Trinity Sunday, B May 30, 2021
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
It’s unreasonable, irrational even… isn’t it? At the very heart of the Christian faith is this illogical claim about who God is. The Trinity is One God and Three Divine Persons. It’s not like there’s three people who each have their own thoughts or make their own decisions. One God means one mind and one will. They don’t just agree with each other, they think the same thoughts and make the same decisions as one God. Yet, there are three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three are distinct, but all three are fully God at all times.
To be a Christian means to believe that, when we talk about God, 1+1+1=1. Yet we also believe that the world is reasonable, that it makes sense, that we can use our reason to understand the world. We just believe that God is beyond our understanding. Seems unreasonable, doesn’t it? And this isn’t a side issue. The Catechism clearly says that the Trinity is the central mystery of our faith. It’s more important than Christmas or Easter or Pentecost. Those are about what God did. This is about who God is and God is One God, Three Persons.
If the most central part of our faith is so apparently illogical, why not just stick to more reasonable things like math or science? Because even those are not as logical and reasonable as you think. In quantum physics, there’s a problem whenever it comes to measuring things. As long as you don’t measure it too closely, physics acts the way it’s supposed to and reality makes sense. But, once you try to get an exact measurement of the most basic particles, you get a weird thing where what you measure seems right, but it also can’t explain what usually happens. You go from having certainty to guessing. Rather than a measurement being 1 or 2, you somehow have both at the same time.
In mathematics and computers, no matter what system you use, you eventually run into a similar problem. There’s always some part of the system that you simply can’t prove. It comes up whenever you get to self-reference. By that I mean you eventually have to deal with a rule that refers back to itself, which makes it impossible to prove or disprove. It’s kind of like saying “what I’m saying is false.” No matter how you interpret it, it ends up contradicting itself. Well, that same kind of thing happens with numbers in some important places for high level math. It’s sometimes called the problem of incompleteness or of self-reference.
What’s the point of this math and physics talk? What’s it got to do with the Trinity and how does it matter for my life? In short, even the most logical and reasonable fields of math and science have gaps. There is some fundamental act of faith in any “rational” thing that humans try to do. What’s even more interesting is where these gaps pop up.
With both mathematics and physics, things work when you look at the whole system: things and numbers in relation to each other. The problem for both of them is when you get too isolated, when you try to find absolute certainty in isolation. With physics, it’s wanting to know the exact behavior of a single particle in a single moment. You can get the answer, but then that answer no longer fits with how everything else works. With math, it’s wanting to prove yourself in isolation and from scratch. The rules can’t prove themselves, only each other.
That’s because of who designed math, physics, and all the rest of the universe. Isolation and self-reference cause problems because the source, God, is not isolated and self-referential. The one God is not a single isolated person. The one God is not one person referring only to himself. He is three persons in an eternal exchange of love.
With both math and physics, brilliant people come up with some very interesting theories and explanations, but the best and brightest accept there will always be something beyond our grasp. With God, there are lots of explanations and analogies – and these can know and help us love God – but every one of them has limits. Many heresies – false teachings – have come from people too attached to one analogy or explanation. Even comparing God to math and physics is dangerous if you push the comparison too far. The best and brightest theologians admit that the Trinity cannot be comprehended completely… only apprehended. We can believe and ponder, but never fully understand.
So, why bother talking about things beyond our understanding? Because pondering them produces results. Modern computers exist as a direct result of trying to understand the problem of self-reference in math. In the same way, recognizing that isolation and self-reference lead to dead ends teaches us something crucially important. Human beings don’t make sense when isolated or stuck in self-reference.
Our world is obsessed with individualism. Just about every graduation speech every given talks about “being true to yourself.” You can find endless inspirational quotes about “following your heart” and “going your own way.” There are half truths buried in there, which makes it more dangerous. But, the fact of the matter is that this advice is a great way to leave people disoriented, lost in irrational confusion and selfish illusions. Rather than facing reality and succeeding, they end up desperately trying to force reality to fit their illusions.
It is true that each human being is unique and unrepeatable. It is true that constantly trying to be what others want you to be is unhealthy. But it is equally true that living for yourself is madness. Meaning is not something we find within ourselves, it is something we find in relationship to others and especially to God. This is at the heart of the great commission of Jesus to the Apostles in our Gospel.
“Go and make disciples.” Jesus brought meaning to his apostles by bringing them into the eternal exchange of love that is at the heart of all of reality. He sends us to bring meaning to the world not with pedantic platitudes or promises of personal success, but by drawing others into that same relationship; By teaching others to call on God as abba, as father; To make us coheirs with Christ through Baptism, children of God who are no longer isolated, no longer living for ourselves; To leave us caught up in a paradoxical exchange of love that is not unreasonable but is the only thing makes reason possible in the first place. As it turns out, the most reasonable thing in the universe is faith. Faith in God the source of reason, the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit