The Trinity: Letters to Eric (Part 4)

Just for the record, I edited the introduction to the first post of this series to address Eric's concerns that I had misrepresented his theological position, which he took issue with yesterday. I'm mentioning it here so that you, dear reader, can go back and read the edit so that I may fairly represent him, and no unfair prejudices can be levelled toward him. God bless.

Dear Eric,
I'm afraid there seems to be some misunderstanding between us, with regard to the definition of "Love" that I have used thus far. I never said that God is Love because He does good for us. He does good for us as an expression of His love for us.

But more specifically, I never said that God is Love because He seeks our good. I defined Love as seeking the good of another. That "other" does not have to be humanity--in fact, it could not be, until God created humanity. My point is, seeking another's good is what Love is. God is Love and can only be Love in an eternal, unchanging sense, because God is eternal and unchanging. And God can only be Love in such an eternal and unchanging sense, if the Trinity is true--that the Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and each love the Spirit and the Spirit loves each. At this point, it has nothing to do with us, or God's action towards us. At this point, conceptually, we haven't even been created yet.

God chose to create us, not because He needed to, but out of the infinite Love that He is, within Himself. He does not need us to love Him, nor does He need us in order for Him to be Love, because all the love He needs, all the Love that He is, is summed up within Himself--in the Three Persons of the Trinity. Everything else is simply an overflow of that great love, finding its expression in creation, redemption, and relationship with Him.

Obviously, my efforts to explain God to you (or to anyone) will be incomplete. Now we see through a mirror darkly--then, face to face. But what we know now we can know with certainty.

And that is, that what we can agree on--God being Love--necessitates the Trinity. Otherwise the alternatives can only be that God is not Love, or that God changes. This is the point, the thrust, of my argument--the same argument put forth since the Early Church first began pondering the issue.

May God demonstrate His love for you,
Gregory


(Category: Theology Proper: The Holy Trinity.)