Three Doctrines, One Faith: Commonsense Christianity

Abstract

Religious thought and belief in a wide variety of traditions harbors claims that, on their face, offend against both science and common sense.  At their extreme, they include affirmations that are paradoxical.  They seem to defy the constraints of logic and reason generally.  Yet they are often neither negotiable nor confined to the arena of “primitive” religions. 

Here I will focus on three doctrines that have been situated at the heart of Christianity through nearly all its complex historical development and that are perplexing enough that they have been declared by many theologians to be “mysteries.”  They have undoubtedly played a role in the development and interest in dialethic logics over the past few decades, for obvious reasons.

This paper will challenge the claims of such devices to provide insight into the theological concerns that historically motivated the formation-history of those doctrines and their doctrinal centrality.  I shall do so by offering an alternative framework for understanding those doctrines that adheres to defensible hermeneutical principles, results in rationally sensible interpretations, and provides a reading that makes better sense of their content, their historical motivations, and their importance to early Christians.