Doctrine of the Trinity

Resources

1. James Alison. Alison did his dissertation at Oxford on an interpretation of the Trinity using mimetic theory. He has several sections on the Trinity in The Joy of Being Wrong (which greatly inform my reflections below): "Trinity: The Monotheism of the Victim," pp. 102-110; and chapter 7, "The Trinity, Creation, and Original Sin," pp. 186-210. Link to an excerpt of the first section in chapter 7, pages 186-197. Here is a crucial paragraph that ties to a key passage for mimetic theory, John 8:39-47:

So here we find set out with very great clarity the countersign to the ecclesial hypostasis which Jesus is bringing into being: the involvement in persecution and victimization by which the world maintains its order is the same as not knowing the Father. That is, it is the inverse of the bringing about of divine paternity in the world. The link between this passage and John 8:39-47 is clear: what is being described is the nature of those who are sons of the Father of lies who was a murderer from the beginning. Jesus is also clear that his bringing into being the ecclesial hypostasis, and therefore the fulfilment of creation, is not merely something which happens in the midst of neutrality. The bringing into being of the ecclesial hypostasis by Jesus is exactly what identifies sin as sin, and identifying it, provokes resistence and hatred. There are only two possible modes of desire in John: hatred and love. Love, as we have seen, is the pacific imitative self-giving towards death which is creative of life. Hatred is the rivalistic distorted desire which ties a person ever more furiously into persecution, death and murder 'without cause'. The one is the mode of desire proper to the Father, the other is the mode of desire proper to the world.

At John 15:24 Jesus says: "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father." That is to say, Jesus has, by his works, unblocked the way in which creation was locked into being unfinished. (pp. 192-193)

2. René Girard, Things Hidden...," pp. 215-223, regarding the Divinity of Christ and the Virgin Birth. These sections move toward a doctrine of the Trinity with an emphasis on Christ's divinity and incarnation. Link to an excerpt of "The Divinity of Christ" and "The Virgin Birth."

3. Raymund Schwager, Jesus in the Drama of Salvation, "The Revelation of the Triune God in the Redemptive Event" (excerpt of the concluding section), pp. 196-217.

Reflections

The theme for a sermon might be "The Holy Trinity: The Holy Love Triangle." I've begun with the "children's sermon": the puzzle of One God in Three Persons, the triangle of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Before Girard, I tried to help make sense out of this puzzle with analogies to things like apples (cut in half to reveal three parts: skin, fruit, core) and water (the three phases of ice, liquid, and steam). We generally struggle to make sense of the Trinity by using such analogous tri-partite objects. But these attempts all fall far short of the Trinity, not just because they provide pale analogies, but because they shift our focus from what the Trinity is all about: God as Love. The bible tells us a love story. But our attempts to understand the Trinity usually present us with some puzzle to comprehend, taking us completely away from the love story. Can we better understand the Trinity in terms of the biblical love story? I think so. (And mimetic theory will help us to relate the 'characters' in this story in terms of a triangle, a trinity, if you will.)

First, we need to understand the love story gone awry. With the children, I draw a triangular diagram using my two oldest sons desiring the same toy as an example. An explanation of how we copy each other's desires follows, and then they'll probably be able to guess the outcome: a fight. Conflict. In other words, the 'love triangles' that we human beings get into, turn bad, and we end up fighting.

The solution: God the Father sent Jesus his Son into the world to show us another love triangle, only Jesus never tried to rival his heavenly Father. Instead, he perfectly did God's will; he perfectly came to love what God loves -- namely, the world, us. John 3:16. The end of our love triangles gone bad is death; we are perishing. But the end of Jesus' love triangle with God the Father is life, eternal life. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings us out of our love triangles gone bad and into God's love triangle; the Spirit is the power of God's love to help us love like Jesus did.

With the whole congregation, it's a matter of repeating the same pattern as with the children but with some different examples. One can use Genesis 3-4 as the basic narrative of love triangles gone awry. The serpent steps into the role of God as the model of desire and contradicts God's edict regarding the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. Mediated through the desire of the Serpent, the woman comes to see that fruit as desirable. The result is rivalry with God, a love triangle gone awry. When we come to model the desire of the creature instead of the Creator, the result is rivalrous triangles, including with God. We think we can know what God knows. And the results is conflict and death, brother killing brother (Gen. 4). We are caught in the triangles of sin and death.

The greater emphasis in the sermon at large might be on the notion of original sin as being hopelessly caught up in these love triangles gone awry. No matter how hard we try to have them be simply love triangles, they always end up going bad on us. All our relationships go sour, especially since they end in death. That is why the Christian faith came to see the necessity of the doctrines of both original sin and the Trinity. Original sin describes the mess we are in, hopeless for us to get out of on our own. The Trinity describes the shape of God's salvation: the only hope for us was for the Father to send the Son in order to establish a love triangle that doesn't go bad. The uniqueness of the Christian faith lies in the necessity of the incarnation. It took God's love incarnate in a human being to establish this divine love triangle in history; and it takes the Spirit to gather us up into it.

In 2003, Trinity Sunday fell on Father's Day, and so melded with these themes is the sermon "The True Father's Day Story." In 2006, I reworked these themes a bit with an emphasis on the being born from above of John 3 for a sermon entitled "The Holy Trinity: Being Swept Up In God's Love Story." The summary statement is: "The Trinity is not a logical puzzle for us to solve. The Trinity is God's Love Story for us to be swept up in."

Romans 8:12-17

Resources

1. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Sacred Violence, especially ch. 6, has excellent discussions on the Pauline language of flesh, love, spirit, etc.

2. Andrew Marr, "Adoption as God's Children" (online article).

Reflections and Questions

1. It seems to me that Paul's use of the word "flesh" is basically what we have talked about here in terms of love triangles gone awry. We cannot by our own power get out from being trapped in these fleshly triangles. Or, in more standard Girardian terms, "flesh" is simply rivalrous mimetic desire. The Spirit, on the other hand, is the power of Father and Son's love triangle with the world. Via baptism and the power of the Spirit we are made children of, and are born again into, the divine love triangle, the Trinity.

2. Paul's typology of First and Second Adam in Romans also might be useful in terms of understanding original sin. The First Adam condemned us to love triangles gone awry, and only the Second Adam can establish God's love triangle, that we might be born into it.

John 3:1-17

Resources

1. See resources from Lent 4. Most meaningful to me, lately, is seeing how being "born from above" changes our relationship with others. When we see ourselves truly as a child of God, then all others are children with us. Jesus comes as fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and Sarah that their descendents would be blessed to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. God's grace in Jesus Christ helps us to be reborn from above as children of God. God sent the Son not to save a few human souls and ditch the rest but to save "the world."

2. Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes for Trinity B. Stoffregen highlights the theology of grace in John 3, noting three factors: (1) the verbs for birth are all passive; (2) the interpretation of anothen as "from above"; and (3) the imagery of the Spirit as wind, as something beyond our human control. All of this flies in the face of contemporary evangelicalism which emphasizes "born again" as a personal decision for Christ. He says, for example,

Beyond the mysteriousness of the wind/Spirit, could Jesus be implying that Nicodemus, because he is still in the dark -- not yet enlightened by Jesus -- is unable to comprehend the origins of the wind/spirit or of true believers? Both come from God. I'm afraid that as long as people consider Christianity as something we do -- living obedient moral lives, coming to Jesus, making a decision to follow Jesus -- they will be in the dark about the true origins of our faith and also our deeds, which are to be done "in God" (3:21).

As long as people consider Christianity as something we do, are they not trying to control the Spirit -- telling it when and where to blow?

1. The idea of being born again/from above is vital to being brought under a new power. Living as we do under the power of the flesh, the love triangles gone awry, God in Jesus Christ offers us the opportunity to be born again under a new power. This is virtually the chance to start all our relationships over on a new basis, one that comes from above (a good match for the notion of "external mediation" as opposed to "internal mediation"). Rather than relationships built on a rivalrous foundation of over-against, our relationships can be refounded on a giving-over, self-emptying love.

2. John 3:16 provides the summary statement of the Trinity as a narrated love triangle.

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