[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I would like to ask Nigel why he posted this article. This is not a challenge, but an honest inquiry. I really like to know what is in the mind of a writer when he composes his piece. What bothered Nigel to the point that he would... write this obviously time-consuming piece about a "lonely God?" How was this leaven to me, a typical LC'er?

I see several similar questions here. First was Tomes' question.

Originally Posted by Tomes

What motivated God to create the human race? This question has been posed for centuries.

It is always hazardous to speculate on motives, especially when you are talking about God. But my guess is that we are designed to deal with Satan, God's enemy. As I said earlier, God likes to use intermediaries. Of course, "there is one intermediary between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5)", but look how Jesus communicates to the seven churches in Asia in Chaps 2 & 3 of Revelation: through "messengers", i.e. angels. And look at Revelation 22:16 "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the assemblies". Again, we see God using an agent.

Of course there is "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb", and so forth, but we are here to fight. Don't get distracted by romance or you will end up like David. He should have been in battle but he was at home looking for romance and he espied the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Nuff said.

Christ came to destroy the works of Satan (1 John 3:8) and we should follow our Captain (this is a VERY narrow reading but given our present situation and 2,000 year Christian history it should arguably be front and center).

Now, what prompted Lee to create his theology? Lee also created something, an idea - expressed as "God was lonely" - and he spoke it at trainings, packaged and sold it on cassette, VCR tape, CD, DVD, book, pamphlet, poster, magazines, coffee mug, calendar, baseball caps, etc.

Originally Posted by Tomes

Witness Lee’s answer is simple—God was alone and lonely...

Witness Lee's creation was a view concerning God's creation. I believe it was something to package and sell. Lee at heart was a merchandizer and this was something to offer the masses for their cash (credit also accepted).

Now, to Ohio's question: What prompted Tomes to take on this topic, this particular teaching of Lee, as opposed to some other? Speculation as to Tomes' motives might also be taken with caution, but let me try anyway. I believe the subject of the Trinity has been a challenge for Christianity since the inception of the faith. Certainly it was an affront to the Jews, to have a "co-equal power in heaven" with the one True God Jehovah. The Christians, said the Jews, have two Gods (I am leaving aside the Holy Spirit for the moment). See for example the excellent book "Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinical Reports on Christianity and Judaism" by Alan Segal.

And of course the "One Spirit" (Eph 4:4) only muddles up the matter further. Enter Lee. I remember reading his "Tritheism, Modalism, and the Pure Word of God" and found it neither thought-provoking nor vivifying. And I was a "true believer"! I suspect a lot of local churchers are also not "sold" on all of Lee's ideas. They are, rather, "sold" on the local ground and they respected Lee as the unquestioned leader of the enterprise, so they put up with his homespun theology because "it's the church". I know I did. Tomes is going after this, and showing that the emperor has no clothes.

Lee's theology was weak in many areas, and his theology of the Trinity probably hovered at the fringes of orthodoxy, if not beyond. I remember a few years ago getting into it online with some Lee-ites who wrote an essay titled, "The Son is the Father". I replied, "Why then is He called the Son?" They replied, "Jesus said 'I and the Father are one'", and I wrote, "Jesus said, 'You shall all be one, even as I am one with the Father'. Does that mean therefore that I am You and You are me?"

Lee blurred the distinctions. In the Gospels I see the Father sending the Son, not vice versa. Likewise I see the Son now sending the Spirit. I rarely talk about the Trinity because I don't understand it, but Lee pretended he did, and in a way different from "poor Christianity" (naturally) and Tomes is not out of line in pointing out how egregiously weak and contradictory Lee's ideas were in this regard.

Lastly, why do we write? Why do we spend time commenting on Tomes' commentaries on Lee's commentaries on the Bible? For myself, I like to write because it helps me think. I like it when Ohio or OBW points out my conceptual "feet of clay". I need that today, to intrude on my thinking, before I go too far. I don't want to stand at the Bema needing correction. I'd rather get it while I am in church. Tomes is right in challenging LSM's ideas on the Trinity. "Brother Lee said" no longer cuts it.