Trinity

Just a thought by Elizabeth Johnson I wanted to preserve. I've struggled since I started seminary with the idea of the Trinity. How I'd always thought of it was three ways we understand the one God, or three attributes of God, or something like that. What's always been important to me was the oneness of God. When I got to seminary and started learning about the Greek words for the same substance but three persons I was a bit repulsed by it. That threatens for me the oneness of God.

Whenever I try to get someone to argue for the importance of the threeness of God they have not convinced me of anything other than that it's nice to have an image of divine community. Not something I think is necessary or essential. So anyway, this is the quote that is worth dwelling on and not forgetting:

"Three corresponding distinctions may be said to exist within one God. Why [this] insight? It is based on the conviction that God is utterly faithful, and does not self-reveal in any guise other than the one which actually coheres with the essence of divine being...Basic trust in the experience of God's threefold relatedness to us suggests that a certain corresponding threefoldness characterizes God's own true being." (pg. 199-200) In other words, since God isn't tricking us and God only reveals things that are in line with the core of God, and since we experience God in a threefold way, then that must threefoldness must somehow characterize God.

I still don't know that I agree, but at least I have a window of insight into why the distinction was deemed so important!