Can the Trinity be Explained in Simple Terms? by Fr. Andrew Reckers

Trinity Sunday can make a lot of people nervous. Many people in the pews are anxious that they will hear a headache-inducing homily that is too theologically abstract to be understood, much less appreciated. Many homilists are anxious that they will accidentally say something heretical by, for example, trying to explain the profound mystery of the Trinity with an analogy that is taken too far. I believe it is best to let the mystery of the Trinity remain mysterious. That does not mean that we cannot say anything about it, but we must be humble enough to acknowledge our limited capacity to understand this “central mystery of the Christian faith and life (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 234).” So, the goal of this article is to reflect on this mystery of God’s identity in simple terms, respecting the mystery without shying away from it.

The mystery of the Trinity is defined as one God in three Persons. This means that God is one Being, but three Divine Persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Put somewhat informally, this means that God is one “what” and three “whos.” Moreover, each of these three Persons is fully God, not just a part or percentage of God. Although this is simple to say, it is something that we cannot fully understand. This is due, in part, to the fact that we have not yet discovered anything in the created world that is also simultaneously one thing and three persons who are each the totality of the thing. In fact, the only way that we know that God is a Trinity is because He revealed this to us. However, even though human reason on its own cannot reach the conclusion that God is a Trinity, we can understand that the mystery is not a contradiction.

It can be tempting to think that the Trinity is contradictory by hastily assuming that it is logically impossible for one thing to be more than one person. However, this would be hasty because we know even from experience that “being” and “person” are two distinct realities. To illustrate this, we can compare created beings that differ in terms of how many persons they are. For example, a rock, a tree, a dog, and the planet Saturn are each one being, but each of them is also zero persons. On the other hand, your mother, your father, Fr. Jarred, and each of your neighbors and friends are each one being, but they are also each one person. So, we can see that some of the beings we know are zero persons each, and other beings we know are one person each. Thus, if beings can vary in how many persons they are, then it is logically possible for one being to be more than one person as well. This means that it is logically possible for the Trinity to be one Being and three Persons.

At this point, someone might be convinced that it is possible for God to be a Trinity but may also wonder why it matters that we believe God is a Trinity instead of simply One. I do not have enough space here to provide the many possible ways to explain the importance of knowing that God is a Trinity, but I can provide some brief reflections. First, as the Catechism explains, the better we know God, the better we can appreciate His actions in the world and in our lives (CCC 236). We know this is true of all of our relationships. Each person we know in our lives is a mystery, and the better we know each person, the better we can understand and appreciate everything that person does.

Moreover, the better we understand God, the better we can understand ourselves in terms of our meaning and purpose, since God made us in His image (Genesis 1:27). For example, the fact that God is a Trinity makes it so that God is Love, not just loving. The Trinitarian image of God is described as a Communion of Persons (CCC 1702); thus, the unity and distinctiveness in the Trinity allows God to be Love and the Source of all love. It is also the reason why we as human beings, created in God’s image and likeness, must love God and our neighbor to fulfill our meaning and purpose (see CCC 1878). A concrete example of what this should look like is a loving human family, which is a reflection of Trinitarian love (CCC 2205).

Obviously, much more can be said, but it is my hope that this tiny glimpse into the mystery of the Trinity can help you to appreciate it better. As with all mysteries of our faith, we must avoid falling into two tempting traps: Overconfidently claiming that we know everything about the mystery and concluding that the “case is closed” without further room for discovery; or under-confidently believing that we cannot know anything about the mystery, and avoiding the process of discovery altogether. Instead, we must recognize that God loves us and wants us to know Him. But we must also recognize our limits and acknowledge that we will never know everything about God. Our Trinitarian God is a mystery to be loved, not a mystery to be solved or a mystery to be avoided.