The 'Lonely Triune God' LSM's Oxymoron - TOMES

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

My point is what?

But do I see a "lonely God" in the middle of this great turning wheel?

Hardly.

For me the "lonely God" desiring to find a human wife for His Only Begotten Son seems innocuous enough, since the moral of the story was indeed only the love of God reaching man.

Consider how Abraham, the "father" of faith, also sent his servant to a distant land to find a bride for Isaac, his only son, after he was sacrificed on the altar in type. Btw, IIRC, Isaac was about 60 years of age and had not, as yet, started to date.

Having not yet read Tomes' article, at first glance it seems to be much ado about nothing. Can anyone pass on to me a "concern" which I do not yet have?

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

For me the "lonely God" desiring to find a human wife for His Only Begotten Son seems innocuous enough, since the moral of the story was indeed only the love of God reaching man.

I can appreciate the verses in Genesis. Man was made in God's likeness, where the other creatures were not. But this was on earth. In heaven God has many sons, created in His likeness. See Job 1:6. Also see when Abraham's visitors arrive. Angels look like men because angels and men both look like God. They are all "created in His likeness". But angels in heaven obey God; men on earth (apart from Christ) obey Satan.

Second, on Adam being alone, that does not mean God was alone. Tomes is right to challenge this analogy.

Ohio asks, why is all this fuss necessary over interpretation? I would say because WL departed from the footsteps of the flock. He said that he was being steadfast in following the teachings and fellowship of the apostles, but he was continually coming up with novel twists on the gospel story, saying it was a revelation straight from the throne, and marketing it to the gullible. That's where "Bruther Lee said..." comes in. The only legs this "lonely Triune God" has to stand on are those of Lee.

I also speculate, and use my logic/inspiration to "see new things" in the scripture. But we all can and should, and can bring these insights and inspirations into the assembly to be tried and (often) either tossed aside or modified and pruned.

The real story behind "Local Church Discussions" is that WL was lonely in Christianity so he wanted to create a "Witness Lee Duplication Center" where assorted lackeys, hacks, and sycophants would gather on his every word; the contents of his imagination would be held as manna from heaven itself. That is I think what Tomes is questioning. That we would hold one man's opinion as the equivalent of "truth". As 'unregistered' recently wrote, "the Truth is a Person [and that Person ain't Witness Lee]."

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

The real story behind [this and other] "Local Church Discussions" is that WL was lonely in Christianity so he wanted to create a "Witness Lee Duplication Center" where assorted lackeys, hacks, and sycophants would gather on his every word; the contents of his imagination would be held as manna from heaven itself. That is I think what Tomes is questioning.

What I think is wrong about what WL did in creating the local churches in his likenss and according to his image is that it directly contravenes the teachings of Jesus. Jesus said that if you want to be great in heaven be the least while you are here on earth. WL made himself great here on earth; the "apostle of the age" and "God's oracle" and he used the "recovery" metric to do that. So he is really very small in heaven and his ideas should be held with suspicion. Anything "novel" he came up with should be viewed askance because it was tainted with human will. Remember what CMW recently remarked about Lucifer:

Originally Posted by countmeworthy

When [Lucifer] pitted his will against his Creator, he said, "I will ascend to heaven, I will "I exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit upon the mount of assembly in the uttermost north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High."

Is it no wonder why we have a difficult time surrendering OUR WILL to God's Perfect Will? Lord have Mercy on us! THY WILL be done on earth..in us AS Your Perfect Will is done in heaven.

Amen. Lord bend us closer toward Your Perfect Will.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

Ohio asks, why is all this fuss necessary over interpretation? I would say because WL departed from the footsteps of the flock. He said that he was being steadfast in following the teachings and fellowship of the apostles, but he was continually coming up with novel twists on the gospel story, saying it was a revelation straight from the throne, and marketing it to the gullible.

It was not good for Witness Lee to be alone.

[Ohio]

I have been told on occasion that my posts are predictable, following a prescribed pattern, and I have to basically agree. There is a background or a context as to why I post as I do. Things motivate me, and I have, on many occasions, explained my motives in detail.

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. My quest over the years has caused me to see through many a document. I think that I was the first to post that the quarantine of Titus Chu was merely a power struggle between two competing factions in the Recovery. Nothing I have ever read has ever disputed that proposition. As in the days of the Brethren, so with us. To understand motivations is important to me.

So my question is simple. What bothered Nigel to the point that he would invest the time to write this obviously time-consuming piece about a "lonely God?" How was this leaven to me, a typical LC'er?

I would really like to know.

[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.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I have been told on occasion that my posts are predictable, following a prescribed pattern, and I have to basically agree. There is a background or a context as to why I post as I do. Things motivate me, and I have, on many occasions, explained my motives in detail.

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. My quest over the years has caused me to see through many a document. I think that I was the first to post that the quarantine of Titus Chu was merely a power struggle between two competing factions in the Recovery. Nothing I have ever read has ever disputed that proposition. As in the days of the Brethren, so with us. To understand motivations is important to me.

So my question is simple. What bothered Nigel to the point that he would invest the time to write this obviously time-consuming piece about a "lonely God?" How was this leaven to me, a typical LC'er?

As usual Ohio, your posts usually get me to A. either thinking or B. stirred up to issue in a post of my own.
Pondering what led brother Nigel to write this article I ask as a typical LCer who was Witness Lee to you? Was Witness Lee the modern day apostle Paul whose words was equal to scripture? Or was Witness Lee a gifted minister; just another one of God's servants?

As I read brother Nigel's article it seemed to come from the angle that Lee's spoken ministry was received as being on par with scripture. This coincides to Nigel's previous article which indicates Lee's spoken ministry was never checked against what the Bible says.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Terry

As usual Ohio, your posts usually get me to A. either thinking or B. stirred up to issue in a post of my own.

Pondering what led brother Nigel to write this article I ask as a typical LCer who was Witness Lee to you? Was Witness Lee the modern day apostle Paul whose words was equal to scripture? Or was Witness Lee a gifted minister; just another one of God's servants?

As I read brother Nigel's article it seemed to come from the angle that Lee's spoken ministry was received as being on par with scripture. This coincides to Nigel's previous article which indicates Lee's spoken ministry was never checked against what the Bible says.

I am presently reading Nigel's article, but still I can't help but think that the typical LC reader will respond to him, "why do you make a mountain out of a molehill?"

Personally I would like to see Nigel address the "weightier matters" such as Deputy Authority, which strikes the axe at the root of that dying tree, including both the Anaheim and Cleveland cultivars.

But ... I still have to finish his excellent paper, and as one who has had his yard completely tunneled under by star-nosed moles, I know firsthand what huge mountains those molehills really are.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I still have to finish his excellent paper, and as one who has had his yard completely tunneled under by star-nosed moles, I know firsthand what huge mountains those molehills really are.

For some reason I prefer Tomes' footnotes to his articles. Here is his footnote (#26) on G.K. Chesterton:

Originally Posted by Tomes

26. Under the heading, “God Himself is a Society," the noted journalist and Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) wrote the following: "There is nothing in the least liberal or akin to reform in the substitution of pure monotheism for the Trinity. The complex God of the Athanasian Creed may be an enigma for the intellect; but He is far less likely to gather the mystery and cruelty of a Sultan than the lonely god of Omar or Mahomet. The god who is a mere awful unity is not only a king but an Eastern king. The heart of humanity, especially of European humanity, is certainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Western religion has always felt keenly the idea "it is not well [good] for man to be alone." The social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the Eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of monks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the Trappists were sociable even when they were silent. If this love of a living complexity be our test, it is certainly healthier to have the Trinitarian religion than the Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with reverence)—to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology, and even if I were theologian enough to deal with it directly, it would not be relevant to do so here. Suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as an English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart: but out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God [i.e. radical Moslem adherents of Islam]; the real Unitarians who with scimitar [a sword with a curved blade, originating in the Middle East] in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not [good] well for God to be alone." G. K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy (emphasis added). Writing in the era before political correctness was fashionable, Chesterton talks about, “the lonely god of Omar or Mahomet” and refers to the jihadist-Moslem conquests of history with the words, “out of the desert…come the cruel children of the lonely God.” Chesterton’s inference is clear—a “lonely God” is characteristic of Islam and not of Christianity.

The lonely despotic God of Islam reminds me of my comments some time back noting that the book of Proverbs thrice states that in the counsel of many, the king's plans are ensured of success and safety. Compare that with Lee's "lonely apostle of the age" who is responsible for doling out advice to everyone but who is apparently immune to all outside counsels, and answerable only to God. "Even when he's wrong he's still right". Lonely, indeed.