This Sunday is the Feast of the Holy Trinity and wisdom would be wise to advise us to say as little as possible about the mystery that defies definition. Or if we are so bold to attempt an analogy we should preface everything we say with St. Paul’s word picture of the temporal peering into the eternal, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror…” or the words of Job after God showed up. “I’ve spoken of things too great for me to understand.” That doesn’t mean there isn’t something to say, only that an analogy easily understood will always be a poor reflection of the definitive truth. Like a joke that has to be explained it loses something in the translation. So the best thing to be said is that the unity of the Trinity is not to be explained to the human mind but believed in the human heart. What we are to believe is that the unity of the Trinity is the ultimate expression love. In the creative unity of love Father Son Spirit calls forth from nothing all that is and it is very good. In the redeeming unity of love Father Son Spirit dies for the created whose lust for creator status turned the goodness of creation into something less. In the sustaining unity of love Father Son Spirit rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race continually recreates us so that the goodness of God’s creation, light and love, might overcome the darkness and death of human design. Father Son Spirit is the Unity of Love beyond knowing except our knowing it is all we need to be holy and whole.
Yes, it's really hard to talk about the Trinity. After all, we're talking here about the very "being" of God. I certainly believe we can sense something about God's nature - and what we sense is profound love, as you pointed out. But we'd have to be awfully arrogant to try to make assertions about the inner being of a God who is so vast, so grand, so profoundly loving.
ReplyDeleteI think we struggle to even talk about our own being. We can certainly talk about our physical bodies(although I think there's more mystery in that subject than we often realize). But what can we really say about other aspects of our being? Like our psyche, for instance? Or our soul, or spirit? What can we really say about the phenomenon of mind? Or intuition?
If we struggle to talk about the makeup of our own being, how much more difficult is it to speculate about God's being?
Good point, Rich. If we only dimly understand our own being how can we imagine the infinte? That is why the incarnation - God come down - is the essential word about God.
ReplyDelete