The above graph depicts a traditional explanation of the Christian concept of The Trinity. While it is accurate as far as a human construct of a divine concept can be made accurate, it suffers from need of further explanation. It is insufficient to claim, as the church has for centuries, that The Trinity is a "mystery" that must be accepted through faith without understanding. That is not to say that the Divine can be made known through reason alone. It cannot. But if we are to have faith in a concept the concept must be rationally reasonable. We should not have had faith that the moon was made of green cheese until 1969, for example. The "green cheese" concept was not based on any rational values. It was silly. Similarly, we should not have accepted the idea that "little boys are made of snails or puppy dog tails", simply because we could not disprove it until genetic science developed. It would have been a faith based on irrationality.
The Christian faith needs rational explanations for its belief systems even if we cannot begin to approach the divine with reason alone.
So, we must attempt to understand the Trinity rationally as well as mystically as did the Gospel writer of John's Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us". KJV John 1:1, 1:14
For those with understanding, the idea was that Christ was "Logos" of God. "Logos", in the Greek (λóγος,), means "Word" or "discourse" or "reason". In short The word and reason of God, incarnate.
Note that the word "Logos" (English) also had the meaning "discourse". More about that later.
We Christians then fell into a trap of Christology when we avowed that the ONLY way to worship God was through Christ. If we were to attempt to graph the Trinity in a different way we might see the following;
God is:
The Father The Christ The Holy Spirit
These are not mutually exclusive concepts. When one embraces one, one embraces all. You cannot have an understanding of God or spirituality without all three elements.
The characteristics of the three elements are different.
The Father
The Father is the pure spirit, the unknowable, the Alpha and Omega, the mystical aspect of God that is hidden from us. It is for that reason that early believers including the Jews would not utter or write the name of God, acknowledging that no human could approach that holiness or amorphous concept with reason.
The Christ
The Christ is the Word, The unknowable, made knowable through and in human form. As such, while he IS God, He is also a human being. Both fully human and fully Divine. When He speaks or acts He does so with the Power of the unknowable God because He IS that element. His life then is pure and simple and loving as God is pure and loving and not ostentatious.
Unfortunately many Christians stop here and we have many who claim we can only approach God through the manifestation of the Christ. This puts forth a concept like "you must be a Christian to be saved", which has an effect of completely ignoring the third part of the Trinity.
What is clear is that the Christ can be known through reason since He has a human form and speech. But that aspect of Him that is Divine can only be known through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit
If there were a part of God ignored, this would be it. The Spirit of God is manifested in many ways. To claim it is absent from the teachings of Buddha or Ghandi, or Krishna, or Mohammed would be simply wrong. It is also manifested in many parts of the human condition, in art, music, literature, poetry, all the arts, the human spirit is infused with the divine, the reaching upward to deity. Art is loaded with manifestations of the spirit of God. To claim art is not spiritual would be a huge mistake. To say the Shakespeare, for example, does not reflect the Holy Spirit would be patently ridiculous. Now this is not to say that a Christian cannot be infused as well. Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, John Wesley, Calvin and so many others like Mother Teresa are clearly attempting to espouse the Spirit of God through their ministries. Yes, they may be believers in Christ, but their understanding of Him differs and their conclusions, even their religions or denominations, are not the same. Something else, beyond the traditional understanding of Christ as a one way street is operating here and that something is the Holy Spirit.
It is here we encounter the Greek meaning of Logos as "discourse". A discourse characterized by interaction, by RELATIONSHIP with the divine. Perhaps irrational, perhaps incomplete, perhaps flawed, but none the less a relationship, a give and take where He infuses us and we respond. This is , in short, the Christian concept of "Grace". It is described as the "unmerited" love of God. Not earned, but given, to which we respond with Love of fellow human.
It is no wonder that Christ refers to baptism as the baptism of the " Holy Spirit". It is not through reason but through faith, it is a rebirth experience defying reason. It is a change of heart, of something beyond reason. It has no reason. It simply IS. And its result is Love.
If we were to use a linear graph (an imperfect process at best, we would wind up with something like the following;
God
The Father The Christ The Holy Spirit
The Father The Christ The Holy Spirit
Unknowable to Humans Knowable as the human Sensed as the spirit
If then we were to attempt to chart this understanding it might look a little like the following:
The Father The Christ The Holy Spirit
Cannot say much more Can study and know Cannot study but can "know" or "feel"
inscrutable reason mystical
The Trinity then is the understanding of God as best humans can through reason and "Faith" or mysticism.
What then does our intellectual understanding, our understanding through reason alone, mean? I have listed some tenets which only make sense using the foregoing understandings.
1. "One must be a 'Christian' to be saved" is in error because it substitutes a human religion for the Divine Holy Spirit. It stops at the first two parts of the equation. It not only denies the third aspect of the Trinity but also limits the Human manifestation of God to Jesus Christ alone. Ghandi and Buddha, for example, cannot be human manifestations of God, even though we must acknowledge they can through the Holy Spirit. What a twisted understanding we have!
2. "You can only receive communion if you are a member of my denomination" has the same problem as number 1 it denies your spirit.
3. God is "out there" and I am here, creates a horrible separation between the Holy Spirit and Mankind, a relationship which we have already admitted occurs in non-sectarian, religion neutral art. God dwells within each human being through the Holy Spirit regardless of their religion or non- religion. We are all children of God.
4."You are not welcome or are in some way disadvantaged if you are (fill in the blanks) Illegal, Gay or Lesbian, a woman, A Muslim, an Episcopalian, a two headed dwarf, etc. Nothing in the concept of the Trinity nor in Jesus ministry would claim this. All are welcome in the spirit and flesh. To deny this is to totally misrepresent Christianity as a concept or as a religion. When I encounter a denomination that won't allow me to receive communion if I am not a member, I am dismayed and saddened beyond measure.
There are any number of other examples of human constructs that, so sadly, contradict the Trinity and the Spirit.
The overriding tenet of all faiths is that God, or the Creation, is Love and our mission is to develop some form of unlimited compassion. Even Humanism, even total Atheism, avows the same concept, that even WITHOUT God, we need to develop some form of unlimited compassion.
God as Love
If one accepts the idea that God is Love. Then one must understand love with both reason and spirit.
It is not reasonable to claim that "God is Love unless you are a "fill-in-the-blanks" as previously outlined, as that denies the Spirit once again. If we accept the mystical revelation of God then we must embrace mystical Love. A Love which has no boundaries, no limits, no caveats, no conditions, no what-ifs, no gotchas!
If we are to understand God's love as best we Christian humans can we need to understand the Trinity.
We need to understand there are no boundaries to the Holy Spirit and we all possess it no matter who we are.
Prof. John P. Middleton
May 2011
