Trinitarian Mission (Part 1)

Defense of the Trinity

If you’ve begun reading this post pat yourself on the back.  You saw the word “Trinitarian” in the title and still chose to click the link.  I almost changed the title to something less intimidating (almost anything without the word “Trinity” in it) but deliberately did not.  The word is hardly heard in lay-Christian vocabulary today and when it is it almost always seems to be accompanied by an apologetic hesitancy, as if the word were reserved for “theologians” (as if there could exist a Christian who isn’t a theologian); as if the Trinity was so hopelessly abstract that there were no hope of casually speaking of it it without sounding either arrogant or ignorant. 

Where does this fear come from?  Obviously the word “Trinity” is simple enough- the Wachowski brothers had no problem allowing Neo’s girlfriend to be named “Trinity”.  And it certainly does not come from Scripture.  I have never heard anyone hesitate to speak on John 14-17 because of it’s strong Trinitarian streak, or of Philippians 2:5-11 (an especially popular Scripture) because of it’s portrayal of the supra-rational concept kenosis.  Actually the opposite is true.  These passages are a couple of the more popular New Testament passages in the church today.  And, in defense of the Trinity, I’d like to point out that it is precisely because of their overt Trinitarian-ness that they are so loved. 

Common fear of the word “Trinity” comes from the training we’ve received from theologically shallow church leadership, who have allowed us to associate the word with the question of how three persons can be one God.  The question is not invalid in and of itself, but like most things, becomes problematic when it becomes our fixation.  My personal experience is that the great majority of conversations about the Trinity depend on the chemistry of eggs or water, or elementary level mathematics, typically the equation 1+1+1=3. 

Though the enquiry into our God’s likeness to eggs or water or math equations can be entertaining, it is not only marginally helpful at best to knowing more about who our God is, but is ultimately unbiblical.  By “unbiblical” I mean outside of the way that God is concerned with revealing his Triune self through his Word (though I have heard it said that one infinite+one infinite+one infinite=one infinite, but I couldn’t personally verify the math J).  By “unbiblical” I mean the Bible doesn’t seem to give any consideration to the questions we often get stuck on, while being incessantly concerned with who this God is: love, humility, servant and Lord, to name a few. 

In defense of the Trinity I’m using this blog post as a street preacher uses a soap box, and would like to nobly remind anyone who cares to listen that everything we love in our Scriptures we love because of it’s direct or indirect Trinitarian-ness, and hope in Part 2 of this post to provide some new fodder for our hopefully-increasingly-common conversations about our God who is a love/service-centered eternal community- in other words, about our Triune God.