My Thoughts on Todays Sermon - Trinity Sunday, 2024

Trinity Sunday may well be my favorite Sunday of the entire church year. ("Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" are two of my favorite hymns.) No doubt, the Trinity is ultimately a mystery; but I think we emphasize mystery so often now that we are left spinning with whatever spiritual winds are blowing. To put it another way, ISTM that at this point the people who most need to be reminded of mystery are either Reformed or philosophical naturalists. But I am neither.

So yes, we must embrace mystery, but not at the expense of what God desires to share with us about Himself and what He has created. (For example, Mark 4:11; Rom 16:25; 1 Cor. 15:51-52; Eph. 3:3-9, Col. 1:26-27, etc) God seems to delight in revealing His truth, beauty and goodness to us.

Yes, human language fails to fully capture spiritual realities, but a negative theology is like a negative diet: one needs something to chew on in order to grow and flourish, otherwise one risks spiritual anorexia. That is why I find Jesus' parables and Thomas' notion of analogical religious language to be so nourishing.

Josef Pieper wrote, "Things are intelligible because they are created. Things are mysterious because they are created." If they are intelligible, it is because they participate in a God who is Himself Intelligence. If they are mysterious, it is because they participate in a God who is HImself Mystery. We should hold both in balance, and follow C. S. Lewis' call, "Further up and further in!"