08 Oct The Trinity Doesn’t Make Sense
Walking in the woods recently I spotted a tree with three stems. It was clearly one tree, but also sort of like three trees at the same time. Technically this would be called a ‘multi-stem’ tree, and its a common enough thing. Immediately I thought of God and how He is one God but three persons. It’s a fairly good analogy for children, and new believers, but the truth is that it doesn’t do God justice.
There have been a lot of analogies trying to explain the trinity. The most famous is perhaps St Patrick’s use of the clover with three leaves. Some have used the three phases of H20 (water, ice, vapour) and C.S.Lewis gave a great explanation using lines, squares and cubes.
While each branch of the tree is a part of the tree, it is not the tree in its own right, so the analogy sort of works, but doesn’t completely. The phases of water also is faulty, because all three don’t exist at the same time. Every analogy works to some extent but not completely, because God is a bit too complicated to explain, and that is how it should be.
Sometimes Christians are accused of making up nonsense about God, but actually having a God that doesn’t make sense is how you would expect it to be. If we could understand God, then He wouldn’t be much of a God right?
The trinity is an attempt by humans to understand God who is complex, and far beyond anything we know as humans. And that is the way is should be.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9
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