The Most Holy Trinity

June 4, 2023

John 3:16-18

On Sunday after Pentecost, the Church celebrates the mystery of all mysteries, the Most Holy Trinity. Doubtless, this truth is most challenging to understand, let alone to explain. Yet, why does the Church insist on teaching this and even celebrate the mystery? Why doesn’t the Church teach something more straightforward than the mystery of the Trinity, and perhaps, the Church could have gained more followers?

The Church cannot change the teaching of the Holy Trinity. Why? It is the truth of the Gospel! Had the Church proclaimed watered-down versions of God, the Church would be in grave error and lose its identity as the Church founded by Christ. In fact, there have been attempts to change this mystery since the beginning of the Church’s history. Some theologians proposed that God is one, but He appeared in different modes when dealing with creation. He was the Father when He created the world, the Son when He saved it, and the Holy Spirit when He sanctified it. This teaching is traditionally called modalism. The Church rejected this teaching.

Another teaching says that the Father is the only God, while Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) are not divine, and thus there is no ‘Trinity’. One of the proponents of this view is Arius of Alexandria from the fourth century AD. He said that Jesus was not divine, but a created being gifted with superpowers. In his own words about Jesus, “There was time that he was not.” At that time, it was a huge controversy, and the simplicity of his teaching attracted a lot of people. The Church declared it a false teaching, and because of that, the Church had to endure persecution. Many faithful chose death rather than renounce the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Why don’t we go for the simpler teaching of God? Why does the Church stand for the highly complex and difficult truth of the Holy Trinity? Simple teachings may be attractive and easy to accept, but it does not mean that more complex teachings are automatically false or irrelevant. For example, addition and subtraction are foundational and simplest in mathematics, but the same mathematics also contains complex algebra and geometry. Does it mean we can easily ignore algebra and dismiss it as false because it is too complex to understand? Certainly not! The truth does not change even if we do not like it or ignore it. The truth remains, even though we try to water it down.

For the Church, the mystery of the Holy Trinity is not just any truth but the truth of all truths and the mystery of all mysteries. In fact, it is the truth that saves. Studying mathematical truths can help us in building houses and, thus, improve our lives, so researching and living the ultimate reality, the mystery of the Trinity, can bring us closer and closer to eternal life. However, the opposite is also true. If we believe and teach the wrong understandings of our God, this may lead us astray and put our souls in a precarious situation. This is why we constantly believe, teach, and live the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Rome

Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP