From someone rarely spoken of, or, someone left out in ordinary Christian conversation, we move onto a subject not easy to understand. Last week, the so-called “person rarely spoken of” was the Holy Spirit. This Sunday, the subject not easy to understand is the Trinity. The Trinity is really difficult God-talk. [1] Against the backdrop of Judaism and Islam, a backdrop of strict monotheism, how is it that we claim to believe in one God? How is it that three persons in one God do not equate to three Gods?In the first place, the dogma of the Holy Trinity is not a product of pure human reasoning but a result of reason’s collaboration with divine revelation. We can never come to know the God who is one in three, without God first revealing Himself to us. The source of God’s revelation is sacred scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments. This revelation means that Sacred Tradition with the help of reason has this task of elucidating this mystery whilst at the same time recognising its own limits. Today, I am not going to answer the “how” of “How three persons can be one God?” but to explore “how” the approaches we take of our discussions of God have implications.
There are basically two ways of approaching a discussion on the Trinity—Trinitatis ad intra and Trinitatis ad extra. Trinitatis ad intra refers to the immanent or the ontological Trinity. It is to speak of God’s nature or God as He really is and it pertains to the inner or interior life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Trinitatis ad extra, on the other hand, refers to the economic Trinity. It speaks of God’s activity in the world and how He functions with reference to creation, redemption and sanctification. It describes how God functions in the Church and the world.
In summary, ontological Trinity explains who God is whereas economic Trinity explains what God does. Which approach is more important? According to Karl Rahner, a German theologian, he says that the “economic” Trinity is the “immanent” Trinity and the “immanent” Trinity is the “economic” Trinity. So, both approaches are important. However, our problem is that we are no longer at home with the language of the immanent or ontological Trinity. Why? Well, for one, it sounds rather indulgent and it seems to border on “narcissism”. Who cares? Instead, we are more at home with the language of the economic Trinity. It is certainly more relevant. Let me illustrate why we seem to opt for the economic rather than the immanent Trinity. The concept of "person@ in the Trinity is not the same as we understand a person to be. A person in the Trinity describes a relationship. Thus, the Father is Father because He has a Son and vice-versa. Your response might be, “Err… so what?” What has that knowledge to do with us?
As we are more at home with the language of the economy, it is easier to speak of the Trinity in terms of functions. For example, God the Father creates, God the Son redeems and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies. [2] As you can see, it is far easier to understand God in relation to us because ours is a culture basically characterised by “work”, “doing” or “achievement”. We live this self-actualising or self-driven philosophy which cuts across everything that we do.
The result of losing this sense of “being” or ontology is we begin to think of being in terms of doing. In fact, we have become more “doing”, more “functional” and much more “utilitarian”. By definition then, a thing is because of what it does.
The loss of this sense of “being” has grave implications. A good analogy to give you an idea about this loss is the difference between “vocation” and “career”. Vocation has taken on a more restrictive connotation. When we speak of vocation, we think of priestly or religious vocation. But vocation is a calling “to be”, more than it is a calling “to do”. The vocation “to be” is no longer fashionable because we seemed to have defined ourselves by what we do rather than we take our cue from who we are. When a priest is measured by his “function”, you can be sure that not far from this mentality is the call to “ordain” women because anyone can carve out a career as a “priest”. Anyone can do a priest’s job.
When we forget “being”, the result is that we will esteem or honour the self-made man. Put it in another way, “What are you if you are not your work?” Even though this sounds a little calculative but that is basically how we measure worth. Can you hear the distant echo of euthanasia?
In a way we are not so different from ages before us. In ancient times, the Tower of Babel was a good example of this “self-actualising” philosophy. Today, our “self-actualisation” tends to equate our technological prowess or capability with “progress”. In science and technology, we have progressed in leaps and bounds. As a consequence, we unconsciously and mechanically translate this progress into the “spiritual” realm. As we believe that we can economically shape ourselves, we can also “spiritually” forge ourselves. In fact, the Tower of Babel stands as a testament to humanity’s belief that it can stand head and shoulder with God and say, “Here is a world better than what you have given us”. I believe that many of us have this idea that Confession is useless because we continue sinning. Behind this despair is this idea: “Why can’t I be more perfect so that God can be worthy of me”? When we forget being, we begin to define ourselves by “doing”. And when we “do”, we will come to believe we can make ourselves worthy of God.
The forgetfulness of “being” means that the Blessed Trinity has to work very hard to convince us. In fact, He has to work many miracles in order to be a step ahead of humanity. [3] The implication of forgetting the garden of ontology is that we will be cursed to wander the wasteland of utility trying to measure ourselves by our achievements. Trinity Sunday is an invitation to reflect on God’s being in Himself, a seemingly useless exercise but existentially important to us. Knowing who God is means that we will allow God to work in our lives.
Finally, what we do does not define who we are but rather who we are defines what we do. Who are we? We are not self-made man or self-made woman. But, we are made in the image and likeness of God. Not knowing ourselves, we will be driven to innovate, renovate and recreate. Thus, to discover Man, we have to discover God. To discover Man, we need to return to the garden of “being” or ontology to reflect on who God is and not only what God does.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is perhaps a tad easier to understand the “make-up” of Christ. Who is He? He is the 2nd Person of the Trinity. What is He? He is both divine and human. Thus, Christ is one person, a divine person, with two natures, both divine and human. Furthermore, the consubstantiality between the Father and Son was officially confirmed at the Council of Nicea in AD325, while the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and Son was officially established at the Council of Constantinople in AD381.
[2] The truth is opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt. It means that the works of the Trinity outside are indivisible. It means that one cannot really say that the persons of the Trinity are distinguished by how they act in the world. The only way to distinguish the three persons is through their relationships. The Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit. The Son is begotten of the Father. And the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
[3] How many of you do “take-aways”? Have you ever thought of the styrofoam containers we use to pack our take-aways? They come directly from the factory straight to our hawkers and what if with food, we also ingest styrofoam “dust”? Some of the chemicals we ingest are cumulative in our bodies and when cancer strikes, we cry “Why God?” without thinking that we contribute to our self-poisoning. Instead, poor God has to work so many more “miracles” because we are just too dumb or selfish.
