Orthodox Reflections

OR Staff Note: The term “Pentecostal,” important in this article, should be understood to represent a worship style, rather than any fixed set of dogmatic beliefs. Within the “Pentecostal” movement, one finds pronounced differences between different factions, even within a nominally united denomination, such as the acceptance or rejection of God as Trinity. What a given local Pentecostal “church” believes is often heavily dependent on the teachings of the local pastor. Absent Liturgy, iconography, hierarchy, and Patristic Traditions – there is simply no way to achieve unity of belief in any meaningful way. 

By Walt Garlington, an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland.  His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.

Louisiana Pentecostal pastor Tony Spell made headlines in a good way during covid for refusing to shut the doors of his church despite State government orders to do so.

More recently he has made the news once again – this time in not such a positive way.  Pastor Spell got into a brawl with a fellow whom he said was making threats against him, his family, and his congregation.

And the brawl spilled out into another arena, the theological arena.  Pastor Spell’s rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in favor of the Oneness Pentecostal teaching of a solitary divine being earned him a rebuke in an opinion column in the newspapers, which prompted a defense of Pastor Spell by one Claston Bernard.

Fightin’ pastors and wars of theology – only in the South, right?

With Louisiana ranking amongst the States with the highest number of Pentecostal congregations, in the interest of presenting them with the fulness of the Christian Faith, this is a controversy worth wading into for the Orthodox.  That we will do by examining some of the statements made by Mr. Bernard in his essay defending Pastor Spell’s Oneness belief.

The first is his statement that Sola Scriptura (the Scriptures Alone) is the only proper foundation for the Church:  ‘The apostles left the Church the inspired Scriptures’ – and the writings found within them are the only Rule of Faith, according to this view.

Immediately we run into a problem, for in the Holy Scriptures themselves we have evidence that the teaching of the Apostles included more than what was written in the Bible.  The Holy Apostle Paul speaks of the traditions that were taught to the Thessalonians by word of mouth and by letter (II Thessalonians 2:15).  Thus, there is Scriptural evidence for unwritten teachings of the Apostles that were handed down through the years by Christians.  In other words, the Apostolic teaching includes more than just the Bible.

The great 4^th-century Father of the Orthodox Church and Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Basil the Great, goes into some detail on this point in his book On the Spirit.  Here is part of what he has to say:

Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church⁵⁶² some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us “in a mystery”⁵⁶³ by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will gainsay;-no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals; or, rather, should make our public definition a mere phrase and nothing more.⁵⁶⁴ For instance, to take the first and most general example, who is thence who has taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? What writing has taught us to turn to the East at the prayer? Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of invocation at the displaying⁵⁶⁵ of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing?’ (Ch. XXVII, 66, orthodoxchurchfathers.com)

The Apostles left us more than the Bible.  Understanding the Bible and the God Who inspired it is, therefore, more than simply a rational matter of letting ‘Scripture interpret Scripture’.  We have seen where that practice leads after more than 500 years of Protestant experience:  to continual disunity and fragmentation of the Church.  The understanding of the Bible, the knowledge of God, is not simply a mental process but an ontological one:  True theology is not merely speculative but also experiential.

The Orthodox priest Fr John Romanides explains:

‘The Fathers did not understand theology as a theoretical or speculative science, but as a positive science in all respects. This is why the patristic understanding of Biblical inspiration is similar to the inspiration of writings in the field of the positive sciences.^[ 2 ]

‘Scientific manuals are inspired by the observations of specialists. For example, the astronomer records what he observes by means of the instruments at his disposal. Because of his training in the use of his instruments, he is inspired by the heavenly bodies, and sees things invisible to the naked eye. The same is true of all the positive sciences. However, books about science can never replace scientific observations. These writings are not the observations themselves, but about these observations.

‘This holds true even when photographic and acoustical equipment is used. This equipment does not replace observations, but simply aids in the observations and their recordings. Scientists cannot be replaced by the books they write, nor by the instruments they invent and use.

‘The same is true of the Orthodox understanding of the Bible and the writings of the Fathers. Neither the Bible nor the writings of the Fathers are revelation or the word of God. They are about the revelation and about the word of God.

‘Revelation is the appearance of God to the prophets, apostles, and saints. The Bible and the writings of the Fathers are about these appearances, but not the appearances themselves. This is why it is the prophet, apostle, and saint who sees God, and not those who simply read about their experiences of glorification. It is obvious that neither a book about glorification nor one who reads such a book can never replace the prophet, apostle, or saint who has the experience of glorification.

‘The writings of scientists are accompanied by a tradition of interpretation, headed by successor scientists, who, by training and experience, know what their colleagues mean by the language used, and how to repeat the observations described. So it is in the Bible and the writings of the Fathers. Only those who have the same experience of glorification as their prophetic, apostolic, and patristic predecessors can understand what the Biblical and Patristic writings are saying about glorification and the spiritual stages leading to it. Those who have reached glorification know how they were guided there, as well as how to guide others, and they are the guarantors of the transmission of this same tradition’ (Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine – Part 2, ch. 9, romanity.org).

The knowledge of the Trinity is derived from precisely this experiential knowledge of God.  ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’ (St Matthew’s Gospel 5:8) – this is not only a promise for the age to come but also one for the here and now.  Those who through repentance, humility, ascetic labors, and love of God and man and the creation have purified the nous, the faculty of the soul in man that can experience God directly without mediation, but which was darkened by the Fall, by sin – those are the men and women who see God in this life, and this vision always reveals God as Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Three Persons sharing one nature.  This is the testimony of prophets, apostles, bishops of the Ecumenical Councils, martyrs, and other saints throughout the Church’s long years of life.

Again from Fr John:

‘Similar to today’s sciences, Orthodox theology also depends on an instrument which is not identified with reason or the intellect. The Biblical name for this is the heart. Christ says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”^[ 3 ]

‘The heart is not normally clean, i.e., it does not normally function properly. Like the lens of a telescope or microscope, it must be polished so that light may pass through and allow man to focus his spiritual vision on things not visible to the naked eye.

‘In time, some Fathers gave the name nous to the faculty of the soul which operates within the heart when restored to normal capacity, and reserved the names logos and dianoia for the intellect and reason, or for what we today would call the brain. In order to avoid confusion, we use the terms noetic faculty and noetic prayer to designate the activity of the nous in the heart . . .

‘The heart, and not the brain, is the area in which the theologian is formed. Theology includes the intellect as all sciences do, but it is in the heart that the intellect and all of man observes and experiences the rule of God’ (Ibid., ch. 10).

Mr. Bernard laid down a challenge in his essay:  ‘If the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to the Christian faith, then the burden of proof rests upon those who would define God with terminology unknown to Moses, the prophets, Christ, and His apostles.’

Various Church Fathers, who did purify the nous and experience union with God as Trinity, have already answered his challenge in numerous books, letters, sermons, etc.  Particularly relevant to Louisiana, as the offspring of France, is the French theologian of the 4^th century St Hilary of Poitiers.  His book On the Trinity lists example after example of evidence from the Old and New Testaments proving the reality of God as Trinity.  Here is one of them from the book of Genesis, written by the Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses:

‘I ask further, Who is this God Who overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah? For the Lord rained from the Lord⁸ ; was it not the true Lord from the true Lord? Have you any alternative to this Lord, and Lord? Or any other meaning for the terms, except that in Lord, and Lord, their Persons are distinguished? Bear in mind that Him Whom you have confessed as Alone true, you have also confessed as Alone the righteous Judge⁹ . Now mark that the Lord who rains from the Lord, and slays not the just with the unjust, and judges the whole earth, is both Lord and also righteous Judge, and also rains from the Lord. In the face of all this, I ask you Which it is that you describe as alone the righteous Judge. The Lord rains from the Lord; you will not deny that He Who rains from the Lord is the righteous Judge, for Abraham, the Father of the Gentiles-but not of the unbelieving Gentiles-speaks thus: In no wise shall Thou do tills thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, for then shall the righteous be as the wicked. In no wise shall Thou, Who judgest the earth, execute this judgment¹⁰ . This God, then, the righteous Judge, is clearly also the true God. Blasphemer! Your own falsehood confutes you’ (Book V, ch. 16, orthodoxchurchfathers.com).

These are some of barest of responses that could be given to Mr. Bernard’s essay, but we do not want to keep multiplying words to the neglect of something that is also very significant – the implications for humanity if God is not Trinity, but instead is only a single solitary being.  Following the teachings of recent saints and theologians (Sts Nikolai Velimirovich and Dumitru Staniloae amongst them), a God who is only a single being would not know true love; he would only know self-love. A God who is a dyad would not know true love either; two beings can become so fixated on one another that they ignore everything else around them.  That again is a selfish form of love.  Only a God of Three Persons sharing one Life, as one finds in authentic, apostolic Christianity, knows what true love really is; only God as Trinity is Love (‘God is love’, I John 4:8).  For a third person directs the gaze of the other two away from themselves, and out toward others, as a husband and wife experience with their children:  The insular life of two now expands out to embrace the wider world.

The life of Christendom under a monistic God of self-love would be intolerable:  It would be the life Muslims experience under their fierce, merciless, monad Allah extended to include everyone in the Church.  What one finds in the Church of the Holy Trinity is radically different, where forgiveness, mildness, second chances, generosity, etc., all reign.

A final word comes via an holy man of the last century who fled the Russian communists and fell asleep in the Lord in Essex, England, in 1993 after mighty spiritual struggles – the Elder Sophrony Sakharov.  It is similar to Fr John’s writings above.  He says,

‘God is Love and cannot be known and contemplated except through love and in love. This is why Christ’s commandments, which lead to knowledge and contemplation of God, are also commandments of love. The mystery of the Trinity is only imperfectly conceivable, as it surpasses the limits of our understanding and the powers of our created being. But although it is inconceivable and hidden, it reveals itself to us ceaselessly in an existential manner, through faith and through life in faith, thus becoming an inexhaustible source of eternal life. Faith delves into depths inaccessible to the intellect; it calls us to knowledge and possession of divine mysteries not through logical reasoning, but through a life in Christ’s divine commandments. “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). Along this path of Christ’s words, God comes in front of man and makes His abode with him (Jean 14:23), by giving him true knowledge of Himself. It is at that point that what appeared inconceivable becomes light that enlightens our ignorance and our errors and reveals them to us as consequences of our sin and our fall. At that point there appears to us fulness without limits, wisdom, beauty, light and the truth of Divine Life, which is Love’ (‘Unity of the Church, an Image of the Holy Trinity: Orthodox Triadology as a Principle of Ecclesiology,’ orthochristian.com)

That is the necessary challenge for those who are of Mr. Bernard’s Oneness persuasion:  Seek to know God not through the pride of intellectual understanding but through the experiential method of humility, obedience, repentance, etc., of the saints through all the ages, stretching back all the way to the Apostles.  In doing so, we think they will find what those holy men and women did:  that God is not a lonely being, but a wonderful mystery of Three Persons united together in Love.  It is the only way anyone will be able to transcend the pitfalls of over-reliance on rationalism:

‘Let us once more pause over what has been said above. We have already demonstrated that each time that Christian thought tended toward theological rationalism, it came to be incapable of contemplating the Divine Life. It then bends under the influence of logical monism, which is proper to rationalism, either toward subordinationism in the sense of the superiority of the First Person of the Holy Trinity as ontological principle [or] toward the Sabellian understanding of [God] that considers the Three Persons as modes of manifestation of one sole Divine Essence. This inevitable tendency of rationalism toward logical monism has produced many heresies. In endeavoring to push “the logical ascension” “to the end”, theological rationalism falls into absurdity’ (St Sophrony, Ibid.).