The divine interaction of the Holy Trinity enables the same life-giving and loving interaction of all people and parts of God’s creation. (With a note on the Athanasian creed).
How many of you have ever said the Athanasian Creed? It is prescribed to be said on Trinity Sunday butI have never used it in 50 years of priesthood. It was probably not written by St Athanasius, more likely St Ambrose around 400AD. It incorporates some traditional affirmations, but includes material designed to exclude some heresies of the day.
Here are some of the words of it:
The Catholic Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity
Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible
As also there are not three incomprehensibles, and one incomprehensible.
Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled he shall perish everlastingly.
Note the sting in the tail if we get it wrong!
Such a creed seems a long way from the experience of Pentecost when the disciples were filled with joy and sent out to change the lives of others. Yet how much of that core experience remains when it is poured into the lifeless formula of the trinitarian doctrine, a concept which owes more to Greek philosophy than to the living God?
Let us explore three layers of meaning in the Trinity:
First, the three persons of the Trinity – Father/Creator; Son/redeemer; spirit/life-giver.
Father/Creator reminds us of God’s creative presence in all of life and Creation
- Genesis 1: God’s word hovers over the formless void and brings Creation into being
- There is an awesomeness about God’s over-arching presence. In Isaiah 6 we hear of the young prophet being totally overcome with awe as he came face to face with God in the temple and was sent out to call God’s people to turn again to God.
- That same sense of the awesome presence of God was described by Pelagius in 4th century Britain. The early Church condemned Pelagius as a heretic, but many see him today as being one of the early exponents of Celtic spirituality. “Everywhere”, wrote Pelagius, “narrow shafts of divine light pierce the veil that separates heaven from earth” (Philip Newell, Listening for the Heartbeat of God).
Son/Redeemer, Jesus: But the God of mystery and awe is also intimately and personally close to us in the life and presence of Jesus. As the disciples walked with Jesus they perceived the special person he was. They noted his singular devotion to God, and his total self-giving love for all. They saw the way he overthrow convention and creed to let God’s love run free. They noted how he satisfied the deepest hunger and thirst of ordinary people.
From this long exposure Peter proclaimed (John 6.68): “Lord to whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God”.
Spirit/lifegiver: Pentecost brings alive the reality of God as Spirit, as we recall (Acts 2) the tongues of fire that descended upon the disciples, and how they were filled with the Holy Spirit and sent out to proclaim the risen Christ to people of every nation and tongue.
Second layer: So far, so familiar, but Wait! There’s more. In contemporary theology the Trinity has become a symbol of diversity in unity: God is expressed in three activities, or Persons, of creating, redeeming, and giving life. While each “Person” is different, yet they live in dynamic interaction with each other. A Greek word perichoresis expresses it: peri (around) choresis (a dance). The three Persons dance together, hence the modern hymn “I am the Lord of the Dance”.
Third layer: This divine dance becomes the symbol of all of human existence. Each of us is called to be part of the dance. The Body of Christ, the Church, is an interactive community, with diverse gifts in shared mission. We interact with other faiths, not blurring our Christian heritage, but crossing the divides of cultural, racial and credal difference to bring peace and well-being for all.
Richard Hooker, 16th century Anglican theologian, wrote : “God hath created nothing simply for itself: but each thing in all things, and of everything each part in each other have such interest, that in the whole world nothing is found whereunto anything created can say, ‘I need thee not’.
The relationship with Earth itself, with every creature and element, is expressed movingly in the words of Anglican priest, the late Maori Marsden, who writes of Papatuanuku, the primordial Mother: “Papatuanuku is our mother and deserves our love and respect. She is a living organism with her own biological systems and functions creating and supplying a web of support systems for all her children whether man, animal, bird, tree, grass, microbes or insects”.
So I’m frankly glad we don’t say the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday, as its doctrinal exactitudes exclude the richness of a Trinitarian God. That richness is experienced:
- In the awesome presence of a God whose word hovers over all creation
- In the person of Jesus whose love brings us healing, reconciliation and compassion
- In the Spirit who fills us and enables us to go out with joy and bring healing to others
- In the perichoresis – the dance of life that links us to all people
- In our love and care for Creation – God’s gift to us, our children and grand-children
Seen that way the Trinity is far from a lifeless doctrine. It is a symbolic perception based on an experience of the living God that shapes our whole life, our vocation and the Church’s mission. Incomprehensible? I don’t think so!
