For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we shall see face to face.- 1 Corinthians 13:12
The doctrine of the Trinity is, of course, notoriously difficult. But it's also central to Christian faith. One theologian puts it this way: “Those who deny the Trinity may lose their souls, but those who try to explain it may lose their minds.”
According to the late Scottish Reformed theologian T.F. Torrance, the doctrine of the Trinity “is the innermost heart of the Christian faith, the central dogma of classical theology, the fundamental grammar of our knowledge of God.”
The church has tried to explain the Trinity by using all kinds of natural analogies: a tree with roots, trunk, and branches; the sun with its light, heat, and rays; water which may be liquid, ice, or gas; an equilateral triangle with three equal angles and sides; or even an egg with a shell, yoke, and egg-white. In the end, however, the Trinity defies rational explanation. The tri-unity of God belongs to the mystery of faith. That being said, analogies, metaphors, and symbols do indeed help us imagine what it means to believe that God is one essence in three persons; to confess faith in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Facebook is a social networking website that is about five years old. Its motto is inviting: “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”
According to Wikipedia, the website currently has more than 120 million active users worldwide. Users join networks that allow them to connect and interact with friends in a constant, ongoing conversation. The Facebook phenomenon reminds us just how important friendship, networking, community, and conversation are today. Relationships matter. Recent thinking about the doctrine of the Trinity has emphasized this reality and helped us think about God in relational, personal, and dynamic terms.
We used to emphasize, as the Westminster Catechism puts it, that the one God is “a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable … in being.” That may be good as far as it goes. But then we'd try to reconcile the idea that there are three persons in the Godhead with this emphasis on the majesty of the one God, and the math just didn't add up.
With help from theologians of the Eastern Christian tradition, we've now begun to think about the three-ness of God first. Why? Well, as Torrance puts it, the doctrine of the Trinity gives expression to the fact that God has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ. In the incarnation God has opened up the divine life to us in such a way that we may know God in the inner relations of God's being as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This means that God doesn't just appear to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are not three masks which the one God wears. No, God is in God's very being this eternal, relational, triune reality, the limitations of the male-centered language notwithstanding. The message of the Bible is that we, as human beings, may share and participate – have communion, with this God, in union with Christ by the Holy Spirit.
In other words, the triune life of God is one of eternal relating, connecting, communicating, sharing, knowing, loving, and “friending.” When you're on Facebook you are connected to all your friends and their friends and so forth simultaneously. So it is with God. The Father facebooks with the Son, and the Son with the Spirit, and the Father and the Son with the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Son – well, you get the point. The triune life of God is one of eternal friendship, a divine dance which earlier theologians called “perichoresis.”
According to Jonathan Edwards, that's precisely how creation came to be. God's life is so full of love, joy, knowledge, and friendship that it overflows to create an “other” to whom God relates. God is the maker of heaven and earth, and all creation is part of God's Facebook. Rather than limiting the divine conversation to God alone, God opens wide the network of relations to include us.
To push the analogy further, human beings in their infinite wisdom decided to limit their conversation to themselves, to create a community which excluded the triune God, to delete God as friend. But the triune God is not undone. As the creator and sustainer, God shows up as friend on the human Facebook anyway in the person of Jesus, reconnecting us to the divine triune conversation. The Holy Spirit creates the faith by which we are signed back into this wonderfully wide and rich network of relations, with God, and with one another.
Before we get carried away, let's remember that like all good analogies for God, natural or social or virtual, this one is, to be sure, limited. It doesn't work if carried to the “nth” degree. The three young adult facebookers in my house have already pointed that out.
That being said, I dare to suggest that it is an apt analogy. It works in that it helps us make sense of the triune God revealed to us in Jesus Christ as attested by the Holy Spirit in Holy Scripture. It works in that it tells the story of the triune God of the gospel faithfully and helpfully. And it works because it reminds us, like all good analogies do, that when it comes to God we see through a mirror of faith, dimly, while holding out the promise that one day we shall see “face to face.”
When all is said and done, of course, the triune God of the Bible is not an analogy to be explored, a theory to be proved, an idea to be explained, a feeling to be experienced, or a cause to be joined. The triune God of Holy Scripture just is, before we are, the one to whom we come, through whom we come, and by whom we come, in praise and worship. The Facebooking God makes it possible for us to share and connect in our lives with our friends, including the triune God of grace, “whom to know is life eternal, whom to serve is joy and peace.”<
STUDY GUIDE
- As Christians we are baptized in the “Strong Name” of the Triune God: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” What do these words tells us about who we are and whose we are?
- When Jesus was baptized by John (Matthew 3:13-17) the Spirit of God descended and a voice from heaven affirmed the Son. What does this passage tell us about the identity and ministry of Jesus and relations within the Trinity?
- The early Christians arrived at the doctrine of the Trinity by trying to reconcile two seemingly contradictory statements: “There is one God” (e.g. Deut. 6:4; James 2:19) and “Jesus is Lord” (e.g. Philippians 2:11). Were they successful?
- Read and discuss paragraphs 1.5 and 1.6 in Living Faith. How might faith in the triune God affect the way we experience God? The way we worship? The way we pray? The way we read the Bible? The way we relate to one another in the church? The way we tell the Christian story?
- Discus the meaning of the following biblical texts: Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:13. What do these texts tell us and not tell us about the triune God?
- Find the Trinitarian language in Romans 5:1-5 and compare it with Living Faith which says “God is the Father to whom we come, the Son through whom we come, the Spirit by whom we come” (LF, 1.5). You might also compare and contrast this with Ephesians 4:1-6.
- Discuss the analogy of Facebooking in the article. In what ways does it help us understand the nature of the Trinity? In what ways might this analogy be extended further? In what ways is it limited? Are there other analogies that are helpful?
- In the best selling novel The Shack the main character Mack meets God – the holy Trinity, at a run down cabin in the woods. The Trinity includes the Father (Papa) – “a large beaming African-American woman,” Jesus – the Son, who appears as “a blue-collar man with Middle-Eastern looks,” and the Spirit, named Sarayu – a distinctively Asian woman of “northern Chinese or Nepalese or even Mongolian ethnicity.” Mack meets the Trinity in the very shack where his young daughter had been brutally assaulted and murdered years earlier. Mack’s encounter with the triune God leads him on a journey of pain and recovery. Do such portrayals help us understand and experience the relational dimension of the Trinity? Does such a portrayal help us transcend the patriarchal language of traditional Trinitarian doctrine?
For further study:
The Trinity by Philip W. Butin in the series “Foundations of Christian Faith” published by Geneva Press in Conjunction with the Office of Theology and Worship, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2001
The Shack by William P. Young, Windblown Media, 2007
Experiencing the Trinity by Darrell W. Johnson, Regent College Publishing, 2002
Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace by James B. Torrance, Inter Varsity Press, 1996
