The Trinity - Asking Why

Have you ever gotten confused when trying to describe how exactly the Trinity works? If so, you’re not alone. Many pastors describe Holy Trinity Sunday as the most difficult Sunday to preach on throughout the year. David Lose, one of the pre-eminent Lutheran theologians here in the US said as much in one of his commentaries some years ago. He wrote regarding Holy Trinity Sunday: “It’s the only Sunday in the church year that focuses exclusively on a doctrine of the church and, if we’re going to be perfectly honest, it’s a pretty complicated doctrine. I mean, I’ve said for years that

a) I don’t fully understand the Trinity,

b) I don’t expect to this side of the eschaton, (the end times) and

c) I tend not to trust those who say they do.

(And, in case we feel bad that we don’t really understand the Trinity, let’s keep in mind that the church fought over it for a century or more and that even folks like Augustine at times got tangled up trying to explain it!)” – David Lose, Working Preacher.

The truth is, the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is deeply complex and confusing. And, further, the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity just like all of our other doctrines is not necessarily the end all of theological discussion. It’s a strongly held belief… and it has been for quite some time.

But no where in the New Testament do we actually even hear the word, “Trinity.” It wasn’t until the late second century when Theophilius of Antioch made mention in his writings about the “Trinity” as God, his word (logos), and his wisdom (sophia).

And it wasn’t until the beginning of the third century that the great historian and early father of the church Tertullian identified the Trinity as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

There is no record of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity being handed down by God through a set of three interconnecting yet distinct tablets. No.

The Doctrine of the Trinity was something that was discerned through centuries of conversation about who Christ is and was in relation to God.

Heresies

We understand the Trinity as thus: the unity of the three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one God. For us we largely accept this as truth now. But the early church struggled with several ideas about who Jesus really was in relation to God.

One group believed in the Doctrine of Adoption which stated that Jesus was actually just an ordinary human born to Mary and Joseph. They believed that he became the Christ and Son of God when he was adopted by God in baptism. That doctrine was condemned in the year 269.

Another popular one was Sabellianism which stated that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were in essence one being… one person… but simply described different roles of God. This doctrine was condemned and the founder of was excommunicated in 220.

Finally, Arianism was the last big heresy in the early church in trying to understand who Jesus was. And Arianism taught, in essence, that Jesus was some special creature put together by God and given the distinct honor of being named the “Son of God.”

Arianism was such a wide-spread heresy that the council of Nicaea in 325 actually spoke against it in what we now know as the Nicene Creed. When we say the creed we speak our belief of the Son of God that he was: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father… through him all things were made.”

What We Believe

In a sense, what we understand today as the Doctrine of the Trinity is a statement that is less about what we know about how God works but rather how we’re pretty sure God does not work. After testing several possible theories, we have gone through a process of elimination and have concluded that Trinitarianism is correct.

We’re fairly confident in our belief that Jesus not born as just “a man.” We believe that he was fully human, yes… but also fully divine.

We’re fairly confident that God isn’t just talking to Godself when Jesus is praying to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. There is a relational aspect between the persons of the Trinity.

And, we’re fairly confident that the Son of God is not just some kind of special creature but that Jesus the Christ is indeed God. That as the disciples walked and talked with their teacher and friend that they were indeed walking and talking with their God.

Why does this Matter?

So the question might be coming up for you… why does this matter? The Doctrine of the Trinity has been established now for anywhere from 1,700 to 1,900 years depending on how you want to record it… we learned it in Sunday School, we talk about it in our creeds, it’s deeply embedded in our faith as something that we simply accept as true—especially when we don’t think about it too hard.

And on top of that in our society now, we’re less interested in trying to understand the Trinity than we are trying to glean what God might have to say regarding certain Social Justice Issues in our world today. We’re less interested in the hypostatic union (that’s the fancy seminary word for the Trinity) and more interested in hearing what God has to say about issues of racism, sexism, abuse, marriage, and so on. And yes, those are very worthy things to engage with.

But again, why does all of this history about the Doctrine of the Trinity matter?

Here’s what I think.

There are certain aspects of our faith that we have come to simply accept but we don’t necessarily know why. I remember as Ashley and I were dating and even when we were still just good friends, we had a number of really good deep theological conversations. Ashley had been raised a Southern Baptist… I had been raised an ELCA Lutheran—and yes, I’m young enough that while I was baptized as a member of the American Lutheran Church I grew up only knowing the ELCA. But in the midst of our conversations and debates, Ashley would ask me why I believed a particular thing… and it would often be something that I had simply never questioned before about my faith. And my response would, on occasion, be that I needed time to think about that. What that translated to, is that I needed to go and ask my dad why exactly it was that I believed the thing that I told Ashley I believed and if I was wrong about whether or not I believed that in the first place!

While I did generally think what I believed about God was likely true… I often didn’t know why I believed it. And I discovered that seeking out the “whys” of my faith helped me delve deeper into my faith journey with Christ than what I had ever done before. The danger to those whys, though, were that at times I also found out that some of my beliefs were flawed.

The Doctrine of the Trinity is the product of seeking out those “whys.” In the early church history, there were many who believed something along the lines of the Trinity but they didn’t know why. And as they encountered other Christians with different understandings than their own about who Christ was in the world they began to ponder the question, “Why do I believe what I believe?” And through conversation, prayer, and study, they began to weed out many of the theories that had holes in them until finally we had this single Doctrine remaining… and while even the doctrine of the Trinity has some potential holes in it even according to our early church fathers… it’s proven to be our best grappling with who God is for nearly 2,000 years.

The absolute bare honest true is that we will never know if what we believe in is 100% true until we have died and get a chance to glimpse what is on the other side of death’s door. But what we can do is that we can seek out the whys of our faith. We can ask the difficult questions in conversation with one another. We can talk to friends and family members with differing faith traditions and find out where we disagree so that we can begin to discover what precisely it is that we do believe by knowing what it is that we do not. And we, unlike our early church fathers, have the benefit of our ancestors wrestling with many of the same questions we do.

The Nicene Creed was the culmination of 2 centuries of conversations between those who did not share the same views when they began and ended in a council making a statement that would last for millennia.

Holy Trinity Sunday provides us the reminder to celebrate the process of faith formation. It is a reminder that our faith is something worth probing into as we yearn to discover why we believe what we believe. And through the realization of those whys, our confidence in our faith and our ability to articulate that faith with our neighbors increases.

And you can also help those you love discover their whys. Too often I think we simply tell, especially children, what to believe. While a certain amount of foundational work needs to be done for instruction, what would it be like if we as the church encouraged an atmosphere of curiosity about faith rather than enforcing a certainty about it? What if we engaged our kids and grandkids with the idea of “why” either for their belief or unbelief?

As a Lutheran who believes strongly in God’s Grace, I think God will smile at our mistakes as we work to try to learn and grow together. For myself, I do not fear that God will judge me if we get something wrong along the way. Why? Because Christ died for our imperfections. That’s the freedom that we have as Christians… to get something wrong and still be loved.

So go out and ask why. Ask your neighbors… ask your children and grandchildren… ask yourself. Be curious and grow in your faith together.

God’s peace and blessings be with you.