A fellow passenger seated next to me on a train ride from Frankfurt to Vienna engaged me in a somewhat heated debate. He was a British tourist, and like me, he was visiting Vienna for a musical concert at the Mozart’s Hall. We first shared each others love for classical music. But when he learned that I was a priest, he was curious why of all professions in the world, I chose to be a priest. He told me that he was raised Anglican but had since learned that religion was just a myth concocted for controlling little minds. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that people still believe that there is a God who controls the affairs of men from his “little kingdom” in the sky. I reminded him that God’s abode is called heaven, not the sky.
Next, he challenged me with what he called the most elusive doctrine of the Christianity, namely—the Trinity. “It just doesn’t make sense,” he blipped, with an air of professorial arrogance. I told him that the mystery of the Trinity was not an illusion; rather what is astonishing is the lack of humility in some of us to admit that our knowledge of the divine is limited by the capability of our mind. I asked if he was capable of understanding calculus as an elementary school student. He admitted that he hated algebra and calculus, and struggled with them in secondary school; yet, he admitted that calculus is a valid mathematical form of knowledge—the same as algebra and trigonometry. I explained to him: That something is beyond us doesn’t suggest it is unknowable or invalid. What does exist is the arrogance which trivializes mystery or something not yet known but to which the mind retains the capacity to gravitate. Arrogant people would like to determine who God is or make God after their own image (as Israelites did so in the desert); they try to fit Him into their mental constructs.
To my fellow passenger, I explained the Trinity using some of the limited analogies drawn from human experience. I used the analogy of the sun. The sun is 80 million miles away from us, but it’s its rays that beautify the stained-glass windows in this church. The delightful heat we enjoy on our bodies come from a combination of the sun and its rays. The Trinity can be compared to the sun. God the Father is the blazing sun. God the Son is the rays that come down to us. Both the Father and the Son—like the sun and its rays—send us the Holy Spirit. Drawing from the analogy, the Holy Spirit is the heat that warms our bodies. If we’re smart to understand the workings of the sun, its rays, and heat, then we should be able to open our minds and hearts to the inner life of the Trinity. But don’t celebrate, yet, because every analogy falls abysmally short or below whom God is. Thus, Job asked: “Who can penetrate the deep designs of God?” (11:7).
Try to understand the mystery of the Trinity and you become like a person staring at the noonday sun to see it clearly. Be sure you’ll be getting a serious headache requiring extra strength Tylenol and a resolve to buy sun-glasses. You’ve probably heard about St. Augustine, preoccupied with the doctrine of the Trinity, seeking to grasp and explain it logically; and how a little child on the seashore making a tiny hole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filling it with water, ran to empty it in the hole she made. Back and forth she went, until Augustine drew near and asked what her project was, to which the girl replied, “I want to empty the sea into this hole.” Augustine advised that her project was a futile one. In turn, the girl replied, “But more futile was your goal to comprehend the immensity of God with your human mind. The trinity teaches us about love. Love is Trinity, because it takes, not two, but three to fall in love. And the third person is God. To fall in love is to fall into God.
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo