To Please Jesus?

As you likely do not know, every morning I read one very short essay in a small religiously conservative Daily Devotional magazine published by the denomination of the church that I attend. People from across the denomination, and others, submit a brief thought from their religious experience to share with readers. The purpose of each essay is to encourage the faith of the readers of the magazine. I initially began reading the magazine as an academic experiment to see if it is possible to identify the gender of the writers, but I have come to discover a second reason for reading. It is to get a sense of what is going on in the heads of those who occupy pews in the modern church, to sense the contemporary faith of believers of the modern Christian tradition. These are the anonymous voices of men and women from around the world, from the church’s mission fields and other countries, and from the New York Islands to San Francisco Bay. They are everybody and nobody, and represent all levels of the educational systems of the world; mostly, however, they are everyone’s next door neighbor. And their voices are all intensely religious, and trinitarian in orientation.

I was a bit confused by an essay I recently read one morning, however. The writer averred that “a pure heart reflects…a desire to please Jesus…” I was under the impression that the Bible holds up Yahweh, the God of Biblical faith, as the setter of standards for the way one lives one’s life in the Christian tradition. That is to say: people who consider themselves children of the God of the Bible, should aim to please God, or at least the biblical writers seem to think so (for example, Micah 6:6–8; 1 John 3:19–22). Aiming to please Jesus with one’s living may be traditional orthodox Christian theology but it is not Biblical theology. Pleasing Jesus is a statement based on the fourth-century church’s belief that God is a three-in-one whole, a Trinity, comprised of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three divine entities are depicted in the Bible as being separate entities until they were declared to be one by Church councils in the fourth century.¹

There are at least three passages that attest to a belief in the oneness of God among the earliest followers of the Jesus way. The first is from the Bible used by the earliest followers of Jesus: Deut 6:4, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” The second is from Mark 12:29–30, where Jesus quotes from Deut 6:4, showing that followers of the Jesus way believed that Jesus shared this belief. The third is a liturgical or confessional statement from 1^st Tim 6:4, “For God is one, and one mediator of God and humanity, a human being, Lord Jesus, the Anointed…” This confession shows distinct and different roles for God and Jesus.² God is God, and Jesus, a human being, is the mediator between God and humanity. I suspect the earliest followers of Jesus who made this confession would be quite surprised at the attempt to interpret God’s oneness as meaning three distinct figures constitute one God.

There is a similar liturgical/confessional statement in 1 Cor 8:6 that contrasts with 1^st Tim 6:4 both in the role of Jesus and in the character of God’s oneness. In this confession Jesus appears to play a part in creation, which appears either to make him share in the divine nature (a duality) or be a second divine entity. From the context (8:4–5), a second contrast is that the oneness of God is clearly intended to contrast with the many Gods of polytheism. That is to say, we affirm one God in contrast to the many Gods of paganism. Most of the creedal-like statements in the New Testament share a similar view as 1 Cor 8:6,³ which makes 1 Tim 6:4 all the more unusual in its naming of Jesus only as one the mediator and lacking the higher Christology of other confessions.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Hedrick, What the Church Doesn’t Tell You. Pondering Christian Tradition (Eugene, OR: Pickwick: 2026), 232-36.

²My translation. See, What the Church Doesn’t Tell You, 215-18 for a discussion of the passage.

³For example, Col 1:15–20; Phil 2:5–11; Heb 1:1-4.

True Believers and Critical Thinkers

I define true believers as those whose religious faith has resolved all existential questions about life and provided a rationale for living in this world and that to come (if such there be). They neither challenge what they are told, nor any longer seriously ponder life’s verities, making adjustments where old beliefs are found to be lacking. There are other definitions of what constitutes being a true believer.¹

            A critical thinker, on the other hand, is one who constantly ponders and probes and for whom nothing is ever finally resolved, particularly life’s verities.²

One example of a critical thinker is found in Plato’s description of Socrates, who, claiming ignorance, spent his time asking questions and probing others as to their opinions and views of virtue [aretē], and pointing out inconsistencies in the views held by others. He was tried for “impiety” and “corrupting the minds of the young,” convicted, and sentenced to death. In his final address to the court, he observed:

Perhaps someone may say ‘But surely, Socrates after you have left us you can spend the rest of your life in quietly minding your own business.’ This is the hardest thing of all to make some of you understand. If I say that this would be disobedience to God, and that is why I cannot ‘mind my own business,’ you will not believe I am serious. If on the other hand I tell you to let no day pass without discussing goodness [aretē] and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing a man can do, and that life without this sort of communication is not worth living, you will be even less inclined to believe me. Nevertheless that is how it is, Gentlemen, as I maintain; though it is not easy to convince you of it.³

“Discussing goodness…and examining myself and others is really the very best thing a man can do, and that life without this sort of communication is not worth living.” Is it true do you suppose, that life is not worth living unless one constantly probes oneself and others about goodness/virtue/excellence?

            The Apostle Paul apparently seemed to think so, although I would hardly call him a critical thinker, as I have defined it in this essay. At the very least, however, he seemed to share with Socrates the idea of virtue or excellence in life and recommended that one ponder (logizesthe) those things that are characterized by aretē (Phil 4:8).⁴

            And what about the rest of us, where do we fall on the spectrum: true believer—critical thinker? Hopefully, we might be found somewhere near the middle of the spectrum, at least. There, we have found ways to share in some religious beliefs of a particular gathering of believers, but have not yet surrendered our critical thinking skills. If that is where you find yourself, some things about the faith of the Christian Church must make you mighty uncomfortable. For example, what the church teaches about a Trinity comprised of three divine figures: God, the Father; Jesus, a human being confessed as the Son of God; and the Holy Spirit. These three figures, kept distinct in the New Testament, are finally declared to be one figure, a divine God Head as early as the fourth century.⁵ Nevertheless, if you think about it, three distinct entities cannot in actuality be/become one, although, true enough, they may be regarded as being one. For example, a sponge, a brush, and a rag are regarded as tools for cleaning, but they remain in themselves three distinct entities. Critical thinkers either find ways to finesse that particular dogma of the church, or try to quit thinking about it.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_believer

²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

³Plato, The Last Days of Plato: Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo (translated by Hugh Tredennick; England: Penguin Books, 1969), 73–74. The Greek word aretē is translated into English by several words, for example, goodness, virtue, excellence, etc.

⁴See John M. Dillon, “Platonism” in The Anchor Bibe Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5:381: “Platonism is thus the single greatest outside intellectual influence on Christianity in its formative stages.”

⁵http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=trinity