“…we have to look at death before we can be brought to God” — John Calvin One of my favourite theologians is John Mellencamp, whom […]

Question: What do you call someone, other than a Christian, who believes Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and will judge the world at […]

The Holy Spirit has sometimes been referred to as the Cinderella of Christian theology; when the other two “sisters” of the Trinity were taken to the party, the Spirit was left at home.

We begin, therefore, by asking whether the Holy Spirit is an invited (dare I say welcome!) guest in our churches. The Canadian Presbyterian theologian Walter Bryden once offered this friendly provocation: “The average church member would not be a little upset were a fellow worshipper to insist on speaking to him in regard to the ‘joy’ to be had in the Holy Spirit.”

It is true that speaking about the Holy Spirit, even amongst ministers, elders, and theological students, is sometimes met with an awkward silence or a blank stare. But perhaps we come by this honestly. Our creeds and confessions are frequently silent on the subject, with the result that we ignore what the Bible says. (Have you ever noticed, for example, that the Westminster Confession of Faith has no chapter on the Holy Spirit?)

Religion began both East and West long before the Hebrews appeared. Before their covenant and law, myth-and-ritual emerged around the globe with evolving humanity. In Mediterranean lands the great mysteries arose, with liturgy and sacraments and union with the god (the books of Ephesians and Colossians have them in mind: Christianity is the true Mystery). Then came a different sort of faith, a response to certain traumatic events in the life of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The call of Abraham to leave home and journey to the promised land becomes a metaphor for three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Abraham’s sons Ishmael and Isaac feature in the drama in which God made covenant promises that both should beget many faithful children, and father great nations. (You can read all about it in Genesis 15-18).

When I graduated from seminary, my first pastoral assignment included chaplaincy service on the children's ward of a local hospital. There, on a weekly basis, I encountered the pain and sorrow of families struggling with seriously ill, sometimes dying, children. Often I sat with parents whose questions were poignant and painful: “Why?” “How could God allow this to happen to us?”

As a young minister, I soon realized that the usual theological answers were anemic. The mystery of evil, the reality of suffering, and for many, the absence of God, can be overwhelming.

Both religion and science begin with a kind of faith: the scientist's belief in an orderly universe is like religious trust. Einstein made this clear: “I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research. … The basis of all scientific work is the conviction that the world is an ordered and comprehensive entity, which is a religious sentiment.” This relates to the “intuition” Einstein credits with being a formative influence on his development of the relativity theories. So: science must assume order but cannot explain where it came from. If a scientist tries, he becomes a philosopher – or theologian!

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we shall see face to face.- 1 Corinthians 13:12
The doctrine of the Trinity is, of course, notoriously difficult. But it's also central to Christian faith. One theologian puts it this way: “Those who deny the Trinity may lose their souls, but those who try to explain it may lose their minds.”

According to the late Scottish Reformed theologian T.F. Torrance, the doctrine of the Trinity “is the innermost heart of the Christian faith, the central dogma of classical theology, the fundamental grammar of our knowledge of God.”

In a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, a wrestling match between a bishop and an atheist is held to determine the question of whether God exists. After a stirring match, the result is declared: God exists, by two falls to a submission. That's what logicians call a “solid, knock-down argument.” It's very funny because that's quite the wrong way to wrestle with religious questions.

Does God exist? Yes and No. Yes, there are compelling reasons to believe, but No, “God” does not “exist” in the same way we do. The greatest Western theologian, Augustine, asked: “What is God?” and answered, “More than we can say or think.” That “more” is the key: this Reality is so far above our life and thought that our knowledge comes through sign, symbol, parable, metaphor.

Think of it as a Christmas present from the Presbyterian Record to you – an opportunity to spend 2009 with two eminent Presbyterians, one a philosopher, the other a theologian, discussing some interesting questions like Who is God?