The problem’s not the Trinity; it’s us!

Atheists and adherents of non-Christian religions sometimes find common ground in dismissing and even scoffing at Christianity due to the doctrine of the Trinity, a foundational Christian belief.  ‘It’s irrational’, they assert.  ‘How can God be one yet three?  How can you claim to believe in and worship one God who is at the same time three different persons; Father, Son and Holy Spirit’?  Yet for Christianly to have been around such a long time, to have spread so widely and to have been so influential one should not arrogantly or ignorantly dismiss it so quickly or glibly. 
 
It is true that the Bible reveals and Christianity teaches theism, the concept of God being one.  Yet we also assert that the Father is God, Jesus the eternal Son is God and that the Holy Spirit who reveals and makes the Father and Son known to believers is also God.  Further, while the Father is in the Son and in the Spirit, the Father is not the Son or the Spirit and so on for each of the three persons or members of the Godhead or Trinity.
 
Human reasoning, logic and intelligence are wonderful gifts from God, but they have limits.  Take for example the existence of our universe.  It needs matter and energy to exist.  Where did matter and energy come from?  Christians believe the eternal God created them.  Atheists must either acknowledge they have always existed (they are eternal!) or speculate by presenting another explanation that also goes beyond what we can know.  From the perspective of human observation and reasoning such questions remain shrouded in mystery.  Yet matter and energy are not irrational.  We observe, experience and use them all of the time.  It is just that their origins are beyond our limited knowledge, reasoning and understanding.  It is the same regarding ‘space’.  Is it infinite?  What is beyond it if not?  Again, these things are not irrational, they are real phenomena, it is just that the answers to these questions are beyond our limited ability to know and understand.  They are mysteries as far as human observation and reasoning is concerned.   
 
The Psalmist, or writer of Psalm 8 in the Bible states:
 
”When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?”
 
The Psalmist writes that the heavens or skies, what we would call the universe or space, is just the work of ‘God’s fingers’.  If there are created things or phenomena that are beyond our understanding we should expect God, who simply created these things with his ‘fingers’, to be far, far more beyond our understanding.  Therefore like the existence of energy, matter and space God isn’t irrational, just beyond our limited understanding or reason.
 
Thankfully, God has not left us in the dark.  He has made possible another way of knowing.  He has come to us through the Bible or Christian Scriptures and most fully in and through Jesus to whom they point.  St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2 that “God has revealed these things to us (Christians) by his Spirit”.  The Bible makes God as Father, Son and Spirit known to us, and when we trust in, pray to and praise the Father, or the Son or the Holy Spirit, those with God’s Spirit know that we are praising the one and same God.  There is another way of knowing that is beyond reason; it is the way of faith, created and sustained by God’s Spirit through his Word.  Not irrational, just beyond limited human reasoning. Faith is another way of knowing!  We need to humble ourselves and acknowledge our human limitations and the limits to what we can discover and know by ourselves.  We are not to judge God by our limited reasoning but allow him to judge us, inform us and direct us to Christ for the forgiveness and salvation we desperately need.  We are not gods!  Jesus said ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’.  We don’t come to God by our cleverness, but by his initiative and his revealing himself through his Word and Spirit. 
 
The amazing thing is, according to the Psalmist and the Bible as a whole, that this all knowing, powerful, majestic and mysterious God cares for us deeply and want’s us to know and trust him and his love, presence, forgiveness peace and provision now and forever.  The blessing and benefits of being connected to such a one as great and awesome as this is truly incredible.  He continually frustrates and confounds the arrogant who think they are in control while delivering and blessing the humble who look to him!
 
Below is a hymn which is sung by many Christians on Trinity Sunday which this year falls on Sunday 16th of June.  I add it here for all to reflect upon: 
 
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
who wert and art and evermore shalt be.
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye made blind by sin thy glory may not see,
only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
perfect in power, in love, and purity.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea;
holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Reginald Herber, (Public domain).

Comments or questions can be made by clicking on the word ‘comment’ below the article.
 
God’s blessings,
 
Pastor Mike Steicke (St Peters Lutheran Church and Eastside Lutheran College, Hobart).