Notes: Comparing The Trinity and The Three Aspects of Transcendence/Immanence

Transcendence/Immanence: Creation, Redemption, Revelation

[Five Point] Covenant Theology

Reference:  That You May Prosper, Ray Sutton (at https://www.garynorth.com/SuttonCov.pdf)

Here are the five points identified (for an explanation read Sutton's book!).

T - Transcendence/Immanence/Sovereignty

H - Hierarchy/Authority/Legal Representation

E - Ethics/Laws/Obligations

O - Oath/Sanctions/Reward/Punishments

S - Succession/Continuity/Inheritance

Sutton quotes Meredith Kline, 

The purpose of the covenantal Preamble is thus to proclaim the lordship of the Great King, declaring transcendence and immanence and making it clear from the outset that his will is to be obeyed by the vassals, his servants. Biblical treaties set forth God's transcendence and immanence by referring to one or more of three activities: creation, redemption, and revelation.

Sutton's footnote citation: "David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987), p. 49. Emphasis in original."

Heidelberg Catechism

Reference at:  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iv.vi.html

Part of the discussion of the necessary articles of true Christian belief (i.e., the "Apostle's" Creed) follows.

Question:  "How are these articles divided?"

Answer:  "Into three parts:  The first is of God the Father and our creation; the second, of God the Son and our redemption; the third, of God the Holy Ghost and our sanctification."

My Thoughts

I have previously identified (though it appears I have never written it down) the connection of the five points of the biblical covenant with the three persons of the Trinity in terms of roles(? Help me clarify this connection!).  I will outline it here.

T - God the Father
H - God the Son
E - God the Son
O - God the Son
S - God the Holy Spirit

This lends credence to the emphasis on Jesus, but reminds us that we are Trinitarians and why it matters.  I will have to write more on the reasons and implications in another post.

The point I am trying to make concerns the three aspects of transcendence/immanence and its explicit-though-not-exclusive relation to the roles of each person of the Trinity (I don't think the Heidelberg Catechism would have intended an exclusive position either. Certainly the Father created, but we know He created through/with/by the Son).

Incidentally, the Heidelberg Catechism identifies two aspects of transcendence/immanence with two persons of the Trinity (i.e., Father and creation; Son and redemption).  I am merely proposing identifying the third aspect of transcendence/immanence, Revelation, with the Holy Spirit.  Instead of sanctification* we should talk about the work of the Holy Spirit as the work of revelation, specifically general revelation** as realized through the growth/maturity of the church on earth.  Or as Jesus said it, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples" (John 13:35, ESV, emphasis mine).

Conclusion

Anyways, getting back to the Heidelberg Catechism, this means that the true articles which must be believed are simply statements concerning God's transcendence/immanence (point 1 of the covenant).  

Philosophical Postscript (I'll toss this in here for free!)

We see the full participation of the Trinity in the first point of the covenant.  If we looked at each point of the covenant, we would find the same pattern.  It is fractal-like.  This implies (or maybe I've merely inferred) that as we break down all of reality into its component pieces, we should be able to identify the full participation of the Trinity at each distinctive point.

Footnotes:

*On a side note, sanctification as a theological term may not be enough to quantify the relevant issues (I have previously posted about the weaknesses of the theological terms: justification and sanctification at http://michaelsei.blogspot.com/2015/02/using-bible-to-define-justification-and.html).  

**According to Sutton, special revelation aligns with the third point of the covenant, ethics, which I explicitly-though-not-exclusively associate with Jesus.  To illustrate this, Sutton, supporting his supposition that "history is covenantal", has a footnote which contains the statement, 'the third point of covenantalism called "ethics," or law, being "special revelation" to man'.  This forces me to clarify my association of revelation to the work of the Holy Spirit with the term general revelation.  Also implied, is that Redemption, an aspect of transcendence/immanence, through the person of Jesus shares a connection to Hierarchy, Ethics, and Sanctions.  To be clear, you are not saved by external observance of God's laws.  You are saved by the lawgiver, unto good works (as exemplified by Hierarchy, Ethics, and Sanctions).

Revisiting Writing as a Career

What has gone on that you want to know about?  Well, I haven't blogged as you know.  I have participated in music a lot more this year than any other year of my life.  I am getting comfortable with singing into a microphone (it was weird the first dozen times, or so).  I made the decision to attend seminary.  Really, it was a decision 16 years in the making, but the plan is for the fall of 2019.  Trinity School for Ministry (TSM, aka "Trinity")(near Pittsburgh), here we come!  I have learned to type, finally!  I am getting up at 4 am, reading a bit of scripture, then reading a book on homiletics (in preparation for seminary).  How did we get here?

Singing
The volunteers for serving at the altar have increased in number.  The amount of times I am on the schedule for each quarter has dropped, freeing me up to join with the musicians in leading congregational worship.  Some days I fare better than others.  No, it's not a "performance."  Yes, the word "perform" still applies to how a person 'does' music.  In that way, my performance isn't always where I would like it to be.  I want to aid in the worship, not distract.  Enough on that.  Morning singing?  Yuck!  Who knew?  Not I.  I don't have enough time to warm up my voice and then give it time to recuperate following the inevitable over use/straining/whatever I am doing.  I am left on the horns of a dilemma.  Do I warm up or do I risk losing my voice (due to fatigue, yeah, I think that's what it is)?  Any morning singers out there who could help me on this one?!  (Maybe I should ask my voice coach.  I just stopped going after 5 sessions in 2017 partly due to time and partly due to money.  But if your'e ever in Seattle and want a good coach, check out Chris McCafferty, he really helped me on my journey of getting to the next level.)

Seminary
It started back when I was 18 years old.  I have never lost that desire to attend seminary and become a pastor.  Is it the INFP in me?  More on that later.  Anyways, I attended the Diocese of Cascadia 2018 Spring Men's Retreat and was confronted with many thoughts.  What is God trying to tell me?  Will I leave this weekend with answers?  If I get quiet enough, maybe.  My Bishop poked me about attending Trinity for something like the third time in as many years.  God, do you really want me to uproot my family and leave all of the connections we have been making here in the Pacific Northwest?!  I was brought up in Evangelical circles.  If there is anything that we want to hold onto more than God, let that be ANATHEMA!  I put my growing attachment to this area on the "altar" and it became abundantly clear to me that it was time to pack my bags.  Three years prior, when I was leaving active military service, we counted the cost and realized that we would not be able to afford going to seminary at that time (we are on track to be debt free as we embark on this journey, God willing).  Then I threw a proverbial dart at the dartboard, aiming for the Fall of 2019.  And here we are!  Time will tell if God is with us.  I have a sneaking suspicion, He is.

INFP
Speaking of typing, er, I mean type; I love my 'impossible' segues, sometimes they're all you've got.  I slowed down my typing a year ago.  I was henpecking with the best of them, but I wanted change.  Now I'm typing about as fast (maybe faster, at times) than when I was a full time 'chicken.'  That has no relation to this paragraph's title "INFP" to which, we will now turn!  I have always tested as an ISTJ when taking those fun, online MBTI tests.  I have never been fully satisfied with it however.  Or I cannot just leave well enough alone.  Unfortunately people (read: I) take these things in a predictive manner (think: astrology).  I didn't intend to, it just came too easy in self-analysis to use what I learned and in verbally presenting myself to others.  In 2014 I learned about cognitive functions and I realized that my earlier assignment may have been wrong and I could likely determine what my personality type really was and is.  After a bit of reading and analysis, I determined that I could not be a J type and was clearly a P type.  So, I did the second worst thing you can do with personality typing (my created list of worsts, of course; the first of which I mentioned above) and I changed one letter of the four in ISTJ.  I now identified myself as an ISTP.  This I have learned is totally NOT legit'.  My brother, in one of his prescient moments over the years, said that he thought I was more intuitive than I gave myself credit for (uh! ending with a preposition, I know; hence the parenthetical, oh yeah!).  Reading more about cognitive functions, I came across this website:  Type in Mind (that's a link to my type, BTW).  I knew enough to figure out my type, finally!  I knew my cognitive functions and I could only be one of two types:  ISTJ or INFP.  Well now, doesn't that give you pause for reflection?  Maybe I am an ISTJ.  Really drilling down on my personal history (all in my head, so you cannot validate this, you'll have to trust me, or not), bending my powers of thought to the task, and trying my best to be frank with myself, I have concluded that I have always been an INFP and that I will probably test as an ISTJ for the foreseeable future given my upbringing and the first 30 years of my life spent in a "Te grip."  Look it up.  It took talking to a psychologist to break me out of this grip (none of this was discussed then and there, BTW.  This is all hindsight analysis).  It is all kind of a "laugh."  I should not have put so much stock into this stuff and yet I could not ignore it either.  If you suffer from what I do, I'm sorry for your plight.  Talk to me, maybe I can help.  After all, I'm a "healer" type (INFP), at least I think I am ;)

Homiletics
I have a suggested reading list for seminary preparation.  On that list is a book on exegesis and hermeneutics.  But as I was reading that book, I was starting to get "that" feeling.  You know what I'm talking about.  "We are probably going to argue, a lot."  My ink started to spill into the margins of the page as I progressed through a book which promised to be as helpful as a bowl of warm soup to an empty stomach (my metaphor, not the publishers).  Alas, I was disheartened.  Am I such a contrarian that I can't get along?  Does this foreshadow my seminary experience?  But before I could succumb to the "just deal with it," I remembered that I had a book in my library which pertained (if you are serious, you have a library full of books which you have not read and may never read, yeah, that serious, now you know).  As I started reading it, my fears and anxieties transformed into an excruciating intellectual "suck."  By that, I mean that it feels like I'm having to vacuum my mind of cobwebs and other junk which may be clouding my ability to put what I am learning from this book into practice.  Backstory - I read Days of Vengeance when I was 17/18 years old and became hooked on the way of thinking presented in the pages of that volume.  Fifteen years later, I finally read the book outlining a thesis which helped that former book to take shape.  This book is titled That You May Prosper.  In the bibliography, a seminal book was identified Sola Scriptura.  It is this book, the author intimated, which should be read by everyone who desires to preach the Word of God.  It is here, in the pages of this doctoral thesis, where my mind has been of late.  It is here where I grieve through the process of purifying my thinking, blundering about, trying to understand the author.  If I have cracked out any meat from the husk thus far, it has left me sore grieved to think about how badly we have preached the Word of God to the people of God.  I'm not talking about a "we've all been doing it wrong until now" kind of mentality.  I'm talking about an open discussion/debate which took place in the 20's and 30's in reformed churches in the Netherlands and was never settled, to the detriment of the reformed theology preaching community.  I haven't finished the book, so I really cannot say more without (probably) misrepresenting the issues at play.  Suffice it to say that, if Sidney Greidanus is right, I have a lot of work to add to the "a lot of work" I already knew I had to do in getting into this particular vocation.

Writing
Now to be more definitive (in line with the title of this post).  If you google the careers for an INFP, I have done the ones that are "bad" for my type.  Don't I know it!  I am revisiting the old ideas which have never quite left me alone.  Writing is one of them.  In a writing career I can tap into my strengths as long as I develop my career along those lines:  independent, creative, and innovative (not the qualities that the military is looking for, despite recent initiatives to the contrary).  It is scary to say the least, to contemplate another career change.  But I know that I have the support of my family and that a happier me (not that happiness is everything, but it is something) will alter our family life for the better.  I don't know if the "pulpit" of writing is what I have been called to or a pulpit in a parish setting or neither.  All I know is that I have thoughts, healing thoughts and they are burning in my chest.  The time to share them with the world has come (prompts like this help too!).  Stay tuned for more.

Musings and Interesting Articles

What I wanted to find was an accurate map or globe.  I've seen different map projections over my life and during my time spent as a civil engineering student.  While searching for this information, I read an article on the true size of continents in relation to each other linked to a cool little resource.  Check out this interactive map.  I was reminded about the earth being an oblate spheroid and learned that it's not really perceptible to us, so a sphere globe is fine.  I read an engaging article about the earth being a "bumpy spheroid."  What I found interesting is a quote by geophysicist Richard Gross about the crust "rebounding upward on the order of a centimeter a year."  He calls it postglacial rebound.  In my mind, I cross-referenced it as possible data supporting the earth expansion (EE) theory.  So, is the crust rebounding or is it bounding or both/neither?

Returning to my informal online research, I find this snippet about the earth gaining mass.  Hmm.  Physicist Dave Ansell attributes it to space dust and an effect of global warming (BTW, it's 0.4% of the mass that space dust adds, but hey "global warming").  What I'm really interested in however, is the nuclear reactor that he says is at the center of the earth!  If I remember correctly, this is the sort of thing that the EE theory says is at the center of every planet (obviously every star too, but that's not disputed; although fusion vice fission, eh, a topic for a different discussion).  Getting back to the article, the writer states that Uranium is the "most dense substance in our planet."  But there are transuranic elements!  What is he saying?  Oh, maybe it's in reference to actual availability instead of mere possibilities that can be created "in the lab" (or in the cores of nuclear reactors!).  So, let's take a look at a graph of abundance of the elements in the earth's crust (on a log scale).  Anything not on this graph, is just about theoretical (I mean, we predicted it and produced it or found it somewhere and documented it, but we don't dig the stuff up).  Despite having been challenged to think about the reality of the earth's elements outside of the framework of the periodic table of the elements, it seems like the Space Daily article will be a fun read for most scientifically minded people.

As I was reading this article (haven't finished it yet), I'm reminded about what Eric P. Dollard says about the creation of mass that occurs from "the square root of negative one."  It makes me think about God in the act(s) of creation.  I think, if a uranium powered natural reactor is "powering" the earth from the inside, what are it's capabilities?  Does it take part in the creation of substances we find in the earth?  We know that elemental decay is required to initiate and sustain the nuclear chain reaction.  But what about creation?  Can the decay (or spontaneous creation and recombination) of elements be a part of the creative or re-creative process?  Is God using the decay even now for "making all things new" (Revelation 21:5)?

These thoughts seem far outside the scope of scientific inquiry.  But I make no qualms.  God created the world; I am simply trying to figure out how he did it.

Anglican Blogs & Websites

Reformed Churchmen
Wannabe Anglican
Parish Priest: St. Francis, Dallas
Virtue Online
Stand Firm
Wesleyan/Anglican
Anglicani
Anglicans Ablaze
Anglican Ink
The Sword and the Ploughshare
The Conciliar Anglican
Anglican Way
Anglo-Reformed
Churchmouse Campanologist

The Fallacy (?) of Sola Scriptura

Where do you find that in the Bible?
Sola Scriptura?
Sola Scriptura

We Have a Crisis in America

We have a mental health crisis in America. I cannot condone the violent actions of the tortured souls that have responded in the only way they thought that they could make their voices heard. It's sad, pitiable, but absolutely a problem that must be addressed. It's also a place where politics should not be involved, but alas politics is already involved. I have a friend who works in special needs and he says we have problems.

Some of the things he outlines:

Segregation

We segregate those who need to have healthy-minded individuals around them to only be around others whom have mental health issues. So instead of the "town fool" of yore, we have mental hospitals (where we don't have to see, experience, or feel responsible to help those whom need it) where those who could live fairly normal lives learn bad behavior from other mental health patients (i.e. we treat them like prisoners; it has been observed that we have created a wicked process by which non-violent criminals are segregated from society with violent criminals and they themselves typically become violent criminals).

Poor Treatment

Who wants to work with the mentally ill or at nursing homes? My friend told me that the treatment is typically poor because the caretakers feel they can easily get away with it (similar to parents who mistreat their children). What recourse do the victims have? Who will take their side? I have seen what it's like in nursing homes.

I'm not saying everyone under care is mistreated and all caretakers are evil. I am saying we should not take the mentally ill out of society. We need to keep them in society. We need to embrace them as members of our community. We may have to watch them a little closer as we would with our children (because we care) but not "treat them as children." With positive peer pressure they will try to fit in as best they can and will be a part not set apart. They will feel heard not ignored. They will feel that they matter, that they have a voice. We need to listen on our terms not their terms because we have a responsibility to care. If we ignore the problem, this is what will continue to happen:

Study: All But Two Multiple Public Shootings Since 1950 Took Place Where Guns Were Banned (I disagree with the "aggressive institutionalization" statement. Mental health point made.)

Why did the Ft. Hood gunman do it? Because a gun-crazy country let him (Self-admittedly this author has made slop of argumentation, and when corrected stuck to his non-sequitur conclusion, otherwise note his pointing out of the mental health crisis we are in. Instead of advocating for help on this point he simply has a gun agenda.)

Fort Hood Victim's Dad: Gunman Snapped After Seeking Time Off

On the Other Hand

James Holmes: Mental Illness or Social Frustration? (Exactly! Regardless of whether it's mental illness or social rejection or some combination, it is a societal problem not an institutional fix.)

So really, we have a social crisis in America. We have forgotten how to be a community. Mental health is an issue, but how much of an issue would it be if we had true community? We would help each other physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, et cetera. We do this to a small extent but on such a small scale. There are pockets of community in this country. Certain churches practice community (but there is a line between community and cult). Certain neighborhoods practice community. In the military there is a sense of community but it's two-dimensional and needs expanding. I will pray for the cultivation of Christ-centered community which will truly enrich the world, because that is what we need now.

Anglican Bios (wiki)

(T) Listed as "formative Anglican divines" in an article by the Very Rev. Dr. Justyn Terry on TSM website.
(W) Listed as a "founder of Anglican theological thought" on Wikipedia bio for Hooker.

Thomas Cranmer (T)(W)
Richard Hooker (T)(W)
Lancelot Andrewes (T)
John Jewel (W)

Notable martyred Anglican bishops:
Cranmer "the great man of learning"
Ridley "an able theologian"
Latimer "the great preacher among the Reformers"
Hooper
Ferrar

Founders of Anglicanism:
Henry VIII
Queen Elizabeth
Thomas Cranmer
Richard Hooker
John Jewel
George Herbert
John Donne

Famous Anglicans:
C. S. Lewis
N. T. Wright
John Stott
J. I. Packer
Alister McGrath

Episcopal Ministries

Hmmm...may not apply to ACNA. Political possibility. I hope not though. I need to find out...

The Order of St. Luke is a religious order dedicated to sacramental and liturgical scholarship, education and practice (open to clergy/laity, male/female, married/single).

The Order of the Daughters of the King is a Christian community offering spiritual support for women of all ages.

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew is a worldwide ministry to men and boys.

The Attitude for an Attempt to Ascent...Applicable Aptitude? (Mt. Rainier)

Choosing a Mt Rainier Guide Service
Tips from first-timers
Do I need a guide to climb Mt Rainier?
Rainier without a guide (forum)
Cold Thistle (blog)

Guide Services:
Alpine Ascents International
International Mountain Guides LLC
Rainier Mountaineering, Inc.

Three Streams or Convergence Movement

Convergent Movement
The UAC: Convergence Movement
Convergence Worship
WCCC
Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC)
CEC: Theology of Convergence [PDF]

Reformed...Denominations, Seminaries...Lists of such :)

Reformed Church in America (RCA)
Western Theological Seminary (assoc. w/RCA) Association of Reformed Theological Seminaries (ARTS)
Wiki
Wiki
Puritan Board list

Prison Reform or Abolition? I have my thoughts.

410 days in Iranian prison...
Solitary Watch
Prison abolition movement wiki
Chuck Colson's Prison Reform organization

Anglican/Episcopal Provinces (?) in the US

Anglican Church in North America
The Episcopal Church
Reformed Episcopal Church
Anglican Province of Christ the King

Misc:
Anglican Province of America
Anglican Church in America
Churches not in "Communion"