What About The Trinity?
Bible Study
Questions Of Faith For Inquiring Believers
In 1826, one of the great religious poets of England, Reginald Heber, penned a verse that still appears in nearly every hymnbook published in the English language.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty.
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
With those words, Heber continued a long Christian tradition. Since the early centuries of Christianity, believers have worshiped by praising the Trinity -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit -- a central teaching of our faith.
One of the earliest hymns celebrating God in three persons is called the Athanasian Creed and was sung by congregations in Gaul as early as the late fifth or early sixth century.1 In part, that hymn declares:
We worship one God in Trinity, and
Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor
Dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Godhead of the Father,
Of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, is all one,
The Glory of the equal, the majesty of the co-eternal.
The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost uncreated.
As post-modern people, it baffles us how the Athanasian Creed ever caught on as popular church music. No matter how catchy the tune, these mind-numbing concepts cause our eyes to glaze over. In fact, this whole idea of a Trinity confuses us. How can one God be a committee of three? Is it not sexist to call God "Father"? Even if we make that feminine, how can God the Mother be her own Son? If Jesus is God, then to whom does Jesus speak when he prays? If that is not sufficiently stupefying, what does it mean to refer to God as a "Ghost" -- holy or otherwise?
Questions like these move many believers to conclude that the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an idea that has outlived its usefulness. This ancient understanding needs updated at the very least; better, relegate it to the scrap heap of history.
I will admit teaching about the Trinity is confusing, boring, and dated. It is not, however, extraneous to our faith. It is essential. In the middle 1980s, Country Club Christian Church in Kansas City moved toward the end of a building renovation project. Workers in the lowest level of the building noticed a problem with the pillars holding up the sanctuary. The bottoms of these posts had rusted away. Instead of resting on bedrock, they floated in the soft mud of an underground stream.
Obviously, the contractor recommended the problem be corrected. It was to be very expensive and when completed would not improve the appearance of the building at all. Because foundation improvements do not contribute esthetically, those who did not understand the issue could have argued, "As long as the rusted bottoms of the pillars do not show, leave them alone."
That, of course, was not a viable option. Can you imagine the magnitude of the tragedy if the problem had gone uncorrected? A thousand people attend the 11:00 service on Easter Sunday morning. This biggest one-hour crowd of the year always stands in unison to sing "Christ The Lord Is Risen Today." Imagine those thousand people hear a loud groan above the pipe organ with brass accompaniment. In an instant the most sacred space in the church on the most sacred Sunday collapses into the basement.
The mathematics structural engineers employ to determine how strong the pillars need to be goes beyond the understanding of the average person. There is nothing exciting, romantic, or esthetically pleasing about keeping the building's foundation in good repair. That does not mean, however, that the foundation is unimportant. It is absolutely essential. What pillars are to a church building, the Trinity is to the faith of the church. It may not be glamorous, but the Trinity, like the pillars under the sanctuary, is underneath and holds everything up.
The Trinity does this by answering a question that is foundational to our faith: "What is God like?" For hundreds of years, Christian doctrine has answered that question by saying that "God is like this: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
To get a better grasp on this issue, let us start with the more fundamental question: "How do you know there is a God?" There are, of course, several ways to answer to that question. Philosophers and theologians have several categories of rational "proofs" for the existence of God. Frankly, none is absolutely convincing. That is to say, there are weaknesses in every argument offered for God's existence. When chased into a corner, most believers will admit they came to believe in God, not because of any rational proof, but because they had some experience that they decided was best explained by saying, "I believe that was a 'God moment.' " By and large, the rational proofs are convincing only to those who already decided to believe.
Consider the fellow crossing an open field on a cloudy day. He comes across a little boy holding a string that disappears into the clouds. "What are you doing?" the man asks the child.
"I am flying a kite," the boy responds.
Because he feels mischievous, the man pushes the issue. "How do you know the kite is still there? You cannot see it. Perhaps the kite has blown away and the string you are holding is caught on a cloud," he grins at the little boy.
The child does not hesitate. "I know the kite is still there because I can feel the tug of it," he says.
In that same way, I come to believe there is a God because I experience the living God in my life -- "I feel the tug." It is not logical proofs or empirical data. I believe because I have concluded that the experiences of life are best explained by claiming, "I believe there is a God. I believe because I can feel the 'tug' of God on my life."
Once I conclude, "I believe because I have had experiences that I identify as the reality of God," then I must answer the question, "What are those experiences of God like?" The church's historic answer to that is to say, "We experience God as Trinity: as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity."
To our post-modern ears, referring to God in three persons seems to make God a committee. How can one God be in three persons? The problem comes in that the meaning of the word "person" has changed. The Latin "persona" means something different than what we understand as "person." "Per" added to "sona" means "to sound through." The "persona" was the mask with a megaphone mouthpiece worn by actors, through which their voices could be heard by a large theater audience. Each "persona" was molded and painted to represent a different mood or character. During any given performance, each actor might wear several different "personae," that is masks, through which he spoke to the audience. To say that one actor had three "personae" was to assert that he wore three different masks. The audience therefore experienced the same actor portraying three different moods or playing three different characters. In that same way, when we say that God is in three personae, we are asserting that we experience God "sounding through" in three different roles.
Consider it this way. Imagine three people standing in the town square in a German city about 1735. They discuss someone familiar to them all, but they just cannot remember his name. One fellow says, "Oh, you know who I mean. He is a good friend of our family. He was over for dinner just the other night. He is a charming conversationalist and has a house full of kids. Does something or other at that big church downtown."
Another comments, "Yes, I know of whom you speak. He composes music. In fact, he has published quite a bit. I have never met him personally, but I just love his music. What is his name?"
A woman joins the conversation: "Yes, I can picture him now. I go to that church. He is the music director. He is the finest organist we have ever had. What is his name? It begins with a 'B.' Oh, yes, now I remember, Bach -- Johann Sebastian Bach."
A murmur of assent rises from the group. They all know him, but they have each experienced him in a different way. One knows Bach the family friend. One knows Bach from the music he composes. Still another knows Bach, the fellow who directs the church choir and plays the organ. One J. S. Bach in three persons -- three different experiences of the same person.
When we say God in three persons, we mean God experienced in three different ways. Three different "personae" to describe the different ways we experience the same "tug" at the very depth of our being. Historically the church has named those experiences as "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit." The expectation is that those names will awaken within us the mutual recognition of the experience. The hope is that like those fictional people on the German street corner, we can say, "Oh, yes, I know who you mean." The names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are intended to identify and thus to empower our understandings of our experiences of God.
When we say "God the Father," we speak of God as the Creating Force of the universe. This is the experience of God that opens us to other religious faiths. To speak of God the Father is to describe the experience that we as Christians share with Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and all other people of the world. This is God as Unmoved Mover. God as Father is the metaphor we use to explain how the stars came to hang in the skies and why the earth keeps turning on its axis. God as Father is the power behind all of creation.
To say "God the Son" is to claim a distinctly Christian experience of God. Unlike other world religions, Christians believe that the fullest revelation of the nature of God is seen in Jesus of Nazareth. To put that a different way, if you want to know what God is really like, take a look at Jesus. The Nazarene put a human face on God. That means that we experience God as a kind, compassionate, forgiving Savior of the world. We meet Jesus in the pages of the Bible. This is God as historic person. This is God the Son.
To say "God the Holy Spirit" is to put a name to religious experience in the present tense. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God to us right now. Consider the sun, our nearest star. On the one hand, it is 93 million miles away. On the other hand, the sun with its light and warmth is also right here. In fact, if the sun were to withdraw from us, life on this planet would not be possible. Is it not that way with God? God as Creating Father is billions of years in our past. We had a close encounter with God the Son in Jesus Christ. We read of him in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But God is not only behind the cosmos and back in history. God as Holy Spirit is right here and now.
Yes, the Trinity is difficult to understand. Rather than antiquated, however, it is foundational to our faith. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the way we describe how we experience God. It is an idea that is underneath and holds everything up. It must be cautioned, however, that these words are attempts to put into words that which is beyond mere words. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but metaphors for the reality they attempt to describe.
Those who object to referring to Almighty God as the male parent are right. Some of us had absolutely terrible fathers. That metaphor does not even come close to the reality of the way we experience God. On the other hand, to substitute God the Mother doesn't solve the problem. Some of us didn't have very good mothers either. Be careful not to become impaled on words that struggle but ultimately fail to describe the full reality. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are, after all, metaphors and metaphors are always limited.
Over the centuries, efforts have been made to use other words to describe the reality of the experience of God. As far back as the Middle Ages, other metaphors have been tried for the Trinity -- God the Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier; God as Fire, Light, and Heat; God as Composer, Singer, and Song; God as Speaker, Word, and Breath.2
Fortunately, God is not offended by the metaphors we use to attempt to describe the reality -- as long as we don't mistake them for the reality. The experience of the reality of God cannot be fully described by saying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, those terms were the best attempt of the early church and they still do quite well.
____________
1. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper and Row, 1953), p. 208.
2. Penelope Mark-Stuart, "How God is Like the Back Porch Light," The Living Pulpit: Trinity, April-June 1999, p. 19.
For Further Reflection And/Or Discussion
Do you recall where/how/when you first encountered the question, "How do you know there is a God?"
How did you answer the question then?
How do you answer the question differently now?
In discussing the Trinity, other than Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what designations make sense to you?
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty.
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
With those words, Heber continued a long Christian tradition. Since the early centuries of Christianity, believers have worshiped by praising the Trinity -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit -- a central teaching of our faith.
One of the earliest hymns celebrating God in three persons is called the Athanasian Creed and was sung by congregations in Gaul as early as the late fifth or early sixth century.1 In part, that hymn declares:
We worship one God in Trinity, and
Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor
Dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Godhead of the Father,
Of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, is all one,
The Glory of the equal, the majesty of the co-eternal.
The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost uncreated.
As post-modern people, it baffles us how the Athanasian Creed ever caught on as popular church music. No matter how catchy the tune, these mind-numbing concepts cause our eyes to glaze over. In fact, this whole idea of a Trinity confuses us. How can one God be a committee of three? Is it not sexist to call God "Father"? Even if we make that feminine, how can God the Mother be her own Son? If Jesus is God, then to whom does Jesus speak when he prays? If that is not sufficiently stupefying, what does it mean to refer to God as a "Ghost" -- holy or otherwise?
Questions like these move many believers to conclude that the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an idea that has outlived its usefulness. This ancient understanding needs updated at the very least; better, relegate it to the scrap heap of history.
I will admit teaching about the Trinity is confusing, boring, and dated. It is not, however, extraneous to our faith. It is essential. In the middle 1980s, Country Club Christian Church in Kansas City moved toward the end of a building renovation project. Workers in the lowest level of the building noticed a problem with the pillars holding up the sanctuary. The bottoms of these posts had rusted away. Instead of resting on bedrock, they floated in the soft mud of an underground stream.
Obviously, the contractor recommended the problem be corrected. It was to be very expensive and when completed would not improve the appearance of the building at all. Because foundation improvements do not contribute esthetically, those who did not understand the issue could have argued, "As long as the rusted bottoms of the pillars do not show, leave them alone."
That, of course, was not a viable option. Can you imagine the magnitude of the tragedy if the problem had gone uncorrected? A thousand people attend the 11:00 service on Easter Sunday morning. This biggest one-hour crowd of the year always stands in unison to sing "Christ The Lord Is Risen Today." Imagine those thousand people hear a loud groan above the pipe organ with brass accompaniment. In an instant the most sacred space in the church on the most sacred Sunday collapses into the basement.
The mathematics structural engineers employ to determine how strong the pillars need to be goes beyond the understanding of the average person. There is nothing exciting, romantic, or esthetically pleasing about keeping the building's foundation in good repair. That does not mean, however, that the foundation is unimportant. It is absolutely essential. What pillars are to a church building, the Trinity is to the faith of the church. It may not be glamorous, but the Trinity, like the pillars under the sanctuary, is underneath and holds everything up.
The Trinity does this by answering a question that is foundational to our faith: "What is God like?" For hundreds of years, Christian doctrine has answered that question by saying that "God is like this: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
To get a better grasp on this issue, let us start with the more fundamental question: "How do you know there is a God?" There are, of course, several ways to answer to that question. Philosophers and theologians have several categories of rational "proofs" for the existence of God. Frankly, none is absolutely convincing. That is to say, there are weaknesses in every argument offered for God's existence. When chased into a corner, most believers will admit they came to believe in God, not because of any rational proof, but because they had some experience that they decided was best explained by saying, "I believe that was a 'God moment.' " By and large, the rational proofs are convincing only to those who already decided to believe.
Consider the fellow crossing an open field on a cloudy day. He comes across a little boy holding a string that disappears into the clouds. "What are you doing?" the man asks the child.
"I am flying a kite," the boy responds.
Because he feels mischievous, the man pushes the issue. "How do you know the kite is still there? You cannot see it. Perhaps the kite has blown away and the string you are holding is caught on a cloud," he grins at the little boy.
The child does not hesitate. "I know the kite is still there because I can feel the tug of it," he says.
In that same way, I come to believe there is a God because I experience the living God in my life -- "I feel the tug." It is not logical proofs or empirical data. I believe because I have concluded that the experiences of life are best explained by claiming, "I believe there is a God. I believe because I can feel the 'tug' of God on my life."
Once I conclude, "I believe because I have had experiences that I identify as the reality of God," then I must answer the question, "What are those experiences of God like?" The church's historic answer to that is to say, "We experience God as Trinity: as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity."
To our post-modern ears, referring to God in three persons seems to make God a committee. How can one God be in three persons? The problem comes in that the meaning of the word "person" has changed. The Latin "persona" means something different than what we understand as "person." "Per" added to "sona" means "to sound through." The "persona" was the mask with a megaphone mouthpiece worn by actors, through which their voices could be heard by a large theater audience. Each "persona" was molded and painted to represent a different mood or character. During any given performance, each actor might wear several different "personae," that is masks, through which he spoke to the audience. To say that one actor had three "personae" was to assert that he wore three different masks. The audience therefore experienced the same actor portraying three different moods or playing three different characters. In that same way, when we say that God is in three personae, we are asserting that we experience God "sounding through" in three different roles.
Consider it this way. Imagine three people standing in the town square in a German city about 1735. They discuss someone familiar to them all, but they just cannot remember his name. One fellow says, "Oh, you know who I mean. He is a good friend of our family. He was over for dinner just the other night. He is a charming conversationalist and has a house full of kids. Does something or other at that big church downtown."
Another comments, "Yes, I know of whom you speak. He composes music. In fact, he has published quite a bit. I have never met him personally, but I just love his music. What is his name?"
A woman joins the conversation: "Yes, I can picture him now. I go to that church. He is the music director. He is the finest organist we have ever had. What is his name? It begins with a 'B.' Oh, yes, now I remember, Bach -- Johann Sebastian Bach."
A murmur of assent rises from the group. They all know him, but they have each experienced him in a different way. One knows Bach the family friend. One knows Bach from the music he composes. Still another knows Bach, the fellow who directs the church choir and plays the organ. One J. S. Bach in three persons -- three different experiences of the same person.
When we say God in three persons, we mean God experienced in three different ways. Three different "personae" to describe the different ways we experience the same "tug" at the very depth of our being. Historically the church has named those experiences as "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit." The expectation is that those names will awaken within us the mutual recognition of the experience. The hope is that like those fictional people on the German street corner, we can say, "Oh, yes, I know who you mean." The names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are intended to identify and thus to empower our understandings of our experiences of God.
When we say "God the Father," we speak of God as the Creating Force of the universe. This is the experience of God that opens us to other religious faiths. To speak of God the Father is to describe the experience that we as Christians share with Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and all other people of the world. This is God as Unmoved Mover. God as Father is the metaphor we use to explain how the stars came to hang in the skies and why the earth keeps turning on its axis. God as Father is the power behind all of creation.
To say "God the Son" is to claim a distinctly Christian experience of God. Unlike other world religions, Christians believe that the fullest revelation of the nature of God is seen in Jesus of Nazareth. To put that a different way, if you want to know what God is really like, take a look at Jesus. The Nazarene put a human face on God. That means that we experience God as a kind, compassionate, forgiving Savior of the world. We meet Jesus in the pages of the Bible. This is God as historic person. This is God the Son.
To say "God the Holy Spirit" is to put a name to religious experience in the present tense. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God to us right now. Consider the sun, our nearest star. On the one hand, it is 93 million miles away. On the other hand, the sun with its light and warmth is also right here. In fact, if the sun were to withdraw from us, life on this planet would not be possible. Is it not that way with God? God as Creating Father is billions of years in our past. We had a close encounter with God the Son in Jesus Christ. We read of him in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But God is not only behind the cosmos and back in history. God as Holy Spirit is right here and now.
Yes, the Trinity is difficult to understand. Rather than antiquated, however, it is foundational to our faith. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the way we describe how we experience God. It is an idea that is underneath and holds everything up. It must be cautioned, however, that these words are attempts to put into words that which is beyond mere words. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but metaphors for the reality they attempt to describe.
Those who object to referring to Almighty God as the male parent are right. Some of us had absolutely terrible fathers. That metaphor does not even come close to the reality of the way we experience God. On the other hand, to substitute God the Mother doesn't solve the problem. Some of us didn't have very good mothers either. Be careful not to become impaled on words that struggle but ultimately fail to describe the full reality. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are, after all, metaphors and metaphors are always limited.
Over the centuries, efforts have been made to use other words to describe the reality of the experience of God. As far back as the Middle Ages, other metaphors have been tried for the Trinity -- God the Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier; God as Fire, Light, and Heat; God as Composer, Singer, and Song; God as Speaker, Word, and Breath.2
Fortunately, God is not offended by the metaphors we use to attempt to describe the reality -- as long as we don't mistake them for the reality. The experience of the reality of God cannot be fully described by saying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, those terms were the best attempt of the early church and they still do quite well.
____________
1. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper and Row, 1953), p. 208.
2. Penelope Mark-Stuart, "How God is Like the Back Porch Light," The Living Pulpit: Trinity, April-June 1999, p. 19.
For Further Reflection And/Or Discussion
Do you recall where/how/when you first encountered the question, "How do you know there is a God?"
How did you answer the question then?
How do you answer the question differently now?
In discussing the Trinity, other than Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what designations make sense to you?
