The Mysterious Trinity

The language of three persons points to a mystery of distinction that nevertheless abides in relationship at the heart of the one God. God is not a singleness but a communion—a living fecundity of relational life. For God, to be is to be in relation—this is the primary divine characteristic of God. Yet, even these powerful words are not to be taken literally. As St. Augustine reminds us, "the formula 'three persons' was coined not in order to give a complete explanation by means of it but in order that we might not be obliged to remain silent." Fundamentally, speech about the Trinity needs to go hand in hand with knowing that we do not totally understand. Quite simply, to say that the persons are three is to negate solitariness, thus affirming relationality at the heart of God.

Although the images of Father, Son and Spirit are rooted in Scripture, liturgy and traditional use, they are not necessarily the only imagery in which the triune symbol can be expressed. The Scriptures themselves speak about the triune God in the economy of salvation in cosmic images such as light, fire and water, and theology today quests mightily for other articulations. Whatever the categories used, the three's keep circling round. Always there is reflected a livingness in God; a beyond, a with and a within to the world and its history; a sense of God as from whom, by whom and in whom all things exist, thrive, struggle toward freedom and are gathered in.

The biblical doctrine of the Trinity, bound to the experience of salvation in Jesus and freed from literal interpretations, has the power to call forth loving relationship in our community and in the world. It does so positively, by inspiring efforts to create a community of sisters and brothers interwoven with the whole web of earth's life according to the ideal community that the Trinity models. It does so negatively, by prophetically challenging social and ecological injustices that distort such a community. And it does so by the power of grace, the trinitarian mystery of God actually empowering relationships of mutuality, equality and inclusiveness among persons and between human beings and the earth.

The goal of all creation is to participate in the trinitarian mystery of love. The Church is called to be a sacrament making this love visible and effective in the world. Wherever the human heart is healed, justice is done, peace holds sway, liberation breaks through, the earth flourishes…wherever sin abounding is embraced by grace super-abounding…there the human and earth community already reflect, in fragments, the visage of the trinitarian God.