Catholicism Pure and Simple by Longenecker Dwight

Author:Longenecker, Dwight [Longenecker, Dwight]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stauffer Books
Published: 2012-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Why the Holy Trinity? Probably the most unusual and difficult belief that Christians hold is the idea that the one God is a Trinity of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It makes sense to many people that there is only one God. They quite rightly say that God is a total and utter mystery, ultimately beyond our powers of understanding or description. They wonder why we have to bother with such a difficult and seemingly contradictory idea as the Trinity.

One of the reasons we bother is because, as the first Christians began to think about the way God worked in the world, they came to realize that Jesus acted like God in human form. They realized that Jesus did the things that, in the Old Testament, God’s Holy Spirit had done. It was by thinking about Jesus that they came to understand that he was one with the Spirit and the Father. The resulting concept is difficult to understand intellectually, but if we try to put ourselves into the shoes of the first Christians we will see that this explanation about God’s character fits best with the other things we know about God.

Despite the difficulties, the Trinity is the best way of understanding God. Furthermore, this understanding is not just a head game. This truth about God is practical. It really does help the other pieces of the puzzle fit into place. Understanding more of the Holy Trinity helps us to understand God better. More importantly, it helps us experience God better.

God Talk Since God is ultimately beyond our comprehension it is appropriate to use a mysterious concept to indicate what he is like. The Trinity itself is a mystery—that is to say, it is a truth we can experience, even if we cannot fully explain it. That might sound a little suspicious, but when you think about it there is another, very ordinary aspect of life where this is also true. Love is something we can experience, but which we cannot fully explain. The Trinity is like that too.

The mystery of the Trinity has been explained with many different types of picture language. Saint Patrick said it was like clover leaf—one leaf, but three leaves. Others have said it is like water—it takes three different forms—solid, liquid, and gas, but all three are still water. All of these descriptions might help people understand the Trinity, but none of them are totally satisfactory. They can never be more than picture language to try to explain what is beyond our ability to understand.

One of the reasons none of these word pictures works completely is because all of them are just pictures. If God is Three in One, then we can’t make a picture of him. This is because God the Three in One is as much about what God does as what he is.

We call the Father, Son and Holy Spirit “persons” because like any person, they have three ways of acting. While saying that, it is also true that where one person of the Trinity acts all three are also acting.

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