THE TRINITY AND SIMPLE FAITH
What shall we call them? Sundays after Trinity or Sundays after Pentecost? Roman Catholics hold very sensibly to the old name, so that, for half the year, their names for each Sunday remind them of the great day on which the Christian Church began to be able to claim the world in the power of the Holy Spirit. We Anglicans, following a thousand year old English tradition (the "Sarum Use") use the name that reminds us week by week of the infinite majesty of God himself. For it is in acknowledging the glory of the eternal Trinity that we can best find humility and strength day by day to live as Christians.
But some will say "Why make difficulties?", "Why bring in the Trinity?", "Why insist on a complicated theoretical belief that no one (even with the aid of diagrams) has been able to explain to us?", "Why not be content with a simple faith?".
Why not indeed? Simple faith is the only way to happiness and peace of mind and heart! It is like the "pearl of great price" in the Bible parable: but it cannot be bought by any attempt to deny any truth that we already know for ourselves about God!
And, as simple faith is the only way, it must be available for any human being, from those whose gifts will never include even the skill of reading their own names, to those whose names have several pairs of letters after them. We may thank God that, though little children may have a sufficient knowledge of His majesty, no man (or woman), however learned and clever, can ever explain the full truth about God's reality. No man can (without showing himself to be a fool) ever say "Now I have explained all about God". But, though no one can ever explain God, we have in the doctrine of the Trinity a way, in fact the way, in which we can all share sincerely the simple truths of faith.
For the doctrine of the Trinity says, in that one word, that the simple faith of the Jews, who believe that God is one and indivisible, is fulfilled and not at all denied by the experience of Christians, through nearly two thousand years and throughout the world, that Jesus was and is God, and that in the Holy Spirit we also know God himself, the same one God who created and upholds the Universe.
The word "Trinity", in simple fact, says "Yes" to each of the four simple facts that these men and women of simple faith have learned to be true at our God. First, "God is one". This great discovery, shared by Christianity with Jewry and Islam, makes men and women able to be whole-hearted, full-time, servants of the one real God. Second, "Jesus is God". Read St. John's Gospel, and you will see that if Jesus is not God someone is an imposter. Third, "God created the Universe". That, though necessarily in terms of ancient science, is where our Bible begins. Fourth, "God speaks to me and you". You do not need to be a Joan of Arc to have experienced this reality. The word "Trinity" says "Yes" to each of these four basic truths that honest men in every age discover for themselves; and so the Trinity is the necessary standing ground for simple faith.
Now this Sunday, Trinity Sunday, every Christian has a chance to begin again as a steward of God's mysteries. Those who will be ordained to sacramental Priesthood on that day are given special grace; but every Christian is here freshly challenged and enabled to hold on to the truth that he knows.
No one will ever know the whole truth about God. Everyone, by acknowledging the glory of the Trinity, is set free to go forward in discovering for himself the riches of that truth, being secure in the daily help and comfort of simple faith.
CHRISTIAN COMMENT FOR HINCKLEY TIMES
11 June 1965