Understanding The Trinity page 1

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Over the centuries the Christian Church has often created creeds or statements of faith to describe what she has believed to be orthodox faith in the face of challenges to that faith. At certain times we might recite the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed, for example.

Another great early creed was the Athanasian Creed, named after Athanasius, not surprisingly. He was the Christian in the early centuries who most eloquently defended both the oneness of God and the divinity of Jesus Christ.

The story goes of a minister leading an act of worship where the Athanasian Creed was being recited. The language is not easy:

'We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance ...

The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Spirit uncreated. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal ...

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.'

As the minister got to that last line - 'The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Spirit incomprehensible' - he found himself saying, 'The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Spirit incomprehensible, the whole thing's incomprehensible!'

And I imagine he might have some sympathisers here today. The whole thing's incomprehensible.

In fact I can't even guarantee that explaining the doctrine of the Trinity means that we shall completely understand God - how could we? I take heart from the words of the theologian Dr Paul Jewett, who said,

'The church did not formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in order to resolve the mystery of God's self-revelation, but rather to preserve that mystery.'
[quoted in Johnson, p40]

We are entering the realm of mystery. But just because something is mysterious does not mean we should dismiss it. We cannot throw on the bonfire everything we do not understand.

And nor should we abandon hope before going in. Let us not be afraid to use our minds as an act of worship. The Scriptures call us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Nevertheless, this is the sermon in the series where I have to use some of the special language of the Trinity that the church has developed down the years. Remember I said last time that new discoveries and new revelation in all fields of knowledge mean we need to use new language.

However even if it is stretching, do not be daunted! Stretching is good when we exercise our bodies, and it is good in the intellectual and spiritual domains too. You never know, you might end up more spiritually fit if you are willing to be stretched!

I am going to try to explain things with the use of a couple of diagrams, so I hope that those visual aids will help people get a sense of what we are grappling with. They involve a triangle and a circle.¹ And don't worry, I won't leave this as all airy-fairy theoretical stuff: this is all heading towards some practical conclusions about the way we live our lives.

¹ For copyright reasons, these diagrams are not available on this website.

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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration.