# Truth Project: Is "look for Triads" a valid hermeneutical principle?



## Semper Fidelis (Mar 6, 2010)

Have any of you watched the Truth Project?

In Lesson 7: Sociology, Del draws an analogy between the Trinity and the family by drawing an analogy from the Essence of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit) to the Family (Husband, Wife, Children). He even goes so far as to note that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and that children proceed from their parents.

My concern is one of archetypal/ectypal distinction. This seems to be an inherent problem with trying to organize theology around Triads.

Is it appropriate to speculate on the essence of God as He is in Himself and draw analogies to the nature of our relationships (God is three and therefore there is an analogy of being to how families are constituted)? Are we not entering into a labyrinth of speculation when we do so as this analogy is not drawn in God's Word?

For instance, we have marriage compared to the mystical union between Christ and His Church but we have no direct analogies between God in Himself and familial institutions and it seems improper and speculative to draw conclusions about the family when we have ample revealed information about the nature of the family.

In other words, I find an unhealthy desire, in some teachers, to seek out Triads and see God as stamping everything with "threes". Why should the "look for threes because God is three" be a principle of hermeneutics? This hermeneutical principle seems to control where the things revealed adequately give instruction on the nature of these relationships without having to draw speculative analogies.

Thoughts?

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## Marrow Man (Mar 6, 2010)

I would say that there is an analogous relationship mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11:3 -- "But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ." However, it is not strictly "Triad" Trinitarian (the Spirit is not mentioned), nor is there any reference to children (and hence procession).

I would say that the Truth Project folks are falling into the classic theological blunder (not to be confused with land wars in Asia and debating Sicilians) of trying to create an analogy for the Trinity when there are no true analogies because nothing is like God. So trying to say the Trinity is like a three-leaf clover or the three states of water is bound to get one into heretical territory if not careful. Even in the example above, there are multitude problems. I am a father and a husband, but I was not always a father and a husband. I myself was once a son. How do these things fit into the "Triad" model?

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## py3ak (Mar 6, 2010)

Semper Fidelis said:


> In Lesson 7: Sociology, Del draws an analogy between the Trinity and the family by drawing an analogy from the Essence of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit) to the Family (Husband, Wife, Children). He even goes so far as to note that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and that children proceed from their parents.


 
That strikes me as quite an unfortunate analogy. Patently from the terms used of them, if an analogy to children were to be drawn it would have to be between the Father and the Son. That involves you in so many difficulties that the wise restraint Tim advocates immediately recommends itself as the best procedure.


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## Jack K (Mar 6, 2010)

God has used some family language to reveal himself to us by calling himself Father and Son. So if you're going to use any analogy, one that incorporates Father and Son is probably the way to go. That said, it does sound like the Truth Project took the analogy too far. And I very much agree it's unhealthy to try to make the Trinity more accessible to us by dumbing it down into any old triad analogy.

A woman at church recently used the clover analogy to try to explain the Trinity to a group of kids, and folks were raving about how wonderful her talk was. It does seem many of us have a desire to simplify God to our level of understanding, rather than accept and marvel at those aspects of him that are mindboggling.

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## jwright82 (Mar 8, 2010)

In the book Beyond The Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity, edited by John Piper, Justin Taylor, and Paul Kjoss Heleseth there is an excellant essay on this issue. The essay is entitled Veiled Glory: God's Self-Revelation In Human Likness-A Biblical Theology of God's Anthropomorphic Self-Disclosure, written A. B. Caneday. I recomend this essay, as well as the whole book, to anyone curious about this issue.

One of the main points I got from the essay was that it is God's right to choose which analogies He will use to describe himself analogicaly and that we should only those analogies to describe Him, not ones that we make up.


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## LawrenceU (Mar 8, 2010)

Beside being unwise scholarship the analogy falls apart from the get go. The Father and the Son did not create or engender the Spirit; parents create/engender children. 

This is the type of speculative theology that leads a great many down dead ended alleys of futility.


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## CharlieJ (Mar 8, 2010)

Even though I appreciate folks such as Frame and Poythress, I think the triad approach is the wrong way to go. It makes more sense to me to follow in this respect Colin Gunton (warning: neo-orthodox), who is fed up with seeing everything in "threes" and suggests that the Trinitarian image in the world does not revolve around the number three but consists in an inherent plurality in singularity. Also, the Trinity is reflected in the fact that man's sociality is essential to his nature as a person and (contra Locke and others) not an external or optional addition to his nature.


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## Puritan Sailor (Mar 8, 2010)

Marrow Man said:


> I would say that there is an analogous relationship mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11:3 -- "But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ." However, it is not strictly "Triad" Trinitarian (the Spirit is not mentioned), nor is there any reference to children (and hence procession).
> 
> I would say that the Truth Project folks are falling into the classic theological blunder (not to be confused with land wars in Asia and debating Sicilians) of trying to create an analogy for the Trinity when there are no true analogies because nothing is like God. So trying to say the Trinity is like a three-leaf clover or the three states of water is bound to get one into heretical territory if not careful. Even in the example above, there are multitude problems. I am a father and a husband, but I was not always a father and a husband. I myself was once a son. How do these things fit into the "Triad" model?


 
I agree. Paul compares the husband and wife relationship to the Father and Son relationship, one party though equal in dignity voluntarily submits to the head. 

Jesus also compares our relationship to the Father as analogous to an earthly father with his children. We are co-heirs and adopted brothers of Christ, and sons of God in that sense. If we wish to fit our children into a Trinitarian analogy, then that would be the only appropriate one, the way Father relates to the Son. 

Further, the Scriptures never call the Spirit the "son" or "child" of the Father and Son. That is clearly an inappropriate parallel to our children, ascribing to the Spirit what is uniquely given to the Son. It's a confusion of both the ontological and economical Trinity. Probably the closest way to fit the Spirit into the analogy of the family is Augustine's attempt to describe the Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son. At least in that he gaurds the uniqueness of the Son. But even that is pushing it I think.


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