Some people get a question in their head and it's so intense they gotta just walk it
in from Lexington, Kentucky. So we have in studio with us--ooh, first name again? Ray.
Ray from Lexington, Kentucky, who came here with his wife and two sons.
But he didn't have to pay for a ticket for the two sons. They got a free ride!
They got a free ride. They're still getting a free ride till early June. Ray,
your question for Tim. By the way: she's pregnant with twins. Just to be clear.
Yes, in case that wasn't clear what that was all about. Go ahead, Ray. So Tim, my
question would be: how would you explain the Trinity to someone that has never
been acquainted with Christianity or anything like that? Yeah, that is a great
question. A couple of years ago, I was actually at a car wash here in San Diego,
and I met a Muslim fellow. He was going to school at San Diego State
University, and he saw me reading my Bible. I was waiting for my car
and I was reading my Bible, and he said: "Excuse me, is that a Bible?" And I said, "Yes,"
and he had a thick accent, you know, I could tell it sounded like he was an
Arabic speaker. And so I said, "Where are you from?" He said, "Saudi Arabia," and he's here
studying, and he was fascinated about the Bible. And he said, "So you're a
Christian?" I said, "Yeah," and one of the first things--we ended up--I let my car
sit for a while cuz we had a long conversation, Cy. Can you imagine that?
Me having a long conversation? Really? Tim Staples? But we did, and one of the biggest issues for
him was the Trinity, exactly this. He said, you know--and I asked him, I said: "Just by
curiosity, what do you think about the Trinity? What do you believe WE
believe?" And he said, "Well, as I understand it, you guys believe there are three Gods.
The Father is a God, and the Son is a God..." And so it started there. Then I explained,
"No, that's not what we believe." And what I did--and this is what I would recommend--I
used two analogies. For somebody that doesn't believe in the Bible, you know,
it's not going to appeal to them so much to go to Bible verses and stuff--although
if your friend does believe in the Bible...or no? It'd be good both ways. Both ways, yeah. So I mean,
there are certain ways you can do it with the Bible. I suggest--everybody
acknowledges the Father is God. Right? So the key is to show Biblical texts, for
somebody who believes in the Bible, where Jesus is revealed to be God also; verses
like John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him,
without him was not anything made that was made."
I mean it's very clear that the Word is God, He's the Creator and so forth;
and then "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" in John 1:14. You have
verses like Titus 2:13, "We await the manifestation of the great God and our
Savior Jesus Christ." There's lots of good biblical text like that that reveal
Jesus is God. And then you have biblical texts that reveal the Holy Spirit to be
God, too, and there's many of those. For example, in Hebrews chapter 10, you go
down to about verse 15; and you see this numerous times in Scripture, where the
scripture will say, "The Holy Spirit said," and then the quotation is usually from
an Old Testament passage where the Holy Spirit speaks as God. "I am the
Lord," for example, "I have taken away your sins," or "I will take away your sins," and
that sort of thing. So there's lots of Biblical ways to do it. But I think for
the one who has a conceptual problem, they're gonna say "Okay, I see, the
Father's God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit's God, but how can they all be one
God? It looks like there's three gods, right?"
That's where analogy comes in. And I like to use two main analogies. There are more
out there. But St. Augustine's anthropological analogy, I think, is
excellent. He uses the analogy, obviously, of man. When we look at a man, we see by
nature there are relational distinctions within
each one of us. For example, let's take me, Tim Staples, as
an example. I am. Right? I have being. I know, intellectually. And I will, as well.
So I have being, I have knowing, and I have willing. These are three things that
are real in all human beings, you can't deny it. Of course I am, and I know that I
am, and I also will to know what I don't know. Right? And so these are three really
distinct realities. They are relationally distinct, but they subsist in one being.
And the reason why St. Augustine uses that is, that's a great way of
helping somebody to see how there can be three relationally distinct realities
subsisting in one being. Now where this falls, as all analogies--and we have to
understand that; every analogy we use of God is going to fall, because God's
infinitely beyond us, we can never fully comprehend Him. All analogies fail. But it
does help us to get at this reality of relational distinctions in one being.
However, it fails in this sense: in God, His being, knowing, and willing are each
infinite; so infinite, in fact, that they're distinct persons. Right? They are
infinite and coextensive with one another. My being's not coextensive with
my knowing and my willing, because I am before I knew anything, and I know that I
I would like to know a lot more. So I will to know what I don't know. I was
before I knew. So we know they're not coextensive, but in God they are; and they
are each infinite, so radically infinite, that they are revealed to be distinct
persons. But never, never destroying this notion that we begin with: that they are
relationally distinct from one another. That is, the Father has a relation to the
Son; the Father and the Son, a relation to the Holy Spirit; and those are real.
But they do not destroy the fact that there is one being. There's not three
beings. One being. So that's helpful in that
regard. However, I like to use the second analogy that the Catechism actually uses--
in paragraph 2205 in the Catechism-- of the family. Because the family helps
us to see not just relationally distinct reality subsisting in one being, but the
idea of three persons that all possess the same nature. Because when you look at
a family, right, we're looking at a family right here. We've got a father and a mom and
two children right there, but let's just take one of them. So we got father,
mother, and child that exist in a family. They are really distinct persons. And yet,
the babies in her womb have the same nature that you do. Even though they're
little tiny guys in there, they have the same nature you do, and so what we see
here, we use the analogy of the family to show that there can be three distinct
beings--not just persons in a relational sense, but now we've got three distinct
beings and three distinct persons--who all possess the same nature. Okay?
The baby's not less human than you are or she is. They have the same
nature, and yet they're distinct persons. Now, when we look at how this fails,
however, it is in this sense: in God we see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; they are
distinct persons. They possess the same nature as well, which we've
already seen is reasonable because you three have the same nature. But here's
where it fails: in God, each one possesses the nature of God. See, with you guys, as I
mentioned before, your nature is to be one being. Right? That's the nature of
being human, is you are a distinct being as well as a
distinct person. But in God, you have distinct persons; but because their
nature is to be God, they have one being. So it's kind of a way--these are
analogies, of course. If you put them together, you can see how, yeah, it's
reasonable to have these relationally distinct realities that subsist in one
being; and it's reasonable to have three
distinct persons that all share the same nature. Where our minds get blown is, all
three of their "natures" is one nature, and that is God. And that's where our minds
get blown. And that's why, when we talk about God as a person, we're using an
analogy, because--He's not a person, He's actually persons--but he's not a person
in the same way we are. We can use the analogy of persons to try to get at God,
but His personhood transcends anything we can imagine. In the same way, His being
transcends anything...you know, this is why the Fourth Lateran Council, in its
definition of the faith in 1215, the very first thing they did at the Council is,
they wrote up a profession of faith. And one of the principles in the very first
part of that Council is, they said: "God is ineffable." In fact, they used two
Latin terms: he's incomprehensible and ineffable.
Right? "Incomprehensible," meaning our minds can't comprehend because it's beyond our
powers to comprehend the infinite; and "ineffable" because His
nature, by nature, is unknowable. So He's both incomprehensible because our powers
are limited; but also ineffable, meaning he's unknowable--by anything
outside of of Himself--because only God can fully comprehend God. But the good news is we
can use these analogies to help folks to be able to get at, "Oh I kinda see it," and then
you get back to Scripture and you get back to Jesus Christ, who revealed it to
be true. Ultimately, our faith rests upon the person of Jesus Christ, who revealed
God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we know it is true because he's God and
therefore he can neither deceive nor be deceived. So for your walk back to
Lexington, that's a lot lot to think about, but it's a long walk from San
Diego to Lexington. Oh yeah. A couple days. Right on. Well thank you, Ray, for the
question. Yeah, of course.
you