HOW ONE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN SEES IT – THIS DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A PROOF, JUST A PERSPECTIVE.
For the Trinitarian, the World is Trinity-shaped. It was from its very foundation. It exists in three physical dimensions. The mystique of the number three is because of the Trinity, not the other way round; the triunes in the speculative thinking across cultures is a grasping towards that ontological metaphysical truth: that before ought else, there was God, and God is One, and God is Three.
In the Hebrew Scriptures we have the opening verses of the Book of Genesis, or the angels at Mambre:
"And the Lord appeared to him in the vale of Mambre as he was sitting at the door of his tent, in the very heat of the day. And when he had lifted up his eyes, there appeared to him three men standing near him: and as soon as he saw them he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and adored down to the ground. And he said: Lord, if I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away from thy servant." (Genesis 18:1-3)
Christians like to point this text out, but these texts do not constitute a proof or even a revelation of the Blessed Trinity – it is just that we see it as something Trinity-shaped, Trinity-informed – we see a correlation.
Likewise in the Moslem tradition, there is the Hadith of the Hidden Treasure, the first part of which concerns us here:
"I was a hidden treasure; I wanted to be known..."
The 'I' refers to God, and in this we can see God reflecting upon His own nature as something other than Himself, something known to Himself as a 'hidden treasure', and God's desire for it – for Himself – to be known.
For us, the Trinity is an answer to the question, 'why is there anything at all?
Moreover, to the Trinitarian, if there is God and there is 'other-than-God', then the principle of 'otherness' must be in the Divine before it can be. The idea of multiplicity must be in the One before it can be in the many.
To the Trinitarian, this bears the imprint of the Trinity, expressed in psychological analogy, as Augustine was to deploy to offer an analogy of the Trinity: God's Being, God's Knowing, God's Willing.
God is love (cf John 3:16, 1 John 4:7), and again that principle must exist in God before creation; For 'love' to be there must be subject and object, so again a Trinity, Lover, Beloved, and the Love in common. God is One, and God is Three.
In one sense, Being necessarily proceeds God's Knowing, and Willing proceeds from Being and Knowing, but God is One, immutable, eternal, God does not exist within any order of temporal or a spatial framework, so God's Being is God's Knowing is God's Willing, they are Three and they are One, distinct yet without separation (in space), without priority (in time):
God's Being is wholly and entirely His Knowing and Willing; and
God's Knowing is wholly and entirely His Being and Willing; and
God's Willing is wholly and Entirely His Being and Knowing.
All three permeate each other in an eternal flow, a 'motionless dynamic' which later theologians termed perichoreisis (Gk) or circumincession (Lt).
For the Trinitarian, the World is Trinity-shaped. It was from its very foundation. It exists in three physical dimensions. The mystique of the number three is because of the Trinity, not the other way round; the triunes in the speculative thinking across cultures is a grasping towards that ontological metaphysical truth: that before ought else, there was God, and God is One, and God is Three.
In the Hebrew Scriptures we have the opening verses of the Book of Genesis, or the angels at Mambre:
"And the Lord appeared to him in the vale of Mambre as he was sitting at the door of his tent, in the very heat of the day. And when he had lifted up his eyes, there appeared to him three men standing near him: and as soon as he saw them he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and adored down to the ground. And he said: Lord, if I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away from thy servant." (Genesis 18:1-3)
Christians like to point this text out, but these texts do not constitute a proof or even a revelation of the Blessed Trinity – it is just that we see it as something Trinity-shaped, Trinity-informed – we see a correlation.
Likewise in the Moslem tradition, there is the Hadith of the Hidden Treasure, the first part of which concerns us here:
"I was a hidden treasure; I wanted to be known..."
The 'I' refers to God, and in this we can see God reflecting upon His own nature as something other than Himself, something known to Himself as a 'hidden treasure', and God's desire for it – for Himself – to be known.
For us, the Trinity is an answer to the question, 'why is there anything at all?
Moreover, to the Trinitarian, if there is God and there is 'other-than-God', then the principle of 'otherness' must be in the Divine before it can be. The idea of multiplicity must be in the One before it can be in the many.
To the Trinitarian, this bears the imprint of the Trinity, expressed in psychological analogy, as Augustine was to deploy to offer an analogy of the Trinity: God's Being, God's Knowing, God's Willing.
God is love (cf John 3:16, 1 John 4:7), and again that principle must exist in God before creation; For 'love' to be there must be subject and object, so again a Trinity, Lover, Beloved, and the Love in common. God is One, and God is Three.
In one sense, Being necessarily proceeds God's Knowing, and Willing proceeds from Being and Knowing, but God is One, immutable, eternal, God does not exist within any order of temporal or a spatial framework, so God's Being is God's Knowing is God's Willing, they are Three and they are One, distinct yet without separation (in space), without priority (in time):
God's Being is wholly and entirely His Knowing and Willing; and
God's Knowing is wholly and entirely His Being and Willing; and
God's Willing is wholly and Entirely His Being and Knowing.
All three permeate each other in an eternal flow, a 'motionless dynamic' which later theologians termed perichoreisis (Gk) or circumincession (Lt).
