The Trinity

It is interesting that the word trinity is not a Biblical word and yet is a central ‘Christian’ doctrine.
Similarly it is interesting that this Doctrine was not finally formulated until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
What the first followers of Jesus would have made of the form of creed we now recite is anybody’s guess.
Indeed what most of us who recite it make of it is anybody’s guess.
For the language and forms of thought that constructed it were neither those of the first church not ours.
I went to an induction of a local vicar last night and was struck by a phrase in the service.
“To make the Gospel known and relevant in this generation”.
Which I took to mean in words and thought forms that resonated with particular people in time and place.
Therefore what form the Gospel might take in Great Britain in this third millennium is unlikely to be the very words either of scripture Or the council of Nicea.
All that said what is the purpose of the Doctrine of the trinity apart from forming the subject matter of endless theological debate amongst the academics/
Does the Doctrine of the Trinity have any abiding relevance?
I believe that the binary way in which we all divide ourselves up and derive our identity over and against some group of others is completely confounded by this Doctrine.
For we are invited to find an entirely new way of being Human by modelling ourselves on not mother and father but God who is three yet one.
The complete interdependency and mutual submission of 'Father’ and 'Son’ is manifested in a love which is itself a person, that of the Holy Spirit.
It turns out that our intuited sense of something 'spiritual’ or greater than the sum of the parts of our lives is the Holy Spirit.
It turns out that that which we all know to be the very essence of our lives and indeed lies at its very core is the third person of the trinity.
For we all 'know’ that love is the meaning of our lives, and that if God is love then it is him/her who we are encountered by in our very soul.
It turns out that we are constantly being invited or drawn by the third person of the Trinity now dwelling within all peoples to cooperate with him/her and become remodelled on the person of Jesus who in turn modelled himself on the Father.
It turns out that the Holy Spirit is constantly prompting us from within to be transformed by this intentional remodelling of ourselves.
And that this remodelling will issue in mutual and reciprocal self-giving rather than conflict.
That this sacrificial way of loving will issue in peace and justice and not inhumanity and violence.
And this should all be visible in the local church in and through those whom intentionally seek to be remodelled.
Amongst those who intentionally submit to a twelve step program of transformation that will daily tackle our addictions.
Our addiction to self, to ego and our addictions to forming our identity over and against 'them’, whoever 'they’ happen to be.
What Doctrine could be more relevant in this day and age then.

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