Trinity
Roger Forster
The following is the introduction to Roger's 2004 book, Trinity - Song and Dance God.
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The Trinity, that is, the description by God of himself as being ‘Three in One’, is an extremely important subject for theology. It is one of the doctrines unique to Christianity, and as such it is often attacked by proponents of other philosophies, and even at times questioned by some Christians themselves. Christian ideas about the Trinity have changed, developed and emerged in many different varieties over the centuries since the birth of the church. This development of ideas should not make us uneasy or cause us to question our biblical basis for the doctrine — dialogue and debate are the human processes whereby truth can break forth from the Scriptures and shine into our current situations, giving greater coherence and, therefore, ever increasing authority.
Let me give you an analogy that you may find helpful. Science¹ could be called ‘mankind's product derived from the data of the universe that God established at creation’.
Mankind goes to the data of the universe — that which cannot be changed — and he observes it, measures it and probes into it as far as he can, until he develops a ‘science’ or knowledge which explains why things work the way they do. These are not all unchangeable truths, of course, for as time goes by humankind discovers new things in the universe and so science keeps developing. For example, he finds that the earth is round, and not flat as he previously supposed, and that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than the sun around the earth (as once was assumed to be the case). Thus, the study of natural science is continually growing and changing as new empirical (measurable) knowledge modifies theories and deepens our understanding of how things work. Sometimes we build on certain models until we find they do not fit the data anymore, and then we discard the models and start all over again. That is how all sciences (natural, medical, social, etc.) are mankind’s product from God’s given data.
Theology develops in a similar way. Theology is also a science, but it draws on a much broader body of data than the material world. It comprises mankind’s attempts to understand the data of the Scripture, and from it to build a coherent model by which we may grasp the truth about who God is, and how he relates to his creation. Theology endeavours to find a model in which each part fits with the next, and no part contradicts another. In other words, like any science or theory of knowledge, it must strive continually towards complete coherence and is therefore continually growing and developing. We are not necessarily discovering new revelations all the time, for we have the basic data set out for us in the Scriptures. Theology is the exercise of the human mind around the ‘givens’ of God, with the goal of gaining a deeper and greater understanding of who it is that we are worshipping.
Now, science is a noble activity, but it has sometimes dominated mankind’s thinking and become a god in its own right. At the heart of modernism is the god of the natural sciences, so that we worship the empirical method and only believe in the things that can be measured or investigated from our material surroundings.² But theology, not the empirical method, is the way to worship our God who is over mind and matter. And thus theology is the queen of all sciences! For what is greater to think about, to investigate and to seek to define and understand more precisely, than God himself? It is the chief end of the whole universe to engage with God and understand him more deeply. Jesus encourages us to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul and mind (Matt. 22:37). To worship God forever must involve the use of our minds and our understanding, so that we know better who it is that we glorify. And so theology is the most important of all disciplines and sciences! In this book, therefore, we will engage deeply with the doctrine of the Trinity and find its unique, wonderful and thoroughly worship-evoking contribution to making sense of the universe.
Why Should We Study the Trinity?
We need the Trinity to make sense of a complex and interdependent universe. Attempts to find a rationale for why there is such a diversity in our universe have led in some cultures to polytheism (the belief in many gods). On the other hand, the unity we find in the universe has suggested to others either a non-personal god that is found in everything (monism, sometimes called ‘pantheism’), or a monotheistic deity — a god living in his own solitariness, whose personality is really redundant as there is no one to be ‘personal’ with (until he creates). However, a Trinitarian God, being a diversity within a unity, makes sense of a universe that also has a diversity within a unity: the creation reflects the Creator; and, what is more, he is full of personal relationship and has never been alone. We will return to look in more depth at all of these ideas.
It is inevitable then that if we hope to get into the depths of the God who made this universe, we will touch some profundities. I hope that this book will bring some part of these truths to you in such a way that you become excited about them and want to know more.
Some people seem to think that the Trinity is such an irrational or impenetrable mystery that it can have no real impact on the Christian life. This is far from being the case, and so to complete this introduction I want to set down briefly four reasons (out of many possible ones) why we should study the Trinity. The Trinity is in fact a very important, reasonable and rational concept forming the basis of many fundamental principles and touching many practical areas of our walk with the Lord. I shall develop these four reasons later in the book: church unity, which leads to world evangelization; the pre-eminence of love; the need to defend Trinitarianism against opponents; and the practical implications of a Trinitarian theology for believers.
Church Unity for World Evangelization
The way in which we understand the Trinity is, in fact, closely linked to our understanding of church unity. The unity of the church and the concept of the Trinity are so closely bound together that church history has gone through various phases of unity as our understanding of the Trinity has deepened. At times church unity has clearly centred upon the person of Christ as, for example, from the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century until the nineteenth century. At other times the church has experienced a unity that we might call a ‘unity of the Spirit’, as with the charismatic movements in the twentieth century. But I believe there is a unity that is not only the ‘unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Eph. 4:3), that is not only that we are ‘all one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28). There is also a unity that comes about through the Father and engages us as sons and daughters in the Trinitarian family of Father, Son and Spirit. We can see this unity of the Father as Jesus prays for his disciples,
‘. . . that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.’
(John 17:21)
This is the true ecumenism that will form the church into one body. This prayer shows how the Trinity lies at the heart of a restored expression of unity. It also shows how this unity will bring about the completion of world evangelization. If we, the church, ignore the doctrine of the Trinity and the unity that it brings, we will certainly hinder the fulfilment of God’s purpose that, through his people, ‘all the nations of the earth might be blessed’ (see Gen. 12:3; 18:18).
The Pre-eminence of Love
I find it strange that, of all the official creeds of the church — including the Apostles’ Creed (which began to be
formulated in the third century), the Nicene Creed in the fourth century, the official creeds of Protestantism in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the Westminster Confession in the seventeenth century, and even the Evangelical Alliance’s doctrinal basis of faith in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — not one asserts that God is love (1 John 4:16). This verse in John’s epistle is a unique Christian assertion, and we should be proud of it, boast of it and declare it — and, of course, live it!
If God in his essential being and person is love, he must have someone to bestow his love upon. You cannot love without an object — except for self-love, which is not really love at all, and especially not as defined for us in the Bible. So, when there was only God, before he created the universe and all the beings within it, how could he be loving? The answer is the Trinity! God is three persons in one beautiful relationship of love — the Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Spirit, the Spirit loving the Father and so on, in an eternal, dynamic expression of love.
The pre-eminence of love depends upon the concept of a plurality or, more specifically, a Trinity within God. For if God were singular, love would not be eternal but would have a beginning only when God created something to love (i.e., the universe). If that were the case, love would not be pre-eminently above all else. However, we believe it is pre-eminent, and its absoluteness is our safeguard against lesser values being made absolutes — absolutes that then become gods, for which their devotees will even kill. It is for this reason that the German Marxist Kautsky said that he feared anyone who had an absolute in his life. However, the Christian absolute of love does not destroy, but gives life.
Opponents
Throughout the history of the church there have been opponents to the doctrine of the Trinity. If, therefore, we are going to be able to ‘give a reason for the hope that lies within us’ (1 Pet. 3:15), we are going to have to look into the doctrine for ourselves and understand why we believe what we believe.
For example, the Ebionites in the first century attacked the Trinity on the basis of their belief that Jesus was not
divine and therefore could not be part of the Godhead. The Arians in the fourth century held that Christ was a created being, perhaps heavenly or angelic, but still not part of the Godhead.
Then there are the modern-day opponents. For example, if you are debating with a Muslim today, the first objection he is likely to present to you is that Christianity is not a reasonable religion because we believe that three can be one. The Trinity is therefore incredible, he would say, because it is philosophically unsound. The Jehovah’s Witnesses maintain that Jesus was not God and also support a deistic, or Unitarian, approach.
Even in the newer church scene, there is a branch of Pentecostalism (largely in the United States) that baptizes only in the name of Jesus, thereby denying the necessity of the Trinity as three distinct persons. They believe that the Son, the Father and the Spirit are all just different aspects of the same person: Jesus.
Many liberal theologians also wonder why Christians need to bother defending the Trinity. They would hold that it is a doctrine born out of Greek philosophy and later imposed upon the simple truths of Jesus. ‘Isn’t it enough,’ they would argue, ‘simply to love our neighbour and turn the other cheek? Why make ourselves vulnerable by getting tied up in fanciful speculations about the nature of God?’
We need to think these kinds of argument through seriously and try to understand what the Bible is seeking to teach and why. We will look at these arguments in more detail in Chapter 6.
Practical Implications
Finally, understanding the doctrine of the Trinity is not just a pursuit for academics and theologians to while away time in their ivory towers. It has many very practical implications for the Christian life and for the way we are church together. For example, if God is a Trinity, then how should we worship him? Do we address the Father, Jesus or the Spirit in our prayers, or can we pray to all three? If God is a Trinity, he must be relational, so how does that influence my relationship with him and with other believers? These are just three of the implications of getting to grips with the Trinity!
Analogy
Lastly, before we begin our study proper, I want to say a word or two about analogy. It is almost impossible to talk about the Trinity without referring to analogies and figures, models and symbolism — and this can sometimes make people feel uneasy about being misled into a ‘fantastical’ realm, rather than the ‘truth’. However, the fact that we have to talk about God in analogies or metaphors should be no surprise to us: the Bible is full of imagery intended to help us to understand God better — light, wind, fire, lions, eagles and so on. Equally, our everyday lives are full of analogies that enable us to talk about things we cannot see. For example, when we say that a ‘current’ of electricity is ‘running through’ a wire, we are using an analogy — rivers have currents, not electricity. We need this analogy, or model, as we don’t really know what electricity is, but if we think of it like a river we can make sense of how it behaves. Again, we say that subatomic particles are used to ‘bombard’ atoms, and scientists use analogies such as billiard balls bouncing off one another. This is not, of course, what is really happening: things aren’t literally ‘bouncing off’ one another — in fact no one fully understands what is actually happening in quantum physics — but the analogy is useful. It helps us to picture what is happening and to talk about it in a way that is a reflection of what is really going on. Much of life is a great mystery that can only be understood through metaphors that give some form or expression to a particular truth.
There is, in fact, a strict sense in which language itself is metaphorical. The noises I make when I am speaking are merely vacuous entities in and of themselves; they don’t really convey anything at all unless the listener engages his or her mind and forms images that correspond to the images I have in my mind. Words are vehicles which hold an idea and convey it from one mind to another. Although analogical language may well be limited, inadequate or imprecise, that does not invalidate it. We have to use analogies to talk about things: they give us an opportunity to get a grip on something intangible and then start to use it. While we may well find ourselves struggling with some words for God, we still have to use words to capture and communicate what we are talking about — whether in science, theology, art or, in fact, anything.
Some people don’t like to talk about God as being three persons. It is important to remember that we are using an analogy here: when the early church used the word ‘person’ to refer to the members of the Godhead, it had a slightly different meaning to the way in which we use the word today. Thus, some have argued that God has only one will, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit operate as ‘One Will’ and therefore as one ‘person’. But Jesus said ‘Father, Your will be done, not Mine!’ The Father has a will, the Son has a will, and the Holy Spirit gives gifts according to his will (1 Cor. 12:11). We have to start with the biblical revelation and then build on that. The experience of willing something must be at least part of what it means to be a ‘person’. Therefore, it must be acceptable to talk about the ‘three persons of the Trinity’ even though we are using analogical and metaphorical language.
There will be times, as we discuss the Trinity, when we will get caught between different models, when different analogies of three in one (e.g., spirit/mind/body, or emotions/mind/will) will not entirely fit together. No picture is totally adequate. So, it is not surprising if some of our models of God at times leave us a little bit puzzled.
Now we are ready to start our study. We begin by spending some time in exegesis, that is, looking at the Scriptures and the different biblical pictures, and trying to put them together to give us a coherent understanding.
1 Science literally means ‘knowledge’. What we ordinarily call ‘science’ is properly called ‘natural science’: the knowledge we have through studying the physical world and discovering the laws that it follows. Other sciences include social science, medical science, philosophy, theology and so forth. Throughout the book, unless stated otherwise, I am taking science to mean the physical and biological sciences.
2 Empiricism is a theory of knowledge whose claim is that for anything to be true, it must be tangible. In other words, it must be able to be ‘weighed and measured’. This theory forms the foundation of the philosophy of the physical sciences.
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