Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake
Nell,
My experience differs from most here. Do I not have the right to share that in this forum?
Yet, this conversation is about the definition of the Trinity, the orthodox teaching on it, and whether Witness Lee's teaching aligns with it. His teaching is orthodox but it is evident that some in this forum express tendencies toward the ditch of tritheism. Evangelical has done a service to us all by bringing in the views of several independent theologians to state the orthodox view. Regardless of your opinion of Witness Lee's teaching, everyone should care to understand the orthodox teaching.
I don't find fault with not understanding. We are all striving to understand. However, It is disconcerting when Christians purposely misrepresent Witness Lee's actual teaching in hopes to gain what only God knows.
Drake
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Drake,
We could just as easily say you have tendencies toward the ditch of modalism. But let's not go there, okay?
Let's be honest, God presents us with a baffling mystery, the Trinity.
Personally, I think rather than asking how it can be, the better question is to ask what it means and what it implies about God and reality.
Another question should be, what is the advantage of Lee's interpretation, and what is the advantage of a different one.
I would say the advantage of Lee's is that it facilitates a more free-flowing experience of God. If you are not hung up on differentiating between the three you are content to know you are experiencing the one God in different forms, whether the source of God, the Father; the expression of God, the Son; or the realization of God, the Spirit. That's good stuff. I think many Christians experience a kind of mental "hiccup" in their experience of and prayer to God, because they are trying to consciously differentiate between the three to match their theology. This just brings in confusion.
But Lee's model has a problem too in that it tends to lose sight of the
relational aspect of God. If the Father and Son don't truly "have fellowship" in the way we consider having fellowship with another person, then all fellowship is actually a illusion, even a sham.
So I would say to you, don't be so intent on defending Lee that you reject views of the Trinity which might help your realization of who and what God is. One of these is the model of the fellowship between the Father and the Son, realized as the Spirit. This is the fellowship that existed before God planned to have fellowship with us, and without which he never would have thought to have fellowship with us.