Saturday, January 4, 2014

God Considers Adding Fourth Person

January 4, 2012
But Four Is Too Many!

Feeling better almost as soon as I call in sick – until I get up: I am sick, congested, I decide, from reading too much Céline too quickly. Gut filled with pus from tonsils to anus.
     Congestion isn’t always physical. “It’s just some little bug,” I say when I call, not adding “a spiritual one.” The Spirit fills, they say, but it doesn’t always lift.  It can’t always be weightless, when it weighs us down. Best those times to go back bed . . . and pull the covers over your head.

Who weighed down Jesus with The Spirit? It doesn’t look like he did it to himself. Ask: How often does he speak of to pneuma with a capital-tcapital-p, his very own words, well his words according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke – according to the translators? Answer: fifteen times, five in each gospel.  That’s not many.
     Still, you can be pretty sure God is Three, because two isn’t much of a number, just on-off, and change-the-station. Not enough knobs for theologians to play with.

Belated New Year’s Resolution: Read less French.
                                                                                         W

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