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Religion

2007-07-30 15:23:00

An attempt to understand the Trinity

I have a difficult time understanding the Trinity. I am bewildered when I think how all three persons in God were present at Jesus’ Baptism and at his Transfiguration. Is there any explanation of the Trinity that can help us, who did not attend theology classes?

Answer: You are attempting to understand something impossible for the human intellect to understand. From the time of the Apostles of Jesus to the present time, some of the greatest thinkers and philosophers and theologians have studied one another and written volumes about the doctrine of the Trinity. All of them end by admitting that, while we can talk and write about it, we can never understand or comprehend it. Ultimately, it is a matter of faith. Faith is about realities, which we cannot fully understand; it is “conviction about things we do not see” (cf: New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11, verse1). If we can understand something, it is no longer a matter of faith! (I do not BELIEVE that two and two make four; I KNOW that as an evident fact. Here belief and scientific knowledge go their separate ways.) We accept matters of faith, not because they seem reasonable or are evident but, on the authority of the person revealing them. All the articles in the Creed were revealed to the holy Apostles by Jesus, whom we accept as God. And God is the ultimate authority, about Whom we know only what he chooses to reveal about himself. To assist you in your attempt to better know the true God, I offer the following insights from the great teachers of the Christian faith, who lived closer to the time of the Apostles, from whom they learned these truths. The most blessed Trinity is the most profound mystery of the Christian faith. It is the first and fundamental article of belief: there exists only one God, and that in this one God there are three distinct persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This fact was revealed to us by the Second Person of the Trinity, who became man as Jesus Christ and who taught us this mystery. Through twenty centuries great theologians have written about the Holy Trinity and have attempted to explain the inexplicable, to help us understand something about the inner life of God, Who made us and to Whom we are to return at death. And still, when all has been said, it remains a mystery, which we cannot understand. It requires great faith to accept what seems to be a paradox or a riddle or even a contradiction. Jews and Moslems do not believe in the Trinity: Jews assume that it is opposed to their belief in one God, while the Moslems follow their prophet Mohammed in misunderstanding the Trinity as three gods. At least, Jews and Christians and Moslems agree in the statement that THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD! But we quickly part ways in attempting to penetrate the inner life of this one God. Jesus is God’s ultimate revelation to mankind, and he taught us the fact of the Trinity without explanation. Jesus did not come into this world to explain God; he came to help us know and experience the reality of God. The Church is responsible for finding ways to help us understand this experience. If we are made in the image of God, we are made in the image of the Trinity; and the life of the Trinity must in some sort be reflected in the pattern of our human life. Perhaps one such reflection is between the activities identified with each person of the Trinity, and the various activities in which we human beings engage. Thus to God the Father is attributed all that we understand by generation, creation, maintenance; and much of our human activity can be seen as cooperation in that kind of work. Everything we do to awaken and cherish new life, to fashion and cultivate and develop our physical environment, shares in that work of God the Father. Thus also, the activities of fathers and mothers in bringing new life into this world, and the work of designing and building, growing crops and breeding cattle, shaping and tending the landscape, manufacturing, organizing, fashioning all kinds of things for our use and delight, all crafts and arts and technologies, indeed every kind of making: shares in the life of God the Father. Likewise, to God the Son are related all human activities of compassion, reconciliation, sacrifice, forgiveness, making amends and repairing, everything that falls under the title of caring. These reflect the work of redemption and reconciliation, the mission of God the Son, who came into this world to identify with poor, sinful, sorrowing and suffering humanity. And finally the special role of the Holy Spirit is reflected in every positive idea and inspiration, however humble, in every advance in knowledge and wisdom, in every flash of imagination, in every movement of the heart. The artist and lover and poet and philosopher and inventor express this area of human experience in wonderful ways. These activities touch the most simple persons and feelings, as well as those which are more complex. And all proceed from the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son! The Bible doesn’t use that word “Trinity,” which was not invented until around the 4th century, although the idea of one God in Three Persons was taught by Jesus to His Apostles. Indeed, Jesus’ final words on earth, in the great commission (Matt 28:19), Jesus expresses this basic truth: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus spoke to his Father in prayer, and He spoke often about his Father. He also promised to send the Spirit, who is the source of the Church’s Tradition. In his discourse after the Last Supper, Jesus said: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. When he comes, however, being the Spirit of Truth, he Will guide you to all truth. . .and will announce to you the things to come. . . He will have received from me what he will announce to you.” God Himself began the process of tradition, the handing-on of revealed truth, in His relationship to Jesus: “All that the Father has belongs to me.” The Spirit continues to announce in the Church, this truth along with the things to come. Being the Soul of the Body of the Church, the Holy Spirit guides the Church according to truth, preserving her faith and her teaching from error. It is the Holy Spirit who is the author of the Church’s constitution, her Faith, which is based on the Bible AND Tradition. To express this more precisely, our Faith is based on the Bible interpreted in the light of Tradition by the authentic teaching authority of the Church. Notice, when you read or recite the Creed, how it is structured according to the Persons in the Trinity: the first part treats of God the Father creating; the second part tells us about God the Son becoming man and redeeming; the third part speaks of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church unto life everlasting.