WHAT YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE HOLY TRINITY. BY EZENWATU PHILIP C.
TRINITY SUNDAY (YEAR A)
1st Reading: Exodus 34:4b-6,8-9
2nd Reading:2Cor. 13:11-13
Theme: God is three and God is One
We have celebrated the persons of the Trinity in our liturgy beginning from the plan of the Father (God-Head) down to the birth, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (The Redeemer) and to the promise and coming of the Holy Spirit (The Sanctifier). Today we sum them up to understand their distinctiveness and their unity. Today we celebrate the foundation of our Christian faith, the basic tenet of our Christian life, the principal affirmation of our Christian doctrine, the distinguishing factor of our Christian Religion, and the yardstick for every Christian ecumenical engagement (Unitatis Redintegratio art.1). The first reading manifests the love and interest of the God-Head in the affairs of Men with the action of a covenantal remedy. The Gospel further speaks of the Love and interest of the God-Head in the well being of Men with the action of still a covenantal remedy, but now, in the sending of His beloved Son (The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity). The second reading crowns it all to a completion in the words of St. Paul by mentioning the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity drawing a religious and normative relevance from it for the people.
So many Christians do not know what is meant by Trinity, while others do not bother to know. In the Old Testament, God made all things and when it came for Man, He began His creatural action with the first foundational statement: “Let us..." depicting a single action under the work frame of persons (plurality). By creating Man in the Image of this "Us", God invited man to His inner life with a purpose and relevance to be drawn from the Trinity for Man (giving Man a salvific value). However, the Jews conceived God as just one with his messengers because they were bent on protecting a Monarchical structure of God; the plurality and relational notion of God was for them inconceivable. Little would we blame them since we understand that Judaism was in the time very reactive to the polytheistic tendencies of the Oriental and neighbouring religions. But there were tinctures in the old testament pointing to and prefiguring that God has persons. God made all things with his word(Jesus Christ), and infused in Man the ‘ruah’( Spirit, breath, The Holy Spirit). So, the Trinity was fully involved in the creation of Man. God, thus, wanted to gradually manifest himself to the Jews and to humanity; since it will be too much for human comprehension to grasp this most eluding mystery at a time.
In the New Testament, Jesus gives this ‘Let us...' a specific "Tri Persons" dimension. In Mathew 28:19, the very last words of Christ after His earthly ministry, He submits and summarizes His hope for Christianity and the Church by saying: "Go therefore...baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. In this Religious as well as doctrinal affirmation of Christ, we see a single action to be done, no longer in/by some unknown "Let Us"(persons), but with a specific 3 persons whose name and identification were given. This action is also a foundational recreative action(baptism), just like the foundational creatural action in creation.
From the early Christian times, it was not developed (Christological formulars were dominant because of the decisive nature of the time, Christ needed to be acknowledged).
Later it was developed in the 2nd & 3rd centuries, and reached its climax in Augustine. Tertulian coined the name- "Trinitax"(Tri-Uno) against "Triad" which does not bring out the singularity of the Persons. Augustine who was almost accused of de-personalising the Holy Spirit conceived the Trinity in the Persons of the God-Head and the God-Man with the Holy Spirit as the Bond of Love that binds the Father and the Son. The antecedents of this notion had long been established in the council of Nicea, 325AD(at the outbreak of the Eastern Schism of both doctrinal ("Filioque") and territorial(Rome and Constantinople) supremacy) with the "procedit ab utroque"(The Holy Spirit from the two ways of Father AND Son; not Father THROUGH the Son-some sort of Hierarchical representation), and "simul adoratur"(with the same adoration for the Three). God is relational in himself(pericoresis) and He does not need our Glory to be God. His creation of man is a favour to man. To exist is God’s grace (Theology of life and death). God sees himself in his son, and is glorified in his son – the persons glorify themselves (He is the image of the invisible God. This Relation is Primeval and timeless. There are 3 concepts of time. Eternitas (time of God, without beginning nor end. We note that the use of time here is limiting, however, because we know that analogia flevis:analogy limps, we have no choice), Aevus(time of our souls with beginning but without end), and Tempus(time of our bodily existence with beginning and with end) – Degrees of Existence.
In the early time of the development of the doctrine of Trinity, many people (even Priests) tried to explain what it meant, but various heresies ensued in this regard, and in trying to correct these heresies, the church developed and enriched her doctrines through apologetic (defense) outlook.
Prominent amongst these Heresies were Modalism, which saw God as acting in three different modes not distinct Persons, and Surbodinationsim (which presented God in a hierarchical structure). St. Hillary of Poitias explained that God, the Father, is greater than the son in that he has given all that He is to the Son.
The essence of the incarnation, therefore, was to accomplish and elevate Man to share, as already wrought through a creatural mediation, in the divine-human assumption of the Logos, a Person in the Trinitarian life, already begun at creation, but lost by man. Hence, Three Persons in one God, distinct in Persons, co-equal in dignity, same in substance and essence: The mystery of the Trinity.
LESSONS FROM THE TRINITY
Unity: God through this manifestation in His son calls us to learn from Him who is the bond of unity. They are not 3 God’s (Idolatry & Polytheism), but 3 persons in one God. This is what we profess in the sign of the cross. In the Name (not Names) of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit. Note that there is a use of Name in singular to show oneness and equality, but also “and of”, to emphasize the distinctness of the persons. The progression: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not of dependence, subordination and Hierarchy. It is simply their time of manifestation in human salvific history, and the best way to conceptualize them in human terms.
Finally, everything we say about the Trinity is analogous (and analogia flevis: it limps) as well as anthropocentric (using human attributes on God). We are hereby called to profess and believe more strongly in this our Christian foundational faith (creed). We are also called to love and be united with ourselves, and with others around us.
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