ON THE TRINITY

The standard way of approaching the doctrine of the Trinity is to study what is said on the subject in the Holy Scriptures. In this essay, we take an alternative approach, not as a substitute for the standard approach, but as a supplement. We simply examine the concepts involved in the doctrine, with the aim of making it clearer just what is being affirmed.

GEOMETRY AND THE TRINITY

The first reaction of the thoughtful non-Christian to the doctrine of the Trinity may be simply to dismiss it as undiscussable. It appears to be a blatant self-contradiction. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, it is explicitly denied that these are simply different names for the same entity, and yet there is only one God. "Clearly," says the non-Christian, "I am dealing with persons who do not care if they are contradicting themselves, and my only sensible course is to walk away without attempting to reason with them."

I begin by trying to point out that the issue is not quite as clear-cut as all that.

Some of you may be familiar with Edwin Abbott's FLATLAND, a story that is a mathematical classic. (It is available in Dover Paperbacks.) The protagonist is a Square who lives in a two-dimensional world inhabited by circles, polygons of various numbers of sides, and needle-like line segments, none of whom can comprehend the idea of a third dimension. One day the Square is visited by a Sphere, which passes through the plane of Flatland, thus appearing to the Square first as nothing, then as a single point that expands into a large circle and then shrinks once more to a point and disappears. The Sphere first tries to explain three dimensions to the Square and then pulls him bodily into the Third Dimension and lets him see for himself. The Square is overwhelmed with this new-found knowledge, but when he returns home and tries to explain it to his neighbors, he is completely unsuccessful. The best he can do is to say things like,

"A cube is not a square, but it is more like a square than like anything else that we know or can conceive. The best I can do is to say that it is like a square, only more so -- what you might call a hypersquare. Likewise a sphere is not a circle, but it is more like a circle than it is like anything else in our experience. Let me say that a sphere is a hypercircle -- is the reality that a circle only hints at."

Of course his neighbors think this complete nonsense, and the Square ends up in a lunatic asylum.

Now Christians are accustomed to speak of God as the Triune God, as Three Persons in One God (or One Godhead, or One Essence, or Substance) as One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. And this language makes non-Christians very suspicious. It sounds as though this central doctrine of Christianity is based on an inability to count, or at least on having gotten stuck somehow with two incompatible beliefs (there are three Gods, but there is only one God) and an unwillingness to let go of either of them. But consider the following line of explanation:

Just as a line is bounded by two points, and just as a square is bounded by four lines, so a cube is bounded by six squares. The Square in Abbott's story, trying to explain that a cube is a sort of glorified square, might say: "A cube is not a square, but it is made up of six squares." A listener says: "Oh, you mean that a cube is a rectangle three units by two, and hence divisible into six unit squares. Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Our hero says: "No, the squares are not side by side in the plane, but neither are they overlapping. The cube is not simply a collection of several squares, but is like a square on a higher level...." One way of stating the doctrine of the Trinity is to say that in God there are three Divine Persons, where by a person we mean a conscious entity, a being that can say, "I" and "you". These three Persons constitute a single Hyperperson, a Being that is not simply a person, but is more like a person than like anything else in our experience. Now in our experience, two or more persons can be related only by co-existing side by side, as it were, or by being really the same person, just as in a plane, two or more squares must either be completely distinct entities side by side, or else be totally or partially overlapping. But the doctrine of the Trinity asserts that God is a single Hyperperson, in Whom there are three Persons, and that a Hyperperson is not just a family, or committee, or group, an aggregate of persons, any more than a cube is just a collection of squares side by side.

Now obviously this is not a proof of the Trinity. (For one thing, it gives no reason for supposing that there are Three Persons in the Divine Hyperperson rather than more or fewer.) It is intended simply to show that the doctrine is not an obvious example of bad arithmetic or bad logic.

LOVE AND THE TRINITY

There is a Christian saying that many non-Christians are fond of quoting: "God is Love." This means more than just that lovingness is a quality that God happens to display from time to time. It means that Love is of the essence of what it means to be God -- that God could no more cease to be Love than God could cease to be God. Now Love is a social phenomenon. It presupposes a plurality of persons. If there was a time when God had not yet created the cosmos, a time when God was a single Person, in no sense plural, and was simply the only existing entity, then that entity was not Love. If we believe that God is Love, then we must suppose that in Him there exist from all Eternity the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love Itself.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE TRINITY

Some philosophies describe "God" as an impersonal "Force" that can be harnessed, tapped into, or otherwise utilized to advance the purposes of the advanced student. And this view has a considerable appeal, as is shown by the success of the Star Wars movies. However, theists describe God as a Person, or at least a Hyperperson -- more like a person than like anything else we know: Someone with intellect, will, and purpose, with awareness, including self-awareness.

Do we have any basis for choosing between these two positions? Well, asking about God amounts to asking about fundamental reality, and if knowledge is about reality, then we ought to begin with the most fundamental knowledge we have.

What are the most fundamental truths that we know -- the basic axioms that are the foundation for all other knowledge? I offer the following: (1) Something exists. There is such a thing as Reality. (There are some persons who deny the existence of mind and some who deny the existence of matter, but no one, as far as I know, has ever denied that there is anything at all. And the reason is not far to seek. To deny everything is to deny the possibility of denial.) (2) There is such a thing as awareness, such a thing as knowledge, as perceiving reality and identifying its nature. To deny this, is to make nonsense out of everything one says, including the denial. (3) There is a knower, a perceiver, one who is aware. Someone who denies this or claims to doubt it -- who says, "Prove to me that I exist," has asserted his existence as an agent of consciousness in the very act of denying it. This axiom, like the two preceding ones, is not something to be proved but rather a precondition for the possibility or meaningfulness of proof.

These, I claim, are the Fundamental Truths, and if so, then the Fundamental Realities. And if, as Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike believe, God is the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, the Maker of all that is, seen and unseen, the Ultimate Ground of Being, the One Unconditional Being on which all other existence depends, then every truly fundamental reality must be rooted in the Nature of God. Thus it is that we expect to find in God (1) Existence, (2) Awareness, and (3) Self-Awareness. (1) God exists. God is the fountain, the source of all being. (2) God is aware. But to be aware is to be aware of something: more than that, it is to be aware of something other than oneself. I am not saying that one cannot be aware of oneself, but only that one cannot be aware ONLY of oneself. You need to introduce an object of awareness that is not "I". And that object cannot be the created universe or anything in it. The creation is dependent on God's will. It is conditional. It is not fundamental. If God's awareness were simply an awareness of the creation, then the fact of that awareness would not be a fundamental fact of reality. We see, then, that within the Divine Being there is both that which knows and that which is known. (NOTE: A friend with whom I discussed this asked: "But couldn't God just be aware of His thoughts? You say that one must be aware of something other than oneself, but my thoughts are not exactly myself." I reply that once you have a thought about something other than yourself, you can then have a second thought whose object is the first thought, BUT that you must begin with a thought that is not just about a thought. Suppose that you are a magistrate, and a policeman brings a prisoner before you and says, "This man is charged with resisting arrest." You ask, "Any other charges?" and the policeman says, "No." You ask, "But what was he being arrested for in the first place?" and the policeman says, "For resisting arrest!" Wouldn't you be doubtful about this? I know I would be. And just as the accusation of resisting arrest presupposes some other accusation, so a thought about a thought -- or about the act of thinking, or about oneself as a thinking being -- presupposes a thought about something else.) (3) I argued earlier that one cannot have only self-awareness -- that it is necessary to start with awareness of the other. But, given that awareness, there is no reason why an agent of consciousness should not be aware of itself as an aware being, and every reason why it should. And thus in the Divine Unity of the Ground of Being there are to be distinguished (1) the pure existence of the Father, (2) the Father's contemplation of His own Image in the Son, and (3) the self-awareness and mutual awareness of the Father and the Son -- the "I-Thou" relation -- in the unity of the Spirit.

THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION AND THE TRINITY

Suppose that you are writing a short story. You describe a man alone at night in his country cabin. As he sits reading, he hears a knock at the door and opens it. A young girl is standing there, who looks up at him, and says, "Could you help me, mister?" You start to write: "She looked very ___, standing there on the doorstep." You pause to consider the proper word for the blank. "She looked very --" what? Wistful? Alone? Lost? No you have already said that. Appealing? Fragile? Vulnerable? Hey, that's it! That is the word that fits here. "She looked very vulnerable, standing there on the doorstep."

In this example, you start with an idea, something you want to say about the girl and how she appeared. You find a word that is just the right word to express what you have in mind. And the reader of the story shares your vision, your understanding of what the man saw, by having it communicated to him through that word. In fact, it is not just the reader who does this. You find that you did not yourself fully grasp your own idea until you had found the right word to express it.

So, in your story-writing at this point, and indeed in any work of the creative imagination, we have three elements. There is the idea that you want to express (one might almost say, and many writers would say, the idea that is struggling to be expressed, the idea that demands expression). There is the tangible expression of that idea in concrete form (in this case the word "vulnerable" to express the girl's appearance and the impression she made). And there is the understanding that this tangible expression creates, the response it evokes, in appreciative observers, including the author himself.

I maintain that this tripartite structure is an essential part of creativity, that it exists in the products of creative activity (such as a short story or a well-crafted sentence or a well-chosen word) because it exists in the human mind that created them, and that it exists in human minds because it exists in the Mind that created them. In the opening chapter of Genesis we are told that "God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Prior to this, the only thing that we are told about God is that He is the Creator. If this Genesis passage tells us anything at all about what is meant by being in the image of God, it is that it means being a creative being, and that the nature of the creative imagination at work in humans is our best clue as to the nature of the mind of the Creator of all things.

The example used here is from fiction writing, but any other creative activity illustrates the same point. Say that an interior decorator is called on to design a room in a private home, or a stage set in a theater. After consulting with the homeowner or with the director of the play, he knows what idea he wants to express, knows what aspects of the personality or interests of the owner the room ought to reflect, or what atmosphere the stage set ought to convey to the audience. His work, then, consists of expressing this in concrete terms. Or, for an example that is accessible to almost everyone, consider the Alfred Hitchcock movie REAR WINDOW, starring Jimmie Stewart and Grace Kelly. Notice how much the wardrobe designed by Edith Head tells you about the heroine, Lisa Carol Fremont -- not only the size of her clothing budget, but also her social background and her individual personality. Here we have the idea in Miss Head's mind (after reading the script and talking with Mr Hitchcock) of who and what the heroine is, we have the concrete expression of that idea through the clothes the heroine wears, and we have the moviegoer's understanding of the heroine, based in part on a response to her wardrobe. (Note that in order to be a creative artist it is not enough to have an idea to be expressed. Hitchcock doubtless understood what the heroine was to be like, but that would not have enabled him to design the costumes. Nor was it lack of technical information that held him back. If it were, he could have called up a fashionable New York store and said, "Send me three very expensive dresses such as women in their late twenties are buying this year." Or he could have said to a wealthy debutante, "Let me look through your closet, please." Doing that would have enabled him to avoid the disaster of having knowledgeable women in the audience murmur, "That's all wrong. A woman in her set would never wear that!" But it would not have given him a wardrobe that tells even those of us who do not travel in those circles, and do not even read Women's Wear Daily (a majority -- dare I say it? -- of those who have seen the picture), something about the unique personality of Lisa Fremont. If getting the exactly right costume were as simple as that, then Edith Head would not be a name familiar to every serious movie-goer. But if the view of creative activity that I am here presenting is right, then even Miss Head (and a fortiori Mr. Hitchcock), upon seeing Miss Kelly wearing the final costumes, understood the character of Lisa Fremont better than before, while at the same time saying, "Yes, now I see that that is what I was really trying to express from the start."

By the same token, consider the composer of a symphony. It is not enough for him to say, "Here I want some crashing chords of thundering triumph and ecstasy." That is what a movie director says to the musician hired to write the sound track, and saying that does not make the director a composer. The trick lies in finding the right chords, and it is the man who finds them who is the composer.)

We have, then, the Idea, the Expression of that Idea, and the Understanding of that Idea as conveyed by the Expression.

Of these three, it is only the second that one can get one's hands on, so to speak. In our original example, if someone asks what is the idea that is here expressed, we can only point to the concrete expression of the idea by the word "vulnerable," saying: "That is the idea to be expressed." If someone asks what it is that we have understood about how the girl in the story looked, what impression she conveyed, again we answer in terms of the word "vulnerable" and what it conveys. In theological terms, "No one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son reveals Him."

Given that it is only the second of the three that can be pointed to, as it were, in answer to a question about the nature of the others, why suppose that there are these three elements present in every instance of creativity? Why not just the second, the concrete expression of the idea? The answer is that the expression itself points to something behind itself, something that it is subject to. To say, "that is the right word," (or of Lisa Fremont, "that was just the right scarf,") is to say that it is the right one for the expression of the idea. The Son Himself testifies that He is come to reveal the Father. But He also says, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." The Expression is there in order that you may know the Idea through it. As an expression, it points beyond itself to that which it expresses, and yet there is no way of knowing or thinking about the Idea except in terms of the Expression of the Idea. Those, and only those, who yield their attention to the Expression will behold the Idea and respond to it with Understanding. No one comes to the Father except through the Son, and it is those who have given their obedience to the Son in whom the Spirit dwells.

The analogy here offered has been discussed at length by the English novelist and playwright Dorothy L Sayers, most notably in her book THE MIND OF THE MAKER (Harper and Row paperback), which I most enthusiastically recommend. Miss Sayers writes from her own experience (and writes far better than I could hope to) about the relation between the doctrine of the Trinity and the experience of the artist engaged in a work of creative imagination. She has also dealt with the subject in her play THE ZEAL OF THY HOUSE (London, Victor Gollanz, 1937; Methuen, 1961), and, less directly, in her translation of Dante's COMEDY and the accompanying notes, (Penguin Paperbacks), and in her two volumes INTRODUCTORY PAPERS ON DANTE and FURTHER PAPERS ON DANTE. Let me close with a quotation from THE ZEAL OF THY HOUSE.

Children of men, lift up your hearts. Laud and magnify God, the everlasting Wisdom, the holy, undivided and adorable Trinity. Praise Him that He hath made man in His own image, a maker and craftsman like Himself, a little mirror of His triune majesty. For every work of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly. First: there is the Creative Idea; passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning; and this is the image of the Father. Second: there is the Creative Energy, begotten of that Idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter; and this is the image of the Word. Third: there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its reponse in the lively soul; and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit. And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist without other; and this is the image of the Trinity. Behold, then, and honor, all beautiful work of the craftsman, imagined by men's minds, built by the labor of men's hands, working with power upon the souls of men, image of the everlasting Trinity, God's witness in world and time. And whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

</PRE>