Jul 19, 2005

what's a little heresy among friends?

Writes Stephen M. Barr:
...Related confusions lead Polkinghorne to abandon the dogma of divine simplicity. “Trinitarian thinking,” he writes, “surely indicates a degree of complexity existing eternally within the divine nature.” As traditionally understood, the Trinity does not involve a split within the divine nature. Rather, each Person is understood to possess the whole divine nature. In Jesus, St. Paul writes, “the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily”—the fullness, not a piece or a pole.

Polkinghorne’s Trinitarian theology is not the traditional one, but in the end that may matter little. It is not for his Trinitarian speculations that he is justly honored, but for his powerful and very public witness. His life and writings have given eloquent testimony that one may be both a man of science and a man of God.
At least in the good old days a heresy charge meant something.

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