Explaining the Trinity?
Attempts to do it, or to defend the doctrine as logical, often flounder in the mire of stretched analogies. In sharing our faith with Muslims, the objections to the doctrine come thick and fast. The BBC religion website introduces its history by saying ‘Christianity adopted this complicated idea of God because it was the only way they could make sense of One God in the context of the events and teaching of the Bible’.
Seeking to explain what this complicated idea means we might turn to illustrations involving shamrocks or the various states of H2O.
When simplifying misleads
Often these well-intentioned defences of the faith end up as a platform for a long-discredited, heretical view of God. God is described as like an egg – one thing but made up of shell, egg and yolk. This is closer to Tritheism than Trinitarianism. Three different things are all being described as God, but they are not all one. I can boil an egg and throw away the shell, but God cannot be so divided.
A common alternative illustration is to describe the Trinity as like a person with many roles. I may be a Father, a Son and a Teacher. The Hollywood film, Bruce Almighty, played on this idea. In one scene God appeared as a janitor, electrician and company boss. This image is really an illustration of an ancient heresy called Modalism. The one God appears in different modes, or forms, as Father, Son or Holy Spirit, depending on the occasion.
Learning from church history helps us enormously here. The ancient church dismissed such attempts to understand God as heretical for a reason. Fine minds realised that if we endorse Tritheism we compromise Monotheism, our worship of One God (Deuteronomy 6.4). And if we endorse Modalism we compromise the person of Christ (Philippians 2.6). Attractive as these illustrations may appear to simplify a complex idea, they lead to destinations far removed from Scripture.
Avoiding the trap
Explaining the doctrine of the Trinity highlights an issue for us in apologetics (defending the faith). If we are not careful, a primary truth of our faith becomes simply a logical problem, relegated to the realm of somewhat technical and obscure debates.
Good recent books on the Trinity have reminded us to avoid this mistake. Fred Sanders in Embracing the Trinity (IVP) and Michael Reeves in The Good God (Paternoster) have both written on the theme without falling into this trap. They remind us that, as evangelical Christians, the gospel itself is Trinitarian. The plan of redemption involves Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Matthew recognises the involvement of each person (Matthew 3.16-17; 28.19). While Paul does not coin the term ‘Trinity’, his language sits comfortably with it (2 Corinthians 13.14). For the NT authors, the Trinity is not a problem to be solved but a truth through which we learn and worship. It is worth pointing out that as a matter of mere logic there is no contradiction here. It would be contradictory to describe One God as Three Gods but that is not the Trinity. We might also want to recognise the limits of our human understanding of God’s nature (Isaiah 55.9), but in sharing our faith we must give a word of explanation.
In explaining the Trinity, rather than starting with eggshells and shamrocks, it would be better to start with John’s statement ‘God is love’ (1 John 4.16). He is an eternal God who is loved and who loves. This involves community. God was never lonely, never outside of relationship, never unloved or unloving. The Bible is resolutely monotheist. We worship only one God (Deuteronomy 6.4). And the God we worship is love. He is the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This understanding unlocks not only a consistent way of reading the Bible, but also a better way of understanding the universe. Love, relationship and personality are not just passing moments in a short-lived evolutionary process on earth. They are permanent realities that exist prior to creation and explain how the universe came into existence.
