Reflections 2006
The mystery of the Holy Trinity? Not a problem

There is always the temptation to regard the mystery of the Holy Trinity as a mathematical problem: “How does one plus one plus one equal one?” An ancient statement on the Trinity in our Catholic Tradition (known as the Athanasian Creed) declares:

“Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son’s is another, the Holy Spirit’s another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.”

The Creed continues like this at some length. Later it says that:

“the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet they are not three Gods but one God”; and that: “there is one Father not three Fathers, one Son not three Sons, one Holy Spirit not three Holy Spirits.”

It goes on... It may be said that as a statement of the doctrine the Atanasian Creed achieves clarity but fails to communicate meaning. One is tempted upon hearing it simply to throw up one’s hands and question, ‘What does it all matter?’

Those who composed the Athanasian Creed, however, believed that it did matter – so much so that they began with the statement that “whoever wishes to be saved must, above all else, hold [this] true Catholic faith.”

The Church of the first six centuries was convinced that the proclamation of the Christian Gospel depended upon the faithful and accurate teaching of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Church Fathers spent a lot of time and effort in contemplation and controversy getting this teaching right. They even celebrated it with the Festival of the Holy Trinity, which we celebrate on the Sunday after Pentecost as the crowning festival of the whole liturgical cycle.

We may well ask why.

Baptism is a good starting point. Before baptism, the candidate is asked three questions: “Do you believe in God, the Father almighty?” “Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son?” “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?” The candidate is then baptised “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Since our Christian life starts with Baptism, we can see that the Holy Trinity is not an abstract doctrine, but the true and living God who desires a deep and intimate communion with humanity as a whole and every human being personally.

We often associate each of the three beings of the Holy Trinity with one of three actions in the story of our salvation. For instance, we say that God the Father created the world; that God the Son saved the world; and that God the Spirit makes the world holy. St Irenaeus, who lived in the 2nd Century AD, called these three articles of our faith “the three chapters of our [baptismal] seal.” Nevertheless, as the Catechism says (§191), these three ‘chapters’ are not mutually exclusive, but closely connected with one another.

God is One, so no one Person of the Holy Trinity acts completely independently of another. For instance, in the two stories of Creation in Genesis, we have one in which God creates the world through His Word, that is, through the person of the Son (cf. Gen 1:3; Jn 1:1-5), and another in which life is given through the Breath of God, that is, through the Spirit. (Gen 2:7) So, in the Nicene Creed which we recite at Mass on Sundays, we confess our faith in God the Father, “maker of Heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” But we also confess our faith in God the Son and say that “through Him all things were made;” and in the Holy Spirit whom we say is “the Lord and giver of Life.”

It is the same with the work of salvation. We know that only Jesus (God the Son) died on the Cross – not the Father or the Holy Spirit. Yet precisely at the moment He died, the Gospels record Jesus breathing out His Spirit (the Holy Spirit!) into the hands of His Father in Heaven: “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit!” (Lk 23:46) Again, the Holy Spirit does not just appear in the world: He is sent into the world by the Father (Jn 14:26) and by the Son. (Jn 16:7)

In fact, we see an intricate and dynamic interplay between the Persons of the Holy Trinity in the Gospels and in the letters of the New Testament. Even the simple greeting of St Paul – “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:13) – identifies three distinct gifts from the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

The first is love: St John and Pope Benedict XVI never cease to remind us that “God is Love,” and that we love only because He first loved us. (1 Jn 4:9). The second is grace: from the fullness of Christ we have all received “grace upon grace.” (Jn 1:16) The third is fellowship, or ‘communion’: the Holy Spirit calls and gathers us into the communion of love and grace with the Father and the Son.

Perhaps it is this final gift that is most important in our consideration of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God desires, above all else, that we, his creatures, be drawn into communion with Him. St Athanasius (after whom the Creed was named) once said that “the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” God wishes us to become one with Him in a most intimate union: that of Father and children. St Ireneaus put it this way: “the Son of God became the Son of Man so that man, by entering into communion with the Word [God the Son] and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”

Although we will not become Persons of the Holy Trinity, it is the Father’s will that through His Son and in His Spirit we will enter into a communion with Him which is every bit as intimate as the union that exists between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Yet our personal identity will not be annihilated in God. Just as the divine Persons of the Trinity remain distinct in their unity, so we remain personal creatures distinct from our personal creator. This is why the Creeds emphasise the necessity of holding “the true Catholic faith” about God for our salvation. It is our ultimate destiny to be united with the ‘three-in-one’ God and with one another in perfect communion, but without the loss of our distinct personhood and identity.

The Holy Trinity will always remain a mystery, but I pray that as you grow in faith and knowledge of God, His nature will cease to be a problem for you, and become an exciting personal reality!

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.