This photo was taken by a woman who lives in Iowa who comments sometimes on this blog. She has given me permission to use it in this post, for which I am grateful. It caught my attention when she posted it on her blog a few days ago. The photo is of a beautiful stained glass window in the balcony of the Lutheran Church in Iowa that she attends, an edifice built in 1873. It is called “the Trinity window.”This is a very ancient Christian symbol that tries to describe the Triune God, Who (I think) is indescribable. In the center is a circle containing the Latin word Deus (God). Surrounding the circle is a triangle with the word Pater (Father) at the top, the word Filius (Son) on the left (actually, the Son is at the Father's right hand as the symbol is facing toward the observer), and the words Spiritus Sanctus (Holy Spirit) on the other side. Along each side of the triangle are the Latin words Non Est, which mean “is not” or “He is not.” So basically the window tells us that God, the center of all things, is a Trinity consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And it tells us three other things. First, the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. Second, the Son is not the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not the Son. And third, the Father is not the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. They are three distinct persons, making up one Godhead in what Dr. Scot McKnight, a professor at North Park University in Chicago, calls “a perichoretic dance of mutual interpenetrability.” I was valedictorian of my high school class, but I have no idea what that means. The Trinity is a concept I can't really get my head around. It is a mystery that three can be one and one can be three, a very great mystery. But because I can't understand it, I believe it.
People have used various illustrations through the years to try to help explain the Trinity. The Trinity, they say, is like an egg, which has three parts--a yolk, a white, and a shell--and yet is one egg. The Trinity, they say, is like a molecule composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, which exists in three forms--water, ice, and steam--and yet its molecular structure remains the same. The Trinity, they say, is like a candle, which has three parts--the wax, a wick, and a flame--and yet is one candle. And God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and yet is one God, not three. All of the illustrations help, but all fall short.
I especially like two other illustrations that use a human being to illustrate the Trinity. St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “And I pray your whole spirit and soul and body will be preserved blameless unto the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” We ourselves are a trinity. With our body we have world-consciousness, with our soul (that is, our mind, emotions, and will) we have self-consciousness, and with our spirit we have God-consciousness. At least we did before Adam fell. Man's spirit, the part of him that is conscious of God, is what died that day. When a candle is deprived of oxygen, there can be no flame. But when God's Holy Spirit is restored in our lives, the oxygen returns and the flame can burn once more. Without Him, we have only a capacity for flame (wax and wick, body and soul), but no flame. The other illustration explains it best to me. I am one person, but I have different relationships. With my children, I am a father. With my parents, I am a son. With my wife, I am a husband. Yet I am still one person. I like this explanation best, but it still falls short of explaining the Trinity.
There is a verse in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:4, which is called “the Shema” by Jewish people; it is at the core of Judaism and repeated often. In English, it says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” In Hebrew, the words are, “Shema Yisroel, Adonai Elehenu, Adonai Echad.” (Jewish people substitute the word Adonai, Lord, for the word Yahweh, Jehovah, in the verse because they consider God's name, which means I AM THAT I AM, too sacred to speak.) It is interesting to me that there are two words in Hebrew for the concept of “one.” Yachad means an indivisible, sole, solitary oneness, as in “Take your son, your only son Isaac.” But echad means a compound unity, a oneness consisting of multiple parts, as in “The morning and the evening were the first day” (“first” is the ordinal number corresponding to “one,” a cardinal number) or “The people stood up as one man” or “one cluster of grapes” or “the man and his wife shall be one flesh.” And in Deuteronomy 6:4 the word used is echad.
It is truly a great mystery. I believe in monotheism--I believe there is only one Supreme Being--and I believe in the Trinity.
