AfterThought,
I am grateful that you posted this question. My convictions regarding the Trinity are:
- The reality of the Trinity is clear in scripture and is absolutely central to the Christian gospel.
- While aspects of the Divine nature are necessarily impossible for finite minds to grasp, the Triune nature of Yahweh (Father, Son , Spirit) is understandable.
Here’s my approach for talking to my own children and the children at my church about the Tri-unity of Yahweh. It a bit long, but I hope it is helpful.
First, an important question: Why should we be able to clearly articulate Christian belief about the Trinity?
First, it’s how Yahweh, the God who made everything, has been revealed to us, especially in the New Testament in the person of Jesus (the Son) and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
Second, the Trinity enables a startling claim found in 1 John 4:8, namely that God is Love (Agape). Agape love requires an object, something or someone to be loved. Since the Father has always loved the Son and the Son has always loved the Father, relational love (not power) is the basis of all reality.
Thirdly, in Christ, we are drawn into the Father’s love for the Son, an eternal, perfect love through the work of the Spirit; the Trinity work together to ensure our new life as children of God (
Titus 3:3-7).
Anyone who knows or has worked with children understands they don’t think like adults; primarily, the younger a child is the more she thinks in terms of concrete objects rather than abstract ideas. So the use of concrete “bridges” of understanding is essential.
And that’s where the danger comes into play.
On the one hand, if we don’t give clear teaching about the Trinity to children, the possibility is strong that they will reject it as a foolish or esoteric idea later on. On the other hand, as another commenter on this thread pointed out, bad analogies that misrepresent the historical understanding of the triunity of God. What’s the solution to this dilemma?
I have found it profoundly helpful to discuss three ideas that are concretely understandable, universally experienced, and central to understanding the teaching about the “Magnificent Three”: personhood, natures, and interpersonal relationships with the related concept of ‘roles’. These 3 concepts are essential for understanding and discussion the Trinity. Happily, human experience provides the concrete ‘bridges’ to make these abstract concepts understandable.
KEY CONCEPT 1: PERSONHOOD
What identifies a person? From a biblical perspective, all persons have a mind, will and emotions. Yahweh demonstrates all three components of personhood as do his human creatures. In fact, our personhood is what enables us to relate to God in the way we do. There is a flow to these components of personhood. For example, in Romans 12:2 Paul describes a transformed MIND as allowing us to comprehend God’s will.
The mind apprehends, examine, understands, considers, thinks, meditates, etc; the will desires, engages body in action, and expresses the min; the emotions give feedback as to the effectiveness of the will. Christians are provided with access to a transformed mind (the mind of Christ) which transforms our desires and actions and, ultimately, how we feel (
Philippians 4:11-13).
All children are persons so they all have a mind, will and emotions. Invite them to think about the progression (I see the ice cream store and remember how good ice cream is (mind), I want to have that experience again so I walk into the store, order an ice cream cone, pay the store employee, and eat the cone (will), I feel happy and content (emotions). Go for a hunt throughout the Bible to find passages where God expresses his mind (how he thinks) his will (what he wants) and his emotions (when humanity rejects his good will, his delight in his people, etc.)
Part of the teaching about the Trinity is that the Father is a person: he has a mind, will and emotions. The same is true of the Son and the Spirit. They are NOT the same person. They have unique roles (for example the Father SENDS the Son, never the other way around. The Son fully DISPLAYS the Father’s character. The Spirit INDWELLS God’s people connecting them TO the Father THROUGH the life of Jesus - Titus 3:4-7). In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus differentiated between his will and the will of the Father, yet the Son’s deepest will was to do his Father’s will.
Conclusion: In the Old Testament, Yahweh is clearly demonstrated as being personal (mind, will, emotions). In the New Testament, Jesus, the Son, clearly makes a distinction between himself, the Father, and the Spirit. The New Testament authors all affirm both the personality of the three and the distinctness of the three.
KEY CONCEPT 2: NATURE
Everything in existence has a nature: the defining attributes that make one type of thing different from every another. A soccer ball has the attribute of being ROUND. Take away its roundness and make it a cube and it is not a soccer ball anymore. You can play the game with a pink soccer ball or a blue soccer ball, a new or old soccer ball, a leather or plastic soccer ball, but you can’t play with a cube-shaped soccer ball. Roundness is a necessary attribute of the nature of a soccer ball.
How many HUMAN PERSONS through history share the attributes that only humans have? Billions. There are not different ways to be human; there is only ONE HUMAN NATURE. Men and women are not half of a human; each is a complete, though distinct, human person. A person with amputated legs is not half a human; she is a complete human. Human nature is conferred by God; we are image-bearers of Yahweh. Language, skin color, particular talents, etcetera are not essential to human NATURE.
What about God? Are there different ways to be God? Can one God be eternal and on God not eternal? Can one God be all powerful, and one God be somewhat powerful? No, there is ONE DIVINE NATURE (
Isaiah 45:5, Romans 1:20, John 10:30 Philipians 2:5-6).
Billions of persons have had the same nature, how many PERSONS share the one DIVINE NATURE? Three. Yahweh’s nature is radically unique (holy) - uncreated, the source of all life, perfect (without lack), omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent,etc. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit share all of these attributes with each other… and NO ONE ELSE. The Father is not one-third God (the heresy of Partialism) but fully God with all the characteristics of the DIVINE NATURE. The Son is not “younger” than God (the heresy of Arianism) since he has the attribute of being eternal. Jesus receives worship as the Divine Son of God because he has all the attributes of the DIVINE NATURE.
KEY CONCEPT 3: INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
A relationship is a description of how two things are connected. An interpersonal relationship describes how persons are connected. If a teacher is giving instruction to someone, that someone must be receiving instruction and we call them a “student”.
The word “Trinity” describes an interpersonal relationship between the three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father has always been the Father which means the Son has always been the Son. The Spirit comprehends the eternal thoughts of God eternally (
1 Corinthians 2:10-13). These relationships show how the three persons are distinct, even though they all have the same DIVINE NATURE.
In any interpersonal relationship, the words we use to talk about the individual persons are called “roles”: parent & child, husband & wife, brother & sister, employee & employer. Some roles are automatic (I am a son when I was born to my mother), some are chosen (I chose to become the husband of my wife).
The Father, Son & Spirit are always existing in a mutual relationship of love. But, each person of the Trinity has freely taken on roles:
- The Divine Holy Spirit, among other things, is sent to draw people to the Son, to cleanse, renew, teach comfort and empower the saints and to be the guarantee of eternal life, connecting believers to the Divine Love of the Trinity. (Titus 3:5, 1 Corinthians 2:12-13, John 14:26, John 15:26, Acts 4:31, Romans 5:5, 2 Corinthians 13:4).
What a team! This is not “mushy monotheism”, but a divine community of three magnificent persons who created a world in order to share and expand their life-creating love, mirrored in creatures who were to share in that relationship. The good news the Gospel is that “in Christ, God (the Father) has reconciled the world to himself so that humanity can once again experience and share the life-giving love of God through his personal presence, the Holy Spirit in our lives that binds us together beyond skin color, language, and cultural distance.
A Final thought: Lest I be accused of propogating the heresy of "tri-theism", I'll affirm that there are unknowable mysteries when thinking about the Trinity. Any aspect touching on the specifics of Yahweh's unique NATURE poses challenges. The relational unity of the Three persons is such that it is just as appropriate to talk about 1 God as it is to talk about 3 persons ("I and the Father are one"). That's not something we experience in human relationships. Additionally, whenever we use time-based, or knowledge-discovery concepts to talk about the Trinity we run into trouble; Yahweh is not bound by time or space. For example, asking "How did the three persons
decide which of the three would take on which role?" implies that there was a discussion in time and that the conclusion was not already known. However we know that is not the case (
Revelation 13:8).
Happily, there is a difference between understanding an idea and comprehending an idea; I can't
comprehend what knowing everything would be like, but I can
understand what it means to be all-knowing. Similarly, all people go through life understanding many things that they don't fully comprehend (electricity, nuclear power, how a car works, the algorithms that run our computers, the marvels of the human body, etc.) God has revealed things about himself that we can know and act upon. Therefore
the most important point in trying to teach children (and remind ourselves) about how Yahweh reveals himself in history is this: the Divine Community of Three are the source of everything good, they planned and enacted a rescue mission to draw spiritually dead humans back to living, loving, transforming relationship for God's glory and our good.
Further reading:
The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Fred Sanders)
The Magnificent Three (Nicky Cruz)
Knowing the Heart of the Father (David Eckmann)
The Forgotten Trinity (James White)
Concise Theology pp.40-42 (J.I.Packer)
A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 pp. 16-17 (W.Phillip Keller
