Robert Barron - Three Ways of Approaching the Trinity
Peace be with you. Friends, we come once again to Trinity Sunday, the preacher’s nightmare, which should not be the preacher’s nightmare. Every Sunday is Trinity Sunday. What I want to do (and why not, it’s Trinity Sunday) is commit a little act of theology here. The Church has reflected very deeply on who God is, and this great doctrine of the Trinity has emerged from that speculation. I want to give you, appropriately enough, three templates for understanding, or at least, not understanding, beginning to get a sense of what the Trinity might be about.
The first one is from the great St.Augustine. We’re going back now to the end of the fourth, beginning of the fifth century, and Augustine gives us this analogy for the Trinity, which has been remarkably powerful over the centuries. He knew from the Bible that we are made in God’s image and likeness. He knew furthermore that God is not material but spiritual. Therefore, I won’t find the likeness in my body; I’m going to find it in what’s spiritual in me, namely, my mind. Augustine looks deep in, he was one of the really earliest and greatest of the psychologists, he looks in and what does he find? He finds, first of all, what he calls «mens» in his Latin. It just means «mind». Our word mental, of course, comes from that: «mens». He notices that our minds have this very peculiar capacity to make an «imago,» an image, a reflection of themselves. My mind can project, as it were, outward and see itself objectively.
Now, I know that sounds kind of abstract, but we do it all the time. Whenever we say, «What was I doing yesterday»? «What was I thinking»? «What was I about yesterday when I was doing whatever»? And see, what’s happening in that move is I am proposing me as an object of contemplation. There’s an I, there’s a me. It’s reflected, too, in the great languages. «Je me demande» in French: «I ask myself,» is a way of saying, «I wonder». «Yo me pregunto» the same thing in Spanish: «I ask me». What’s happening there but I am proposing me as an object for contemplation.
Now, in making all these moves, I don’t think for one second that I’ve split into two people, right? It’s me. But yet there’s a play of the subjective and the objective. Augustine referred to this as «mens,» mind, and «notitia sui,» it means «self-knowledge», the image of oneself. Well, keep pressing it. The mind coming to deeper self-awareness, deeper self-understanding, can come then to fall more deeply in love with what it comes to know. Now, think here of, you’re in a counseling relationship, you’re in a psychotherapeutic relationship, you’re in a spiritual direction relationship, even you’re talking to a good friend about yourself. You’re proposing yourself as an object for contemplation and the more you understand, what happens? The more you come to love and appreciate and accept, maybe, yourself. Augustine called this «amor sui,» «love of self».
So as he looked within, into the one mind, he’s not split into three minds, but in the one mind there’s a play of «mens,» «notitia sui,» and «amor sui»: mind, self-knowledge, self-love. And this, he said, is the great analogy for the Trinity. Here we can see how we are indeed made in the image and likeness of God. So in God, the one God, mind you, there’s «mens,» this primordial chthonic mind. We call him the Father. The Father is able to form a perfect image of himself, a perfect interior word. This «notitia sui» of the Father, we call the Son. And now Father and Son, looking at each other, breathe forth their mutual love. «Amor sui,» self-love: we call him the Holy Spirit. Just as nobody thinks the mind is split into three, even as these three dynamics obtain, no one thinks there are three gods, but rather the one God in three persons.
You know who played with this too was G.K. Chesterton, where he said an awful lot of people are uneasy with the language of the Trinity, it seems so impenetrable or abstract or rationalistic or whatever, but everyone loves the claim that «God is love,» The biblical claim that «God is love», right? But, Chesterton observed, the Trinitarian doctrine is but the rendering explicit of what’s implicit in the claim that «God is love». Now, how come? Because the claim is not just that God loves. All kinds of religions or philosophies might say that, that love is something God does. But if you say «God is love,» in his own nature, he is love, then there must be, within his unity, a play of lover, beloved, and shared love, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other words, you can’t really say «God is love» without affirming the Trinity. Okay? There’s Augustine’s model.
Let me give you a second one. This one derived from Karl Barth, who, with Paul Tillich, would’ve been the greatest Protestant theologian, I’d say, of the last century. Like a good Protestant, Barth put his stress on the Word of God and on the principle, he expressed it in Latin, that God has spoken, «Deus dixit,» he said in Latin. God has spoken. And you say, well, yeah, that’s a basic principle of biblical religion. If God has spoken, there must be, within God, a speaker. There must be, moreover, a word spoken.
Now, mind you, God has spoken in many ways, the Bible says, so in whatever is true and good and beautiful, something of God’s Word has been spoken. But in these last days, we hear, God has spoken to us by his Son. He has spoken thoroughly his Word. There’s a speaker, there’s a divine Word spoken. A Father and a Son. Now, press it, says Barth. Who interprets that divine Word to our little, fallen, finite minds? We’re not going to be able to take in the fullness of the divine Word on our own. What we need is a divine interpreter of the Word.
Remember in John’s Gospel, when Jesus says the Father and I, when I go to the Father, we will send you, and the Greek is a «parakletos»; «kalein» means «to call,» parakletos is someone that you’d call over, hence in Latin it’s called an «advocatus». Same thing, «advocatus,» «called toward». It’s like someone’s going to help you, like a lawyer or an advisor. That’s the idea. See, that’s what Barth is talking about. There’s the Father who speaks, there’s the Son who’s the Word spoken, and now the Holy Spirit is the «parakletos,» the Paraclete, who interprets the divine Word. John Henry Newman actually is very close to this, I think, where Newman says doctrine unfolds over time, never contradicting itself, never going back on itself, but different aspects of doctrine unfold over time.
Remember the Lord said, in that same great speech in John’s Gospel, I’ve got much more to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. You can’t bear it now, but rather we’ll send the Spirit and the Spirit will guide you into all truth. Okay, there must be a divine speaker: we call him the Father. A divine Word spoken: we call him the Son. And then a divine interpreter: whom we call the Holy Spirit. If God is love, we must speak of the Trinity, and if God has spoken, we must speak of the Trinity.
Let me give you one more template. This one derived from the great Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, who before becoming pope was one of the great Catholic theologians of the last century. He says this: the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one in essence but three in person, signals the absoluteness of the relative. Now, here’s what he’s driving it. You look at classical philosophy, the divine was always associated with absoluteness. That means self-contained, by itself, in no need, not dependent, all of that. And the relative, I was derived from my parents, I require the oxygen I’m breathing now, I’m in relationship, means I’m at a less-exalted level of being.
Ratzinger says the doctrine of the Trinity says that God is a set of relationships and, therefore, relation is fundamental. Relationship is what is most basically real. Here’s one way he explicated this. We use that word person, the three persons in God. The Greek word is «prosopon,» and that has the sense of «opte» is «to see,» pros-opon means «to look to another». If God is a person, even before he creates the world, even before there’s anything to look to, if God is a person in his ownmost nature, there must be again within God, what? Someone who looks, someone who’s looked at, and the look that they share. If God’s a person in himself, then God must be this play of relationality.
Now, take another step. So that’s Greek. When they rendered that Greek into Latin, «prosopon» becomes «persona». Our word person comes from that. We say three persons. That’s a very interesting word, «persona». It’s from «personare»: «sonare» means «to sound,» «per» means «through». Persona, in its basic meaning, was the mask that was worn by a theatrical actor, and it had a little mouthpiece on it so that it could amplify his voice. «Persona,» «personare»: «To sound through».
Okay, same thing. If God is a person, even before he makes the world, even before there’s anything else around, there must be, within God, someone who speaks, someone who is spoken to, and the speech that they share. Once again, to say God is a person means something like a play of relationality obtains within God. Okay, if you’ve been with me so far in this homily, and congratulations, these are three kind of paths that have been indicated to us, three ways of approaching the mystery.
But go back to Augustine, and I’ll end with him: Remember the famous image he shares with us? He has this vision of this little kid on the beach and there’s this hole in the sand, and the kid is trying to fill the hole with water from the sea, and Augustine comes by and says, «What’s going on here? What are you doing»? He said, «I’m trying to fill this hole with the entire ocean». And then he realizes it’s just as ludicrous to think I can fill this little tiny mind with the ocean of the divine mystery. So, on this Trinity Sunday, everybody, even as we legitimately look at various approaches and templates and ways of understanding, at the end of the day, we’re meant to surrender to this great mystery which mocks and lies beyond anything we can possibly understand. And God bless you.