Complex Love

Walter Russell Meade writes at The American Interest,

For both Muslims and Jews, it is hard to know which is more blasphemous: saying that the One God is Three Persons, or saying that Jesus of Nazareth is God made man. Either way, to many people this is an ugly theological scandal, a fundamental betrayal of the essence of monotheism. It’s an atrocity to worship a creature, a human being, however noble, as God; it’s an atrocity to mingle polytheism with monotheism; it’s an atrocity to blur the bright line between Creator and creation by mixing the two together in the person of Jesus.

...For many Muslims, shirk, the improper association of the created with the creator, is the ultimate in blasphemy. For many Jews, to worship a human being as God is idolatry—one of the worst sins there is. Christianity’s core belief that the baby in the manger is God made man is a flagrant assault on the central principles of monotheism as understood by the two other Abrahamic faiths.

...This little Yule Blog isn’t going to settle these great controversies and it’s above my pay grade even to explain them. My goal is much more modest: to help Christian and non-Christian readers understand what classical vanilla Christians mean when they identify the baby in the manger with God on high. That means taking on the most controversial and complex idea in Christianity; the doctrine of the Trinity is wrapped around that baby in the manger even tighter than the swaddling clothes.

...The Three Persons mentioned in the New Testament, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are often seen as expressing the complex love that is the nature of God. The Father is seen as the source of love, the Son as the object of that love, and the Holy Spirit as the love that exists between the two. This is the Love that made the world, not because It was incomplete or lacking but because It wanted to share.

...God is One; God is Three; the baby Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, come to earth to save sinners and open the door to a new kind of relationship between human beings and God. When Christians sing Christmas carols, buy gifts for each other, give holiday money to charities, or go to church, this is what they are celebrating and this is what they believe.