After writing about Nonviolent Communication last year, I felt an inner force compelling me to write about the mystery of the Holy Trinity this year. At first I thought I could answer this call with a small text that would more than exhaust the topic and I’d still have plenty of words left over.
It was then that I had the revelation or the intuition that it was not possible that the One and Triune God had not left his stamp, his seal, his mark on everything that he has created. The Trinity, or the tridimensional characteristic of God, is not only true of God but should also be true of all that God has created. If each creature is a metaphor of God, an image, a reflection of its Creator, then it would make sense that God would have left his DNA, his identity, in everything that he has created.
If we prove that the tridimensionality is transverse to all that God has created and if, as the Franciscan spirituality affirms, through the creatures we can reach the Creator, for all of them are a manifestation of his creative love as the Creator, then it is irrefutably proven and without any doubt that God is one in three and three in one because everything around us is exactly the same one in three and three in one. God being triune could only have created things that are like himself, tridimensional.
Christianity recognizes in other religions or conceptions of God “semina verbum”, seeds of truth; however, it presents itself as possessing the full truth. If we prove that everything that God creates is tridimensional or has a tridimensional characteristic, then it is proven that the Christian faith can stand before all other views of God --Judaism, Islam and other faiths – as containing the full truth about God.
Throughout this new year and perhaps in the successive ones, I will try to discover the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, the tridimensionality of God in all his creatures and to verify that the universe, this world and each one of the many realities it contains are intrinsically and extrinsically trinitarian or tridimensional in nature.
Where do we come from? Where are we going? What’s the meaning of life?
Before the age of six or seven, it is quite common to hear children talk about themselves in the third person. For example, “Peter doesn’t like soups,” says Peter about himself instead of, “I don’t like soups”. A child only becomes aware of himself, that he is alive, around the age of six or seven.
When he eventually reaches that age, also known as the age of reason, he realizes the existence of his own being. On this very day he also realizes his finitude and limitation, that is, that one day he will cease to be alive, cease to exist or cease to be. It is precisely this thought of death that inexorably puts together and brings to the consciousness the fundamental questions of his origin: where do I come from; of his destination: where am I going; and of the meaning of his life: who am I. What is the meaning of the life that was handed over to me? That is, why and for what do I live and what do I do with my life.
As the realization of death, of self-awareness, and the three basic questions occur at the same time in the development of the child, we can assume that in human evolution the ability to think is the daughter of death. The perception of our finitude as an undeniable and inevitable event dug within our material body an immaterial emptiness to which we gave the name soul or spirit, and the ability to think being one of its many manifestations. Feuerbach says, “man's tomb is the sole birthplace of the gods”. In the face of the cessation of the life of the matter, the life of the spirit is born.
These questions cannot be answered by science, no matter how hard many try or have tried over the course of centuries. Science tells us the HOWs but not the WHYs. It tells us how things work, the elements, the nature, life, the cosmos, but not the whys of all this.
By the age of five a child starts to ask many questions, he questions everything and everyone. He is a bombardment of questions – one question is not yet answered when two or three more are already formulated. What is interesting is that the child asks more the whys of things and less the hows of things. He wants a rational explanation for the way things are, rather than how they work. He can investigate and discover how things work on his own, which in fact he does. A child doesn’t ask how a tablet, a computer or a cellphone works, this he finds out for himself.
As we get older, however, we lose this inquisitive spirit and start to accept uncritically everything we are told, and we begin to suffer from mental laziness. Because of this and other attitudes that we had when we were children but lost them as we got older is why Jesus admonishes us when he said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3
Theism – Atheism – Agnosticism
Confronted with these three fundamental questions, there are also three possible responses or three different attitudes: theistic, atheistic and agnostic. In response to the existence of God, which is fundamentally the backdrop behind every question about origin, destiny and meaning, the theist answers positively, the atheist negatively, and the agnostic neutrally or “I don’t know”, “I don’t care to know” or “I don’t want to know”.
In fact, the postmodern man is no longer religious or atheistic, but rather agnostic as he no longer asks questions, but lives grounded in pure worldliness. He says that since there is no way to know, to fully know, therefore he doesn’t even want to find out and hence expels this subject totally from his conscience by ignoring it.
Faced with these three questions related to faith, both the religious and the atheists are believers. Since the existence of God can neither be proven nor denied by science, both the affirmation and the denial of God’s existence are matters of faith. Therefore, both groups are believers – the religious believe in the existence of God and the atheists believe in God’s non-existence.
The agnostic, however, is cut from a different cloth. While the atheist lives preoccupied with the problem of the existence and non-existence of God, the agnostic doesn’t even bother with the problem. He is, therefore, the true atheist. As a metaphor, the same thing happens with the theme of love: whoever hates has already loved and can love again. Hatred somehow connects two people, even if negatively; it is said that a child prefers to receive a slap in the face from a parent than to be completely ignored.
The agnostic is the one who completely ignores God, he does not care nor is he concerned about the subject, he does not inquire nor bothers to know. He is the lukewarm character described in the Book of Revelation (3:16), the one who is neither cold nor hot, but rather lukewarm and whom the Lord vomits out of his mouth.
Agnosticism means the lack of full knowledge of God to be able to believe fully since the agnostic intends to use with God the same method of acquiring knowledge that he uses with physical material things; this method does not work with God and it does not work with people.
To know means to control, to gain power over what is known to the point of being able to manipulate the known object. If I know how the phenomenon of rain works, then I gain the possibility of controlling it to the point of making rain if I wanted, which in fact has already happened. Evidently it is not possible to know God in this way, even for those who believe in his existence, our mind is only a speck compared to his mind; it is logical that the part can never encompass the whole.
On the other hand, God is a personal being and people in general do not reveal themselves to us, do not open their hearts or their minds if they suspect that we want to control or manipulate them. As my father used to say: Don’t you ever open your heart, even in situations of great pain, for the one who uncovers his heart betrays himself.
People only reveal themselves if we give them some assurance that they can trust us. This type of trust only happens in the context of love – love leads to trust and knowledge: the more you know the more you love, the more you love a person the more you know her. It is to the extent that we love that we know. Therefore, to love makes us vulnerable and susceptible to betrayal.
Both the atheist and the agnostic would like to put God in a test tube in order to analyse him, but this is not possible with God or with a human person. As Jesus very well said, God only reveals himself to those who love him, that is, to those who take the leap of faith and choose to believe: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” John 14:23
There are some who distinguish two kinds of agnostics: those who have no interest in the topic because for them there is not enough evidence to prove the existence of God, these would be a type of non-practicing atheists; and those who not only see no reason for themselves to believe but also see no reason for anyone else to believe either, which makes them more like true atheists than agnostics, these are the agnostic fundamentalists. To both groups we say that it is not possible to know God in the way that they want to know him, categorizing him as a thing, but it is possible to know him in the same way that a person can be known.
How would the world be, its human and scientific development and progress, if all of us in all things took on the agnostic attitude? There would in fact be no scientific progress, because it is impossible to know everything about any given subject. Science in all its branches is shrouded in mystery; there are things that we know and things we don’t know; there are things that the more we know, the more there is to know. If we conclude that because we don’t know enough and reject knowledge on this basis or turn our backs on knowledge, then there will be no human progress in any of its facets or knowledge.
In conclusion, it is impossible to know everything about God because he is a mystery; but it is possible to know each time more and more about him. The same thing happens in any branches of science; it is impossible to know everything but it is possible to know each time more and more. The only difference between the scientific knowledge and the knowledge of God or of another human person is in the method.
Because people are made to be loved and things to be used, it is possible to know things without loving them, but it is not possible to know people or God without love. Whoever does not have faith in God very likely won’t have faith in people either, and whoever does not love people can fall into the trap of loving things and using people. Whoever does not love does not know God and does not know other people. 1John 4:8
The picture that is shown in this article was not chosen casually; it is a painting by the French artist Paul Gauguin which is titled precisely as, Where Do We Come From? What are We? Where Are We Going? questions that we can see inscribed in French on the upper right corner of the painting. On its own the painting is the answer that this artist gave to these questions and which he left to humanity before his failed suicide attempt. For him this was his legacy to humanity, the highest point of his career.
As we can see by studying the painting from left to right that it is divided into three major panels which look to answer each of the questions in the order Gauguin posed. The panel on the left of the three women with a child answers the question of where we come from; the center panel answers what we are or the meaning of life and the right panel, where we are going. To these questions Gauguin answers with symbolism that only a Christian could recognize.
Where do we come from?
The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
Science points out that we came from Africa, more precisely we were born in the Rift Valley five million years ago; but from where did the species before us and life on this planet, and the universe come from?
A Christian answers this question by saying that we come from God who for us is love, the Father, the creator and the sustainer of our life. The One who gave us the whole creation for us to take care and for it to perfect us.
An atheist says that we come from Nothingness, contradicting the modern physics after the discovery of the Big Bang, which says that the world had a beginning and will have an end, many atheists continue to assert, contrary to the laws of thermodynamics that the world always existed and will continue to exist. The agnostic pretends not to know and ignore this question altogether and would probably say, “I don’t know and I don’t care to know”.
In each act of creation, in each of the seven days of creation, God concluded that what he has made was good. There is no self-interest here on his part, he created us because he loves us, because he likes us, for the pure pleasure of creating us because he rejoices in our existence.
Where are we going?
Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when He is revealed, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. 1John 3:2
In search of his own identity, a doll of salt after a long pilgrimage through desert land, came at last upon the sea. Fascinated by this strange and moving mass, completely different from anything he has ever seen before, he asked:
-What are you?
With a smile, the sea answered:
-I am the Sea.
-But what is a sea? asked the doll.
-Come, touch me and you will know.
The doll of salt put a foot in the water and immediately saw it disappear.
-What did you do to my foot? he asked, startled.
-To know me, you need to give something of yourself, the Sea answered.
The doll of salt went into the sea and, as a wave covered him completely, said with a sigh:
-Finally I know who I am.
Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. Saint Augustine
Created in the image and likeness of God, our life is a pilgrimage to the Promised Land. During the course of this pilgrimage, we are making it like that leaky bucket with holes on its sides that loses its water and, unlike its companion, arrives at its destination almost empty. Dismayed by this, the leaky bucket thought of itself useless compared to its companion who always arrived full, without losing even a single drop of water, until one day the owner of the two buckets made it see that on its side of the road grew beautiful flowers that it, without knowing, had watered every day.
In our pilgrimage we are spreading happiness and joy, peace and justice, living as if there were no other life, making the Kingdom of God already present among us, but knowing that however much we contribute for its building up, we will always have to say, “We are not there yet” – in its entirety, in its fullness. In its entirety it is with God alone. Therefore, although we do not gather here much of what we have sown, we will gather all and much more than we have sown when we are with God. “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Hebrews 13:14-16
We came from God, the loving Father, and we walk towards the light of faith and hope for God, the righteous judge who is slow to anger and rich in mercy and forgiveness (Ephesians 2:4). As for the atheists, they walk towards death. They walk towards Nothingness, as Heidegger defined a human being as being a being for death, because death which for us is only a passage to eternal life, is the final station of his journey since he came from Nothingness. The agnostics journey towards the cliff with their eyes closed or walk without a purpose, without a goal and, as the proverb says, for those who don’t know where to go, there are no favorable winds.
In the womb of a mother there were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after childbirth?” The other answered: “Of course. There must be something after childbirth. Perhaps we are here to prepare for what is coming later.” “Rubbish,” said the first. “What kind of life would that be?” The second said: “I don’t know, but there will have more light than here. Perhaps we can walk with our own legs and eat with our own mouths. Perhaps we will have other purposes that we don’t understand now.” The first one retorted: “That is absurd. The umbilical cord provides us with nourishment and everything else that we need. The umbilical cord is very short. Life after childbirth is out of question.”
The second insisted: “Well, I think that there is something and maybe it will be different from what is here. Maybe we will not need this physical tube.” The other contested: “Besides, if there is really life after childbirth, then why has no one ever returned from there?” “Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but surely we are going to meet Mother and she will take care of us.” The first responded: “Mother? Do you really believe in Mother? That is ridiculous. If Mother exists, then, where is she now?” “She is around us. We are surrounded by her. We belong to her. It is in her that we live. Without her this world could not exist.” Said the first: “Well, I cannot see her, therefore it is logical that she doesn’t exist.” To which the second replied: “Sometimes when you are silent, if you concentrate and really listen, you will sense her presence and hear her loving voice.” (A story told by a Hungarian writer to explain the existence of God)
According to the famous Pascal’s wager, let us suppose that there are two friends – one an atheist and the other a religious – who wager a sum of money on the hypothesis of the existence or non-existence of God and life after death. The atheist bet that God does not exist, and the religious wager that he does. Upon the death of both if the atheist wins, that is, if there is nothing beyond death, he will not be able to collect the prize as he will not even know whether he won or lost, the religious will also not know if he lost.
If on the other hand there is life after death and God sustains it, then the religious won this eternal life and the atheist lost it. We conclude therefore that whoever believes has everything to gain and nothing to lose; whoever does not believe has everything to lose and nothing to gain.
What is the meaning of life or what are we?
But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. John 1:12
He is the image of the invisible God, (…) all things have been created through him and for him. Colossians 1:15-17
(…) many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:66-69
Our identity is to be children of God, but this only happens if we accept God as the Father. Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnation of the second person of the Most Holy Trinity, made Man to show us the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). Truly as God and Man, he came so that we may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10); he is our daily bread (John 6:51), the vineyard of our joy (John 2:1-11), and the meaning of our life (Matthew 5:13-14). He alone has the words of eternal life, words that in addition to helping us to live this life meaningfully, lead us effectively to eternal life. (John 6:68)
On this path, in this pilgrimage, we are helped, consoled and inspired by the constant presence of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, who helps us to concretize and apply the Gospel in each and every place, time and situation.
For the atheist, he who believes that we come from Nothingness and that we are going to Nowhere, the logical conclusion is that life has no meaning. Something that begins with nothing and ends in nothing cannot mount to great things because nothing plus nothing equals nothing. The atheist lacks reasons to live.
The agnostic pretends that these questions do not concern him, he lives in the present moment, disconnected from the future and the past like the rest of the animal kingdom. Like them, he does not question himself, and with a sleeping conscience when faced with danger he hides his head in the sand, like an ostrich, living up to the proverb, “Eyes that do not see, hearts that do not feel”.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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