In Judaism and Islam, monotheism means God is one entity -- one person. In biblical Christianity, however, monotheism means God is one. And when the bible says that "God is one", it doesn't mean that he's one person. [/b]It means that there is perfect, absolute unity among the persons of the Godhead.[/b]. These persons are not only of one mind always, and not only act in one accord always, as important as these qualities are, but they
equally share each other's attributes. While distinct persons, they are equal in every respect. But understand this: As fallen, sinful, corrupt human beings, who are ourselves walking, talking dichotomies (as very often evidenced by our own irrational behavior, our hypocrisies, etc. ), we are not capable of fully understanding this kind of unity; for we have never experienced this kind of perfect, flawless unity, nor have we witnessed it in others. Perfect Unity requires Holiness and Righteousness. These are the prerequisites to Absolute Unity.
So, why did Moses write what he did in Deut 6:4? Why did he tell the Israelites that God is one, if he didn't mean one entity, when they all understood that the entire ancient world was steeped in Polytheism? When we moderns think of polytheism, we over-simplify that belief system by reducing it to the worship of multiple gods. And while this is true as far it goes, there is much more to it than this. The ancient peoples of the world, fully corrupt by their evil hearts, could not relate to Absolute Unity. So, they invented gods who were as discordant, divided and dichotomous as they were! Not only this, but all this division among their gods made them
unequal. No one of their gods was all-powerful and all-wise and all-knowing and all-present, etc. In all cases in polytheism what one of their gods lacked, it took another god to pick up the slack.
When we study the ancient polytheistic religions, we find that they invented every kind of god under the sun, including the sun itself. Every nation or land had its own peculiar god to that land. In addition, there were even more specific gods -- fertility gods, gods of the valleys, gods of the mountains, gods of the plains, gods of the deserts and these were just the tip of the iceberg. We haven't even touched on the various gods of the heavens -- moon goddesses, gods of the stars, etc., etc. And all these gods were revered or worshiped because each one possessed some quality or attribute that the others did not have. There was absolutely no equality among the pagans' gods!
Now contrast these facts with what scripture teaches about monotheism,
beginning in the OT. God is one because God is ALL. As the Unmoved Mover, he lacks no quality or attribute. He IS all-powerful. He IS all-knowing. He IS all-wise. He IS omnipresent. All the persons of the Godhead fully and equally share in all these attributes. The union among the persons of the Godhead is perfect. It's absolute. And it is in this sense, therefore, that Moses wrote that "God is one". But I don't expect anyone here to take my word for it. To see if this is the correct interpretation of Deut 6:4 (and other OT passages as well), we must, as I told Doc the other day, perform a word study of the key word in the passage --
one. How is the Hebrew term
eechad, translated "one", used in the OT?
Doc knew where I was going with all this but because he can't shake his RCC presupposition about the trinity in the OT, he refused to answer my simple question about Deut 6:4 because he sensed that it would indeed put him in a nasty catch-22, be damned if you do or be damned if you don't dilemma. To be consistent with his RCC belief, he would have had to answer that Moses taught that God is one person. But that would present no small contradiction with the NT scriptures. And what professing Christian wants to open that foul smelling can of worms? On the other hand, if he said that Moses was teaching about the perfect unity of the Godhead, then that interpretation would contradict what his church has taught him about the lack of any teaching on the plurality of persons in the Godhead in the OT. He would have had to draw on NT theology to support his answer and, therefore, be guilty of the very thing PA falsely charged me with: BACK FITTING! So...Doc did the only thing he could: Cut his losses by not answering the question!
Tomorrow Lord willin ' and the crik doesn't rise, we'll do a little word study in the OT. Trust me, though, and have no fear: The study will be fruitful and confirm my interpretation of the Shema.
