Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9 – Lord, Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion.

Responsorial Psalm: Daniel 3:52-56 – To you glory and praise for evermore.

Second Reading:2 Corinthians 13:11-13 – The grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Gospel: John 3:16-18 – God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved.

The problem of the One and the Triune has been the most fundamental problem in the history of the development of the Church’s doctrines. It has been at the heart of the Church’s theology because it brings out the uniquely Christian experience of God. Each theistic religion has its own experience of God. But the three great monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, tend to converge at the idea of One God. This, however, appears to be where the convergence ends. Whereas both Judaism and Islam maintain strict and absolute interpretation of monotheism in their understanding of God, the Christian understanding of God cannot be fully expressed and explained except from the point of view of the doctrine of the Trinity and the work of Jesus Christ. It is considered as a distortion of the distinctively Christian understanding of God to even attempt to distinguish the “One God” from the “Triune God”. They are indistinguishable even for the purposes of theological argument. Christian theology is clear regarding the distinctive Christian understanding of God: there is only one God, and that one God is triune. The entire Christian confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ is inextricably linked with the doctrine of the Trinity. St. Thomas Aquinas said: “It is impossible to believe explicitly in the mystery of Christ without faith in the Trinity; for the mystery of Christ includes that the Son of God took flesh; that He renewed the world through the grace of the Holy Spirit, and again, that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit” (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 2, a.8).

A homily setting like this one may not be the best suitable place to begin to trace the historical unfolding of the Christian understanding of God from the Old Testament down to the New Testament. Suffice it to say that although the OT does not provide any Trinitarian understanding of God (because it predates Christianity), personification of certain divine forces like “word”, “wisdom”, “spirit” of God, etc., provides what can be termed as prelude to the Christian understanding of God. Even in the NT, the doctrine of Trinity was not stated in black and white as we know it today. However, scattered in the NT are numerous indications and pointers to this doctrine: God is so communicated in the person of Jesus Christ that there is an identity between the two (cf., John 1:6-12, 14; Heb. 1:1-3); it assumes that there is a relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the Father “sends” the Son and the Spirit (Mt. 11:27; John1:1; 8:38; 1 Cor.2:10); the Father gives the Spirit through the Son (John 15:26). These and similar texts however, speak of the “economic Trinity” (i.e., how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are experienced in the history of salvation) as opposed to the “immanent Trinity” (how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit exist and interrelate within Godhead). It took three to four hundred years of theological development before the church came to the realization that the economic Trinity and the immanent Trinity are one and the same. In other words, the God whom we experience as triune is actually triune.

This brief and “simplistic” explanation that we made above does not take into account the slow and sometimes combative theological arguments that lasted for more than fifteen centuries – arguments which helped shape the evolution and development of the Trinitarian dogma as we know it today. We leave such arguments for theology classes. However, we must note that the Church’s official teaching on the Trinity is based on five fundamental principles namely: (1) The Trinity is an absolute mystery. Even though it is revealed, it transcends our ordinary human capacity to fully understand it; (2) God is triune – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, coequal and coeternal, and yet each distinct one from the other, but not to the point where we have three gods; (3) the Father alone is unbegotten, begets or generates the Son, and sends forth or spirates the Holy Spirit (with or through the Son); (4) the Son is begotten by the Father, not made as a creature (Arianism), and he is of the same substance as the Father (“true God of true God” – Nicea); (5) the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (and or through) the Son and has a distinct salvific mission in history – that of creating the community of faith (the Church), forgiving sins, giving new life, etc.

In concrete practical terms, what lessons can we learn from the doctrine of the Trinity? The great lesson is that Trinity entails togetherness and unity. The persons of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are distinct from one another; yet they are together as one God. There is no confusion, no conflict among them. They are not three gods. As there are no conflict among the three persons in Godhead, so also is it expected that there should be no conflict among us. Conflicts arise when people begin to see themselves as “more equal than others” (courtesy of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’). In the case of the Trinity, however, although we attribute creation to the Father, redemption to the Son, and sanctification to the Holy Spirit, none is more equal than the other as all are coequal and coeternal. As a people sharing the same common humanity, if we begin to see each other in Trinitarian fashion, there will be peace. We may have different areas of competence and specialization, but our particular specializations do not make us more equal than the rest because others have their own specializations which, when taken together with ours, form a coherent whole. The fragmented and divisive individualism that has bedeviled our world today stems from our inability to strive for a coherent whole for fear that others’ “whole” will diminish our own “whole”. On the contrary, our perceived “whole” will remain a fragmented part until it is completed by and with others’  “whole”. This is a great lesson we must learn from the Trinity if we are to survive as a species.

Closely related to their togetherness is their unity. In John 10:30, Jesus declared: “The Father and I are one”. Elsewhere when he was telling his disciples that although he had many things to tell them, but that they would be difficult for them to understand now, he promised to send the Holy Spirit who would guide them to the whole truth. It is important to note what he said concerning the Spirit: “He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you” (cf., John 16:12-15). This passage shows the indistinguishable unity that exists among the persons of God. Just think of the sun, the sunshine and the sun’s rays. These are three distinct concepts, yet they are so fussed together that there is really no division among them. Again, think of a singer and her voice: the two are distinct but not separate. One cannot separate the sun from its rays, or a singer from her voice. This is the type of unity that Jesus wishes for us. Humanity as a species is like the sun and like the singer; we as individuals are like the sun’s rays and the singer’s voice. In his priestly prayer of John 17, he says: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are” (John 17:11). The day we begin to see our differences in terms of the sun and its rays, or in terms of a singer and her voice, and no longer in terms of black and white, developed and underdeveloped, haves and have nots, etc., we shall have achieved the unity that the world is in dire need of today.

May the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, inspire us to strive for unity and togetherness in the midst of our cherished diversity. Amen.