A pastor friend of mine asked me yesterday if I could give her an example of how to talk about the doctrine of the Trinity to a layperson. One visitor to her church stopped by and told her that at past churches when she brought up the doctrine of the Trinity, the staff persons at the other churches told her that it was impossible to explain the Trinity and how the persons work together. This question actually comes at the perfect timing as I had been planning for a week to post on my thoughts on the Triune God. Recently, there have been biblioblogs that have had discussions on the importance of monotheism in early Christianity. I will leave you to decide for yourself whether Christianity has its origin in Jewish monotheism or not:
Rob Kashow: Here, here, and here
Mike Whitenton: here, here, here, and here.
James McGrath: here.
Aaron Rathborn: here.
My answer to the visitor’s questions would be this: yes, it is possible to talk about the Trinity because Christians are given the gifts of the Christian canon (both the Old and New Testaments) as well as Christian tradition. It is impossible, however, I would argue, to talk about the Triune God with a layperson if one’s starting point is the historic creeds and formulas of the Christian faith. I submit that the Trinity is more than a formula; the Holy Trinity is a historical event, found in and revealed in a historical person: that being Jesus of Nazareth, circa 33 AD (or CE for Common Era, whichever you prefer). The Trinity tells Christians how God relates to the world, how God communicates with us, and who God is. The Triune God is revealed on the cross; the crucifixion must be the starting point of all Christian theology, as Martin Luther argued. Christianity teaches that God is love, and we know that God is love because first and foremost, God loved us and God loves humanity by sending Jesus the Messiah, God’s only Son to be a sacrifice who makes God and humanity at-one (atonement) according to 1st John 4:8-10.
God is revealed as a God who gives Godself for the sake of humanity. God gives the Holy Spirit to humanity so that we can know the Truth from falsehood; no one has ever seen God (John 1:18 and 1st John 4:12), but we can understand who God is because Jesus is God’s revelation, the Word of Life as Athanasius called him. On the cross, God is in the world, suffering, being present with humanity even at our worst, and giving up Godself for the sake of others. God shares God’s life with others, much like a mother and a father shares their life with their children, in the conceiving, birthing, and raising of children. Children know what love is only from receiving it from their mother and father. Children know what love is because they remember acts of love by their parents. The crucifixion of Christ is the act of love that the Trinity gives us to know and understand what God’s love looks like. God’s love is unconditional, and God sent God’s Son to die for the world (John 3:16) so that human beings can know and experience God’s salvation.
If I may quote Jürgen Moltmann to conclude this post, because he says it best:
“God suffers by us. He suffers with us. Suffering is in God. God does not ultimately reject, nor is he ultimately rejected. Rejection is within God. In the way hidden in the cross, the triune God is already on the way toward becoming “all in all [1st Corinthians 15:28],” and “in him we live and move and have our being [Acts 17:28].”[1]
[1] Jürgen Moltmann, The Experiment Hope(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975). page 84
Works Cited
Moltmann, Jürgen. The Experiment Hope. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975.
Truth and Peace,
Rod
Rod,
Not sure how even a Modalist could disagree with this (except, of course, for the use of the word Trinity).
Good point, Joel.
Thanks Rod for the link. I like the image that if God is love in 1 John 4:8b, then there must be interpersonal relationships of love within the Triune God from before creation and that God extends that love to His creation.
I agree, Mike.
Rod: I’d take issue with a few things that you’ve said.
First, I think the creeds are a fine starting place as long as we’re willing to take the time to explain them, and even that isn’t very difficult if we’re talking about the N-C Creed.
Second, to say that “the Holy Trinity is a historical event” conflates God with his creation (i.e., space & time) in such a way that I could only call it panentheism at best, pantheism at worst. It eliminates the immanent Trinity and replaces it with the economic Trinity.
Third, I think that the crucifixion is a starting place, but not the only or even the best. Why not begin with the incarnation of the Son which leads forward to the cross? Why not begin with the resurrection which necessarily points back to the cross? Why not begin with the sending of the Spirit to indwell believers?
Fourth, when you speak of God as love but do so in a way that his creation seems necessary to his being love then I can’t see how this differs at all from the Unitarian God. The Unitarian God needs his creation in order to be love, but the Trinity has existed for all eternity, indeed, sans time, as Father, Son, and Spirit in a relationship of mutual love. I’d submit that we can’t explain God’s love for us apart from God’s love within Godself.
And finally, I can’t see any warrant to say that God (in the general sense of the entire Trinity) suffers. To say that the Son (who is himself God incarnate suffered) is warranted, but I don’t see the Father or the Spirit suffering in/on the cross.
Nick,
1st Point.
The Creeds are fine, but they should not be the starting place for Christian theology. The Church must return time and again to the cross otherwise it will lose its way. It is the story of Christianity, forget the Cross, forget God’s movement in the world.
2nd point.
These are typical criticism of Jurgen Moltmann and the theologies of hope. I am not frightened by the accusation of panentheism. In fact, if one reads the 1st Corinthians 15:28, God will be all in all. God’s presence is both a present and future reality. God is everywhere. God is not all things and all things are not God. But the Divine presence is in all things. I do not see any evidence to the contrary in Scripture or tradition. God does not exist far far away, up and away in the in the sky; heaven is in the here and now . I do not believe in the distant. transcendent God of Barthianism or Reformed theology.
Another point of departure: God has relationship with himself, and it is different than the world. I do not deny the immanent or economic Trinity.
3. Nick,
Everything you point to leads back to the crucfixion. The Spirit does indwell with believers, but for what purpose but to conform the faithful into the image of the Crucified Messiah. In the end. the Cross points to everything we know about God; it is the wisdom and power of God–everything else is but foolishness.
4. Nick,
I did not argue that God needs God’s creation. I am not a process theologian. I am only explaining how God has revealed God’s own love in God’s freedom. Please do not read “necessity” when I use “God’s love.” God does have relationship with Godself; that is why I believe God has a Son, and God exists as Father because God has a unique, only begotten Son. Theirs is a unique relaitionship unlike any human communion.
5. I never said that the Father and Spirit suffered on the cross. The cross just reveals the history of Trinitarian relations. Nothing more nothing less. To clarify, to continue with Moltmann’s and my arguments– in his book The Trinity and The Kingdom–Moltmann’s arguments goes as it follows:
The Son suffers death.
The Spirit experiences the loss of her/his Bearer.
The Father loses a Son.
Three different types of suffering, one event. Not patripassionism or modalism. Three different persons, three different types of suffering–all in one event–the cross.
Truth and Peace
Rod
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