Despite what I said last week about the difficulties of communicating with people who speak different languages, there can’t be any doubt that language is of the greatest gifts we have as human beings. In fact, in the minds of many people, language, the ability to communicate through the spoken word, is perhaps more than anything else, what defines us as human beings. That’s not to say that other creatures don’t have languages that are at least in part made up of verbal communication, but none have a way of communicating that has the depth or complexity of human language. Dolphins, for example, are often held up as examples of highly intelligent animals which do communicate with one another by means of language and researchers into the field of animal languages have estimated that the patterns of clicks through which dolphins communicate, make up a vocabulary of about 36 ‘words’. By comparison, the average human being has a vocabulary of between 25,000 and 30,000 words.
Nevertheless, human language still has its difficulties. There’s the problem of communication between people who speak different languages. That actually hinders communication between people, it can separate them and because of the misunderstandings that can cause, it can cause serious disagreements and problems between people. And human language has its limitations too. Despite its depth and complexity and descriptive power, there are some things that human language can’t fully describe or explain.
For example, we all know what pain is because we’ve all experienced it. We all know how pain feels, but could we actually describe pain, not what it’s like, but how pain itself feels? A dictionary definition of pain is an unpleasant physical sensation causing discomfort and distress. But that would also apply to having insomnia, being unable to sleep, or to travel sickness, or to being too hot or too cold, but we wouldn’t usually say any of those things are painful. It’s actually very difficult to explain or describe pain itself and so we rely on the fact that people know what pain is and use metaphors, similes and analogies to describe it. We say something is a burning pain or it’s like being stabbed or that a pain is so bad we don’t know what to do with ourselves because whatever we do, we can’t get comfortable.
Whilst all those things show the descriptive power of language, they also show the limitation of language too. The fact that we have to use metaphors, similes and analogies to describe something, shows that we don’t have the words to describe the thing itself.
And we could say something similar about love too. I’ve spoken before about the limitations of the English language in speaking about love, as opposed to Greek, for example, which has multiple words for different kinds of love. But even so, what do we mean by love? I don’t mean the kind of love that the Christians are called to feel for all people, agape, the love that seeks to do good to all people, regardless of our personal feelings towards them. I mean what’s generally meant when people talk about love. We all know what that kind of love is, I hope, because we’ve all loved, and been loved, and probably been in love with someone. But how can we describe love itself. A dictionary definition of love is an intense feeling of affection for something or someone. But why do we have that feeling for one thing and not another, for one person and not another? We could say we love someone for their kindness and generosity or some other admirable or attractive character trait. But we probably know many people with those kinds of qualities so why do we love some but only like or admire others? And what is that undefinable thing that makes us fall in love with one person and not another? We sometimes call that the ‘spark’, but that’s another metaphor for something that we can’t describe or explain directly. We’ll know what it means to be ‘in love’ if we’ve experienced it ourselves, but if we can think back to the first time we fell in love with someone, we also know what a strange, new and indescribable experience it was. So it’s very difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves. Or even to someone who has because how often do we hear people say, “I don’t know what they see in him, or her”?
So despite its complexity and descriptive power, language can’t really convey what we mean by things like pain and love as those things are in themselves. We can use metaphors, similes and analogies to give others a sense of what we mean but we have to rely on the fact that people have experienced these things for themselves if we want them to really understand what we’re trying to say. And if that’s usually true when we speak about things such as pain and love, it’s most certainly true when we speak of God as Trinity.
We simply don’t have the words, in any human language, to describe how something can be three separate and distinct things and yet, at one and the same time, be only one thing.
We understand the words, but the words don’t allow us to explain or to understand how such a thing can be, or to explain and describe what such a thing is really like, in itself. And yet this is the uniquely Christian way of speaking about and describing God.
And so, because we can’t explain or describe the Trinity directly, we use various similes to try and convey this understanding of God. Perhaps one of the most well known is the image of God as Trinity, being like water. Just as God is three persons but one God, so the same water can exist as a solid, ice, as liquid water, and as a gas, steam. But this doesn’t describe the Trinity accurately. The same volume of water can be three distinct things, but it can’t be those three things at the same time and yet still be the same volume of water. What this simile actually describes is a heresy known as modalism. The Modalists taught that the three persons of the Trinity were only transitory, that is, God could be Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit, but not all three at the same time. So, for them, the Trinity referred to three states, or modes, hence their name, in which God could exist depending on which role God chose to fulfil at any one time.
Because of the difficulty we have in speaking about God as Trinity, it’s often said that the Trinity is simply a mystery of faith that defies explanation, and for many people it’s sufficient to leave it at that. But in the same way that we can use people’s own experience of things like pain and love to speak about those things, so we can use people’s own experience of God to help us when we speak about the Trinity because the Trinity is something that people have experienced.
The idea of God as Trinity is implicit in Scripture from the very beginning:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light.
In those first three verses of Genesis we read that God is the source and creator of all. This is the one we know as the Father. We read that God’s Spirit, the one we know as the Holy Spirit, was present with the Father before all things. And we read that all things were made through God’s Word, the one we know as the Son, and as the one St John calls the Word made flesh, Jesus.
And if the idea of God as Trinity is implicit from the very beginning of the Scriptures, the understanding that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all present at one and the same time is found in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism.
‘And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”’
What is that other than an experience of God as Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit all being present at one and the same time in a definite time and place in human history?
And any hint of modalism or of there being three Gods, is dismissed in Jesus own words. When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus began his answer by saying,
“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
But, if we think about those words, aren’t they a strange way to say there’s only one God? Wouldn’t a better way to express that be to say, ‘The Lord our God is the one Lord’? Don’t Jesus words give the impression of more than one, coming together in and as one?
So the idea of the Trinity is implicit in Scripture form the very beginning and it’s an idea that’s reinforced by the experience of people who, through the years, have come to know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And it’s an idea and understanding of God that finds expression in the Christian doctrine and understanding of God as Trinity. It might be beyond the limitations of human language to adequately explain and describe this understanding of God but that shouldn’t worry us because being able to do that would mean having the ability to know and understand God, as God is in himself. In that sense, the Trinity is and must remain a mystery. But it’s not one we can’t believe in, nor speak about, because it’s one we can experience for ourselves, even if words do fail us in trying to explain and describe it.
Amen.
The Propers for Trinity Sunday can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 