Triessence

Thinking about the doctrine of God as Trinity we have to admit that the concept of three in one is not difficult to grasp. There are examples of such things in our everyday life.

An obvious three-in-one is water, without which there would be no life on our planet. Water exists for us in three forms, most commonly as the liquid. We don't just depend on drinking water for our survival, we consist largely of water. Between 55% and 78% of the human body is water, varying according to age, gender and amount of body fat. It makes me thirsty just thinking about it! Other than liquid water, we experience water in its solid form, as ice, and as water vapour. The three states of matter can be seen as a simple and imperfect simile for the three persons of the Trinity.

We also experience the notion of three in one as we contemplate the material world that surrounds us. We view our environment in terms of three dimensions: depth, width, and height. Our everyday understanding of the physical world is interpreted entirely within this strange concept of three in one. Theoretical physicists might postulate the existence of more dimensions to our universe, but for practical purposes, we only experience three.

Is it possible that God has built this into the universe to be an object lesson for us?

Christian scholars agree that God spent all of human history up to the birth of Christ preparing for that exact moment when a young Jewish girl would speak her acquiescence to the will of God with a humble "behold the handmaid of the Lord." Nations were brought low, and nations were raised up to provide the propitious circumstances for the birth of the son of Mary and the Son of God in long ago Bethlehem.

The notion of a single deity was remarkable in the setting to which Christ was introduced. God's chosen people were surrounded by polytheistic cultures rife with blood rituals that sometimes included human sacrifices. In the midst of this, God presented a clear message: Hear O Israel; The Lord your God, the Lord is one. Whenever there was an attempt to integrate foreign gods, the prophets responded with rebuke and the reminder that there was only one God who had chosen and delivered them. How on earth then did we get to the bizarre Christian doctrine of the Trinity?

Given the difficulties in understanding and communicating the concept of the Trinity, perhaps it is best put aside as too mysterious and indefensible. This would deny the value of the meticulous groundwork that is laid in history and in scripture for this surprising doctrine. If there is any one defining characteristic of historical and present day Judaism, it is monotheism. The Shema Yisrael proclaims in no uncertain terms, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. This is the key distinction that set ancient Israel at odds with its neighbours and put the "chosen" in the "chosen people."

If there are a multitude of gods, then surely there are enough to go around: one for you, one for me, and one for those crazy Philistines that live down the road. If, however, there is only one God, we had better be sure to be on his or her side when the going gets tough. Israel was on the Lord’s side, and paid the price dearly when she strayed.

Into this strict setting, Christ was born. We must conclude then, that he is nothing other than a remarkable man, or that he is truly God incarnate. There is no room here for a demi-god.

Christians understand and define God according to the pictures drawn for us in the Bible. We see God as Father, Mother, Shepherd, Judge, King, and Advocate. None of these are perfect pictures of the wonder of God. Each image is limited by the imperfections both of our understanding and the human models provided for our consideration.

All of us have known, and some of us have had, fathers who have not lived up to the ideals we might imagine for them. Some are cold, unloving, irresponsible and downright abusive. These are not characteristics of God the tender, loving, diligent, and caring Heavenly Father revealed in Scripture.

The same point can be made for God who loves us as the best of mothers loves her nursing child. But while a mother might, through cold-heartedness, selfish substance abuse or the ravages of dementia, forget her child, God declares that he will never forget us. He writes us on his hands.

To continue down the list: shepherds can’t all be perfect; history attests to the cruelties of judges and kings; popular wisdom has only unflattering things to say about lawyers. None of these biblical analogies is bulletproof. No analogy can say all there is to say about anything.

The idea of the Trinity, that God is three persons in one, poses challenges to our understanding. It always seemed to me that the doctrine of the Trinity, as otherworldly and unimaginable as it is, must somehow surpass these weak human analogies and get to the heart of what God is as a spiritual being. However, to gain any usefulness from the doctrine in terms of comprehending God, I have found that it is more valuable to me personally to consider the doctrine of the Trinity as one more picture drawn for us by insightful reading of the texts and history. I certainly would not dare say "merely a picture," but it is a picture nonetheless.

If this smacks of sacrilege, ask yourself: what does a spiritual being have to do with numbers, a robustly physical concept? Trying to depict the spiritual in our material world is difficult. This needs to be acknowledged from the start.