Trinitarian or Unitarian? [Trinity Sunday]

Our Church does weird things from time to time. Surely one of the weirdest is the celebration we have every year the week after Pentecost (that would be today). On the Sunday after Pentecost we do not specifically remember Jesus or any event in his life; we remember a doctrine. We thank God on Trinity Sunday for the revelation of the central dogma of Christian theology: One God exists in Three Persons and One Substance. Since the Middle Ages, the Western Church has thanked God for this progressive revelation of Himself as Trinity. Beyond human reason God has revealed Himself as the creating, redeeming, sanctifying Tri-unity. Because it is beyond cogent demonstration, because it proceeds from the realm of mystery, the revelation of the Trinity is widely ignored. Hence, the wisdom of the Church in this yearly reminder is that we are Trinitarians, not unitarians. The Church abounds with unconscious unitarians. Since faulty doctrine does lead to faulty life it might be well for us to examine our belief to discern whether we are Trinitarians or unitarians. The universal Church on the basis of Scripture and its corporate experience proclaims Trinity as the truth. Do we honestly believe the doctrine? There are three types of unconscious unitarians. The first is the most honest of the three: the definite Unitarian who believes simply that there is one person in one God. Yet such a God has no relationships within Himself. * Existing prior to everything and without those inner relationships how does He become conscious of Himself; how does He come to know love and express it? And finally what does such a Unitarian do with Christ? The definite Unitarian accepts a distant Deity. Another type of unconscious unitarian worships Jesus alone losing sight of Father and Spirit. This type of unitarianism generally takes a sentimental approach centering on the gentle teacher who provides the supreme, moral example. If we are unitarians of this type it is hard to know what to do with all the statements Jesus made about the First and Third Persons. Finally there is the Star Wars unitarian. Such a person, like Luke Skywalker, puts his trust in “the Force.” He believes that a vague, spiritual power is abroad in the universe that nudges humankind to do good. This particular approach has very little to do with the Bible. We hear in today’s Gospel: When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth … (John 16:13). Unconscious unitarianism possesses aspects of the truth, but not all of it. The Holy Spirit has led us through Scripture and experience into a deep mystery. Our God is not simply a distant Deity, or Jesus alone or the Force. Rather He is All Three in Unity. He is Trinity.

* The reader will understand that the use of male pronouns in this piece should be understood as gender neutral. DLS+