It should first be noted that the doctrine of the Trinity does not violate the axioms of logic because it only suggests that God is three in one sense and one in one sense. It does not ask us to imagine this in a spatial/numerical sense. God is not three bodies and one body at the same time. He is not three in the same sense that He is one. Such thinking will take us in quite the wrong direction. In the language of the creeds, God is simply three in person, one in essence.
There is only one "Godness" in the world; one substance that may be referred to as "God." But that substance is expressed through three dynamic personalities, and it is even expressed in their dynamic interelations. And since this is the language of the Trinity, then spatial/mathematical models merely oversimplify the case. God is not simply 3 and 1 and yet 1 and 3, etc. God is a dynamic interaction of individual personalities that constitute a perfect unity, an essential oneness. The language of society, of community, of relationship, is far nearer the truth of the glorious Trinity.
Lewis is helpful here: He suggests in his Mere Christianity that we experience on our dimension personalities combining in various ways (say the closeness that occurs in marriage or in close friendships). But can we imagine a dimension in which personalities combine in new ways, in perfect ways, so that there is on that plane of existence a perfection of unity and diversity. Lewis says that our experience is like lines combined in two dimensions to form a square. In three dimensions, squares can be combined to form a cube. Notice that a cube is not wholly unlike a square; it is merely a fuller expression of the simplicity of the square, or a new combination of squares in three dimensions. It is in a sense a development along the same trajectory. God's dimension and experience of unity and diversity compared to ours is something like the relationship of the cube to a two-dimensional square.
Or another illustration: Imagine calculus to a first year math student. It would seem irrational. But if he follows the path of logic laid down for him and continues to experience the forms of mathematics he can now understand, he will grow into an understanding of calculus. Calculus is an extension along the same trajectory; it is not a whole departure from simple reason or simple experience. It is an emersion into a deeper and richer expression of reality. In the same way, the unity and diversity in the Trinity is not a departure from our experience. If we could imagine continuing in growth in our relationships, we could see the road carrying us into the "happy land of the Trinity," as Sanders puts it.
Now what does this mean to us? Well, it means everything! Belief in the notion of love requires a robust philosophical answer to the problem of unity and diversity, and the only worldview that can provide such an answer is Christianity. Triune love unifies the distinct while giving distinction to the unified.
Perhaps the most fundamental philosophical problem is the problem of the one and the many. Is there only one thing or one will in the universe, or is there a diversity of things or wills and no meaningful unity in the universe? Early philosophers like Thales believed that everything was essentially unified--his view was that everything was water. Others concluded that everything was essentially separated, like Heraclitus' view that you cannot step into the same river twice. To this day the question holds our interest.
There are scientists in our day who believe that we are essentially products of chance, and chance is by definition the antithesis to any unifying principle. If we are products of chance, then obviously there is no agency that knits the universe together. As many consistent atheists have noted, we are merely accidents that have been "thrown into" this random interrelation of energy and matter. Bertrand Russell, the famous British atheist proclaimed confidently that the destiny of the universe is material particularization. Any stability or order we perceive in the universe will eventually disintegrate, and frankly, it could be nothing more than an arrogant perception now.
If men like Russell are right, then only one ethical choice remains--live for today and live for oneself. Of course logically, even this conclusion can be questioned if Russell's nihilism is true. Nihilism, by definition, means nothing matters. But if nothing matters, then even the view that a person should live a selfish life is another example of the irrelevant and impotent prattling molecules adrift in a violent sea. The curious thing about believing that there are only particulars in the universe is that to do so causes one to lose the value of those particulars. Relativism in the long run is meaningless without some stable and unchanging center by which relative position may be both anchored and understood. If the world is merely filled with random opinions about this or that matter and no truth can be found in them, then ideas are not relative to anything. They are mere by-products of synapses randomly firing in a vacuous ether of uncoordinated happenings. They are not relative happenings because they are not related to anything. They are pure, individual, and irreproducible occurrences, as men like Hume suspected. In an atheist universe, we are not only alone, but even the thought of our loneliness is also alone, isolated from all other thoughts in its vanishing pointlessness. Every thought is jettisoned into the unknown, unimportant and uncoordinated ocean of nihilistic noise, for nihilism is not the absence of something, but is rather the presence of everything but meaning in none of it. The Christian at least dignifies their enemies by arguing with them. The atheist would have us all believe that no man or woman does anything other than litter the universe.
But if the atheists are right and the universe is merely a collection of random happenings, then one can find no meaning in either the whole or the parts. Most cope with this by simply asserting individual will against the universe. As Crane's poem says it, we can shout to the universe that we exist, but it will only answer back, "yes, but the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." The atheist is forced to be a champion of individuality and can offer no meaningful unity. Thus love becomes impossible, or reduces to individuals deluding themselves into believing that it is something more than meaningless and isolated chemical reactions swallowed up by a purposeless universe.
The Pantheist has the opposite problem of the atheist. His philosophical foundation eliminates the possibility of any meaningful individuality. The interesting thing in this worldview is that there is little attempt to hide this. Pantheists will confidently proclaim that one must abjure the need for individual dignity and embrace the whole. The problem we all face is that we are caught up in a powerful illusion. We actually believe we have a self, and worse, that that self deserves to enlarge its boundaries and become more perfectly self actualized. The Pantheist believes that through various spiritual practices and eventually through birth and rebirth, the individual soul will be absorbed into the universal and all permeating essence of all things.
In the Bhagava Gita, the Hindu holy text, a prince named Arjuna is visited by the Avatar of Brahman called Krishna. Krishna appears individually to Arjuna to lead him in the path of enlightenment. He teaches Arjuna that individuality is a powerful illusion. Now apart from the logical problem here (Why would not Arjuna simply conclude that Krishna also is a part of the illusion?), the real issue is the naked denial of individuality. Love requires an object and a subject and in Pantheism there is only one reality. Love is a matter of relationship, one person relating to another. But if there is no person there, in reality, then surely there can be no love. In Pantheism an individual appeal is made to embrace the idea that individuality doesn’t exist. But it should be clear that if singularity exists without multiplicity, then there can be no love.
Only the Christian worldview can hold unity and diversity together, and the reason it can is because Christian teaching is rooted in the nature and character of a God who is unified and diverse. The Triune God is the source of unity and diversity. Without a Triune concept of God, one is left to turn to other worldviews, none of which can provide a rational foundation for unity and diversity.
Consider how practical this matter can be. In governments that go wrong, the tension between unity and diversity is not maintained. In communism, there is a kind of unity, but individuality is lost. The state is more important than an individual. In a dictatorship, the will of one man is imposed upon the populace, and as such individual dignity is compromised for one uniform voice. One will absorbs the collective of wills. Democracy has the opposite problem. In a democracy, often disagreement is the only agreement. People boldly exercise their right to voice their individual views, and special interest groups often try to manipulate the political process in order to secure their own individual needs without much concern for the common good. Capitalism works well in a democracy because it rewards individual competition. The individual will is held to be more valuable than a sustainable unity of wills. The extreme example of a governmental system that denies unity for individuality would be either libertarianism or anarchy. In the case of anarchy the concept of a common will is totally abandoned and individual survival or advantage alone is sought.
The point here is that in something as mundane as a governmental system we see that the core problem is a failure to harmonize with the Triune reality of complete unity and diversity simultaneously.
And even more practical than governmental systems, consider the simple everyday reality of interpersonal relationships. In bad marriages, for example, unity or diversity diminishes over time. Some marriages polarize naturally, and in such cases individuality is preserved, but meaningful unity is lost. Some marriages are places of endless contention, with both individuals passionately asserting their right to be right. Obviously in such cases individuality is preserved at the cost of unity. In other marriages, one partner forfeits her will to the other, or is overpowered by the other. A marriage can be a place where unity is forged at the cost of one person’s individuality.
If we really were made in the image of a God who is the perfection of unity and diversity, then we would expect that our hearts would yearn both for connection to God and others and we would expect to find in ourselves a desire for the realization of our highest individual potential.
Divine love unifies the distinct while giving distinction to the unified.
(For a treatment of how the Trinity idea provides meaning to the whole educational enterprise, see the article titled “The Trinity and Education.”)
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