The Trinity
My purpose today is
(1) to explain the doctrine of the Trinity in a (hopefully!) clear way and
(2) to suggest how the Trinity shapes our lives as people.
What is the church’s understanding of Trinity?
5 statements are offered.
1) Three Hypostasis in one undivided Ousia or Three “persons” in one undivided God
One of the difficulties in understanding the Trinity is that people start with the one God and try to say how there are then three persons. They offer analogies such as the egg with a shell, yolk and protein, or water that is steam, liquid and solid. I do not think, however, that these images are either accurate or helpful.
I suggest we start where Scriptures starts, with the three “persons” (Father, Son and Spirit or Creator Word and Spirit) and suggest how they are One. For example, reflect on the readings today that speak about God in precisely these terms.
The classic formula of the doctrine of the Trinity is that there are three “persons” in one undivided God. Each “person” is fully divine; one is not more God than another. Used here the term persons does not mean what it means today in that each person has a separate mind, nature and will. Rather the three persons share one undivided will, mind and nature. The Greek terms are more helpful in this regard. There are three Hypostasis in one Ousia. Ousia is the divine substance. See before you a dance. While there are three dancers, there is only one dance.
In simple language our belief is that God is beyond us, God is in us and God is with us, at the very same time. Said another way, God is three “persons” who love each other so much that they are one. Said yet another way, God is community.
2) Persons as relation
It is precisely relationship that defines the Trinity, not the “nodes of being”. In the other words the Creator is the Creator because S/he is the Source of the Word. The Word is the Divine nature existing as flowing from the Creator. (Or the Son is the Son precisely because he is the son of the Father). The Spirit is the Divine nature existing as the love bond flowing from Creator and Word.
3) Divine processions
Here the word procession is a Scriptural word that describes how the Word comes forth from the Creator and how the Spirit comes forth from the Word and the Creator. As we heard last week, the Spirit proceeds or comes forth as the bond of Love uniting Creator and Word.
4) Perichoresis
Reflect on John 10.38: “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Or John 17.21: “May they be one as you are in me and I am in you may they be in us.” The word for this is perichoresis which simply means that the Divine persons are in each other or flow into each other.
5) The unity of the Divine Persons “ad extra”
All that distinguishes the Divine persons or hypostases from each other is their relationships, and because everything that God does is done by all three “persons” in unison.
So much for an outline of what the church understands by Trinity, what does it actually mean for each of us today? Here are several suggestions:
What does it mean for me today?
1) Praying
Reflect on our prayers. We can pray to God, Jesus and Spirit and direct our prayers to each of the three hypostases or persons of the trinity. Many of us pray to God without reflecting to whom we are talking. We can have different relationships with each person of the Trinity.
2) Trinity shows that to be a person means to be in relationship.
We can understand that we indwell each other. Other humans are our brothers and sisters.
To indwell each other means to live inside the other. This can become the basis for conflict management and discussion; we are invited at times to give up our point of reference and really see it from within the other person’s skin – to walk a mile in another’s shoes as the adage goes.
3) Revisit our understanding of difference.
Unity is not the negation of difference or the reduction of difference into one. That is uniformity and in the history of the world it is associated with great evil; think for example of the rise to power of Hitler, or the disastrous effects of communism. Unity and uniformity are two very different things; while unity is of God uniformity is not. In the Trinity there is a unity in diversity. There are not three “fathers” or three “sons”. This bears remembering when we discuss ecumenism or different ways of being church or different ways of worshipping. The desire is not for us all to look the same or worship in the same way, or for us to amalgamate into one worshipping community, that is uniformity. The pastors in the three different churches fully understand that there is one church in Alstonville worshipping in three or four different ways. We have unity but no desire for uniformity.
4) The church and society
God is community. But humankind is also community. God’s desire is that these two communities should be one. In other words, God’s inner life is a model for our human life.
Trinity teaches us that God is structured along the lines of
self-emptying love. The Creator shares everything with the Word and the Son (Word) gives her/himself totally to the Father-Mother. The spirit is the love that flows from Creator to Word. Our church must be structured along the lines of this
self-emptying love.
The church is meant to be the place where we see the unity between God and humans taking shape, where we see the process of self-emptying love. People are supposed to see what it means to live in the Trinity by looking at us. Church structures have been revisited in the light of this. Some ways in which we see this happening is in worship, in liturgy and in communion because in communion we are one with God and one with each other. In worship and liturgy, we are many and one at the very same time and so live our Trinitarian life.
Society too should be structured along the lines of self-emptying love. Society should mirror this inner life of God called the Trinity. In Australia we see some of this taking shape in our care for the vulnerable in the policies that are in place to include differently abled children at school and in our protection of the welfare of the mature. At the same time, we realise how we fail in our residual racism that we prefer to deny and not own up to. If we take Trinity seriously this will be the basis on which we reflect on our policies as a nation: the deportation of refugees, the protection of the environment through carbon pricing and our care of animals who with the cosmos are invited to share in the divine life of God.
In other words, we are to oppose that which works against sharing, mutuality, belonging and service which we see modelled in God.
5) Experiencing God
The psalmist says:
As the sparrow finds a home
And the swallow a nest for herself
Happy are those who find their home in you.
God invites us to make our home in God. We are invited to become part of the divine love affair. The love that flows between Creator and Word flows in us through us and with us. We are baptised into this love affair. We are meant to dwell in this safe place now and forever.