Reflections on the Trinity
Martyn Percy (Editorial, Modern Believing, Volume 42:3, July 2001)
This edition of Modern Believing normally arrives on doormats across the country during July. It is the season of Trinity (for those who follow lectionaries), and it therefore seemed a good opportunity to offer a different kind of editorial, in the form of a meditation, that might begin a debate. I offer this because I have just left a conference - one hosted by an MCU branch - in which I was very struck by the morphological similarity between a certain type of liberalism and a certain type of fundamentalism. Yes, you read correctly. I wrote 'similarity'.
Allow me to explain. The conference was about Jesus, and was in every way a useful and absorbing day, full of decent insight and imaginative exploration. In common with good 'liberal' practice, the day offered not one but two speakers, who did not see eye to eye, and therefore drew the audience into a deeper debate about the message, nature and portrayal of Jesus. It was a fascinating day. I would have no complaints, except for the informal discussions I participated in and encountered. All those attending the day were paid-up liberals. Yet there was much evidence of an extraordinary vein of antipathy amongst many attendees, directed against theology, the Church, liturgy and doctrine. Time and time again, I heard people stating a preference for the 'simple' Jesus one of our speakers presented, and tirades against the 'unnecessary and false complexity' of much Christian doctrine, especially relating to Christology.
It is my view that paradox, complexity and puzzles are part of the rich Christian tradition we inherit, and are certainly constituent of the material that liberals insist on struggling through and working with, both spiritually and intellectually. To reject this 'call' is to risk capitulating to a different agenda, namely one that embraces simpler 'answers', and casts off mystery in favour of clarity. This can only lead to dogmatism, and then to its more unfortunate children, including intolerance. To put this observation in the form of a sharp question: does liberalism want a simple version of Jesus to counter similar assertions from other theological traditions? I rather think not. Theological liberalism is a vocation of the mind and the heart that is pharmacologically restless, and struggles for a form of simplicity in which the complexity of faith is never set aside.
So, why talk about the Trinity in this space? Well, during the conference, I asked a number of people if they thought that doctrines such as this (or Christology) were important. From a group of twenty, only three thought the matter worth bothering with. Many considered 'this type of thinking' as an encumbrance to faith. I was disturbed by this.
It is a fact that the word 'Trinity' does not appear in the Bible. Leaving aside the widely discredited reference in 1 John 5:7, there is nothing in scripture that explicitly links together, in the phrase of one song-writer, 'the three men I admire the most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost'. The doctrine of the Trinity was arrived at slowly and painfully over a four hundred year period. And like many doctrines, it is a testimony to the partiality of truth as we know and experience it, partly a social consensus bound by time, and in part, a political settlement that attempted to bind up arguments and paradoxes in order to capture the mystery of something that was seen in a mirror, dimly.
The Trinity, perhaps of all doctrines save that of the incarnation, is the one that has produced more than its fair share of sects, splits and schisms. Blood has been spilt for truth and counter truths. Councils, creeds and controversies have sought to appoint the right kinds of truth and models. If it is true that the road to heresy is paved with good intentions, we might reverse this phrase for a moment, and say that the road to what we call orthodoxy can be paved with bad intentions. Heresy normally tries to simplify faith, but it risks diluting it. Orthodoxy wants to preserve its complexity, but risks obscuring it, and excluding people from the margins of belief. The nineteenth century German theologian Schleiermacher saw this in part, and called the doctrine of the Trinity 'a coping stone' - a brick place on top of supporting walls that held things together, and prevented corrosion: it was ornamental and functional, but not, according to Schleiermacher, foundational or fundamental.
And judging by the weight of evidence in Christian history, he would appear to be right, would he not? Despite regular recitations of the creeds in liturgical churches, most worshippers would be pressed to articulate a 'Trinitarian doctrine'; in non-liturgical, charismatic, Pentecostal or fundamentalist churches, the picture is normally even bleaker. It begs a question: how much do you need to believe to be a Christian? Do Unitarians count? What about 'Christocentric monotheists', (otherwise known as evangelicals)? (I am teasing here: sorry.) Or Christadelphians? The problem, as our readings highlight, is the absence of scriptural model: no three-leafed clover here; one substance but 'think-about-ice-stream-and-water' analogy; or sun-light-heat metaphors - three, yet one. The Bible is silent: it is a mystery to which we can barely allude.
The partiality of the witness of scripture is an important key in coming to terms with the Trinity. First and foremost, our response is not theology or philosophy, but worship of a mystery. God cannot be seen; his nature is hidden; truth is only dimly perceived. Whilst we have, in Jesus, a glimpse into the nature of God, quickened by the Spirit, it is all something that is much greater than our minds: the only response can be awe, worship, praise. And any theology that works out of that needs to be preoccupied not with correctness, but with models that generate something of the generosity of grace and abundance that is found in the God who is leading us into all truth: Christians are a becoming people; we are on the viaticum - getting there, but not there. We are owned by the truth; we do not own it ourselves.
In the last twenty years, Western theology has paid increasing attention to the doctrine of the Trinity. Rather neatly, I can trace three distinct tracks of exposition. First, the focus has sometimes been on the unity-plurality axis; God is one and three; distinct yet not separate. In turn, such thinking has provided a model for ecumenical dialogue. Another and second turn in Trinitarian theology has been to focus on the person of God, and see our personhood fulfilled in a deeper appreciation of the mutuality and relationality of God - here, feminist theology has made a particular contribution. Thirdly, others have turned to the liberation and space that the Trinity offers: something that overcomes the threat of non-being, and neither isolates or absorbs us, but instead invites us into communion with God, who is, in the Trinity, the archetype of true communion, as many an icon attests.
The commonality of these three trajectories lies in their desire to make faith-sense of a mystery. When someone like St Thalassius the Libyan says: Paradoxically, the One moves from itself into the Three and yet remains One, while the Three return to the One and yet remain the Three. The single divinity of the Trinity is undivided and the three Persons of the one divinity are unconfused - unity in Trinity and Trinity in unity, divided yet with division and united yet with distinctions it is reasonable to ask 'So?' And that question is more crucial than it first sounds, for doctrine, to be 'glorifying', must have a point.
This is where good theological modelling can come to our aid, and I want to suggest that it might be fertile to think of the Trinity, for the moment, as music. My personal preference is for Jazz, especially bossa nova - but as this model unfolds, it will be clear that the analogy of music can function generally and suggestively for the life and identity of the Church.
The metaphor offers an insight into the Trinitarian nature of God: the composer-performer-listener link can resonate with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Music is also created in time, and yet creates its own time. It also involves law and freedom, and its practice always reveals 'more than there is'. Music changes us, but only by wooing us into participation, whether actively or passively. Music is also a harmonic language that is attentive to mood: sadness, celebration, reflection and dynamism are 'caught' in music. Moreover, music is a gift, and as we learn to read it, understand it and use it, we learn more about the God who has given it. Gifts express the giver.
In thinking about the Trinity as music - jazz in this case - we are mindful of its combinations: its formal dimensions married to its innovative nature, and its capacity to cover a spectrum of needs from celebration to commiseration. And we are mindful of the different sounds that make up one sound, that is simultaneously scripted yet improvised, formal, yet free. When the Church corresponds to the Trinity in worship and appreciation, it becomes an orchestra of praise and participation.
The Trinity, as music, is the movement and identity of God that is both composition and improvisation. Clearly, the Church is to be both of these as well. Sometimes, at its highest cultural and theological level, it is indeed like a symphony: orchestrated repetition, performance, and art. At a local level, it can be less formal and more innovative. The middle ground - where improvisation and composition meet -might be, to continue the musical analogy, jazz. The Trinity as jazz is not as strange as it first sounds. Jazz is a genre of music that is normally associated with freedom of expression and form. It is both transforming yet traditional; never predictable, and yet reliable. Order and freedom coexist, with passive listening turned into participation and communion; from an apparently tense synthesis of composition and improvisation, inspiration, liberation and dance can issue.
The musical analogy then, delivers a paradox that reflects a mystery. On the one hand, music gathers us in, wooing the listener, enrapturing and capturing. At the same time, however, music in time somehow creates space, so that we are not enslaved as we are caught, but rather freed - with our horizons and possibilities expanded. Music, quite simply, brings communion and silence, freedom and willing captivity, awe and wonder. To worship the Trinity is not to understand each note and sequence, nor is it to deconstruct the score musicologically: it is to learn, to participate, and above all, to experience.
This final point about experience is vital. The Orthodox churches believe that the Trinity is not a doctrine that is taught, but rather a dimension that is caught. In countless numbers of icons, the threeness and oneness of God are 'captured' in a still frame. How the artist portrays the relation between the persons is a vital key not just in understanding, but in contemplation. Often, in iconic imagery, the persons of the Trinity are arranged around a table: the fourth and vacant side is nearest to the worshipper or viewer: this is your place at God's table. Often, a loaf and a chalice are centred in the table, reminding us that communion is at the heart of the Trinity as much as it is central to the sacramental life of the Church. The message is simple: in God, you belong.
All the doctrine of the Trinity is trying to do is say something about the abundance of God. In a sense, it is another way of speaking about justification by faith: God is there first, with us, on our side. The Trinity says the same: in God there is an excess, an overflow, grace, truth and love abounding, and it is near you. All our theology may only amount to revealed mistakes, but each insight on the Trinity represents a signpost along the way, something that says that the journey of faith is worthwhile.
To move from doctrine to experience can be done in contemplation - and I recommend it. But it can also be done in praxis. It was Clemenceau who once remarked that the only thing worse than a bad priest is a good one. In saying this, Clemenceau was staking some space for reflection: we neither want to be isolated or absorbed. Marriages, and other kinds of relationships, can often fail because of the fear or reality of isolation or absorption. But we want to be recognised and accepted, and the Trinity stands for 'being in eternal relatedness', in which we enter into a communion, and become the persons we are meant to be.
Music can start to take us there. So can the silence of contemplation. Even a little theology might take you a bit of the way. But more than anything else, the Trinity is not something just to be believed in; it is to be experienced and lived, individually and corporately. And in living it, we can begin to know something of Paul's words: 'now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know in full, even as I am fully known. And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love'.
Modern Believing, MCU, October Vol. 42, No. 3, July 2001