Trinity as the mystery of salvation
St. Augustine of Hippo in the beginning of
his Confessions poses a question that refers to the destiny and the
meaning of human life. It is the question of man’s relation to God and God’s
relation to man. While directing his prayer to God, Augustine asks, “‘Grant me
Lord to know and to understand’ [Ps 118:34] which comes first, to call upon you
or to praise you, and whether knowing you precedes calling upon you. But who
calls upon you when he does not know you?” (Confessions, 3). In this
rhetorical question, Augustine intuitively formulated the real goal of all
inquiries in our faith, that is, not a speculative and objective knowledge of
God but the worship and living out what it is contained in the revelation.
As the story of his conversion unfolds we find out that throughout his life St. Augustine sought the right relationship with God, which later also resulted in the right relationship with other people. When he eventually came to understand that only in God lay his fulfillment, he could not help but praise God in His infinity mystery that opened before his eyes. This mystery, God as the Blessed Trinity existing in eternal love and communion, became the key of wisdom and the cause of conversion for a young man from Hippo.
What is important for us today is that Augustine somehow reflects an attitude of the modern man who desperately seeks for meaning and understanding, but does apart from God for whom our hearts long. In consequence, he cannot find it. St. Augustine discovered this truth and found peace of mind and heart and the meaning for all he undertook later in his life. Moreover, he realized that only in praising God man finds real joy and that only while immersing in God’s infinite mystery one comes to fulfillment. Since each human being is created in the image and likeness of God, only God can satisfy the deepest longing of the human heart.
Like St. Augustine did in the moment of his conversion, we too must acknowledge God’s revelation not only with regard to God’s self but also with regard to human being. From Sacred Scriptures we learn about humanity, man and woman, being created in God’s own image. God imprinted in this humanity His very image which man cannot comprehend unless he turns to divine revelation. Therefore, we turn to God in his mystery in order to understand who we are.
St. John in his letter says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and love lies at the heart of the understanding of God. Since love is relational, it presumes existence of the loved one. In order to be mutual, God has to have an equal object of love. Thus, through Jesus we learn that in God there exists the eternal communion of persons who are perfect unity and oneness.
The immanent (recognizable in the visible world through revelation) Trinity appears as the mutual relationship of three persons. Theologians speak about divine relations which are crucial for understanding the communion that exists in God. It is unique because being a person in God is defined only through relationship to other persons. The Trinity is the perfect communion, or to borrow Cardinal Walter Kasper’s expression, “the three persons of the Trinity are thus pure relationality” (Kasper 309). It means that there is no difference between the divine persons in terms of the attributes such as wisdom, knowledge, power, etc. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are such a unity that they have one will and one mind (not confused with self-awareness). Thus “Christ is the same Word of God who created the world and man in the beginning, and who, in the fullness of time, came down to earth to reawaken his creature, to restore him and grant him incorruptibility” (Danielou 125). Consequently, when Jesus acts, God acts. For it is an economic action of God who offers Himself as a gift to humanity corrupted by sin turned from God and now is in need of returning to God, who is the deepest sense of human existence. In order to reconcile with God and themselves men must seek it only in Christ’s Love, which is nothing else than the Love of the Most Holy Trinity.
Jesus Christ – the fullness of divine revelation
An
icon of the Most Holy Trinity
by Andrei Rublev
Jesus Christ as God’s fullest revelation unveils to men something of that hidden mystery of God. Jesus, the Son of God, does nothing apart from the Father: “The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him" (J 8:29); and yet Jesus, the Word Incarnate “retains his own particular, irreducible identity in relationship” (O’Collins). By relating to the Father in obedience out of love, the Son shows the intimate bond that characterizes relations between the divine persons, which Jesus says at the Last Discourse: “Everything that the Father has is mine” (Jn 16:15)and, “the world does not know you, but I know you” (John 17:25).
God reveals Himself in Jesus and through Jesus. God is revealed to men as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As Danielou accurately states it: “It is by gradual stages that the divinity of the Word appears darkly in the Old Testament, and clearly in the Gospel. The Holy Spirit in its turn crowns the education of mankind with the trinitarian vision” (Danielou 124). Thus the history of salvation may be seen as “the gradual unveiling of the ineffable Trinity.” Jesus Christ, the Son, is sent by the Father in order to reveal that the divine persons are one: “the Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30). Jesus also discloses the mystery of the Holy Spirit who comes from the Father and the Son: “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name” (Jn 14:26).
Thus God reveals Himself as the Trinity, the three divine persons who are one and yet distinct from each other, for the Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit; this same distinction pertains to the Son and the Holy Spirit – each one distinct from the other. The distinction does not mean individuality, for they are perfectly united. It is still one God “subsistent Being itself (…) in every way complete, ultimate, and unconditioned” (O’Collins, 148). What is significant here is that the doctrine of the Trinity does away with the abstract notion of God. It is rather a concretization of the unity of God “by determining in what this oneness consists” (Kasper 305). Namely, it is a communion of the Father, the Son and the Spirit.
Jesus communicates to us that God is always in relation; He eternally exists as a communion of the Divine persons. Thus, when Jesus acts, it is God who acts, which means that all persons of the Trinity act together “at the same time”. Every knowledge of God eventually brings up the question of God’s relation to us. Karl Rahner speaks about God’s self-communication which “consists in the fact that God really arrives at man, really enters into man’s situation, assumes it himself, and thus is what he is” (Rahner 89). Rahner also notices that the starting point for any human action is the experience of faith, which makes us aware that “God really communicates himself as love and forgiveness, that he produces this self-communication in us and maintains it by himself” through the action of the Holy Spirit (Rahner 67). The communion of the divine persons is the model for any community among human persons. We are called to communion exactly because of that “blissful communion of love” in God; it is undeniably wrought in the human heart. This really is what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, God’s perfect unity revealed to us through Scripture and the person of Jesus Christ invites us to live in communion with each other and with our God.
Man on his part lives insofar as he lives out the gift of love received from God. The law of love is that love is not complete in one’s self but is always directed toward another. It comes to realization only in relation with another being capable of love. In God the love does not have to be perfected for it simply is and equals communion and oneness of the Divine persons. Among human persons each one of us learns and grows in love as analogically as one grows also in faith. One may even say that we exist as long as one is in a loving relationship with other persons. When we are alone, we are spiritually dying. But when we are immersed into loving relationships with others, we are not losing ourselves, but rather our identity is reinforced and we really find ourselves.
The fact of being created in the image and likeness of God who is one but triune –three persons in the perfect communion of love – compels us to be like God, “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). When we ask ourselves what it really means to be human, we find that scientific or philosophical answers are not enough. We need to start with faith given us in divine revelation. We must begin by asking what God’s self-communication reveals to us.
Let us recall St. Augustine one more time. St. Augustine recognized the weakness of human condition but he also perceived well the mystery of faith as an indispensable component of human life. For him faith in God is a gift from that same God who allows us to be known; it is that self-communication God who steps down into the human condition in order to lift it up and assume it into Himself through Jesus Christ: “In seeking Him, they find Him, and in finding Him they will praise Him. Lord, I would seek you, calling upon you—and calling upon you is an act of believing in you. You have been preached to us. My faith, Lord, calls upon you, it is your gift to me. You breathed it into me by the humanity of your Son” (Augustine 3).
Bibliography:
Augustine of Hippo, Saint. Confessions. Transl. H. Chadwick. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Danielou, Jean. God and the Ways of Knowing. Transl. W. Roberts. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003 (1957).
Kasper, Walter. The God of Jesus Christ. Trasnl. M. J. O’Connell. New York: Crossroad, 1992.
Rahner, Karl. The Trinity. Transl. J. Donceel. New York: Herder & Herder, 1970.
Peace,
Fr. Janusz
Fr. Janusz Mocarski
Church of St. Mary
East Islip, NY 11730
fr.yanush@gmail.com
