Robert Barron - The Theology of the Trinity
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Peace be with you. Today is Trinity Sunday, one of my favorite feast days of the year. Because I have put my old theologian’s cap on, and speak very theologically to you. Some people say, «Oh no, sermons shouldn’t be theological». Nonsense. Go back in our great tradition, go back to Origen, Christendom, Jerome, Augustine, Bernard, over and over and over, Newman, they’re highly theological. I rebuke anyone that says, «Don’t be theological in a sermon». You’re going to get it today.
Let me start with one of the greatest of the medieval theologians, St.Bonaventure. In his wonderful text called Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, the Journey of the Mind into God, he proposes the image of the Ark of the Covenant. Remember, it had two angels on top of it with their wings touching, the wings facing each other. Bonaventure says, «These stand symbolically for the two highest names of God in the Bible». The one on the left stands for the Old Testament, highest name of God, which is Being. Remember, Moses says to God, «When the people ask me, what’s your name? What should I say»? God responds famously, «I am who I am,» in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, ego eimi ho on, I am the one who is, Being.
The great theological tradition reads this. Think of Thomas Aquinas. «In God, essence and existence coincide. To be God is to be, to be». God is the very act of being itself. Now, what does all that imply? All that implies, the supreme unity of God. There can’t be two beings itself running around. There’s one unconditioned act of existence. God is one. Hence, we hear in Deuteronomy 6, «Here, oh, Israel, the Lord your God is Lord alone». The unity, the oneness of being itself. That’s one of the highest things we can say about God.
One of the truest and deepest things we can possibly say about God. Any and every Jew of any time would hold of course to this great monotheistic principle. Now, mind you, all the first followers of Jesus were Jews. Of course, they recited the Shema. That’s what I read from Deuteronomy 6. «Here, Oh Israel, the Lord your God is Lord alone». Of course, they all knew the name that God gave to Moses, I am who I am, the unity of God. No one doubted that. All the disciples of Jesus, everyone Jesus ever spoke to, Paul the Apostle, nobody, nobody, nobody would’ve doubted the primacy and indispensability of that great name, Being. Okay.
«But there’s a second angel,» Bonaventure says, «on top of the Ark of the Covenant». The second angel, the one on the right stands for the New Testament name of God. Now, please, which does not supersede or negate the first name. No, no. That first name remains in place. Nevertheless, it’s a new revelation. It’s a higher name. We find it in the first letter of John. «God is love». God remains Being, yes, I am who I am. That remains true. But now we know, God is love. Now, I’ve said this before to you. It doesn’t mean God loves all the other religions will say that, or that love is one of God’s attributes. Everyone will say that. But the Christian claim is much more radical. It’s much stranger. Love is what God is. To be God is to love. Love is the very being of God.
If you want to know what that I am, who I am is, what is the to be of God, it’s now revealed to be love. Okay, if God is love, and love is just something God does, then in his ownmost existence, there must remain a lover, someone who loves; a beloved, someone who is loved; and the love that they share together. There must be within the unity of God without compromising the unity of God, some play of lover, beloved, and love. I say, okay, where do they get this idea from? I’ll tell you exactly where they got it from. They got it from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus presents himself, in the New Testament, as someone sent by the Father. He speaks of his father, and to his Father.
You say, «Okay, a human being sent by God, a human being referring to God as Father. That could be Abraham, that could be Jacob, that could be Jeremiah, that could be Isaiah. He’s one more of the great prophets, I guess, right»? I don’t know. Because at the same time, the same Jesus speaks and acts in the very person of God. «My son, your sins are forgiven». Jesus forgives sins. Who can forgive sins, but God alone? Right. You’ve heard it said in the Torah, but I say, «Who can claim authority over the Torah except the one who’s the author of the Torah»?
You’ve got a greater than the temple here. Who’s greater than the place where God lives, but God himself? Time and time again in the New Testament, Jesus, yes, sent by the Father, yes, other than the Father speaks and acts in the very person of the God of Israel. The one God is this play of Father and Son. Then what? Then they sense coming among them at Pentecost, the one sent by the Father, and the Son who deifies them, and fills them up with the divine life. The Father and the Son have sent to them the Spirit that links them together. God, the God of Israel, Being itself, I am who I am. Yes, that one, that God is a play of lover, beloved, and shared love. They understand this because of Jesus and the Spirit.
Here’s something very interesting. You see it in our first reading, mysterious, from the book of Proverbs. All this language I’ve been using now is coming from the New Testament, but they realized they were anticipations of it even in the Old Testament. Remember, the very beginning of the Bible, the Creator says, «Let us make man in our own image and likeness». «Let us». Who’s he talking to? As the world is being created, God the Creator is speaking to someone. Who is that? Who’s this other to whom God is speaking? But then, even more strikingly in the Book of Proverbs, listen to this. Here’s a mysterious figure speaking identified as wisdom.
Listen to what wisdom says. «The Lord possessed me. The beginning of his ways, from of old, I was poured forth. At the first before the earth when there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no fountains or springs of water before the mountains were settled into place, I came forth». Who is this? Who is this? Now, prior to creation, prior to the world, prior to anything, there’s this figure, this wisdom that comes forth from God. Who is that? They began to see, this is the very one who became incarnate in Jesus. This is the very Son who was sent by the Father into human flesh. Even the Old Testament they began to see, anticipated in some ways, this play of unity and diversity.
Now, I’m going to give you another theologian here. What was bequeathed to the tradition was, if you want to put it this way, this dilemma, this Bonaventurian dilemma of how do you reconcile these two names? These are pious Jews. They believe in the Shema. They believe I am who I am, but yet they now learn that I am is this play of lover, beloved, and love; Father, Son, and Spirit. How do you think them together? One of the earliest figures to emerge here is the great Tertullian, very early theologian. He’s the one who coined the term that we use even today, Trinitas. It’s clever. It combines trios in Latin for three, and unitas, Latin for unity. Trios unitas, Trinitas. God is both three and one.
Okay. But I’m still not getting it. I’m still not really understanding. The tradition kept thinking about it. We come to maybe the greatest figure, at least in western theology, St.Augustine. As I record these words that we’ve just elected Pope Leo XIV, an Augustinian priest, in the spirit of Augustine. What did Augustine do? He wrote this great book called The Dei Trinitate, About the Trinity, probably the best book, the greatest book written on this mystery. Augustine proposed this analogy which has captivated the minds of people ever since. Just as my mind is able to form an image of itself, he called that notitia sui, self-knowledge.
Think of this as actually a very commonplace. Every time I would say like, «What was I thinking»? I wonder what I was about yesterday. What was I doing yesterday? What are you doing? You are proposing yourself as an object of contemplation. That’s what Augustine calls mind and notitia sui. Let’s say, you’re in spiritual direction, or you’re in counseling, or therapy, and with the help of your director, you’re trying to understand yourself better. Here I am trying to understand me. I’m not split into two people. It’s not two people, two individuals. There’s one individual. But yet there’s this play of knower, and known.
Now, press it. Here’s Augustine. Mind, self-knowledge, and then a third element, self-love. As you come to understand yourself more fully, you come to love yourself more fully. He called it mens mind, notitia sui, self-knowledge, and amor sui, self-love. We all experienced this in our own interiority. «Ah,» says Augustine. That’s an analogy. Remember, we were made in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised that in our minds, in our spirits, we look like God. Who’s the mind of God? That’s the Father. Who’s the notitia sui of God? We call that the Son. What’s the amor sui? The self-love that links Father and Son That’s the Holy Spirit, the Spiritus Sanctus, the holy breath of love shared by the Father and the Son.
That for Augustine is the master analogy. That explains how there can be a play of three-ness, even within the oneness of God. Trinitas, trios, three; and unitas, unity. Okay. I’ve been theologizing with you here. You might be saying, «All right, I guess I get some of that, but what’s the point»? Here’s the point, spiritually. It’s everything. It’s everything. Jesus said, «Go preach the gospel to all nations». Then he adds, «Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit». This is not some invention of St.Augustine. This is from the words of Jesus.
See, what happens in baptism? In baptism, we are inserted into the dynamics of the Trinity. We become sons and daughters in the Son. We now share, look, the Son’s relationship to the Father, which means we live in the intimacy of the Holy Spirit. That’s why the Trinity is not just an abstraction, it’s the whole spiritual life. Mind you, spiritual life, that’s not any old spirit. That’s the Holy Spirit I’m talking about. You don’t have the Holy Spirit in you unless through baptism you are inserted into the dynamics of the Trinitarian life, trinitas, trinitas, trinitas. That the one God of Israel is also a play of love. Everybody, that’s the matrix in which we live our entire spiritual life. That’s why Trinity Sunday matters so much. God bless you.