Being dogmatic

I’m reading Karen Armstrong’s A History of God, in which she traces the history of the three monotheistic religions having the common root of Abraham. It’s taking me quite a lot of time and concentration because she is certainly much more learned and probably much more intelligent than I am! But it is a joy to read and perseverance is paying dividends in helping me understand my Judaeo/Christian roots.

I’ve got to a point at which she discusses the growth of theology in the early Christian church and specifically the doctrine of the Trinity, a conceptual way of expressing the nature of God developed in the first centuries of the church. She talks about the difficulties caused to this day by misunderstandings around the language used by 4th century Greek theologians.

I am finding this fascinating, and one of the most interesting examples is of a familiar word, often used in a negative way to denote a very rule-bound approach to religion:

Dogma - Used by Greek Christians to describe the hidden, secret traditions of the Church, which could only be understood mystically and expressed symbolically. In the West, dogma has come to mean a body of opinion, categorically and authoritatively stated.

And we now have to examine another word:

Kerygma - Term used by the Greek Christians to denote the public teaching of the Church, which can be expressed clearly and rationally, as opposed to its dogma, which could not.

Isn’t that interesting? Her studies show that the new use of the word dogma became complete in the West during the 18th century, which was dominated by so-called rational thought, in which mysticism and symbolism got a very bad press indeed.

Another example:

The difference between the Greek and the Western use of the word theory is instructive. In Eastern Christianity, theoria would always mean contemplation. In the West, theory has come to mean a rational hypothesis which must be logically demonstrated. Developing a theory about God implied that ‘he’ could be contained in a human system of thought.

I remember when I was a very small child thinking that the way in which the Trinity was explained to us sounded ridiculous. I am quite a literal person in many ways, and this explanation of God being three-in-one made no sense to me. Note the expression ‘made no sense’. Now I’m becoming more confident that perhaps making sense isn’t so important. A final passage from the book:

Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians continue to find that the contemplation of the Trinity is an inspiring religious experience. For many Western Christians, however, the Trinity is simply baffling. This could be because they consider only what the Cappadocians would have called its kerygmatic qualities, whereas for the Greeks it was a religious experience. Logically, of course, it made no sense at all. In an earlier sermon, Gregory of Nazianzus had explained that the very incomprehensibility of the dogma of the Trinity brings us up against the absolute mystery of God; it reminds us that we must not hope to understand him.

This makes me feel much better about my scepticism of so many of the “received truths” that traditional theology gives us.