Identifying God in the Holy Trinity

Identifying God in the Holy Trinity

A perspective that is sometimes better left alone.  Of course most of us know the dream Augustine had as he wanted an explanation on the Trinity.  He was walking along the seashore and came upon a young child dumping water from the ocean into a hole in the sand.  When he came upon this young person he looked and the child said he was emptying the ocean into the hole.  Augustine, wanting to amuse the child said, “You can;t empty the ocean into that hole.”  Upon which the child, who was an angel, responded with, “And you Augustine will never understand the Holy Trinity.”

So much for this mystery that theologians and scripture scholars have tried for centuries to unravel to no avail.  When this Feast is celebrated priests, deacons, and maybe Protestant ministers try to skirt around and come up with a scenario of a family with parents and a child as an example.  Let’s begin by breaking down that thought.  The Holy Trinity comprises three divine persons in one God.  Not three individual gods with assignments that vary, but one God who is divine and is three persons.  Understandably we come to a problem of how this can be.  

“The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.  It is the mystery of God in himself.  It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.  It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith.  The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the ways and means by which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.”  (CCC  234).

As finite creatures we like to modify mysteries about God in a language or answer our minds can wrap around in that cranium that in itself is a mystery as well.   Using the same answer Augustine got from the angel in his vision we will never understand the Holy Trinity. 

Perhaps the easiest suggestion is to find the explanatory sections of Sacred Scripture that show each divine person in their role or being God and in a manner of Creation to the final Parousia of Christ’s return to earth.  

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.” 

(Gn 1: 1-2).   Herein we see the Trinity already performing, if we dare use that term, and all three persons are involved in this magnificent extravaganza. 

Later in Genesis God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  (Gn 1: 26).

The pronoun our is a perfect example of the three persons being in concert with one another.  

Three persons in one God is more than how we as humans would describe this mysterious entity.  Even though each person is seen as doing specific entrees’ as in exclusiveness together.  This entity of divinity becomes a collective manner of creation, redemption, resurrection of humanity, and the very love that holds all three together.  Remember when Jesus told the disciples about his Father;  “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you know me, then you will know my Father.  From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?” “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How do you say, "Show us the Father?”  “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me  (Jn 14: 6 - 10).

In the priestly prayer, Jesus went on by saying, “As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.  And I consecrate myself for them, so that they may also be consecrated in truth.  I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.”  (Jn 17: 18 - 21).

The Holy Trinity is ONE.  Whether appearing to be individually acting alone or in tandem, the Trinity is always a united essence.  “”The divine persons are relative to one another.  Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another.  In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit tp both.  While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance.  Indeed, everything in them is one where there is no opposition of relationship.  Because of the unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father  and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son.  (CCC 255). 

We as finite creatures are able to grasp the functions that each person accomplishes, but the question remains how does this occur?  This conclusion will continue to confound our brains with no unf-derstanding of it this side of eternity.  Will we ever discover how this is happening, or will we be pleased that God has called each one to his presence and never will care how it exists.  

Ralph B. Hathaway