Tag Archive for: Trinity

THOUGHTS ON THE TRINITY BY A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN (what and huh?)

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Note: Please hold this quote from Walt Whitman while reading today’s blog: “Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Ever since my days with the nuns (the real ones, who by the way I drove crazy with my incessant questioning during Catholic catechism classes), I have struggled in vain with the dogma of the Trinity. Try as I might, my rational mind has always found it to be too much philosophy and too little of the practical.  It has been only recently that I have begun to admire its poetry, for me personally, its’ saving grace. 

The construct of the Trinity originated with a handful of  Church Fathers, around or about 345 CE.  Before that, Christians had their own local “covenant groups”as it were, which met in people’s homes or shops. Ideas about who and what Jesus was flowed freely and unencumbered.

First, let me try to explain what the meaning of the Trinity is.  It means one God in three persons. They are all coeternal with one another (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). They all have their own substances, but at the same time are consubstantial.  And oh yes, they are all one essence (and other stuff called hypostasis, which means the substance, essence, or underlying reality).

What is an essence?  You must look to the tomes of Greek philosophy for this.  Words such as substance, consubstanital, essence, all have their roots in the Greek philosophers’ discussions of ontology (the study of what it means to be, to exist).  Thank you, Aristotle… NOT! 

So I’ve decided to blame the early Christian clergy’s infatuation with Greek philosophy for introducing a tradition that I can’t find in the Old or the New Testament.  In fact, in John 20:17- Jesus refers to, “my Father and to your Father, and to my God, and to your God.”  How could Jesus say that and then add, but my Father is me and my God is me? I guess  maybe because he was in his human body and at that point had limits in his knowledge of actually being God himself?Also, Jesus was a pious, practicing Jew, which means that he was a strict monotheist.  “The Lord our God is one God.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

A multitude of proponents point to the familiar refrain of the “unfathomable mystery” of the Trinity. I’m all for unfathomable mysteries, although life itself is already a mystery,  do we need to make it any more complex?” Yet, I quote humbly from the words of Simone Weil: “I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without being degraded.”

Nun Tuck may be a heretic, but at least one in good company.  In 1531, a scholar named Michael Servetus wrote a treatise called “De Trinitatis Errorbus” or “The Errors of the Trinity”.  He was promptly burned alive at the stake for it.  He spoke of the Oneness of God, the Unity of God.  Many Unitarians consider him to be the first Unitarian martyr. 

I wonder if it would have helped any if they had known about the popular slogan, “What would Jesus do?” before choosing to burn him alive.  It’s difficult to believe that the Jesus in the Bible would have been as intolerant. Instead, if someone disagreed with him, Jesus would have done as he advised his apostles in Luke,  “Shake the dust out of your sandals”…  forget about it (or them), and move on.

For me, being a Christian means that if I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, I will live wholly and holy.  It’s hard work with limited success, but like those who follow Buddha or Muhammad to the best of their ability, life is more abundant.

I mentioned earlier that what moves me is the more metaphorical understanding of the Trinity; a phrase that resonates for me is “The Dance of the Trinity.” Modern poet Ruth Duck describes it beautifully:

“Holy Spirit, who moved at the beginning of creation, teach me your divine dance, that I may move with you./Through my hands, invite others to the circle of love, that we may move in rhythm together./Praise to you, Spirit, who breathes the pulse of life, through Jesus Christ, who danced among us, to the glory of God the Source, in whom we live and move and have our being.”

I DON’T NEED A GURU, BUT A GUIDE CAN BE GOOD

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Several tattered and dog-eared books rest on my shelves that have been pored over time and again for their guidance, inspiration, and comfort.  Two in particular have been indispensable on my spiritual journey, The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila and Amazing Grace (A Vocabulary of Faith) by Kathleen Norris.  These authors, with their voices ancient and modern respectively, resonate with wisdom and perennially provide new insights into concepts which are meant to evolve as I am.

A sixteenth century Spanish mystic and prolific writer, St. Theresa of Avila continues to be one of my greatest spiritual mentors.  Hers is a soul I can relate to.  Teresa was not the archetype of the mild-mannered, retiring convent sister.  A complex personality, she was fiery, passionate, wild, and worldly.  She had dry times in prayers, doubts, and earthly irritations.  Divinity is brought to earth in Teresa; her honest words lend authenticity to the fact that this is truly a human endeavor we are about. 

She once wrote, “God deliver me from people so spiritual they want to turn everything into perfect contemplation no matter what.”  She did, out of necessity spend much time in contemplation herself, but toiled each day to know and live spiritually in the world.   

Courageous, she championed the reformation of the Carmelite monasteries with the Spanish Inquisitors growling at her door.  One biographer dubbed her the “warrior bride.”  For Teresa “was born with a warrior’s heart locked inside a woman’s body.”  In her burning desire to know her own soul and God’s relationship with it, she widened the notions of the sacred and added paths to holiness. 

Together with her curiosity of the natural world, Teresa provides concrete and practical advice for spiritual growth in any age.  Her poetic images of the soul, “the soul is a castle made entirely out of a diamond or a very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms,” continue to inspire my own writing.

Kathleen Norris, in the vernacular of the twentieth century, re-presents the Trinity, Christianity, and a myriad of ecclesiastical (church) practices in terms accessible to the laity.  For instance, she likens the Trinity to quarks.  These are subatomic particles that exist in threes.  There is no such thing as one quark, but only three interdependent beings, “part of the atomic glue that holds this world together.”  These kinds of analogies run through her writing, providing unusual and earthy examples to help us interpret difficult theological ideas.  For those that find much in religion too much myth, Norris reminds me to look beyond to the cycling power of metaphors.

Unique and unyielding, her questions act as steam for loosening “sacred” ambiguities, while allowing space to be enveloped in those same mysteries.  She prods the endless definitions and redefinitions of prayer as “stumbling over modern self-consciousness…with our addiction to ‘self-help’ and ‘how-to’ no wonder we have difficulty with prayer, for which the best how-to is Psalm 46: ‘be still and know that I am God.'” She states, “This can happen in an instant; it can also constitute a life’s work.”  Norris’ musings share the heart of true spiritual classics by revealing ways to unburden the intellect, disengage the ego, and surrender the whole self to the wonder of God.

The progressives among us, myself included, do well to reclaim and embrace these two women’s philosophies.