When thinking about the Trinity, we need to consider the concept as a verb instead of a noun. Trinity is Godding’s self-talk. This opens the door to consider the manifestation of Godding as conversing. Conversing presupposes a relationship. We might focus on the conversing nature of Godding. From that perspective we can include things like the opening of the gospel of John as pointing in the same direction. [“In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.”] The opening of the gospel states not only that the word was in the beginning, but that the word, which was with God, was God. If Godding is Word, then the manifestation of Godding involves conversing. The components of the Trinity can be described as creating, connecting, and consecrating. This way: Father becomes Creating, Jesus and/or Christ becomes Connecting, and the Holy Spirit becomes Consecrating. This gives us a dynamic Trinity of Creating, Connecting and Consecrating. Thus, Godding connects with that which is being created and, in the connecting, consecrates the creation. These ideas could be combined into a Trinity of loving-creating, loving-connecting, and loving-consecrating. Which might be described as loving wisdoming conversing. The idea of using new or different language is not as radical as it might appear; I grew up calling the Spirit of God “the Holy Ghost.” That term has fallen into disuse amongst many Christians. Keeping “father” as a divine name is problematic for a couple of reasons: it tends to anthropomorphize the divine and it also creates an abundance of problems for people who have had abusive or negative experiences with their own fathers. It has been over 50 years since Paul Tillich taught us to think of Jesus as the Christ instead of treating the word “Christ” as if it was Jesus’ last name.
This simplifies the discussion of the Trinity because it replaces the objective terminology with verbs which express the doing of Godding. The old discussion about the son proceeding from the father, etc. becomes irrelevant. Using gerunds to describe Godding puts the focus on the acting of Godding. It doesn’t matter whether Godding chooses to express in one fashion or another. Like the concept of the Trinity, Godding is One. It would also then emphasize that any activity of Godding involves all aspects even if at a particular moment those aspects are emphasizing something like creating, connecting or consecrating. Included in this understanding is the knowledge that God is love, so any and all manifestations of the divine would be loving action whether creating, connecting or consecrating.
The conversing amongst these aspects might be about manifesting their reality in the universing. The creation stories in Genesis apparently consider God to be plural and say things like “let us create.” The idea that the word would be unspoken or unexpressed is illogical. Therefore, the self-conversing of Godding is the primary ontological reality. It is primary in two senses: it is primary as the first or the beginning and it is primary as fundamental to all else.
It is important to use “conversing” instead of “conversation” because the word “conversation” implies a topic and no sooner than we say that there was a conversation about something, we have nominalized conversing and steered away from focusing on the conversing and toward focusing on an object.
Carl's Cogent Comments 