Quodlibet
Largeness of Creed
If you accept that God is bigger than you are and accept him as he has revealed himself in Scripture, you are inevitably pushed in the direction of Trinitarian, Nicene, and Chalcedonian orthodoxy: He is one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Son is one Person with two natures, fully God and fully Man. If, on the other hand, you insist on a god you can fully understand, you must compromise either the unity or the distinction of the Persons. You will compromise either the deity or the humanity of the Son. How can they both be fully true at the same time?
The bottom-line question is this: Do you conform your mind to God as he has revealed himself in Scripture, or do you conform the Scriptures to the limitations of your mind? Christian doctrine is not contrary to reason, but it is bigger than anything my reason can fully grasp. The Nicene and Chalcedonian fathers understood this point. Do we?
Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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