The Most Holy Trinity
The Most Holy Trinity
By: Rev. Dr. Beverly Bingle
May 30, 2021
Whether we were baptized Catholic as babies
or baptized in a different Christian tradition,
we were taught the doctrine of the Trinity:
one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.
We were told that it’s an idea that we have to believe,
even though, as scholars and theologians tell us,
it’s not in the scriptures,
neither in the Old Testament nor in the New.
The scriptures do have pieces
that were eventually used to create the doctrine, though,
and even that process is a long and contentious history.
It’s important to keep in mind that all the gospels
were written no sooner than 40 years after Jesus died,
and that they were formed in some respect in response to
the cultural, political, and religious happenings of their time.
For example, Christians were accused
of worshiping more than one God,
so they tried to explain what they believed.
The languages of the time made it even more confusing.
The Greek talked about “ousia,”
which was nature or essence,
and they talked about “hypostasis” or “posopon,”
which was entity.
In Latin the words became “substantia” and “persona,”
so three “hypostases” in one “ousia”
became three “persona” in one “substantia”—
in English, three persons in one God.
That doctrine was not declared “infallible” until the year 381,
and even then it kept changing.
About 500 years after the Trinity doctrine was declared infallible, some of the Latin-speaking churches added “filioque,”
the idea that the Spirit “proceeds”--comes out of—
the Father and the Son.
By the 11th century “filioque”
was part of the Roman liturgical practice,
and 50 years later—in 1054—
the phrase split Christianity into east and west.
Following the division in 1517
over Martin Luther’s 95 Theses on Indulgences,
other breaks from the Roman tradition
brought even more variety in Christianity.
Even before the Catholic Church declared the Trinitarian doctrine,
some Christians held non-trinitarian beliefs,
and many still do, like the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints—the Mormons;
Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Unitarians,
Unitarian Universalists, and the United Church of God.
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Our church today still holds to its 4th century statement.
So here we are in 2021, celebrating the Most Holy Trinity,
knowing in our hearts that God in three persons—
God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier—
is not enough.
We find a wide range of ideas about the nature of God.
We were taught to think of God as our heavenly Father.
But what if we experience God as a birthing and loving Mother?
Or as the ground of our being?
We were taught to think of Jesus as the one
who died for our sins to save us from hell.
But what if we experience Jesus
as the teacher of goodness and peace?
Or as the one who reaches out to us in our need?
We were taught to picture the Spirit
as a dove that hovered over us with blessings.
But what if we experience the Spirit as our life force?
Or as peace in the middle of crisis?
What if we experience something wider and deeper—
God everywhere, with us, in us, among us,
in all of creation?
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Our Roman Catholic Church tells us that we are heretics
if we don’t believe in the doctrine of the Trinity—
Father, Son, and Spirit, one God in three persons.
We aren’t heretics.
We can honestly say we believe that.
But while that’s true, it’s also limited,
a fact that we began to intuit early on in life,
an understanding that grows in depth and width and height
as we experience the real world.
Three-in-one isn’t enough.
There’s so much more.
Thanks be to God!