The doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of our faith and stands as one of the most practical points of doctrine the church offers to its people. This statement may seem a bit provocative to those of us who have been faithful followers of Jesus Christ yet have never given much thought to the doctrine of the Trinity. Even though the faithful may confess the truth of the Trinity, the applicability of the concepts described in the Nicean Creed is easily lost. In the creed, we describe Jesus as God, “begotten not made;” the Holy Spirit as God, “who proceeds from the Father and the Son;” and the Father as God, who is “maker of all that is seen and unseen” but yet not the “maker” of the Son and Holy Spirit. How can such a confusing jumble of concepts serve as the most applicable and life-promoting doctrine in the church?
Confusion and even apathy about the Trinity is perfectly understandable. The church took nearly 400 years to articulate just the barest outline of what the Christian god was and was not (which resulted in the Nicean Creed). For two thousand years the brightest minds of the church have declared it the greatest mystery of the faith and whenever they attempted to explain it they inevitably faltered. The smartest theologians routinely joke about the impossibility of not falling into heresy after 30 seconds of discussing the Trinity. But nevertheless, the church, historically, has been intolerant of dissenting views of God, a fact which emphasizes the importance of a correct understanding of the Trinity.
Proper knowledge about God was important to the church because it was attempting to explain the most fundamental idea about God revealed to us: namely, that God is love. Much of the church’s complex language about God was an attempt to describe the parameters for the nature of God’s love. When we say “God is love” we are not saying that he loves, that he is a loving God, or that merely one of his characteristics is to love. Rather we are providing a commentary that sees God’s multiple characteristics as expressions of a being who is Love. Thus, the best way to understand how a God who exists outside of time and loves without a body, parts, or passions is through the doctrine of the Trinity.
When we confess one God in three persons (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), we are using a short-hand to describe the mystery of God’s relationship in himself. That is, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit communicate so intimately that “they” penetrate each other in such a way that “they” are one unified and indivisible being—the being we call “God”. In other words, the three persons of God are in such close communion with each other that God is one essence, one nature, one being. This is important because it means the very essence of God, his very nature, is communion. He is in relationship to himself.
This unique communion points to such concepts as intimacy, trust, and a dynamic communication characterized by self-giving. In fact, the theologian Augustine of Hippo habitually referred to the “gift-giving” quality in God in which the Holy Spirit bonded the Father and Son in a dynamic act defined by charity, giving, and mercy. Other early theologians (such as the Cappadocian fathers), emphasized the role in which the person of the Holy Spirit graciously indwells within us, transforms us, and brings us back into fellowship with Christ and ultimately the Father. These models were used to point to the merciful and gracious dynamism in which God’s creatures are invited to participate in his loving communion.
Despite the abstractness of this discussion, it is possible to see how the doctrine of the Trinity points to something about God’s love that is immediately applicable to ourselves. For if God created us in his image, then the doctrine reminds us that he created us in his triune image--the implication being that we were created to love in a way that corresponds to the Real Love of God himself. So the example for the love that we desire to share and experience among our human relations is set for us by the love that defines the being of God: a communion of love characterized by such qualities as intimacy, trust, and the communication of self-giving love.
A few examples from the Bible show how our humanity relates to the nature of God. In the creation story, God did not call the creation of Adam “good” until he was united to his wife as “one flesh.” There are many layers of meaning in this idea. The first, and most apparent, layer points to the ways in which the male and female reflect the love-communion of God through the marriage bond. These ways include, among other things, the physical act in which the male and female bond themselves together through sexual intimacy; the self-sacrificial act in which we communicate our bodies, habits, and gifts in service to the personal happiness and fulfillment of the marriage partner; and the cooperative act in which we labor to help the partner achieve a particular goal.
The second layer points to the ways in which the family reflects the unity of God. Within the same creation story, God commands humanity to “be fruitful and multiply.” The command to procreate possesses a unitive element because children are bonded to their parents through acts of love similar to those that bond husband and wife. Children are physically bonded to their parents, in that they are born to their parents, fed from their parent’s hands, and live within proximity to their parents. Parents are bonded to their children through their self-sacrifice, service, and commitment in spite of their personal dreams or ambitions. Together, parents and children are bonded through their cooperative task in the developing the child’s spiritual maturity.
The third layer points to the ways in which human society reflects the unity in diversity of God. When God created the individual of Adam, he declared “It is not good for man to be alone.” Here, God makes explicit the idea that an individual, solitary human being does not reflect the goodness of God’s love-communion. Rather, the reflection of God’s love-communion is realized through the manifestation of human community in the creation of the woman Eve, the procreation of the first family, and ultimately in the development of human society. Even though sin, betrayal, and the historical development of society led to the fracturing of the original human unity, God nevertheless calls us to work towards familial unity as described through the Law delivered to Israel, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and ultimately through the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, which inaugurated the Kingdom of God and offered humanity a way of life in which the original unity could be restored.
Additionally, the apostle John tells us in his epistle that our loving acts are the means through which we experience the knowledge and love of God. He says we must “love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” The ideas from the book of Genesis demonstrate that humans were made to be united, while the apostle John’s ideas demonstrate that we were made to love. Put together, the biblical notion is that God created humanity to be united in love as God is united in love.
Once we reflect upon these ideas, we can observe how the doctrine of the Trinity serves as an actual example, sign, or standard in which we model our personal disciplines, mutual relations, and social behaviors. Humans are called to image forth the love-communion of God through our relations with others, all so we can be characterized by the diverse unity of God.
The Trinity is the doctrine that shows us our purpose and offers us a guideline for fulfilling our purposes in God’s universe. So when we love and experience love, it will do us well to remember the doctrine of the Trinity, for the more we recognize the source and nature of True Love, the more we can love in ways that satisfy ourselves and others. So, as the apostle says, let us love one another, for love is from God!
