261 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
262 The Incarnation of God’s Son reveals that God is the eternal Father and that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, which means that, in the Father and with the Father the Son is one and the same God.
263 The mission of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in the name of the Son (Jn 14:26) and by the Son “from the Father” (Jn 15:26), reveals that, with them, the Spirit is one and the same God. “With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified” (Nicene Creed).
264 “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the first principle and, by the eternal gift of this to the Son, from the communion of both the Father and the Son” (St. Augustine, De Trin. 15, 26, 47: PL 42, 1095).
265 By the grace of Baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, we are called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity, here on earth in the obscurity of faith, and after death in eternal light (cf. Paul VI, CPG § 9).
266 “Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son’s is another, the Holy Spirit’s another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal” (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16).
267 Inseparable in what they are, the divine persons are also inseparable in what they do. But within the single divine operation each shows forth what is proper to him in the Trinity, especially in the divine missions of the Son’s Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
–The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church
The Athanasian Creed is in the BCP but is rarely recited even on Trinity Sunday. It will be recited in ACNA.
For nonbelievers and doubters, the church’s insistence on the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the major stumbling blocks to ‘faith’ (in the sense of accepting that a Creator exists and trusting that in the end all will be well).
The soi-disant ‘right thinkers’ (orthodox) proclaim, peremptorily: None can be a true Christian who does not accept the Trinity — not because there’s any objective reason to do so, but simply because some of our early founders imagined it to be true. These right thinkers thereby create big problems for their own evangelical efforts. Many educated people have been trained from childhood to be skeptical of naked appeals to authority, and through experience have found this to be a quite-serviceable rule of life. As a result, would-be evangelists are unable even to get to first base with such people, who shy away from (what looks to them like) a form of psychosis, a loss of touch with reality.
Thank you, Father Harmon.
Shalom –
Josh
IMO if one believes that the oneness of God, or even the Godness of God is somehow less mysterious to speak of than than the three, one has not thought enough about speaking truthfully about God. The Trinity is, of course, essential because it is true to the church’s experience and true to the witness of Scripture.
D.C. Toedt
[blockquote]For the word of the cross is folly to those who are persihing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written [blockquote]I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and the clerverness of the clerver I will thwart[/blockquote]
Where is the wise man? Where is the scriber? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
…
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (I Cor 1:18-20, 25)[/blockquote]
Without the Trinity nothing else makes sense. Without the Trinity, the Incarnation makes no sense. Without the Incarnation, the Resurrection makes no sense. The Holy Trinity is the mystery that makes sense of all other mysteries of the faith.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
D.C. Toedt
Here is another attempt (using humor rather than scripture).
I just prepared a Confirmation Class at St. James. Part of every class is where the instructor scares the students by reminding them that the Bishop has the right to ask any question of a candidate before administering the Sacrament of Confirmation. I’ve travelled with Bishops Stanton, Jecko, and Lambert to many confirmations and I have never seen a bishop do this, but jokes abound about what happens when a bishop decides to ask a question.
At one parish, there was a very shy young man and the Bishop decided to ask him “Tell me about the Holy Trinity†expecting to have the boy say something like “We worship one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.â€
The boy mumbles and kicks his feet. The bishop says: “What did you say?
The boy mumbles again, so the bishop, somewhat frustrated says: “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand.â€
The Boy also frustrated responds loudly: “You’re not supposed to understand, Bishop, it’s a mystery.â€
YBIC,
Phil Snyder