Trinity Sunday
The Trinity is a very difficult subject to grasp. In complexity, I reckon it is as difficult as the resurrection. But why is this so? I would like to consider why these articles of faith are so difficult; indeed, for some, these articles are the summation of the faith. So let us consider the Trinity as we celebrate it today.
Our creeds do not really explain the Trinity. In fact it is not in the Bible – the Trinity is a third century “fabrication” (if I may use the word) to elucidate the ineffable nature of the relation between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The creeds in fact only highlight the problem. Everyone was in a muddle and we still are. In fact, we have not held another Ecumenical Council in order to clarify the dogma.
The confessions of the past allow us to take in that there is a mystery with regard to the object of faith, and force us to meditate on the subject of our faith. Our meditations skirt around the three persons of the Trinity and the relationship between them.
We are far removed from the intellectual milieu which gave to our tradition the notions of persons, consubstantiality, monarchy, individualities and natures, to name just a few. We cannot capture the mood of the society which gave rise to such great debate about these matters, so much so that the Ecumenical Council was called at Nicea. We still recite the words of that time today, as the expression of our intellectual and historical faith. This formula points us in the direction of God, but does not necessarily capture our hearts in doing so.
Our hearts are untouched by the philosophical gymnastics which professors of patristics enjoy during their lectures to bored seminarians. We cannot understand how discussion of the ungenerate nature of the Father, the begotten nature of the Son and the nature of the Holy Spirit which processes from the Father and the Son could create civil unrest; we are at a loss to imagine how such discussions disturbed an Empire to such an extent that the Head of State called the leaders of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church together so that a form of words could be fashioned which set forth God and our relation to God clearly and would pacify the christians in the Empire.
It has been said that in the fourth century, when you went to the baker you would be asked your opinion on God, or how Jesus had saved the world or any topic which we today would say are private affairs, something we don’t discuss with anyone, sometimes not even our parish priest.
A teacher once said that the Creed was beaten out of the clerics as the blue lights of the police flashed in the street outside of the building where they met. That is precisely the atmosphere in which such “Statements” always emanate, isn’t it? — “Statements” arise where there is tension, sometimes hostility and certainly high emotion, just like our own times when members of various parties in the Middle East’s cauldron meet with each other with well-known mediators between them, I suppose to keep them from cutting each others’ throats because of the things they have said about each other previous to the meeting. This is not just a Middle East thing either, for we only need to think about “the troubles” in Ireland to admit that people in great difficulties were forced to meet together and agree about the very desirability of peace only to have them castigate the whole process because of the shape of a table or the impossibility of holding talks about talks, but always far away from the issue which actually did cause profound difficulties between individuals.
During the fourth century in the Eastern Roman Empire, such difficulties were centred on the reality of the faith, who Jesus was, how salvation was accomplished, why the Holy Spirit appeared in certain circumstances, how God created the world, everything in it and still is called “Good” in spite of everything that happens.
It is a far cry from today, when we hear about what Jack is up to in that soap opera, Mornington Crescent, or what Jill will wear in the next episode. Everyone is talking about it, so the ads say, but I for one don’t care. I suppose I am sixteen centuries out of date. I would rather contemplate the mystery of divinity or how God must relate to the world and to the author of our salvation.
I would like to engage in the sort of conversation that those bakers had with their customers. “How d’ya do? What did you think of the bishop’s statement about the relationship between the body and soul?” Whether we really talked about that metaphysical topic or not, wouldn’t matter because we would be talking about items which go far beyond the fictional accounts of the soaps — though the soaps can be useful if they cause us to consider proper behaviour and to take the right course of action.
Perhaps I am living in a fantasy world, where philosophy and the everyday go hand in hand, a world where the mundane gives rise to deep conversation and thought about essences.
The Trinity is just such a conversation I would like to have with the baker, or my next door neighbour. Or if not the Trinity, at least consider essences and what meanings there are in life. But the modern world does not deal in essences, and in this country there is more of a pragmatic self-understanding about the world and our place in it. But even the pragmatist sometimes considers meanings and essences when the sun is setting at the end of a busy and fulfilling day. Pragmatists think about how this does that. The very practical questions rather than theoretical ones hold their attention and force an answer in the everyday world in which we live and move and have our being.
I am sure the pragmatists have thought about how salvation comes about just like those theologians of the fourth century. Christians of every epoch and every philosophical persuasion have contemplated salvation and have confessed its reality through God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.