Read The Previous Articles
Read Part 1 The Trinity
The Shack – Part 2
This is the second part of my thoughts on some of the theological difficulties I have struggled with in being asked to recommend The Shack, particularly to my youth group. In short I thought the book as a whole was really enjoyable. It tackled some pretty hard core topics such as the trinity, why do bad things happen, death, crime and forgiveness in the form of a story. That said could a recommend this book to people? Well to be honest not without some serious caveats. Would I tell people not to read it? No, I don’t think I would assuming they were a discerning reader able to enjoy the book as a literary piece and not a theological piece. It is for that reason that I would not recommend it to youth because they are not always that discerning and will, i think, read The Shack and then think they understand the Trinity or God as a result and they really won’t, not from this book anyway.
What’s all the fuss about?
Well last time in Part 1I spoke of my concerns with the way the trinity is depicted in terms of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Part 2 continues with the Trinity, but this time looks at Modalism and how, I think, it appears within The Shack
Modalism
Possibly here your first question is “What is Modalism”. Well the simplest way to explain it to say that Modalism states that God is either God the father, or God the Son or God the Holy Spirit. He is not all 3 at once; he appears in one mode or another as a single person. So in the Old Testament he appears a God the Father, then in the Gospels as God the Son and then in the remainder of the New Testament as God the Holy Spirit. These modes are consecutive and never simultaneous. It is this subtle doctrine that comes out in the Shack and so contradicts the trinity that the book is desperately trying to explain. The book says on page 99 the following:- “We we three spoke ourselves into existence as the Son of God, we became fully human. We also chose to embrace all the limitations that this entailed. Even though we have always been present in the created universe we now became flesh and blood”
This clearly shows the Modalism in the authors understanding. Again on pages 95-96 we see this Modalistic doctrine surfacing further.
God the Father was not crucified with Jesus
Page 95-96 of the Shack tells of a conversation between Mack and God (Papa). Mack notices scars on Papa’s wrists and Papa explains that on the cross “we were together”. When Mack rightly challenges this and asks “At the cross? Now, wait, I thought you left him – you know – ‘My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Papa then replies “You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what he felt at that moment, I never left him”
This is a huge error! For 3 reasons
- God is spirit and has no flesh or bones as I have already explained in Part 1 and therefore has no wrists either.
- It speaks of Modalism in that God was Jesus at this point and thus experienced the crucifixion. This speaks of the consecutive modes of Modalism, not the simultaneous nature of biblical trinity.
- It suggests that Jesus was in error as he believed that God had turned away from him (forsaken him). Either Jesus knew that God had not forsaken him and thus he was lying or he was lying when he said “For I do not speak of my own accord, but the father who sent me commanded me what to day and how to say it” [John 12:49]. Jesus clearly said “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” [Matt 27:46, Mark 15:34]) which leaves us to conclude that Jesus was a liar or God really did forsake him and leave him. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was without sin and so could not have lied. This leaves us with the fact that God was not with Jesus on the cross and therefore clearly shows The Shack to be in error on this point.
PART 3 Coming Soon ……
