|
|
The Trinity What a marvelous concept! Well, much more than a concept, for this information is from a most reliable source - God Himself, revealing his innermost nature. We will spend all eternity in the presence of God, the Holy Trinity, so it is a good idea to try to get to know where we are going, before the event that we call death. The Trinity - a mystery, the greatest mystery of the universe, but as a friend of mine always said, "A mystery is something that we know something about - not nothing! And it is our job as Christians to try to understand what we know and what we do not know. First we should acknowledge that we would know very little about the reality of God if our Brother, Our Lord Jesus Christ - God incarnate - had not revealed it. He is the source of all knowledge. Think a little. God IS - He was not created. He is the source of the universe. He made it, created something where there was nothing, and continues to create and recreate, for He did not simply create a universe and leave it to an unguided evolution. No - He is active behind everything that moves and lives and has being, always creating and guiding, to a plan that He alone knows fully. This, of course, leads to large questions about the imperfections of this same universe - how can a good and all powerful God permit such aberrations? But that's another matter. See Evil for further thoughts. In the meantime, sticking to the subject, what about Him? What about the nature of God Himself? He is not dependent upon the universe. The universe is dependent upon Him, upon His continuous creativity, and He has a plan for this universe, revealed in the incarnation, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ - leading to the resurrection of all mankind and the renewal of this same universe. We can not, of course, know at this time the full details of this recreated universe and our part in it. We are limited men and can only know in broad outline. We will not know the reality until it is achieved. But we can know in outline what the plan is, for it has been revealed by Christ, who is the true Son of God. Only from Him can we receive sure and certain knowledge, knowledge that only God knows of right. In essence this knowledge is that we are known and loved by God our creator, and that we will be brought fully into His love if we allow Him to enlighten us and show us the way. God is a Spirit Who must be known in spirit and in truth, Jesus tells us. A Spirit you may say! There is nothing very substantial about a spirit! You can’t touch a spirit, or see a spirit. A spirit has no dimensions, no depth, no colour! The word spirit could well be a description of nothing! Wrong! A spirit is the most substantial thing that there is. Things that are material, that have width and length and depth, can change. A tree grows from a little seed. It can be cut down and made into other things - floors and furniture - or burnt and reduced to black ash. Mountains, created by earthquake or the vast movement of matter at the dawn of the universe, are continually changing, eroded by water, wind and ice. Our human bodies grow from seeds in the womb to become adult men and women - and when the spirit that animates our bodies leaves these same bodies they rot and decay - turn into dust, cease to be animated. It is this animating spirit of life that distinguishes men and woman from dust, from inanimate matter, from other life forms. (See Spirit for further thoughts.) It is our capacity to know and to love that makes us unique among other living creatures. This is our chief likeness to God. We can know and love, like God but not equal to Him - for we know only in part and our capacity for love is restricted by the limitations of our created nature. God’s knowledge and love, on the other hand, is without restriction. He knows and loves all things perfectly, including Himself This is the first clue to solving the mystery of the Trinity. God is love, the pure essence of love that will eventually burn us away from the dross of pride and selfishness that afflicts each one of us. He is the pure essence of love - but loving what? Loving whom? you may ask - apart from loving us and the universe He creates and recreates. Loving Himself is the answer! Is this not mere selfishness? We may be tempted to ask. Consider the question of knowing oneself. God knows Himself perfectly. We know ourselves in a very limited, changing way. We change and grow and our idea of ourselves alters accordingly. Our knowledge and perceptions change. We know ourselves in bits and pieces. Only God, who is outside us - as well as within us - knows us fully, is aware of our true identity. But however good an idea one might have of oneself there is one sure thing - the idea that each one of us has of ourself cannot love us back! Not so with God. God’s idea of Himself is perfect, lacks nothing that the Mind that fathered it possesses - is Himself God. God the Father has an Idea of Himself, a Word in His Mind, a Word that is truly God, truly a Person. This Word in the mind of God is the Word that John the beloved disciple refers to when he wrote:
This is our first reflection upon the nature of God, the mystery of God. "I and the Father are One," Jesus says, and, "He who sees me sees the Father." And He promises that when He returns to Heaven after the resurrection He and His Father will send the Holy Spirit to bring back to mind everything that He has said. The mystery deepens when we think of the Holy Spirit, for this Spirit lacks nothing that is possessed by the Father and the Son, is not a mere messenger. He is totally identified with the Father and the Son, IS the Love that flows between them, shares fully in the Godhead, is truly a Person. So there are three Persons Who possess the nature of being God. A vast mystery, something that we can just about begin to know in this life. There is nothing irrational about three Divine Persons possessing the nature of being God - just as their is nothing irrational about you, and your neighbour, and I, being three persons who possess the nature of being human. It is a fact. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three Persons, distinct from each other, but possessing a complete unity of being. There is only one God, consisting of three distinct Persons, sharing in the nature of being God, just as you and your neighbour and I are three distinct persons sharing in the nature of being human. But whereas the three Persons of the Trinity act in total unity, knowing and loving perfectly, you and I and our neighbour know imperfectly. We are limited in many ways, and it is a healthy thing to admit our imperfections, that we do not know things perfectly. This life is mysterious, never mind the life of God. We cannot in this life fully understand His nature, His innermost being. It is the greatest mystery of all. But it is a mystery that we can begin to understand. Provided we believe in the Person of Christ and accept with positive love and faith that He is Our Lord and Saviour, that He is God incarnate, true man and true God, He and His Father and the Holy Spirit will gradually burn us free of selfishness and bring us to the point where we will know and love as we are known and loved. "Now we know as through a glass, darkly," says St. Paul. "Then we will know and love clearly." We bless ourselves - in the Name of the Father, His co-equal Son and the love of the Holy Spirit - the great mystery of God’s Being, revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ. The full revelation is something to look forward to. In the meantime we can learn much, by suspending our curiosity and in prayerful faith leaving ourselves open to the powerful love of God. He loves us much more than we can love Him by nature. We are the adopted sons of God through the life of Christ, brothers of Christ, and it is the action of the Holy Spirit that will gradually transform us into Christ, make us all one Person in Christ, as St. Paul says. In this Love we will begin to love the Father with the same love that Christ, the Word incarnate, has for His Father. We will be lifted up to a new way of loving, greater than any that is possible in the purely created order. We will learn our true identity in Christ, become more like Him, share fully in His God-Life, and eventually be lifted into the inner life of God Himself, burning in the great joy of the love that exists between Father and Son, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. It is, indeed, something to look forward to. The Beatific Vision is the term the Catholic Church uses to pin-point the teaching. 05 March 2010 |