The Trinity

Don't expect a comprehensive post here, but I promised Mike I'd write something.  As usual, If I am in error please attribute it to ignorance and not wilful rejection of Holy Mother Church's teaching.  Here is a relevant portion from the Catechism.  If you want to do some in-depth reading, I suggest St. Augustine's De Trinitate.

It occurred to me that an atheist skeptic might ask by way of challenge something along the lines of "if God is so almighty, then how is it that He cannot produce a being equal to Himself?"  In fact, this is what the procession of the Son from the Father is.  And, God being love, the love they have for each other is itself a person equal to the other two, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.  [If you are someone who is really into the history of the whole filioque thing, read this.]

The procession of the persons is not an easy thing to understand.  No one really understands it fully.  I don't.  If someone says he does, that only means he doesn't really know what he's talking about (if we can say this about quantum mechanics, then how much more so about God?).  But that doesn't mean a few misconceptions can't be cleared up.

First, some people get confused and ask, "when did it happen?" (or something like that).  "What?"  "The procession.  When did it happen?"  As if God started out as one person, then at some point "unpacked" into two and then three.  No.  Look at the Nicene Creed, at the part about "eternally begotten" and pray and then think about what that means.  Eternity, properly speaking, isn't an indefinitely long duration of time (that's "diuturnity") or even any duration of time at all.  God is not all dependent upon or limited by time any more than he is dependent upon or limited by space, nor did these things even exist until He created them.  God experiences all in an eternal now.  There was not a time before the procession began, nor will there be a time when it is "finished."  It is eternal, and it is perfect the way it is.

Second, the Church does not ask you to believe that "three is equal to one" (in the strict sense).  We're the ones who insist that faith and reason never contradict, remember?  There is one essence, one Godhead; three persons.  The three persons have different roles in our lives, but they have the same substance - the only prinicple of difference is their relationship to one another.  The Spirit is not the Son is not the Father, but "the spirit of the Son is the Spirit of the Father" and "if we have seen the Son we have seen the Father."  The Athanasian Creed tells us that "This is the Catholic Faith: that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance."

Thirdly, although there is not the slightest alteration or shadow of change in God, the procession is neither boring nor stagnant.  My English lit professor, during our studies on Paradise Lost, commented on the fact that many people find the hell part of Milton's epic more interesting than the heaven part; and the same goes for the Divine Comedy - although Paradiso is supposed to be Dante's better poem, Inferno is by far more popular.  He said that in heaven it seemed like you just sat around and praised God and that seemed dull, with nothing happening.  On the contrary, heaven is the dynamic and exciting place (even while it is at the same time a place of rest and refreshment).  For there is the constant dynamic of the unutterable joy of the Most Holy Trinity in which the love of the Father, the Spirit, is poured without reservation into the Son, who responds by complete self-donation, and the Father gives it all back.  Father Bill is fond of telling us that this perfect reciprocal loving self-gift is manifested to us in the Incarnation, the perfect offering of the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection.  And in heaven - through our incorporation into Christ - we are drawn up to participate the very life of the Trinity.  To say that this is the best thing ever would still be the world's greatest understatement.