THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

 

THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

Some things can be known about God by the use of human reason.  For example, that he is all-powerful, eternal, and the source of life.  But human beings can only come to know the true nature of God, who he is in himself – that is, his substance – by revelation.  “To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament.  But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #237).  St. John writes in his Gospel, “No one has ever seen God.  The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him” (Jn 1:18).

Christianity is unique among monotheistic religions in that we confess that God is One and Three.  An early creed of the Church professed that “God is one but not solitary.”  In order to explain her belief about the nature of God the Church developed her own terminology, borrowing phrases and notions from philosophy; for example, “substance,” “hypostatis,” “relation,” and “person.”  In so doing she does not rely upon human philosophy in developing her doctrine but uses human language to make her belief more accessible and understandable.  But God will always remain a mystery to our limited minds.  Even the great St. Augustine, the most influential theologian in the history of Christianity, admitted that “If you understood him, it would not be God.”  The truth about him must be received by faith.  

The Church speaks of the hypostatic union in Jesus of his divine and human natures.  The Greek word hypostatis refers to the underlying reality of something, and when it is used in reference to a human being it is often translated into English as “person.”  The Scriptures reveal that Jesus is both God and man.  From the moment of his conception in his Mother’s womb he had a fully human and a fully divine nature, united in a hypostatic union which will endure forever.  He has two natures but is one divine Person.

We use “person” of the Holy Trinity to distinguish the uniqueness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit without dividing them into three essences.   They are one essence, one substance, one Being, but three Persons.  They are only different in their relation to each other.  St. Augustine explains: “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the first principle and, by the eternal gift of this to the Son, from the communion of both the Father and the Son.”  We profess in the Nicene Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” 

The Holy Trinity is often represented in art as a triangle over a circle. The three sides of a triangle are equal, as are the three Persons.  A circle has no beginning or end, just at the Holy Trinity always was and always will be.  What can be said of one Person of the Holy Trinity can be said of the other Persons, except that the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son.  “Inseparable in what they are, the divine persons are also inseparable in what they do.  But within the single divine operation each shows forth what is proper to him in the Trinity, especially in the divine missions of the Son’s Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Cat. 267).

“Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.  In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him” (1 Jn 4:8-9).  Love existed in God before the creation of the world, for God is a Holy Trinity.  For all eternity the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit is their union of love.  Christ came into the world that human beings may be caught up into this communion of love by becoming the expiation of our sins (cf. 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10).  In this way he made it possible for creation to achieve the purpose for which God created it: that mankind, created male and female in his image and likeness, might live eternally in loving union with him and with one another.  “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (Cat 234).  We enter into this life by being baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus commanded before his Ascension (cf. Matthew 28:19-20).  We continue in this life when we walk by faith and not by sight (cf, 2 Cor 5:7).