No
other doctrine is as central and unique to the Christian faith as that of the
Trinity. This doctrine is central because the foundation of Christian
soteriology, and therefore Christian hope, rests on its truth; unique because
no other monotheistic religion ascribes divinity to three persons. However,
there is another implication not considered by most. In Theology for
the Community of God, Grenz writes about the relational aspect of the
Trinity saying that “above all… the Father, Son, and Spirit are the social
Trinity. Therefore, community is not merely an aspect of human life, for it
lies within the divine essence.”[1] If what Grenz suggest is true than to
merely intellectually assent to the doctrine of the Trinity is to diminish it.
This doctrine (as all doctrines) should be experiential in nature, especially
because it is intimately linked with experiencing the love of God. Agape love
is the core of the Trinitarian relationship, as well as the predominate
attribute of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This shared love nature is
what permeates the one essence of the three persons of the Trinity and love is
the way we participate in the oneness of God as was the expressed desire of
Jesus in John 17: 21-26:
that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and
I in you, that they
also may be in us,
so that the world may
believe that you have sent me. The
glory that you have given me I
have given to them, that
they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that
they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where
I am, to see my glory that you have given me because
you loved me before
the foundation of the world. O
righteous Father, even though the
world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make
it known, that the love with
which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.[2]
Three
persons being one in essence is a difficult concept to describe and comprehend
for human beings to whom “person” means individual. Some of humanity’s greatest
thinkers have admitted to the minds inability to grasp three in oneness. C.S.
Lewis writes regarding the Trinity, “On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two
separate beings… On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there
you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level,
cannot imagine.”[3] The great theologian Augustine
(354-430), the last of the Church Fathers, writes; “In these three then… how
inseparable a life there is, yea one life, mind, and one essence, yea lastly
how inseparable a distinction there is, and yet a distinction… whether because
of these three, there is in God also a Trinity, or whether all three be in
Each, so that the three belong to each Each; or whether both ways at once.”[4] Thomas Aquinas (c.
1225-1274), who sought to prove many things about God said that the Trinity
could not be “proven” but that it is a matter “of revelation to be received by faith.”[5] Because of theology’s inability to “prove”
the correct understanding of the Trinity most have settled for “a doctrinal
formula to be received and believed by a mental act of understanding.”[6] Unfortunately, for many, mystery has
turned into misunderstanding and disuse, because rather than continuing to
reflect on the mystery, contemplation is “shrugged off”[7] for blind acceptance. It is a doctrine that all
receive by faith yet few understand the implications of, so that while the
church is theologically Trinitarian, functionally and experientially it is
Unitarian[8]. The
doctrine is written into a belief statement and soon assumes the appearance of
dry-bones theology, seen as practically irrelevant, neglected by Church
teachers and experientially malnourished in congregational life. Yet
that is not the way the doctrine came to be formed. Jesus’ incarnation revealed God in a way not
yet seen by mankind. Even more so, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit given
after Jesus’ ascension brought the disciples experience of God from external to
internal as “The God who appears
as One to those who view him on the outside, reveals himself as a Trinity of
persons, once his inner life is opened up to our experience.”[9]
[1]
Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1994). Kindle E-Book, Location 1324.
[2]
ESV.
[4]
Augustine, The Confession
of Saint Augustine, Edward Bouverie Pusey, translator .
Kindle E-Book, page 258.
[5]
Hart, 45
[6]
Fred Sanders,
The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity
Changes Everything. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), Kindle E-book, page 34.
[7]
Olson, 1583.
[8]
Olson, 1588.
[9]
Gerald L. Bray,
Out of the Box: The Christian Experience
of God in Trinity. “God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith
and Practice,” Timothy George, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006).
Kindle E-book, page 45.
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