On Trinity – a Mystery of the Divine Love to be Experienced and Embraced as the Center of Our Life

1+1+1=3.  We have learned this “truth” when we were in a first grade math class. This is also the kind of math we understand this world. However, this human thinking does not apply in regard to addressing God, who is a great mystery, called Trinity. In fact, this Triune God is what makes Christianity stands out, even among the Abrahamic monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Then, what is Trinity? This question is, in essence, asking who God really is.

Can anyone answer who God is?  Verbally, God revealed as “אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה”(ehyah aser ehyah) – “I am who I am”, to Moses (Exodus 3:14). This is why God is also known as Yahweh. Thus, asking who God is means asking who “I am who I am” is.

Throughout our history, many theologians have struggled and attempted to answer this question and brought their own unique theological concepts on God.  As they pursue their own answers on who God is, they have also developed their views on Trinity, who Triune God is. Who Trinity is, in essence, who “I am who I am” is.

In my view, while these theological concepts on who God is – who Triune God is – have certain merits in our pursuit of intimate and harmonious relationship with God to “understand” God, we must humble ourselves to remember God is far beyond our comprehension, because God is a mystery. Therefore, Trinity – the Triune God – is also a mystery.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 237, states:

The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God". 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 to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

Trinity is a mystery of faith, and we, the Christians, center this mystery of faith in our lives (i.e. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 261).

God in Trinity is a mystery. Therefore, we can never fully comprehend Trinity and why God is Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Rather than struggling with our attempts to “understand” this mysterious Triune God – God in Trinity, it is better to experience and embrace the traces of God’s Trinitarian marks in our own daily lives. It is far more important than spending all life reading difficult theological books in our futile attempts to “understand” Trinity.

Trinity is not meant to be “understood” by us but to be experienced as we live a life of faith. In other words, we are to experience and embrace this immeasurable, incomprehensive nature of God, as much as we can, as we live a life of faith, centered on this mystery of our Triune God.

Given our empirical approach to Trinity, rather than rational one, perhaps, it is helpful to juxtapose Triune God to the Sacrament of Matrimony. Why? Because, both Trinity and the Sacrament of Matrimony are respectively mysteries.

In this juxtaposition, think of 1+1=2 in parallel to 1+1+1=3. According to what we have learned on the first day in our first grade math class, 1+1 has to be 2, just as 1+1+1 has to be 3. This is applicable to understand this world. However, when it comes to the Sacrament of Matrimony, which is a reflection of Genesis 2:24, 1+1=1! , as 1+1+1=1 in Trinity! Because it is a great mystery, 1+1=1 is “irrational”. However, in the eyes of God and in our Christian faith, it is what it is.

Why the Sacrament of Matrimony is so attractive for men and women in faith and in mutual love? It is because of this mystery- far beyond human rationality. Why God is so great? Likewise, God is a mystery, called Trinity.

Men and women who have tied their nuptial knot in the Sacrament of Matrimony continue to experience and enjoy mystery of their mutual love, centered in the Triune God. When they first kissed at God’s alter during their wedding ceremonies, they did not fully understand each other. Nevertheless, they already loved each other and desire to further experience the mystery in each other. And, their marriages continue to grow and bear the Fruits of the Holy Spirit! Perhaps, experiencing traces of Triune God in our daily lives is like this – like experiencing each other’s mystery in love in the Sacrament of Matrimony. After all, God is love (1 John 4:8), and King Solomon has poetically reflected God’s love to us analogous to a mystery of passionate love between a young man and a young woman through the Song of Songs. 

The mysterious nature of the Triune God does not mean God is unreachable to us. If so, God would not have incarnated in the human flesh of Jesus, the Son, the first Parakletos and another Parakletos, the Holy Spirit, would not have descended upon us on Pentecost, either. Not to mention, Jesus would not have instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist as his own Body and Blood, at the Last Supper, either.

Remember, as God is love, the incomprehensive and immeasurable nature of Trinity reflects how great God’s love for us is. Through John 14 through 16, Jesus himself explains who he is in relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit. These three Johannine chapters also reflect the mystery of God’s love and God’s desire to unite us to Trinity. For this reason, God the Father has sent the Son and the Holy Spirit in Son’s name.

Trinity Sunday is a humble reminder, as well as a joyful and awesome invitation to experience as many traces of Trinity mystery, our God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in our daily lives. And, as we experience the mystery of Trinity, while our faith, which is our trust and intimacy with God, continues to grow, we become more united not only with each other in love but with Trinity.

If to insert some theological insight to experience and embrace Trinity, perhaps, David Tracy’s concepts of “analogical imagination” and “mutually critical correlation” can be applied. Certainly, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other great theologians have addressed Trinity with their own unique applications of David Tracy’s these concepts. After all, according to James Fowler’s “Stages of Faith Development”, which is based on Erik Erikson’s life-span identity development theory, imagination is the foundation of our faith development. Given that experiencing Trinity leads to the growth of faith, as indicated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it makes sense to approach this mystery of Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the hypostatic union – with imagination.

Just as Christian husbands and wives united in the Sacrament of Matrimony have great imaginations to thrive, we, who are baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, shall apply our sense of imagination to experience and embrace Trinity, whose nature is love – ἀγάπη (agape), חֶ֫סֶד (chesed), and רַחֲמִים (rachamim). Perhaps, applying Tracy's "analogous imagination" and "mutually critical correlation" upon passages in John 14 through 16 and 1 John 4 may give us a focus on the mystery of love, in experiencing and embracing Trinity. 

To make this imagination analogous and mutually critically correlated to applicable scripture passages in John 14 through 16 and 1 John 4 may help us experiencing Trinity with a focus on love.