
The Doctrine and Concept
of
the Most Holy Trinity


Some doctrines perplex us more
than others. Offhand, we could enumerate the
following:
-
The
Incarnation (the infinite God is born of a woman, the Virgin
Mary, and takes upon Himself our finite humanity)
-
The
Virgin Birth (Mary remained a virgin before, during, and after
the conception and birth of her Son, Jesus)
-
The
Immaculate Conception (Mary's being conceived in her own mother's
womb without the stain of Original Sin)
-
Creation
ex nihilo (the creation by God of something out of nothing)
We
assent to these dogmas (dogma, just by the way, is not a four
letter word — but rather, a formally revealed truth) although they remain
mysteries, that is to say, they exceed the capacity of reason, while
not conflicting with it. No logical contradiction can be adduced
to discredit them; they simply lie beyond the province of our natural
experience and the limitations inherent in reason (and reason has
limitations: we need only ponder the concepts of infinity, infinite
divisibility, and eternity to name a few).
Among these dogmas, or revealed truths, however, none quite so perplexes
us as the notion of the Most Holy Trinity. That in and of itself it
remains a profound mystery is profoundly true. However, because it pertains
to the most central aspect of our faith as Catholics and Christians,
inasmuch as it pertains to the Person and nature of God, we attempt
to apprehend it in some measure, for only in knowing something, in knowing
of its nature, can we begin to love it.
We
do not love what we do not know, and our knowing defectively or insufficiently
results in our loving defectively or deficiently.
We Wish to Know God
We wish
to know Him well. In fact, we are convinced — and rightly so — that
the more we know about God, the more we will find to love in Him, and
the more we love, the greater our own felicity ... especially when that
love is requited.
Too often, in the minds of Christians, God is reduced to the Father
only: conceived as an elderly, avuncular figure with a great white beard
Who is rather stern and quite distant; one Who is really very little
involved in the trivial affairs of men, and so sent His Son instead,
and the Son, of course, is less than the Father. What is more, the Son
is more compassionate than this remote and rather irascible figure that
more resembles Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, than a Father. We like
Jesus — although we fear His Father. In fact, for so many, Christian
and pagan alike, Jesus was merely a man, perhaps a wise man, maybe even
a prophet of sorts — but not more. Well ... maybe ... but we
are not quite sure how. The Holy Spirit? This faceless Spirit, whatever
its nature, clearly cannot be that of a person, although
He nevertheless figures largely in this mysterious narrative. Quite
a conundrum.
Ask quite nearly every adult Catholic who has, over the past 40 years,
suffered from the inexcusable negligence in Catechism, or CCD (Confraternity
of Christian Doctrine), as we call it here in America — a negligence
that lays at the feet of the Bishops who, opting for a more visible
correctitude in matters social and political, have defaulted on their
primary responsibility as Teachers of the Faith in
their respective dioceses — and the answer is the same, although the
inflections vary: “I really don't know”, or, “it is terribly unclear
to me.”
Many — perhaps most — will reply that there are three gods, or that
one is superior to the other, or existed prior to the other, or in fact,
that only one is God and the others are something of the nature of demiurges
or lesser gods, possessed of remarkable abilities, to be sure, but rather
like us in every other way.
St. Augustine literally wrote volumes on the subject (De Trinitate),
as did St. Thomas Aquinas and many, many, other great and learned Saints.
Even the the most modest compendium using the utmost concision will,
very likely, avail you little in the way of understanding the most fundamental
features of this doctrine, this profound mystery — and in failing
to yield understanding in whatever measure, consequently failing to
motivate love for that which is not understood.
The Mystery of God
A “Mystery”
— many fail to understand —is not something contradictory to
logic and reason, but rather exceeds the limitations of human
reasoning and formal logic, much in the way that “seeing” incommensurably
exceeds any possible description of “what is seen”. What I mean is this:
being “color-blind” (actually color-deficient), I have never seen the
color “Purple.” I see “Purple” as indistinguishable from “Blue” —
but it is not Blue. It is this mysterious visual experience
called (by others) Purple. No matter how many carefully crafted and
descriptive words you may use, no matter how many analogies you may
invoke, none of them will yield to me the experience of the color
Purple. It is beyond my ken because it beyond my experience, and
all human discourse presumes shared experiences to their intelligibility.
Does purple then not exist because I cannot understand it, still less
perceive it, even while others can? In a word, no.
Perhaps, then,
as it is said, “a picture (in this case a diagram) is worth a thousand
words”. So, for the sake of those who should be teaching and
do not, or are teaching and know little of what they teach —
but most of all for the children, we present you a picture — in the
shameful absence of words.
Our motivation is simple: if you do not know God, how can you
love Him?
Oh, yes ...God does not “look like” the conceptual drawing ...
and we truly fear that we are compelled to say that ...
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
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Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com

Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse
3.8)
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