Trinity: God as Community

Trinity Sunday: God as Community

Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber has this apt description of Trinity Sunday: “God is three persons and one being. God is one and yet three. The father is not the son or the Spirit, the son is not the father or the Spirit, the spirit is not the Father or the Son. But the Father Son and Spirit all are God and God is one. … So to review. 1+1+1=1. “

And then she goes on to ask, “Where’s the good news in that? God as bad at Math?”

I’m afraid that’s how a lot of us feel.

Frankly, I was not a trinitarian for a long time, but the work of the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann made me rethink my position. I’m not quite sure where I stand, but Moltmann certainly makes me want to believe. He makes a compelling case for the Trinity.

(1) Can We Experience the Trinity?

Moltmann asks: “Must not trust be something we can experience?...Is it possible to talk about the triune God out of personal experience?” This is generally a way to argue against the Trinity, but not for Moltmann. The normal argument here is from the relationship with God from the human side -- We are dependent on God for our existence, and the one-ness of God is what is central to that, with the three persons as secondary. In other words, the common understanding is that God is primarily One -- and only then can we talk about the Three.

But Moltmann takes the interesting position that there are two sides to every relationship, so we can’t just consider our experience of God; we have to also consider God’s experience with us. And this is where he finds the Trinity as primary for the nature of God. God cannot -- or should not -- says Moltmann, be forced into the narrow confines of finite human existence; rather than discovering God in the self, we must find our self and our existence within God. Look to Scripture, he says: “The Bible is the testimony of God’s history with men and women, and also the the testimony of God’s experiences with men and women.”

So, what does Scripture say about God’s experience of us? Moltmann argues that the narrative of Scripture is that “the history of the world is the history of God’s suffering.” He points back to the oppression in Egypt, to the cry of Jesus on the cross, to the groaning of all creation waiting. And he says that this is the key to understanding the Trinity: “God suffers with us -- God suffers from us -- God suffers for us. And so he says that conversations on the doctrine of the Trinity must take place in the context of the question about God’s capacity or incapacity for suffering.

What say you? Can God suffer? We’ll come back to this and discuss why this is so crucial to Moltmann’s understanding of the Trinity.

(2) How do we apply the Trinity?

Moltmann asks a second question: “Is the doctrine of the Trinity a practical truth?” This too is a common critique of trinitarian thinking. The argument is that action is primary, ethics is what is important, with reflection and theory secondary. And the Trinity clearly falls within the latter category. Thus, the important thing is relieving suffering, loving our neighbor, etc. And what does the Trinity have to do with this?

But Moltmann argues that action and meditation can’t be so easily separated, that the merely pragmatic is activism and not the gospel. He says that the modern way of thinking is to say that “Knowledge is power.” What this does is make knowledge a tool for domination. On the other hand, the ancient church Fathers (and, yes, they were men) understood knowledge as wonder. Knowing the other did not mean conquest, but rather fellowship.

So, how do you understand knowledge? Is knowledge about possession of something or someone? Is knowledge about power? Or is knowledge about wonder, about community, about fellowship?

(3) Which comes first, the One or the Three?

Moltmann says that it is a fundamental mistake to start with the One-ness of God, the unity of God, and then proceed to talk about the Trinity. He says that you have to start with the Trinity and only then talk about the unity of the Three. It’s not unity exactly, but tri-unity -- and that assumes there is something to be united. He calls his approach the social doctrine of the Trinity, arguing that the fellowship, the community, the relationships within the Godhead are primary.

In community, we do not have a single fixed role. Let’s think of some of the different roles we play. For example, I am father, but I am also son; I am teacher, but I am also student; etc.

So we see that our roles change. Moltmann argues that the same thing happens within the Godhead. At different times, a different Person takes the lead, but the basic structure is always present. So, he speaks of the “creation of the Father,” the “incarnation of the Son,” and the “transfiguration of the Spirit.” And yet, because creation is not solely an act of the Father, he argues for a “trinitarian creation;” likewise, he argues for a “trinitarian incarnation” and a “trinitarian glorification.”

To explain this, he goes back to the ancient Greek church, the Orthodox tradition, and the concept of “perichoresis.” The meaning is interpenetration. It means a flow, a continuous cycle, a mutual indwelling, an intimacy -- not merely an embrace, but a penetration into the other so that the different Persons are actually interconnected.

A big part of this is that the Three Persons become truly equal. The way we usually think of the Trinity is that God the Father is the head and Jesus is of course important, but it’s questionable whether he is really God. And then the the Holy Spirit is just a third wheel. But, if different Persons take the lead at different times, if the Godhead is a community of equals, then you avoid subordination in the doctrine of the Trinity.

If God exists as community, if God exists as fellowship, then the outcome of that is that the structure of the universe is one of community and fellowship. And this is where we come back to why God has to have the capacity to suffer. To be a community means to suffer when another suffers, to suffer with and for one another, to be moved by and affected by each other. But also the community that is God is not a closed union; rather, it is a community that is open and inviting to creation. In other words, the Godhead isn’t just a community unto itself, but rather the community that is God seeks to form community with us. In that case, just as God delights in and for and with us, God also suffers.

And then here’s the payoff. Hollow, feel-good, bleeding-heart activism is given a depth of meaning. The reason we look to end all forms of oppression and form a community is because that’s what God is like, that’s how the fabric of the universe has been woven from the very beginning.

It is generally true that your understanding of God will determine your preferred political structures. The traditional understanding of a Lord God gets you a human lord subjugating the rest of us. Monotheism leads to monarchy. But a trinitarian God, a relationship of equal importance and equal value, leads to a democratic structure, to a participatory and communal way of life.


The same can be said of the church: Instead of a hierarchical church polity, you get a congregational church polity and the priesthood of believers and the autonomy of the local church. (This is why I wrote a paper once on why Moltmann should be a Baptist!)

And so the Trinity actually is very practical. The Trinity is why we fight against injustice and oppression, the Trinity is what drives us to build community, the Trinity is at the root of the call to love our neighbor. It is the Trinity that gives meaning to such pursuits.

The social doctrine of the Trinity in a nutshell. Thanks be to God.