The Philosophical and Practical Relevance of the Trinity
The Philosophical and Practical Relevance of the Trinity
The doctrine of the Trinity is not simply coherent and biblically rooted. Its incredible richness can direct us to live and think wisely not only within a loving, relating Christian community but also within society as public citizens and within a pluralistic global village as witnesses to the great things of the gospel.
In the public square of Western democracies, people tend to view God as a singular, unitary person who is a rule-setting monarch endowed with sheer power to impose His arbitrary standards on humans.10 Obviously, many distrust and resist the idea of a God who only commands, calls for obedience, and judges the resistant. The doctrine of the Trinity, however, can explode this barren ethical arrangement. What if people viewed God as Triune, relating, self-giving, and other-centered by nature? What if God's rule includes not coercion or bullying but a desire for friendship with humans? What if God reveals and commands so that humans, by His grace, may freely “choose life” (Deut 30:19) and experience it “abundantly” (John 10:10 NASB)? And what if, rather than portraying a unilateral, top-down arrangement, we can present a relational God who wants none to perish but all to experience the holy warmth of His company (2 Pet 3:9)? Thus, if people continue to resist God's wooings (Acts 7:51), they will not only damage themselves, but they have the capacity to separate themselves from God's grace, and God will reluctantly allow them to go their own way forever. In the public square Christians should proclaim a relating God who is the foundation for ethics and personal responsibility, for human dignity and rights, for reason and truth, and for tolerance and cooperation.
Furthermore, Trinitarian doctrine can give the Christian valuable insights in dialogue with other religions. Today's “unknown God” (cf. Acts 17:22–23) is “something out there” that's unknown and unknowable; “It” may be the cause of the universe's existence and remarkable arrangement, but that's about all, we're told. Yet surely we can go further. Although Eastern or new age philosophies often espouse an abstract, impersonal view of the Ultimate Reality, why think an impersonal entity or force offers a secure basis for the personal virtues—love, humility, kindness, compassion—elevated within such views? How can “It” serve as a foundation for human rights and personal dignity? In the monistic all-is-one philosophies of the East, there are no real I-You relationships, no distinctions between the compassionate and the pitied, between good and evil. All differences are illusory (maya). And why think this impersonal “God” is responsible for creating and sustaining the world we experience? It can't create anything that's not God or act on anything since there's nothing to act on.11 Even if Eastern religions stress duties or societal roles rather than rights, their emphasis on not harming others but respecting them still takes human worth and dignity for granted, an assumption that an impersonal metaphysic/Ultimate Reality can't easily accommodate.
We naturally give priority to persons over impersonal objects in our everyday lives: “The most important things in life aren't things,” we're told. Why then favor some Eastern ideal of “nothingness” (sunyata) or pure consciousness (Brahman) that's beyond personality or beyond good and evil? By contrast, the triune God offers a more fruitful context to ground and make sense of loving human relationships and interpersonal virtues, in addition to the existence of a finite universe.
Also, feminist philosophers have objected to a power-asserting “male,” “hierarchical” conception of God in Western philosophy. But the biblical God, who makes male and female in His image, is a relational, personal being without gender. And although male pronouns are typically used to refer to God, Scripture contains metaphors of God's mother-like actions and emotions as tender, care-giving, compassionate, and protecting: giving birth to Israel (Deut 32:18); a nursing mother (Ps 131:2); a mother in labor (Isa 42:4); a mother bear and lioness (Hos 13:8). In addition, God's essentially other-oriented relationality goes a long way in addressing certain concerns and misconceptions feminists raise regarding an autocratic, dictatorial male deity.
Finally, the Trinity contributes to a resolution of the problem of the One and the Many—what philosopher William James called philosophy's most central problem. The ancient philosopher Heraclitus said that ultimate reality is many and changing—that is,no unity. On the other hand, the philosopher Parmenides claimed that reality is one and unchanging—that is, no plurality. We live not in a multiverse but a universe, a unity that holds diverse things together, and the three-in-one God furnishes us with resources to account for both unity and plurality.12