Meanwhile, here's a thought.
How do we know if our apprehension or experience of the Trinity - assuming that we are Trinitarian in belief - is impaired and needs fixing?
I'm just thinking aloud here.
Our apprehension of these things can only be partial at best. 'But when the perfect comes ...'
I can understand people's diffidence about posting on this thread. Particularly when there are pedants like me around pouncing on people for apparently uncrossed 't's or dotted 'i's in their understanding of Trinitarian doctrine whilst being a complete and total ignoramus and hypocrite myself ...
I thought @la vie en rouge posted a very brave and commendable reflection. I wish I could do the same at times.
But - forgive me if I overstep any marks - I find myself wondering why @Nick Tamen's take should be seen as not 'deficient' - and I'm not saying it is or isn't - yet @Lamb Chopped feels that her own is?
This may be trite but it's occurred to me that one of the 'benefits', if we can put it that way, of Trinitarian doctrine is that if we have an 'issue' for whatever reason with one or other of the Persons of the Holy an Undivided Trinity - whether it is with the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit - there are always another two who are able to help.
Got an issue with the Father? Well, here's the Son. Don't get on with him? Well, here's the Holy Spirit ...
When I say "background," I'm referring (here, at least) to the child abuse. And when you've been taught from early childhood that the least imprecision in communication is going to get you punished, AND that your parents deeply and personally resent any mistake you make about them, well, it doesn't make for an ideal mindset for addressing the Trinity, does it?
Certainly what I know of the Trinity from the Bible is a great help, and in fact the only reason I dare approach God at all; but I'm nowhere near healed yet, and there's a lot of growing to do. And a lot of it is finding a way to get the heart to where the head is already. Because it's easier to say "God is trustworthy, patient, loving and kind" and believe it with all your mind than to actually trust him with the whole heart, and carry that out in action. In my experience.
I mainly understand “Father,” and “Son” as being about how the First and Second Persons of the Trinity relate to each other—the “Source,” as it were, and the “eternally begotten.” To the extent I think of “Father” outside of relationship to “Son,” I probably think of something more like the Norse All-Father—the creator/source of all creation.
I tend to hold that together with the personal - in the sense of feeling that God would also be a more 'real' (in the Great Divorce sense) of my own father.
[Although I believe that there are debates as to how much the notion of All-Father was borrowed from Roman or Christian sources and whether all-father in context actually means creator of all.]
Yes, I think that’s case, but it was the quickest reference I could come up with.
Perhaps this is when I admit I’ve never read The Great Divorce.
Oh, it’s awesome!! ❤️
So I hear from many people. But unfortunately I suspect, for reasons I won’t go into now but can if the thread @Nenya suggests comes to be, that I wouldn’t be among those who find it awesome.
Meanwhile, here's a thought.
How do we know if our apprehension or experience of the Trinity - assuming that we are Trinitarian in belief - is impaired and needs fixing?
For how we know our apprehension or experience of the Trinity is impaired, I’d say that impairment is somewhat unavoidable as part of bring human. As you say, our understanding can only be partial at best. “Through a glass dimly” and all.
As for “needs fixing,” that’s probably not how I’d put it. “Room for growth,” perhaps?
This may be trite but it's occurred to me that one of the 'benefits', if we can put it that way, of Trinitarian doctrine is that if we have an 'issue' for whatever reason with one or other of the Persons of the Holy an Undivided Trinity - whether it is with the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit - there are always another two who are able to help.
Yes, I rather suspect that the various members of the Trinity aren’t particularly bothered when we relate to one of them more easily than the others.
When I used to believe I was actually praying, I always prayed to God the Father, mostly because that's what Jesus did, and that's what Jesus said to do. Especially during my family's charismatic years there was praying directly to Jesus, and the unintelligible "praying" to the Holy Spirit, neither of which resonated with me very much at all. I never tried to apprehend the Holy Spirit, partly because it intimidated me, and eventually because I found that whole aspect of Christianity to be of the woo-woo variety. As a teen I once had to speak in tongues to "advance" in my charismatic discipleship, and after weeks of trying, including actually sweating myself damp, I faked it one Sunday night after youth group. The congratulations came hot and heavy, and it was declared that I had uttered names for God and Jesus and repeated scripture passages in the language of the angels. There was too much Jesus as the Bridegroom and me as the bride for me to be comfortable focusing too heavily on that relationship, and he was mostly an intermediary to the Father (who himself has ended up a villain and tyrant to me), so not *quite* as magnificent and nowhere near as awful, but still just his spokesperson.
Now that my faith has fallen away (don't weep for me), I find that if my mind wanders back toward Christianity in the slightest, it's in terms of the Holy Spirit. For some reason I can still give it just a quark of possibility, in terms of an untethered, spiritual-not-religious "universe," or more possibly even, stretching into the theoretical physics and cosmology of Dark Matter. Something binding. Something unquantifiably there. Yet essential. I dunno.
@Gamma Gamaliel I agree that it's worth considering that our perception of the Trinity, or indeed any other aspect of God, may be impaired, simply as a result of our limited brains. I've long thought that, and so I always pray for mehr licht.
@The_Riv I suppose the idea of Jesus praying to himself would be absurd but the very fact that he directed all his prayers to the Father, and taught his disciples to do the same, is why I'm so rooted in praying exclusively to the Father.
@The_Riv I suppose the idea of Jesus praying to himself would be absurd but the very fact that he directed all his prayers to the Father, and taught his disciples to do the same, is why I'm so rooted in praying exclusively to the Father.
I, too, generally pray to the Father. I think I probably bend toward the understanding of praying to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, which makes prayer itself a Trinitarian exercise. The exceptions I can think of are mostly traditional, set prayers, often drawn from Scripture or hymnody:
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
“Lord, I am not worthy to receive you . . . .”
“Come, Holy Spirit . . . .”
The other notable exception is if I say a table blessing out loud, in which case I’ll normally use the traditional Moravian blessing my father always said:
“Come, Lord Jesus, our guest to be,
and bless these gifts bestowed by thee.
And with our daily bread impart
thy love and peace to every heart.”
(Actually, he had three versions of this one, from more informal to more formal. This is the “middle” one, and is the one I default to.)
As a teen I once had to speak in tongues to "advance" in my charismatic discipleship, and after weeks of trying, including actually sweating myself damp, I faked it one Sunday night after youth group. The congratulations came hot and heavy, and it was declared that I had uttered names for God and Jesus and repeated scripture passages in the language of the angels.
As a teen I once had to speak in tongues to "advance" in my charismatic discipleship, and after weeks of trying, including actually sweating myself damp, I faked it one Sunday night after youth group. The congratulations came hot and heavy, and it was declared that I had uttered names for God and Jesus and repeated scripture passages in the language of the angels.
As a teen I once had to speak in tongues to "advance" in my charismatic discipleship, and after weeks of trying, including actually sweating myself damp, I faked it one Sunday night after youth group. The congratulations came hot and heavy, and it was declared that I had uttered names for God and Jesus and repeated scripture passages in the language of the angels.
In my charismatic days we didn't see 'tongues' as us speaking to the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit helping or enabling us to pray in some kind of supernatural 'prayer language' that was believed to be very powerful and express and which 'by-passed' our rational faculties in some way.
Through practice I became quite 'good' at it and could produce something that to me, and my fellow congregants at least, sounded more 'convincing' than the 'shamula hamala' stuff and the 'sellimahonda, gimmeashandy, untiemebowtie' utterances that passed for 'tongues' back then.
I don't do that any more and whilst I wouldn't dismiss the idea of glossolalia entirely, I'm not sure I'd find it particularly helpful or edifying were I to resume the practice.
I'd rather use set prayers and my own extemporary prayers based on those and on scriptural examples, keeping them short, sharp and to the point, trying not to impress God, myself or other people with my apparent erudition and loquacity.
Don't get me wrong, I think there is scope for oomph and 'hwyl' and I don't rule out the possibility of charismatic gifts per se. I just tend to see them operating differently to how we did things back then.
I've come late to this thread but I, personally, find the way I can relate to the Trinity is by thinking of one God, manifesting to humanity as God over us, God with us, and God within us. Does that make me a heretic (modalist or whatever)? God within me moves me to pray to God over me with the aid of God with me.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 2.5
No mention of the Holy Spirit. I pray to Jesus.
From Matthew 6: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This, then, is how you should pray:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
But Jesus' instructions were that we are to pray to the Father. Do you think Jesus didn't know he could and should be prayed to? Whose instruction supersedes Jesus'?
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 2.5
No mention of the Holy Spirit. I pray to Jesus.
From Matthew 6: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This, then, is how you should pray:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
But Jesus' instructions were that we are to pray to the Father. Do you think Jesus didn't know he could and should be prayed to? Whose instruction supersedes Jesus'?
When I pray the prayer you have quoted, it's a bit longer than that. I have always assumed that other prayers are acceptable.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 2.5
No mention of the Holy Spirit. I pray to Jesus.
Not God the Father, then?
You are beginning to sound like a 'Jesus Only' Pentecostal.
Has anyone ever told you that it isn't good practice to isolate individual verses and build an edifice on them without a wider context?
There are references to the Holy Spirit in other parts of the NT. We don't just have a handful of Pauline epistles and nothing else.
It's one of my favourite verses. Many years ago we we on a boating holiday on the Llangollen canal. In the middle of nowhere we suddenly came upon a large notice board with that verse on it. It made a big impression on me. I was not aware that I was building an edifice.
There's nothing wrong with the verse nor with it making a big impression on you.
I've had Bible verses 'jump out' at me, too.
That's fine, as far as it goes, for one's personal edification or sense of spiritual well-being.
The John Wesley thing, 'My heart was strangely warmed.'
Fine. No problem with that.
That's not the point, I'm making. What I am suggesting is that you are 'proof-texting' from this and other verses without considering the overall context or other verses which also need to be taken into account.
But we all know the old story of the fella who flips open his Bible and reads, 'Then Judas went and hanged himself ....' then flipped it open again to see, 'Go thou and do likewise.' Opening it at random a third time he finds, 'whatever thou doe'st, do quickly ...'
A text without a context is a pretext for anything.
With my Big O Orthodox hat on, and I believe this is a small o item of head-gear too, I also don't believe we can disagregate or isolate individual verses from what we might call 'the mind of the Church.'
The Church as a whole is Trinitarian. It's there in all the historic Creeds and in all mainstream Churches and denominations. All these Christian communities believe that Trinitarian belief is consonant with scripture and the Tradition (big T) and tradition (small t) of Christian churches in general. 'That believed always, everywhere and by all.'
We can't take a single verse, as you appear to have done, and say, 'Aha! There is one mediator, Christ Jesus. We can forget the Holy Spirit then ...'
When I pray to Jesus, I take the example of St. Stephen at the moment of his death as my excuse, if one is necessary. He clearly addressed him.
But it doesn't seem to me that there is any harm in addressing any and all members of the Trinity, he/they can surely all hear. And for people like me who have severe issues with fatherhood, I am very certain that our compassionate and courteous Lord would allow us to make whatever adjustments to normal custom are necessary for me to interact with him at all.
The Orthodox tradition (should that be Tradition?) doesn't stipulate how people should pray in private prayer.
There are set prayers during services of course and some are recommended for personal and private use. There are prayers to God the Father and to Christ - sometimes addressing him as 'Christ God' - and the daily invocation of God the Holy Spirit - 'O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth ...'
As far as I am aware that is the only Orthodox prayer directly addressed to the Holy Spirit.
I don't think any Orthodox Christian would cavill at Telford praying to Christ or to you @Lamb Chopped for praying to Christ and to the Holy Spirit due to particular circumstances that make it difficult for you to relate to God the Father.
My beef with @Telford isn't that he prays to Jesus. I pray to Jesus too. So do you. We are all praying to the same God when we address Christ, because Christ is God.
No, my issue is what I take to be his wonky view of the Trinity. It's none of my business of course, but if we profess to be Christians then we must profess to be Trinitarian. We can't pluck random verses out of the air and build our own theology out of them.
That doesn't mean that God has a score-sheet to test how Trinitarian we are or how many prayers we address to the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit.
'Hmmm ... that Gamaliel. He's slipping. He's addressed the Father 17 times this week, the Son only 11 times and the poor old Holy Spirit only 5 times this week ...'
God meets us all where we are 'at'. He's not a touch-line referee blowing a whistle whenever we make a forward pass or go 'offside' or whatever else.
I might pick people up on points of doctrine, and they are perfectly at liberty to do the same to me, of course, but sitting in judgement on other people's prayer lives or how they pray in private isn't my remit in any way, shape or form.
In fact, the Lord clearly takes a dim view whenever any of us do that.
The Catholic Church has a well known prayer to the Holy Spirit which is one offered often by Pope Francis
'Come,Holy Spirit,fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love.'
'Send forth your Spirit and they they shall be created
And you will renew the face of the earth.'
Thanks to Gamma Gamaliel and so many others for their insights .
The Orthodox have an issue with the 'unity of the Spirit' formula.
We are Awkwardox.
We wouldn't have a problem with the rest, I don't think ... but there's always someone with a heresy-hunting chart and a lack of love in their hearts ... 😉
The Orthodox have an issue with the 'unity of the Spirit' formula.
We are Awkwardox.
We wouldn't have a problem with the rest, I don't think ... but there's always someone with a heresy-hunting chart and a lack of love in their hearts ... 😉
I think it means we are praying in union with the Spirit rather than commenting on Filioque. But I'm probably wrong.
Who knows? I'm not RC nor am I you. I can only go by what you say.
I'm happy with that, but it's not as if I'm the final arbiter of all this.
I'm pretty sure plenty of people who don't understand the 'filioque' in the way they are accused of doing. Or don't understand the 'filioque' full stop.
As an aside, I often feel that RCs find themselves on the receiving end of both Protestants and Orthodox telling them what they believe as if they know that better than RCs themselves.
I'm sure it happens the other way around too but I tend to think the RCs get more than their fair share of it.
Almost every opening prayer (Collect) in the Roman rite begins with an address to God the Father and ends with the words :
'Through our Lord Jesus Christ,your son,who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,God for ever and ever
The ending of all the forms of the eucharistic prayer ( four standard forms and some others which can be used on special occasions) is a prayer addressed to God the Father
'through Christ our Lord.. Through him and with him and in him
O God,almighty Father,in the unity of the Holy Spirit,all glory and honour is yours,
for ever and ever. Amen'
This has nothing to do with the Filioque clause in the Nicene creed.
Or at least no more Filioque than saying' In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.'
I thought that this final Doxology 'Per ipsum,et cum ipso et in ipso,est Tibi,Deo Patri omnipotenti,in unitate Spiritus Sancti,omnis honor et gloria,per omnia saecula saeculorum' (the Latin form of the above prayer) might figure in Orthodox rites as it is one of the oldest and most important part of the eucharistic prayer.
I can't easily find a text of any of the Byzantine rite liturgies.
Certainly in Western liturgies they are the concluding words which indicate (at least to those who want to know) that the eucharistic bread and wine are now the Body and Blood of Christ. In the Roman liturgy there is an elevation of the elements there,an elevation which predates the elevation at the consecration of the bread and wine in the middle of the eucharistic prayer.
In the version of the story about the man flipping open the Bible to seek guidance from individual verses, he has one last try, and gis finger lights on the words 'Thou fool.'
Though in fairness to Telford, I have read that David Livingstone, no less, used this form of divination when in a tight spot.
Not sure I'd recommend it as a practice despite such luminaries using it.
@Forthview - I'll get back to you on Orthodox doxologies when I have more time. I've only ever heard objections to 'in the unity of the Holy Spirit' raised in passing, but I know they exist.
I could have a punt at suggesting why it might be but need to check my facts first. It's possibly got more to do with the Augustinian thing about the Spirit being the 'love' between the Father and the Son than the filioque clause per se, but I need to check that.
As a general rule of thumb, though, in the Orthosphere almost anything and everything that can possibly go wrong is blamed on the filioque clause.
It's raining outside. That's the filioque clause.
I've stubbed my toe. Again, filioque clause...
I've even heard some claim that the Holy Spirit withdrew himself entirely from the RCC, and Western Christianity per se on account of it.
Took his bat and ball home, as it were, he said risking being sacrilegious and flippant.
I wouldn't go anywhere near as far as asserting that.
But you will encounter varying degrees of suspicion towards the RCC on account of it, as if by adopting it they somehow demeaned or diminished the Holy Spirit and relegated him.
I don't think it's a helpful addition to the Creed in any way, shape or form, although I can understand why it came into use, in Spain initially. If everyone dropped it, as some Anglican provinces have done, it wouldn't do any harm and may even do some good.
I can't easily find a text of any of the Byzantine rite liturgies.
.
In both forms of the Byzantine Rite commonly used (the Liturgies of St John Chrysostom and of St Basil the Great) the Eucharistic prayer ends with this doxology:
"And grant that with one voice and one heart we may glorify and praise your most honoured and majestic name, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages."
Tangent:
[Story reported as circulating in Rome at the time of the last Papal conclave.]
The Trinity were discussing where to go for a holiday.
'How about Sinai?' said the Son.
'Oh, not Sinai,' said the Father. 'I went there once with a party. Miserable lot, never stopped grumbling. What about Jerusalem?'
'No thanks,' said the Son. 'The last time I was there, I had a very unpleasant experience.
Rome, anybody?'
'Yes please,' said the Spirit. 'I've never been there.'
[Apologies for posting this here, and not in Heaven, but it's not a Bad Joke, and it concerns the Trinity. Host, please send it where you will, if inappropriate.]
End Tangent.
That would be the city of St. Louis, Missouri, in place of Rome, Italy. You can retell it to insult any city you like.
But the point when @Lamb Chopped says “We tell that joke, but it ends with St. Louis, of course,” is that she a member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, which has its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.
I'd assumed St Louis was chosen because it's generally regarded as a pretty ropey and nondescript place.
At least that's what I've heard.
I've heard of the Missouri-Synod of course, generally in a negative way from people who feel it's far too conservative. I have no idea whether that is the case, although as @Lamb Chopped appears pretty conservative theologically I assumed it would be. I think @Gramps49 fell out with it at some point and he seems to be at the more liberal end of the spectrum.
But beyond that, I know very little about it nor how many other Lutheran synods there are in the US or what flavour they are. I'm sure there's a spectrum from liberal to conservative as there are in most churches or denominations, but don't know how that pans out in terms of Lutheran organisational structures.
My guess would be that Lutheran synods based in the Mid-West would be more conservative than those on the eastern seaboard or over on the west coast.
My guess would be that Lutheran synods based in the Mid-West would be more conservative than those on the eastern seaboard or over on the west coast.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which would be considered the more liberal Lutheran denomination in the US, is based in Chicago. I’m not at all sure your assumptions are well-grounded.
Basically there are three main Lutheran bodies in the United States. The ELCA is the most open. The LCMS is tighter, and the Wisconsin Synod is the tightest.
To me, it is hard to put a liberal/conservative label on the ELCA since it has a wide mix of theologians under its umbrella. The LCMS is conservative. The Wisconsin Synod is more fundamentalist.
There are also a number of much smaller associations out there.
I would say your observation about the Midwest being the heart of Lutheran conservatism is accurate. There is the old line the further away from St. Louis, the more liberal Missouri Synod congregations can be--not always, though.
Wisconsin Synod remains pretty strict across the board.
Of course, there is the old joke that the Pope called for the first real ecumenical council since the great schism. Even the Orthodox prelates showed up, along with the leaders of the Protestant. As they all gathered together, His Holiness, got up and announced, "Sisters and brothers, I called you all together today to announce Jesus Christ has returned to earth. He is in Salt Lake."
I would say your observation about the Midwest being the heart of Lutheran conservatism is accurate.
To what degree would you say that reflects the historical reality that the Midwest is the heart of American Lutheranism as a whole? My impression is that more Lutherans will be found in the Midwest than on either coast.
I would say your observation about the Midwest being the heart of Lutheran conservatism is accurate.
To what degree would you say that reflects the historical reality that the Midwest is the heart of American Lutheranism as a whole? My impression is that more Lutherans will be found in the Midwest than on either coast.
Four major groups of Lutherans settled in the Midwest at about the same time. The Norwegians in Minnesota, the Prussians in Wisconsin, the Saxons in the Missouri area, and other Germans in Ohio, and Iowa. The German in Ohio and Iowa always wanted to unite with other Lutheran groups and were therefore willing to make compromises. Originally the Norwegians and Saxons had reasonably good relations, but the question of predestination eventually divided them. The Prussians always wanted to be by themselves.
The Saxons came over primarily as a reaction to the Kaisar wanting to force the Reformed Church and Lutheran Church in Germany to merge. Because of that experience the Saxons have always said there must be total agreement on all points of doctrine before there can be merger.
Do not forget, there were Lutherans already here before that dust up we had with King George. These Lutherans on the Eastern seaboard came together over time to join the General Synod, which eventually became the LCA.
The Norwegians and the Iowa and Ohio Synods formed the American Lutheran Church
The American Lutheran Church long sought to bridge the differences between the LCA and the Missouri Synod. But eventually, when the conservatives fired the faculty at the seminary in St Louis, it realized it should merge with the LCA to form the ELCA as we have it now.
Comments
Meanwhile, here's a thought.
How do we know if our apprehension or experience of the Trinity - assuming that we are Trinitarian in belief - is impaired and needs fixing?
I'm just thinking aloud here.
Our apprehension of these things can only be partial at best. 'But when the perfect comes ...'
I can understand people's diffidence about posting on this thread. Particularly when there are pedants like me around pouncing on people for apparently uncrossed 't's or dotted 'i's in their understanding of Trinitarian doctrine whilst being a complete and total ignoramus and hypocrite myself ...
I thought @la vie en rouge posted a very brave and commendable reflection. I wish I could do the same at times.
But - forgive me if I overstep any marks - I find myself wondering why @Nick Tamen's take should be seen as not 'deficient' - and I'm not saying it is or isn't - yet @Lamb Chopped feels that her own is?
This may be trite but it's occurred to me that one of the 'benefits', if we can put it that way, of Trinitarian doctrine is that if we have an 'issue' for whatever reason with one or other of the Persons of the Holy an Undivided Trinity - whether it is with the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit - there are always another two who are able to help.
Got an issue with the Father? Well, here's the Son. Don't get on with him? Well, here's the Holy Spirit ...
Yes, I know I'm skating on thin ice ...
But I can be an Eeyore that way. If anyone enthuses about something my natural inclination is to adopt the opposite stance.
Yes, I know. I'm an awkward so-and-so.
As for “needs fixing,” that’s probably not how I’d put it. “Room for growth,” perhaps?
Yes, I rather suspect that the various members of the Trinity aren’t particularly bothered when we relate to one of them more easily than the others.
e) none of the above
Now that my faith has fallen away (don't weep for me), I find that if my mind wanders back toward Christianity in the slightest, it's in terms of the Holy Spirit. For some reason I can still give it just a quark of possibility, in terms of an untethered, spiritual-not-religious "universe," or more possibly even, stretching into the theoretical physics and cosmology of Dark Matter. Something binding. Something unquantifiably there. Yet essential. I dunno.
@The_Riv I suppose the idea of Jesus praying to himself would be absurd but the very fact that he directed all his prayers to the Father, and taught his disciples to do the same, is why I'm so rooted in praying exclusively to the Father.
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
“Lord, I am not worthy to receive you . . . .”
“Come, Holy Spirit . . . .”
The other notable exception is if I say a table blessing out loud, in which case I’ll normally use the traditional Moravian blessing my father always said:
“Come, Lord Jesus, our guest to be,
and bless these gifts bestowed by thee.
And with our daily bread impart
thy love and peace to every heart.”
(Actually, he had three versions of this one, from more informal to more formal. This is the “middle” one, and is the one I default to.)
Humor:
https://youtube.com/shorts/EXoEbWI7kLs?si=wp6XDp66F0F-_TrS
Animated version:
https://youtube.com/shorts/9BjcwXBqCa0?si=uf205WG9XHd56bXy
Absolutely! (love Kevin) Shamala Hamala for everyone!
I watch his stuff regularly. ❤️
In my charismatic days we didn't see 'tongues' as us speaking to the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit helping or enabling us to pray in some kind of supernatural 'prayer language' that was believed to be very powerful and express and which 'by-passed' our rational faculties in some way.
Through practice I became quite 'good' at it and could produce something that to me, and my fellow congregants at least, sounded more 'convincing' than the 'shamula hamala' stuff and the 'sellimahonda, gimmeashandy, untiemebowtie' utterances that passed for 'tongues' back then.
I don't do that any more and whilst I wouldn't dismiss the idea of glossolalia entirely, I'm not sure I'd find it particularly helpful or edifying were I to resume the practice.
I'd rather use set prayers and my own extemporary prayers based on those and on scriptural examples, keeping them short, sharp and to the point, trying not to impress God, myself or other people with my apparent erudition and loquacity.
Don't get me wrong, I think there is scope for oomph and 'hwyl' and I don't rule out the possibility of charismatic gifts per se. I just tend to see them operating differently to how we did things back then.
'To whom it may concern ...'?
Pedantically, I think 'Person' and 'persona' have different meanings ... but I take your point.
My own take would be that God isn't waiting for us to have a PhD in Trinitarian theology before hearing or answering prayers.
Does he hear 'unitarian' prayers as well as Trinitarian ones? I don't see why not.
1 Timothy 2.5
No mention of the Holy Spirit. I pray to Jesus.
Not God the Father, then?
You are beginning to sound like a 'Jesus Only' Pentecostal.
Has anyone ever told you that it isn't good practice to isolate individual verses and build an edifice on them without a wider context?
There are references to the Holy Spirit in other parts of the NT. We don't just have a handful of Pauline epistles and nothing else.
From Matthew 6: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This, then, is how you should pray:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
But Jesus' instructions were that we are to pray to the Father. Do you think Jesus didn't know he could and should be prayed to? Whose instruction supersedes Jesus'?
When I pray the prayer you have quoted, it's a bit longer than that. I have always assumed that other prayers are acceptable.
It's one of my favourite verses. Many years ago we we on a boating holiday on the Llangollen canal. In the middle of nowhere we suddenly came upon a large notice board with that verse on it. It made a big impression on me. I was not aware that I was building an edifice.
I've had Bible verses 'jump out' at me, too.
That's fine, as far as it goes, for one's personal edification or sense of spiritual well-being.
The John Wesley thing, 'My heart was strangely warmed.'
Fine. No problem with that.
That's not the point, I'm making. What I am suggesting is that you are 'proof-texting' from this and other verses without considering the overall context or other verses which also need to be taken into account.
But we all know the old story of the fella who flips open his Bible and reads, 'Then Judas went and hanged himself ....' then flipped it open again to see, 'Go thou and do likewise.' Opening it at random a third time he finds, 'whatever thou doe'st, do quickly ...'
A text without a context is a pretext for anything.
With my Big O Orthodox hat on, and I believe this is a small o item of head-gear too, I also don't believe we can disagregate or isolate individual verses from what we might call 'the mind of the Church.'
The Church as a whole is Trinitarian. It's there in all the historic Creeds and in all mainstream Churches and denominations. All these Christian communities believe that Trinitarian belief is consonant with scripture and the Tradition (big T) and tradition (small t) of Christian churches in general. 'That believed always, everywhere and by all.'
We can't take a single verse, as you appear to have done, and say, 'Aha! There is one mediator, Christ Jesus. We can forget the Holy Spirit then ...'
That's not how these things work.
But it doesn't seem to me that there is any harm in addressing any and all members of the Trinity, he/they can surely all hear. And for people like me who have severe issues with fatherhood, I am very certain that our compassionate and courteous Lord would allow us to make whatever adjustments to normal custom are necessary for me to interact with him at all.
There are set prayers during services of course and some are recommended for personal and private use. There are prayers to God the Father and to Christ - sometimes addressing him as 'Christ God' - and the daily invocation of God the Holy Spirit - 'O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth ...'
As far as I am aware that is the only Orthodox prayer directly addressed to the Holy Spirit.
I don't think any Orthodox Christian would cavill at Telford praying to Christ or to you @Lamb Chopped for praying to Christ and to the Holy Spirit due to particular circumstances that make it difficult for you to relate to God the Father.
My beef with @Telford isn't that he prays to Jesus. I pray to Jesus too. So do you. We are all praying to the same God when we address Christ, because Christ is God.
No, my issue is what I take to be his wonky view of the Trinity. It's none of my business of course, but if we profess to be Christians then we must profess to be Trinitarian. We can't pluck random verses out of the air and build our own theology out of them.
That doesn't mean that God has a score-sheet to test how Trinitarian we are or how many prayers we address to the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit.
'Hmmm ... that Gamaliel. He's slipping. He's addressed the Father 17 times this week, the Son only 11 times and the poor old Holy Spirit only 5 times this week ...'
God meets us all where we are 'at'. He's not a touch-line referee blowing a whistle whenever we make a forward pass or go 'offside' or whatever else.
I might pick people up on points of doctrine, and they are perfectly at liberty to do the same to me, of course, but sitting in judgement on other people's prayer lives or how they pray in private isn't my remit in any way, shape or form.
In fact, the Lord clearly takes a dim view whenever any of us do that.
'Come,Holy Spirit,fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love.'
'Send forth your Spirit and they they shall be created
And you will renew the face of the earth.'
Thanks to Gamma Gamaliel and so many others for their insights .
We are Awkwardox.
We wouldn't have a problem with the rest, I don't think ... but there's always someone with a heresy-hunting chart and a lack of love in their hearts ... 😉
I think it means we are praying in union with the Spirit rather than commenting on Filioque. But I'm probably wrong.
I'm happy with that, but it's not as if I'm the final arbiter of all this.
I'm pretty sure plenty of people who don't understand the 'filioque' in the way they are accused of doing. Or don't understand the 'filioque' full stop.
As an aside, I often feel that RCs find themselves on the receiving end of both Protestants and Orthodox telling them what they believe as if they know that better than RCs themselves.
I'm sure it happens the other way around too but I tend to think the RCs get more than their fair share of it.
'Through our Lord Jesus Christ,your son,who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,God for ever and ever
The ending of all the forms of the eucharistic prayer ( four standard forms and some others which can be used on special occasions) is a prayer addressed to God the Father
'through Christ our Lord.. Through him and with him and in him
O God,almighty Father,in the unity of the Holy Spirit,all glory and honour is yours,
for ever and ever. Amen'
This has nothing to do with the Filioque clause in the Nicene creed.
Or at least no more Filioque than saying' In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.'
I thought that this final Doxology 'Per ipsum,et cum ipso et in ipso,est Tibi,Deo Patri omnipotenti,in unitate Spiritus Sancti,omnis honor et gloria,per omnia saecula saeculorum' (the Latin form of the above prayer) might figure in Orthodox rites as it is one of the oldest and most important part of the eucharistic prayer.
I can't easily find a text of any of the Byzantine rite liturgies.
Certainly in Western liturgies they are the concluding words which indicate (at least to those who want to know) that the eucharistic bread and wine are now the Body and Blood of Christ. In the Roman liturgy there is an elevation of the elements there,an elevation which predates the elevation at the consecration of the bread and wine in the middle of the eucharistic prayer.
Though in fairness to Telford, I have read that David Livingstone, no less, used this form of divination when in a tight spot.
Not sure I'd recommend it as a practice despite such luminaries using it.
@Forthview - I'll get back to you on Orthodox doxologies when I have more time. I've only ever heard objections to 'in the unity of the Holy Spirit' raised in passing, but I know they exist.
I could have a punt at suggesting why it might be but need to check my facts first. It's possibly got more to do with the Augustinian thing about the Spirit being the 'love' between the Father and the Son than the filioque clause per se, but I need to check that.
As a general rule of thumb, though, in the Orthosphere almost anything and everything that can possibly go wrong is blamed on the filioque clause.
It's raining outside. That's the filioque clause.
I've stubbed my toe. Again, filioque clause...
I've even heard some claim that the Holy Spirit withdrew himself entirely from the RCC, and Western Christianity per se on account of it.
Took his bat and ball home, as it were, he said risking being sacrilegious and flippant.
I wouldn't go anywhere near as far as asserting that.
But you will encounter varying degrees of suspicion towards the RCC on account of it, as if by adopting it they somehow demeaned or diminished the Holy Spirit and relegated him.
I don't think it's a helpful addition to the Creed in any way, shape or form, although I can understand why it came into use, in Spain initially. If everyone dropped it, as some Anglican provinces have done, it wouldn't do any harm and may even do some good.
But that's for another time.
In both forms of the Byzantine Rite commonly used (the Liturgies of St John Chrysostom and of St Basil the Great) the Eucharistic prayer ends with this doxology:
"And grant that with one voice and one heart we may glorify and praise your most honoured and majestic name, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages."
[Story reported as circulating in Rome at the time of the last Papal conclave.]
The Trinity were discussing where to go for a holiday.
'How about Sinai?' said the Son.
'Oh, not Sinai,' said the Father. 'I went there once with a party. Miserable lot, never stopped grumbling. What about Jerusalem?'
'No thanks,' said the Son. 'The last time I was there, I had a very unpleasant experience.
Rome, anybody?'
'Yes please,' said the Spirit. 'I've never been there.'
[Apologies for posting this here, and not in Heaven, but it's not a Bad Joke, and it concerns the Trinity. Host, please send it where you will, if inappropriate.]
End Tangent.
Rome we know.
Italy we know.
But other Romes?
Paris, France?
Paris we know.
France we know.
Paris, Texas?
Good film. Excellent score by Ry-Cooder.
St Louis, Missouri?
Well, T S Eliot grew up there.
He left.
Now I get it.
I'd assumed St Louis was chosen because it's generally regarded as a pretty ropey and nondescript place.
At least that's what I've heard.
I've heard of the Missouri-Synod of course, generally in a negative way from people who feel it's far too conservative. I have no idea whether that is the case, although as @Lamb Chopped appears pretty conservative theologically I assumed it would be. I think @Gramps49 fell out with it at some point and he seems to be at the more liberal end of the spectrum.
But beyond that, I know very little about it nor how many other Lutheran synods there are in the US or what flavour they are. I'm sure there's a spectrum from liberal to conservative as there are in most churches or denominations, but don't know how that pans out in terms of Lutheran organisational structures.
My guess would be that Lutheran synods based in the Mid-West would be more conservative than those on the eastern seaboard or over on the west coast.
To me, it is hard to put a liberal/conservative label on the ELCA since it has a wide mix of theologians under its umbrella. The LCMS is conservative. The Wisconsin Synod is more fundamentalist.
There are also a number of much smaller associations out there.
I would say your observation about the Midwest being the heart of Lutheran conservatism is accurate. There is the old line the further away from St. Louis, the more liberal Missouri Synod congregations can be--not always, though.
Wisconsin Synod remains pretty strict across the board.
Of course, there is the old joke that the Pope called for the first real ecumenical council since the great schism. Even the Orthodox prelates showed up, along with the leaders of the Protestant. As they all gathered together, His Holiness, got up and announced, "Sisters and brothers, I called you all together today to announce Jesus Christ has returned to earth. He is in Salt Lake."
I will leave it to you to figure that one out.
Four major groups of Lutherans settled in the Midwest at about the same time. The Norwegians in Minnesota, the Prussians in Wisconsin, the Saxons in the Missouri area, and other Germans in Ohio, and Iowa. The German in Ohio and Iowa always wanted to unite with other Lutheran groups and were therefore willing to make compromises. Originally the Norwegians and Saxons had reasonably good relations, but the question of predestination eventually divided them. The Prussians always wanted to be by themselves.
The Saxons came over primarily as a reaction to the Kaisar wanting to force the Reformed Church and Lutheran Church in Germany to merge. Because of that experience the Saxons have always said there must be total agreement on all points of doctrine before there can be merger.
Do not forget, there were Lutherans already here before that dust up we had with King George. These Lutherans on the Eastern seaboard came together over time to join the General Synod, which eventually became the LCA.
The Norwegians and the Iowa and Ohio Synods formed the American Lutheran Church
The American Lutheran Church long sought to bridge the differences between the LCA and the Missouri Synod. But eventually, when the conservatives fired the faculty at the seminary in St Louis, it realized it should merge with the LCA to form the ELCA as we have it now.