Brave topic to talk about in Question of Faith

IT is brave of Derek Marvin to introduce the idea of the Trinity (A Question of Faith, 9 October), but then to say that Christians can’t understand it.

Faith and belief no doubt still have their place in religion, but if people can’t understand such a basic concept isn’t it time to start asking questions about its meaning? The early Christians may not have been so concerned with this idea.

As I understand it, the Trinity only became part of Christian doctrine at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

Derek says that there is evidence for this belief in the Bible, but in the 17th and 18th centuries a number of thinkers and writers started to express unitarian ideas (God as one) because they couldn’t find a biblical basis for it, including the Rev Theophilus Lindsey.

He left the Church of England and founded the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in London in 1774.

As a Unitarian myself I am encouraged to subject my beliefs to the tenets of reason and conscience.

I have felt for some time that a lot of religious ideas still have meaning today if they are viewed symbolically or as metaphor, rather than as ‘gospel’.

At one time it was assumed that ‘heaven’ was above us, beyond the clouds, but we have been up there and it doesn’t seem to be - perhaps rather it is a state of mind or it is about the relationships between people.

Similarly Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be viewed as aspects of the divine (however we understand that), rather than as separate actual beings or entities.

This does not detract from Jesus as an inspiring first century teacher and preacher, who still has much to say to us today.

As a Unitarian I cannot accept that all truth has already been revealed, as this would leave no scope for changes of view with advances in knowledge and in our understanding of the world.

Howard Hague