I wrote a couple days ago some general remarks on a re-interpretation of that most confounding of Christian teachings, the doctrine of the Trinity. I thought it necessary to make some further remarks to both deepen my own initial comments, and add some clarification.
First, I think it is necessary to say that we moderns are not the only ones who have serious reservations about so confusing and self-contradictory a statement, viz., that God is both One and Three distinct Persons. Indeed, the reasons for hundreds of years of debate and dissension, for another century and a half of serious, sometimes violent, disagreement and mutual anathematizing, is that critics of the emerging consensus were quite rightly wary of something as confounding as this becoming an official teaching of the Church. Their arguments that it was un-Biblical, irrational, counter-intuitive, and too complicated for most laity to grasp were all spot on. The group centered around Arius, Bishop of Antioch, was far and away the more numerous; the Goths who invaded Rome were Arian Christians. Constantine was baptized by an Arian-supporting Bishop. At the Council of Nicaea, called by the Emperor to end the controversy that was splitting the newly-ordained Imperial religion, the party of Athanasius of Alexandria (whose arguments, while subtle, tended to be not very convincing), were a distinct minority. They prevailed as much through intrigue and ruthlessness as much as because they had Truth on their side. I believe that, for the most part, most Christians today would much prefer a less confusing, more amenable understanding of who (or perhaps what?) God is than the repetition of "Father, Son, Holy Ghost".
Yet, what does the teaching offer us? If we accept the metaphysical vocabulary of the original formulation (something I for one do not think necessary; in fact, I think it is more a hindrance than a help), we are confronted by a people who were wrestling to come to terms with certain elements of the Christian communities' encounter with God, summed up by St. Paul in the second letter to the Corinthians: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself". This summary of the Christian witness is the pivot-point, not just of our faith, but of our experience of God. I think it is important to be clear that this summary statement is hollow of meaning unless we really wrestle with it. Of course, we are free to reject each and every word of it on the merits. It is important to remember, however, that the millions of words, the thousands of lives, the whole history of the Christian movement, from its early years and centuries to its current waning and eclipse, have been a struggle to understand what those words of an itinerant tent-maker might mean. Who is this God? What does it mean for "God" to be in an individual human being? What does "reconciliation" mean? Why is it necessary? How is it possible for human beings to come to understand, believe, and live out these words? All of these are the central thrust of the necessity of the endless argument that is Christian theology.
The Trinity, buried perhaps in some nascent form in this sentence of St. Paul, is a synopsis not of the Divine Essence, or the Divine Process, or the Divine Life. The Trinity is synopsis of the Christian witness, of the Christian experience of revelation, and of the hope and faith and love that we live out. I have great respect for Unitarian Christians who find Trinitarian Doctrine unnecessarily confusing and perhaps antiquated, for the most part because I, too, have felt that way at times. At the same time, I believe the Trinity as a way of describing our human encounter with God (not of who and what God is or might be) is a good entry point for understanding the dynamic nature of the grace of God expressed in the Christian witness to Jesus as Christ.
