[Vision2020] Trinity and Marriage (apologies for length!)

[melyndahuskey at earthlink.net]

Although the argument may have moved on, I'd like to return to Michael's assertion that a unitary God creates by means of masturbation--or its divine equivalent--while a triune God provides a perfect model for earthly marriage (presumably heterosexual marriage only).

Surely God creates out of infinite plenitude and sufficiency?  In point of fact, throughout the Old Testament, God is particularly unitary:  a trinitarian conception of God would have been dismissed by the ancient Jews as heretical polytheism (as it still is by modern Jews).  For Abraham, David, and Isaiah, God is one, and He is symbolically married to the nation of Israel.

The Christian Trinity is a peculiarly bad image of marriage, in fact.  Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is the traditional formula; 3 persons, not 2; a father and a son (both implicitly male) and a non-gendered (although arguably male) spirit don't map particularly well onto a male and a female joined legally, economically, and sexually.  LDS theology posits a husband and wife god-partnership, which is much tidier.

What does the Trinity make a good model for, if not marriage?  Well, a patriarchal society, for one thing--from the tents of Abraham to Rugby School under Dr. Arnold, the Trinity offers a model of father in lovely and tutelary relation to son united by a shared spirit.  Marriage is perhaps best understood in such a worldview as an exchange of property among men:  fathers barter daughters to cement treaties, secure relationships, or buy favors (Saul's daughter Michal is a fine example).  Interestingly, the same model of marriage prevails in the pre-Trinitarian world of the Old Testament, suggesting that the number of persons in the Godhead is of less importance than regional and cultural tradition in determining marital structure.  That is, we make the Trinity serve as an excuse for a model of society and relations between the sexes that we already embrace, which is surely a kind of sacrilege.

Jesus overturned this model through His teaching.  For example, He taught that there would be no marriage in Heaven, that the woman required by Levirate marriage law to marry brother after brother would be no one's wife/property in the next world, but could be herself, a person, in the presence of God.  His prohibition of divorce was directed at men who were entitled to put aside a wife, leaving her destitute and unprotected, for a host of reasons, while wives had no similar recourse.  Moreover, in His ministry, he touched, taught, healed, ate with, and just plain palled around with women, both Jewish and Gentile, in flagrant violation of the Levitical purity codes and the customs of his time.  When Christ proclaimed freedom to the captive, it is no stretch to say that freedom included a host of women in the captivity of patriarchal marriage.  

I think, in fact, that we've come full circle to an earlier argument:  what is good?  Michael seems to be asserting that whatever God wants is good, by definition.  So if God tells us to, we should smile as we slaughter every last Amalekite baby, laugh as we walk past the desolate Egyptian homes mourning firstborn children, cheer as we stone gay people. witches, and disobedient children, and praise a God who creates millions of people condemned pre-emptively to Hell, without any hope of salvation, just because He wants to.

These are not precisely self-evident propositions.  In fact, for a great many people, they constitute an insuperable barrier to faith:  what is the difference between worshipping God and worshipping Satan, if God conducts Himself in a manner so depraved?  In the life and person of Christ we see God's true character, the infinite love and patience which heals and forgives everyone who asks, the Kingdom ethic which brings us together to serve and care for one another as God cares for us.  In our sexual relations, as in all our relations, we are called to treat one another with respect, with gentleness, with Godly love.  Frankly, the gender of the parties involved is of no particular importance.  We are as wounded in our heterosexuality as we are in our homosexuality.

Melynda Huskey


melyndahuskey at earthlink.net
EarthLink Revolves Around You.
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