the laws of our constitution not to be affected by a testimony so vast, uniform, and sacred as that which is rendered by the common belief of Christian history and the Christian centuries to the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. We travel abroad, through these converted lands, over the round world. We enter, at the call of the Sabbath morning light, the place of assembled worshippers; let it be the newly planted conventicle on the edge of the Western forest, or the missionary [pg 501] station at the extremity of the Eastern continent; let it be the collection of Northern mountaineers, or of the dwellers in Southern valleys; let it be in the plain village meeting-house, or in the magnificent cathedrals of the old cities; let it be the crowded congregation of the metropolis, or the ‘two or three’ that meet in faith in upper chambers, in log-huts or under palm-trees; let it be regenerate bands gathered to pray in the islands of the ocean, or thankful circles of believers confessing their dependence and beseeching pardon on ships' decks, in the midst of the ocean. So we pass over the outstretched countries of both hemispheres; and it is well nigh certain—so certain that the rare and scattered exceptions drop out of the broad and general conclusion—that the lowly petitions, the fervent supplications, the hearty confessions, the eager thanksgivings, or the grand peals of choral adoration, which our ears will hear, will be uttered according to the grand ritual of the Church of Rome. This is the voice of the unhesitating praise that embraces and hallows the globe.”
What would Luther have replied to that? He would have said, “Truth must have a beginning. It is always, at first, in a minority. The gate of it is strait, the path to it narrow, and few find it. All reforms are, at the beginning, in the hands of a small number. If God and truth are on our side, what do we care for your multitudes?” We can make the same answer now.
Dr. Huntington proceeds to give his own creed in regard to the Trinity,—to state his own belief.
God, in himself, he declares, we cannot know at all. We know him only, in his revelation. “Out of that ineffable and veiled Godhead—the groundwork, if we may say so, of all divine manifestation; a theocracy—there emerge to us, in revelation, the three whom we rightly call persons—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
We can only conceive of God, he says, in action; and in action we behold him as three. But action and revelation take place in time. The Trinity, therefore, according to Dr. Huntington, is only known to us in temporal manifestation: whether it exists in eternity or not, we cannot tell. And yet, in the next sentence, he goes on to say that “the Son is eternally begotten of the Father,” and “the Holy Ghost proceeds out of the Father, not in time;” which is the very thing he had a moment before professed to know nothing about. It is very difficult, therefore, to tell precisely what his view is. With regard to the incarnation of the Son, he is still more obscure. He says that “Christ comes forth out of the Godhead [pg 502] as the Son;” that he “leaves the glory he had with the Father;” that, while he is on earth, the Father alone represents the unseen personality of the Godhead, and that therefore the Son appears to be dependent on him, and submissive; that temporarily, while the Son is in the world, he remains ignorant of what the Father knows, and says that his Father is greater than he. “He lessens himself to dependency for the sake of mediation.” “All this we might expect.” This he calls an “instrumental inequality between Son and Father:” it “is wrought into the biblical language, remains in all our devotional habit, and ought to remain there.”
In other words, Dr. Huntington believes that the Infinite God became less than infinite in the incarnation. The common explanation of those passages, where Christ says, for example, “My Father is greater than I,” does not satisfy him. He is not satisfied that Jesus said it “in his human nature.” No. It was the divine nature which said it; and it was really God the Son, who did not know the day nor the hour of his own coming. He lost a part of his omniscience. He ceased to be perfect in all his attributes. We should say, then, that he ceased to be God; but Dr. Huntington maintains that he was God, nevertheless; but God less than omnipotent,—God less than omniscient; God the Son, so distinct from the Father as to be ignorant of what the Father knew, and unable to perform what the Father could do.
Dr. Huntington (p. 366) ascribes it to “condescension” in Christ, to say that “of that day and hour knoweth not the Son.” “It is condescension indeed!” says he. But this word “condescension” does not well apply here. One does not condescend to be ignorant of what he knows: still less does a truthful person condescend to say he is ignorant of what he knows. We may wisely condescend to help the feeble, and sympathize with the lowly, but hardly to be ignorant with them, or to pretend to be ignorant. It is a badly chosen word, and seems to show the vacillation of the writer's thought.
IV. The arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity are unanswerable.
We infer that they are unanswerable from the fact that they are not answered. It is to be presumed that Dr. Huntington, having been for so many years a preacher of Unitarian doctrine, is acquainted with our arguments. It is a remarkable fact that, in this sermon, he has nowhere attempted to reply to them. He has [pg 503] passed them wholly by. You would not know, from reading the discourse, that he had ever been a Unitarian, or had ever heard of the Unitarian objections to the Trinity; still less that he had himself preached against it. Unitarians, for instance, have said, that if the Trinity be true, and if it be so important to the welfare of the soul as is contended, it would be somewhere plainly taught in the New Testament. Does Dr. Huntington answer this argument? No; he answers the argument from the word “Trinity” not being in the Bible, and his answer is sufficient; but he does not answer the argument from the fact, that the doctrine itself is not anywhere distinctly taught, and that none of the terms which have been found essential to any Orthodox statement of the doctrine are to be met with in the New Testament.[93]
Nor does Dr. Huntington anywhere fairly meet the Unitarian argument from the impossibility of stating the doctrine in intelligible language. He tells us, with his usual eloquence, what we have often enough been taught before, that there are many things which we do not understand, and that we must believe many facts the mode of which is unintelligible. But when we say, “Can we believe a doctrine or proposition which cannot be distinctly stated?” He has no answer. The Trinity is a doctrine, and must therefore be distinctly stated in order to be believed. It has not been distinctly stated,[94] and therefore cannot be believed. To this objection Dr. Huntington has no reply; and we may conclude that it is an unanswerable objection.
Dr. Huntington uses an unnecessary phrase about those who object to mystery. He calls the objection “shallow self-illusion,” and proceeds with the usual declaration, that all of life is mysterious. Can he have been a Unitarian preacher for twenty years, and not have known that Unitarians object to mystery only when it is used by Trinitarians as a cover for obscurity and vagueness of statement?
You ask us to believe a precise statement, viz., that “there are three persons in the Godhead.” We say, “What do you mean by ‘person’?” The Trinitarian answers, “It is a mystery.” We say, “We cannot believe it, then.” The Trinitarian replies, “Why, all is a mystery. How the grass grows is a mystery; yet you believe it.” “No,” we say, “we do not believe it. When the mystery begins, our belief ends; we believe up to that point, and no farther.” The statement, “the grass grows,” is not a mystery; the fact, “the grass grows,” is not a mystery. We believe the fact and the statement. The way in which it grows is mysterious; and we do not believe anything about it. “You cannot understand how the grass grows.” No; and, accordingly, we do not believe anything about how the grass grows. But the whole purpose of the Trinity is to show how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist. You are not satisfied that we receive what the Scripture teaches; you try to show us the how, and then leave it in obscurity at last.
Nor does Dr. Huntington reply to the Unitarian explanation of the Trinitarian proof-texts. Trinitarians have often quoted the texts—“I and my Father are one;” “He who has seen me has seen the Father”—in proof of the Deity of Christ. Unitarians have often replied to both of them: to the first passage, that since Jesus has also said that his disciples were to be one with him, as he is one with God, it either proves that the disciples are also to be God, or does not prove that Christ is God. To the second passage, Unitarians have replied by reading the next clause, in which Christ says, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father?” showing how it is that he reveals the Father. He is in the Father, and his disciples are in him. Those who see him, see the Father; those who see his true disciples, see the face and image of Christ. These answers are so obvious, and Dr. Huntington must have heard them so often, that he should, as a controversialist, have taken some notice of them. He has not done so.
He quotes the passage from Eph. 1:20, 21, and says, “Can this be a creature?” We reply, “Can he be anything but a creature?—he who was set by God in this place of honor.” Does God set God, as a reward, above principalities and powers? Does God make God “head over all things in the Church”? Again: Dr. Huntington quotes, “that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord;” but he omits the conclusion, “to the glory of God the Father.”
He even quotes the passage, “Him hath God exalted to give repentance and forgiveness of sin.”
And he quotes the passage, which has staggered the strongest believers in the Trinity, where Paul declares (1 Cor. ch. 15), that, at the end, Christ will give up his kingdom to the Father, that “God may be all in all,” and explains it as meaning that “he will resume his place in the coequal Three, the indivisible One.” Has he left his place, then? Is that Orthodox? Dr. Huntington evidently thinks so; for he says, “The Son, in his character of Sonship, is retaken, so to speak, into the everlasting undivided One.” So to speak. We may speak so: “But what do we mean by it?” is the question. Did God the Son leave his place in the Godhead? Did he become less than God? Did he become ignorant? Did he suffer and die? Did he arise, and at last reascend, and take his place, “so to speak,” in the Godhead? If this is meant as real statement, what better is it than the Avatars of Vishnu? What sort of Unity is left to us? We have a Trinity of council; but where is the Unity, except of agreement? One divine Being descending, and leaving the other divine Being alone, temporarily, on the throne of the universe, until the divine Being who had descended should reascend to take his seat again “in the coequal Three and indivisible One”!
One Unitarian argument, which appears to us unanswerable, is in the fact, that the very passages in which the highest attributes are ascribed to Christ are always those in which his dependence and subordination are most strongly asserted. We could throw aside all the passages in which Jesus asserts directly his inferiority,—as, “My Father is greater than I;” “Of mine own self I can do nothing,”—and take the strongest proof-texts of the Trinitarians, and ask for no better proof for the Unitarian doctrine: “All power is given to me in heaven and earth;” “The image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature;” “In him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Are these passages written of Christ in his divine or human nature? Not his divine nature; for to God the Son all power cannot be “given.” God the Son cannot be “the image of God,” or the “first-born of every creature.” The “fulness of the Godhead” cannot dwell in God the Son. They must, then, be said of him in his human nature; and, if so, they show that the loftiest titles and attributes do not prove him to be God.
V. The good ascribed to the doctrine of the Trinity does not belong to it, but to the truths which underlie it.
Dr. Huntington asserts, for example, that “the Triunity of God appears to be the necessary means of manifesting and supporting in the mind of our race, a faith in the true personality of God.”
If so, it is remarkable that the two forms of religion in which the personality of God, as absolute will, is most distinctly recognized (i.e., the Jewish religion and the Mohammedan religion), should both be ignorant of the Trinity. It is equally remarkable that the most Pantheistic religion in the world, in which the personality of God most entirely disappears (i.e., Braminism), should have a Trinity of its own. It is also remarkable, on this hypothesis, that idolatry in the Christian Church (as worship of Mary, worship of saints and relics, &c.) should come up with the Trinity, and flourish simultaneously with it.
No; it is not the Trinity which brings out most distinctly the personality of God, but the faith in a divine revelation through inspired men. If God can dwell in the souls of men, teaching and guiding them, he must be a person like the soul with which he communes. Especially does the religious consciousness of Jesus, his simple and child-like communion with the heavenly Father, bring God near to the soul as a personal being. It is not the Trinity, but the Christian faith which underlies it, which teaches the divine personality.
Nor is it the doctrine of the Trinity which is necessary for a living faith in God through Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. All that Dr. Huntington says of the evil of sin is well said, but has no bearing on the point before us. According to Dr. Huntington's own witnesses, as we have seen above, the Trinity was unknown in the earlier ages of the Church. Was reconciliation unknown? Was the forgiving love of Christ unknown? If he cannot assert this, the doctrine of the Trinity is not necessary to a living faith in a reconciling God.
Dr. Huntington argues, that only the sufferings, and actual sufferings, of God himself, can touch the sinful heart; and, therefore, the Trinity is true. The conclusion is a long way from the premise, even supposing that to be sound. But as regards the premise, he has read and quoted Mansel. Has he not verged towards the dogmatism which that writer condemns? Would it not be more modest, and better accord with Christian humility, to be satisfied with believing the scriptural assertions, that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son;” that “He who spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all,—shall [pg 507] he not, with him, freely give us all things?” Is not this enough, without an argument to prove that the only way by which man can be saved is the method of a suffering God?
We will not dwell further on this head, nor examine our friend's argument to show that we cannot consistently, as Unitarians, have any piety. We will try, then, to have it inconsistently.
VI. Great evils to the Church have come from the doctrine of the Trinity.
It has tended to the belief in three Gods. It has tended to a confusion of belief between three Gods of equal power and majesty, united only in counsel; one supreme and two inferior Deities; one Deity with a threefold manner of manifestation; and a vague, undetermined use of words, with no meaning attached to them—unhappy confusion, which none have been more ready to recognize and to point out than Trinitarians themselves.
And what shall we say of the continual struggles, conflicts, and bitter controversies, which this doctrine has caused from the time of its entrance into the Church? What is there more disgraceful in the history of the Church, than the mutual persecutions of Arians and Athanasians, and of all the minor sects and parties, engendered by this disputed doctrine?
This is what Dr. Bushnell says of one of these matters; and his testimony is, perhaps, sufficient on this point,—
“No man can assert three persons,—meaning three consciousnesses, wills, and understandings,—and still have any intelligent meaning in his mind, when he asserts that they are yet one person; for, as he now uses the term, the very idea of a person is that of an essential, incommunicable monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized by self-active will; which being true, he might as well profess to hold that three units are yet one unit. When he does it, his words will, of necessity, be only substitutes for sense.
“At the same time, there are too many signs of the mental confusion I speak of not to believe that it exists. Thus, if the class I speak of were to hear a discourse insisting on the proper personal Unity of God, it would awaken suspicion in their minds, while a discourse insisting on the existence of three persons would be only a certain proof of Orthodoxy; showing that they profess three persons, meaning what they profess, and one person, really not meaning it.
“Such is the confusion produced by attempting to assert a real and metaphysical Trinity of persons in the divine nature. Whether [pg 508] the word is taken at its full import, or diminished away to a mere something called a distinction, there is produced only contrariety, confusion, practical negation, not light.”
So far Dr. Bushnell. On another point thus testifies Twesten:—
“There are many to whom the biblical and religious basis of the doctrine is exceeding sure and precious, who are dissatisfied with the Church form of the doctrine, and even feel themselves repelled or fettered by it. It is to them more negative than positive, more opposed to errors than giving any insight into truth. It solves no difficulty, it unseals no new revelation.”
Twesten goes on to admit that the Trinity has really hemmed in the free movement of the mind, substituting a dead uniformity for a manifold and various life; and yet Twesten is a very strong and able Trinitarian.
VII. The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine of philosophy, and not of faith.
As philosophy, it might be ever so true and important; but, when brought forward as religion (as Dr. Huntington has done), it would become at once pernicious. To offer theology for religion, belief for faith, philosophy born of speculative reflection in place of spiritual insight and pious experience, have always been most deleterious both to religion and to philosophy.
The objects of faith are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through Christ we have access to the Father in the Spirit. We see the Father revealed to us in the Son; we feel the power of the Spirit in our hearts. This is religion; but this has nothing to do with the doctrine of the Trinity.
VIII. We can trace the gradual formation of the doctrine in the Christian Church.
The following facts we suppose to be incontrovertible:—
1. Down to the time of the synod of Nice (A.D. 325), the Son was considered to be subordinate, or inferior to the Father, by the great majority of writers and teachers in the Christian Church, and by the multitude of believers; and no doctrine of Trinity existed in the Church.
2. The Nicene symbol, which declared Christ to be “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of the same substance with the Father,”[95] was directed against the two Arian positions,—that [pg 509] Christ was created, and that there was a time when he did not exist; but it did not declare his equality with God the Father, nor teach the personality of the Holy Spirit, nor say anything of the Trinity.
3. The councils vacillated to and fro during three hundred years, gradually tending towards the present Church doctrine of the Trinity; thus,—
1. Synod of Nice (A.D. 325) opposed the Arian doctrine of the creation of Christ out of nothing, and maintained that his substance was derived from that of God.
2. Synod of Tyre (A.D. 335) favored the Arians, and deposed Athanasius.
3. Council of Antioch (A.D. 343) opposed the views of the Arians, and also the views of their opponents.
4. Council of Sardica (A.D. 344) resulted in a division between the Eastern and Western Churches—the East being semi-Arian, and the West, Athanasian—in their view of the nature of Christ.
5. The Western Church tending to Sabellianism (taught by Marcellus and his pupil Photinus), this view was condemned by two councils in the East and West, viz.:—
Second council of Antioch (A.D. 343).
Council of Milan (A.D. 346).
6. Constantius, an Arian emperor, endeavored to make the Western Churches accept the Arian doctrine, and, at two synods (A.D. 353 and 355, at Arelate and Mediolanum), compelled the bishops to sign the condemnation of Athanasius, deposing those who refused so to do.
7. The Arians, being thus dominant, immediately divided into Arians and Semi-Arians,—the distinction being the famous distinction between o and oi. Both parties denied the Homoousios; but the Semi-Arians admitted the Homoiousios.
8. At the synod of Ancyra (A.D. 358), the Semi-Arian doctrine was adopted, and the Arian rejected. The third synod of Sirmium (A.D. 358) did the same thing.
9. Down to this time (A.D. 360), nothing was said about the Holy Spirit in its relation to the Trinity. The Emperor Valens, an Arian, persecuted the Athanasians from A.D. 364 to 378. Then Theodosius, an Athanasian emperor, persecuted the Arians. Semi-Arianism, however, continued Orthodox in the East.
10. The Nestorian controversy broke out A.D. 430. Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) condemned Nestor. The Nestorians (who [pg 510] were Unitarians) separated entirely from the Church, and became the Church of the Persian empire.
11. The Monophysite controversy broke out. The council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) decided that there were two natures in Christ; and the Monophysites separated, and formed the Coptic Church. Their formula was, that “God was crucified in Christ.” The Nestorians were too Unitarian, and the Monophysites too Athanasian. The Church decided (against the Nestorians) that Mary was God's mother, but decided (against the Monophysites) that God was not crucified.
12. First Lateran Council was called (in A.D. 640) to settle a new point. It having been decided that there were two natures in Christ, it was now thought best by many to yield to the Monophysites—that there was only one will in Christ. Hence the Monotheletic controversy, finally settled at the,—
13. Sixth General Council (A.D. 680), when two wills in Christ were accepted as the doctrine of the Church.
Thus it appears that it took the Church from A.D. 325 to A.D. 680 to settle the questions concerning the relation of Christ to God. During all this time, opinion vacillated between Arianism on the one hand and Sabellianism on the other. At the end of this period, the Church had become consolidated, and strong enough to compel submission to its opinions: but the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Trinity remained unsettled for several centuries more; and finally the Eastern Church separated altogether from the Western Church on this point. The whole Greek Church remains, to this day, separated from the Latin Church on a question belonging to this very doctrine of the Trinity. So much, then, for Dr. Huntington's assertion, that the Trinity is a doctrine which can almost literally be said to have been believed “always, everywhere, and by all.”
IX. The doctrine of the Trinity is opposed to the real divinity of Christ and to his real humanity; thus undermining continually the faith of the Church in the divine humanity of Jesus Christ the Lord.
Our final and chief objection to the Trinity is, not that it makes Christ divine, but that it does not make him so. It substitutes for the divinity of the Father, the Supreme God, which Unitarians believe to dwell in Christ, a subordinate divinity of God the Son. This is subordinate, because derived; and, because derived, dependent. [pg 511] The Son may be said to be “eternally generated;” but this is only an eternal derivation, and does not alter the dependence, but makes it also to be eternal. The tendency of the Church doctrine of the Trinity is always to a belief, not in the supreme divinity dwelling in Christ, but in a derived and secondary divinity.
How is it, for example, with the Nicene doctrine concerning Christ? Dr. Huntington claims Nice as Trinitarian. (p. 361.)
But what says Prof. Stuart concerning the Nicene doctrine? Listen.
“The Nicene symbol presents the Father as the Monas, or proper Godhead, in and of himself exclusively; it represents him as the Fons et Principium of the Son, and therefore gives him superior power and glory. It does not even assert the claims of the blessed Spirit to Godhead, and therefore leaves room to doubt whether it means to recognize a Trinity, or only a Duality.” (Moses Stuart, Bib. Repos., 1835, quoted by Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 264.)
And how is it with the ante-Nicene fathers, whom Dr. Huntington also considers to be Trinitarian? else certainly his rule of “always, everywhere, and by all,” does not hold. If, for the first three hundred years after Christ, there were no Trinitarians, it cannot be said that the Trinity has “always” been held in the Church. Listen, again, to Prof. Stuart, whose learning no one can question.
“We find that all the Fathers before, at, and after the Council of Nice, who harmonize with the sentiments there avowed, declare the Father only to be the self-existent God.” (See the whole paragraph in Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 267.)
“To be the author of the proper substance of the Son and Spirit, according to the Patristical creed; or to be the author of the modus existendi of the Son and Spirit, according to the modern creed,—both seem to involve the idea of power and glory in the Father, immeasurably above that of the Son and Spirit.” (Moses Stuart, Bib. Repos., 1835.)
So Coleridge asserts that “both Scripture and the Nicene Creed teach a subordination of the Son to the Father, independent of the incarnation of the Son.... Christ, speaking of himself as the coeternal Son, says, ‘My Father is greater than I.’ ” (Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 270.)
According to the Trinitarian doctrine, then, we do not find God—the Supreme God, our heavenly Father—in Christ; but a [pg 512] derived, subordinate, and inferior Deity. Not the one universal Parent do we approach, but some mysterious, derived, inscrutable Deity, less than the Father, and distinct from him. Do we not, then, lose the benefit and blessing of the divinity of Jesus? Can we believe him when be says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father?” No; we do not believe that, if we are Trinitarians; but rather, that, having seen him, we have seen “the Son;” whom Coleridge declares to be an inferior Deity; over whom Bishop Pearson, in his “Exposition of the Creed,” says, the Father holds “preeminence,”—the Father being “the Origin, the Cause, the Author, the Root, the Fountain, the Head, of the Son.” The doctrine of the Trinity is therefore opposed, as Swedenborg ably contends, to the real divinity of Christ.[96]
But it is equally opposed to his real humanity. It constantly drives out of the Church the human element in Christ. Dr. Huntington is astonished at Unitarians not perceiving that the humanity of Christ is as dear to Trinitarians as his Deity; yet it cannot be denied, that the mysterious dogma of deity has quite overshadowed the simple human life of our dear Lord, so that the Church has failed to see the Son of man. All his highest human traits become unreal in the light of this doctrine of his deity. He is tempted; but that is unreal, for God cannot be tempted. He prays, “Our Father;” but this also is no real prayer, for he is omnipotent, and can need nothing. He encounters opposition, hatred, contumely, and bears it with sweetest composure; but what of that? since, as God, he looked down from an infinite height upon the puny opposition. He agonizes in the garden; but it is imaginary suffering: how can God feel any real agony, like man? Jesus ceases to be example, ceases to be our best beloved companion and brother, and becomes a mysterious personage, inscrutable to our thought, and far removed from our sympathy.