Once we empty ourselves of our certainties, we open ourselves to the mystery.
—Joan Chittister [1]
Because of my curiosity as a child, fairy tales and mythical characters like Santa Claus didn’t last long around my house. I was always looking for the reasonable explanation, trying to pry out of my mom how exactly Santa got into our apartment since we didn’t have a fireplace. Of course, it didn’t take long before she caved. My dad didn’t last long either after he let it slip that he had seen the tooth fairy leaving me a quarter. I pestered him for a whole evening about what the tooth fairy looked like. Eventually he couldn’t keep his story straight and ended up just describing my mom. I figured that one out quickly but begged to still have the tooth fairy visit so I could get the cash.
So you can imagine the challenge my parents faced when they were trying to instill in me faith in a God I couldn’t see or touch. Perhaps you have had this experience with your own kids or a niece or nephew. It’s so fun to fill their imaginations with the creatures and characters that bring them so much wonder and joy. But there comes a day when kids begin to wonder just what the adults are playing make-believe about and what they are trying to share as a genuine belief. I know some parents who never talk about the Easter Bunny, fairies, or leprechauns for this exact reason. Other parents I know tell me how much joy they find in the imagination of it all! Childhood is full of confusion as kids realize adults are often keeping the whole story from them. Kids are constantly trying to discern which stories are all smoke and mirrors and which stories are rooted in something mysterious but true. They begin their quest to discover their own understanding of truth and fiction.
Leaving the mythical characters behind is an early move toward adulthood. After a while, I stopped asking questions about elves and flying reindeer and started asking questions about faith, God, and the spiritual realm. But it was difficult to know which beliefs I should leave behind and which I should cling to. I felt this conflict deeply as a young person, and I have very clear memories of trying to make sense of it all. I remember that the concept of God as Trinity—“three in one”—was one of the earliest concepts that blew my mind when trying to understand God. In many ways it still does!
The first time I can remember hearing about the Trinity was in a blessing we often spoke at my church: in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I soon noticed that in the church I grew up in, we didn’t talk too much about the Holy Spirit—it was more like the Father, Son, and holy Scriptures! Maybe you have had a similar experience where looking back, one of the persons of the Trinity seems strangely absent. Or perhaps in your experience there was an extreme focus on the Holy Spirit. Even though the word Trinity is never used in Scripture, we can see an image of God as “three persons yet one essence” throughout the narrative—from Genesis to Revelation. Even still, one of my personal hang-ups is trying to wrap my head around the concept of God being three and one at the same time. It’s so complex!
To combat this complexity, I was given all sorts of analogies and explanations—maybe you’ve heard some of these, too. For instance, “the Trinity is like water: liquid, ice, and vapor—three forms but one substance.” Or “the Trinity is like a tree; it has roots, branches, and fruit, but it’s all one tree.” Or “the Trinity is like the sun; it’s a star with light and heat.” The problem, I soon realized, is that every analogy falls short of explaining the mystery of the Trinity. Some analogies have even been called heresy—a belief that falls outside the orthodox teaching of the church.
Throughout Christian history, the punishment for heresy has been severe. Though I don’t advocate for this kind of punishment (and I’m glad to say that most branches of the church no longer do either), I do think we ought to reject these simple analogies for the Trinity. All of our human analogies are limited. They all reduce the concept in some way. Or, they all cause reductionism. I appreciate this definition by Randy Peterman:[2]
re·duc·tion·ism \ ri-ˈdŭk-shə-ˌni-zəm \
Theological reductionism is the concept of taking a biblical doctrine and reducing, summarizing, or “boiling the doctrine down” to one finite statement that could very well be an oversimplification.
The temptation for reductionism is why Twitter and theology often don’t do well together. When we only have a limited number of characters to work with, we’re apt to accidentally—or at times intentionally—produce a reductionistic statement. There are a lot of things that I think pastors and religious leaders overreact about, but I’ll join the chorus to warn people against reductionism. If we are going to engage with the mystery of God, then reductionism is the very thing that can keep us from a catechism of curiosity and drop us right back into oversimplified catechisms of certainty.
While this is a pretty harsh criticism of the simplistic answers often found in catechism teaching, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with its 2,865 catechism statements, does have some helpful material. In particular, I can get on board with statement 243 about the Trinity:
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.
Reading this helps me engage the idea that the Trinity is a mystery to be in awe of, not just a theology to be understood. I’ll never stop trying to wrap my mind around this concept, even though I am certain I will never be able to fully grasp it. It is the central mystery after all. And that means there are other mysteries. In this mind-bending doctrine, I began to find the freedom to step more fully into the mystery of God.
Let me be clear, I’m not rejecting all analogies. Our finite brains need something to grasp onto to help us understand an infinite God. The important thing is to recognize which analogies are helpful and which are reductionistic. If you can move beyond the bad analogies, the Trinity is best thought of as a community or a family. God as parent, Jesus as son, and God’s Spirit in a relationship of constant selfless love toward them both. This is unlike any other family we see here on earth (humans seem to have a tough time with the selfless love part). This family isn’t a closed family but an invitational family. I often refer to the Trinitarian God as the family of God that is open to us all as we are invited to join in!
The family of God, including us if we want to be a part of it, doesn’t exist for itself but rather is a family on mission, a family with the purpose of bringing shalom (or perfect peace), love, and justice to a world that God loves. God leads that effort, but humans are invited to join in every day. If you are willing to be a part of this family, then you are also called to welcome others. Because God’s family loves each other well, every member of the family wants each person to participate and to step into their full purpose. The family of God is a “sending” family, not a “holding back” family.
Unfortunately, many of us have been part of a “holding back” family or community. One where we are held back from our potential and purpose. Some families naturally grow and change in ways that allow each member to flourish. That’s not always the case; many family systems are difficult and painful. The family of God, at its best, is an empowering family for those who experience support from their earthly family, as well as for those who don’t.
Our human relationships can be a helpful analogy in another way—showing us how finite and limited our minds are when it comes to relating to others. I mean, I will be in relationship with my husband for the rest of our lives. But if you’ve ever met my husband, you know that I’m telling the truth when I say there is no way I am going to be able to completely figure out that strange human! Even if we had 150 years together! We can only take it one day at a time. Some days trying to understand him is exciting, but obviously some days are frustrating. I’m sure he’d agree! I’ve found this to be true in any type of intimate relationship with roommates, friends, and family. And I’ve found this to be true in my relationship with God.
We have the ability to not just know about God but actually know God. At times, trying to understand a divine Being is frustrating—just like relating to other humans. Over the years, I’ve committed to taking it one step at a time. On the frustrating and hard days when I just don’t understand, and in the darkest moments of doubt, I’ve made a commitment to keep pressing into the questions and to not run from them. Just like I’ve committed to keep loving my husband and learning about him, even when I feel frustrated and confused by him.
None of this is easy. I’ve had to choose to love myself enough to keep pushing through when my critical thinking turns into cynicism. I’ve had to try to love others in my community enough to be patient when they are in a different place in their faith than I am. I’ve had to make sure that as I try to open my mind to understand God intellectually, I also keep my heart open to experience God relationally, even when I feel confused.
The confusion about God can be overwhelming and disorienting at times. It’s like you are in the wilderness with a compass, but the needle is just spinning. The incarnation, or the moment that God put on human form in the person of Jesus, is an opportunity to stop the spinning for at least a moment. Consider the idea that God becoming a human gave us a physical picture of God’s character in order to make tangible some of the metaphysical questions. This is how the person of Jesus can be a true north, stopping the needle from spinning long enough for us to regain a sense of direction.
For years I have been drawn to a beautiful prayer that Paul, an early leader in the first-century church, wrote while in prison because of his faith. He wrote this prayer to a young church he loved in the city of Ephesus, and you can read it in the Bible in Ephesians 3:14–21. Notice the way that Paul weaves through the persons of the Trinity in his prayer:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.[3]
In so many ways, I wish that the “measure of the fullness of God” that Paul is talking about would be the fullness of understanding God. But clearly Paul’s prayer is for people like me, and probably you, who endlessly seek knowledge; he prays that we will be filled by God’s relational love—the love that surpasses knowledge. When our finite minds hit their inevitable limitations, we need the love that can go further than our understanding. The fullness that Paul refers to here is about experience, not knowledge. His prayer is that the experience of God’s love will be full in the midst of our limited ability to understand.
When I pray, I tend to offer prayers that sound more like, “God, I have imagined how I’d like this to turn out, so if you could work it out, right in the timing I’m hoping for and in a way that doesn’t stress me out, that would be great.” Which couldn’t be more different from Paul’s prayer here that God will do even more than we could imagine. Not just a little more, but so much more that we wouldn’t even be able to measure it. I’m better able to pray this way, along with Paul, on some days more than others.
Even today, when I stop to think about it, it is still so mysterious how this family of God with its Trinitarian leadership really works and at times still feels frustrating! The fact that God cannot be fully comprehended can move from being mostly frustrating to also being exciting.
Although I often long for clarity, certainty, and simplicity when it comes to understanding God, the reality is that I don’t think I would really be able to believe in, or have faith in, a god that my human mind could understand. I mean, how small would that god be? Would a god I can fully comprehend be worthy of worship? I can get excited about the idea that my relationship with God, rather than just knowledge about God, means that I am always learning more in a constant pursuit of intimacy with a complex yet relational God.