ANALOGIES FOR THE BLESSED

TRINITY?
April 2, 2017 by Rajkumar Richard

The doctrine of the blessed Trinity is very

difficult to understand. A corporeal and finite human cannot absolutely comprehend an infinite
and an incorporeal God. Hence, the human mind seeks analogies to aid in easing the
comprehension of the Trinity, so that the Trinity does not remain a mystery or a logical paradox.
But is there a viable analogy that best illustrates the Trinity?

The egg analogy that describes the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as the yolk, white and the
shell of an egg fails because it implies the tritheistic nature of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
(that are separate parts of the divine nature).

The water analogy that equates the presence of water in solid, liquid and vapor forms to the
blessed Trinity also fails in its endeavor because it has modalistic1 overtones (ice, liquid water
and steam are modes of existence; a given quantity of water does not simultaneously exist in all
three states).

Then there are the Augustinian analogies for the blessed Trinity, “Augustine reasons that if we
can’t catch intellectual sight of the Trinity directly, at least we can see reflections, images, or
indications of the Trinity in the created realm, above all in the highest part of human beings (the
mind), who are made “in the image and likeness of God” (Augustine Trinity, 231 [VII.4.12];
Genesis 1:26). In the human mind we may encounter several “trinities”, given here in the order
that they somehow correspond to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

 lover, loved object, the lover’s love for that object (255 [VIII.5.13])
 the mind, its knowledge, its love (272–5 [IX.1])
 the mind’s remembering itself, understanding itself, and willing itself (298–9 [X.4])
  memory, understanding, and will (374–82 [XIV.2–3)
 the mind’s remembering God, understanding God, and willing God (383–92 [XIV.4–5])
 existing, knowing that one exists, loving the fact that one exists (Augustine City, 483-4
[XI.26];cf. Confessions 264-5 [XIII.11])

These are taken to be “images” of the Trinity, with the final three being in some sense the most
accurate.”2

But Augustine acknowledges the futility of his analogies, “Although he apparently considers the
contemplation of these to be helpful in the pursuit of God, in the last section (Book XV) of On
the Trinity, Augustine emphasizes that even these are “immeasurably inadequate” to represent
God (428 [XV.6.43]). The main reason is that these three are activities which a person does or
faculties a person has, whereas God “just is” his memory, understanding, and will; the doctrine
of divine simplicity thus renders the mental analogies at best minimally informative. Further,
temporal processes seem ill-suited to represent the nature of an essentially immutable God.”3

There are two analogies from human relationships, “The first analogy is from the realm of
individual human psychology…I am a complex human person with multiple roles and
responsibilities in dynamic interplay with one another…the husband, the father, the seminary
professor, and the United States citizen that go together constitute me may mutually inform one
another.

One problem with this analogy is that in human experience it is most clearly seen in situations
where there is tension or competition, rather than harmony between the individual’s various
positions and roles. The discipline of abnormal psychology affords us with extreme examples of
virtual warfare between the constituent elements of the human personality. But in God, by
contrast, there are always perfect harmony, communication, and love.

The other analogy is from the sphere of interpersonal human relations. Take the case of identical
twins. In one sense, they are of the same essence, for their genetic makeup is identical. An organ
transplant from one to the other can be accomplished with relative ease, for the recipient’s body
will not reject the donor’s organs as foreign; it will accept it as its very own. Identical twins are
very close in other ways as well. They have similar interests and tastes. Although they have
different spouses and different employers, a close bond unites them. And yet they are not the
same person. They are two, not one.

One idea in the history of the doctrine, the conception of perichoresis, is especially helpful. That
is the teaching that the life of each of the persons flows through each of the others, so each
sustains each of the others and each has direct access to the consciousness of the others. Thus,
the human organism serves as a good illustration of the Triune God. For example, the brain,
heart, and lungs of a given individual all sustain and supply each other, and each is dependent on
the other. Conjoined twins, sharing one heart and liver, also illustrate this intercommunion.
These, however, like all analogies fall short of full explication of the Trinity.”4
Analogies of the Trinity are helpful at an elementary level of understanding, however they are
either inadequate or mislead the audience when considered in depth. The Bible uses analogies to
teach us various aspects of God’s character; HE is like a rock in HIS faithfulness or HE is a
shepherd in HIS care, etc. When referring to the Trinity, the Bible uses the titles of “Father” and
“Son” to reveal the distinctness and the close relationship that exists in the blessed Godhead. But
this analogy fails in the corporeal human level because the Father and the Son are entirely
separate human beings, unlike the incorporeal God.

As William Lane Craig (& J.P Moreland) posit, God could be considered a soul (living,
spiritual substance) with three complete sets of rational cognitive faculties, each sufficient
for personhood. Hence, God, although one soul, would have three centers of self-consciousness,
intentionality and volition. This seems to be a possible analogy that is logically coherent and
comprehensible.5

But critics remain unsatisfied by this model as well, “One of the more serious problems is that it
is inconsistent with the Nicene Creed. The creed opens with “I believe in God, the Father
Almighty”; but proponents of the Moreland & Craig model cannot say this because, on their
view, God (analogous to Cerberus) is not the Father Almighty (analogous to one of the heads, or
the soul of one of the heads). Likewise, the Creed says that Father and Son are consubstantial.
This claim is absolutely central to the doctrine of the Trinity, and the notion of consubstantiality
lay at the very heart of the debates in the 4th Century C.E. that shaped the Nicene Creed’s
expression of the doctrine. But the three souls, or centers of consciousness, of the heads of
Cerberus are not in any sense consubstantial. If they are substances at all (which Moreland &
Craig take them to be), they are three distinct substances.”6

So we are back to square one in the sense that analogies cannot perfectly describe the blessed
Trinity. This is not unusual, for incorporeality cannot be perfectly described in corporeal terms.

The Trinity is best depicted in this visual illustration (Shield of the Trinity), which is not
immune to flaws:

 
Although the doctrine of Trinity is essential to Historic Christianity, it is quite difficult to explain
it. This saying sums it up, “Try to explain it, and you’ll lose your mind; But try to deny it, and
you’ll lose your soul.”

The difficulty in comprehending or positing the Trinity need not confound a Christian. Why can
we not come to terms with the fact that we can only partly understand the complex nature of God
for now, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I
shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.” (1 Corinthians 13: 12, RSV)?

Endnotes:

1
Modalism: “People such as Noetus, Praxeus, and Sabellius enunciated a quite different view of
God – a unitarian view of God – which goes under various names: Modalism, Monarchianism, or
Sabellianism. According to this view, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are not distinct
persons. There is only one person who is God. Either it was the Father himself who became
incarnate and suffered and died on the cross, the Son was at most the human side of the Father so
to speak – the human face of God the Father. Or, alternatively, the one God sequentially assumed
three roles in his relationship to humanity: first, the Father; then the Son, and then the Holy
Spirit.” (Source: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-3-podcast/transcript/doctrine-of-god-
trinity-part-6, last accessed on 2nd April 2017.)

2
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/trinity-history.html, last accessed on 2nd April 2017.

3
Ibid.

4
Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Michigan: Baker Academic, 1998), 366.  

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-formulation-and-defense-of-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity, last
5

accessed on 2nd April 2017.

6
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/christiantheology-philosophy/, last accessed on 2nd April 2017.

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Filed Under: Defending Essential Doctrines of Christianity, Defending the TrinityTagged With: Blessed
Trinity, Defending Trinity, Trinity

About Rajkumar Richard
Rajkumar Richard is passionate to strengthen the faith of fellow Christians, especially the young
Christians. He has a Masters in Religion (Southern Evangelical Seminary, NC, USA) and
Masters in Biology (School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University, India). He is a
Christian blogger, itinerant speaker, social evangelist, and a mentor to young Christians.

http://christianapologeticsalliance.com/2017/04/02/analogies-for-the-blessed-trinity/

How Not to Share the Trinity

 Matt Fradd
 
 
 March 02, 2014
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The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the “central mystery of [our] faith”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church 234). It is therefore the most fundamental. If
we get it wrong, then everything else gets obscured or perverted.
The Catechism summarizes the Trinity in this way:
We do not confess three Gods but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial
Trinity.” The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but
each of them is God whole and entire. . . . In the words of the Fourth Lateran
Council (1215), “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine
substance, essence or nature” (CCC 253).
While this description is succinct and precise, it can be overwhelming for
laypeople who are not used to technical terms such
as consubstantial or essence. They might resort to one of the following inferior
ways of sharing the truth of the Holy Trinity that we should all work hard to avoid.

1. “It’s a mystery. Stop trying to understand and just

believe.”
When they are pressed with tough questions about how God can be three
persons or how each member of the Trinity can fully be God, some Christians
resort to an unfortunate tactic. They throw up their hands and say, “It’s a
mystery!” They don’t bother to explain any of the tough questions, and
sometimes they accuse people of lacking humility when those people try to
accurately describe the Trinity. Isn’t trying to define the nature of the infinite and
unique Trinitarian God an impossible task? Aren’t we trying to “drink up the
ocean in a tea cup” by trying to fit God inside of our tiny, finite minds?
A mystery, it has been said, is not something that is unknowable; it is something
that is incomprehensible. I know that pi is the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its
circumference, but I don’t comprehend, and can never comprehend, the full value
of pi, since it possesses an infinite amount of numbers after its decimal point.
Likewise, I can know God is all-knowing, but I can’t fully comprehend what it’s
like to be all-knowing.
The Church teaches that the mysteries of our faith, unlike the value of pi, are
those things human beings cannot come to know through reason alone (CCC
237). In that sense the mysteries of the faith are not like the “mystery” of the
Bermuda triangle or the “mystery” of the value of pi, both of which merely
represent a gap in human knowledge that can be filled with diligent research. The
mysteries of faith must be revealed to mankind in order for us to know them.
The First Vatican Council taught that while man can, by reason alone, come to
know God exists, man cannot know that God is a Trinity of three persons or that
the Eucharist is the substance of Christ’s body under the form of bread and wine.
If God had not revealed these truths to mankind, we would still be in ignorance of
them, which is why they are sacred mysteries of the Faith.
Also, just because we cannot fully understand something doesn’t mean that we
cannot understand errors about that thing. For example, Jesus Christ is the most
mysterious person who ever lived, because he was fully God and fully man (just
try fully understanding what that’s like!). The Catechism even admits, “Many
things about Jesus of interest to human curiosity do not figure in the Gospels.
Almost nothing is said about his hidden life at Nazareth, and even a great part of
his public life is not recounted” (CCC 514).
Simply put, there is a lot about Jesus of Nazareth that is mysterious, and we
can’t presume to know more (such as what Jesus looked like) than what has
been revealed for us. But correcting someone who says that Jesus was a
woman, or that Jesus wasn’t a Jew, does not reveal a lack of humility; it reveals a
sense of fidelity to those truths about Jesus we canknow through historical
investigation or by what the Church has revealed to us.
Since the Trinity is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy
of the truths of faith” (CCC 90), we ought to stamp out errors wherever we find
them. Unfortunately, these errors usually come about when Catholics with good
intentions try to create an analogy to help nonbelievers, or those who need
catechesis, to understand the Trinity.
The problem with using analogies to explain the Trinity is that God is the most
unique being in existence. In fact, many theologians will tell you it’s not quite
correct to call God a being but rather he is the being, or the reason anything
exists at all. Because God is so unique, any analogy we use will inevitably fall
short. The Catechism states, “God transcends all creatures. . . . Our human
words always fall short of the mystery of God” (CCC 42).
While these analogies can be helpful for children, when they are pressed too far
they lead to conclusions the Church has deemed heretical.

2. “The Trinity is like how a man can be a Son, a

Father, and an uncle at the same time. He’s one and
three at the same time, just as God is Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit at the same time.”
Nope. This analogy commits the heresy of modalism. Modalism is the false belief
that God is one person who has revealed himself in three forms or modes.
Modalism is also called Sabellianism after Sabellius, an ancient theologian whom
Pope Callixtus I excommunicated in A.D. 220.
Modalists were heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, which taught that God
was an ultimate one, or act of unity. While this was a big improvement over
Greek polytheism that posited a pantheon of gods who fought each other, it goes
too far when it denies that God can be three relationally distinct persons in one
being.
Returning to the bad analogy that leads to modalism, though a man may be a
son, father, and uncle, he is not three persons as God is but one person who has
three titles.
Another popular but false analogy is the following: The Trinity is like how water
can be ice, liquid, and steam. This again commits the heresy of modalism. God
does not go through three different states. The Persons of the Holy Trinity
coexist; the different forms water may take cannot. Water cannot be ice, liquid,
and steam at the same time. It may be between two stages such as when ice is
melting, but this isn’t coexisting, it’s transforming.
Another analogy—attributed to Sabellius—that lives on today is that of the sun.
The Father is the sun, while the Son and Holy Spirit are the light and heat
created by the Father. But this analogy also smacks of modalism, because the
star is simply present under different forms.
Or it can be seen to express Arianism, which is the heretical view that the Father
is superior to the Son and Holy Spirit by being a different and “higher” divine
substance than the latter two. In the sun analogy, the light and heat are passive
byproducts of the sun and are not true equals in the way that the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit share equally and completely in the divine nature.
Another heretical byproduct of sabelliansm is patripassianism (try saying that
three times fast!): God exists as one “mode” and merely puts on the mask or role
of “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit.” But this would mean that when the Son
suffered on the cross, the Father also suffered on the cross (though he was
wearing the mask or mode of being the son).
In William Young’s popular novel “The Shack,” the Trinity is illustrated through
three people. The Father is an African-American woman named “Papa,” the Son
is a Middle Eastern carpenter, and the Holy Spirit is a mysterious Asian woman.
At one point Papa says to the main character that at the crucifixion “he and Jesus
were there together,” and Papa even has scars just like Jesus (pp. 95-96).
However, the Church teaches that God is impassible and that nothing human
beings do can cause God to literally suffer like us. Jesus was capable of suffering
on the cross only because he assumed a human nature and possessed a human
body.
Basically, the main problem with modalism is that it denies that God is three
distinct persons. The Catechism states, “’Father,’ ‘Son,’ ‘Holy Spirit’ are not
simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really
distinct from one another”(CCC 254). What you are left with is a confusing
monotheism where God merely pretends to be three different persons instead of
actually being three different persons. Unfortunately, in order to correct this error
some analogies overcompensate. This leads to our next bad analogy.

3. “The Trinity is like an egg: yoke, albumen, and

shell. The three elements form one egg just as the
three members of the Trinity comprise one God.”
This commits (or could at least lead one to believe it commits) the heresy of
saying God is composed of three parts and that those parts make up one God.
But God has no parts, as the late-second-century Church Father Irenaeus
affirmed: “[God] is simple, not composed of parts, without structure, altogether
like and equal to himself alone. He is all mind, all spirit, all thought, all
intelligence, all reason . . . all light, all fountain of every good, and this is the
manner in which the religious and the pious are accustomed to speak of God”
(Against Heresies 2:13:3 [A.D. 189]).
The key here is understanding that we don’t believe in three persons who when
united become God but in three persons who possess the same divine
nature. ”The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the
Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e., by nature one God”
( Council of Toledo XI (675): DS 530:26).

Three good ways to explain the Holy Trinity

Though it can be tempting to use an analogy to help our children understand who
God is, in my experience with youngsters, analogies almost always muddy the
waters. And since it’s better that our children not fully understand who God is
than have a false understanding of him, I tend to stay away from them. The
closest I get to “dumbing it down” for my kids is by 1) a simple conversation
about being, person, and nature; 2) a simple diagram; and 3) the Athanasian
Creed.
First, here’s how I start the conversation with my one of my children.
Me: Liam, what is a person?
Liam: I dunno.
Me: A person is someone who can potentially say “I.” Is a statue a person?
Liam: No.
Me: Why?
Liam: Because it can’t say anything. It’s not alive.
Me: But a statue, like the one in the front yard, is real, right? It’s not make-believe
like a dragon.
Liam: Of course.
Me: So anything that’s real is a being. So there are some beings, like statues,
which are not persons, right?
Liam: Right.
Me: What about you, are you a person?
Liam: Yes.
Me: Okay. So a statue is a being with zero persons. You are a being who is one
person. God is a being who is three persons. Make sense?
Liam: Not really.
Me: Good.
Since my son is only five years old, I’m happy I can at least get him to the foot of
this theological mountain before he tries for the summit when he’s a little older.
I’d rather have that than have him jump off a theological cliff by embracing a
mistaken view of the Holy Trinity.

The key terms

Just remember that when you have conversations about the Trinity, the most
important distinction you can make is between beings, persons, and natures. A
being is a unified substance that exists. A person is an “I,” or individual self.
Think of God as one being that is composed of three “I’s” or three persons, each
of whom is fully God. The famous “Trinity shield” pictured above can help
illustrate this concept. Frank Sheed wrote:
The newcomer to this sort of thinking must be prepared to work hard here. It is a
decisive stage of our advance into theology to get some grasp of the meaning of
nature and the meaning of person. Fortunately, the first stage of our search goes
easily enough. We begin with ourselves. Such a phrase as “my nature” suggests
that there is a person, I, who possesses a nature. The person could not exist
without his nature, but there is some distinction all the same; for it is the person
who possesses the nature and not the other way round.
One distinction we see instantly. Nature answers the question of what we are;
person answers the question of who we are. Every being has a nature; of every
being we may properly ask, “What is it?” But not every being is a person: only
rational beings are persons. We could not properly ask of a stone or a potato or
an oyster, “Who is it?” (Theology and Sanity, p. 92).
When we examine the Trinity, we can ask of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who
they are. The Father is the creator, the Son is the redeemer, and the Holy Spirit
is the sanctifier. The Church teaches that the Son was eternally begotten by the
Father. The Father has always been the Father and the Son has always been the
Son. The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the father and the Son. Though they
differ in their roles, it does not follow that the members of the Trinity differ in what
they are. When we ask what the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are, the answer is
always the same. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God.
Not agod. Each is God.
Critics may say God can’t be three Gods, and they are right. But if there can be
beings composed of zero persons, and beings composed of one person, why
can’t there be a being composed of three persons? To say God can’t be more
than one person is to put a human limit upon divine omnipotence. If God is all-
powerful, there is no reason he can’t enter into his creation or exist as the perfect
cooperation of three equally divine persons.
Also, if God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) then love does not exist in a vacuum. Love
involves fully giving oneself to the beloved. If God existed as love for all eternity,
then there must have been someone to receive his love. Otherwise, God’s love
would be imperfect, because it would not be willing the good of another person.
Furthermore, just as the love of husband and wife creates a new person, the
eternal love shared between the Father and Son is itself an eternal person—the
Holy Spirit, who enlivens the hearts of believers to understand the mystery of
God’s love and share it with the rest of the world.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-not-to-share-the-trinity
 MYSTERY AND ANALOGY- TRINITY SUNDAY
Posted by Patrick Clark | May 31, 2012 | Lectionary | 0  |
This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, following immediately in the wake of the great
feast of Pentecost which we celebrated last week. We now find ourselves at an endpoint of sorts in the
liturgical year, which follows the structure of the New Testament narrative, first commemorating the
incarnation and life of Christ before turning to the Paschal Mystery and the birth of the Church. Yet it is also a
point of departure, initiating what many rites refer to as the “season of Pentecost,” which corresponds to
the saeculum in which we now find ourselves, between the descent of the Holy Spirit and the final glorification
of the faithful on the last day. Trinity Sunday thus marks the advent of the age in which God has revealed
himself to be an eternal communion of relations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
For many of my students, and—who am I kidding?—for me as well, this revelation of God’s identity is a
difficult and dangerous thing to contemplate. The temptation, of course, is to concretize it within an earthly
analogy, and Lord knows that such analogies constantly present themselves on all sides. God is like a
shamrock: one leaf with three stems. Or God is like a dance: two partners and the music that directs their
unified activity. Or (ugh)God is like an elephant (I’ll spare you the rest). A charming, yet equally faulty
analogy I once heard as a kid was that God was like a good southern cherry pie: you can cut the crust into three
pieces, but the filling (the “essence” I presume?) never divides.
Even for those who can spot the limitations of these more homespun analogies, other more sophisticated
reductions may also lie in wait, such as that proposed by the 12th-century monk Joachim of Fiore, who thought
history itself to be divided in three “ages” corresponding to the three persons of the Trinity. His contention was
that with the coming of Christ, the “age of the Father” gave way to the “age of the Son,” which would last until
the year 1260, when “the age of the Spirit” would commence and God’s elect would establish a perfect
kingdom of universal love, rendering all institutional structures and earthly authorities unnecessary and
obsolete. Of course, his theory is deeply problematic, and was roundly rejected by the faithful (with the
exception of a few friars who identified Joachim’s utopian kingdom with the Franciscan order) because it
attempts to captivate the mystery of the Trinity within the modes of human thought and experience.
And yet I find myself doing that all the time. I may have moved on from the “Voltron model” of the Trinity, in
which the persons combine to form some invincible composite; I may have even moved on from the “Janus-
plus-one model” of a single head with three faces; yet the truth is that I cannot help but keep thinking of the
Christian God in terms of models. I am no better than the student of mine who kept coming back each class
with a new theory for the hypostatic union, to each of which I would predictably respond “no, that’s an
example of the ___ian/ite  heresy.” Exasperated, she finally said that “it seems like every solution can be a
heresy” and that of course set up the ideal teaching moment when I simply replied “exactly.” As Robert
Sokolowski so beautifully put it in his book The God of Faith and Reason,
the councils do not explain away the mystery, but neither do they just stipulate how Christians
are to talk or not to talk about Christ. The councils do not merely set down verbal conventions.
They allow the mystery to remain a mystery. They prevent the mystery from dissolving into
incoherence, and they also prevent it from falling back into being a simple natural
phenomenon. Some understanding of the mystery as a mystery is needed to keep it alive in this
way (38).
At the end of the day, we Christians—and especially we theologians—need to admit that our words and
concepts have only the slightest foothold on the realities which they attempt to signify and demarcate. Like St.
Paul, we need to admit from time to time our “foolishness” and lay claim to it, particularly when we profess a
God who is both one and three. We too often hijack the reality of our faith and hold it hostage to our
intellectual ambitions and social pretensions. The foundation of our life of faith, and the profession of the
triune God at the center of that faith, is not any discovery, insight or act or our own; it is rather the graced
realization that we have been chosen. In the first reading for this Sunday, Moses exhorts the people to “fix in
[their] heart[s] that the Lord is God, in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other”
(Dt4:34), but his rationale is not theoretical, abstract or universal. The profession of one God is inexorably
linked to Israel’s experience of the Lord’s saving act, in which he has drawn them out from among the nations
to be his own chosen people.
Likewise, the followers of Israel’s Messiah rest our profession that Jesus is Lord on a particular historical act
in which our liberation and election are simultaneous and inseparable. We believe not because we have figured
anything out, but only because we have been chosen. There are few more comforting words in the New
Testament than John 15:16: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you that you
should bear fruit and that your fruit should remain.” In this verse I hear the echo of St. Paul’s declaration to the
Philippians—“I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me” (3:12)—and it
consoles me when I begin to domesticate and diminish the Spirit’s presence in the world. I too, like Kathryn,
often imagine the disciples with nice, neat, manageable flames upon their heads, and then proceed to insert this
image into the preformulated categories I use to interpret the world around me.
The reality of Pentecost, like the reality of the Trinity, is much more elusive and much more threatening than
that. Surely one of the central points to be drawn from the crowd’s assumption that the disciples “had too much
wine” is that they had no worldly category ready at hand to interpret what was going on before them. Public
drunkenness was the best they could do to describe the movement of the Spirit made manifest to them, and so
Peter was right to point out that it was only nine o’clock in the morning. And surely one of the central points to
be drawn from the traditional representations of the Spirit through “fire” and “water” is that it is a reality which
both enlivens and consumes us. It fills us with the very life of God, but only by continually clearing away
completely our every claim to self-sovereignty.

I by no means wish to imply that we should do away with all the analogies, symbols and representations of the
Trinity and the Spirit which we inevitably employ. Kathryn’s commentary last week beautifully illustrates the
transformative role of such images. Yet we must not forget that these images are only paltry signposts pointing
to a reality infinitely greater than themselves. It also bears mentioning at this point that the greatest “image” of
God has always been and always will remain the human person—so great, in fact, that God makes it the
highest aim of his Law to keep his people mindful that the divine image resides nowhere else.
Perhaps it would be fitting then to conclude this rambling reflection with a much more economical expression
of the same basic idea. Many of you are doubtless already familiar with this poem, but I first came across it on
the door of my colleague Thomas Sable, SJ. It was written by the great Polish bard Czeslaw Milosz, and is
entitled “Veni Creator.” I hope you find it as beautiful as I do:
Come, Holy Spirit,
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow
covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.
I am only a man: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.
Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in church
lifts its hand, only once, just once, for me.
But I understand that signs must be human,
therefore call one man, anywhere on earth,
not me—after all I have some decency—
and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you. 

https://catholicmoraltheology.com/mystery-and-analogy-trinity-sunday/