The Truth of Christianity / Being an Examination of the More Important Arguments For and Against Believing in That Religion

by W. H. Turton

Yet the only alternative—that the world itself is eternal—though it gets over this difficulty, is still inadequate. For as we have seen God possesses moral attributes as well, such as Goodness. And all moral attributes—everything connected with right and wrong—can only be thought of as existing between two persons. We cannot be good to an atom of hydrogen, or unjust to a molecule of water. We can it is true be kind to animals, but this is simply because they resemble personal beings in having a capacity for pleasure and pain. But moral attributes in their highest perfection can only exist between two persons. Therefore as the eternal God possesses, and must always have possessed, such attributes, it seems to require some other eternal Person.

The argument is perhaps a difficult one to follow, but a single example will make it plain. Take the attribute of love. This requires at least two persons—one to love, the other to be loved. Therefore if love has always been one of God's attributes, there must always have been some other person to be loved. And the idea that God might have been eternally creating persons, like men or angels, as objects of His love, though perhaps attractive, is still inadequate. For love in its perfection can only exist between two beings of the same nature. A man cannot love his dog, in the same way that he can love his son. In short, personality, involving as it does moral attributes like love, implies fellowship, or the existence of other and similar persons.

Yet, when we think of the meaning of the term God, His omnipresence and omnipotence, it seems impossible that there can be more than one. We must then believe in at least two Eternal and Divine Persons, yet in but one God; and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, with all its difficulties, still seems the least difficult explanation.

But this is not all, for Natural Religion itself leads us to look upon God in three distinct ways, which correspond to the three chief arguments for His existence. (Chaps. I., II., and V.) Thus we may think of Him as the Eternal, Self-Existent One, altogether independent of the world—the All-Powerful First Cause required to account for it. Or we may think of Him in His relation to the world, as its Maker and Evolver, working everywhere, in everything and through everything,—the All-Wise Designer required by nature. Or we may think of Him in His relation to ourselves as a Spirit holding intercourse with our spirits, and telling us what is right—the All-Good Moral God required by conscience. And how well this agrees with the Christian doctrine scarcely needs pointing out; the Father the Source of all, the Son by Whom all things were made, and the Spirit bearing witness with our spirits; and yet not three Gods, but one God.

On the whole, then, we decide that the Doctrine of the Trinity is certainly credible and perhaps even probable. For to put it shortly, Nature forces us to believe in a personal God; yet, when we reflect on the subject, the idea of a personal God, Who is only one Person, seems scarcely tenable; since (as said above) personality implies fellowship.

(B.) The Incarnation.

We next come to the doctrine of the Incarnation; which however is so clearly stated in the Athanasian Creed, that its meaning is quite plain. God the Son, we are told, the second Person of the Trinity, was pleased to become Man and to be born of the Virgin Mary, so that He is now both God and Man. He is God (from all eternity) of the Substance or Nature of His Divine Father, and Man (since the Incarnation) of the Substance or Nature of His human Mother. He is thus complete God and complete Man; equal to the Father in regard to His Godhead, for He is of the same Nature; and inferior to the Father, in regard to His Manhood, for human nature must be inferior to the Divine. Moreover, though He possesses these two Natures, they are not changed one into the other, or confused together; but each remains distinct, though both are united in His One Person. This is in brief the doctrine of the Incarnation; and we will first consider its difficulties, then its motive, and lastly its historical position.

(1.) Its difficulties.

The first of these is that the Incarnation would be a change in the existence of God, Who is the changeless One. He, it is urged, is always the same, while an Incarnation would imply that at some particular time and place a momentous change occurred, and for ever afterwards God became different from what He had been for ever before.

This is no doubt a serious difficulty, but it must not be exaggerated. For an Incarnation would not, strictly speaking, involve any change in the Divine Nature itself. God the Son remained completely and entirely God all the time, He was not (as just said) in any way changed into a man, only He united to Himself a human nature as well. And perhaps if we knew more about the nature of God, and also about that of man (who we must remember was made to some extent in God's image, and this perhaps with a view to the Incarnation), we should see that it was just as natural for God to become Man, as it was for God to create man. We have really nothing to argue from. An Incarnation seems improbable, and that is all we can say.