A Hunting Story

Bo and Luke were sitting in a deer blind one crisp, January morning, waiting for the bucks. After a couple of hours and not a buck to be seen, Bo became impatient and for a diversion began to tease Luke about his devotion to attending Bible study every Sunday at his local church. The conversation went something like this:

Bo: So Luke, how’s that Sunday School thing working out for you? Any great revelations lately?

Luke: Well actually, yes. Last Sunday, we studied a very interesting topic.

Bo: Yeah, what’s that?

Luke: Rather than tell you directly what the subject was, I’ll put it in the form of a riddle. What has three parts or persons and yet is one?

Bo: I have no idea. What?

Luke: The Trinity of God. God is three distinct persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet there is only one God.

Bo: What kind of beverages are they serving y’all now? That doesn’t make any sense. How can one God be three people? And why do you think that?

Luke: Well, I’ll have to admit that it may seem like an impossibility, but Jesus clearly spoke about all three persons when he instructed his followers to witness in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Bo: OK, but if all three are God, that just means that there are three gods, and each one has his own purpose.

Luke: Good observation: you’ve just touched on one of the major mysteries of God. How can there be three persons but only one God?

Bo: You said there’s only one god, not me! Why do you think there is just one God.

Luke: The Bible clearly teaches that there is just one God, he is a jealous God and he alone demands our allegiance and worship.

Bo: Well, it seems to me that you can’t have it both ways.

Luke: Bo, you are not alone in your perplexity. The question of how there can be only one God in three distinct persons is one that theologians have been asking since the early centuries. Can you think of an analogy that might help us understand how one could be three?

Bo: OK, I’ll go along with your silliness for a while. What about water? It takes the form of a solid, liquid and gas, and yet all are still water. Three forms of the same substance.

Luke: Yes Bo, that’s a good try, but that particular analogy has a real problem. It suggests that God is one person and takes on three different forms at different times. Interestingly, a third-century priest and theologian named Sabellius taught that God was indivisible, with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three modes or manifestations of one divine person at different times. But that theory is easily refuted by the record that at Jesus’s baptism, Jesus was present in bodily form, God the Father spoke to the witnesses from heaven, and the Spirit descended like a dove and led Jesus into the desert to be tempted. So all three persons were present simultaneously. Sabellius’s theory is referred to as “modalism” and it was later refuted as heresy at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.

Bo: Consta-what?!! And what is a heresy? You’re just trying to snow me with all the big words!!

Luke: No I’m not. A heresy is just an opinion or a doctrine at odds with established religious beliefs or with religious truth. The councils at Constantinople were gatherings of theologians to deal with various religious controversies.

Bo: OK, I understand why water is not a good analogy. So how about this? What about an egg? An egg has a shell, yolk and white. So it has three separate and distinct parts, all of which exist simultaneously, but all are egg?

Luke: Another good try, but the problem with the egg analogy is that the shell, yolk and white are just parts of an egg. It takes all three to make a complete egg. But with God, each person of the Trinity is completely God.

Bo: OK wise guy, I suppose you’re going to tell me an analogy that describes the Trinity.

Luke: Actually I’m not. Down through the centuries, many very smart people have tried to come up with an analogy, and none have offered a satisfactory one. And I think the problem is that it is futile to attempt to describe some spiritual concepts with earthly examples. Like the futility of building a tower to heaven.

Bo: Yeah, didn’t some folks try that at a place called Babel?

Luke: Yes and very much to God’s displeasure.

Bo: What happened?

Luke: God scrambled their minds so that they could no longer understand each other.

Bo: Bummer! So are you saying that maybe the Trinity is something God doesn’t want us to completely understand, and that maybe he’s unhappy with us for this discussion?

Luke: No, I think God is pleased when we try to understand more about him. But there are some things God chooses to keep a mystery until we are one day worshiping him in Heaven. Just as one must accept the existence of God on faith, we must accept on faith that 1) There is exactly one God, 2) the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, and 3) the Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son. That is from the Athanasian Creed, and in our limited minds, it presents an obvious contradiction, because it says both that there is and there is not exactly one God.

Bo: Now you’re using the big words again! Look, an 8-pointer!!!